Camille Cusumano

December 27, 2008

Today, ten days short of the official holiday, I had a little epiphany.

It is a Saturday which has evolved into “church” day for me, the one day a week when my routine is actually predictable by the clock. I’m up and out by 8 a.m. (applause) to swim before attending the Dharma Talk at the San Francisco Zen Center. I consume nothing but water this morning. I fast (as I once did according to Catholic Church law) before receiving this latter-day “communion” with fellow sangha members. (Sangha is a Sanskrit word that might loosely be translated as “congregation.”) I don’t know why but I pay better attention (and generally work better) on an empty stomach.

This morning, driving to the pool, I noticed the thought that arose was one that keeps tugging at me: How can I make my work as a writer more beneficial to the world? I don’t disparage the entertainment and inspirational value that mine or any book may have for readers. These are important things that feed us, our hearts, minds, and souls—but beyond that, can I be doing more? One wild and crazy thought: Wouldn’t it be cool if I could get tango dancers across the nation to unite and pass the torch for peace (in all its forms) to the January 20, 2009 inauguration? We would do this by passing the tango embrace, a simple hug, starting here on the West Coast, the Left Coast, ’cause here is where I live, and sending it out, across streets, villages, towns, cities, states, all the way to the District of Columbia.

This morning, I was so pleased to see that my Great Teacher, Blanche Hartman, would be giving the lecture. In an uncanny case of synchronicity, Blanche answered my nagging question. She began by talking about a book she had read in her youth, Microbe Hunter, about a doctor who had saved many in Africa from Yellow Fever and perhaps other infectious diseases. Blanche, who later became a chemist, thought at the time, “Yes, I want to save the world, too!” After her career as a chemist, Blanche and her husband, Lou, went on to become Buddhists in mid-life. She noted, to the sound of audibly helpless sighs around the room, how many end-of-year appeals we all get to help people who need our help immediately. There are people in states of acute suffering: The orphanages that care for the children orphaned by the tsunami two years ago are running out of money, not to mention the horrors being inflicted, even as I write, in Darfur. And, surely those affected by past civil uprisings in Rwanda and Sierra Leone still need our help. Not to mention the chronic suffering of homeless, hungry, indigent, and sick without medical coverage in our own country. I’m sure you can add to this list. It’s overwhelming.

Blanche told a parable whose message was that, of course, we cannot end all the suffering in the world. But right here, right now, we do have the power to do something so simple, so bold, so intimate, so ultimately far-reaching in its effects: to be kind, a sort of pro-active end to suffering. At times, for me I know it’s easier than it sounds.

But, I thought two years ago, when I moved to Buenos Aires, before I even began to write my book, TANGO, AN ARGENTINE LOVE STORY, why not use this dance that literally puts me flush up against so much humanity to practice always being kind? My mission as a tango missionary was not so much to spread tango, but to use tango as a vehicle of love and kindness. When I’m in my zone, or flow, or alpha state, it’s so easy. When I’m not, it has been a challenge. But that is when I believe we get the “training effect”—as runners or swimmers do, who push and kick it in for the last hundred yards, through exhaustion, when they practice for the big race. I have written on kindness in tango much, so I won’t go into it more now. But if you are a tango dancer, you have great power to help others by being there for them the best you can, the most fully present—especially when you feel challenged or exhausted. Why not, at each milonga, offer three tangos to the sake of kindness (that’s just one tanda), which ultimately spreads out to help end suffering. a sort of kind Ponzi scheme at its most beneficial to humankind.

Like millions of readers, I’ve been touched and moved by the book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. I have heard that our soldiers in Afghanistan are given this book to read. I don’t know if that is true, but I wish it were. In the early 1990s, author Greg was sleeping in his car in Berkeley, trying to get together a paltry amount of money to help build a school in the hinterland of Pakistan. It was a promise he would deliver on, do or die. In the late 1990s, he had been attempting to summit K2, when he failed, and wandered in a compromised physical state into a small Pakistani village whose people nursed him back to health. When asked what he could do for them, they said “a school.” Their children were being crudely educated with sticks in the dirt. It took a long time, but Greg finally got the funds and against all odds helped the village build that school (just what makes that little old ram think he’ll punch a hole in the dam . . . he had high hopes). More then ten years later now, he’s helped build many schools(some 78)  in this much overlooked northern area of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Greg realized my version of the American Dream—to distribute, not stockpile, the wealth of our nation to others.

