It appears that, for the first time in my life, I have a hobby. In the sense that for the first time in my life I have an activity I'm willing to burn time, money, and fossil fuels in order to learn to do it better, for the sincere enjoyment of it. This is an activity that has little practical application in the rest of my life. I will never do it professionally, and yet I have a strong and specific desire for improvement in regard to it.
What is it that makes tango so addictive? I think, for one thing, tango just f e e l s really, really good. When you're doing it right, you get a delicious stretch through your back muscles, like that first-stretch-of-the-morning kind of stretch. In fact, tango seems to share (inadvertently) a lot with practices like yoga and tai chi -- at least to my rudimentary understanding. Like yoga, every movement in tango is counterbalanced by a movement in the opposite direction: at once upward and lifted, downward and grounded. Like tai chi, it hinges on balance and the transferrence of energy from one part of the body to another, or even between one body and another. It seems only fitting that the Latino-Parisian version of these activities -- intended to wholly experience ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically -- requires both a man and a woman.
For another thing, consider the shoes. This is the only dance -- nay, human activity -- that can actually be performed better in four-inch heels. Seriously. We're talking about the kind of shoes that Sarah Jessica Parker would give her skinny little right arm for, okay? Hand-made in Buenos Aires (probably by tiny hands, but I'd prefer to think by a tragic tanguera injured in some dramatic dancefloor incident who personally sniffs every shoe for optimal performance), these babies have leather souls. Not long ago, this dancin' fool and her money narrowly escaped being parted, the objet de désir being a pair of ballet-slipper-pink and silver spectator shoes with a rhinestone buckle and chrome (yes, chrome!) stiletto heels. The neighbs tore me away the moment he saw I showed promising signs of coming to my senses. Alas.
But I think what I love most about tango is the way it engages my mind as much as my body. Sorry to disappoint all the ballroom fans out there with their five-step pattern (T! A! N-G-O!), but social Argentine tango has no basic step. You could go in any direction at any time, or go nowhere at all for several consecutive beats. This means that leaders have to demonstrate superior navigational skills on the dancefloor and communicate unwavering intentionality to their followers. In turn, followers have to be constantly attentive and receptive, never anticipating what might be asked of them, but ready to go wherever, whenever. In return for this submissiveness, the leader creates opportunities for his follower to show her creativity by embellishing and occasionally taking as long as she damn well pleases to execute what he's asking her to do.
If I were to describe swing-dancing in one word, it would be "flirtation". Salsa might be "sex", but tango, without a doubt, would be "love". Each partner must be perpetually on his/her own two feet, so that if the other stepped away s/he would still be standing, but in order to go anywhere the communication between them must be absolute, and both parties must listen intently to one another. Even though it's touted as an extremely sexy dance, even at its most aggressive or dramatic, there's a tenderness and restraint to tango that doesn't exist in other dances.
So there you have it. Wanna dance yet?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
alls I'm sayin'.
I know, I know, it's ludicrous that the folks down at Apple haven't already asked me, but I'll tender my humble opinion anyway, in case Steve Jobs or whoever's running the show down there while Steve Jobs is out giving motivational talks wants to sit up and take note on what they should make next after phones and cars and pacemakers and whatnot:
So, there's the iPods, right?
And there's musical toothbrushes that play two minutes of your favorite song? Like "Survivor" by Destiny's Child or whatever? So that you'll brush for two solid minutes like your dentist said? And the harder you brush -- I am not making this up -- THE LOUDER THE SONG SOUNDS IN YOUR HEAD. How do they do that? I mean seriously, how the hell do they do that?
Now, hear me out, people.
Apple introduces the iBrush. Load any song from your iTunes straight into your toothbrush. You can listen to two minutes of Blondie if that's what you want to do, it's your show. Dental hygiene for audiophiles.
Think about it.
So, there's the iPods, right?
