More is less?

April 29, 2007

I thought I wasn't going to go to SOS until it was nearly 5 PM. I had to scramble to pick up Cyrille by 7 for decent departure time. Fortunately the roads were clear unlike last couple of weeks for the most part so it only took 90 minutes between picking up Cyrille and entering Mary Ward Hall.

There were two major events keeping people away from SOS. One was MamboCity Five Star Congress. The other was a Cachao concert at the Barbican - I seriously considered going to this concert. At 8:25-8:30, social had not started yet, and the place looked rather quiet.

At times the place looked as deserted as I have ever seen SOS. Rather large number of regulars was missing. The number of fans was same as before with a somewhat cooler temperature and lower density of people keeping things from becoming too hot and sweaty. Sound volume was better than last two weeks, but this may also be due to there being fewer bodies.

Songs played included - Hong Kong Mambo, La Llave (not sure if I remember this correctly), Mujer Erotica, Sun Sun Babae (not sure which version), El Verdadero Son (not totally sure), La Banda (artist?), Siempre Sea (?), Swing La Moderna, Guaguanco Del Gran Combo. One Cha Cha - it was fairly short and the only opportunity to practice On2.

I thought I wasn't very good tonight. I am in a rut. I also thought the people there were not as good compared to normal standard - it felt like junior varsity version of SOS. More I go, worse I think it is. Cyrille enjoyed the change - especially dancing with many new people.

The only Cambridge folks I saw were Johnny, Serap and Ed. From LDA, only Simon, Jana and Anna were there. Quentin was back (for a week after going away for only about a month!). Amir was the nominal DJ, but he let someone else play music for much of the social. The substitute was uneven - the most questionable choice being a pure instrumental track with not much going on but being very fast and quite long.

It was nice to have a company for a change. The subject of scary times was rehashed.