He didn’t set out to make a name or to “end world suffering.” He only meant to extend a bit of kindness, right where he stood, such as had been shown him. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this is the way to promote world peace, “one school at a time.” Or one dance at a time. All else has failed, folks.

So, I have decided to direct some proceeds from sales of my book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story to Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute (CAI). What an idea of educating people instead of bombing them . . . And I have a deeply personal investment in that idea. . .

My goal is to stop the fighting in Afghanistan by September, 2009. That is when my nephew, Antonio, a Marine, is being sent to Afghanistan. Wouldn’t it be great if her were going to help build schools.

Thus, this Saturday morning, sitting hungry in half-lotus on the Japanese tatami mats, focused on my spine or axis as I do in dancing tango, came the idea to hitch my good fortune to the good work of Three Cups of Tea. It’s a small fortune, but I hear the interest is invaluable.

ABOUT GREG MORTENSON (AND HIS BOOK) – FROM HIS WEB SITE

Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org, founder of Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org, and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea www.threecupsoftea.com which has been a New York Times bestseller since its January 2007 release, and was Time Magazine Asia Book of The Year.

On August 14th, 2008, Pakistan’s government announced on its Independence Day, that Greg Mortenson will receive Pakistan’ highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) for his courage and humanitarian effort to promote education, and literacy in rural areas for the last fifteen years. Pakistan’s President will confer the award on March 23rd, 2009, in a official ceremony in Islamabad.

Mortenson was born in Minnesota in 1957. He grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (1958 to 1973). His father Dempsey, co-founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC) www.kcmc.ac.tz a teaching hospital, and his mother, Jerene, founded the International School Moshi www.ismoshi.org.

He served in the U.S. Army in Germany during the Cold War (1977-1979), where he received the Army Commendation Medal, and later graduated from the University of South Dakota (1983), and pursued graduate studies in neurophysiology.

On July 24th, 1992, Mortenson’s younger sister, Christa, died from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy on the eve of a trip to visit Dysersville, Iowa, where the baseball movie, ‘Field of Dreams’, was filmed in a cornfield.

In 1993, to honor his sister’s memory, Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram range.

After K2, while recovering in a local village called Korphe, Mortenson met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school.

From that rash promise, grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promote education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As of 2008, Mortenson has established over 78 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.

His work has not been without difficulty. In 1996, he survived an eight day armed kidnapping in the Northwest Frontier Province NWFP tribal areas of Pakistan, escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides in a truck going to a leather-tanning factory. He has overcome two fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured CIA investigations, and also received hate mail and death threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education.

Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.

He is one of few foreigners who has worked extensively for fifteen years (spending over 67 months) in the region now considered the front lines of the war on terror.

NBC newscaster, Tom Brokaw, calls Mortenson, “one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, who is really changing the world”.

Congresswoman Mary Bono (Rep – Cali.) says, “I’ve learned more from Greg Mortenson about the causes of terrorism than I did during all our briefings on Capitol Hill. He is a true hero, whose creativity, courage, and compassion exemplify the true ideals of the American spirit.”

Mortenson advocates girls’ education as the top priority to promote economic development, peace and prosperity, and says, “you can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change”.

While not overseas half the year, Mortenson, 50, lives in Montana with his wife, Dr. Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and two children.

Neal Conan of Talk of the Nation asked listeners to share unusual ways they are getting to the inauguration this January 20, 2009.

Argentine tango has been my handle to inner peace. So I am arriving at the inauguration virtually by literally dancing. I am inviting my fellow tango dancers across the nation to unite and pass the torch for peace the same way, so that it will arrive in the form of a heart to heart embrace delivered to President-elect Barack Obama, in time for his  inauguration day. Who will deliver that final embrace is yet to be known but we will get it there, rest assured Mr. President.

