December 2009
Dec 1. BD. Pretty good one. Sonido Bestial.
Dec 4. Spates Hall. Fewer people than last month. I still enjoyed it despite no dancing for first 30 min. Jesus and Nicole. A very long song - as long as she liked it, no problem for me. Next one apparently competes with DCDC - yuck.
Dec 8. BD. Earl knew something when he said rain keeps DC dancers away. Heavy rain. Poor anticipation of deejaying - the Cha Cha + 2 Merengue + 2 Bachata did not start until 10:30. A later 1 Merengue + 2(!) Bachata was followed by Vamonos Pal Monte (yes the original). I avoided a live-band CG last night.
Dec 12. DCDC. Most enjoyable music at this setting thus far - DJs were Neo and Steve. Steve went quite commercial in fact. Perhaps more follower heavy than usual. A late photo led to a fairly long FB exchange. BC still on a HYM routine. LR ill. No LV. Mel. Chats with Abdul. Nice dances with D.
Dec 14. CG. Mac/Yuno week. Quite crowded. Maybe somewhat fewer dances than usual - probably not - perhaps I merely didn't ask some of the usual suspects. A few wrong turns on the way to 19th and K.
Dec 15. BD. Mac/Yuno week. Beto made an appearance. Record crowd. What's with freaking out when going off slot - especially for safety?! Also I almost poked TS's eyes out.
Dec 19. This date was supposed to be Jesus & Nicole event except it was postponed by a record snowfall.
Dec 26. DCDC. Party for Psyon. No B-day dance. I opted out too. Quite crowded.
Dec 28. CG. Very crowded. Too crowded.
Montreal next?
Unending Epilogue 8
November 2009
This was a month where DCDC Saturdays were followed immediately by Jimmy's social, which helped to discourage me from taking a trip to NYC. Of course, I've kept making excuses after excuses. I have no idea when I'll get around to visiting - perhaps never at this rate.
Nov 2. CG. I was there from around 9:40 to well past midnight for mere 4 dances. Bruno seemed to have made up for the lack of music I did not enjoy last week. The Chinita song was played once again. The night ended with talking about the state of affairs with J&T.
One month of waiting is stretching to two months with no obvious end in sight. DS is being highly frustrating, missing his own deadlines repeatedly.
Nov 7. TS birthday dinner preceded a visit to a Timba social at Bethesda late. I took several wrong turns on the way, and by the time of my arrival it was essentially a private party. TS, JY, LR, BC as well as Julie, Christian, Hans and Naj(?) made up the final Bethesda group from a larger dinner group.
Watching old television shows is diverting - probably too much so.
Nov 9. CG. DCSM night. There were more people to dance with than usual. It was LV's first visit to CG apparently. Lisa-lookalike again - she recognized me first. Despite missing dances with likes of LR, this was one of the most enjoyable CG night - best in a long time especially for On1.
After all I have more or less run out of old movies.
Nov 14 -. DCDC. Somewhat light night. I opted out of B-day dance - I just couldn't bring myself to join.
Reading on the other hand is something I seem to have lost interest in for a time being. I still haven't finished 2666.
Nov 17. BD. The turnout felt light in the beginning but it filled up nicely. Two dances with MB to start off - was surprised to see her there. Sylvia. Carl.
DC scene is large enough that it can be difficult to figure out if someone is new to the scene or had been out of circulation or had been running in different social circles.
Nov 21. Spates Hall. Interesting security check-in. Nice space. Fast floor. Many people. Couples crowd in large part. Many non-dancers present (by non-dancers I include people with zero experience). Running out of partners to ask for dance was something of an issue - all too common in past few months. Manuel spoke with mic too far away - not a particularly effective MC.
SF. I have more time than ever to spend my free time there. Ugh.
Nov 23. CG. Very rainy. Very difficult driving condition - lane markers nearly invisible. No TS - toe trouble. No JY either. JHU chitchat with A/S. Sylvia for 1 1/2 dance once again. There were 2 others with 2 dances - something of a rarity outside DCDC. About a third of the songs played tonight were used at BD last week by DJ Sonero substituting for Bruno.
Facebook too. Here, however, I avoid revealing yet I do much digging. I think I might be doing myself a favor by not making many facebook friends because it can oh so easily become an enormous time sink.
Nov 28. DCDC. Heavy turnout due to DCSM. Wet mirrors. I thought I was going to suffocate after first few dances. Betto from NC (not Philly) was there - LV was right and I was wrong. Likeable music.
To act or wait, that is the question. Inaction is so easy, but it does make certain sense.
This was a month where DCDC Saturdays were followed immediately by Jimmy's social, which helped to discourage me from taking a trip to NYC. Of course, I've kept making excuses after excuses. I have no idea when I'll get around to visiting - perhaps never at this rate.
Nov 2. CG. I was there from around 9:40 to well past midnight for mere 4 dances. Bruno seemed to have made up for the lack of music I did not enjoy last week. The Chinita song was played once again. The night ended with talking about the state of affairs with J&T.
One month of waiting is stretching to two months with no obvious end in sight. DS is being highly frustrating, missing his own deadlines repeatedly.
Nov 7. TS birthday dinner preceded a visit to a Timba social at Bethesda late. I took several wrong turns on the way, and by the time of my arrival it was essentially a private party. TS, JY, LR, BC as well as Julie, Christian, Hans and Naj(?) made up the final Bethesda group from a larger dinner group.
Watching old television shows is diverting - probably too much so.
Nov 9. CG. DCSM night. There were more people to dance with than usual. It was LV's first visit to CG apparently. Lisa-lookalike again - she recognized me first. Despite missing dances with likes of LR, this was one of the most enjoyable CG night - best in a long time especially for On1.
After all I have more or less run out of old movies.
Nov 14 -. DCDC. Somewhat light night. I opted out of B-day dance - I just couldn't bring myself to join.
Reading on the other hand is something I seem to have lost interest in for a time being. I still haven't finished 2666.
Nov 17. BD. The turnout felt light in the beginning but it filled up nicely. Two dances with MB to start off - was surprised to see her there. Sylvia. Carl.
DC scene is large enough that it can be difficult to figure out if someone is new to the scene or had been out of circulation or had been running in different social circles.
Nov 21. Spates Hall. Interesting security check-in. Nice space. Fast floor. Many people. Couples crowd in large part. Many non-dancers present (by non-dancers I include people with zero experience). Running out of partners to ask for dance was something of an issue - all too common in past few months. Manuel spoke with mic too far away - not a particularly effective MC.
SF. I have more time than ever to spend my free time there. Ugh.
Nov 23. CG. Very rainy. Very difficult driving condition - lane markers nearly invisible. No TS - toe trouble. No JY either. JHU chitchat with A/S. Sylvia for 1 1/2 dance once again. There were 2 others with 2 dances - something of a rarity outside DCDC. About a third of the songs played tonight were used at BD last week by DJ Sonero substituting for Bruno.
Facebook too. Here, however, I avoid revealing yet I do much digging. I think I might be doing myself a favor by not making many facebook friends because it can oh so easily become an enormous time sink.
Nov 28. DCDC. Heavy turnout due to DCSM. Wet mirrors. I thought I was going to suffocate after first few dances. Betto from NC (not Philly) was there - LV was right and I was wrong. Likeable music.
To act or wait, that is the question. Inaction is so easy, but it does make certain sense.
Trick or treat
October 31, 2009
It was supposed to be a treat to myself for an uninspiring month of October.
The event schedule showed early evening show from 7:30 to 8:30 PM and late evening show from 9 to 10:30 PM. I thought catching the late show might be fine but not essential. Since I left home at 8:30, I knew I would only catch the end of the late show only if there was no problem with my driving unless the shows started late.
The drive was more expensive than I would have liked. There was the 200+ mile roundtrip to consider. I thought avoiding Baltimore Harbor Tunnel would save toll fee, but I ended up on Fort McHenry Tunnel, which had the same toll fee ($2 each way). I also had not counted on toll on route 95 northbound in Maryland north of Baltimore ($5) although I had remembered toll on route 95 in Delaware ($4 each way). So paying toll alone cost $17 for this trip. The night pass was $30.
Incidentally I had considered going to New York this weekend instead of Philadelphia. Remind me not to drive. Add more toll fee – Delaware Memorial Bridge ($3 return), New Jersey Turnpike (probably $8 each way or more), and Holland or Lincoln Tunnel ($6 to Manhattan). Take the bus (it’s cheaper. e.g. Chinatown buses, Bolt Bus or even Greyhound) or the train (most comfortable) instead. Anyway, it is a pain to visit NYC for a day trip living in the suburbs.
Google map erroneously stated that I should take exit 6 towards Ridley Park off route 95 to get to the Ramada at Philadelphia airpot. It was exit 8. I took exit 6 then got back on before getting lost after taking exit 7 and ending up on Macdade Blvd and Fairview Rd. Fortunately I was able to get instructions to get to the Ramada Inn via local routes thanks to a couple of bystanders by some fast food eatery. I managed to find parking by 10:40 PM.
There were many DC folks there including Tanya, Tommy, Brandon, Julie, Earl, Renzo, Josh, Janet as well as some people whose names I caught via meetup or facebook photos (e.g. Masahiko from Station 9 fiasco, Adrienne, Masha) and a few others including some I dance well with in DC. There were also some Philly people I knew from other connections. Unfortunately as the evening progressed, it became evident that there were very few Philly natives, whom I could develop decent dance chemistry.
So the highlights ended up being dancing with “big-name” instructor-performer types. Two highlights were Vanda and Burju – I had never danced with either before, and I liked dances with both – I liked the songs too although perhaps Tlahuanaco is not without its difficulties (no complaint about Rumbon Melon). I don’t think I pushed them much – not that I feel particularly competent especially as of late. Magna was there, but I failed to spot her until very late. I thought about asking her for a dance, but I opted out after seeing her looking concerned about some leg injury. Hopefully I’ll find her without ailments one of these days. So what about others “big-name” followers? The fact that I am wondering about this is a little disconcerting because there wasn’t any “new” follower who I had strong favorable impression aside from Vanda and Burju. Was Griselle Ponce or Liz Lira there? If so, did I dance with either of them? If so, was our dance chemistry so poor that I found them unremarkable? For whatever its worth, the number of “big-name” leaders I saw were spotty too – Nuno, MarioB and Cristian Oviedo were there, but I did not see Shaka or Victor and failed to spot Al Espinoza assuming he was there.
I think this might have been the first time I have heard two Bachata followed by one or more Merengue at a Salsa congress.
Songs played included Ana Y Saoco (Angel Canales), Hay Craneo (Tito Rodriguez), Hong Kong Mambo (Tito Puente – remix), Cuando Te Vea (Tito Puente), Tlahuanaco (Alfredo Linares), Picadillo (Cal Tjader & Eddie Palmieri), Tres Dias De Carnaval (Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco), Mambo Mongo (Mongo Santamaria), Nabori (Cheo Feliciano), Alafia (Joe Cuba Sextet), Oyelo (Johnny Colon), Lady (Orquesta Palabra), Calle Luna Calle Sol (Willie Colon), Rumbon Melon (Joe Pastrana) among others.
The Halloween costume contest had five finalists – Roman Legionnaire, Urkel, Burju (as Madonna?), Hooters waitress (worn by a guy) and a pair of elderly 60s/70s partygoers. The first three had a dance-off for the top 3 prize runoff, won ultimately by Urkel.
I may have danced only once during the last hour or so. Around 1:30 or 2 or so, I thought I should leave by 3 or so, but I ended up lingering until 3:30. Only when I turned the car engine on I realized that it would have been 4:30 AM without the end of the daylight savings hour.
Drive back was dark and rainy. It was very difficult to see the road markings, and there were more than usual share of nutty drivers. On a section of the empty road with four lanes, I was on the right lane and saw a slow moving car in the second from right lane. I decided to pass it from its left-side as I ought to, but this car all of sudden for no reason decided to change lane to left as well just as I was about to pass it. Bloody hell! I had to move one more lane to avoid hitting this car before hitting the klaxon in irritation. Later in the drive on a three-lane road, I found a car stopped dead in the middle lane with its lights on but without any hazard lights. Stopping in the breakdown lane is dangerous enough. What are these people thinking?
Treat it wasn’t.
It was supposed to be a treat to myself for an uninspiring month of October.
The event schedule showed early evening show from 7:30 to 8:30 PM and late evening show from 9 to 10:30 PM. I thought catching the late show might be fine but not essential. Since I left home at 8:30, I knew I would only catch the end of the late show only if there was no problem with my driving unless the shows started late.
The drive was more expensive than I would have liked. There was the 200+ mile roundtrip to consider. I thought avoiding Baltimore Harbor Tunnel would save toll fee, but I ended up on Fort McHenry Tunnel, which had the same toll fee ($2 each way). I also had not counted on toll on route 95 northbound in Maryland north of Baltimore ($5) although I had remembered toll on route 95 in Delaware ($4 each way). So paying toll alone cost $17 for this trip. The night pass was $30.
Incidentally I had considered going to New York this weekend instead of Philadelphia. Remind me not to drive. Add more toll fee – Delaware Memorial Bridge ($3 return), New Jersey Turnpike (probably $8 each way or more), and Holland or Lincoln Tunnel ($6 to Manhattan). Take the bus (it’s cheaper. e.g. Chinatown buses, Bolt Bus or even Greyhound) or the train (most comfortable) instead. Anyway, it is a pain to visit NYC for a day trip living in the suburbs.
Google map erroneously stated that I should take exit 6 towards Ridley Park off route 95 to get to the Ramada at Philadelphia airpot. It was exit 8. I took exit 6 then got back on before getting lost after taking exit 7 and ending up on Macdade Blvd and Fairview Rd. Fortunately I was able to get instructions to get to the Ramada Inn via local routes thanks to a couple of bystanders by some fast food eatery. I managed to find parking by 10:40 PM.
There were many DC folks there including Tanya, Tommy, Brandon, Julie, Earl, Renzo, Josh, Janet as well as some people whose names I caught via meetup or facebook photos (e.g. Masahiko from Station 9 fiasco, Adrienne, Masha) and a few others including some I dance well with in DC. There were also some Philly people I knew from other connections. Unfortunately as the evening progressed, it became evident that there were very few Philly natives, whom I could develop decent dance chemistry.
So the highlights ended up being dancing with “big-name” instructor-performer types. Two highlights were Vanda and Burju – I had never danced with either before, and I liked dances with both – I liked the songs too although perhaps Tlahuanaco is not without its difficulties (no complaint about Rumbon Melon). I don’t think I pushed them much – not that I feel particularly competent especially as of late. Magna was there, but I failed to spot her until very late. I thought about asking her for a dance, but I opted out after seeing her looking concerned about some leg injury. Hopefully I’ll find her without ailments one of these days. So what about others “big-name” followers? The fact that I am wondering about this is a little disconcerting because there wasn’t any “new” follower who I had strong favorable impression aside from Vanda and Burju. Was Griselle Ponce or Liz Lira there? If so, did I dance with either of them? If so, was our dance chemistry so poor that I found them unremarkable? For whatever its worth, the number of “big-name” leaders I saw were spotty too – Nuno, MarioB and Cristian Oviedo were there, but I did not see Shaka or Victor and failed to spot Al Espinoza assuming he was there.
I think this might have been the first time I have heard two Bachata followed by one or more Merengue at a Salsa congress.
Songs played included Ana Y Saoco (Angel Canales), Hay Craneo (Tito Rodriguez), Hong Kong Mambo (Tito Puente – remix), Cuando Te Vea (Tito Puente), Tlahuanaco (Alfredo Linares), Picadillo (Cal Tjader & Eddie Palmieri), Tres Dias De Carnaval (Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco), Mambo Mongo (Mongo Santamaria), Nabori (Cheo Feliciano), Alafia (Joe Cuba Sextet), Oyelo (Johnny Colon), Lady (Orquesta Palabra), Calle Luna Calle Sol (Willie Colon), Rumbon Melon (Joe Pastrana) among others.
The Halloween costume contest had five finalists – Roman Legionnaire, Urkel, Burju (as Madonna?), Hooters waitress (worn by a guy) and a pair of elderly 60s/70s partygoers. The first three had a dance-off for the top 3 prize runoff, won ultimately by Urkel.
I may have danced only once during the last hour or so. Around 1:30 or 2 or so, I thought I should leave by 3 or so, but I ended up lingering until 3:30. Only when I turned the car engine on I realized that it would have been 4:30 AM without the end of the daylight savings hour.
Drive back was dark and rainy. It was very difficult to see the road markings, and there were more than usual share of nutty drivers. On a section of the empty road with four lanes, I was on the right lane and saw a slow moving car in the second from right lane. I decided to pass it from its left-side as I ought to, but this car all of sudden for no reason decided to change lane to left as well just as I was about to pass it. Bloody hell! I had to move one more lane to avoid hitting this car before hitting the klaxon in irritation. Later in the drive on a three-lane road, I found a car stopped dead in the middle lane with its lights on but without any hazard lights. Stopping in the breakdown lane is dangerous enough. What are these people thinking?
Treat it wasn’t.
Unending Epilogue 7
October 2009
Slow month overall. Feeling somewhat stuck. Poor month for Salsa.
Oct 5 Mon. Clarendon Grill. Uncharacteristically quiet. Very few dances, good or not.
Oct 6 Tue. Barking Dog. Better night. DJ was Bruno for second night in a row. I came up with 25/25/25/25 rule for Bruno – 25% good, 25% okay, 25% yucky, 25% non-Salsa.
Oct 10 Sat. DC Dance Collective. DJs were EricB and Dola. One of the more notable familiar song was Del Agua Brava. Very few people showed up – probably the TSR/SOS Black and Red Night can be blamed. Introduced to Haleh
Oct 12 Mon. Clarendon Grill. Bruno might have played that Chinita song for third night in a row. Formally met Christian (nice dance with Luz to No Critiques), Tega, Royston (usually wears a cap) and Lorenzo.
Oct 14 Wed. I tried to go to Station 9. It was closed. I took a look at Pure nearby, but gave up after hearing predictable Marc Anthony and no obvious signs of dancers.
Oct 15 Thu. Bambule. DJ was Neo. Quiet night. Earl blamed the rain. Maybe a little over one hour of dancing – it wasn’t too bad all things considered. Mari was there.
Oct 18 Sun. Lucky Strikes. DJ was Renzo. It was about expected. I was introduced to Julie while chatting with Tanya and Renzo. Also Cecelia.
Oct 21 Wed. Another bad luck with Station 9 – the Salsa night was cancelled for something else (I don’t know what). Pure was playing Oscar D’Leon – we didn’t stay (chatted briefly with Masahiko and friend).
Oct 23 Fri. The Salsa Room. DJs were Hercules and Georgie. Hercules played popular standards (Babarabatiri, Chango Ta Beni, Preparen Candela (WS), Anacaona, Hong Kong Mambo, Rebelion, El Que Se Fue (GSR), Merecumbe (JC)) or so-so not-great but generally not horrible tunes. Hercules also played either Babarabatiri or Chango Ta Beni twice. Georgie played more varied selection (Los Salseros Se Van, popular recent version of Cao Cao Mani Picao, the Chinita song, Ponme El Alcolado Juana were familiar tunes). This probably was a more popular night than usual because of Orlando Machuca’s birthday.
Oct 24 Sat. DC Dance Collective. DJs were EricB and Steve Martin. EricB used Kako Y Totico again. Also was it second or third La Llave in a row with normal crowd? Familiar songs from SM included La Agonia and Usted Abuso. With a bigger crowd, EricB decided to go obscure as well, so Steve wins my vote by a nose. I think I enjoy Steve’s selections more when there are few people left. The heat and humidity at DCDC with large crowd is not enjoyable – a big minus. Formally met Manuel.
Oct 26 Mon. Clarendon Grill. DJ Bruno started his Merengue (x2) and Bachata (x2) considerably earlier than usual. Apparently this was because of the Halloween costume contest, which nearly 40 people entered. Despite the unexpected change in musical program, I managed to dance a few times including once with someone named Jenny, whom I never seen before. There were many people present, but many quickly exited during or after the contest. There was another b-day dance for Orlando Machuca as well. Thus I managed not to dance with many people I probably would have danced under normal circumstances – this sort of thing seemed to happen often this month. A new learned name is Olga. Oh yeah – and that Chinita song again was played (Mario Ortiz All-Star Band). One thing though – smaller number of total number of songs seemed to have meant smaller proportion of songs I found awful by DJ Bruno (i.e. the 25% rule did not apply tonight).
When I saw the calender and saw that there were five weekends and that the second Saturday DCDC social had the TSR/SOS Black and Red night, I knew that this was going to be a weak month. Thus I took the time to check out the venues other than Clarendon Grill and Barking Dog. It wasn’t as thorough as I had hoped (mainly because of the Station 9 fiasco), but I think I now have enough to give a DC summary. See below – I may update this in the future.
--
Weekly nights of note
Mondays
Clarendon Grill 1101 N. Highland St. Arlington VA
Beginner 7-8 PM, Intermediate 8-9 PM
Instructor – Keith Givens / DJ – Bruno
Music – Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Cha Cha
Open dancing 9 PM-1 AM (typically ends 12:30 AM)
Entry: $5
Free Parking: Easy (treet parking + free underground garage on Highland St)
Metro: Excellent / Clarendon
Clarendon Grill is the best On2 weekly spot in DC. Most On2 dancers can dance On1, but for people who dance On1 only, other venues are just as good and possibly better. DJ Bruno’s shtick is 2 Merengue and 2 Bachata in a row at 10 PM. Most On2 dancers time their arrival to avoid this 10 PM “Salsa break” for whatever its worth. Dancing extends to pockets of concrete floor above small main wood floor.
Lucky Bar 1225 Conneticut Ave. Washington DC
Free Salsa class 8-9 PM.
Instructor – Avram / DJ – Silenzio
Open dancing 9 PM-late
Entry: free
Metro: Excellent or Good / Dupont Circle or Farragut North or Farragut West
Free Parking: Difficult (probably)
I hear this place can get crowded. I never went.
Tuesdays
Barking Dog 4723 Elm St. Bethesda MD
Beginner 7-8 PM, Advanced Beginner 8-9 PM
Instructor – Michelle Reyes / DJ – rotates (includes El Sonero, El Oso Negro, Bruno, Neo)
Open dancing 9 PM-midnight
Music – Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Cha Cha
Entry: $5 cover, $10 with lessons
Free Parking: Easy-Moderate
Metro: Good / Bethesda
This is the other weekly On2 spot. It’s a good deal for On1 dancers too. Tile floor surrounds a fairly small central wood floor and is also used by many dancers. Perhaps because the dancing is done on second floor, it can get somewhat warm – although not too bad.
e-Citie 8300 Tyco Road Tysons Corner VA
Never visited this place. It might be better than Café Salsa in Alexandria. I don’t know.