And there's musical toothbrushes that play two minutes of your favorite song? Like "Survivor" by Destiny's Child or whatever? So that you'll brush for two solid minutes like your dentist said? And the harder you brush -- I am not making this up -- THE LOUDER THE SONG SOUNDS IN YOUR HEAD. How do they do that? I mean seriously, how the hell do they do that?
Now, hear me out, people.
Apple introduces the iBrush. Load any song from your iTunes straight into your toothbrush. You can listen to two minutes of Blondie if that's what you want to do, it's your show. Dental hygiene for audiophiles.
Think about it.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Big Bangs theory
Okay, so today I woke up with the hairdo I strove for so unsuccessfully back in middle school (for which I'm actually grateful, since I look mercifully normal in the pictures from back then). Here it is, complete with my hand-Flashdanced T-shirt:
Seriously, if you had told me, back in those days of White Rain hairspray and the smell of burnt hair congealing on a hot curling iron, that the secret to huge bangs was to take a hot shower at one a.m. and pass out in a puddle of exhausted drool for eight to ten hours, I would have screamed. Uh... muh... guh.
Props to the neighbs for engineering this fabulous eighties pose, by the by.
In other matters, fyi I am turning out to be a veritable Scarlet O'Hara with my Kenmore. Last night I made this here dress out of extra fabric from some old curtains, an old quilt, and my favorite too-short tank top:
I love it when something emerges from the Fabric Vortex and gets to go hang in my closet. It makes me purty sure I could survive the burning of Atlanta.
Seriously, if you had told me, back in those days of White Rain hairspray and the smell of burnt hair congealing on a hot curling iron, that the secret to huge bangs was to take a hot shower at one a.m. and pass out in a puddle of exhausted drool for eight to ten hours, I would have screamed. Uh... muh... guh.
Props to the neighbs for engineering this fabulous eighties pose, by the by.
In other matters, fyi I am turning out to be a veritable Scarlet O'Hara with my Kenmore. Last night I made this here dress out of extra fabric from some old curtains, an old quilt, and my favorite too-short tank top:
I love it when something emerges from the Fabric Vortex and gets to go hang in my closet. It makes me purty sure I could survive the burning of Atlanta.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
the red-penned bandit rides
Whoa. I hadn't taught a basic college Spanish class in a long time, and after Week One I'm realizing how much I'd forgotten about it, and how much my teaching has changed in the intervening semesters.
The good things: for example, how empowering it is to learn a foreign language right at the beginning. How uproariously the students laugh at even the silliest jokes, just because they're so delighted they can understand them. How excited they get the first time they create a really good sentence, and just sit there staring at it and saying it over in their heads. Ella come pan tostado a las ocho de la mañana. Ella come pan tostado a las ocho de la mañana. It's like the first time a child draws a perfect circle with a compass and begins to fathom the consequences of this discovery. It's exciting to be with them at that moment.
The bad things, too, though, which we're just beginning to work through: I'd forgotten how slowly a group of 27 students progresses as opposed to smaller, more advanced classes. I'd forgotten what it was like to work with 19- and 20-year-olds instead of 21- and 23-year-olds. There's a palpable resistance to adulthood among my students that I must overcome, a desire to let me do the thinking for them and a tendency to blame me when things go wrong. As I gain experience as a college teacher, I increasingly feel that I wasn't hired to teach Spanish: instead, my job is to teach critical thinking and accountability. Spanish is merely my chosen medium for imparting those more important lessons.
Examples: Day two. A student approaches me after class and says, well, I don't think I can handle this class if it's going to be all in Spanish. You see, we don't speak Spanish, which is why we're in this class, so you can't speak it to us all the time. I remind her what I told students on Day one (in English, no less): the only time you should worry about not understanding what I say to you in Spanish is a.) if you don't understand the concepts, or b.) if you don't understand what's expected of you. Yes, she says, but. Do you understand the concepts? I ask. Yes, but. Do you understand what I expect you to do? Yes, but. But? She has no answer. It gets easier, I tell her, and I think you'll be surprised how quickly. She understands the conversation is over, but is not satisfied with my answer.
