- activism
- anarchy
- apocalypse
- Athens
- bicycles
- birds
- books
- Buenos Aires
- clubs
- coffee
- couple's dancing
- Dante's Inferno
- demons
- drunks
- Dyckman
- economy
- film
- fire hydrants
- graffiti
- Greek diners
- gross factor
- Havana
- idling
- immigration
- Inwood
- Ioannina
- it's a man's world
- Miami
- New York City
- Nova Speaks
- Ode to...
- odyssey essentials
- olympians
- on the subway
- Outer Space
- paradise
- police
- press
- prostitution
- public space
- restaurants
- Rio
- salsa
- school
- Sicily
- sidewalks
- Sinvergüenza
- star trek
- star wars
- stores
- street cookie
- taxis
- trees
- twilight zone
- urban confessions
- Washington Heights
- zipcar
Washington D.C. as the Alien Landing Site
DC is a nice place to see… Royal looking buildings that convey power, order and authority, museums that are testament to national identity, and long stretches of land with ancient Egyptian-looking monuments that give me the haunting feeling that really, the place is one elaborate landing site for aliens. On a recent Urban Odyssey there, I could not shake that so much of the air waves were probably soaked with chitter-chatter of messages from this branch of the government to that… How much scrambling of info must go on, how many spies must be lurking around? Would my DNA be altered by a stay there? DC is truly a great place to visit for those with a great imagination, sense of history and appetite for power.
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Mickey is a X-Man Now?!
What rock was I under when it was announced that Disney bought Marvel Comics? Are you kidding me? Mickey and Donald will now be frolicking with Cyclops, Wolverine and Jean? What good can come of this? Female heroine breast size will be reduced, hero’s packages covered up with looser pants, and the illest villan that we’ll get from a distant future is a miserly Scrooge McDuck. Further evidence that Disney is trademarking all imagination of young minds. Soon everything you dream will have a copyright of two mouse ears.
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Bad year for New York City Trees
As we weather another storm, I pass by yet more fallen trees. On Dyckman street, a tree branch (or tree- visibility was that bad) squashed a car. Newly budding branches enticed by the first warm breath of Spring are splayed out in pieces on the sidewalks. Was this a bad year for the NYC tree? We had the strange Upper West Side tornado that spun through the park like it was Oz, we had a winter wonderland of majestically ice-coated trees that crumbled down along the 5th avenue sidewalk of the Upper East Side… It just seems like trees took a real beating this year.
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Salsa Characters
More salsa characters:
The Bulldozer
This is the guy who will knock you into every single couple in your dancing radius. Forgetting that leading is also spotting for the little top in heels that you are spinning left and right, Bulldozers will charge you through the dance floor without any control or regard for those around you. Identify them quick and early on in a dance ladies, so you know to tighten your steps and focus on what’s around you. The dance will probably be lame because you won’t be free, but your objective in dancing with a Bulldozer is to finish the dance in one piece to move on to a Fred-Astaire. Bulldozers are cousins of Topsy-Turveys (keep reading).
Columbo
Salsa dancing is very much like wearing a mask over our every day lives. When we hit the dance floor, we are simply salseras and salseros. Sometimes though we wear evidence of our outside lives that our partners pick up on during a dance that make a person go, hmmmm…. The worn hands: hardened with callouses, dirt under the fingernails not from neglect but from labor, the scratches and scars. And the muscular arms that go with them. The t-shirt from a company or product. And sometimes it’s the work clothes and equipment you bring to the class or a social discarded in the corner. It brings out the Columbo in you, so we’ll call the salsera/os that inspire this Columbo. Some things are better left unasked. Enjoy the dance.
Shy-But-Why
These are the dancers who are diamonds in the rough. They have a salsa soul but doubt their Jedi powers. They come as leads and followers. If you spot one, it is your duty to guide them to the dance floor and help them overcome the cloud over their salsa brilliance.
Ghosts of Past: Salsa Characters – continue reading …
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Laid Off
The brothel responsible for Nova’s 2 hour “occupation-by-circumstance” seems to have closed. Discoteca Help, the club C-mixto insisted we visit as a “dance institution of Latin America” has closed shop, to the delight of some and heartbreak of others. Ladies- if your man takes you to Brazil and says he wants to visit a popular disco while the cab driver insists that it’s not the place to go with your lady while flashing you nervous eyes from the rear-view mirror, then chances are you are going to a sex-tourism spot. In Discoteca Help’s instance, you are going to a disco-brothel. Nova managed to make a career and genre for herself within minutes as the “anything goes” variety due to her, gasp!, willingness to dance together with a man and let him rest his hand on her forbidden shoulder. C-mixto could not convince the bouncer we were a couple and I was scolded for not following the proper protocol. Cio, Discoteca Help. Thanks for the memories.
Fire Hydrant Series
Tearful Hydrant, Washington Heights, NYC March 2010
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