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’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.
The Savage Detectives
Ian Bargman. Kingston Arms, Cambridge. United Kingdom. February 27, 2009.
Aren’t you deejaying tonight? I asked him. He played some nice songs not played by other deejays don’t play. He merely shrugged and smiled in response before going back to the dance floor with yet another girl. He wasn’t the talkative type. Friendly usually, but he could go on for an hour or more without talking to anyone in the club. I suppose with loud music this club is not the best place for a conversation. Even with his circle of close friends he did not seem to speak very much.
Now that I think of it, most of his friends in the club had moved away by then. There was that French boy and the Peruvian boy, who had been gone for a year or more by then. I think those three sometimes called themselves the San Miguel Gang. It must have been an inside joke – their drink of choice at the club, I think. Not my choice for beer by the way. For a while, they were the new cool kids – along with several Asian kids, who hung around with them. And that Swedish girl Mimi; she was a big part of that group too.
Mimi. This reminds me. She wasn’t the first Mimi around. There was another Mimi, who caused a lot of stir while she was around. Compared to her, this Mimi hardly caused a ripple. I suppose I have been around for a very long time. I was here when Vishal was deejaying the biggest night in the Catholic parish on Friday nights – before Ivan and the first Mimi came onto the scene here. Ah. Those were different days. I still remember Vishal and his helpers hauling in and out of the church hall those big speakers and mixers every week.
I guess that makes me an old-timer. Are you wondering if I dance well having been around so many years? I don’t want to brag, but I like to think I can hold my own. I won’t say I am one of those with hundreds of moves like some of the boys seem to be able to do within a year or two. I like to think that experience counts for something though. I dance with those kids now and then too, and I don’t think they begrudge me for asking for a dance now and then. I enjoy myself – that’s the most important thing anyhow.
Speaking of Mimi, she came back one night not far from that night. Maybe it was a week before that night. Yes, I remember him dancing with Mimi that night. She was dancing mostly with us old-timers, but he was one of the few, who did not know her from the old times, to dance with her. It’s not surprising since he seemed to revel in dancing with new people. Not everyone here is like that. I don’t remember much about that dance – it must not have been especially memorable. I think Mimi looked like she was enjoying it, but doesn’t she look that way most of the time?
What does Mimi look like? She is beautiful, dark-haired, long and slender. Not quite as long as Nina of course – now she had breathtakingly long legs. Wasn’t she a fiction writer? Gorgeous dancer too – she brought the best out of Ivan, who was the new hotshot back in the days. Now that I think of it, so many of those girls were very beautiful. Perhaps at my age, all those young girls look beautiful – especially those tall slender ones. No, I don’t mean to say the short ones are not beautiful. There was that Asian girl – from Germany I believe. She was the best.
Unlike the other girls I talked about, the German girl was still around coming to club more often than not when the university was in session. It was about a month before he left for America - less than two months in any case. By that time, she was one of very few people really friendly with him - her and that short kid from Singapore. Did I mention that he was not particularly talkative? In any case, I think those two probably talked with him as much as any other people at the club – along with Vishal, of course.
I knew everyone there pretty well, but Vishal is a special case. After all we go way back together. We started this dance at about the same time. Vishal of course has an entirely different personality compared to him. For one thing Vishal is very talkative and gregarious. After all this is people business, and sociability or at least acting friendly with everyone is very important for success in running places like this. You have to be able to provide grease – smooth things between people and keep everyone happy.
I think it was about a year after he first showed up at the club when Vishal had to intervene because of that blog business. Funny isn’t it? Even now he is defined by that blog more than anything else. There were more than a few people, who were upset when they learned about that blog. I personally thought it was no big deal – well written but not particularly provocative. He was given hard time for quite some time afterwards. Even now some people really don’t like him because of it. Like that girl – well, she stopped coming to the club. Maybe it will change now that he’s gone. She was really beautiful too.
Certainly he was not universally liked. Who is? There was a girl no longer here with a dreamy body. She seemed friendly with him in the beginning, but somewhere along the way their relationship soured. After a while, they even stopped looking at each other. This is such a small place and both of them were about as regular as they come so it was easy to see what’s going on. Actually I think it was she who disliked him more than the other way around; there were a few nights when I saw him looking at her maybe to say something but she would refuse to acknowledge him, and he would never get the nerve to say anything without her turning around.
My personal preference is to stay out of that sort of business. By the way this girl didn’t like me either. A funny thing is I heard that she didn’t like me because she thought I was a bit of a pervert. I say funny because she could be a real coquette while dancing adding little seductive flourishes here and there. Perhaps it’s the difference in age issue. If you are young, you are sexy. If you are old, you are pervert, a deviant. In any case, it is merely an opinion of just one girl among thousands, who visited the club. I happen to know that most women consider me a perfect gentleman.
It was one of those monthly special party nights that Friday, which Vishal had set up with a big-time Salsa promoter in London named Joe Davids. The special attraction was a couple named Sean and Solvita, who had won the London Latinfest dance competition last summer. They had been to Cambridge for the Christmas party last year, and they reprised the Bachata-Salsa combo showcase with a great deal of crowd-pleasing acrobatics. They stayed until very late to social dance with people here. They may have helped to bring some new visitors as well as a few people, who I had not seen in a while – like Serap and Sam.
As the night went on hurtling toward the closing time, it occured to me that Vishal may continue to play his music until closing. That was when I asked him the question. This is not to say I did not like Vishal’s music. On the contrary, the way Vishal had been selecting his music has not been all that different lately compared to him. Perhaps his leaving will mark end of an era one some ways (for example, no more of that blog business) but not necessarily in the kind of music getting played. Meanwhile he kept dancing on and on – much more so than I had seen in a very long time and Vishal kept rolling on with surprising selection of song choices.
