Box of chocolates

November 16, 2007

Trying to guess what will happen is hazardous. More experience you gain, better you get. Yet there are always surprises. If I could predict future accurately I suppose I could become very rich – if I were to get around to act on correct guesses.

I received over ten calls and texts from five different people. Pretty unusual. Pretty scary – when my phone beeped four times in rapid succession as I was finishing my drive home. I suppose it happened because my phone gets little reception at work. By the way, there will be a veritable army going to Coventry tomorrow night. Frightening.

The composition of people at Club Salsa was very unusual as well. When was the last time these four – Ivan (no Helen), Pete (no Cinzia), Jay (I’m guessing he was substituting once again – alone in any case), Mauricio (also solo) – showed up at the same time? Also present were Cyrille, Liam, Rajiv, Mark, Sebastian, Joon, Draco, Gordon, John, Charlie, Luis. Maybe one or two Friday regular among men were missing. On the other side, the only women I knew by name were Steph, Polly, Andrea, Kate (late arrival), Sharon, Anastasia, Michelle and that’s it period! That’s more than 2 to 1 ratio, and like most others I tend to interact mostly with and learn names of people of opposite sex. There were two other women who I dance with regularly and whose names I never learned – more than balanced by larger number of men who I recognize by face only. It was a sausage-fest – no doubt about it.

The song selection by Vishal was quite unusual. Vishal tends to play many faster-paced songs compared to Sally or others on the DJ booth on Thursdays – Ivan’s reaction to this statement was “Very tiring.” In any case things sounded fairly typical for a while – not bad really as there were good songs like the one Liam asked me about and I couldn’t answer. A hint that things might go a little different came about when La Palomilla (Joe Cuba) came on and shortly thereafter Guaguanco Margarito (Tito Puente – played for the first time to my knowledge in Cambridge). The biggest two surprises for me came after 1 AM with a version of Tanga (originally by Machito – first time I’ve heard this in Cambridge as well) and En El Balcon (Tito Rodriguez – first time by Vish). Other classics included Avisale A Mi Contrario (Tito Rodriguez), Sun Sun Babae (Tito Rodriguez Jr?), Asia Mood (Tito Puente – I think first time by Vish), La Pantera Mambo (La 33), Merecumbe (2 versions), Cuando Tu Quieras (Chivirico Davila), A Man’s World (Ray Santiago), Valio La Pena (Marc Anthony) as well as a 2-3 highbrow New York type music I did not recognize. The club was tilted toward slot style more than usual for Fridays – with apologies to the smoothest Cuban lead I’ve ever seen in Cambridge. No Merengue – until the very end of the evening because of a request. 6-8 Bachata. One Latin pop? One Ballroom Cha Cha – not sure about others but Liam definitely disliked the Ballroom element and I tend to agree on that account. In many ways, tonight reminded me of the Friday before Chilford although it was really very different too.

My dancing was okay. I think I drank too much - I think I was a bit out of control some of the times. It was okay and interesting (like for Asia Mood) but sometimes a little hairy and dubious. I suppose it's okay if I were think of it as experimenting and pushing boundaries, etc.