Wednesday
Station 9 1438 U Street NW Washington DC
8:30-9PM Salsa, 9-9:45PM Bachata
Instructor – Earl Rush, Psyon / Salsa; Lee “El Gringuito” / Bachata
DJ – Lee “El Gringuito” – Bachata, Salsa Romantica, Salsaton, Salsa hits, Salsa Vieja, Merengue, Cha Cha
Guest DJs on special nights – Hard Salsa, Mambo, Cha Cha
Entry: $10 for lessons, for party $10 men, $5 women
Parking: Difficult
Metro: Good / U Street
The venue seemed fairly nice, but I never danced here despite attempting to get in 3 different times. Lee supposedly plays more Romantica than anyone else in DC. My understanding is that this is the best option for Weds.
Pure Lounge 1326 U Street NW Washington DC
This is very close to Station 9. I took a peek twice but did not go in.
Ozio Restaurant & Lounge 1813 M St NW Washington DC
Lesson 8-9:30 PM
Instructor / DJ Edgar “The Elite Rumbero”
Music – Salsa, Bachata, Merengue and much more
Open dancing to late (closes 2 AM)
Entry: $8 for lessons, free entry
Metro: Exellent or Good / Dupont Circle or Farragut North or Farragut West
Free Parking: I’m guessing difficult
The venue location is central so it might be worth checking.
Umberto’s Night Club 11230 Grandview Ave Wheaton MD
It exists and still going at the moment. No personal experience.
Thursday
Bambule 5225 Wisconsin Ave NW Washington DC
7-9:30 PM Instructor – Earl Rush
Open dance to midnight or so?
Entry: $10 for lessons, $8 entry
Free Parking: Easy-Moderate
Metro: Excellent / Friendship Heights
I hear this place is quite hit-and-miss. Floor is nice and spacious, and venue is convenient for cars or public transit. It might get better – or not. [updated Oct 30. This venue no longer runs Salsa nights.]
Sunday
Lucky Strikes 701 7th Street (second floor) NW Washington DC
Lessons 8-9 PM
Open dancing to around midnight
Instructor: Earl Rush and guests
Entry: $10 for lessons, free entry
Free Parking: Moderate
Metro: Excellent / Chinatown
Floor is nice and spacious, and venue location is convenient. Decent hangout.
--
The venues listed below have multiple Salsa nights with open dancing until as late as 2 AM.
Wednesday to Saturday
Habana Village 1834 Columbia Road NW Washington DC
Beginner, Intermediate/Advanced 7:15-9 PM
Instructor (Wed, Sat) – Zulma, Victor, Victoria
Instructor (Thu, Fri) – Leon, Ruth, Bob, Henry, Dupree
DJ – Azucar, Jim “El Duro”
Music – Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Timba, other
Entry: $10 lessons
Parking: Difficult
Metro: Good / Woodley Park Adams Morgan
I hear it can get crowded here. I hear it’s a fun place to hang out.
Thursday to Saturday
The Salsa Room
2619 Columbia Pike Arlington VA
Instructor - Orlando Machuca (On1, Thu), Saoco (Cuban, Fri), Karen Aguilar (Sat)
DJ – Hercules and guests
Music - Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Reggaeton
Free Parking: Easy-Moderate
Metro: Not Recommended / Clarendon
This place has the biggest floor of all the regular venues. It is dark and cavernous with strong AC. The resident DJ Hercules apparently tends to overplay some artists. The one time I paid careful attention to the DJ, I noted that Hercules used one album 3 times in a single night including one song twice in a span of less than 2 hours.
--
Notable regular non-weekly events
second and fourth Saturdays
DC Dance Collective 4908 Wisconsin Avenue NW Washington DC
9-10 PM On1 and On2 lessons
Open dancing 10 PM to 2 AM
Instructor – Tommy Smith and Jimmy Yoon
DJ – rotating DJ (includes EricB, Steve Martin, Dola, Bruno, Neo, Renzo, others)
Free Parking: Easy
Metro: Good / Friendship Heights – Tenleytown-AU
This is a social not a club. The music here tends to be highbrow and obscure. It's also a regular On2 hangout. Weak AC is a big negative as it is usually hot and humid when it’s crowded.
Other venues I have some knowledge of include National Harbor (new developmental area with poor public transit and costly parking)
There is fair number of irregular events, but many of these are not well established. The best bets are SOS special events hosted by Earl Rush about half dozen times a year and Clavekazi socials hosted by Shaka Brown. With Shaka now living in Miami, I’m not sure what the fate of Clavekazi socials will be, however. Another reasonable bet is Scene Magazine Release parties hosted by Renzo, which presumably will go on as long as that magazine stays alive.
Finally Manuel seems to be trying to get a (monthly?) social established on Saturdays with DJ Andy, who I was told by one source was the top DJ in DC long time ago (until he and his old business partner broke up). I haven’t been to the venue, but it looks nice (see picture). Location is okay and parking looks good. It’s not particularly close to Metro (nearest stop is Clarendon). Good DJ + good floor means = high potential and worth checking out. Next night is on Nov 21.
Spates Hall Community Club at Fort Myers Base
214 McNair Road Arlington VA
9 PM to 1 AM
Meanwhile I’m going to try to turn this poor October around by visiting Philadelphia Salsafest on Oct 31 (Saturday only for me).
Slow month overall. Feeling somewhat stuck. Poor month for Salsa.
Oct 5 Mon. Clarendon Grill. Uncharacteristically quiet. Very few dances, good or not.
Oct 6 Tue. Barking Dog. Better night. DJ was Bruno for second night in a row. I came up with 25/25/25/25 rule for Bruno – 25% good, 25% okay, 25% yucky, 25% non-Salsa.
Oct 10 Sat. DC Dance Collective. DJs were EricB and Dola. One of the more notable familiar song was Del Agua Brava. Very few people showed up – probably the TSR/SOS Black and Red Night can be blamed. Introduced to Haleh
Oct 12 Mon. Clarendon Grill. Bruno might have played that Chinita song for third night in a row. Formally met Christian (nice dance with Luz to No Critiques), Tega, Royston (usually wears a cap) and Lorenzo.
Oct 14 Wed. I tried to go to Station 9. It was closed. I took a look at Pure nearby, but gave up after hearing predictable Marc Anthony and no obvious signs of dancers.
Oct 15 Thu. Bambule. DJ was Neo. Quiet night. Earl blamed the rain. Maybe a little over one hour of dancing – it wasn’t too bad all things considered. Mari was there.
Oct 18 Sun. Lucky Strikes. DJ was Renzo. It was about expected. I was introduced to Julie while chatting with Tanya and Renzo. Also Cecelia.
Oct 21 Wed. Another bad luck with Station 9 – the Salsa night was cancelled for something else (I don’t know what). Pure was playing Oscar D’Leon – we didn’t stay (chatted briefly with Masahiko and friend).
Oct 23 Fri. The Salsa Room. DJs were Hercules and Georgie. Hercules played popular standards (Babarabatiri, Chango Ta Beni, Preparen Candela (WS), Anacaona, Hong Kong Mambo, Rebelion, El Que Se Fue (GSR), Merecumbe (JC)) or so-so not-great but generally not horrible tunes. Hercules also played either Babarabatiri or Chango Ta Beni twice. Georgie played more varied selection (Los Salseros Se Van, popular recent version of Cao Cao Mani Picao, the Chinita song, Ponme El Alcolado Juana were familiar tunes). This probably was a more popular night than usual because of Orlando Machuca’s birthday.
Oct 24 Sat. DC Dance Collective. DJs were EricB and Steve Martin. EricB used Kako Y Totico again. Also was it second or third La Llave in a row with normal crowd? Familiar songs from SM included La Agonia and Usted Abuso. With a bigger crowd, EricB decided to go obscure as well, so Steve wins my vote by a nose. I think I enjoy Steve’s selections more when there are few people left. The heat and humidity at DCDC with large crowd is not enjoyable – a big minus. Formally met Manuel.
Oct 26 Mon. Clarendon Grill. DJ Bruno started his Merengue (x2) and Bachata (x2) considerably earlier than usual. Apparently this was because of the Halloween costume contest, which nearly 40 people entered. Despite the unexpected change in musical program, I managed to dance a few times including once with someone named Jenny, whom I never seen before. There were many people present, but many quickly exited during or after the contest. There was another b-day dance for Orlando Machuca as well. Thus I managed not to dance with many people I probably would have danced under normal circumstances – this sort of thing seemed to happen often this month. A new learned name is Olga. Oh yeah – and that Chinita song again was played (Mario Ortiz All-Star Band). One thing though – smaller number of total number of songs seemed to have meant smaller proportion of songs I found awful by DJ Bruno (i.e. the 25% rule did not apply tonight).
When I saw the calender and saw that there were five weekends and that the second Saturday DCDC social had the TSR/SOS Black and Red night, I knew that this was going to be a weak month. Thus I took the time to check out the venues other than Clarendon Grill and Barking Dog. It wasn’t as thorough as I had hoped (mainly because of the Station 9 fiasco), but I think I now have enough to give a DC summary. See below – I may update this in the future.
--
Weekly nights of note
Mondays
Clarendon Grill 1101 N. Highland St. Arlington VA
Beginner 7-8 PM, Intermediate 8-9 PM
Instructor – Keith Givens / DJ – Bruno
Music – Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Cha Cha
Open dancing 9 PM-1 AM (typically ends 12:30 AM)
Entry: $5
Free Parking: Easy (treet parking + free underground garage on Highland St)
Metro: Excellent / Clarendon
Clarendon Grill is the best On2 weekly spot in DC. Most On2 dancers can dance On1, but for people who dance On1 only, other venues are just as good and possibly better. DJ Bruno’s shtick is 2 Merengue and 2 Bachata in a row at 10 PM. Most On2 dancers time their arrival to avoid this 10 PM “Salsa break” for whatever its worth. Dancing extends to pockets of concrete floor above small main wood floor.
Lucky Bar 1225 Conneticut Ave. Washington DC
Free Salsa class 8-9 PM.
Instructor – Avram / DJ – Silenzio
Open dancing 9 PM-late
Entry: free
Metro: Excellent or Good / Dupont Circle or Farragut North or Farragut West
Free Parking: Difficult (probably)
I hear this place can get crowded. I never went.
Tuesdays
Barking Dog 4723 Elm St. Bethesda MD
Beginner 7-8 PM, Advanced Beginner 8-9 PM
Instructor – Michelle Reyes / DJ – rotates (includes El Sonero, El Oso Negro, Bruno, Neo)
Open dancing 9 PM-midnight
Music – Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Cha Cha
Entry: $5 cover, $10 with lessons
Free Parking: Easy-Moderate
Metro: Good / Bethesda
This is the other weekly On2 spot. It’s a good deal for On1 dancers too. Tile floor surrounds a fairly small central wood floor and is also used by many dancers. Perhaps because the dancing is done on second floor, it can get somewhat warm – although not too bad.
e-Citie 8300 Tyco Road Tysons Corner VA
Never visited this place. It might be better than Café Salsa in Alexandria. I don’t know.
Wednesday
Station 9 1438 U Street NW Washington DC
8:30-9PM Salsa, 9-9:45PM Bachata
Instructor – Earl Rush, Psyon / Salsa; Lee “El Gringuito” / Bachata
DJ – Lee “El Gringuito” – Bachata, Salsa Romantica, Salsaton, Salsa hits, Salsa Vieja, Merengue, Cha Cha
Guest DJs on special nights – Hard Salsa, Mambo, Cha Cha
Entry: $10 for lessons, for party $10 men, $5 women
Parking: Difficult
Metro: Good / U Street
The venue seemed fairly nice, but I never danced here despite attempting to get in 3 different times. Lee supposedly plays more Romantica than anyone else in DC. My understanding is that this is the best option for Weds.
Pure Lounge 1326 U Street NW Washington DC
This is very close to Station 9. I took a peek twice but did not go in.
Ozio Restaurant & Lounge 1813 M St NW Washington DC
Lesson 8-9:30 PM
Instructor / DJ Edgar “The Elite Rumbero”
Music – Salsa, Bachata, Merengue and much more
Open dancing to late (closes 2 AM)
Entry: $8 for lessons, free entry
Metro: Exellent or Good / Dupont Circle or Farragut North or Farragut West
Free Parking: I’m guessing difficult
The venue location is central so it might be worth checking.
Umberto’s Night Club 11230 Grandview Ave Wheaton MD
It exists and still going at the moment. No personal experience.
Thursday
7-9:30 PM Instructor – Earl Rush
Open dance to midnight or so?
Entry: $10 for lessons, $8 entry
Free Parking: Easy-Moderate
Metro: Excellent / Friendship Heights
I hear this place is quite hit-and-miss. Floor is nice and spacious, and venue is convenient for cars or public transit. It might get better – or not. [updated Oct 30. This venue no longer runs Salsa nights.]
Sunday
Lucky Strikes 701 7th Street (second floor) NW Washington DC
Lessons 8-9 PM
Open dancing to around midnight
Instructor: Earl Rush and guests
Entry: $10 for lessons, free entry
Free Parking: Moderate
Metro: Excellent / Chinatown
Floor is nice and spacious, and venue location is convenient. Decent hangout.
--
The venues listed below have multiple Salsa nights with open dancing until as late as 2 AM.
Wednesday to Saturday
Habana Village 1834 Columbia Road NW Washington DC
Beginner, Intermediate/Advanced 7:15-9 PM
Instructor (Wed, Sat) – Zulma, Victor, Victoria
Instructor (Thu, Fri) – Leon, Ruth, Bob, Henry, Dupree
DJ – Azucar, Jim “El Duro”
Music – Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Timba, other
Entry: $10 lessons
Parking: Difficult
Metro: Good / Woodley Park Adams Morgan
I hear it can get crowded here. I hear it’s a fun place to hang out.
Thursday to Saturday
The Salsa Room
2619 Columbia Pike Arlington VA
Instructor - Orlando Machuca (On1, Thu), Saoco (Cuban, Fri), Karen Aguilar (Sat)
DJ – Hercules and guests
Music - Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Reggaeton
Free Parking: Easy-Moderate
Metro: Not Recommended / Clarendon
This place has the biggest floor of all the regular venues. It is dark and cavernous with strong AC. The resident DJ Hercules apparently tends to overplay some artists. The one time I paid careful attention to the DJ, I noted that Hercules used one album 3 times in a single night including one song twice in a span of less than 2 hours.
--
Notable regular non-weekly events
second and fourth Saturdays
DC Dance Collective 4908 Wisconsin Avenue NW Washington DC
9-10 PM On1 and On2 lessons
Open dancing 10 PM to 2 AM
Instructor – Tommy Smith and Jimmy Yoon
DJ – rotating DJ (includes EricB, Steve Martin, Dola, Bruno, Neo, Renzo, others)
Free Parking: Easy
Metro: Good / Friendship Heights – Tenleytown-AU
This is a social not a club. The music here tends to be highbrow and obscure. It's also a regular On2 hangout. Weak AC is a big negative as it is usually hot and humid when it’s crowded.
Other venues I have some knowledge of include National Harbor (new developmental area with poor public transit and costly parking)
There is fair number of irregular events, but many of these are not well established. The best bets are SOS special events hosted by Earl Rush about half dozen times a year and Clavekazi socials hosted by Shaka Brown. With Shaka now living in Miami, I’m not sure what the fate of Clavekazi socials will be, however. Another reasonable bet is Scene Magazine Release parties hosted by Renzo, which presumably will go on as long as that magazine stays alive.
Finally Manuel seems to be trying to get a (monthly?) social established on Saturdays with DJ Andy, who I was told by one source was the top DJ in DC long time ago (until he and his old business partner broke up). I haven’t been to the venue, but it looks nice (see picture). Location is okay and parking looks good. It’s not particularly close to Metro (nearest stop is Clarendon). Good DJ + good floor means = high potential and worth checking out. Next night is on Nov 21.
Spates Hall Community Club at Fort Myers Base
214 McNair Road Arlington VA
9 PM to 1 AM
Meanwhile I’m going to try to turn this poor October around by visiting Philadelphia Salsafest on Oct 31 (Saturday only for me).
Unending Epilogue 6
September 2009
I think my Salsa nights out were 7 in all in September - 9/1 Barking Dog, 9/7 Clarendon Grill, 9/12 DCDC 9/14 Clarendon Grill, 9/22 Barking Dog, 9/26 DCDC, 9/18 Clarendon Grill. 9/20 could have been Lucky Strikes, but that night was cancelled. 9/21 Clarendon Grill was an anniversary event with a live band and was skipped because I thought it was going to be too crowded.
The frequency of going out is pretty similar to way it has been since September of 2008. Since then the nights out have been 6 for 9/08, 7 for 10/08, 8 for 11/08, 10 for 12/08, 7 for 1/09, 5 for 2/09, 8 for 3/09, 7 for 4/09, between 5-7 for both 5/09 and 6/09, 5 for 7/09, 7 for 8/09. I think 6 to 10 times a month is a pretty good number for me right now.
Melanie, Meryl, Michelle and Shiela are the new names to be added this month to the “list” of people. I think I could add Steve to the same list since I mentioned him without conversing with him last month – now corrected. I felt that Steve was the better DJ at the last DCDC, and his last 2 songs were Satin and Lace (TR version with full ending) and Good Night My Love (Louie Ramirez).
Last couple of nights were somewhat more talky than usual (not that I was not dancing any less than usual). Topics included SF, Seoul, Laurel and Honey Pig with Luz and Jimmy; comparing DJs with Leticia; Europe (UK, London, Moe, Leon) with Maylis; usual random assortments with Tanya. Monday was a birthday for someone whom I’ve enjoyed dancing with for a long time here (but I never caught her name).
I have been catching up on movies lately mostly outside theatres. Below is how I would rate them. Usually I would only watch movies I expect to be good – so a movie I rate 3 stars probably met my expectation.
No Country For Old Man ***1/2
Minority Report ***1/2
Synedoche, New York ***1/2
Superbad ***1/2
Michael Clayton ***1/2
Burn After Reading ***
The Simpsons Movie ***
A Quantum Of Solace ***
Iron Man ***
Sweeney Todd ***
Star Trek ***
District 9 ***
Smart People *** (above expectations)
Pineapple Express ***
Knocked Up ***
Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist ***
Man On Wire ***
3:30 To Yuma ***
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle ***
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay **1/2 (met expectation)
Matrix 3 **1/2 (met expectation)
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button **1/2
Love Actually **1/2
Dogma **1/2
House Bunny **1/2 (met expectation)
I Am Legend **1/2
Harry Potter: Order Of The Phoenix **1/2
Nacho Libre **1/2 (met expectation)
Hellboy **
Romeo+Juliet **
Enchanted **
Semipro *1/2
Golden Compass * (did not meet low expectation)
I watched some movies starting with low expectations. Sometimes they were better than expected, met lower expectation or failed to meet even my low starting expectation. For example, Golden Compass failed to meet a very low expectation (I was expecting a 2 star movie and got a 1 star movie).
I guess I am making up for all the movies I did not watch because I was too busy at work or Salsa. For whatever its worth, I summarize last several years of movie for me below. Maybe it's safe to do this sort of thing now that the readership has gone down to about quarter of old days.
2008
I saw 1 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Wall-E was good. I caught The Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire on airplane – both were good. I’ve caught a few other top 20 movies in the past month. I can do without the ones I have not watched thus far.
2007
I saw 1 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Bourne Ultimatum was good. Three airplane movies (Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates of Caribbean 3) were instantly forgettable. I’ve watched some of the other top 20 movies in the past month, and the only remaining one I would be interested in watching is Juno and maybe Ratatouille.
2006
I saw 2 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Casino Royale and Talladega Nights were both good. The Departed on airplane was excellent. I could be convinced to watch Borat or Devil Wears Prada, but I don’t think I would be interested in any of the other top 20 movies. Cars probably is good, but the only Pixar movie I ever saw was Wall*E despite my guess that pretty much all Pixar movies are well made.
2005
I saw 4 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Wedding Crashers and 40 Year Old Virgin were good, and Revenge of Sith and Goblet of Fire were not so good. I saw 3 others in airplanes. Batman Begins was okay, Hitch was forgettable and Walk The Line was pretty good. The other 13 titles don't interest me.
2004
I saw 3 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Prisoner of Azkaban, Bourne Supremacy and 50 First Dates were good. Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, National Treasure were airplane or TV movies and were mediocre. The other 14 are of no interest. I started taking Salsa lessons in Sept 2004.
2003
I saw 4 of the top 20 movies and maybe 4 other movies in a theatre. Return of the King, Pirates of Caribbean were good whereas The Matrix Reloaded and Terminator 3 were merely okay. This is the year I moved to the UK.
2002
I saw 8 of the top 20 movies as well as several less popular movies. I’m pretty sure I averaged at least one movie per month for much of my adult life in the USA.
Old friends news front. Vish moved his venues once again - now to old Po Na Na for Mondays/Wednesdays and to Sports Centre on Mill Lane for Fridays. Apparently Cyrille stopped by last Friday. On another side of the planet, Agnes moved from Singapore to the Bay Area (or close enough).
On a more official business matter, the draft of the manuscript is nearly finished at somewhere between 60 and 70 pages.
I think my Salsa nights out were 7 in all in September - 9/1 Barking Dog, 9/7 Clarendon Grill, 9/12 DCDC 9/14 Clarendon Grill, 9/22 Barking Dog, 9/26 DCDC, 9/18 Clarendon Grill. 9/20 could have been Lucky Strikes, but that night was cancelled. 9/21 Clarendon Grill was an anniversary event with a live band and was skipped because I thought it was going to be too crowded.
The frequency of going out is pretty similar to way it has been since September of 2008. Since then the nights out have been 6 for 9/08, 7 for 10/08, 8 for 11/08, 10 for 12/08, 7 for 1/09, 5 for 2/09, 8 for 3/09, 7 for 4/09, between 5-7 for both 5/09 and 6/09, 5 for 7/09, 7 for 8/09. I think 6 to 10 times a month is a pretty good number for me right now.
Melanie, Meryl, Michelle and Shiela are the new names to be added this month to the “list” of people. I think I could add Steve to the same list since I mentioned him without conversing with him last month – now corrected. I felt that Steve was the better DJ at the last DCDC, and his last 2 songs were Satin and Lace (TR version with full ending) and Good Night My Love (Louie Ramirez).
Last couple of nights were somewhat more talky than usual (not that I was not dancing any less than usual). Topics included SF, Seoul, Laurel and Honey Pig with Luz and Jimmy; comparing DJs with Leticia; Europe (UK, London, Moe, Leon) with Maylis; usual random assortments with Tanya. Monday was a birthday for someone whom I’ve enjoyed dancing with for a long time here (but I never caught her name).
I have been catching up on movies lately mostly outside theatres. Below is how I would rate them. Usually I would only watch movies I expect to be good – so a movie I rate 3 stars probably met my expectation.
