tango death and rebirth

The faces of my students
the eager faces of my students are a beacon of light
a budding spring
reminding me of my own tango youth.
reminding me of the hope I once held for my dance and my life.
reminding me that I can still inspire in others what I no longer carry within.

Dancing and Depressed.

Tonight the Egyptian asked me if I was tired.
"No I am not tired. "I said even though I was resting out the tanda.
"Then perhaps you are in love. It is the same, you know - tired and in love.
Being in love makes you dizzy." he smiled.
"Yes, I know" I smiled back.
I was feeling dizzy.
I had gotten a bit drunk before the milonga (something I never do) because I lost a job earlier in the afternoon and it seemed appropriate to get inebriated. If I had been tired or in love, these feelings were quickly supplanted by the onset of deep panic.
A long long time ago, my astrologer told me that I needed to dance in order to avoid committing suicide. So I began to dance.
It saved my life for several decades.
I am now wondering if this is still an effective remedy.

It was only in the elevator on the way out that I found my lost sense of humor, dignity, and desire to live.
A gentleman and two ladies accompanied me down. The ladies buzzed about my dapper hat and I made some comment back to them. The gentleman was taken aback and he said:
"Your voice is higher than I expected. I thought you were a -"
"The ladies buzzed again and chuckled deeply.
"Shall I lower my voice for you?" I asked while straightening my corbata. And I did so speaking in a deep husky range.
"I thought you were a -
You are dressed like a -
I thought you were a -" he repeated.
"I AM" I said in my best basso.
"It is ok, the ladies assured him. It takes a woman to know these things."
In that moment I ceased to feel so depressed for being such a loser.
At least I was recognized for the milonguero I am.

Tango for Peace

Immediate Release by AP*

This morning at sunrise in the Old City of Jerusalem, a Palestinian and a Jewess ascended the Temple Mount and proceeded to dance a tango counterclockwise around the Noble Sanctuary. The couple, Mo Salaam y Ahava Levi danced in a close embrace style known as milonguero or salon. Their tango was accompanied by la musica of orquesta Edgardo Donato. The tangos were heard emanating from an iPod attached to a small speaker. The tanda included Triste Amanecer, Mis Pesares, Se Va La Vida, Te Busco, y La Melodia del Corazon. The couple had danced a full circle around the dome by the end of the set and completed their tango para el amor y la paz prayer. Imams and Israeli Police surrounded the two at Ground Zero but hesitated to interrupt their dance. In fact, they seemed to be mesmerized by the swirling man and woman/Muslim and Jew who were no longer two but a perfect ONE. A peace and utter calm descended upon the area during and immediately following the dance. A few moments later, all mayhem broke loose until the couple danced one final song, which again captured the imaginations of all present and put an end to all the loud clapping and shouts of otra más. Mo y Ahava danced with all their souls to Fue Mi Salvación and during this tango, Imams and Israeli police were seen embracing each other to copy several movements of the dancers including a secada, an ocho cortada, and a cunita.

Tomorrow morning, the matter of beginning a mixed milonga for Muslims and Jews on the Temple Mount will be negotiated. It is further rumored that Catholics,+ Pagans, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and Baha'i will also be allowed to dance. At the moment, authorities are not willing to permit Atheists or Nuevos on the sacred grounds of the Viejo Ciudad.

+for whom the dj will also play the tango La Novena
*a punto.

"Sacred Monsters"

I've been reading Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys by Peter Evans. I even traded in a few nights of milongas to stay home with this great read.

Ari immigrated to Bs As in the 20's after his family was forced to leave their home in Smyrna (I believe the Turks refer to it as the "citizen exchange" of Izmir?) O, already this is becoming more touchy than a Tango L discussion (war) on whether one steps with the ball of the foot or the heel. Anyway, Onassis made his first million in the city of Porteños selling Turkish tobacco and he marketed his cigarettes to women who were just beginning to smoke in public. He also took tango lessons every day and frequented the milongas. Unfortunately the book doesn't delve too deeply into these years of his life but it certainly sparked my imagination. Onassis was a ruthless man. Those must have been the days of the REAL malevos in the milongas. Not the wanna be bad boys of the barrio we have today. These guys in shorts would never have made it through the rough night. Back then the rooms were full of MEN in LONG PANTS!