We will be officially starting Sunday, December 28, at Belrose Theatre, a little tango hall in San Rafael, California. Each dancer will pass the tango embrace, a simple hug, to another who will not break the chain for the next twenty-four days. The best part is that even if a person doesn’t know about this chain, they are still passing the torch each time they hug a partner. We are starting here on the West Coast, and counting on dancers everywhere in the country (in the world, should you on foreign shores decide to join us) to pass the embrace until it reaches across dance floors, streets, neighborhoods and barrios, villages, towns, cities, states, rivers, and oceans all the way to the District of Columbia.

Even if you don’t dance tango, send an embrace east, north, south, or west in the name of love of our fellow humans and peace for all.

Make these hugs a beneficial form of Ponzi scheme and send them in every direction, up and down, sideways, in a very concentrated way until January 20, 2009.

This is why erasers have pencils . . . err . . . you know.

Please join me in commenting on any other mistakes you have found in Tango, an Argentine Love Story. Please do so soon, so we can get them all sent to the publisher’s before the book goes into its next printing. Which may be soon.

—page 9, second paragraph: My loft is ON Juncal Street . . .

—page 31, third paragraph, fourth line down: Hector Villar should be Hector Villalba.

—page 35, starting with second paragraph (and globally throughout): should be Rodolfo BIAGGI (not Biagi).

—page 37, second paragraph (what is it with these second grafs, recto?): Other comparisons did not escape ME . . .me seems to have vanished.

—page 37, last paragraph (not a mistake, but reads more clearly thus): change “basic eight-step” to “basic eight-count”

—page 146, second line: mercifully should be mercilessly (although one might wish the former were true . . .)

—147-148, The very last sentence reads, ” . . .lead and follow footwork is done in what is called normal or parallel system.” My very observant, much-esteemed teacher, Christy Cote, caught this one—she says this one should be “cross” system, not “normal or parallel.” I got a little dizzy doing that chain step . . .

—page 158, second paragraph: Alex Krebs . . . is a teacher from Portland, Oregon, not Canada (I had this right, Alex, but factchecked it against a mis-informed Web site . . . sorry.)

That’s all for now – please send along any other you find. You can post as Comment below or email: ocaramiaATearthlinkDOTnet.

When I first began to be swept up by tango and it became a metaphor for everything, I found few books available on the subject that expressed what I was feeling (so, naturally I wrote my own). Eventually I realized that no one book can capture tango’s essence—just as no one book captures what Zen is (or isn’t). Now, however, I’m pleased to see the bookstore’s shelves accumulating volumes that reflect the many different personal takes on tango. I’m slowly working my way through them as they appear. Here is a handful of recommendations (check back for more):

Kiss and Tango, looking for love in Buenos Aires, by Marina Palmer This book, an enjoyable read, is at turns funny, sad, witty, dark, and always sexy and intimate. Her one-woman quest for one perfect man—on and off the dance floor—recalls Erica Jong’s entertaining novel, Fear of Flying. Marina’s book is written in diary form and is a highly personal and mesmerizing insider’s view of tango, milongas, and the dancers.

The Temptation to Tango: Journeys of Intimacy and Desire by Irene D. Thomas and Larry M. Sawyer This handy guide delves into tango’s “lure” and is also a practical guide with loads of information on tango etiquette, festivals, and events. The chapters are interspersed with Larry’s short fiction which captures various aspects of the ever elusive tango experience. You don’t have to be (or have been) Catholic to love the story of the secret tango life of a Catholic priest.

Paper Tangos, Julie Taylor This book gives a chilling portrait of what it must have been like to try to dance tango in Buenos Aires under the military dictatorship (1976 to 1983), when public gatherings were forbidden. It’s not an easy read. It took me a while to get into this book because the various threads were not clearly woven together. The author hints at a violent father but never completely develops that thread. “Paper” tangos refers to little cryptic handwritten notes she found in her coat pockets some time after they were put there. They were cryptic to avoid arousing police suspicion.