No Country For Old Man ***1/2
Minority Report ***1/2
Synedoche, New York ***1/2
Superbad ***1/2
Michael Clayton ***1/2
Burn After Reading ***
The Simpsons Movie ***
A Quantum Of Solace ***
Iron Man ***
Sweeney Todd ***
Star Trek ***
District 9 ***
Smart People *** (above expectations)
Pineapple Express ***
Knocked Up ***
Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist ***
Man On Wire ***
3:30 To Yuma ***
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle ***
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay **1/2 (met expectation)
Matrix 3 **1/2 (met expectation)
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button **1/2
Love Actually **1/2
Dogma **1/2
House Bunny **1/2 (met expectation)
I Am Legend **1/2
Harry Potter: Order Of The Phoenix **1/2
Nacho Libre **1/2 (met expectation)
Hellboy **
Romeo+Juliet **
Enchanted **
Semipro *1/2
Golden Compass * (did not meet low expectation)
I watched some movies starting with low expectations. Sometimes they were better than expected, met lower expectation or failed to meet even my low starting expectation. For example, Golden Compass failed to meet a very low expectation (I was expecting a 2 star movie and got a 1 star movie).
I guess I am making up for all the movies I did not watch because I was too busy at work or Salsa. For whatever its worth, I summarize last several years of movie for me below. Maybe it's safe to do this sort of thing now that the readership has gone down to about quarter of old days.
2008
I saw 1 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Wall-E was good. I caught The Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire on airplane – both were good. I’ve caught a few other top 20 movies in the past month. I can do without the ones I have not watched thus far.
2007
I saw 1 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Bourne Ultimatum was good. Three airplane movies (Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates of Caribbean 3) were instantly forgettable. I’ve watched some of the other top 20 movies in the past month, and the only remaining one I would be interested in watching is Juno and maybe Ratatouille.
2006
I saw 2 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Casino Royale and Talladega Nights were both good. The Departed on airplane was excellent. I could be convinced to watch Borat or Devil Wears Prada, but I don’t think I would be interested in any of the other top 20 movies. Cars probably is good, but the only Pixar movie I ever saw was Wall*E despite my guess that pretty much all Pixar movies are well made.
2005
I saw 4 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Wedding Crashers and 40 Year Old Virgin were good, and Revenge of Sith and Goblet of Fire were not so good. I saw 3 others in airplanes. Batman Begins was okay, Hitch was forgettable and Walk The Line was pretty good. The other 13 titles don't interest me.
2004
I saw 3 of the top 20 movies in a theatre. Prisoner of Azkaban, Bourne Supremacy and 50 First Dates were good. Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, National Treasure were airplane or TV movies and were mediocre. The other 14 are of no interest. I started taking Salsa lessons in Sept 2004.
2003
I saw 4 of the top 20 movies and maybe 4 other movies in a theatre. Return of the King, Pirates of Caribbean were good whereas The Matrix Reloaded and Terminator 3 were merely okay. This is the year I moved to the UK.
2002
I saw 8 of the top 20 movies as well as several less popular movies. I’m pretty sure I averaged at least one movie per month for much of my adult life in the USA.
Old friends news front. Vish moved his venues once again - now to old Po Na Na for Mondays/Wednesdays and to Sports Centre on Mill Lane for Fridays. Apparently Cyrille stopped by last Friday. On another side of the planet, Agnes moved from Singapore to the Bay Area (or close enough).
On a more official business matter, the draft of the manuscript is nearly finished at somewhere between 60 and 70 pages.
Unending Epilogue 5
August 2009
How many times this month?
There was the Clavekazi anniversary part at the beginning of the month. Supposedly meetup.com group members received a discount, but only if you signed up for the right meetup group – I believe it was an official event for MD Salsa meetup and VA Salsa meetup group but not the DC Salsa meetup group on the account of DC group being on a vacation for the entire month of August (save their weekend NYC outing, which overlapped with the Clavekazi social). For whatever its worth, DC group by far has the largest membership, and VA and MD groups are organized jointly by another set of people. At least for now, organization via meetup site still is probably bigger than organization by facebook for the DC Salsa scene. It was a bit warm inside, and the musical selection for the last hour put me off a bit. Otherwise I found it a pretty enjoyable social.
Leaving the Clavekazi social, I was talked into a new night being started at Lucky Strikes in DC. I only realized after arriving that the text I had received said that the sender was the only On2 follower present – not that I consider myself On2 exclusivist or supremacist. It was okay especially considering there was no entry fee although the turnout was rather mediocre – blamed on a late-start on promotion. Some people I had not-too-great On2 dances gave me a pretty good On1 dances later in the evening. I was told other people had a pretty good impression of Lucky Strikes evening based upon their visit on subsequent weeks.
Second Saturday of the month took me to DC Dance Collective social, which has thus far been the place I’m most likely to be absent from thus far since moving here. The attendance was on the low side because of a competing party at The Salsa Room (a magazine release party for the Salsa Scene). I thought it was rather unfortunate that the release party was not organized for either the first, third or the fifth Saturday of the month, which would have enabled me to go to both events. For whatever its worth, the next magazine release party in October is also on the second Saturday – yuck. I wonder if this pattern will continue?
Anyhow given the relatively weak second Saturday and no prospect of interesting event the following weekend, I decided to hit Clarendon Grill for next two Mondays in a row as well as a trip to Barking Dog on one of the Tuesdays. The first Clarendon Grill night was particularly good, and the other two nights were pretty good too. The only complaint for Barking Dog was that the room was very warm – it did not seem like their AC was working properly. The fact that it was quite impossible to cool off in the warm room led to some not-so-pleasant conversation near the end of the evening. Two Bachata at Barking Dog was two more than usual for me at DC. The second Clarendon Grill night was made less than ideal probably because I ended up arriving rather late thanks to some ATM problems.
Fourth Saturday DC Dance collective was much better attended compared to the one two weeks earlier. Shaka Brown made an announcement that he is moving to Florida (but he plans to visit DC often still). I had gone on a 5-mile hike with Ignacio at the Sugarloaf mountain in the afternoon, and it seemed like my legs have gone out of shape with lack of exercise lately. So perhaps not surprisingly I ran out of energy fairly early. Otherwise this could have been an exceptionally good night. Also I was a bit frustrated with song selections starting from near the end of the first set of the first DJ (EricB?) and throughout the first set of the second DJ (Steve Martin) – too same too obscure too hardcore 60s-70s songs. Second sets by both DJs later were much more to my liking – although I was too tired to grab dance partners quickly enough by then. Since I seemed to have made a complaint about Steve Martin, I’ll try to limit damage (or perhaps get myself in bigger trouble) by saying that I’d rate Steve Martin as one of my top 5 (perhaps even top 3) social leads I enjoyed watching in the DC local scene.
Anyhow that led to a third Clarendon Grill Monday in a row. It was a reliably good CG night though nothing special by my CG standard. Here I was talked into visiting a place at National Harbor on the following Friday. This unfortunately ended up a fiasco, which I half expected I suppose. This particular event was advertised as an outdoor event, which seemed like a bad idea to me considering the hot humid summer weather we have in DC. Because the temperature was expected to be 69 or 70 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 20 degrees Celsius), I decided to at least take a drive there. Unfortunately when I arrived, I only glimpsed three couples dancing on the concrete floor and total of perhaps 10-12 people altogether. Entering seemed like a waste of 10 dollar cover, so I came back without further ado. It still cost me $11 for having parked the car for less than 20 minutes, however. Parking at the cheapest public garage costs at National Harbor $11 flat after 6 PM. Also I was drenched in sweat by doing nothing besides light walking at 70 degrees Fahrenheit – no doubt high humidity helped. Anyhow, it’s difficult to see me coming back to any event (Salsa or otherwise) to National Harbor.
Some new names I can now match with their face: Alexis, Orlando, Miranda, Leroy, Liz. Then there are old names I had forgotten to mention in previous epilogues: Ben, Diana, Cathy, Jen, Liz and Liz. For now, I’m only including people I think I can name reliably and people who I find more or less friendly towards me – latter of course is easy for people who come off seeming friendly to everyone. There are bunch of local people whom I can give check mark for only one of the criteria. Names mentioned in previous epilogues include Tanya, Jimmy, Luz, Leticia, Josh, Shaka, Earl, Tommy, Beto, Preston, Janet, Charissa, Brandon, Maylis, Cecilia.
I’m guessing I’ll be going out one more time this month – most likely this Monday thus making it four Mondays in a row. Oh well. Clarendon Grill is fine, but I wouldn’t have considered worth going four weeks in a row. Then again I am a bit put off by Barking Dog and would prefer to skip it for about a month if I can help it. There’s nothing interesting next weekend – the big event is the New York Salsa Congress, which I expect not to attend. So the only must event is the next DC Dance Collective social, which doubles as a birthday party for Tommy Smith who runs the event, still 2 weeks away. Ugh. Does that mean Clarendon Grill 5 weeks in a row??? [note added later: No chance of 5 weeks in a row because Clarendon Grill night is cancelled next Monday]
On topics other than Salsa, I’m now able to put more effort into writing and editing my manuscripts with some major distractions put to rest. I’ve also been taking some time exploring the strange world of K-Dramas. I also lifted self-imposed ban on facebook although I still have no plans to make use it as a blog or twitter type of device at this time.
How many times this month?
There was the Clavekazi anniversary part at the beginning of the month. Supposedly meetup.com group members received a discount, but only if you signed up for the right meetup group – I believe it was an official event for MD Salsa meetup and VA Salsa meetup group but not the DC Salsa meetup group on the account of DC group being on a vacation for the entire month of August (save their weekend NYC outing, which overlapped with the Clavekazi social). For whatever its worth, DC group by far has the largest membership, and VA and MD groups are organized jointly by another set of people. At least for now, organization via meetup site still is probably bigger than organization by facebook for the DC Salsa scene. It was a bit warm inside, and the musical selection for the last hour put me off a bit. Otherwise I found it a pretty enjoyable social.
Leaving the Clavekazi social, I was talked into a new night being started at Lucky Strikes in DC. I only realized after arriving that the text I had received said that the sender was the only On2 follower present – not that I consider myself On2 exclusivist or supremacist. It was okay especially considering there was no entry fee although the turnout was rather mediocre – blamed on a late-start on promotion. Some people I had not-too-great On2 dances gave me a pretty good On1 dances later in the evening. I was told other people had a pretty good impression of Lucky Strikes evening based upon their visit on subsequent weeks.
Second Saturday of the month took me to DC Dance Collective social, which has thus far been the place I’m most likely to be absent from thus far since moving here. The attendance was on the low side because of a competing party at The Salsa Room (a magazine release party for the Salsa Scene). I thought it was rather unfortunate that the release party was not organized for either the first, third or the fifth Saturday of the month, which would have enabled me to go to both events. For whatever its worth, the next magazine release party in October is also on the second Saturday – yuck. I wonder if this pattern will continue?
Anyhow given the relatively weak second Saturday and no prospect of interesting event the following weekend, I decided to hit Clarendon Grill for next two Mondays in a row as well as a trip to Barking Dog on one of the Tuesdays. The first Clarendon Grill night was particularly good, and the other two nights were pretty good too. The only complaint for Barking Dog was that the room was very warm – it did not seem like their AC was working properly. The fact that it was quite impossible to cool off in the warm room led to some not-so-pleasant conversation near the end of the evening. Two Bachata at Barking Dog was two more than usual for me at DC. The second Clarendon Grill night was made less than ideal probably because I ended up arriving rather late thanks to some ATM problems.
Fourth Saturday DC Dance collective was much better attended compared to the one two weeks earlier. Shaka Brown made an announcement that he is moving to Florida (but he plans to visit DC often still). I had gone on a 5-mile hike with Ignacio at the Sugarloaf mountain in the afternoon, and it seemed like my legs have gone out of shape with lack of exercise lately. So perhaps not surprisingly I ran out of energy fairly early. Otherwise this could have been an exceptionally good night. Also I was a bit frustrated with song selections starting from near the end of the first set of the first DJ (EricB?) and throughout the first set of the second DJ (Steve Martin) – too same too obscure too hardcore 60s-70s songs. Second sets by both DJs later were much more to my liking – although I was too tired to grab dance partners quickly enough by then. Since I seemed to have made a complaint about Steve Martin, I’ll try to limit damage (or perhaps get myself in bigger trouble) by saying that I’d rate Steve Martin as one of my top 5 (perhaps even top 3) social leads I enjoyed watching in the DC local scene.
Anyhow that led to a third Clarendon Grill Monday in a row. It was a reliably good CG night though nothing special by my CG standard. Here I was talked into visiting a place at National Harbor on the following Friday. This unfortunately ended up a fiasco, which I half expected I suppose. This particular event was advertised as an outdoor event, which seemed like a bad idea to me considering the hot humid summer weather we have in DC. Because the temperature was expected to be 69 or 70 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 20 degrees Celsius), I decided to at least take a drive there. Unfortunately when I arrived, I only glimpsed three couples dancing on the concrete floor and total of perhaps 10-12 people altogether. Entering seemed like a waste of 10 dollar cover, so I came back without further ado. It still cost me $11 for having parked the car for less than 20 minutes, however. Parking at the cheapest public garage costs at National Harbor $11 flat after 6 PM. Also I was drenched in sweat by doing nothing besides light walking at 70 degrees Fahrenheit – no doubt high humidity helped. Anyhow, it’s difficult to see me coming back to any event (Salsa or otherwise) to National Harbor.
Some new names I can now match with their face: Alexis, Orlando, Miranda, Leroy, Liz. Then there are old names I had forgotten to mention in previous epilogues: Ben, Diana, Cathy, Jen, Liz and Liz. For now, I’m only including people I think I can name reliably and people who I find more or less friendly towards me – latter of course is easy for people who come off seeming friendly to everyone. There are bunch of local people whom I can give check mark for only one of the criteria. Names mentioned in previous epilogues include Tanya, Jimmy, Luz, Leticia, Josh, Shaka, Earl, Tommy, Beto, Preston, Janet, Charissa, Brandon, Maylis, Cecilia.
I’m guessing I’ll be going out one more time this month – most likely this Monday thus making it four Mondays in a row. Oh well. Clarendon Grill is fine, but I wouldn’t have considered worth going four weeks in a row. Then again I am a bit put off by Barking Dog and would prefer to skip it for about a month if I can help it. There’s nothing interesting next weekend – the big event is the New York Salsa Congress, which I expect not to attend. So the only must event is the next DC Dance Collective social, which doubles as a birthday party for Tommy Smith who runs the event, still 2 weeks away. Ugh. Does that mean Clarendon Grill 5 weeks in a row??? [note added later: No chance of 5 weeks in a row because Clarendon Grill night is cancelled next Monday]
On topics other than Salsa, I’m now able to put more effort into writing and editing my manuscripts with some major distractions put to rest. I’ve also been taking some time exploring the strange world of K-Dramas. I also lifted self-imposed ban on facebook although I still have no plans to make use it as a blog or twitter type of device at this time.
Unending Epilogue 4
July 2009
How many times did I go out Salsa dancing this month? One disadvantage or benefit to not having a daily diary is that it is more difficult to keep track. I am sure I went out at least 4 times. I might have gone out as many as 7 times.
The last time I went out was the last Monday of July to Clarendon Grill. It’s easy to remember that one since it was only two days ago. Arguably the big event of the month was the SOS anniversary party on the third Saturday, which I also attended. I definitely went to the DC Dance Collective Saturday socials both times this month (second and fourth Saturdays). I don’t think I went out on July 4th,but I probably compensated by going to Clarendon Grill the Monday afterwards. So that probably makes it 5 nights out – my best guess. I think I’m done for July. Wow – that’s not a lot considering I do not feel burnt out.
I think it’s possible that I danced exclusively On2 on four of those five nights. Again wow. I actually made an active effort to try dancing On1 a few times this Monday, but there is little point to try to dance On1 elsewhere. This is so unexpected but not necessarily surprising in retrospect. There are very few people here who can step in time reliably and yet is rather poor in On2 timing. Big parties or at least the big parties I attend attract plenty of On2 dancers. The DC Dance Collective Saturday social tries to be DC’s version of Jimmy Anton social in NYC (the Mecca of On2 dancing) – in fact they probably picked their dates (second and fourth Saturdays) to be as far apart from Jimmy Anton social dates (first, third and occasional fifth Sundays) most of the time.
On a different note, I had talked to Tanya about having me play some songs at her social for a short segment. Now why would I want to do that? I’m not interested in getting DJ gigs. For the most part, I think I prefer to be dancing rather than playing. I’m far from certain that I would do a better job than people who are established here. In fact after having talked to Tanya, Jimmy, Stu and Tommy about their musical preferences, I actually find the prospect of a flop quite real – it might be really easy to displease many people with “wrong” song choices. Certainly pleasing everyone all the time is out of question since even these four alone have different tastes; some loves certain songs while others despise those same songs. At least one of the big reason why I asked to DJ was to try playing kind of songs that seem to get played here. However, I may not have a very good sense of which songs are being played a lot while which songs are nearly unheard of (I was told Hector Lavoe gets played to death by some DJs!). It doesn't help that I don’t go to many of the "typical" venues. In fact, I have heard only a handful of songs get played more than once in this area since April; the song selections seem pretty deep. Thus the amount of general Salsa music knowledge here may be considerably greater than I am used to – difficult to gauge.
Moving from audio to video, I discovered a clip of me dancing at the DC Salsa Congress. It was not a kind of video where one couple is the center of focus, but it was enough to cause some cringing and give myself some harsh evaluations. The shortest summary I could think of? I still suck. I think it shows that I really haven’t done any critical evaluation of how I look while dancing taking advantage of videotaping myself. Of course I don’t know if I have the energy and time to go to such efforts and I also don’t know if such measure would be beneficial in all ways. I say this because I could see a scenario where video analysis may help lead to removing certain excesses and perhaps bad habits, it may also lead to inhibitions and stagnation. Ultimately I imagine benefits would outweigh harms since knowing is ultimately better than not knowing. It’s something I should do eventually if I want to keep on dancing for a long time.
One of the things I cringed about was seeing how often I was failing to dance along to how the music was progressing. At least at two different passages, I was asking why the heck am I doing what I am doing at that point in the song? A few caveats. I don’t know the song so I suppose I could easily be caught off guard here and there. I never danced with the person I was dancing with before also – although that’s not much of an excuse and my recollection is that she was a pretty good follower by the Congress standard (and most people I danced with there were pretty darn good by my European Congress experience). One of the things I saw (although I suppose I was somewhat aware of this even before) is that even though I think I’m trying my best to dance according to the music I seem to be doing a pretty poor job of it – lucky if I’m doing okay maybe half or even one third of the song even with really good partners (arguably being generous with myself).
Another thing I did after finding this clip was to look at other social dancing clip from the same event. In most cases it was difficult for me to see that people dancing were making an effort to dance according to the music. A small minority was making an effort to accentuate the breaks in the song. It was less clear that most people who were trying to accentuate the breaks were paying attention to other parts of the song (although no doubt better than the general populace and occasionally I saw things that made me think what some people were doing were pretty darn good - miles better than what I was doing). So I guess the good news (or the bad news) is that most people were not succeeding most of the times either (or I can tell myself that I may be doing it poorly but doing it poorly could be considered better than not trying or not being aware?). I also would not be surprised if I come back to this a half year from now and say I had no idea what I was talking about; I write about these things but I certainly cannot be considered an expert or an authority of any sort in dancing (or music or pretty much everything).
There is one big question I have. Now the old-time musicians have said things like they can watch the way old-time dancers moved and be able to tell which music they were playing. Would they be able to do such thing in a Salsa congress event nowadays? I ask because I feel that I would be completely clueless about how to go about figuring out the song from the dancers from all the seemingly random moves different people go about performing at all parts of the song.
How many times did I go out Salsa dancing this month? One disadvantage or benefit to not having a daily diary is that it is more difficult to keep track. I am sure I went out at least 4 times. I might have gone out as many as 7 times.
The last time I went out was the last Monday of July to Clarendon Grill. It’s easy to remember that one since it was only two days ago. Arguably the big event of the month was the SOS anniversary party on the third Saturday, which I also attended. I definitely went to the DC Dance Collective Saturday socials both times this month (second and fourth Saturdays). I don’t think I went out on July 4th,but I probably compensated by going to Clarendon Grill the Monday afterwards. So that probably makes it 5 nights out – my best guess. I think I’m done for July. Wow – that’s not a lot considering I do not feel burnt out.
I think it’s possible that I danced exclusively On2 on four of those five nights. Again wow. I actually made an active effort to try dancing On1 a few times this Monday, but there is little point to try to dance On1 elsewhere. This is so unexpected but not necessarily surprising in retrospect. There are very few people here who can step in time reliably and yet is rather poor in On2 timing. Big parties or at least the big parties I attend attract plenty of On2 dancers. The DC Dance Collective Saturday social tries to be DC’s version of Jimmy Anton social in NYC (the Mecca of On2 dancing) – in fact they probably picked their dates (second and fourth Saturdays) to be as far apart from Jimmy Anton social dates (first, third and occasional fifth Sundays) most of the time.
On a different note, I had talked to Tanya about having me play some songs at her social for a short segment. Now why would I want to do that? I’m not interested in getting DJ gigs. For the most part, I think I prefer to be dancing rather than playing. I’m far from certain that I would do a better job than people who are established here. In fact after having talked to Tanya, Jimmy, Stu and Tommy about their musical preferences, I actually find the prospect of a flop quite real – it might be really easy to displease many people with “wrong” song choices. Certainly pleasing everyone all the time is out of question since even these four alone have different tastes; some loves certain songs while others despise those same songs. At least one of the big reason why I asked to DJ was to try playing kind of songs that seem to get played here. However, I may not have a very good sense of which songs are being played a lot while which songs are nearly unheard of (I was told Hector Lavoe gets played to death by some DJs!). It doesn't help that I don’t go to many of the "typical" venues. In fact, I have heard only a handful of songs get played more than once in this area since April; the song selections seem pretty deep. Thus the amount of general Salsa music knowledge here may be considerably greater than I am used to – difficult to gauge.
Moving from audio to video, I discovered a clip of me dancing at the DC Salsa Congress. It was not a kind of video where one couple is the center of focus, but it was enough to cause some cringing and give myself some harsh evaluations. The shortest summary I could think of? I still suck. I think it shows that I really haven’t done any critical evaluation of how I look while dancing taking advantage of videotaping myself. Of course I don’t know if I have the energy and time to go to such efforts and I also don’t know if such measure would be beneficial in all ways. I say this because I could see a scenario where video analysis may help lead to removing certain excesses and perhaps bad habits, it may also lead to inhibitions and stagnation. Ultimately I imagine benefits would outweigh harms since knowing is ultimately better than not knowing. It’s something I should do eventually if I want to keep on dancing for a long time.