Day three. I ask students to open the book to page 156. I write 1-5-6 on the board in case they haven't understood. We do an activity, the instructions for which are written-- in English -- on page 156. Read the instructions, I say. Ready? Let's begin. Wait -- what are we doing? I hear. I pick up my book and point to the exercise. Number one, I say. A student raises her hand and answers. Number two...and I call on a student. I have no idea what we're doing, he says. Page 156? I ask. Yes, he says. Activity five? I ask. Yes, he answers again. Number two? Yeah, he says, I don't know the answer. I don't know how to say it in Spanish. Even though his partner's book (he has a partner because he has forgotten his own book) is open in front of him, open to the vocabulary list, which we studied on Day two and which contains -- he knows it contains -- the answer. His eyes plead with me to call on someone else. I am unrelenting. Look it up, I say. Forty painful, silent seconds later, he has the right answer, and I praise the bejezus out of him. What page are we on? someone says. I have answered that question verbally and in writing, I say, and I will not waste your classmates' time further by answering it again.
(Day four, by the way, and the "I-don't-know" student sits up front, smiles, and raises his hand for every answer.)
Day four. I collect the homework. Oh, I forgot my workbook. Can I turn it in on Monday instead? Nope, I say. We didn't have to do number 14, did we? Cause it requires an audio file. So you didn't mean we had to do that one, right? What page is it on? I ask. 32. What does the calendar say to do for today? It says do page 32, but. But? She processes this for a moment, then raises her hand again. Excuse me? But I don't think it's fair? For you to assign audio activities when we don't know where the audio files are? Okay, I say, except the syllabus tells you where to find the audio files. You have the syllabus, right? Yes, but. But?
Red, who is a nurse and, consequently, extraordinarily wise when it comes to human behavior, says day three is always the worst. Chart it, she told me, and I intend to. This time around, that theory certainly seems to hold. Today was better; people came prepared, paid more attention and did their own thinking, for the most part. There's certainly always a faction of the class that seems grateful when you hold their classmates responsible for their own work. They're used to hanging time in a class where the lazy, the petulant and the incompetent are coddled, a stream of exceptions being created to accommodate them, and feel respected when the teacher refuses to pander to the stragglers. Today, they were downright patient and themselves gestured to help the stragglers keep up.
I know it's only a matter of time before a handful of these students decide I don't like them, and that's why they're unsuccessful in my class. This amuses me and frustrates me at the same time, because if they knew how little my personal feelings about them have to do with their grade, they would be forced, through unparalleled creative flights of fancy, to blame the university, Microsoft Excel, or the Spanish language...or, as a last resort, to accept responsibility for their own poor performance. But I really feel that to give them the grade they think they deserve for being a nice, charming guy, or Puerto Rican, or because they busted ass over the last two weeks, or even to repeat the page number for the umpteenth time, is to do them a huge disservice. If we hold their hands like this in college, tell me, exactly when and where do we prepare them for the so-called real world?
The good things: for example, how empowering it is to learn a foreign language right at the beginning. How uproariously the students laugh at even the silliest jokes, just because they're so delighted they can understand them. How excited they get the first time they create a really good sentence, and just sit there staring at it and saying it over in their heads. Ella come pan tostado a las ocho de la mañana. Ella come pan tostado a las ocho de la mañana. It's like the first time a child draws a perfect circle with a compass and begins to fathom the consequences of this discovery. It's exciting to be with them at that moment.
The bad things, too, though, which we're just beginning to work through: I'd forgotten how slowly a group of 27 students progresses as opposed to smaller, more advanced classes. I'd forgotten what it was like to work with 19- and 20-year-olds instead of 21- and 23-year-olds. There's a palpable resistance to adulthood among my students that I must overcome, a desire to let me do the thinking for them and a tendency to blame me when things go wrong. As I gain experience as a college teacher, I increasingly feel that I wasn't hired to teach Spanish: instead, my job is to teach critical thinking and accountability. Spanish is merely my chosen medium for imparting those more important lessons.
