Monthly Archives: November 2011

The oestrogen cloud

Posted on November 29, 2011 by

It’s 2am on a Monday night. The long rectangular dance space at El Yeite is beginning to fill. Dancers are trickling into the room in two streams, disgorging from the two staircases at opposite corners, from their source in the big, … Continue reading →

Posted in Buenos Aires, El Yeite, European versus Argentine tango customs, Frustrations, Not getting dances | 9 Comments

Full moon over Palermo

Posted on November 28, 2011 by

Behind this modestly pretty wood, glass and metal door is the place which probably has the best feng shui of any of the places where I have danced in this city, with its soaringly high skylight above a deep well of air, … Continue reading →

Posted in Buenos Aires, DJing, Luna Llena | Leave a comment

A brief paean to the free leg

Posted on November 26, 2011 by

They are not beautiful to look at, these tango-dancing legs of mine. They have the blueish white tinge of skimmed milk, a result of long nights and vigorous anointings with SPF30 to defy the bright, hot porteño sun. A snow-white … Continue reading →

Posted in Active following, Decorations, Musicality | Leave a comment

That within which passeth show

Posted on November 19, 2011 by

Outside, aristocratic electrons are easing back into lower orbitals. Excited orange photons frame the doorway. Behind that heavy door, the place is a strange textured uterus bathed in bloody crimson light. The walls are half tiled like a sauna, half … Continue reading →

Posted in Buenos Aires, D'Arienzo, Fresedo, Orchestras, Performance | 4 Comments

Cat and mouse

Posted on November 16, 2011 by

He is listening to the music, I tell myself, feeling the electric jolts of the Biagi chords alternating with sudden, sharp rhythmic drops into silence. Swiss cheese music, as a prickly fellow blogger calls it: strong and tasty, but riddled … Continue reading →

Posted in Bad dancing, Biagi, Di Sarli, Mina Milonga, Salon Canning, Orchestras, Prácticas | 8 Comments

Scent of a woman

Posted on November 9, 2011 by

It is such an unusual smell in my tango universe that I need a moment to place it. It’s floral, but not powdery, sweetly complex with only the subtlest note of muskiness. An image of a tall, pale apple green … Continue reading →

Posted in Sweat | 2 Comments

Two Angels

Posted on November 7, 2011 by

I wish I were a music critic. That I could point to a score and say look, here it is, amid the dangling branches of this thicket of semiquavers or listen: here, where the sweet scrapes of the violin give … Continue reading →

Posted in D'Agostino, Musicality, Orchestras | 5 Comments

Carpe noctem

Posted on November 2, 2011 by

We are deep, deep in the porteño night. An intense Pugliese number is sounding. I coil and uncoil with Toothpick´s dynamic twists and turns, cozy and safe in a sustained close embrace. It is surprisingly comfortable to roll my body across his bony chest as he leads … Continue reading →

Posted in Buenos Aires, El Yeite, Milonga 10, Milonguero Style, Mina Milonga, Salon Canning, The Pugliese Tanda | 14 Comments