One of the things I cringed about was seeing how often I was failing to dance along to how the music was progressing. At least at two different passages, I was asking why the heck am I doing what I am doing at that point in the song? A few caveats. I don’t know the song so I suppose I could easily be caught off guard here and there. I never danced with the person I was dancing with before also – although that’s not much of an excuse and my recollection is that she was a pretty good follower by the Congress standard (and most people I danced with there were pretty darn good by my European Congress experience). One of the things I saw (although I suppose I was somewhat aware of this even before) is that even though I think I’m trying my best to dance according to the music I seem to be doing a pretty poor job of it – lucky if I’m doing okay maybe half or even one third of the song even with really good partners (arguably being generous with myself).
Another thing I did after finding this clip was to look at other social dancing clip from the same event. In most cases it was difficult for me to see that people dancing were making an effort to dance according to the music. A small minority was making an effort to accentuate the breaks in the song. It was less clear that most people who were trying to accentuate the breaks were paying attention to other parts of the song (although no doubt better than the general populace and occasionally I saw things that made me think what some people were doing were pretty darn good - miles better than what I was doing). So I guess the good news (or the bad news) is that most people were not succeeding most of the times either (or I can tell myself that I may be doing it poorly but doing it poorly could be considered better than not trying or not being aware?). I also would not be surprised if I come back to this a half year from now and say I had no idea what I was talking about; I write about these things but I certainly cannot be considered an expert or an authority of any sort in dancing (or music or pretty much everything).
There is one big question I have. Now the old-time musicians have said things like they can watch the way old-time dancers moved and be able to tell which music they were playing. Would they be able to do such thing in a Salsa congress event nowadays? I ask because I feel that I would be completely clueless about how to go about figuring out the song from the dancers from all the seemingly random moves different people go about performing at all parts of the song.
Unending Epilogue 3
June 2009
Still leading an unproductive life. Spending way too much time in front of a small laptop screen. Inertia is not a good thing. People think I’m brilliant though – and not just for Salsa. I shouldn’t take anything from the compliments other than I am not brain dead.
As for Salsa, I hardly danced On1 this month. I think almost everyone prefer On2 pretty much everywhere I go. I think I might be getting rusty with On1 in fact. This is something I never expected.
The biggest event this month was the DC Salsa Congress. I only managed to go on Friday night and Sunday night – and I originally thought I was going to miss Sunday night. Despite missing the biggest night (Saturday), I thought the Congress was brilliant. At least for Salsa that is. It was actually a fairly small Congress by the numbers but not in quality. I danced with some people (complete strangers) as many as 4 times including one girl from Finland/NC, who could have passed for a model/actress/whatever (she was surprisingly good and seemed to enjoy the dances with me a great deal, which was good but also somewhat sad for my ego/mind/whatever).
That Saturday I was in New York for a cousin’s wedding. The DJ there after seeing me dance Cha Cha to Oye Como Va by Santana with one of my aunts decided to play – La Vida Es Un Carnaval. A 72-year old man (husband of groom’s older sister) complimented me on Cha Cha saying he loved that dance. I thought he was in his early 50s – in fact he could have passed from someone in his 40s. His daughter (in her 50s) told me later that her father seems to get younger as he ages.
Still leading an unproductive life. Spending way too much time in front of a small laptop screen. Inertia is not a good thing. People think I’m brilliant though – and not just for Salsa. I shouldn’t take anything from the compliments other than I am not brain dead.
As for Salsa, I hardly danced On1 this month. I think almost everyone prefer On2 pretty much everywhere I go. I think I might be getting rusty with On1 in fact. This is something I never expected.
The biggest event this month was the DC Salsa Congress. I only managed to go on Friday night and Sunday night – and I originally thought I was going to miss Sunday night. Despite missing the biggest night (Saturday), I thought the Congress was brilliant. At least for Salsa that is. It was actually a fairly small Congress by the numbers but not in quality. I danced with some people (complete strangers) as many as 4 times including one girl from Finland/NC, who could have passed for a model/actress/whatever (she was surprisingly good and seemed to enjoy the dances with me a great deal, which was good but also somewhat sad for my ego/mind/whatever).
That Saturday I was in New York for a cousin’s wedding. The DJ there after seeing me dance Cha Cha to Oye Como Va by Santana with one of my aunts decided to play – La Vida Es Un Carnaval. A 72-year old man (husband of groom’s older sister) complimented me on Cha Cha saying he loved that dance. I thought he was in his early 50s – in fact he could have passed from someone in his 40s. His daughter (in her 50s) told me later that her father seems to get younger as he ages.
Unending Epilogue 2
May 2009
The whole month is now something of a blur – mostly because I spent a lot of time playing a real-time warfare MMPORG for about a month. For whatever its worth, I have been a top 40 player (and top player on third ranked alliance) in the server I ended up on for last few weeks. I should be dramatically reducing my playing time very soon however and probably will quit altogether since I do want to get back to doing other things.
As for Salsa, it has been once or twice a week outing for most of May. The venues I’ve visited include DC Dance Collective (second and fourth Saturdays), Clarendon Grill (Mon), Barking Dog (Tues) and some special events at The Salsa Room. With apologies to other venues, which I have not frequented, these venues at the moment are the premiere locations for ET On2 dancers to my best understanding. For whatever its worth, I probably ended up dancing more On2 compared to On1 for this month.
A question I had been wondering for a while was, “How much was my blog affecting people’s perception towards me?” A related question might be whether some people were more likely to dance with me or not because of the blog. After a month, I think it is pretty clear that the absence of blog here made absolutely no difference. None. Nada. Zilch. Some people don’t like dancing with me after once or twice. Some won’t say yes the first time I ask (some will come find me later). For whatever its worth, people in the know tells me that I may come across as too scary good for some.
From previous outings, I have been somewhat familiar with people like Earl, Beto, Jimmy, Janet, Josh, Maylis, Tommy and Tanya (some of these people teach, others are social dancers). I suppose I can add Leticia, Ceci, Brendan, Preston, Luz and Shaka to the list of acquaintances or more. For Haihan, I did dance with Charissa, but I didn’t realize it was her so no introduction yet.
The most annoying night happened while visiting a DC venue called Station 9 for someone’s pre-wedding party. The streets were a maze. My debit card PIN did not work so I couldn’t withdraw any cash needed for entry. The people I knew inside were out of cash. I called the bank to deal with the PIN issue only to be placed on hold and then sent to nowhere (or where I started from) until my phone ran out. By then, I had enough and went home. Oh well.
The whole month is now something of a blur – mostly because I spent a lot of time playing a real-time warfare MMPORG for about a month. For whatever its worth, I have been a top 40 player (and top player on third ranked alliance) in the server I ended up on for last few weeks. I should be dramatically reducing my playing time very soon however and probably will quit altogether since I do want to get back to doing other things.
As for Salsa, it has been once or twice a week outing for most of May. The venues I’ve visited include DC Dance Collective (second and fourth Saturdays), Clarendon Grill (Mon), Barking Dog (Tues) and some special events at The Salsa Room. With apologies to other venues, which I have not frequented, these venues at the moment are the premiere locations for ET On2 dancers to my best understanding. For whatever its worth, I probably ended up dancing more On2 compared to On1 for this month.
A question I had been wondering for a while was, “How much was my blog affecting people’s perception towards me?” A related question might be whether some people were more likely to dance with me or not because of the blog. After a month, I think it is pretty clear that the absence of blog here made absolutely no difference. None. Nada. Zilch. Some people don’t like dancing with me after once or twice. Some won’t say yes the first time I ask (some will come find me later). For whatever its worth, people in the know tells me that I may come across as too scary good for some.
From previous outings, I have been somewhat familiar with people like Earl, Beto, Jimmy, Janet, Josh, Maylis, Tommy and Tanya (some of these people teach, others are social dancers). I suppose I can add Leticia, Ceci, Brendan, Preston, Luz and Shaka to the list of acquaintances or more. For Haihan, I did dance with Charissa, but I didn’t realize it was her so no introduction yet.
The most annoying night happened while visiting a DC venue called Station 9 for someone’s pre-wedding party. The streets were a maze. My debit card PIN did not work so I couldn’t withdraw any cash needed for entry. The people I knew inside were out of cash. I called the bank to deal with the PIN issue only to be placed on hold and then sent to nowhere (or where I started from) until my phone ran out. By then, I had enough and went home. Oh well.
Unending Epilogue: month 1
April 2009
As far as Salsa is concerned I am having more difficulty adjusting to the time difference than in the past. This is because I had been getting up early in the morning for much of April while I was travelling across the UK, France and the Lowlands. Even a full week after returning, I often find myself feeling sleepy by 5 PM. Thankfully I stopped getting up before 7 in the morning.
The process of getting back to life in America is moving slowly. I suppose it is faster than it was moving to the UK though. I begun the process opening a bank account on my third day back and received some account information within a week after arriving. Although things like debit cards and full online access information have not arrived yet, it sure beats taking nearly a month to get an account in the UK.
Originally I did not expect to get a mobile phone for a while. I still haven’t gotten one, but I think I will end up getting one – after completing my bank account details. Already one person asked me for cell phone (or mobile phone) information. I imagine I won’t use it much, but I suppose I should make myself “reachable” by methods other than e-mail. I’ll probably end with pay-as-you-go (or prepaid) phone – quite possibly with Virgin Mobile (a British outfit no less).
For this monthly update (no guarantees that I will keep this up), there has been only one Salsa outing. I meant to go to a second night but combination of a headache caused by a cold and some surprise dinner guests put that plan out the door. The one time I did go out I felt at less than top shape possibly because of combination of general inactivity and sleep issues neither of which had been helped by the aforementioned cold and headache.
It took no time to catch up with some friends I made from my last visit once at one of the regular hotspots (I’ll refrain from naming specific places or names local – at least for now). Heck, they even remembered my name too (fortunately I remembered theirs too). I also saw a lot of people I did not see before. I know it’s a mistake to judge a scene by one night but this one night made me think of Sergio saying that many good dancers don’t go out on local nights here.
As I was writing the last paragraph, I realized of a personal bias – not necessarily fair but perhaps illuminating. I rate followers based on how they dance with me. They could look good dancing with some other people, but I probably would think less of them if they were unable to dance well with me. On the other hand I rate leaders solely based on how they look dancing with others. This makes perfect sense, but it does mean there presumably will be some disconnect between how I rate other leads compared to how followers rate same leads.
Anyhow the reason why I got into this talk is that I saw two new leads I had not seen before who I thought would have kicked ass if they showed up in London – arguably better than many of “names” dropped in advertisements on web and on fliers for big events. (Heck, I think some of those name guys are quite awful – neither distinctive, entertaining nor aesthetically pleasing.) It also made me think that I haven’t gotten very far – even though I won’t see I haven’t made any progress recently but it seemed to me that some people here have made much bigger progress in last several months while I have been doing very little. Oh well. Maybe I’m doomed to plateau and fall behind the times. Who knows?
Finally I really should not comment on the Cambridge scene anymore – I’ll just say that I still do keep track of what’s going on there and that it is not lacking drama and intrigue.
As far as Salsa is concerned I am having more difficulty adjusting to the time difference than in the past. This is because I had been getting up early in the morning for much of April while I was travelling across the UK, France and the Lowlands. Even a full week after returning, I often find myself feeling sleepy by 5 PM. Thankfully I stopped getting up before 7 in the morning.
The process of getting back to life in America is moving slowly. I suppose it is faster than it was moving to the UK though. I begun the process opening a bank account on my third day back and received some account information within a week after arriving. Although things like debit cards and full online access information have not arrived yet, it sure beats taking nearly a month to get an account in the UK.
Originally I did not expect to get a mobile phone for a while. I still haven’t gotten one, but I think I will end up getting one – after completing my bank account details. Already one person asked me for cell phone (or mobile phone) information. I imagine I won’t use it much, but I suppose I should make myself “reachable” by methods other than e-mail. I’ll probably end with pay-as-you-go (or prepaid) phone – quite possibly with Virgin Mobile (a British outfit no less).
For this monthly update (no guarantees that I will keep this up), there has been only one Salsa outing. I meant to go to a second night but combination of a headache caused by a cold and some surprise dinner guests put that plan out the door. The one time I did go out I felt at less than top shape possibly because of combination of general inactivity and sleep issues neither of which had been helped by the aforementioned cold and headache.
It took no time to catch up with some friends I made from my last visit once at one of the regular hotspots (I’ll refrain from naming specific places or names local – at least for now). Heck, they even remembered my name too (fortunately I remembered theirs too). I also saw a lot of people I did not see before. I know it’s a mistake to judge a scene by one night but this one night made me think of Sergio saying that many good dancers don’t go out on local nights here.
As I was writing the last paragraph, I realized of a personal bias – not necessarily fair but perhaps illuminating. I rate followers based on how they dance with me. They could look good dancing with some other people, but I probably would think less of them if they were unable to dance well with me. On the other hand I rate leaders solely based on how they look dancing with others. This makes perfect sense, but it does mean there presumably will be some disconnect between how I rate other leads compared to how followers rate same leads.
Anyhow the reason why I got into this talk is that I saw two new leads I had not seen before who I thought would have kicked ass if they showed up in London – arguably better than many of “names” dropped in advertisements on web and on fliers for big events. (Heck, I think some of those name guys are quite awful – neither distinctive, entertaining nor aesthetically pleasing.) It also made me think that I haven’t gotten very far – even though I won’t see I haven’t made any progress recently but it seemed to me that some people here have made much bigger progress in last several months while I have been doing very little. Oh well. Maybe I’m doomed to plateau and fall behind the times. Who knows?
Finally I really should not comment on the Cambridge scene anymore – I’ll just say that I still do keep track of what’s going on there and that it is not lacking drama and intrigue.
Coda
April 21, 2009
There should be no more recommendation given to me to talk about the weather rather than talk of people unless it is done behind their back. I imagine such thought came to mind in order to counterbalance admiration I felt for the countryside landscape outside the coach windows.
Beautiful weather, chronic transportation issues. It took over 20 minutes for the coach to move more than 50 meters from its parked space. At Stansted, the driver announced that M25 was closed in the direction we needed to go so we would have to weave through the countryside.
Roads and rails are so unreliable here. It is a big surprise when no problem is encountered in a long trip. I would estimate that M25 to Heathrow is problematic more than 75% of the time in my experience. In past 3 weeks, we suffered through an incident at Finsbury park resulting in 1+ hour delay, a long escalator out of action for 6 months at Pimlico tube station affecting us for 5 days, a train station closure for Liam a couple of days ago and a painfully slow drive through Bow street for Sergio and me. And then there are three out of three problematic trips to Heathrow. Maybe I should start a new blog entitled “On The Road” to detail trials and tribulations of travelling. One thing the UK has over the USA - widespread use of traffic light systems with vehicle detectors.
In the end the coach returned to a sparse M25 (J21) for the final leg of the journey. There was no problem arriving at terminal 5 before appointed time (1:30 PM). One excess weight baggage charge (25 pounds) after rearranging the bags, another Wagamama lunch, several e-mail correspondences, then boarding what appeared to be no more than half-full flight. I switched my seat as soon as possible for more space.
Once again I used westbound transatlantic flight to catch up on some film: Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, The Reader and Bolt – chosen in part for their length. Also about 80 pages of 2666 were devoured during the entire trip. The flight was a little slow not helped by not being able to fly through the NYC airspace. The descent was rather turbulent. The trip was generally a trouble-free.
Ross had suggested writing a book with the blog as base material on the drive back to Cambridge last night. I said immediacy is a problem – although perhaps immediacy is the current trend. I imagine the bigger issue would be interest – there simply are not that many people so interested in dance (or Salsa dance). It would have to be a backdrop rather than a main focus for enough people to be interest. And the writing would have to be pretty darn good too. All of it would take a lot of effort and time – who knows though?
In any case, no more daily Salsa blog. No more entry? - quite possibly since it agrees with my aesthetics. New blog? - to be determined. Certainly no Learning Salsa In DC.
There should be no more recommendation given to me to talk about the weather rather than talk of people unless it is done behind their back. I imagine such thought came to mind in order to counterbalance admiration I felt for the countryside landscape outside the coach windows.
Beautiful weather, chronic transportation issues. It took over 20 minutes for the coach to move more than 50 meters from its parked space. At Stansted, the driver announced that M25 was closed in the direction we needed to go so we would have to weave through the countryside.
Roads and rails are so unreliable here. It is a big surprise when no problem is encountered in a long trip. I would estimate that M25 to Heathrow is problematic more than 75% of the time in my experience. In past 3 weeks, we suffered through an incident at Finsbury park resulting in 1+ hour delay, a long escalator out of action for 6 months at Pimlico tube station affecting us for 5 days, a train station closure for Liam a couple of days ago and a painfully slow drive through Bow street for Sergio and me. And then there are three out of three problematic trips to Heathrow. Maybe I should start a new blog entitled “On The Road” to detail trials and tribulations of travelling. One thing the UK has over the USA - widespread use of traffic light systems with vehicle detectors.
In the end the coach returned to a sparse M25 (J21) for the final leg of the journey. There was no problem arriving at terminal 5 before appointed time (1:30 PM). One excess weight baggage charge (25 pounds) after rearranging the bags, another Wagamama lunch, several e-mail correspondences, then boarding what appeared to be no more than half-full flight. I switched my seat as soon as possible for more space.
Once again I used westbound transatlantic flight to catch up on some film: Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, The Reader and Bolt – chosen in part for their length. Also about 80 pages of 2666 were devoured during the entire trip. The flight was a little slow not helped by not being able to fly through the NYC airspace. The descent was rather turbulent. The trip was generally a trouble-free.
Ross had suggested writing a book with the blog as base material on the drive back to Cambridge last night. I said immediacy is a problem – although perhaps immediacy is the current trend. I imagine the bigger issue would be interest – there simply are not that many people so interested in dance (or Salsa dance). It would have to be a backdrop rather than a main focus for enough people to be interest. And the writing would have to be pretty darn good too. All of it would take a lot of effort and time – who knows though?
In any case, no more daily Salsa blog. No more entry? - quite possibly since it agrees with my aesthetics. New blog? - to be determined. Certainly no Learning Salsa In DC.
Swan Song
April 19, 2009
The plan crystallized when I received a text from Liam saying that Gaucho’s is fine late in the night. I forwarded the message to Sergio hoping that it would not disrupt his sleep. Past noon, I conferred with both over the phone then made the reservation for three at 7 PM. More time than I had hoped was spent studying the route to St James Square.
I picked up Sergio around 5 PM – slightly behind schedule. The traffic on Bow Street was unusually slow. However we did make it to Gaucho’s Grill Picadilly before appointed time – unlike Liam who apparently had to resort to taxi/bus combo due to a train station closure. In any case no major problems.
Gaucho’s Grill was dark. Aside from actual dark rooms, I don’t think I ever saw any place have less lighting than this place. Of restaurants, it reminded me a little of Hakasan, but this place was much darker. Food was okay but pricey. I may had less complaints than Sergio or Liam, but then again I wasn’t paying.
Liam directed me back to Russell Square area. As we approached the door I was able to hear a version of Camina Prende Y El Fogon unknown to me on the other side. I whispered to Sergio that Sylvester must be the DJ tonight. I was right. It was around 9 when we made our entrance.
Sergio’s assessment was that there were more On2 dancers at SOS compared to last time he was here. He thought the overall level (though not the top level) of people seemed better. This agreed with my opinion more or less although I have been here regularly so the change would not have looked stark.
The most amusing Liam quip of the day was, "You're so lucky," given to a girl he was chatting with when I got around to ask her for a dance. I would say he was considerably less outrageous than usual by past standard.
Like the last time, I think I danced at higher frequency than I had been for past year or so. The dances were up and down in quality early on. I was asked by two different women - one twice with second time seemingly half-expecting me to say no. I admit that I was eyeing who to ask for the next song during this dance.
Next for the last three songs, I picked on some of my favorites - the ones I find attractive and have had some very nice dances with in the past. Second to last song was Blue Mambo. The final song was for the second time tonight with my longest frequent partner at SOS. Thus ended my final SOS outing during my 5.5 years of residence in the United Kingdom.
The plan crystallized when I received a text from Liam saying that Gaucho’s is fine late in the night. I forwarded the message to Sergio hoping that it would not disrupt his sleep. Past noon, I conferred with both over the phone then made the reservation for three at 7 PM. More time than I had hoped was spent studying the route to St James Square.
I picked up Sergio around 5 PM – slightly behind schedule. The traffic on Bow Street was unusually slow. However we did make it to Gaucho’s Grill Picadilly before appointed time – unlike Liam who apparently had to resort to taxi/bus combo due to a train station closure. In any case no major problems.
Gaucho’s Grill was dark. Aside from actual dark rooms, I don’t think I ever saw any place have less lighting than this place. Of restaurants, it reminded me a little of Hakasan, but this place was much darker. Food was okay but pricey. I may had less complaints than Sergio or Liam, but then again I wasn’t paying.
Liam directed me back to Russell Square area. As we approached the door I was able to hear a version of Camina Prende Y El Fogon unknown to me on the other side. I whispered to Sergio that Sylvester must be the DJ tonight. I was right. It was around 9 when we made our entrance.
Sergio’s assessment was that there were more On2 dancers at SOS compared to last time he was here. He thought the overall level (though not the top level) of people seemed better. This agreed with my opinion more or less although I have been here regularly so the change would not have looked stark.
The most amusing Liam quip of the day was, "You're so lucky," given to a girl he was chatting with when I got around to ask her for a dance. I would say he was considerably less outrageous than usual by past standard.
Like the last time, I think I danced at higher frequency than I had been for past year or so. The dances were up and down in quality early on. I was asked by two different women - one twice with second time seemingly half-expecting me to say no. I admit that I was eyeing who to ask for the next song during this dance.
Next for the last three songs, I picked on some of my favorites - the ones I find attractive and have had some very nice dances with in the past. Second to last song was Blue Mambo. The final song was for the second time tonight with my longest frequent partner at SOS. Thus ended my final SOS outing during my 5.5 years of residence in the United Kingdom.
Todo Tiene Su Final
April 17, 2009
With a clearer head and fewer responsibilities, I made it to Sauce shortly after 9:30. I took a quick peek to see if 1 Station Road was open. It wasn’t yet, but there were activities downstairs. The lessons at Sauce was packed and ended shortly after 10. It was too crowded for me to see but the instructors presumably were Dan, Kafe, Jane and Vish. Robin and Raj were there early too.
After sitting out the first song, I decided to pick my partners by personal history. Thus I danced first with Marian, who I think was in my very first Salsa class. Next was Lorraine, who once assisted with Mauricio’s classes. Third was Jane – although by that point Serap had arrived so the theme had become unworkable. As for others, aside from Polly, who arrived much later, I would be hard pressed to decide the order of the dances. So many people have come and gone from the scene (and I don’t think I can be blamed for more than a handful if at all).
