Free Salsa Social at CDC

October 19, 2006

Free is a very good price. Even if I personally don’t mind small expenditures for Salsa, my guess was that many people like things for free. Thus when Sergio sent me a query about going to the CDC Salsa social (and who else probably would be going), my reaction was something like “Don’t fight fate.” Instead, I had Sergio arrange a group for a dinner to raise the ante – the final participants were Sergio, Liam and me.

Highlights of dinner conversation included Richard Pryor – I asked, “The comedian?” I imagine that a main highlight of the evening for Sergio and Liam must have been my driving form this evening. The usual music talk involved Malanga Amarilla (by Cachao), Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers being covered by Usher (Raymond), Ray Barretto and Poncho Sanchez.

We arrived at the University Centre around 9:15 and was surprised to find that they had a Salsa class in progress – I don’t recall reading about free lessons in the CDC website. Aside from people giving or helping with instructions, hardly anyone I knew was there. Cyrille arrived shortly afterwards. Around 9:40, we began to wonder if no one was going to show up and came close to leaving and going to Club Salsa instead as the class was winding down.

And then everyone arrived in span of about 10-15 minutes. Apparently everyone else knew about the class and knew when to arrive, and pretty much all suspects were there – with a glaring exception of one who probably did as much word-of-mouth boosting of tonight’s event as anyone. More than a few people probably wondered "Where the heck is ----?"

Liam was very keen on trying to get as many songs he liked from my CD collection get played tonight. This worked beautifully for a while. First, a set of three Tito Puente songs was played as Liam’s request – Hong Kong Mambo, Babarabatiri, and Nina Y Senora. I particularly enjoyed Hong Kong Mambo. Next, I tried to get songs by Lebron Brothers played – Salsa Y Control, Piensalo Bien and Bongo Loco. Salsa Y Control was great. Unfortunately, I had the track numbers scrambled and a wrong song (Regresa A Mi) was played as the second Lebron Brothers track. After that I must have lost DJ’s confidence in me because he didn’t play any more of songs from this CD.

Word of the day - "Neo-fascist"

While I had quite a good number of dances, I don’t think the quantity was quite on par with the recent Thursday standard (I didn't dance with anyone more than once for a change) – quality was good. Floor was nice in both quality and quantity. There were a lot of people – although I did miss a number of regulars who presumably stayed at Club Salsa tonight (too bad these kind of events tend to cause fragmentation). Sound system was pretty weak – just the way I remember it from last school year. Music played by Sally would have trumped much of tonight’s selection at CDC.

I finally matched all the names to the faces in the Salsa team (as well as pointing them out to a curious bystander). The most amusing revelation was that Sean (one of my oldest friend from the Cambridge Salsa scene) made it into the team and that it took me about 10 days to realize this. In fact, I figured out the identity of every other team members before I realized that Sean made it. I had my first inkling yesterday but was only 99% sure (and I received the confirmation tonight). I guess we just don’t talk to each other as much as we used to.

I’m guessing no one’s going to mind if I give names of the team members. They are – Agnes, Isabel, Jane, Phyllis, Samantha, Stephanie, Zhenzhi and Haihan, Mark, Rajiv, Richard, Sean, Thomas, Yoon.

Quote of the day – “He looks like he’s dancing with himself.”

This quote had long legs. Hmm. I cannot believe I said that. Hmm. Did I use this quote before? I distinctly remember someone making a very similar comment (I remember the context and people involved too). If so, this might merely be the second time tonight when someone used something I wrote here. I guess it is questionable whether such comment is entirely complimentary – it could suggest something artistic or possibly narcissism. Perhaps a better more accurate interpretation of the comment is that the couple dancing together was not moving harmoniously or that their style was very different or possibly clashing or that one half of the couple looked to be moving comfortably and effortlessly while the other looked distressed, harried or overworked.

There was another statement using the words primary school and dark and sweaty - this was never seriously considered as today’s quote.

Other quotes of note.

“I’d like to have her back in one piece.”

I definitely heard that one before. Actually the dance in question was executed and followed quite well and I though everything was quite under control. I suppose my dance partner was given a few more surprises than she expected. The dance in question was fairly typical for me. I often start easy and gradually build things up until I sense that my partner is beginning to have difficulties. When I reach this point I would ease up. The dance was going quite smoothly – even as I presumably led moves my partner might normally find difficult (but she was following very well). So when I kept up the level of difficulty a bit longer while introducing different elements, my partner was a bit overwhelmed and shocked (while still staying very much in control in every other and important matters). At least that is my version of the story. This also leads to another quote.

“Are you going to break me?”

No fear of that - at least I thought not physically in this case. It does lead to yet another quote.

“Don’t worry. I have a very bad memory.” and “I have forgotten it already.”

Hopefully, this quote won’t jog her memory. Who am I kidding? I probably just doomed myself. Masochist!

Finally…

“He fingered my CD.”

That drew a look from Liam. Good thing I don’t carry my originals around.