Tango, The art history of love by Robert Farris Thompson This is the most academic of all the tango books. It’s a great reference guide and I recommend any tango devotee include it on her/his shelf. It’s full of well researched information on the various origins of tango, the music and its composers, and the dance. It’s not a book I would read leisurely. Thompson’s thesis—that the contribution of Africans to tango has been underexposed and undervalued—is both interesting and compelling. I especially appreciate this book for its indepth index, indispensable in a book of this nature, with so many terms and proper names.

TangoZen By Chan Park – I recently had the pleasure to meet and dance with Chan Park at a few of the popular milongas here in Buenos Aires where he’s been living and teaching “walking dance meditation” — aka tango.

We exchanged books and I was pleased to receive a copy of his compact work, about 173 pages of inspiration, famous Zen and dance quotes (Suzuki Roshi, Martha Graham, Buddha), and many black and white photos of tango dancers in contemplative tango poses.

“Tango is a walking dance—a special gift from Argentina to the world,” Chan writes in his introduction. “Can one meditate while moving around instead of sitting down?” he asks.

Of course, the answer is yes and Chan gives further explanations of Zen and tango and their parallels and overlaps. What’s nice about this edition is that it is bi-lingual—in English and Castellano, translated by Elisa Rosales. This edition is published by Kier.

For more info on Chan Park’s classes contact him directly (he’s about to head to Europe for a while):

tangozenAThotmailDOTcom – his web site: www.tangozen.com.

I wrote this piece for an editor at Los Angeles Times, but she ended up not using it (that’s show biz). It’s written for the nouveau-arrive, the casual observer, the yet-to-be-schooled in this fine art, but tango aficionados will recognize these venerable dance halls.

Watch tango the way it was born

By Camille Cusumano

You are coming to Buenos Aires the birthplace of tango. Que barbaro!-that’s local slang for How far out! You can spend upwards of $100 to see show tango (also called fantasia tango), with its fancy tricks, costumes, and highly choreographed routines. Strolling around San Telmo, Recoleta, or La Boca barrios, you are sure to stumble upon street tango, also designed to impress tourists. But, best of all, for 10 to 15 pesos (about $3 to $5), you can also see the dance of lovers the way it has evolved in halls and salons in its true improvisational mode.

Many of the grand old orchestras-Carlos DiSarli, Osvaldo Pugliese, Juan D’Arienzo, Anibal de Troilo, and Rodolfo Biagi, to name a few-played in these very clubs during tango’s Golden Era (1930s-1950s roughly). Todays tangueros, many of whom recall the old masters, still dance to their music today. Most of the halls are atmospheric and old. You’ll sit at linen-covered tables around the periphery of the dance floor and watch legs fly in a voleo (a fan kick) or ochos (figure eights) as two bodies with four legs sway and dip as one.

Milongas are what Argentines call the dance venue (milonga is also the name of a style of dance in tango). Walking into a milonga is like opening an oven door. The vibes and sound of crying violins and weeping bandoneons envelop you like a wave of heat. There are more than a hundred milongas, big and small, many listed in the ubiquitous Tango Map guide, available at most hotels. (Other useful guides include El Tangauta, La Milonga, and B.A. Tango.)

Milongas are all over the city in safe and sketchy neighborhoods, in residential, commercial, and downtown areas. This list includes nine of the best at which to sit and watch-or try the dance if they’ve had a few basic lessons. They are centered around the downtown area where most visitors lodge.

HELPFUL TIPS or TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO:
• Most milongas are divided into seating sections for men, women, and couples. When you arrive it’s best to let the host or organizers seat you in the proper section.

• Dress is casual to costume-ish-some dancers like to put on the Ritz. For others, comfort demands simple outfits. Dress jeans may be acceptable, sneakers almost never.

• The cabaceo, the nod of the head, is the traditional way men invite women to dance. Today, you may see a lot of dancers ignoring this venerable ritual, but most still honor it. Also, it’s common for the woman to initiate the invitational nod. (So, unless you intend to dance, watch where you put your eyes!)

• All milongas serve food, generally a simple menu of empanadas, sandwiches, pizza, salads, antipasto, wine, beer, and other spirits.