I also tried to dance with all of the regular girls there but didn’t quite succeed; I think I managed to ask all but one before they departed though. It took nearly two hours to make the first round.
I thought Vish knew about me not wanting a farewell dance. He didn’t – but this was neither surprising nor upsetting. I would not have picked the song Vish chose – Todo Tiene Su Final (Everything has an end, nothing lasts forever), but in retrospect it was quite apt. In fact, for me I preferred it over every other song Vish played for other people for birthdays and departures.
In the circle for the farewell dance were Abbe, Serap, Jane, Laura, Lorraine, Ania, Shorty, Georgie among others. No one was sure about when to jump in, and I wasn’t particularly sure about when to make the switch. The simplest method was to grab the most convenient person whenever Vish shouted switch. In general I didn’t try to do too much (or at least not overwhelm anyone) while keeping the dance to match the music (probably deluding myself into thinking I’m giving people a lesson in musicality if not fundamentals and philosophies rather than merely countless turn patterns).
Zern showed up near the end – pure coincidence that this was my last Friday in Cambridge and his first in more than 6 months. He stayed long enough for a group photo of last of the stragglers, which included Mark, Polly, Raj, Laura and Vish. Zern went on a chat-fest with big-hand Misty outside the door before the night ended with Mark’s foursome drifting out and in looking into the old venue.
Nothing lasts forever. Soon I’ll be joining likes of Mimis and Cyrilles in the dustbin of Cambridge Salsa history. The vacuum left by my absence will be filled quickly, and new pecking order will be established. New admirations, envies, idiocies, outrages and understandings will replace the old. I thought I saw what was happening and what was going to happen to the scene with some clarity through a thick fog and a laser light show. Does anyone else see with same kaleidoscope eyes?
With a clearer head and fewer responsibilities, I made it to Sauce shortly after 9:30. I took a quick peek to see if 1 Station Road was open. It wasn’t yet, but there were activities downstairs. The lessons at Sauce was packed and ended shortly after 10. It was too crowded for me to see but the instructors presumably were Dan, Kafe, Jane and Vish. Robin and Raj were there early too.
After sitting out the first song, I decided to pick my partners by personal history. Thus I danced first with Marian, who I think was in my very first Salsa class. Next was Lorraine, who once assisted with Mauricio’s classes. Third was Jane – although by that point Serap had arrived so the theme had become unworkable. As for others, aside from Polly, who arrived much later, I would be hard pressed to decide the order of the dances. So many people have come and gone from the scene (and I don’t think I can be blamed for more than a handful if at all).
I also tried to dance with all of the regular girls there but didn’t quite succeed; I think I managed to ask all but one before they departed though. It took nearly two hours to make the first round.
I thought Vish knew about me not wanting a farewell dance. He didn’t – but this was neither surprising nor upsetting. I would not have picked the song Vish chose – Todo Tiene Su Final (Everything has an end, nothing lasts forever), but in retrospect it was quite apt. In fact, for me I preferred it over every other song Vish played for other people for birthdays and departures.
In the circle for the farewell dance were Abbe, Serap, Jane, Laura, Lorraine, Ania, Shorty, Georgie among others. No one was sure about when to jump in, and I wasn’t particularly sure about when to make the switch. The simplest method was to grab the most convenient person whenever Vish shouted switch. In general I didn’t try to do too much (or at least not overwhelm anyone) while keeping the dance to match the music (probably deluding myself into thinking I’m giving people a lesson in musicality if not fundamentals and philosophies rather than merely countless turn patterns).
Zern showed up near the end – pure coincidence that this was my last Friday in Cambridge and his first in more than 6 months. He stayed long enough for a group photo of last of the stragglers, which included Mark, Polly, Raj, Laura and Vish. Zern went on a chat-fest with big-hand Misty outside the door before the night ended with Mark’s foursome drifting out and in looking into the old venue.
Nothing lasts forever. Soon I’ll be joining likes of Mimis and Cyrilles in the dustbin of Cambridge Salsa history. The vacuum left by my absence will be filled quickly, and new pecking order will be established. New admirations, envies, idiocies, outrages and understandings will replace the old. I thought I saw what was happening and what was going to happen to the scene with some clarity through a thick fog and a laser light show. Does anyone else see with same kaleidoscope eyes?
Almost Over
April 14, 2009
12:45 PM train (Thalys) to Amsterdam. I’m going to pretend that I did not visit Amsterdam, however. The only activity achieved was a canal cruise, which left me cold in more than one sense. Dinner at Hotel Ibis.
April 15, 2009
Keukenhof. A quickie one hour walk of Amsterdam never reaching De Wallen. Train to Hoek van Holland Haven. Overnight sailing to Harwich and dinner on Stena Britannica.
April 16, 2009
Breakfast on Stena Britannica. A hang up at customs due to visa issues. Slow train to Cambridge. Drive to and back from Heathrow. Feeling dazed and exhausted but I am not dead. No Salsa for this post. Five more days in the UK to go.
12:45 PM train (Thalys) to Amsterdam. I’m going to pretend that I did not visit Amsterdam, however. The only activity achieved was a canal cruise, which left me cold in more than one sense. Dinner at Hotel Ibis.
April 15, 2009
Keukenhof. A quickie one hour walk of Amsterdam never reaching De Wallen. Train to Hoek van Holland Haven. Overnight sailing to Harwich and dinner on Stena Britannica.
April 16, 2009
Breakfast on Stena Britannica. A hang up at customs due to visa issues. Slow train to Cambridge. Drive to and back from Heathrow. Feeling dazed and exhausted but I am not dead. No Salsa for this post. Five more days in the UK to go.
Decline of the Western Church and A Brief O'Sullivans Sojourn
April 7, 2009
Greenwich. Tate Modern. Evensong at Westminster Abbey. Pork curry.
April 8, 2009
Heathrow airport once again with Picadilly line and District line both impaired. Pasta and Salmon. Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. National Portraits Gallery. National Gallery. Covent Garden (Royal Opera): Dido and Aeneas & Acis and Galatea. Four Seasons for dinner. Not enough time for Bar Salsa.
April 9, 2009
Vauxhall Bridge to House of Parliament. British Museum. Chicken curry. Covent Garden (Royal Ballet): Giselle. Short stroll in Leicester Square.
April 10, 2009
Slow jaunt to Tower Hill via replacement two-decker bus. Tower of London. Bus back to Monument in crawling traffic. Tate Britain. Last dinner in London.
April 11, 2009
6:55 AM Eurostar to Paris. Hotel International near Republique. Stroll to Seine. Centre Pompidou. A short walk along Seine. Metro back to hotel. Dinner at L’Autre Café. What is this talk about shopping and Versailles?
April 12, 2009
Disastrous Gregorian Mass at Notre Dame on Easter Sunday (more on this later). Louvre. Walk to Arch of Triumph in search of open shops of haute couture. Some pizza on Avenue Champ de Elysees for dinner. Eiffel Tower. I couldn’t escape for an outing to Barrio Latino.
April 13, 2009
Boulangerie Kayser. A trip to Versailles where every building seemed closed. d’Orsay too was closed. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc. Perhaps ten minutes of Vespers at Notre Dame. Atelier for dinner. The waiter with a 5-day old son.
Of all places I visited during this trip, the services at Notre Dame have to be considered the biggest disappointment.
I think the services on Easter has to rank as the worst time to visit Notre Dame given the crowding leading to large number of people left to standing or sitting on the ground for up to a little over an hour. As a tourist or as a believer, the experience is likely to be highly unsatisfying.
Vast majority of people attending the mass have very little knowledge of how to act during the mass. Outnumbering the people attending the mass are tourists simply walking around the congregation while taking photographs with flash. During the Vespers service on Monday (when there were more free chairs), the tourists felt free to wander into the area for the congregation for photographs and videos.
At several places during the mass, the leader of the mass was waving his arms to extol the congregation to sing along. Most did not – in part because many people were without appropriate program. I imagine a rather large number of people did not speak French. Personally I felt rather sorry for his difficult task.
By comparison, Anglican services in England are considerably more dignified; I speak from experience in attending evensong at Westminster Abbey and Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. Only people attending the services are allowed in. Even though more than half of the people (and there are not many people) are tourists, everyone is compelled to act respectfully given the solemn setting. I suppose all these churches are in decline, but it seems to me that the English churches are dying with more dignity compared to French churches.
By the time dinner at Atelier was finished and back at the Hotel International, it was already 11; I had hoped for an earlier getaway to O’Sullivans. By the time I arrived it was 11:30 meaning I had barely over one hour if I were to take the Metro back to the hotel. It made for a very abbreviated night out not helped by the fact that I was rather worn out from this long trip. Probably the dancing wasn’t so bad but I did wonder seriously whether I would keep up with Salsa once I am far away from Cambridge and London scene. After all my previous pattern has been to abandon the old and take up something new and unexpected after each of my major moves. Bed around 1 AM.
Greenwich. Tate Modern. Evensong at Westminster Abbey. Pork curry.
April 8, 2009
Heathrow airport once again with Picadilly line and District line both impaired. Pasta and Salmon. Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. National Portraits Gallery. National Gallery. Covent Garden (Royal Opera): Dido and Aeneas & Acis and Galatea. Four Seasons for dinner. Not enough time for Bar Salsa.
April 9, 2009
Vauxhall Bridge to House of Parliament. British Museum. Chicken curry. Covent Garden (Royal Ballet): Giselle. Short stroll in Leicester Square.
April 10, 2009
Slow jaunt to Tower Hill via replacement two-decker bus. Tower of London. Bus back to Monument in crawling traffic. Tate Britain. Last dinner in London.
April 11, 2009
6:55 AM Eurostar to Paris. Hotel International near Republique. Stroll to Seine. Centre Pompidou. A short walk along Seine. Metro back to hotel. Dinner at L’Autre Café. What is this talk about shopping and Versailles?
April 12, 2009
Disastrous Gregorian Mass at Notre Dame on Easter Sunday (more on this later). Louvre. Walk to Arch of Triumph in search of open shops of haute couture. Some pizza on Avenue Champ de Elysees for dinner. Eiffel Tower. I couldn’t escape for an outing to Barrio Latino.
April 13, 2009
Boulangerie Kayser. A trip to Versailles where every building seemed closed. d’Orsay too was closed. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc. Perhaps ten minutes of Vespers at Notre Dame. Atelier for dinner. The waiter with a 5-day old son.
Of all places I visited during this trip, the services at Notre Dame have to be considered the biggest disappointment.
I think the services on Easter has to rank as the worst time to visit Notre Dame given the crowding leading to large number of people left to standing or sitting on the ground for up to a little over an hour. As a tourist or as a believer, the experience is likely to be highly unsatisfying.
Vast majority of people attending the mass have very little knowledge of how to act during the mass. Outnumbering the people attending the mass are tourists simply walking around the congregation while taking photographs with flash. During the Vespers service on Monday (when there were more free chairs), the tourists felt free to wander into the area for the congregation for photographs and videos.
At several places during the mass, the leader of the mass was waving his arms to extol the congregation to sing along. Most did not – in part because many people were without appropriate program. I imagine a rather large number of people did not speak French. Personally I felt rather sorry for his difficult task.
By comparison, Anglican services in England are considerably more dignified; I speak from experience in attending evensong at Westminster Abbey and Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. Only people attending the services are allowed in. Even though more than half of the people (and there are not many people) are tourists, everyone is compelled to act respectfully given the solemn setting. I suppose all these churches are in decline, but it seems to me that the English churches are dying with more dignity compared to French churches.
By the time dinner at Atelier was finished and back at the Hotel International, it was already 11; I had hoped for an earlier getaway to O’Sullivans. By the time I arrived it was 11:30 meaning I had barely over one hour if I were to take the Metro back to the hotel. It made for a very abbreviated night out not helped by the fact that I was rather worn out from this long trip. Probably the dancing wasn’t so bad but I did wonder seriously whether I would keep up with Salsa once I am far away from Cambridge and London scene. After all my previous pattern has been to abandon the old and take up something new and unexpected after each of my major moves. Bed around 1 AM.
Mystery Salsa Blogger Returns to Bar Salsa
April 6, 2009
A morning drive from Bath to Cambridge followed by an afternoon stroll in Cambridge. Train to London Kings Cross was extremely slow due to a supposed fatality at Finsbury Park (I wasn’t able to find any details on the web) so we did not arrive at the St. George’s Square apartment near Pimlico until more than one and half hour after the first estimated time. After wandering about Leicester Square, an awkward dinner at Mr Kong. I was finally more than ready to head to Bar Salsa at 11:30.
Past the turnstiles, I asked the tube attendant how late the trains run. 1 AM was the reply, and I said thanks as I skipped down the stairs (down escalator was undergoing a refurbishment estimated to last nearly 6 months). As I made way there, I decided that I would either try to leave at 12:40 or so or try walking back to determine how long it would take.
Once downstairs, I spotted a bunch of woman I see fairly often (but for the most part don’t dance with) as well as several old-timer leads – some I know a little more than others. Among people I recognized were Andrew, Robin, Shaan, Aiste, Laith and Sleek. I guess Robin must be living in London now if he’s now a regular at both SOS and Bar Salsa? Mario was deejaying all night, and I stopped by to say a brief hello.
I ended up staying until the start of the last song – close to 2 AM. I ended up with a good number of dances. It was fun for the most part. Nevertheless this second trip to Bar Salsa reinforced my impression that it still is less of pure dance venue compared to SOS. By this I mean there is more of a social and flirting element rather than a heavier and exaggerated emphasis on pure technique (although I feel that this description is poorly expressed and very liable for misinterpretation by a bystander and possibly even by me if I were to read this 10-20 years from now).
A few times I managed to end up watching other people dancing, my observation was that most leads here looked considerably sloppier than expected. I thought the musicality was particularly lacking although I better admit that different people may have a very different sense of what to do to achieve better musicality. Even in cases where it seemed like an effort was being made, my estimation was that their conception of musicality was quite different than my sensibilities. Who knows, of course, if my ideas evolve (which it almost certainly will if I keep this up) to match some of the people I saw tonight. Then again, the issue at hand may have more to do with mentality and possibly even technique (with a big caveat that I have no illusion that my technique is any better let alone flawless) rather than in differences in how people hear same music with different ears.
One girl there tonight seemed particularly taken with how I danced with her. Then again I would not be surprised if at least one or two girls were nonplussed about our connection. This is all without taking into account one’s ability to mask disappointment or delight. BO was an issue with at least one person.
The walk from Bar Salsa (north of Leicester Sq) to SGS (east of Pimlico) took about 35 minutes. This includes time spent to consult London AZ, to buy a drink a 24 hour convenience store, and to ask a photographer about a demonstration still going strong next to the Parliament building (near Westminster) – the demonstration was about the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
p.s. Vishal apparently is committing to the Sauce path. Cue music.
A morning drive from Bath to Cambridge followed by an afternoon stroll in Cambridge. Train to London Kings Cross was extremely slow due to a supposed fatality at Finsbury Park (I wasn’t able to find any details on the web) so we did not arrive at the St. George’s Square apartment near Pimlico until more than one and half hour after the first estimated time. After wandering about Leicester Square, an awkward dinner at Mr Kong. I was finally more than ready to head to Bar Salsa at 11:30.
Past the turnstiles, I asked the tube attendant how late the trains run. 1 AM was the reply, and I said thanks as I skipped down the stairs (down escalator was undergoing a refurbishment estimated to last nearly 6 months). As I made way there, I decided that I would either try to leave at 12:40 or so or try walking back to determine how long it would take.
Once downstairs, I spotted a bunch of woman I see fairly often (but for the most part don’t dance with) as well as several old-timer leads – some I know a little more than others. Among people I recognized were Andrew, Robin, Shaan, Aiste, Laith and Sleek. I guess Robin must be living in London now if he’s now a regular at both SOS and Bar Salsa? Mario was deejaying all night, and I stopped by to say a brief hello.
I ended up staying until the start of the last song – close to 2 AM. I ended up with a good number of dances. It was fun for the most part. Nevertheless this second trip to Bar Salsa reinforced my impression that it still is less of pure dance venue compared to SOS. By this I mean there is more of a social and flirting element rather than a heavier and exaggerated emphasis on pure technique (although I feel that this description is poorly expressed and very liable for misinterpretation by a bystander and possibly even by me if I were to read this 10-20 years from now).
A few times I managed to end up watching other people dancing, my observation was that most leads here looked considerably sloppier than expected. I thought the musicality was particularly lacking although I better admit that different people may have a very different sense of what to do to achieve better musicality. Even in cases where it seemed like an effort was being made, my estimation was that their conception of musicality was quite different than my sensibilities. Who knows, of course, if my ideas evolve (which it almost certainly will if I keep this up) to match some of the people I saw tonight. Then again, the issue at hand may have more to do with mentality and possibly even technique (with a big caveat that I have no illusion that my technique is any better let alone flawless) rather than in differences in how people hear same music with different ears.
One girl there tonight seemed particularly taken with how I danced with her. Then again I would not be surprised if at least one or two girls were nonplussed about our connection. This is all without taking into account one’s ability to mask disappointment or delight. BO was an issue with at least one person.
The walk from Bar Salsa (north of Leicester Sq) to SGS (east of Pimlico) took about 35 minutes. This includes time spent to consult London AZ, to buy a drink a 24 hour convenience store, and to ask a photographer about a demonstration still going strong next to the Parliament building (near Westminster) – the demonstration was about the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
p.s. Vishal apparently is committing to the Sauce path. Cue music.
Mystery Salsa Blogger Strikes Bristol
Long weekend based at Bath, UK
April 3, 2009
Two hour to Heathrow. Fifteen minutes wandering in Heathrow. Eton College. Windor Castle. Bibury. Arrival at Bath – Tasburgh Guest House. Wandering down to the canal path at sunset. Dinner at Sala Thai.
I forgot my power cord, so my laptop only has battery power until Monday – starting with less than 80% capacity to begin with. For some reason, internet connection was sporadic at Tasburgh on both April 3 and 4.
April 4, 2009
Roman Baths Museum. Walking in Bath. Stonehenge. Avebury Circle. Castle Combe. Lacock. Dinner at Peking Restaurant in Bath.
Around 9:40, I set forth for Bristol on A4. Bristol is a mere 13 mile or so away from Tasburgh, but the Google map estimated journey time was 30 minutes. No wonder. The route was filled with 30 and 40 mph zones. After two whole days of mistake-free navigation, I got lost twice within 5 minutes after leaving the hotel. Once I arrived at Bristol, it got much worse. It was only around 10:50 that I finally arrived at intended location (I did manage a free parking).
It was just as well that I arrived so late. The venue was called Warehouse, a new venue with a guy going by the name Eldj running the show upstairs for the Salsa crowd. However, I found a sign saying that upstairs Salsa room would open at 11 PM – rather than expected 10 AM. Hmm, maybe I should have taken hint from the Eldj emphasizing that the party ends at 3 AM while glossing over my other inquiries. Downstairs there were perhaps 30 people moving to Merengue and nondescript Latin music – with hardly anyone attempting partnering. At 11:05, the staircase was still blocked with a pair of chairs with the same 11 PM sign still attached to it. I had seen a bunch of people going up and down, so I decided to simply make my way inside.
Hmm. There was no physical barrier between downstairs and upstairs meaning in some areas, one could hear music from both floors. I found total of 9 people upstairs - two girls working at the bar, a pair of girls sitting with drinks – unlikely dancer candidates, a guy and two girls making a trio sitting far from the DJ booth – again very unpromising, and the DJ and a girl chatting with the DJ – the last one seemed the most likely candidate (and proved so later). The first song I was ready for happened to be a Cha so I asked her for a dance. I don’t think Cha On2 was her forte though. After a little thought, I decided to approach the DJ to make a request for a slower paced song for Salsa. I found La Llave (Grupo Latin Vibe) in his collection and decided that it would make for a reasonable re-set. I decided to stick to On1 this time.
For whatever its worth I didn’t bother with On2 all night; I don’t think there were any regular On2 dancers there tonight. I had thought it possible that there could be some On2 crowd based on the fact that Brendan was once based here. Of course one night in one venue cannot define the Bristol scene, and I am fairly sure that Warehouse Saturdays occupies the current hottest Salsa spot in Bristol right now. Also my best guess was that I did not see any local instructor or performer types tonight (but who knows for sure?)
I must say I had begun to worry that no one else with the most basic partner dance experience would show up by the fifth or the sixth song. I had made my second request by then (Soulsa – Estrellas Caiman) thinking that no one else who might care had showed up to that point. I might have come off seeming a little pushy so I decided to back off and left the DJ to his devices. In any case, I imagine he played several more songs picked with me as a likely enthusiastic audience (among other things he played a New Swing Sextet tune from their new album, Night In Tunisia by Sonora Poncena, Clasiqiendo Con Ruben by Afro-Cuban All-Stars) before returning to what I imagine were more in favor with the other locals finally arriving closer to midnight and beyond.
By the time I left around 12:40, the group upstairs had grown to as many a 30 or so. I’m guessing I danced with about 8-10 people for total of around 20 dances or perhaps twice as many as anyone else had danced up to that point. People there seemed to be predominantly Cuban style although I imagine that several of the girls danced slot or linear style with some partners in the past (and possibly one of the lead too except I though I saw him do Cuban at one point also). My initial expectation was low and it had fallen even further after the first 30+ minutes or so. So ending up with as many partners and dances I left the premises content.
I got lost after arriving in Bath after 1 AM. It was considerably simpler to find myself out of the mess, and there was no busy traffic to contend with unlike in Bristol.
April 5, 2009
Loss of water pressure during shower at Tasburgh, which has been a high class hotel slash guesthouse in general. A long day of driving. Dunster Castle. Exmoor (Porlock Weir-Lynmouth-Combe Martin-Ilfracombe). Clovelly. Another dinner at Peking.
I might expand the other travel section at some other point – not sure if I’ll post it in this blog though.
April 3, 2009
Two hour to Heathrow. Fifteen minutes wandering in Heathrow. Eton College. Windor Castle. Bibury. Arrival at Bath – Tasburgh Guest House. Wandering down to the canal path at sunset. Dinner at Sala Thai.
I forgot my power cord, so my laptop only has battery power until Monday – starting with less than 80% capacity to begin with. For some reason, internet connection was sporadic at Tasburgh on both April 3 and 4.
April 4, 2009
Roman Baths Museum. Walking in Bath. Stonehenge. Avebury Circle. Castle Combe. Lacock. Dinner at Peking Restaurant in Bath.