Examples: Day two. A student approaches me after class and says, well, I don't think I can handle this class if it's going to be all in Spanish. You see, we don't speak Spanish, which is why we're in this class, so you can't speak it to us all the time. I remind her what I told students on Day one (in English, no less): the only time you should worry about not understanding what I say to you in Spanish is a.) if you don't understand the concepts, or b.) if you don't understand what's expected of you. Yes, she says, but. Do you understand the concepts? I ask. Yes, but. Do you understand what I expect you to do? Yes, but. But? She has no answer. It gets easier, I tell her, and I think you'll be surprised how quickly. She understands the conversation is over, but is not satisfied with my answer.
Day three. I ask students to open the book to page 156. I write 1-5-6 on the board in case they haven't understood. We do an activity, the instructions for which are written-- in English -- on page 156. Read the instructions, I say. Ready? Let's begin. Wait -- what are we doing? I hear. I pick up my book and point to the exercise. Number one, I say. A student raises her hand and answers. Number two...and I call on a student. I have no idea what we're doing, he says. Page 156? I ask. Yes, he says. Activity five? I ask. Yes, he answers again. Number two? Yeah, he says, I don't know the answer. I don't know how to say it in Spanish. Even though his partner's book (he has a partner because he has forgotten his own book) is open in front of him, open to the vocabulary list, which we studied on Day two and which contains -- he knows it contains -- the answer. His eyes plead with me to call on someone else. I am unrelenting. Look it up, I say. Forty painful, silent seconds later, he has the right answer, and I praise the bejezus out of him. What page are we on? someone says. I have answered that question verbally and in writing, I say, and I will not waste your classmates' time further by answering it again.
(Day four, by the way, and the "I-don't-know" student sits up front, smiles, and raises his hand for every answer.)
Day four. I collect the homework. Oh, I forgot my workbook. Can I turn it in on Monday instead? Nope, I say. We didn't have to do number 14, did we? Cause it requires an audio file. So you didn't mean we had to do that one, right? What page is it on? I ask. 32. What does the calendar say to do for today? It says do page 32, but. But? She processes this for a moment, then raises her hand again. Excuse me? But I don't think it's fair? For you to assign audio activities when we don't know where the audio files are? Okay, I say, except the syllabus tells you where to find the audio files. You have the syllabus, right? Yes, but. But?
Red, who is a nurse and, consequently, extraordinarily wise when it comes to human behavior, says day three is always the worst. Chart it, she told me, and I intend to. This time around, that theory certainly seems to hold. Today was better; people came prepared, paid more attention and did their own thinking, for the most part. There's certainly always a faction of the class that seems grateful when you hold their classmates responsible for their own work. They're used to hanging time in a class where the lazy, the petulant and the incompetent are coddled, a stream of exceptions being created to accommodate them, and feel respected when the teacher refuses to pander to the stragglers. Today, they were downright patient and themselves gestured to help the stragglers keep up.
I know it's only a matter of time before a handful of these students decide I don't like them, and that's why they're unsuccessful in my class. This amuses me and frustrates me at the same time, because if they knew how little my personal feelings about them have to do with their grade, they would be forced, through unparalleled creative flights of fancy, to blame the university, Microsoft Excel, or the Spanish language...or, as a last resort, to accept responsibility for their own poor performance. But I really feel that to give them the grade they think they deserve for being a nice, charming guy, or Puerto Rican, or because they busted ass over the last two weeks, or even to repeat the page number for the umpteenth time, is to do them a huge disservice. If we hold their hands like this in college, tell me, exactly when and where do we prepare them for the so-called real world?
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
oh, dear.
Well, I think it's safe to say my career in politics is effectively over. In celebration of New Year's Eve my friends and I got plastered and basically hijacked a party.
