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.