Around 9:40, I set forth for Bristol on A4. Bristol is a mere 13 mile or so away from Tasburgh, but the Google map estimated journey time was 30 minutes. No wonder. The route was filled with 30 and 40 mph zones. After two whole days of mistake-free navigation, I got lost twice within 5 minutes after leaving the hotel. Once I arrived at Bristol, it got much worse. It was only around 10:50 that I finally arrived at intended location (I did manage a free parking).
It was just as well that I arrived so late. The venue was called Warehouse, a new venue with a guy going by the name Eldj running the show upstairs for the Salsa crowd. However, I found a sign saying that upstairs Salsa room would open at 11 PM – rather than expected 10 AM. Hmm, maybe I should have taken hint from the Eldj emphasizing that the party ends at 3 AM while glossing over my other inquiries. Downstairs there were perhaps 30 people moving to Merengue and nondescript Latin music – with hardly anyone attempting partnering. At 11:05, the staircase was still blocked with a pair of chairs with the same 11 PM sign still attached to it. I had seen a bunch of people going up and down, so I decided to simply make my way inside.
Hmm. There was no physical barrier between downstairs and upstairs meaning in some areas, one could hear music from both floors. I found total of 9 people upstairs - two girls working at the bar, a pair of girls sitting with drinks – unlikely dancer candidates, a guy and two girls making a trio sitting far from the DJ booth – again very unpromising, and the DJ and a girl chatting with the DJ – the last one seemed the most likely candidate (and proved so later). The first song I was ready for happened to be a Cha so I asked her for a dance. I don’t think Cha On2 was her forte though. After a little thought, I decided to approach the DJ to make a request for a slower paced song for Salsa. I found La Llave (Grupo Latin Vibe) in his collection and decided that it would make for a reasonable re-set. I decided to stick to On1 this time.
For whatever its worth I didn’t bother with On2 all night; I don’t think there were any regular On2 dancers there tonight. I had thought it possible that there could be some On2 crowd based on the fact that Brendan was once based here. Of course one night in one venue cannot define the Bristol scene, and I am fairly sure that Warehouse Saturdays occupies the current hottest Salsa spot in Bristol right now. Also my best guess was that I did not see any local instructor or performer types tonight (but who knows for sure?)
I must say I had begun to worry that no one else with the most basic partner dance experience would show up by the fifth or the sixth song. I had made my second request by then (Soulsa – Estrellas Caiman) thinking that no one else who might care had showed up to that point. I might have come off seeming a little pushy so I decided to back off and left the DJ to his devices. In any case, I imagine he played several more songs picked with me as a likely enthusiastic audience (among other things he played a New Swing Sextet tune from their new album, Night In Tunisia by Sonora Poncena, Clasiqiendo Con Ruben by Afro-Cuban All-Stars) before returning to what I imagine were more in favor with the other locals finally arriving closer to midnight and beyond.
By the time I left around 12:40, the group upstairs had grown to as many a 30 or so. I’m guessing I danced with about 8-10 people for total of around 20 dances or perhaps twice as many as anyone else had danced up to that point. People there seemed to be predominantly Cuban style although I imagine that several of the girls danced slot or linear style with some partners in the past (and possibly one of the lead too except I though I saw him do Cuban at one point also). My initial expectation was low and it had fallen even further after the first 30+ minutes or so. So ending up with as many partners and dances I left the premises content.
I got lost after arriving in Bath after 1 AM. It was considerably simpler to find myself out of the mess, and there was no busy traffic to contend with unlike in Bristol.
April 5, 2009
Loss of water pressure during shower at Tasburgh, which has been a high class hotel slash guesthouse in general. A long day of driving. Dunster Castle. Exmoor (Porlock Weir-Lynmouth-Combe Martin-Ilfracombe). Clovelly. Another dinner at Peking.
I might expand the other travel section at some other point – not sure if I’ll post it in this blog though.
Salsa and Sauce
April 1, 2009
Club Salsa at Sauce - no joke. That it started on April 1st – priceless. Moving from 1 Station Road to 3 Station Road – sublime. The clincher? At the end of the night, I decided to take a peek at the old venue. Under new management of Mohammed Alabi, it’s reopening as Salsa-Cambridge will be re-opening on Friday 10 April 2009 at 9 PM. I wish all the best to Mohammed, who I feel is one of the nicest guys around in the Cambridge Salsa scene. I suppose he has wanted to run a Salsa club in Nigeria for a long time, so this might help in some ways. That Vish seems to be keeping open the option of running his Club Salsa at Sauce on Fridays rather than at Sorrento Hotel makes for a great deal of intrigue. It might be for the best that I won’t be around to see what happens firsthand – too much comedy.
I arrived at Sauce around 10 – maybe shortly before. I’m guessing the people there were the usual suspects plus some more people appearing to show support. Vish was there when I arrived but left shortly thereafter leaving one of his minions to gather up the old familiar DJ mixer and CD player at the end of the evening. Apparently Nicola is teaching with Cristian and Vish now, which probably explains appearance by Lindsey, Charlotte and Annette. Dan was there without Kafe. There also were a number of people I had not seen much recently – I think some of them had been regulars on Wednesdays, which I had lost track of for quite some time. Shorty and Abbe showed up later in the evening. I also tried to guess which one was the owner of Sauce – the one Vish had talked to me about a good number of times.
I had not expected much dancing, but it went much better than I expected. The party lasted until midnight with Cristian playing short snippets of pop anthems for kicks. The windows were fogged up by the heat generated by people dancing. Most of the people walking by seemed to be Salsa people; I suppose there might be a little more general foot traffic on weekends (this is one possible trump card Sauce has over Sorrento Hotel).
Apparently there is talk of converting the remaining carpeted floor to wood floor (e.g. downstairs and the elevated area on main floor) at the Sauce. I imagine that Sauce had been used to getting a decent number of Salsa dancers stopping by for drinks before, during and after lessons. In any case, the guy I pegged as the owner seemed to be getting a little kick out of hosting the dance party – if nothing else for novelty value. I might add that if there’s another flooding (and if I were a betting man, I would bet on more flooding), it should only affect small downstairs. I know I am biased, but it’s pretty obvious which side will be favored to “win” the latest battle of Salsa nights in Cambridge even with one less ammunition (read me), no?
Club Salsa at Sauce - no joke. That it started on April 1st – priceless. Moving from 1 Station Road to 3 Station Road – sublime. The clincher? At the end of the night, I decided to take a peek at the old venue. Under new management of Mohammed Alabi, it’s reopening as Salsa-Cambridge will be re-opening on Friday 10 April 2009 at 9 PM. I wish all the best to Mohammed, who I feel is one of the nicest guys around in the Cambridge Salsa scene. I suppose he has wanted to run a Salsa club in Nigeria for a long time, so this might help in some ways. That Vish seems to be keeping open the option of running his Club Salsa at Sauce on Fridays rather than at Sorrento Hotel makes for a great deal of intrigue. It might be for the best that I won’t be around to see what happens firsthand – too much comedy.
I arrived at Sauce around 10 – maybe shortly before. I’m guessing the people there were the usual suspects plus some more people appearing to show support. Vish was there when I arrived but left shortly thereafter leaving one of his minions to gather up the old familiar DJ mixer and CD player at the end of the evening. Apparently Nicola is teaching with Cristian and Vish now, which probably explains appearance by Lindsey, Charlotte and Annette. Dan was there without Kafe. There also were a number of people I had not seen much recently – I think some of them had been regulars on Wednesdays, which I had lost track of for quite some time. Shorty and Abbe showed up later in the evening. I also tried to guess which one was the owner of Sauce – the one Vish had talked to me about a good number of times.
I had not expected much dancing, but it went much better than I expected. The party lasted until midnight with Cristian playing short snippets of pop anthems for kicks. The windows were fogged up by the heat generated by people dancing. Most of the people walking by seemed to be Salsa people; I suppose there might be a little more general foot traffic on weekends (this is one possible trump card Sauce has over Sorrento Hotel).
Apparently there is talk of converting the remaining carpeted floor to wood floor (e.g. downstairs and the elevated area on main floor) at the Sauce. I imagine that Sauce had been used to getting a decent number of Salsa dancers stopping by for drinks before, during and after lessons. In any case, the guy I pegged as the owner seemed to be getting a little kick out of hosting the dance party – if nothing else for novelty value. I might add that if there’s another flooding (and if I were a betting man, I would bet on more flooding), it should only affect small downstairs. I know I am biased, but it’s pretty obvious which side will be favored to “win” the latest battle of Salsa nights in Cambridge even with one less ammunition (read me), no?
Home Away From Home
March 29, 2009
I was groaning and moaning in disgust as I finally made it to bed closer to 4 than 3. What an unfortunate time for the daylight saving hour to begin. Not that I would have liked it to start next week or the week after it. Perhaps two weeks ago would have worked nicely. Personally I could do without it – just stick to one time or the other.
It was a struggle to get up shortly after 9 to head back to work where the one final Sunday morning experiment in the UK waited. This was an intense session – hardly any time for a break even for short lunch. When I was finally ready to go, it was past 7 meaning taking the train option was no good. In any case, I felt I needed to come back after dancing anyway so I drove.
Traffic was light. I made the trip in what may have been a personal best time. I’ll take favors from Tyche wherever I can get. After another fish and chips (I think the fish that melts in your mouth from the Café Valencia before SOS outings is one of things I’ll definitely miss about the UK – their chips are nothing to write home about though), I was ready to go.
The queue at the SOS was again very slow moving. I have no idea why it takes some people so long to pay to get in. The social seemed to have just started, and the DJ had put on Babarabatiri by Willie Rosario. As the queue finally started moving after whoever was causing the bottleneck had disappeared, I took a peek at the DJ booth and was surprised and pleased to see Sean there.
It was as if the madmen have taken over the asylum. There had been some rumblings about the choice of music at SOS for a long time (make it a constant steady stream of complaints), and this seemed to mark a dancer deciding to take over. This meant I was able to recognize somewhere between half to three quarters of the songs getting played. Later in the evening another dancer I have seen for a while (named James) took over. Tamambo dubbed them WBE (White Boys Entertainment). There also was a live Conga player.
The songs they played included La Ley Del Guaguanco (or similar by Tito Rodriguez), Cuando Te Vea (Tito Puente), Rebelion (I think it was Joe Arroyo), Brujeria (Mark Dimond), No Critiques (twice! Manny Oquendo), Arinanara (Eddie Torres Mambo Kings Orch), Cinturita (Eddie Palmieri), Lluvia Con Nieve (Mon Rivera), La Palomilla (Joe Cuba), Siguelo (which version? – seemed pretty close to Javier Vazquez), an unknown Charanga version of Bilongo (?), Bomba Carambomba (Sonora Poncena), Bajo Con Tumbao (Eddie Palmieri). There’s more … I’m fairly sure there was a SHO? Noche De Salsa (or something similar sounding)? Never mind familiar sounding songs with titles I don’t know.
At one stretch, I thought I was back in Cambridge listening to a combination of Sally and Vish of old (for Vish when he was playing for the LA-crowd) and said so to Liam. It also made me wonder how much variety could be expected with multiple DJ sessions from them given so many of the songs played seemed to be from the best of the UK favorites. In any case, it meant that I was dancing more than my usual share by my recent SOS standard. I suppose that now matters to me more than the future – given I don’t expect much of one for me personally given my impending move.
It was one of the more fun SOS nights ever with many highlights.
After one dance (it might have been a Cha Cha – possibly with Helen), I heard the start of No Critiques and saw Miriam right in front of me unoccupied. I was like what the heck and decided to ask her for a dance – I think this was my only second time ever even though I’ve been coming to SOS for more than 4 years (and I imagine I was a familiar face for at minimum 2 years for her). The dance was going okay although I never had the illusion that I was giving her the best dance of her life. Then it was time for a long section ripe for shines. She was doing set shines (and she has tons of those) but certainly not in a set sequence while I was just moving to the music while also trying to blend with what she was doing and somehow keeping up. It was quite challenging and I frankly was feeling rather outclassed in many ways and perhaps looking a little awed. But the music really dictated that the shine section be continued – so I did. And it went on and on and on. It was fun but hard. I probably would have simply chalked it up to experience except she thanked me at the end smiling and saying it was lovely or something like it. Alright! I’ve arrived! I’ll gladly drink that ego-booster. Again I have no illusion that it was the best dance of night for her but it was certainly at minimum a sign not to wait for another six months before asking her again. Too bad I’m leaving soon (or maybe it’s great to leave on a high note).
Heck ego-boosting compliment aside, I think there were quite a number of dances I enjoyed as much and possibly more tonight as the one with Miriam. (Frankly I don't have energy to dance like that for more than a few songs a night before needing a long break.) This time I had about the same number of really good dances with On1 and On2. For whatever its worth I think I tried lead more than my usual share of irregular improvised moves for SOS. (One of which did not work well with multiple attempts with multiple partners – I usually don’t continue with things that don’t work and I am not sure why I kept it up. If I remember correctly, I tried it first with Miriam with poor success so I probably wasn’t leading it well. It really makes me wonder what I was thinking. Answer: I wasn’t doing it deliberately.)
One of the thanks I received was in French. Hmm. A non-English speaking Frenchwoman visiting England for Salsa? It seems unlikely. Or simply saying merci automatically out of habit or out of oxygen? (After all, I probably was saying thank you rather than merci most of the time after the dances when I was visiting Paris.) Possibly consciously declaring her foreign-ness or superiority of the French language, etc?
I was soaking wet within the first hour. Usually I avoid that until the last 30 minutes or so. Good times. I’m going to miss SOS too. Despite it being outside Cambridge, it often felt more like my Salsa home than any other place. Maybe other socials (e.g. Jimmy’s) will eclipse it in my estimation one of these days. Maybe not. I don’t know how future will turn out.
One thing for certain – the next one (April 19) will be my last one as an English resident (and possibly for good). Liam suggested dinner beforehand. I’ll check with Sergio too. Maybe others will ask to join. Who knows?
In the end, I went back to work. Until 2 AM this time. Two more official work days to go – then I’ll have time for things like haircut.
I was groaning and moaning in disgust as I finally made it to bed closer to 4 than 3. What an unfortunate time for the daylight saving hour to begin. Not that I would have liked it to start next week or the week after it. Perhaps two weeks ago would have worked nicely. Personally I could do without it – just stick to one time or the other.
It was a struggle to get up shortly after 9 to head back to work where the one final Sunday morning experiment in the UK waited. This was an intense session – hardly any time for a break even for short lunch. When I was finally ready to go, it was past 7 meaning taking the train option was no good. In any case, I felt I needed to come back after dancing anyway so I drove.
Traffic was light. I made the trip in what may have been a personal best time. I’ll take favors from Tyche wherever I can get. After another fish and chips (I think the fish that melts in your mouth from the Café Valencia before SOS outings is one of things I’ll definitely miss about the UK – their chips are nothing to write home about though), I was ready to go.
The queue at the SOS was again very slow moving. I have no idea why it takes some people so long to pay to get in. The social seemed to have just started, and the DJ had put on Babarabatiri by Willie Rosario. As the queue finally started moving after whoever was causing the bottleneck had disappeared, I took a peek at the DJ booth and was surprised and pleased to see Sean there.
It was as if the madmen have taken over the asylum. There had been some rumblings about the choice of music at SOS for a long time (make it a constant steady stream of complaints), and this seemed to mark a dancer deciding to take over. This meant I was able to recognize somewhere between half to three quarters of the songs getting played. Later in the evening another dancer I have seen for a while (named James) took over. Tamambo dubbed them WBE (White Boys Entertainment). There also was a live Conga player.
The songs they played included La Ley Del Guaguanco (or similar by Tito Rodriguez), Cuando Te Vea (Tito Puente), Rebelion (I think it was Joe Arroyo), Brujeria (Mark Dimond), No Critiques (twice! Manny Oquendo), Arinanara (Eddie Torres Mambo Kings Orch), Cinturita (Eddie Palmieri), Lluvia Con Nieve (Mon Rivera), La Palomilla (Joe Cuba), Siguelo (which version? – seemed pretty close to Javier Vazquez), an unknown Charanga version of Bilongo (?), Bomba Carambomba (Sonora Poncena), Bajo Con Tumbao (Eddie Palmieri). There’s more … I’m fairly sure there was a SHO? Noche De Salsa (or something similar sounding)? Never mind familiar sounding songs with titles I don’t know.
At one stretch, I thought I was back in Cambridge listening to a combination of Sally and Vish of old (for Vish when he was playing for the LA-crowd) and said so to Liam. It also made me wonder how much variety could be expected with multiple DJ sessions from them given so many of the songs played seemed to be from the best of the UK favorites. In any case, it meant that I was dancing more than my usual share by my recent SOS standard. I suppose that now matters to me more than the future – given I don’t expect much of one for me personally given my impending move.
It was one of the more fun SOS nights ever with many highlights.
After one dance (it might have been a Cha Cha – possibly with Helen), I heard the start of No Critiques and saw Miriam right in front of me unoccupied. I was like what the heck and decided to ask her for a dance – I think this was my only second time ever even though I’ve been coming to SOS for more than 4 years (and I imagine I was a familiar face for at minimum 2 years for her). The dance was going okay although I never had the illusion that I was giving her the best dance of her life. Then it was time for a long section ripe for shines. She was doing set shines (and she has tons of those) but certainly not in a set sequence while I was just moving to the music while also trying to blend with what she was doing and somehow keeping up. It was quite challenging and I frankly was feeling rather outclassed in many ways and perhaps looking a little awed. But the music really dictated that the shine section be continued – so I did. And it went on and on and on. It was fun but hard. I probably would have simply chalked it up to experience except she thanked me at the end smiling and saying it was lovely or something like it. Alright! I’ve arrived! I’ll gladly drink that ego-booster. Again I have no illusion that it was the best dance of night for her but it was certainly at minimum a sign not to wait for another six months before asking her again. Too bad I’m leaving soon (or maybe it’s great to leave on a high note).
Heck ego-boosting compliment aside, I think there were quite a number of dances I enjoyed as much and possibly more tonight as the one with Miriam. (Frankly I don't have energy to dance like that for more than a few songs a night before needing a long break.) This time I had about the same number of really good dances with On1 and On2. For whatever its worth I think I tried lead more than my usual share of irregular improvised moves for SOS. (One of which did not work well with multiple attempts with multiple partners – I usually don’t continue with things that don’t work and I am not sure why I kept it up. If I remember correctly, I tried it first with Miriam with poor success so I probably wasn’t leading it well. It really makes me wonder what I was thinking. Answer: I wasn’t doing it deliberately.)
One of the thanks I received was in French. Hmm. A non-English speaking Frenchwoman visiting England for Salsa? It seems unlikely. Or simply saying merci automatically out of habit or out of oxygen? (After all, I probably was saying thank you rather than merci most of the time after the dances when I was visiting Paris.) Possibly consciously declaring her foreign-ness or superiority of the French language, etc?
I was soaking wet within the first hour. Usually I avoid that until the last 30 minutes or so. Good times. I’m going to miss SOS too. Despite it being outside Cambridge, it often felt more like my Salsa home than any other place. Maybe other socials (e.g. Jimmy’s) will eclipse it in my estimation one of these days. Maybe not. I don’t know how future will turn out.
One thing for certain – the next one (April 19) will be my last one as an English resident (and possibly for good). Liam suggested dinner beforehand. I’ll check with Sergio too. Maybe others will ask to join. Who knows?
In the end, I went back to work. Until 2 AM this time. Two more official work days to go – then I’ll have time for things like haircut.
I’m a stranger here myself
March 27, 2009
Mari (or was it Sam?) asked me if I was going to miss Cambridge. Not going by past history. I imagine I will think about some people from time to time, and I expect I will remember many people if I run into them again. Aside from some people (many already gone) and being able to visit other parts of Europe with relative ease, I probably will miss the sunsets well past 9 PM in June.
I wonder why I told Jo that I won’t be in early in the morning. I had forgotten that the Friday nights no longer last until 2 in the morning. Just trying to get whatever that can be done would and should keep me occupied until the very last minute. Even tonight it took an effort to get to the new venue by shortly after 10.
By the time I arrived Kafe was acting as the DJ. No sign of Joe. Vish is away in Lithuania once again – he had asked me not to mention it in advance. The music felt mostly Saturday type with a smattering of classics. For most part I would guess that the kind of music Kafe finds exciting only has a small overlap right now. It was pretty cool seeing Cumbia danced in what I imagined was traditional way – as opposed to dancing Salsa to Cumbia.
I continued down the path of distancing myself from the scene. It has been going on for more than a year. A year ago, I thought I was going to be leaving in 6 months. At no times since then did I ever think that I would be here for more than 9 months. Thus there had been very little incentive for me to make new friends while old friends moved away or drifted away from the scene here. I think I have done an excellent job at becoming a stranger here.
It should be interesting to see how things go back in the States. Would I keeping going out Salsa dancing? Would not having a daily Salsa blog lead me to become less interested in it? I would imagine that I wouldn’t have the reason to think about it when not dancing. It should be liberating in some sense not to have to worry about people getting offended by whatever I write – Rich was giving me unnecessary advice and could have saved himself a lot of time writing had he known about the future of the blog as I outlined in the Resolution Jam post (well – maybe he derived pleasure writing all that stuff).
What about Club Salsa? Is Sauce the future of Club Salsa? Apparently the Monday and Wednesday classes will be held at Sauce. It’s beautiful. It’s such a minimal move – just next door to the old location. Wednesday classes and party will start on April 1st – no joke. Heck, even next Friday’s party will be at Sauce rather than Sorrento Hotel due to availability. Mondays at Sauce start on April 6. Hilarious.
There is one more Cambridge post to go for April 17 (unless I end up at the Sauce on April Fools). Exit stage left.
Mari (or was it Sam?) asked me if I was going to miss Cambridge. Not going by past history. I imagine I will think about some people from time to time, and I expect I will remember many people if I run into them again. Aside from some people (many already gone) and being able to visit other parts of Europe with relative ease, I probably will miss the sunsets well past 9 PM in June.
I wonder why I told Jo that I won’t be in early in the morning. I had forgotten that the Friday nights no longer last until 2 in the morning. Just trying to get whatever that can be done would and should keep me occupied until the very last minute. Even tonight it took an effort to get to the new venue by shortly after 10.
By the time I arrived Kafe was acting as the DJ. No sign of Joe. Vish is away in Lithuania once again – he had asked me not to mention it in advance. The music felt mostly Saturday type with a smattering of classics. For most part I would guess that the kind of music Kafe finds exciting only has a small overlap right now. It was pretty cool seeing Cumbia danced in what I imagined was traditional way – as opposed to dancing Salsa to Cumbia.
I continued down the path of distancing myself from the scene. It has been going on for more than a year. A year ago, I thought I was going to be leaving in 6 months. At no times since then did I ever think that I would be here for more than 9 months. Thus there had been very little incentive for me to make new friends while old friends moved away or drifted away from the scene here. I think I have done an excellent job at becoming a stranger here.
