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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.
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 …
Tearful Hydrant, Washington Heights, NYC March 2010Tis the Season for Scum Bombs
Those urbanites who have subways and elevated train stations know the gross factor that cometh with melting snow. It’s the slowly dripping, murky droplets of liquid substances that drop onto your head (or life-ending incidents of landing in your eye) from the beams and ceilings of an aging rail system. Unlike the drops that fall with rain, these scum bombs are highly concentrated with grossness: the filth of the subway and all that hath accumulated in the old snow. What are they made of? Who knows? Human feces, dirt, rodent excrement, spit, toxic waste….? Survival tactics: Avoid the wet spots you see on the floor. They are usually the ground zero of falling globs. Tread like Indian Jones in a Peruvian ancient temple to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
Central Park as a Galápagos Island
Part of Urban Confessions Week
Like it or not, some New Yorkers treat Central Park like a Galápagos Island. It’s either a free pet store or an orphanage. We’ve racked up a dog, iguana and parakeet from its forests, all with the thrill of catching them with our own hands. How many of you will fess up to taking your Woolworth’s goldfish to a local pond to either to spare it the spin down the toilet bowl, or because you imagined that it would have a better life there? Keep it up and we’ll spawn some new weird urban species.
The crack in your coffee
Part of Urban Confessions Week
Alright, this confession comes from a barista/cook/waiter/owner all in one type of worker behind the
counter of a Greek diner. It’s SCANDALOUS, I say, for a Greek or Greek diner coffee lover. Now I truly believe the magic behind the Greek diner coffee is the temperature. See my Cecil-ware conversations about this. But on two separate occasions at two different diners, I heard a fellow addict ask the Greek magician if he used “the Greek coffee”, as she sipped her black elixir with a smile. He nodded, and then mumbled, “Venizelos…” Venizelos, is it you in there?! How is that possible, you are the dark demi-tasse kind. Perhaps the diners are using this as a “secret sauce”, a variant of a potion I am convinced a certain donut chain uses to make their coffee taste so darn good. Or is the coffee in some of these places exclusively brewed from Venizelos beans? If any of you try to make a cup of joe with Venizelos from a drip machine and not a briki, let us know how it tastes. We’re close to unraveling the code of the king of urban coffee.
Out with it. I dance on 2!
Part of Urban Confessions Week
Those in the confessional:
Nova is making a guilt-free declaration: She dances “on-two”, mambo style and makes no apologies. No, dears, it isn’t snobbery, I’m not part of the gang taking salsa away from its Nuyorican streets and “legitimizing” it in ballrooms with white academics. Dancing “on two” is a practice of cultural preservation of a distinct style of salsa dancing. It fits me like a glove, fills me with a joy of living, and does the same for others too. And practicing a certain form of salsa dancing sort of makes it an exciting hobby.
Does being an on2 dancer make it harder to spontaneously go out and be able to express your adopted art form? Sure… so you try to learn to manage to celebrate salsa’s other forms. But in your heart you ache… you can’t become one with that second explosive beat that drums along with your heart.
And for all you non-counters out there that think the passion of music is lost in numbers… it can be said that numbers are the fabric of everything- we forget or don’t realize this because numbers speak in different languages. And, as JPLogan so astutely pointed out to me one salsa night, the biggest counters are the ones making salsa itself: the musicians! Does this mean you need to go out and buy an abacus to bring along with you to the dance floor? No… after awhile the numbers are dressed differently, sort of like when you stop “translating” a foreign language slowly in your head after you have a fundamental command of it.
So take those salsa shoes out of the closet, get to Iguana, a social, whatever floats your boat and when the music starts, if you’re a lady, step out with the right on one, a man, break back with the left. Doesn’t that feel good?
For more about this, visit: salsanewyork.com
A dollhouse in Murray Hill
This building in Murray Hill, Manhattan, caught my eye as a work of art. The black windows climb haphazardly along the walls and look almost like you can slide them from here to there with your finger. Still, it has a harmony pleasing to the eye. The building has a clean, earthen color, contrasted by the almost toy-like colorful newsstands and signs out front.
Fanciest so far
My love for diner coffee has reached an all-time-high. I am pathetically in love with diner coffee. I now find myself critiquing the cups they are served in, and am forever spoiled by this cup here, served to me in a diner in Murray Hill, Manhattan. Look at that saucer!
I know, I know, the heroin in this love affair is the temperature… Nobody else gets it anymore. Diners are the last bastion of hot, unrushed coffee. But it’s also the ceramic cup, the dainty spoon, the cream, the cozy atmosphere… I’m in love!
The Galactic Senate in NYC
Any of you been to the Rose Theater at the new Jazz in Lincoln Center at the 59th Street Columbus Circle complex? It is amazing. It is straight out of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, a replica of the Galactic Senate! Not only is this an architectural beauty, the acoustics are amazing and the lights of the entire auditorium change along with the music. Music becomes not just something you listen to, but experience.
Doesn’t matter if the concert isn’t your thing… Let your imagination soar while in those comfy seats. Pretend you’re a delegate from earth, trying to catch the eye of cougar Queen Amidala or a young, muscular Jedi just as he’s exploring his dark side.