You know how at parties there's always one person who's That Guy or That Girl? I recently had an opportunity to experience this on the receiving end, when somebody's friend from work's boyfriend's roommate turned out to be That Guy and had virtually everyone else hiding out in the smallest room in the house while he ran amok over the party. I woke up this morning with a blistering hangover, hoping desperately my friends would hurry and wake up and confirm I had not been That Girl. My worst fears were surpassed, however: upon reconstructing events, we realized we had been That Guy. Except there were five of us.
In our defense, I'd just like to say that the party we hijacked was lame. At first I mistook it for a theme party based on replicating the Most Boring Party in the History of the Universe. It had all the makings of a great party -- great location, great food, good music -- but everyone seemed to be deeply engaged in playing Try Against All Odds Not to Have Any Fun, and they were all winning. So we did what any sensible people would do, which was to get shitfaced as quickly as possible.
I got myself into a noisy debate about the union with some geography TA and got cut off, but not from booze, from food (this is still a mystery to me). Red at one point unplugged all the Christmas lights and the sound system, and then ran out into traffic. The one we will henceforth refer to as Tits McGee got into an altercation with some guy about the chocolate fountain and wanted to fight him. Chiquita protected herself from a New Year's Eve kiss by shoving her face full of carrots, and got mistaken for the Coat Room attendant while waiting in line for the bathroom.
Mind you, none of us remembered very much about any of this, but that's what we managed to piece back together when we all woke up early this afternoon in a big heap at Red's house. We were helped along by Don Juan Dominguez's photo-documentary and some sound recordings he made, which included one of me at 11:47 p.m. saying something that I can only assume is in German and winds up with the words "a responsible brassiere". I am sure it was very clever and appropriate at the time I said it, so it's really a shame I can't remember the context, or even saying it, for that matter. In fact under the circumstances I'm a bit concerned since my condition could only have degenerated from there.
Anyway, a fun time was had by all. Well, by us anyway. Our hosts, not so much, I think. And hopefully I will never cross paths with any of those people ever again, ever, at least not on the campaign trail.
You know how at parties there's always one person who's That Guy or That Girl? I recently had an opportunity to experience this on the receiving end, when somebody's friend from work's boyfriend's roommate turned out to be That Guy and had virtually everyone else hiding out in the smallest room in the house while he ran amok over the party. I woke up this morning with a blistering hangover, hoping desperately my friends would hurry and wake up and confirm I had not been That Girl. My worst fears were surpassed, however: upon reconstructing events, we realized we had been That Guy. Except there were five of us.
In our defense, I'd just like to say that the party we hijacked was lame. At first I mistook it for a theme party based on replicating the Most Boring Party in the History of the Universe. It had all the makings of a great party -- great location, great food, good music -- but everyone seemed to be deeply engaged in playing Try Against All Odds Not to Have Any Fun, and they were all winning. So we did what any sensible people would do, which was to get shitfaced as quickly as possible.
I got myself into a noisy debate about the union with some geography TA and got cut off, but not from booze, from food (this is still a mystery to me). Red at one point unplugged all the Christmas lights and the sound system, and then ran out into traffic. The one we will henceforth refer to as Tits McGee got into an altercation with some guy about the chocolate fountain and wanted to fight him. Chiquita protected herself from a New Year's Eve kiss by shoving her face full of carrots, and got mistaken for the Coat Room attendant while waiting in line for the bathroom.
Mind you, none of us remembered very much about any of this, but that's what we managed to piece back together when we all woke up early this afternoon in a big heap at Red's house. We were helped along by Don Juan Dominguez's photo-documentary and some sound recordings he made, which included one of me at 11:47 p.m. saying something that I can only assume is in German and winds up with the words "a responsible brassiere". I am sure it was very clever and appropriate at the time I said it, so it's really a shame I can't remember the context, or even saying it, for that matter. In fact under the circumstances I'm a bit concerned since my condition could only have degenerated from there.
Anyway, a fun time was had by all. Well, by us anyway. Our hosts, not so much, I think. And hopefully I will never cross paths with any of those people ever again, ever, at least not on the campaign trail.
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