It should be interesting to see how things go back in the States. Would I keeping going out Salsa dancing? Would not having a daily Salsa blog lead me to become less interested in it? I would imagine that I wouldn’t have the reason to think about it when not dancing. It should be liberating in some sense not to have to worry about people getting offended by whatever I write – Rich was giving me unnecessary advice and could have saved himself a lot of time writing had he known about the future of the blog as I outlined in the Resolution Jam post (well – maybe he derived pleasure writing all that stuff).
What about Club Salsa? Is Sauce the future of Club Salsa? Apparently the Monday and Wednesday classes will be held at Sauce. It’s beautiful. It’s such a minimal move – just next door to the old location. Wednesday classes and party will start on April 1st – no joke. Heck, even next Friday’s party will be at Sauce rather than Sorrento Hotel due to availability. Mondays at Sauce start on April 6. Hilarious.
There is one more Cambridge post to go for April 17 (unless I end up at the Sauce on April Fools). Exit stage left.
Club Salsa at Sorrento Hotel
March 21, 2009
Until Vish sent me an e-mail saying he would be okay with the music-wise tonight, I was under the impression that today was a Thursday. This makes sense taking into consideration that I thought yesterday was Wednesday. There have been countless times when I couldn’t remember whatever the date I was living in, but mistaking days of the week was something new.
Why should it matter? Isn’t every day like another just as any date is like another? Not quite. I go out Salsa dancing on Fridays like clockwork when I’m in Cambridge. It used to be Fridays and Thursdays. Before that it was Fridays, Thursdays and Mondays. Sometimes Sundays – usually to London. Occasionally Wednesdays or Saturdays. Rarely Tuesdays. Maybe it happened because I didn’t go out dancing last Friday?
Anyhow this mistake threw a monkey wrench into my plan for the day. I picked the clothes in the morning thinking it was Thursday. I planned my work for today yesterday night (feeling harried) thinking that today was Thursday. I considered my chores (when to go buy groceries, gasoline, what’s for dinner) with the idea that I would be going out dancing tomorrow night, not tonight. I waited on mentioning a new interesting result to Derek until he left early for the weekend.
I didn’t change a thing.
After a couple of road works and wrong turns, I drove into the Hotel Sorrento car park. It was bigger than I expected but tight in space nevertheless. It was past 10 PM. Vish exclaimed that I was late in arriving when he saw me coming in through the hotel reception door. I guess they were serious about trying to start the lessons at 7 (and finishing at 9 … although no doubt there were some delays). In any case the social must have been going on for at least a little while because the showcase started about 3 songs after my arrival.
I had not had a single dance when the lights came on the showcase (Miguel and Mayana barefooted to old time music). I was preoccupied checking out the new digs. White tile floor. Lots of brick columns and arches. Compared to the 1 Station Road, the venue was airy, spacious and highly presentable when the lights were on. The speaker and DJ mixer looked unfamiliar. Sound quality seemed decent enough – at least at the volume used tonight, there were no shrill moments one got from time to time at the old location.
Will people miss the old grungy venue? I imagine some will have fond memories of it – flooded floors, blown circuits, floor of glue-like stickiness one minute and ice-rink slipperiness another and more. I suppose the foot traffic between the train station and town centre and maybe a somewhat more central location might be missed too. Anyhow the past is behind us to be buried and forgotten, and this is the future.
I guess I had a little over 90 minutes of dancing – one of the announcements before the showcase was that the party will end at midnight and also that they applied for a license to play music beyond midnight. The turnout for the launch was quite good so it meant I had to try to pack a lot of dancing into a short time. Dan mentioned that he never saw me looking damp at CS. I suppose he might be right – although I thought I danced quite a bit last time or not so long ago on the night when I did not act as a DJ.
Lotsa old faces. Sebastian and Katya were visiting from Switzerland/France, which brought out her close friends all together as well. Sally, Lindsey and Nicola visited. Polly was there – I think I got her on the verge of mental breakdown on the dance floor a couple of times (some bystanders seemed to enjoy the dance though). Johnny. Serap. Rajiv. Mark. No Haihan. The last dance was with Abbe.
Early end to the evening apparently left too much unspent energy for many. I hung around joining the stragglers reluctant to go home so early. I ended up joining Vish and a large group for an after-party outing to the Fez Club – apparently a possible landing spot for the next CSE night. Vish directed me through a maze of streets to end up parking at Market Square (not sure but I may know a less confusing route). In any case, it kept me up until past 2.
Until Vish sent me an e-mail saying he would be okay with the music-wise tonight, I was under the impression that today was a Thursday. This makes sense taking into consideration that I thought yesterday was Wednesday. There have been countless times when I couldn’t remember whatever the date I was living in, but mistaking days of the week was something new.
Why should it matter? Isn’t every day like another just as any date is like another? Not quite. I go out Salsa dancing on Fridays like clockwork when I’m in Cambridge. It used to be Fridays and Thursdays. Before that it was Fridays, Thursdays and Mondays. Sometimes Sundays – usually to London. Occasionally Wednesdays or Saturdays. Rarely Tuesdays. Maybe it happened because I didn’t go out dancing last Friday?
Anyhow this mistake threw a monkey wrench into my plan for the day. I picked the clothes in the morning thinking it was Thursday. I planned my work for today yesterday night (feeling harried) thinking that today was Thursday. I considered my chores (when to go buy groceries, gasoline, what’s for dinner) with the idea that I would be going out dancing tomorrow night, not tonight. I waited on mentioning a new interesting result to Derek until he left early for the weekend.
I didn’t change a thing.
After a couple of road works and wrong turns, I drove into the Hotel Sorrento car park. It was bigger than I expected but tight in space nevertheless. It was past 10 PM. Vish exclaimed that I was late in arriving when he saw me coming in through the hotel reception door. I guess they were serious about trying to start the lessons at 7 (and finishing at 9 … although no doubt there were some delays). In any case the social must have been going on for at least a little while because the showcase started about 3 songs after my arrival.
I had not had a single dance when the lights came on the showcase (Miguel and Mayana barefooted to old time music). I was preoccupied checking out the new digs. White tile floor. Lots of brick columns and arches. Compared to the 1 Station Road, the venue was airy, spacious and highly presentable when the lights were on. The speaker and DJ mixer looked unfamiliar. Sound quality seemed decent enough – at least at the volume used tonight, there were no shrill moments one got from time to time at the old location.
Will people miss the old grungy venue? I imagine some will have fond memories of it – flooded floors, blown circuits, floor of glue-like stickiness one minute and ice-rink slipperiness another and more. I suppose the foot traffic between the train station and town centre and maybe a somewhat more central location might be missed too. Anyhow the past is behind us to be buried and forgotten, and this is the future.
I guess I had a little over 90 minutes of dancing – one of the announcements before the showcase was that the party will end at midnight and also that they applied for a license to play music beyond midnight. The turnout for the launch was quite good so it meant I had to try to pack a lot of dancing into a short time. Dan mentioned that he never saw me looking damp at CS. I suppose he might be right – although I thought I danced quite a bit last time or not so long ago on the night when I did not act as a DJ.
Lotsa old faces. Sebastian and Katya were visiting from Switzerland/France, which brought out her close friends all together as well. Sally, Lindsey and Nicola visited. Polly was there – I think I got her on the verge of mental breakdown on the dance floor a couple of times (some bystanders seemed to enjoy the dance though). Johnny. Serap. Rajiv. Mark. No Haihan. The last dance was with Abbe.
Early end to the evening apparently left too much unspent energy for many. I hung around joining the stragglers reluctant to go home so early. I ended up joining Vish and a large group for an after-party outing to the Fez Club – apparently a possible landing spot for the next CSE night. Vish directed me through a maze of streets to end up parking at Market Square (not sure but I may know a less confusing route). In any case, it kept me up until past 2.
Like A Clockwork
March 15, 2009
Predictable, no? High probability became certainty with nothing on Friday. The only question was whether it was going to be three weeks in a row with a prospect of nothing happening in Cambridge. Now that it does not look like it will be nothing, possibility of such extreme action has diminished.
Train schedule? Awful. I did not check until around 4, so I did not know that I would be driving until then. Traffic was heavy but without congestion. Still the driving on M11 was a bit tense possibly made more so by the choice of music – A Gozar! Latin Grooves on Blue Note.
The usual routine. Fish and chips. No Tartar sauce tonight. A book this time – I’m still reading The Savage Detectives when I find time. Visit washroom for contact lens. Queue to pay 6 pound for entry while waiting for others looking for their student ID etc as the class wound down. Change shoes. Get up and walk around checking out the dancers before plunging in.
It was the same new DJ playing fine music as he did last month. If there was slowing down of music at any time, I did not notice it. I think some of the songs played included Ritmo Sabroso (Alfredo De La Fe & Fruko), Chango Ta Veni (German Villarreal), Mambo Is Here to Stay (Latin Giants of Jazz), Los Rumberos (Mark Dimond & Frankie Dante), Samba Malando (Felix Martinez – probably Duste remix), something by Tito Rodriguez from the El Doctor album.
I think I had about five really enjoyable On2 dances and maybe two quality On1 dances. Total number was about the same between the two. Several On1 were with beginners without good sense of timing and/or without clear stepping to the beats. I still don’t buy the argument that On2 is inherently better than On1 – I think the bigger factor is that a more experienced follower is more likely to be able to dance to either timing.
There were fewer people of the type I have been dancing regularly – whatever is meant by regularly. This meant I danced with several people I ask infrequently despite knowing their faces quite well; I started this after getting frustrated with a few too many unsteady or too-easily-confused partners. However dancing with such infrequent partners was not a problem at all, and all such dances seemed to go quite swimmingly. One even gave me a little applause at the end. On the other hand, there was another person who I did not know well but seemed to remember me as someone who she had a lot of difficulty following; she was the second person who made such comment to me this year. I guess I was that memorably bad! As for me, it must have been nothing remarkable because in both cases I did not remember dancing with them before.
Liam was there. He knew about the Club Salsa closing. Word travels fast. He told me to let him know next time I plan to go to SOS. He also raved about Watchmen. I told him that I found SOS underwhelming, but most of my better dances came after making that comment. My best guess is two weeks from now – meaning two more SOS trips before moving back to the States.
Predictable, no? High probability became certainty with nothing on Friday. The only question was whether it was going to be three weeks in a row with a prospect of nothing happening in Cambridge. Now that it does not look like it will be nothing, possibility of such extreme action has diminished.
Train schedule? Awful. I did not check until around 4, so I did not know that I would be driving until then. Traffic was heavy but without congestion. Still the driving on M11 was a bit tense possibly made more so by the choice of music – A Gozar! Latin Grooves on Blue Note.
The usual routine. Fish and chips. No Tartar sauce tonight. A book this time – I’m still reading The Savage Detectives when I find time. Visit washroom for contact lens. Queue to pay 6 pound for entry while waiting for others looking for their student ID etc as the class wound down. Change shoes. Get up and walk around checking out the dancers before plunging in.
It was the same new DJ playing fine music as he did last month. If there was slowing down of music at any time, I did not notice it. I think some of the songs played included Ritmo Sabroso (Alfredo De La Fe & Fruko), Chango Ta Veni (German Villarreal), Mambo Is Here to Stay (Latin Giants of Jazz), Los Rumberos (Mark Dimond & Frankie Dante), Samba Malando (Felix Martinez – probably Duste remix), something by Tito Rodriguez from the El Doctor album.
I think I had about five really enjoyable On2 dances and maybe two quality On1 dances. Total number was about the same between the two. Several On1 were with beginners without good sense of timing and/or without clear stepping to the beats. I still don’t buy the argument that On2 is inherently better than On1 – I think the bigger factor is that a more experienced follower is more likely to be able to dance to either timing.
There were fewer people of the type I have been dancing regularly – whatever is meant by regularly. This meant I danced with several people I ask infrequently despite knowing their faces quite well; I started this after getting frustrated with a few too many unsteady or too-easily-confused partners. However dancing with such infrequent partners was not a problem at all, and all such dances seemed to go quite swimmingly. One even gave me a little applause at the end. On the other hand, there was another person who I did not know well but seemed to remember me as someone who she had a lot of difficulty following; she was the second person who made such comment to me this year. I guess I was that memorably bad! As for me, it must have been nothing remarkable because in both cases I did not remember dancing with them before.
Liam was there. He knew about the Club Salsa closing. Word travels fast. He told me to let him know next time I plan to go to SOS. He also raved about Watchmen. I told him that I found SOS underwhelming, but most of my better dances came after making that comment. My best guess is two weeks from now – meaning two more SOS trips before moving back to the States.
Club Salsa Is Dead, Long Live Club Salsa?
March 13, 2009
I was expecting it (just imagine Cambridge is Manhattan) - heck I could even claim to have argued for it in my conversation with Vish, but it still came as a surprise to me.
Of course it is a surprise if I make the usual drive with no notion of anything being amiss only to see a closed door and no sign of life. On a window next to the door was a sign - Due to change in management Club Salsa is closed - or something like that.
A brief lookaround showed that the signage above was changed - electric sign was replaced with a banner. All the photos facing the outside window was gone. I would guess that the sound system was largely gone inside.
At least it gave me time to do grocery shopping and then do some cleaning (actually more organizing than cleaning) at home.
Obviously I don't have the first-hand information on what's going on, but this is what one can find out from the clubsalsa.co.uk website (which Vish still owns) and JC's Salsa/Tango Cambridge website or by the usual suspect Facebook wall posts.
Vishal's Club Salsa Friday is moving to Sorrento Hotel for now starting next week. The weekender appears to be on - more news to appear at the Club Salsa website later. The classes on Mondays, Wednesday, Thursdays and Saturdays are in limbo.
What about the old Club Salsa? Who knows? Maybe it'll stay a Salsa club run by someone else. Maybe not. Maybe I'm being flippant, but I have very little stake in this matter.
[Updates. The weekender is truncated. Friday showcase is on, but Saturday and Sunday events are cancelled. Also the Wednesday team may be looking for a new venue in consultation with Vish.]
I was expecting it (just imagine Cambridge is Manhattan) - heck I could even claim to have argued for it in my conversation with Vish, but it still came as a surprise to me.
Of course it is a surprise if I make the usual drive with no notion of anything being amiss only to see a closed door and no sign of life. On a window next to the door was a sign - Due to change in management Club Salsa is closed - or something like that.
A brief lookaround showed that the signage above was changed - electric sign was replaced with a banner. All the photos facing the outside window was gone. I would guess that the sound system was largely gone inside.
At least it gave me time to do grocery shopping and then do some cleaning (actually more organizing than cleaning) at home.
Obviously I don't have the first-hand information on what's going on, but this is what one can find out from the clubsalsa.co.uk website (which Vish still owns) and JC's Salsa/Tango Cambridge website or by the usual suspect Facebook wall posts.
Vishal's Club Salsa Friday is moving to Sorrento Hotel for now starting next week. The weekender appears to be on - more news to appear at the Club Salsa website later. The classes on Mondays, Wednesday, Thursdays and Saturdays are in limbo.
What about the old Club Salsa? Who knows? Maybe it'll stay a Salsa club run by someone else. Maybe not. Maybe I'm being flippant, but I have very little stake in this matter.
[Updates. The weekender is truncated. Friday showcase is on, but Saturday and Sunday events are cancelled. Also the Wednesday team may be looking for a new venue in consultation with Vish.]
Time Enough For Little
March 6, 2009
I had considered another fictional job with a different narrator – again along the lines of the middle section of The Savage Detectives. In fact I had written several paragraphs with large number of invented names. This had been done on the train ride to Paris last weekend. I even made a grand plan to make all of the remaining Cambridge posts in the same manner all with new narrators for different posts. Then it all fizzled. The interest and time went away – more importantly the time. Also I became unsure of the character motivations as well. It is shelved for now.
A standard abbreviated post instead then. It felt like an abbreviated night anyway despite being there from 10 to beyond 2 and despite it being fairly busy. I came close to breaking a sweat only once all night – Bilongo with Jane. My impression was that it was more work than fun for her – in retrospect I completely botched the first third of the song. For other dances there wasn’t much to botch, and I could have recited a mantra, “keep it simple, don’t make it overwhelming …”
Sam made it once again. I thought I saw her early, but she said she arrived late. She definitely stayed late. A belated start on a new-year resolution she said. Once again she looked strikingly happy dancing – dancing a lot more and with more people than the Sam I remembered of yesteryear. About the only thing that did not change was the controlling personality displayed tonight in the form of coming up with many song requests. I don’t think I can stay annoyed with her for very long.
Anette was there also for the first time in about 8 months, another nice blast from the past. Ditto Cambiz. The Royston trio was there, but only Steve stayed until very late. No Johnny. No Serap. Haihan was there but did not dance much. I can’t say that I was surprised or that I don’t understand it. No Steph. A personal favorite move by Mark was a perfectly apt side-to-side step. Vishal once again acted as the DJ for a fairly long time, which made perfect sense in preparing for the life without me. NYC Salsa CD was heavily used once again (Todo Tiene Su Final, Nina Y Senora, Bilongo, Presidente Dante, others?).
Playlist
Aquel Cantor – Erick*
Que Traigo Es Sabroso – Eddie Torres Mambo Kings Orchestra*
Sin Ti Moriria – Domenic Marte* (1)
Como Quiera – Jose Alberto “El Canario”*
La Cura – Frankie Ruiz (2)
La Muerte – El Gran Combo
Castigala – Los Nemus Del Pacifico* (3)
(v) Suavemente – Elvis Crespo (4)
Te Extrano – Extreme (5)
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (old vibe version sans vocals)
Los Caminos De La Vida – Ismael Miranda & Junior Gonzalez
La Llave – Grupo Latin Vibe
Mira Ven Aca – Johnny Colon (6)
(1) First of Sam’s request. Presumably she asked Vish too.
(2) Sam makes another request. I made her dance with me.
(3) It is rather silly to call this new given how often Vish had played this song.
(4) Oft repeated request requiring borrowing one of Vishal’s CD.
(5) This was Sam’s second request. I didn‘t know the third song she (and Mark) was looking for (Vea?).
(6) I had been wondering if I could keep Mark and Sam on the dance floor for the next song as well for five songs in a row - success. In fact many of the remaining people dancing stayed through this end sequence. This song was started shortly after 2 AM, and Vishal closed it with Lamento Boliviano.
Total = 13 songs. 1 Merengue (Vishal’s), 2 Bachata including 1 new, 1 Cha Cha. 9 Salsa including 4 new.
I think it would serve Vishal well for him to start the painful process of reorganizing his CDs - organized by artists and with real song titles.
I had considered another fictional job with a different narrator – again along the lines of the middle section of The Savage Detectives. In fact I had written several paragraphs with large number of invented names. This had been done on the train ride to Paris last weekend. I even made a grand plan to make all of the remaining Cambridge posts in the same manner all with new narrators for different posts. Then it all fizzled. The interest and time went away – more importantly the time. Also I became unsure of the character motivations as well. It is shelved for now.
A standard abbreviated post instead then. It felt like an abbreviated night anyway despite being there from 10 to beyond 2 and despite it being fairly busy. I came close to breaking a sweat only once all night – Bilongo with Jane. My impression was that it was more work than fun for her – in retrospect I completely botched the first third of the song. For other dances there wasn’t much to botch, and I could have recited a mantra, “keep it simple, don’t make it overwhelming …”
Sam made it once again. I thought I saw her early, but she said she arrived late. She definitely stayed late. A belated start on a new-year resolution she said. Once again she looked strikingly happy dancing – dancing a lot more and with more people than the Sam I remembered of yesteryear. About the only thing that did not change was the controlling personality displayed tonight in the form of coming up with many song requests. I don’t think I can stay annoyed with her for very long.
Anette was there also for the first time in about 8 months, another nice blast from the past. Ditto Cambiz. The Royston trio was there, but only Steve stayed until very late. No Johnny. No Serap. Haihan was there but did not dance much. I can’t say that I was surprised or that I don’t understand it. No Steph. A personal favorite move by Mark was a perfectly apt side-to-side step. Vishal once again acted as the DJ for a fairly long time, which made perfect sense in preparing for the life without me. NYC Salsa CD was heavily used once again (Todo Tiene Su Final, Nina Y Senora, Bilongo, Presidente Dante, others?).
Playlist
Aquel Cantor – Erick*
Que Traigo Es Sabroso – Eddie Torres Mambo Kings Orchestra*
Sin Ti Moriria – Domenic Marte* (1)
Como Quiera – Jose Alberto “El Canario”*
La Cura – Frankie Ruiz (2)
La Muerte – El Gran Combo
Castigala – Los Nemus Del Pacifico* (3)
(v) Suavemente – Elvis Crespo (4)
Te Extrano – Extreme (5)
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (old vibe version sans vocals)
Los Caminos De La Vida – Ismael Miranda & Junior Gonzalez
La Llave – Grupo Latin Vibe
Mira Ven Aca – Johnny Colon (6)
(1) First of Sam’s request. Presumably she asked Vish too.
(2) Sam makes another request. I made her dance with me.
(3) It is rather silly to call this new given how often Vish had played this song.
(4) Oft repeated request requiring borrowing one of Vishal’s CD.
(5) This was Sam’s second request. I didn‘t know the third song she (and Mark) was looking for (Vea?).
(6) I had been wondering if I could keep Mark and Sam on the dance floor for the next song as well for five songs in a row - success. In fact many of the remaining people dancing stayed through this end sequence. This song was started shortly after 2 AM, and Vishal closed it with Lamento Boliviano.
Total = 13 songs. 1 Merengue (Vishal’s), 2 Bachata including 1 new, 1 Cha Cha. 9 Salsa including 4 new.
I think it would serve Vishal well for him to start the painful process of reorganizing his CDs - organized by artists and with real song titles.
merci beaucoup
February 28, 2009
After staying at CS until well past 2 with quite a bit of dancing, I set up the alarm for 8:15 for my little getaway / scouting trip to Paris. This was so because I thought figuring out ins and outs of St. Pancras Eurostar station setup in advance of early morning trip for 5 in April. How early do I need to get there? How complicated is the boarding set up?
I arrived at Cambridge train station at 9:15 AM or so on my bicycle with two backpacks. This gave me a plenty of time to buy the ticket (useful because the queue was quite long). I bypassed the 9:30 slow train and opted for 9:45 direct train. Either would have got me to Kings Cross at about the same time, 10:30.
My Paris Gare Du Nord train was scheduled to depart at 11:20. I thought I would have plenty of time to explore. After spotting the check-in, I found my way to the electronic ticketing booth. With ticket on hand, I decided to get on the train early.
There were 3 people in front of me. I felt relaxed. The attendants on the other hand looked a bit anxious and asked me if I was getting on the 11 train. I was a little puzzled but said yes anyway. They asked me to hurry as they attached a new boarding pass to my ticket.
