Currently browsing 'urban confessions'
The Humiliation Factor
There are bound to be countless parallels, metaphors, witty essays and insightful observations about how writing is like ___________ (fill in the blank). Salsa addicts (or fill-in-the-blank addicts) will compare their interest to everything under the sun, too, to rationalize why it is they are doing what they do: it’s a live-saver, a spiritual fulfillment, a chance to meet people, a reason not to pull the trigger… Art and expression play different roles for each of us who welcome it into our lives (and who perhaps later damn that we ever gave it an invitation).
So here’s my corny bit about why writing and salsa compliment each other, but you can fill in the blanks for your hobbies, dreams or interests: salsa is a very good training camp for writers getting their toes wet in the world of marketing and publication. Salsa humbles you because, you will be humiliated. Probably harsh a term, but at first it’ll feel like that. You will look awkward, you will be judged, you might not get offers… Honestly, if you need a boot-camp for tougher skin (or an accelerator for a nervous breakdown) then take salsa on-2. Then write, and try to publish your book. Writing itself sounds romantic. You do it solo, you paint worlds with words with cerebral coolness, and in the end, if you stuck it out, you might have a short story or novel. Practicing shines by yourself in front of a mirror is like that too. But if you want to partner your work with the rest of the world…. well, there are layers of odysseys that await you. Want to use my capital to share your story? Want to spend three minutes of my time in front of a crowd holding my hand and twisting me into a pretzel? Some zip through it, others chug along, never getting past their basic.
The great thing about social dancing salsa that makes it very different from the experience of writing novel-length literary fiction? It is in the NOW. There, in that moment is your expression. It goes by quick, it doesn’t linger like a sentence, page or chapter that constantly needs revision. It moves on, though you might create a memory (or salsa character) out of it. Opportunities seem endless. You scripted your own dance, you shared it with an audience in a proper format, and then you look to do another. A story and its expression in 3 minutes! How great is that? Probably best of all? It aint fiction.
Urban Book Club Review: Facing Athens
Facing Athens, by George Sarrinikolaou
This is not a new book, just something I picked up with interest as someone who has lived in Athens for a few years as part of an Urban Odyssey. Publishing the book might have been a rush job trying to capture the market of the 2004 Athens Olympics when Modern Greece suddenly was on people’s minds (anticipated failure, complaints, etc, like most media here seems to be about Greece). Consider this book the anti-romantic portrait of modern Greece. If you loved Greece before you read it, you might hate it after you finish reading 142 easy-reading pages of this book. Written by a native Greek who left when he was 10 years old, who paid yearly visits there growing up and spent 3 months living there in part as a personal journey, in part to write this book… it basically puts a magnifying glass on all of the flaws of the modern Greek state, its people and, it seems (it can be that dark) their souls. Take all the bad, post it on pages like a collage, provide minimal analysis and you’ve got this book. This is not to say what the author speaks about is not true… indeed the most depressing aspect of this book, as a once-ago resident who lived in and with many of the groups the author describes, is that what he talks about is real. In falling in love, did I ignore the monster? I don’t think so but the book shakes you up, even though it is a tad bit unfair, it is so very superficial in some ways (but not in that it presents a glimpse into the “native” life that tourists might not ever see). It is harsh. Maybe it has to be. I know there is more to Greece than this, but then again… Sigh… if only life were as simple as Ode to Frappes and a sun-filled life…
Summer Book Rec: How to Be Idle
I am reposting something from last year because it’s summer (in the northern hemisphere) and your minds are more easily prone to indoctrination by this manifesto. Free your soul!
“I have a dream. It is called love, anarchy, freedom. It is called being idle.”
-Tom Hodgkinson
Craig, darling…Don’t do it.
Craig Ferguson Fans and Fans of Nightime Odysseys:
I have not been up all that much but when I have been fortunate to hear the sultry voice of the Late, Late show I’m catching the warning signs of a changing relationship. Toying with the formula? Flirting with an earlier spot? Say it aint so!
- the stage is better lit. Turn down the lights! You’re ruining the mood. Don’t you get that for a lot of women you’re doing more than simple jokes? You know that! Look at how every woman melts in the chair during an interview.
- a skeleton side kick? Ok sorta of funny, but hopefully not because you think you need one like the other hosts use.
- More jingles for recurring skits?
- a shorter haircut (and not the longer, floppy, just-f*cked you teased hair?)
Just pointing out some of the obvious signs that are tampering with a formula.
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.
Another man shares my bed
Part of Urban Confessions Week
…These are not the words you’d expect from someone married, partnered or involved… but it’s true! C-mixto finds me in bed with him every night like clockwork. He has come to recognize his voice when the covers block out his face, and rolls his eyes when he realizes that I am in bed with Craig Ferguson. Craig Ferguson! How I’ve developed quite an appetite to stay up late and watch you! How can it be avoided? You are truly a gifted comedian from what I see from your show, and the philosophic words of your theme song have convinced me that “tomorrow is” truly my “future yesterday” so I might as well stay up and be entertained.
You are one of the few celebrities I’ve actually taken an interest in learning more about, even buying your memoir (which sort of provoked this series, because I feel a little shame in this). It is probably your ability to keep my attention and evoke a sincere laugh from me that has spawned this regular habit of watching you. Your performance is fluid, jokes are spared the staleness often inherited from rehearsals. You are truly a one-man-act.
I have to say (does this constitute a double confession, one now to you?)… lately I have been watching your shows online the day after it airs at a time more convenient for me. It’s fun, but, sigh… not the same as the intimacy of sneaking off with you at 12:35am while others are asleep.
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 week of Urban Confessions
This week, we’ll spend some time on confessions of urbanity. So if you didn’t make it to church, skipped a meditation session, or rather befriend the abstract concept of the internet as human intimacy, park your words here. I’m reading someone’s memoir, can’t recall I’ve read that genre before, and the New Yorker just covered the whole concept of “memoir writing” and “confession” so the mood strikes me. Don’t be crying your heart out or scribe anything that you should be telling a lawyer. I’m talking about benign indulgences, dislikes, transgressions- things that others might find shocking but for you are normal. Play around with it.
