- 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
And the list keeps growing… more salsa characters
Some more salsa faces to meet, plus the ghosts of past…
The Rumba Sharks:
These guys take a page straight out of West Side Story in how they enter a room. They are near and dear to my heart. These are the fellas who have some mean rumba moves that remind you of our glorious African roots, whether in our blood or in the dance we love. They come onto the dance floor in a group. The DJ, sensing their presence, plays a salsa song with a heavy rumba intro. They spread out in a line, crouch down a little bit lower than the ballroom salseros and execute some “Cubans” with flair… Some of these guys are so damn good, you’ll swear you see a cigar in their mouths for a split second during a turn. Don’t question it. When you get to be that good of a dancer, you’re bound to conjure an orisha. Feel blessed you had them as a partner.
Other Dimension: 
These are the dance partners who you’ve seen dance some mean dances with other partners, who know all the steps, shines and turns and leave their partner with a smile. When it comes to you though, nothing freaking works. You can’t catch the count together, turns go wrong, hands don’t meet in time- the two of you are like one huge cosmic collision. Each of you question each other’s dancing abilities, and yet… you swear they were good with so-and-so. My friends, don’t fight it. You’ve met someone who exists in a slightly other dimension than you. Something is off with your vibrating string, or whatever it is that makes our on-2 souls tick. Most of the time you give up on them, and it’s a good idea lest some rip in the time-continuum happen because you two were never meant to touch. I have met some diligent Other Dimensions that insist on making it work. Sometimes there is improvement, but you always know something is off.
The Fan:
Like a sports fanatic, these partners always wear something on-2 or salsa related. They speak, breath and live salsa. I know you think this is most of us who are crazy enough to write or read a series on salsa characters, but these guys go just a little further. Some don’t even dance! Like the guys painted up at a sports game, The Fan goes to the same extreme. Just know that sometimes it is an advertisement for a very good product, and sometimes, sigh, that don’t have the goods to back their billboard up.
The Jedi Master:
Taken from my one and only Jimmy Anton experience that I am still getting over, the Jedi Master is the male equivalent of Scissors. They have found the holy grail of dancing on-2, can predict the count before it comes (which is pretty pathetic for the rest of us, given that the count is in order, is 6 digits long and repeats over and over until the end of the song). Sometimes they are your teacher, but often not. They guide you like a gentle teacher, they give you tips. Sometimes they look like Yoda. Your only objective in a dance with them is to try and absorb some of their Jedi wisdom before the dance is over and they move onto another disciple. Sometimes they have individual Jedi names, like Obi-Wan-on2. Not to be confused with… some hood trying to jump you. And the list keeps growing… more salsa characters – continue reading …
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How to train your tike to be a gentrifier
Wars for pre-school applications that happen pre-conception, helicopter parenting, entitlement lessons via a no-spanking-it’s-okay-to-run-amock-everywhere-and-throw-a-tantrum-policy… I should not have been surprised to see this little playset at a children’s store in the Upper West Side. Sorry, but I don’t think the Sushi Set is a lesson in culture. Anywhere else, yes. Learn, little tike, learn, after your lesson on The Kindergarten Spectrum Dogs what it is you are supposed to do when you live on the Upper West Side.
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Coming to a future near you… Terminator
Well thanks to the NY Times reading SkateDiva, I have one more theory to add to apocalypse worries. Singularity! At first I thought she was directing me to an article on on in-coming black hole. Or that one was created with the The Large Hadron Collider. this one seems to be about building a brand new robot species. Google is apparently one huge brain that keeps growing and growing the more we use it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html
Yes, yes, we’ve heard it before… perhaps its inevitable. Perhaps this timeline will never get a chance to happen because the earth will suddenly stop “living” with this oil spill because it turns out all that oil serves some sort of purpose for its rotation, winds, cloud formation, etc. The future is just so interesting to think about.
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The real Godfather of the PR Day Parade
Inwood, Manhattan, NYC 2010
This little grandpa doesn’t let age stop his Schwinn Bike Club need. He rolls around Inwood in his PR-pimped quadricycle blasting salsa classics and tooting a horn.
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Guess who’s back?
Those who followed the Elusive White Tiger hunting in an abandoned lot in Inwood, which then became a blog on a Scorched Earth policy here that turned the lot (and hunting grounds) to a wasteland, will be happy to know that the grass grew back and…. the tiger is back, still hunting! See that white dot in the back? That’s the tiger walking ever so stealthy through a jungle.
Who knows what our little tiger ate while the earth was poisoned? Who knows what our little tiger is eating NOW from a poisoned earth…! What kind of crazy toxins are in those deceptively green everglades? How long before Thanos comes back with his ghostbuster’s toxin backpack for another scorched earth wave?
Despite this, the hunt continues.
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