Ah. It’s a schedule change. I found out on the train that a new schedule had been in place since February 23. First there was a security check just like in the airports. Then there was a Passport check for entree to France. I got on the train at 10:57. The train departed shortly after 11 just as I clicked to publish the blog post The Savage Detectives. I don’t know if I made it on time.
The English Southeast is not as flat as East Anglia. Even though Eurostar offers little in terms of sights, even I could see that much. To think that I had considered the flatness as one of the defining impression of England when I first visited. There wasn’t a great deal of French scenery to see in the fast-moving and oft view-challenged Eurostar railtracks.
At least it gave me time to get some work done.
After arrival at Paris Gare du Nord, I briefly explored the station for departure points for Eurostar back to London as well as Thalys for Netherlands for future. After a walk to the Est Hotel, after check-in, after seeing a very plain room at street-level with a window facing the main street, the first thing on my mind was to look for free wi-fi spots. Utter failure.
Jardin de Villemin wi-fi spot was non-functional. I had difficulty locating my back-up location (because I marked the wrong spot on the map) – I did find a third spot on Sunday morning but it did not operate on Sundays. Les Forum Halles would have worked fine except I did not get there until the evening outside the working hours. Who would have thought that they would operate wi-fi spots for working hours only (e.g. 9-5 Mon-Fri, 1-5 Sat … this is not exact, but that is the general idea)? Looking for wi-fi spot did lead me to watch large number of people playing a game of Boules at Jardin de Villemin – a game I first saw watching Jean de Florette.
By the way, crossing the street with green walk sign in your favor is not as safe as it is in the UK. In the UK pedestrian is king. When pedestrian walk sign is green, there is no traffic going across that crosswalk. Paris is like the USA – vehicles turning want to get across the pedestrian crosswalk and will try to do this before the pedestrian starts to cross the street. Even with a green light, a pedestrian in Paris has to be very careful – arguably more so than in the USA too (with caveat that outside cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco there are not many large heavy-pedestrian areas in the USA).
Sightseeing was secondary to getting a feel of the city in this trip but sightseeing could not be avoided. I covered the walk from the train station to the Seine. I was a little startled to see can’t-miss gatherings of streetwalkers – I was reminded of the descriptions of the way they greet each other I read in several of John Irving books. I thought their dresses and make-up were de facto uniforms of a sort.
What of an old description I read and used about Salsa dancers in the UK or at European congresses dressing like prostitutes? In the middle of otherwise busy shopping district full of casual or chic dressed Parisians, I would say that even the most provocatively dressed Salsa dancers don’t wear their make-up like the streetwalkers here.
The sightseeing highlight was walking the full length of the south bank of the Seine in the evening. This I planned on instantly after seeing the Seine and being reminded of the Goldie Hawn dancing scene in Everyone Says I Love You. It was very pretty – I wouldn’t mind taking that walk few more times under different circumstances.
I also watched the services inside Notre Dame cathedral and walked through the Latin Quarter while surveying some hotels there. Finally I walked the grounds of the Louvre and Forum de Halles in the dark before making my way back to the hotel on foot - time for more work.
March 1, 2009
Some more work after getting up. A short stroll to the Canal and around in futile search for free wi-fi and better luck finding cheap breakfast. Back to the hotel. Ate and showered. More work.
Barrio Latino
I had counted on finding out the hours for Barrio Latino for Salsa dancing after getting to Paris. I vaguely remembered that it started from around 2 and ended around 7, but when do the lessons end? I thought it best to go early and find out in person and spend the rest of the time exploring the Bastille area as a possible hotel option in April.
Taking the Metro from Gare du Est to Bastille (1.60 euro single ticket – surprisingly lengthy queue due to ticketing machine breakdown), I arrived at Barrio Latino at 1:30. The attendant did not speak much English but I managed to find out that the lessons started at 2 and goes to 3:30.
Bastille seemed like a more interesting district to stay compared to Gare du Nord/Est area. It might be cheaper too. For the purpose of the April trip, it probably would be less convenient for the main train stations but perhaps slightly better for trips to the main attractions – close call on the latter. In addition to Barrio Latino, Balajo (the main Tuesday LA/NY Salsa venue) is also in Bastille area not far from Barrio Latino. The Latin Quarter on the south side of Seine is nicer than both districts but more expensive.
One of the most surprising things about Paris was the preponderance of Japanese restaurants. I saw one near my hotel, three or four more on the walk to the Louvre area, two or three more in the Latin quarter, four or five in the Bastille area. Later in the guidebook, I saw that I hadn’t even touched the Japan-town area of Paris to the northwest of Louvre. I saw no more than a quarter that number of Chinese restaurants by contrast.
I decided to try a Japanese/Korean place for lunch. It seemed to be operated by the Chinese. The décor was primarily Korean and secondarily Japanese – nothing Chinese in sight except for the language used by the staff. Incidentally the type of food I ate was decidedly non-French – a kebab (and to think I never went to such places in the UK), an Indian (why oh why?), Japanese/Korean and to be seen later a hamburger.
I returned to Barrio Latino around 3:15 in order to catch a glimpse of the lessons. It seemed that the policy was to keep others in the lobby until very close to the end of the lessons. While standing around I struck a conversation with a cute Israeli salsera visiting Paris for two weeks. The turn pattern class was followed by a shine, and it all ended with some sort of cool-down type group exercise.
Barrio Latino is a multi-floor venue and a moderately expensive restaurant. The main dance floor could be observed easily from circular balconies upstairs (and many did so). The floor was extremely crowded and dancing spilled onto the lobby as well as the second floor by the end. Coat-check was free of charge for 2 items, but drinks were quite expensive (something like 7 euros for Coke - not sure if the entry included a free non-alcoholic drink as was the case at O'Sullivans).
For people familiar with the London scene, I would describe Barrio Latino Sundays as a party with elements of Bar Salsa Mondays (as a restaurant venue – except I would imagine that most people would say that Barrio Latino has more interesting décor and nicer floor plan) but also elements of SOS Sundays (I doubt there are any random non-dancers trying to dance here given the Sunday afternoon timing).
For me it was very much like going to SOS except for the crowding and that I didn’t know anyone. I would say that not having reliable familiar people to dance with was more than compensated by not having people I became accustomed to not asking for dances. I say this because on any given Sunday, I probably have twice as many of the latter as I do the former. Figuring out prospective partners, who would be nice to dance with, was easy enough.
I’m guessing that about one third of the dances I had were On2. I had fun dancing either. All the dances were singletons except for one. I was struck up for conversations by a few followers – somewhat unusual (I think one was named Louisa?). Most people seemed able for short exchanges in English if not more. Random bias – I think the French girls generally dress nicer than the British counterparts.
The music was fine. The social started off with Ken Moussoul Guis Li. Things got a bit too fast for too long at times. I wouldn’t say it was On2-centric at all but to say that the music was congress-like might not be far off mark. I probably knew less than 10% of the songs by heart (Mojito, A El, others?). Ana Y Saoco became a very shine-heavy dance for me.
When I was getting ready to leave around 7, I had decided that I probably would be able to make it to O’Sullivans later in the evening after all. At the start of the social, I felt a little tired and thought that I might have tweaked my arm leading the Israeli girl before the social actually kicked off. Maybe I paced myself well?
O’Sullivans
Back to the hotel. Shower. Change clothes. More work – there’s been a lot of it in this trip. Then to Montmartre.
O’Sullivans is literally next door to the Moulin Rouge. On the other side are venues of more explicit nature. The Salsa room is at the back. Spacious venue with mix of concrete floor (where the lessons were held) and part wood floor closer to the main O’Sullivans venue.
The person manning the Salsa entrance spoke fluent English unlike at Barrio Latino and let me know about the free drink with the entrance ticket. I didn’t see any brilliant dinner options outside and I took his suggestion to use the food option at O’Sullivans. Thus the hamburger – it was decent. Finally a beer – sorely missed at the Indian restaurant last night.
Speaking of beer, this billboard advertisement on the metro for beer was hilarious: Amsterdam Explorator (6.8%), Navigator (8.4%), Maximator (11.6%). Alcohol content is all-important.
Regarding the Paris metro, the most striking for me was the seat plan. Most fixed seats were for four people facing each other with little legroom in between. Were they designed with people of shorter height in some distant past?
I must say that I was a little worried about the small number of people at the start of the social at O’Sullivan’s. At first there was only one couple – dancing On2. Then one more joined in for the second song. Then another couple joined in for the third song. There seemed to be higher proportion of On2 dancers, however.
I finished my food in time for the start of La Salsa Nunca Se Acaba. I recognized a much higher proportion of songs compared to at Barrio Latino. Other songs included El Yoyo, La Quiero A Morir, Un Verano En Nueva York, some other El Gran Combo and Gilberto Santa Rosa, Madre (this one I’m not familiar with), El Cantante (Hector Lavoe version as my last song of the night) among others.
More people came in as the night wore on. It was nowhere near as busy as Barrio Latino by the time I left shortly after midnight (the party was supposed to go until 3 AM), but it still was quite good. On average, there were less beginners and improvers here compared to Barrio Latino. Not quite half of my dances were On2. All the dances were singletons once again with one exception I danced a Cha and a Salsa.
My legs held up remarkably well despite the Barrio Latino social from 3-7 PM and another 2 hours or so at O’Sullivans. Perhaps the break in between was very helpful. Perhaps the nice new scene was inspiring and invigorating. I think I could have gone another hour easily without any problem. I decided to end it to give myself enough time for the metro and to catch up on sleep. It also meant I ended the night on a high note – one of three best dances of the evening.
Comparing Barrio Latino and O’Sullivans, I generally would say if one has to choose between the two, I would recommend Barrio Latino to the first-time visitors. This comes with a major caveat that O’Sullivans is really good too. It’s just that the sheer madness at Barrio Latino seems more likely to impress more people. However, for people who care about having a decent space (because Barrio Latino can get way too crowded) yet decent number of dance partners, O’Sullivans has an upper hand. The best option is to try both.
I think Paris scene is younger than London. In terms of age of dancers, it’s not very different, but the leads were not very strict about keeping timing they started with. Didn’t I note this aspect regarding a youtube clip some time ago? I wonder if the sign of older scene is preponderance of really good-looking social leads accompanied by social followers who don’t look as good (the other end naturally for the younger scene would be not-so-many superb-looking social leads with plenty of very good social followers). This seems to work for me in comparing the DC-London-Paris scenes.
March 2, 2009
Nothing much here. 10:15 train instead of 9:45. I would have preferred to 9:15 but there was no free seat. The train was full. It’s a very long train.
I had tried to put up the "fictional" post for Friday at St. Pancras station Saturday morning. I saw that I had not succeeded upon returning to St. Pancras Monday morning and belatedly put it up.
Regarding the title, it was a phrase I heard quite a lot in this trip. I had merci part figured out after consulting the French phrases section of my guidebook. I had to use the internet after returning to figure out the word and the meaning. Nice.
It was a quite relaxing trip. Avoiding airplanes and airports and short commutes overall helped.
After staying at CS until well past 2 with quite a bit of dancing, I set up the alarm for 8:15 for my little getaway / scouting trip to Paris. This was so because I thought figuring out ins and outs of St. Pancras Eurostar station setup in advance of early morning trip for 5 in April. How early do I need to get there? How complicated is the boarding set up?
I arrived at Cambridge train station at 9:15 AM or so on my bicycle with two backpacks. This gave me a plenty of time to buy the ticket (useful because the queue was quite long). I bypassed the 9:30 slow train and opted for 9:45 direct train. Either would have got me to Kings Cross at about the same time, 10:30.
My Paris Gare Du Nord train was scheduled to depart at 11:20. I thought I would have plenty of time to explore. After spotting the check-in, I found my way to the electronic ticketing booth. With ticket on hand, I decided to get on the train early.
There were 3 people in front of me. I felt relaxed. The attendants on the other hand looked a bit anxious and asked me if I was getting on the 11 train. I was a little puzzled but said yes anyway. They asked me to hurry as they attached a new boarding pass to my ticket.
Ah. It’s a schedule change. I found out on the train that a new schedule had been in place since February 23. First there was a security check just like in the airports. Then there was a Passport check for entree to France. I got on the train at 10:57. The train departed shortly after 11 just as I clicked to publish the blog post The Savage Detectives. I don’t know if I made it on time.
The English Southeast is not as flat as East Anglia. Even though Eurostar offers little in terms of sights, even I could see that much. To think that I had considered the flatness as one of the defining impression of England when I first visited. There wasn’t a great deal of French scenery to see in the fast-moving and oft view-challenged Eurostar railtracks.
At least it gave me time to get some work done.
After arrival at Paris Gare du Nord, I briefly explored the station for departure points for Eurostar back to London as well as Thalys for Netherlands for future. After a walk to the Est Hotel, after check-in, after seeing a very plain room at street-level with a window facing the main street, the first thing on my mind was to look for free wi-fi spots. Utter failure.
Jardin de Villemin wi-fi spot was non-functional. I had difficulty locating my back-up location (because I marked the wrong spot on the map) – I did find a third spot on Sunday morning but it did not operate on Sundays. Les Forum Halles would have worked fine except I did not get there until the evening outside the working hours. Who would have thought that they would operate wi-fi spots for working hours only (e.g. 9-5 Mon-Fri, 1-5 Sat … this is not exact, but that is the general idea)? Looking for wi-fi spot did lead me to watch large number of people playing a game of Boules at Jardin de Villemin – a game I first saw watching Jean de Florette.
By the way, crossing the street with green walk sign in your favor is not as safe as it is in the UK. In the UK pedestrian is king. When pedestrian walk sign is green, there is no traffic going across that crosswalk. Paris is like the USA – vehicles turning want to get across the pedestrian crosswalk and will try to do this before the pedestrian starts to cross the street. Even with a green light, a pedestrian in Paris has to be very careful – arguably more so than in the USA too (with caveat that outside cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco there are not many large heavy-pedestrian areas in the USA).
Sightseeing was secondary to getting a feel of the city in this trip but sightseeing could not be avoided. I covered the walk from the train station to the Seine. I was a little startled to see can’t-miss gatherings of streetwalkers – I was reminded of the descriptions of the way they greet each other I read in several of John Irving books. I thought their dresses and make-up were de facto uniforms of a sort.
What of an old description I read and used about Salsa dancers in the UK or at European congresses dressing like prostitutes? In the middle of otherwise busy shopping district full of casual or chic dressed Parisians, I would say that even the most provocatively dressed Salsa dancers don’t wear their make-up like the streetwalkers here.
The sightseeing highlight was walking the full length of the south bank of the Seine in the evening. This I planned on instantly after seeing the Seine and being reminded of the Goldie Hawn dancing scene in Everyone Says I Love You. It was very pretty – I wouldn’t mind taking that walk few more times under different circumstances.
I also watched the services inside Notre Dame cathedral and walked through the Latin Quarter while surveying some hotels there. Finally I walked the grounds of the Louvre and Forum de Halles in the dark before making my way back to the hotel on foot - time for more work.
March 1, 2009
Some more work after getting up. A short stroll to the Canal and around in futile search for free wi-fi and better luck finding cheap breakfast. Back to the hotel. Ate and showered. More work.
Barrio Latino
I had counted on finding out the hours for Barrio Latino for Salsa dancing after getting to Paris. I vaguely remembered that it started from around 2 and ended around 7, but when do the lessons end? I thought it best to go early and find out in person and spend the rest of the time exploring the Bastille area as a possible hotel option in April.
Taking the Metro from Gare du Est to Bastille (1.60 euro single ticket – surprisingly lengthy queue due to ticketing machine breakdown), I arrived at Barrio Latino at 1:30. The attendant did not speak much English but I managed to find out that the lessons started at 2 and goes to 3:30.
Bastille seemed like a more interesting district to stay compared to Gare du Nord/Est area. It might be cheaper too. For the purpose of the April trip, it probably would be less convenient for the main train stations but perhaps slightly better for trips to the main attractions – close call on the latter. In addition to Barrio Latino, Balajo (the main Tuesday LA/NY Salsa venue) is also in Bastille area not far from Barrio Latino. The Latin Quarter on the south side of Seine is nicer than both districts but more expensive.
One of the most surprising things about Paris was the preponderance of Japanese restaurants. I saw one near my hotel, three or four more on the walk to the Louvre area, two or three more in the Latin quarter, four or five in the Bastille area. Later in the guidebook, I saw that I hadn’t even touched the Japan-town area of Paris to the northwest of Louvre. I saw no more than a quarter that number of Chinese restaurants by contrast.
I decided to try a Japanese/Korean place for lunch. It seemed to be operated by the Chinese. The décor was primarily Korean and secondarily Japanese – nothing Chinese in sight except for the language used by the staff. Incidentally the type of food I ate was decidedly non-French – a kebab (and to think I never went to such places in the UK), an Indian (why oh why?), Japanese/Korean and to be seen later a hamburger.
I returned to Barrio Latino around 3:15 in order to catch a glimpse of the lessons. It seemed that the policy was to keep others in the lobby until very close to the end of the lessons. While standing around I struck a conversation with a cute Israeli salsera visiting Paris for two weeks. The turn pattern class was followed by a shine, and it all ended with some sort of cool-down type group exercise.
Barrio Latino is a multi-floor venue and a moderately expensive restaurant. The main dance floor could be observed easily from circular balconies upstairs (and many did so). The floor was extremely crowded and dancing spilled onto the lobby as well as the second floor by the end. Coat-check was free of charge for 2 items, but drinks were quite expensive (something like 7 euros for Coke - not sure if the entry included a free non-alcoholic drink as was the case at O'Sullivans).
For people familiar with the London scene, I would describe Barrio Latino Sundays as a party with elements of Bar Salsa Mondays (as a restaurant venue – except I would imagine that most people would say that Barrio Latino has more interesting décor and nicer floor plan) but also elements of SOS Sundays (I doubt there are any random non-dancers trying to dance here given the Sunday afternoon timing).
For me it was very much like going to SOS except for the crowding and that I didn’t know anyone. I would say that not having reliable familiar people to dance with was more than compensated by not having people I became accustomed to not asking for dances. I say this because on any given Sunday, I probably have twice as many of the latter as I do the former. Figuring out prospective partners, who would be nice to dance with, was easy enough.
I’m guessing that about one third of the dances I had were On2. I had fun dancing either. All the dances were singletons except for one. I was struck up for conversations by a few followers – somewhat unusual (I think one was named Louisa?). Most people seemed able for short exchanges in English if not more. Random bias – I think the French girls generally dress nicer than the British counterparts.
The music was fine. The social started off with Ken Moussoul Guis Li. Things got a bit too fast for too long at times. I wouldn’t say it was On2-centric at all but to say that the music was congress-like might not be far off mark. I probably knew less than 10% of the songs by heart (Mojito, A El, others?). Ana Y Saoco became a very shine-heavy dance for me.
When I was getting ready to leave around 7, I had decided that I probably would be able to make it to O’Sullivans later in the evening after all. At the start of the social, I felt a little tired and thought that I might have tweaked my arm leading the Israeli girl before the social actually kicked off. Maybe I paced myself well?
O’Sullivans
Back to the hotel. Shower. Change clothes. More work – there’s been a lot of it in this trip. Then to Montmartre.
O’Sullivans is literally next door to the Moulin Rouge. On the other side are venues of more explicit nature. The Salsa room is at the back. Spacious venue with mix of concrete floor (where the lessons were held) and part wood floor closer to the main O’Sullivans venue.
The person manning the Salsa entrance spoke fluent English unlike at Barrio Latino and let me know about the free drink with the entrance ticket. I didn’t see any brilliant dinner options outside and I took his suggestion to use the food option at O’Sullivans. Thus the hamburger – it was decent. Finally a beer – sorely missed at the Indian restaurant last night.
Speaking of beer, this billboard advertisement on the metro for beer was hilarious: Amsterdam Explorator (6.8%), Navigator (8.4%), Maximator (11.6%). Alcohol content is all-important.
Regarding the Paris metro, the most striking for me was the seat plan. Most fixed seats were for four people facing each other with little legroom in between. Were they designed with people of shorter height in some distant past?
I must say that I was a little worried about the small number of people at the start of the social at O’Sullivan’s. At first there was only one couple – dancing On2. Then one more joined in for the second song. Then another couple joined in for the third song. There seemed to be higher proportion of On2 dancers, however.
I finished my food in time for the start of La Salsa Nunca Se Acaba. I recognized a much higher proportion of songs compared to at Barrio Latino. Other songs included El Yoyo, La Quiero A Morir, Un Verano En Nueva York, some other El Gran Combo and Gilberto Santa Rosa, Madre (this one I’m not familiar with), El Cantante (Hector Lavoe version as my last song of the night) among others.
More people came in as the night wore on. It was nowhere near as busy as Barrio Latino by the time I left shortly after midnight (the party was supposed to go until 3 AM), but it still was quite good. On average, there were less beginners and improvers here compared to Barrio Latino. Not quite half of my dances were On2. All the dances were singletons once again with one exception I danced a Cha and a Salsa.
My legs held up remarkably well despite the Barrio Latino social from 3-7 PM and another 2 hours or so at O’Sullivans. Perhaps the break in between was very helpful. Perhaps the nice new scene was inspiring and invigorating. I think I could have gone another hour easily without any problem. I decided to end it to give myself enough time for the metro and to catch up on sleep. It also meant I ended the night on a high note – one of three best dances of the evening.
Comparing Barrio Latino and O’Sullivans, I generally would say if one has to choose between the two, I would recommend Barrio Latino to the first-time visitors. This comes with a major caveat that O’Sullivans is really good too. It’s just that the sheer madness at Barrio Latino seems more likely to impress more people. However, for people who care about having a decent space (because Barrio Latino can get way too crowded) yet decent number of dance partners, O’Sullivans has an upper hand. The best option is to try both.
I think Paris scene is younger than London. In terms of age of dancers, it’s not very different, but the leads were not very strict about keeping timing they started with. Didn’t I note this aspect regarding a youtube clip some time ago? I wonder if the sign of older scene is preponderance of really good-looking social leads accompanied by social followers who don’t look as good (the other end naturally for the younger scene would be not-so-many superb-looking social leads with plenty of very good social followers). This seems to work for me in comparing the DC-London-Paris scenes.
March 2, 2009
Nothing much here. 10:15 train instead of 9:45. I would have preferred to 9:15 but there was no free seat. The train was full. It’s a very long train.
I had tried to put up the "fictional" post for Friday at St. Pancras station Saturday morning. I saw that I had not succeeded upon returning to St. Pancras Monday morning and belatedly put it up.
Regarding the title, it was a phrase I heard quite a lot in this trip. I had merci part figured out after consulting the French phrases section of my guidebook. I had to use the internet after returning to figure out the word and the meaning. Nice.
It was a quite relaxing trip. Avoiding airplanes and airports and short commutes overall helped.
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