Borges "El Sur" and tango

Michael (not my Mike) recounted the short story El Sur while we enjoyed ribs at our monthly BAIN luncheon. Luckily I can search and find these files on the internet, which I think would have amused Borges. His writing makes me laugh and makes me cry all  in the same moment. Here is an excerpt

He placed his suitcase in a luggage net.  

When cars lurched forward, he opened it and, after some hesitation, took

out the first volume of the Thousand and One Nights. Travelling with this book, which
was so linked to the story of his misfortune, was an affirmation both that that misfortune
had been erased and a joyous and secret challenge to the frustrated forces of evil.
On both side of the train the city gradually broke apart into separate suburbs.
First this view of them and then the sight of truck gardens and small farms delayed the
start of his reading. The truth is that Dahlmann read very little. The magnet mountain
and the genie who has sworn to kill his benefactor were—who can deny it—
marvelous,16 but not much more than the morning and the fact of being. Such joy
distracted him from reading about Shahrazad and her superfluous miracles. Dahlmann
simply would close his book and let himself be alive.


So in tango. Close the lessons and let it be only the music and the floor. Let it come alive.

Please Roy! Don't Ask Me to DELETE This.

Roy has given me a place to think about tango in a different way.


Here are some of my thoughts on Tango as a dance, a form of expression, a philosophy, if you will.  Some is old material.

Roy  

P.S.  It is a bit kitsch.

                        On the Spiritual Physicality of The Tango
                                             by  Roy Whitman

 The Tango begins with the embrace between consciousness and necessity, or the spiritual and physical worlds, which assumes a restricted form (Adorno & Horkheimer).  The embrace represents one physical unit, like an anchor, with its own weight and synergy.  The steps of the tango, however, are light and ephemeral.  It is both Beethoven and Bach at once, or the physical and spiritual entwined (Kundera).  The dance is both spiritual (heavy) and spirited (light) with two physical beings together like Jacob wrestling with the Angel (Genesis).  It is both a restricted physicality (Cohen) and a restricted spirituality (Whitman).  It is the forces of nature colliding with the forces of heaven (Wagner).  It is the very breath of God (Michelangelo).

 

The Tango is neither a purely physical phenomenon nor purely a spiritual phenomenon.  The physical attributes of it can influence the spiritual attributes and the spiritual attributes can influence the physical attributes (Osborne, “Marx and Freud,” Elster “Making Sense of Marx,” and Engels on Marx) and each can interplay with the other in a myriad of nuanced and subtle ways.  The Tango is pure physics; to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton), combined with improvisation inspired by the primitive Id (Freud).  Think of “Summer breeze makes me feel fine/tangoing with the jasmine in my mind” (Seals & Crofts); “Dust in the wind/all we are, are tango partners in the wind” (Kansas); and “The answer, my friend, is tangoing in the wind/the answer is tangoing in the wind.” (Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary)

 

Tango is a most utilitarian form of dance, satisfying both the higher and lower pleasures, or the spirit and the body. (Stuart Mills)  It is both a Gemeinschaft, or community, and a Gesellschaft, or society. (Marx)  While the former is based on a relatively homogenous culture and tends to be intimate, informal, cooperative, and imbued with a sense of moral obligation to the group, the latter is more formal, goal-oriented, heterogeneous, and based on individual self-interest, competition, and complex division of labor. It is Japanese discipline, teamwork, and craftsmanship, (Toyota) combined with a pursuit of egotistical advantages. (Smith)) As such, it is subject to relativity or the influence of space and time. (Einstein)

 

Tango is art and the culture of love. Colorful and dream-like (Chagall) yet abstract, angular, and obtuse while being sensual and hypnotic (Modern and Impressionism), Tango captures the essence between two people or forces. It is Eros and Thanatos vying for predominance or the Ego reconciling with the Id. (Freud).  It is Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah, Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Maria and Tony, the King and I, and Captain Von Trapp and Maria.  Our daddies always said :”It takes two to tango.”. 

                     

Florida Garden

Huge thunderclaps and bolts of lightning.
A downpour that was mesmerizing.
Sheets of blowing rain.
Mike says let's walk to Florida Garden -1/2 block. I'll buy you breakfast.
Umbrella in hand we scurried across Florida and watched people going about their daily routines as if the sun were shining.
Our favorite waiter, Oca, brought the lagrimas and medialunas while we read the paper and chatted. As usual, the conversation turned to tango. Yesterday was a tango marathon. 4 1/2 hours at La Viruta with Noelia and Javier + the famous old timers Osvaldo and Coca. A great review of the basics.
I decided to strike up a conversation in Spanish with Oca who has no English. I told him about the tango lesson and how we had a chance to study with the greats- Osvaldo y Coca. In Spanish he said we should have had Osvaldo with "vino" instead of "Coka". Mike, as usual with is quick humor whispered in my ear, "Right about that. I guess he must have seen Coca."

Tango Skirts

We are tackling our postage-stamp size closet. First I started with the skirts. 30. 30 means I am crazy. It took me an hour to try them on and cut the amount in 1/2. The ones with the elastic waists are all back in the closet- too much pasta.
Mike started with his Levi's. He uses a marker to mark the 514 from the 511's. Some have no labels so he tries them on and models them before he decides where to stack them. He wonders how they could have shrunk when they sat in the closet for almost 6 months- too many medialunas?

ALBERTO PAZ R.I.P.

I wrote this post  as a distraction from the very sad news of a great loss to the tango world. Alberto, where are you? Please, I hope you made  plenty of time for small talk with Valorie before you went on your way to teach that tango lesson and  on your way to places beyond.
Attacking the Problem of “Small Talk”
Small talk is my weakness, I think. Mike doesn’t know where to start with it and my dear friend HS can’t make it.  I envy Sherry who makes small talk with total sincerity and finds interesting conversation with everyone.

Mike is sharing John Holt with me, a book called Instead of Education. He highlights portions for me to read  and  I write notes in the margin. We are both thinking and talking about the development of language and the purpose of communication. Holt says it’s to move people and get things done. Holt states, "Only in a place like S-chool where we are seldom allowed to talk, much less talk about anything interesting or real, and where our words seldom make anything important happen, and may only earn us humiliation and failure, does our growth in language slow to a stop."

Anyway I was sharing something I’d read years ago about conversation starters. It is something like this.

Picture the other person so you are NOT talking about yourself. How to start the conversation can come from a picture in your mind of the person’s house. So now ask “house”  questions -where they live or maybe about remodeling, ETC.  Next picture their family in front of the house. Here’s an opening for “How many children do you have? ETC. This leads to where they work, education, ETC.

Mike looks at me this morning and asks about this technique. He says dryly. I can picture the house and I can picture the family outside, but I see them standing in the rain.

I said, “So here is an opening to talk about the WEATHER”

His response was “Why would I want to talk to or know anything about  anyone who is too dumb to come in out of the rain.”
I LOVE MY HUSBAND
VALORIE LOVED HER HUSBAND
I hope Alberto talked to Valorie about the weather, about their silly plans for the day and gave her a huge hug and a huge kiss before he closed the door on the way to his last tango.