Aren’t you deejaying tonight? I asked him. He played some nice songs not played by other deejays don’t play. He merely shrugged and smiled in response before going back to the dance floor with yet another girl. He wasn’t the talkative type. Friendly usually, but he could go on for an hour or more without talking to anyone in the club. I suppose with loud music this club is not the best place for a conversation. Even with his circle of close friends he did not seem to speak very much.
Now that I think of it, most of his friends in the club had moved away by then. There was that French boy and the Peruvian boy, who had been gone for a year or more by then. I think those three sometimes called themselves the San Miguel Gang. It must have been an inside joke – their drink of choice at the club, I think. Not my choice for beer by the way. For a while, they were the new cool kids – along with several Asian kids, who hung around with them. And that Swedish girl Mimi; she was a big part of that group too.
Mimi. This reminds me. She wasn’t the first Mimi around. There was another Mimi, who caused a lot of stir while she was around. Compared to her, this Mimi hardly caused a ripple. I suppose I have been around for a very long time. I was here when Vishal was deejaying the biggest night in the Catholic parish on Friday nights – before Ivan and the first Mimi came onto the scene here. Ah. Those were different days. I still remember Vishal and his helpers hauling in and out of the church hall those big speakers and mixers every week.
I guess that makes me an old-timer. Are you wondering if I dance well having been around so many years? I don’t want to brag, but I like to think I can hold my own. I won’t say I am one of those with hundreds of moves like some of the boys seem to be able to do within a year or two. I like to think that experience counts for something though. I dance with those kids now and then too, and I don’t think they begrudge me for asking for a dance now and then. I enjoy myself – that’s the most important thing anyhow.
Speaking of Mimi, she came back one night not far from that night. Maybe it was a week before that night. Yes, I remember him dancing with Mimi that night. She was dancing mostly with us old-timers, but he was one of the few, who did not know her from the old times, to dance with her. It’s not surprising since he seemed to revel in dancing with new people. Not everyone here is like that. I don’t remember much about that dance – it must not have been especially memorable. I think Mimi looked like she was enjoying it, but doesn’t she look that way most of the time?
What does Mimi look like? She is beautiful, dark-haired, long and slender. Not quite as long as Nina of course – now she had breathtakingly long legs. Wasn’t she a fiction writer? Gorgeous dancer too – she brought the best out of Ivan, who was the new hotshot back in the days. Now that I think of it, so many of those girls were very beautiful. Perhaps at my age, all those young girls look beautiful – especially those tall slender ones. No, I don’t mean to say the short ones are not beautiful. There was that Asian girl – from Germany I believe. She was the best.
Unlike the other girls I talked about, the German girl was still around coming to club more often than not when the university was in session. It was about a month before he left for America - less than two months in any case. By that time, she was one of very few people really friendly with him - her and that short kid from Singapore. Did I mention that he was not particularly talkative? In any case, I think those two probably talked with him as much as any other people at the club – along with Vishal, of course.
I knew everyone there pretty well, but Vishal is a special case. After all we go way back together. We started this dance at about the same time. Vishal of course has an entirely different personality compared to him. For one thing Vishal is very talkative and gregarious. After all this is people business, and sociability or at least acting friendly with everyone is very important for success in running places like this. You have to be able to provide grease – smooth things between people and keep everyone happy.
I think it was about a year after he first showed up at the club when Vishal had to intervene because of that blog business. Funny isn’t it? Even now he is defined by that blog more than anything else. There were more than a few people, who were upset when they learned about that blog. I personally thought it was no big deal – well written but not particularly provocative. He was given hard time for quite some time afterwards. Even now some people really don’t like him because of it. Like that girl – well, she stopped coming to the club. Maybe it will change now that he’s gone. She was really beautiful too.
Certainly he was not universally liked. Who is? There was a girl no longer here with a dreamy body. She seemed friendly with him in the beginning, but somewhere along the way their relationship soured. After a while, they even stopped looking at each other. This is such a small place and both of them were about as regular as they come so it was easy to see what’s going on. Actually I think it was she who disliked him more than the other way around; there were a few nights when I saw him looking at her maybe to say something but she would refuse to acknowledge him, and he would never get the nerve to say anything without her turning around.
My personal preference is to stay out of that sort of business. By the way this girl didn’t like me either. A funny thing is I heard that she didn’t like me because she thought I was a bit of a pervert. I say funny because she could be a real coquette while dancing adding little seductive flourishes here and there. Perhaps it’s the difference in age issue. If you are young, you are sexy. If you are old, you are pervert, a deviant. In any case, it is merely an opinion of just one girl among thousands, who visited the club. I happen to know that most women consider me a perfect gentleman.
It was one of those monthly special party nights that Friday, which Vishal had set up with a big-time Salsa promoter in London named Joe Davids. The special attraction was a couple named Sean and Solvita, who had won the London Latinfest dance competition last summer. They had been to Cambridge for the Christmas party last year, and they reprised the Bachata-Salsa combo showcase with a great deal of crowd-pleasing acrobatics. They stayed until very late to social dance with people here. They may have helped to bring some new visitors as well as a few people, who I had not seen in a while – like Serap and Sam.
As the night went on hurtling toward the closing time, it occured to me that Vishal may continue to play his music until closing. That was when I asked him the question. This is not to say I did not like Vishal’s music. On the contrary, the way Vishal had been selecting his music has not been all that different lately compared to him. Perhaps his leaving will mark end of an era one some ways (for example, no more of that blog business) but not necessarily in the kind of music getting played. Meanwhile he kept dancing on and on – much more so than I had seen in a very long time and Vishal kept rolling on with surprising selection of song choices.
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