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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.
