Reading The Tea

“All of this ‘paying your dues’ shit is just so stupid to me. I mean, if you can do the job, why not just DO it.”

With a precious seat on the 4/5, she daubed foundation on her cheeks, puckered. She flicked out a mascara wand, and blinked on layer after layer. When she was done, she looked harder. Is the makeup her protection from the world?

Last night I dreamt that Bronwen had an interview for a potential tutoring job for a very rich person at an old, creepy mansion. Dustin and I decided to go along with her on the interview, just in case. The mansion people acted very strange, including leaving us for a long time in a room that was obviously bugged and under video survailance. I had a stake out at the ready, in case they turned out to be vampires. After a while they came back and asked B what she knew about anthropology, then invited us to come to the living room for a short performance. It turned out to be a modern dance performance, and there was a stage at the front of the room. The dancers kept running and falling, running and sliding to the floor. One of them landed near me, and I recognized her. She recognized me too, and whispered, “Hi! I’m kinda self-conscious about my falling. I haven’t done it in a long time, and I’m out of practice.” I whispered back to her, “You’re doing fine. In fact, I think that you’re the best faller here.” Then I woke up.

I’ve been working crazy hours on 5 different analyses. My brain feels like it’s made of foam box fillers, rattling around.

Today on our weekly national call, my boss referred to me as the “analysis guru.”

Yep, that’s me. Maybe I should print new business cards?

Great art by great people coming up around the city…

Come hear Bronwen’s poetry at a Post-MFA / Pre-Book Reading at Cornelia Street Cafe on Wednesday, January 24th at 6:00pm.

The Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street
$6 cover = free drink
Subway: A/C/E/F to West 4th or 1/9 to Christopher

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Take a look at Michelle’s Kinetiscope at the About Glamour Gallery in Williamsburg. (You might also be tempted to buy a necklace from the store in front, like I was.)

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Adam of Adam’s Books, will be reading his poetry at
a Chelsea art gallery, Zieher Smith on Tuesday, February 6th, 6pm. 

Inspired by Swan Lake Samba Girl’s adventure into a dance genre out of her comfort range, I decided to take a hip-hop class. (My first hip-hop class ever!) Last night, my co-worker C and I met up with two of her friends for a class at Broadway Dance Center. It was officially a “beginning” class, so I expected a bit of instruction on technique, etc. Instead, we warmed up and started right into learning a routine. And most of the dancers in that class were NOT beginners! I got the routine down, but when I did it, I highly doubt that it really resembled hip-hop. I don’t quite have the popping thing down. It was also hard for me to get the timing right, because instead of counts the instructor said “ka-kah” or maybe “ka-KAH!” or “uuh!” I think that next time I’m going to try a class labeled “basics” so that I have a bit of vocabulary before learning another routine… Despite my lack of skill, it was fun, and I worked up a nice sweat.

Inspired by a book “Learn to Knit” by Barbara Walker at Auntie’s apartment, Bronwen and I decided to make 2007 the year of “Operation Afghan.” We are going to knit all 63 squares through the progressively harder techniques, create a lovely blanket in the end and achieve the standing of master knitter. Last Saturday Auntie, Bronwen and I brunched at Penelope’s (Great brunch, but be prepared — they get up earlier in that neighborhood — we were there at 10:30 and still had a wait.) then went yarn shopping at School Products for some lovely Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride yarn. It’s 85% wool, 15% Mohair. After much (much) debate, my yarns are Medieval Red (purpley-garnet), Red Baron (nice red), Autumn Harvest (nice gold) and another and lovely rust orange color (will edit with proper name). I’ll be putting them together in the end with a lovely coffee-with-milk brown (will also edit with proper name).

Like most of Williamsburg, there’s a big new building in construction across the street from my apartment. The construction on this building is responsibile for the layer of pretty white power that greeting me as I entered my building last night. In New York Januarys, snow (in drifts not in dustings) is normal. But no, tomorrow it’s supposed to be in the 60s. And the white landscape is inside my apartment. We’ve been keeping the window open, because the steam pipes don’t know that it’s well (well) above freezing, and have been steaming merrily on, so the sticky construction dust found a home.

This morning, the construction site had other, um, technical difficulties. If you look closely on the right side of the first photo, you can see my window. Great.

Last night was one of those nights… Got to class, brushed the cat fur off my shoes (How? How do they get their fur on my tango shoes?) and couldn’t dance at all. Couldn’t follow. Couldn’t embellish. Couldn’t keep a good posture. Nada.

That aside, the classes were interesting. First I took Robin and Marika’s Tango 2 class. Usually I do a Tango 2 then a Tango 3 class at Empire, but with how I was dancing, I opted for Adam and Chico’s Tango Musicality class.

In Robin and Marika’s class we worked on ocho technique in close embrace, with embellishments. We were transformed into dancing cheese sandwhiches, with a piece of yellow paper between each couple. Marika talked about how the hip in close embrace ochos needs to take up the space in the embrace, rather than leaving a gaping void of space. (What most other teachers I’ve head refer to as “sticking your butt out.) Somehow that clicked for me more than it has in the past. We also discussed embellishments, and how the follower needs to take time, or she won’t be given it by the leader. For some reason that was really hard for me. For those who know me, I’m a fairly assertive dancer. Maybe that’s why I work hard at really listening to the lead, and feel weird taking time I don’t feel that I’m given? Marika pointed out that until your hips are in the right place, he can’t lead you to the next step. Robin also said that you can think of leads as a to-do list — you check off one thing before you go on to the next, even though you know that there are other things on your list. Another thought about ochos in close embrace: the embrace is like opening and closing a book. The bodies stay together, but the connection shifts.

In the musicality class we worked on different ways to listen to the music, and accent beats w/ movement, and different ways to time the cross/ embellishments to compliment it, particularly on the two. The hard thing with embellishing on the two is not rushing the next step, or giving it a false urgency, but feeling the underlying beat. It was a nice small class, so I lead Chico a bit, too. I still have a tendancy to overlead the cross a bit — should be more subtle. As with everything, I have a problem with tension in tango. (My clarinet teacher once told me “I can’t believe I’m saying this to a student, but don’t work so hard!”) Adam gave me an interesting mental image to loosen my walk a bit without making it seem artificial — practice walking with my arms swinging like I’m throwing something underhand. Then I don’t overdo the shoulders, but everything else loosens.