Of course there are still a handful of evil ones among us. There's that fellow* who used to be a gynecologist but unlike Alberto Castillo the ladies do not fall in love with him. Neither his voice nor his manner are sweet. His dance is dreadful. The word is that he used to ask his female patients to undress and put on a robe that opened in the back. Then they were instructed to lay face down on the examination table. He then pressed a button causing the table to lift their bottoms high in the air and the robes of course would part and open. Then at the right moment - meaning the derriére was raised in the most exposed and compromising spreadeagled position, he would snap a Polaroid of their vaginas. He even had the gall to snap two and present one to the ladies while informing them that the other copy was for his files. Carlos Gardel knows how many women accepted this behavior as normal. Finally one woman sued his pants off and he was forced to close his practice for good. He continued on to take up the favored Argentine occupation and become a psychiatrist. I am told that most of his patients are women. This is scary stuff. Real malevo material. This guy is not even a charming sociopath like Onassis! And what's even worse is that he could pass for the twin of one of the most evil men in America. Fuckin' malevo!

Thanks for tolerating the political break. During the cortinas we really should take time out to Impeach Cheney and get rid of some of these culos destroying the beauty of our dance.

Now back to Ari... (according to Peter Evans) he did some of the most horrific things, like funding the hypnosis of Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate RFK. Kind of like a Manchurian Candidate thing because Ari needed Bobby out of the way to marry Jackie.

Onassis was also fond of saying "He who beats well, loves well". Ouch, that's about as milonguero as it gets. (Although nuevo tangueros say: "He who steps on the beat well, loves well".)

Nemesis is very compelling. It's easy to get caught up in the sordid lives of the rich jet set. Did you know that Jackie started her affair with Ari when JFK was still in the White House? That's right. He seduced the First Lady in Capri on his yacht, the Christina. Before that he had been sleeping with her sister Lee. O, and did I mention that Jackie also had an affair with her brother-in-law Bobby? I'm telling you, hands-down, this book outdoes our own tawdry little affairs and incestuous change of partners in the milongas. You can see why I've been staying home nights.

"Right" - some of you are saying - "hey Tiger, this isn't exactly news. All this Onassis stuff happened over 40 years ago. Even Evan's book has been out since 2004!"

Yeah, well that's what happens when you've been dancing tango for over 12 years. You miss stuff. Kind of get out of touch with the real world. Ok, give me a break here. I'm trying to catch up!

I'll just end with this. Onassis first seduced Maria Callas away from her husband by dancing tango with her all night. He must have had some good instructors. Maybe he took private lessons with El Cachafaz. Needless to say, he used all his prowess to woo and win her.

In The Queen's Throat, Wayne Koestenbaum writes:

Walter Legge, who produced many of Callas's legendary recordings, once peered inside her mouth and remarked that it was shaped like a Gothic Cathedral.

(No wonder Ari wanted to prey there.)
I don't think the divine diva of music would have fallen in love with a bad dancer. She was holy perfection. Although Koestenbaum also records that:

After the affair with Onassis began, she had a vocal crisis, retired, and then returned to the stage. She collapsed at the Paris Opera after the third act of Norma; she sang one more Tosca in London, and then she never sang an opera again.

The tango of malevos is powerful stuff.


*Characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Some of the characters may have certain traits and/or mannerisms that may seem to suggest actual persons but I make no claim that these traits exist at all or in this combination in any person, living or dead.

Tango Bea

The Tanz of Tante Bashkee* IV

Bashkee was my grandmother’s youngest sister. She was born in 1920, the year England established a Jewish state in Palestine and the year America stopped drinking. In 1937 she went off to Paris (much to the astonishment and horror of her parents who wanted nothing to do with Europe ever again.) She studied dance and fell in love with Späss Ingersol, a young German musician. She met him at a musical tribute to the late Carlos Gardel. After Gardel died in ‘35, his music became legendary. Späss played the bandoneón and introduced Bashkee to the music and dance of the Tango. In the spring of 1939, Späss’s father called him home to Berlin. Späss’s father sent him to a Hitler youth meeting. When Späss returned home he found an SS uniform sitting on the bench where his bandoneón had been. Späss’s father actually secured a very high rank for his son. In 1940, when Germany occupied France, Späss insisted that Bashkee return home to Miami. She returned home and waited.

