Category: Little Epiphanies

One day in the 1990s after once again dancing away my lunch break at the Confiteria Ideal, I made to scurry back to my desk at the Chamber of Commerce. But as I stepped out into the street, there was a woman in tears crumpled against the doorway. I was so surprised that I stopped…

End of a voyage. I spent three nights in three different beds in three different cities and a last night strapped into a jump seat on a trans-Atlantic plane. Tonight I wake in the dark in another bed and I inquire with amused curiosity in which bed I lie. It is a while before I…

Given my line of work, I have the privilege of traveling the world. In each new city, I explore the milonga scene on nights when I don’t have a gig. Amazingly, wherever I go, I hear the exact same music. Old recordings from the Golden Age of Tango. Beautiful music no doubt and music I…

When we study tango, we often look down. We should look up. Or out. Or beyond. Anywhere but down. We concentrate on steps, on fancy figures, on balance, about where to place our feet. We should be wondering about where we place our soul. Can you approach a complete stranger, open yourself to their deep…

Anja advanced and acquired and absconded. Anja bequeathed and burnished and burst. Anja came and caressed and careened. Anja dreamt and drooled and drifted and derailed. Anja echoed and expressed and expelled. Anja found and fooled and felt. Anja got and gave and grifted. Anja had and hadn’t and held. Anja invested and initiated and…

I get happy when I dance. It is that simple. Dancing unleashes a fecund happy elixir that just spreads through me, knocking down obstacles, overcoming barriers that would dare to hold it back. I take a tentative step, extend my foot, start playing with balance and weight on the floor and it is like a…

From outside the world of tango, people often see it only as a place where other people chase illicit pleasures, the kind that most cultures don’t easily allow: full-body contact with multiple partners in dimly-lit public places. Tango, they say, is all about sex. It’s hard to deny. There are all those quips that people…

I came to tango as an emotional refugee. I could have said “pilgrim” and it would have suggested a quest, something sacred and ennobling. But emotionally I was in rags, so deeply desperate and so thoroughly unaware of my desperation that I can only imagine myself descending from that plane shuffling and in rags. I…

I keep looking for simple beauty. We humans complicate things. We add layers and twists when none are needed. We obfuscate when clarity and silence would have been better. We elaborate when holding still would have been sufficient. My eye goes to the simple piece of wood furniture where you see the craftsman’s strokes rather…