In 1945 she heard rumors that Späss had been killed when the Allies bombed Koln. This was when she learned the pain of the Tango. Refusing to be led by any other man, she forced her Macho suitors to teach her the lead. She began to teach the tango as well as other Latin dances to women and young boys in the dance halls of the growing Spanish communities in downtown Miami.

In the 1950’s my family took constant trips to Havana for pleasure. It was on one of those trips that Bashkee was reunited with Späss. It was in the spring of 1959. The year I was conceived. Bashkee dragged my parents, who were newly wed, to an evening of tango celebrating the music of Osvaldo Pugliese. My father spent all day at the blackjack table. My mother finally dragged him away and they drank Cuba Libres and had sex in their hotel room. Afterwards my mother lay in bed smoking a cigarette and my father sat in a chair smoking a Cuban cigar before dressing for dinner and the show.

I was beginning to germinate in my mother’s belly when Bashkee looked up and noticed the bandoneón player. It was Spâss. He had been living in Buenos Aires since 1946. He had falsified papers and was living under the assumed name of Paulo Ferrer. In those years, the Porteños, still solely possessed the tango. No one thought to thoroughly question the origins of a traveling bandoneón player. It was assumed he was born and bred in Buenos Aires. My parents checked out of their hotel room a week later leaving Bashkee behind. She returned to the bosom of her family with Paulo in tow before the year was out. Castro was about to overthrow Batista, and Bashkee and Paulo were in the mood to make love not war.

They lived in my great grandmother’s house. I remember their small room in the back. There was an ersatz marble mantle above their bed and on it rested Paulo’s bandoneón and the little gold cage where Bashkee’s jeweled beetle lived when it wasn’t blessed enough to abide next to her heart. Under the bed was an old crate from Europe. Bashkee told me it was where she and Paulo kept their treasures. I used to love to crawl under the bed and run my fingers along the old wood grooves and try to imagine what lay between the slats. There were stamps all along the panels of the wood. Names of different cities or countries embossed onto the wood. Der Schweiz, Paris, Buenos Aires, Bolivia, Caracas, Venezuela, and Havana, Cuba - those are the names I remember.

My great grandmother, Rose; also known as the Jewish Viennese Princess, was told that Paulo was from Austria, and of course that made everything all right. Everything, but two SMALL facts: Number one they weren’t married. Number two he wasn’t Jewish. The fights ensued for two years, with Bube Rose insisting that no daughter of hers would live out of wedlock in her house especially with a Shagitz.* Viennese or not! In May of 63, Bube Rose committed the ultimate act of instilling guilt in one’s children. She had a heart attack. In June of that same year, Paulo had a kosher conversion and he and Bashkee were married. She was 43. I was three years old. I was the flower girl at their wedding.

The wedding reception took place in a Cuban nightclub on Calle Ocho. Paulo played the bandoneón there on the weekends and Bashkee taught the tango. All of their friends danced the tango. I remember sitting on the floor and watching all the feet move. A sound, like the hissing of snakes rose from the dance floor. Looking up, chests leading and following, magnetic chests and one chest with a shimmering beetle, its jewels catching the light. Just then Bashkee and Paulo danced by and I was swept up into their arms. She held me against her breast between the circle of energy vibrating between she and Paulo. I looked up at Bashkee, and saw that her eyes were closed. I felt Paulo’s breath on the back of my neck. I felt his chest press tight against my back. I inhaled the smell of his spiced cologne mingling with the scent of her floral perfume. I smiled and rubbed my finger against the jeweled back of the beetle. I pressed my face into Bashkee’s cleavage and the beetle crawled right up against my ear.

“Cierra los ojos. Close your eyes. Bailar. Dance.” The beetle whispered. Smiling, I closed my eyes. No one in my family got this religion of Bashkee’s. I did. On June 13th, 1963, I got it. I was lifted into a movement of the body making love to the soul. I was held in a movement of the soul in rapture over the body. I was witness to a movement of two souls and two bodies uniting with grace and eloquence; mingling a passion both tender and turbulent; entwining sorrow and jubilation - all in a magnificent effort to greet the Divine...

to be continued...

*male version of a shiksa

excerpt 4 The Dance of Aunt Baskee
from Spinoza's Daughter by Lexa Roséan © 2007


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