• Make reservations if you want to be guaranteed seating for your party. Phone numbers are listed here and are also in the guides. Times may vary from the schedule, so call to confirm.

• Most dance halls feature a lesson an hour or so before the milonga starts-call ahead if you’re interested but be sure to inquire about the level, especially if you’re a beginner. You don’t need to bring a partner.

If you hope to dance, bring your best cabaceo-you will need it as much as you need your dancing shoes.

Confiteria La ideal, 384 Suipacha at Corrientes, Mon. (3-10pm), Wed. (3-8 pm), Thurs. (10 pm-3 am), and Fri (3-8 pm) – Climb the marble stairs in this old salon to a spacious hall with dark wood panel, beveled mirrors, ancient chandeliers. This is where Madonna danced tango Evita. For those who don’t care for the late night milongas, La Ideal’s afternoon one is lively and superb. Thurs. evenings features a live orchestra-such as Los Reyes de Tango, Color tango, San Souci, Original Tango, and the Sextet Mayor. Check the schedule while you’re here.

Club Gricel 1180 La Rioja at Humberto Primo, (Mondays and Fridays, 9pm – 4 pm) – This is a great place to watch the thin stilettos of all those nine-centimeter-high Comme Il Faut shoes (one of the tango shoe hotspots) writing ocho (figure eight) on the wooden floor. It gets crowded. But as local conventional wisdom goes, if you hang out til after 1 am, the floor opens up. Patricio and Adriana are the hosts-if you like her outfits, she’ll give you a flyer with info on where to buy them, with a 10 percent discount.

Porteno y Bailarin, 345 Riobamba near Corrientes, (Tuesday, 10 pm to 3 am). The brightly painted interior is one of the “see and be seen” milongas that foreigners frequent as do a clutch of old-time milongueros, including Danny Flaco, virtuoso of the milonga (the dance), who looks like a cross between Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. Indeed, he sits, along with his Rat Pack of friends, at their table right on the edge of the dance floor, where they can watch There are two floors separated, like a bent elbow, or an L-shape.

Salon Canning, 1331 Scalabrini Ortiz at Cabrera, Sun. (3pm – 11 pm), Wed. (3pm – 11pm) Tues. (11pm – 4 am) Four Greek columns mark the entrance to Salon Canning, which celebrated its golden anniversary in 2006. The hall is a mandala with lots of air and a high ceiling-a resolute understanding of the value of negative space (at a premium in Buenos Aires). A glitter ball spins and four speaker boxes hang in the cardinal directions. In the hipster Palermo barrio, this warm orange- and gold-painted hall features a beautiful square wooden floor and an enlarged photo mural painting on one wall with some well-known people in it.

El Beso, 416 Riobamba at Corrientes, (Tues., xx-xx, Wed., 11 pm – 3 am, Sat. 11 pm-4 am) -This small but elegant milonga (its name means “The Kiss”) has black lights glowing on men and women staring across the small dance floor at each other. Watch and listen closely here as dancers whisper Que lindo (How beautiful)! at the end of the song as they stare into each other’s eyes.

Niño Bien, (Thursday 10 pm – 4 am), 1462 Humberto Primo. Niño Bien has a lovely airy interior with lemon-yellow walls, large oblong floor, and stage. You can show off your fancy outfits and not feel out of place. The lighting is romantic. What a sight to see the men and women empty the packed floor and scurry back to their seats when each tanda (a series of three or four songs) is over. The cortina (a short piece of music) signals when to “Sit Down.” Watch people scan the room for whom they will lock eyes with next. The energy is very high, very Buenos Aires. Don’t miss the Niño. Bring some air kisses.

La Nacional,1465 Alsina, (Saturday 11pm to 4 am). The dance hall, like La Ideal has much faded grandeur and some deferred maintenance. It feels like a Knights of Columbus hall, yet feels carnivalesque-you can almost the ghosts on its old wooden floor. There are all levels of dancing here as many foreigners like to test their skills on this floor before venturing into other salons.

Dandi, 936 Piedras, in San Telmo. Wed, 10pm – 3 am. Hector Villar’s Dandi Royal Mansion in San Telmo is an architectural jewel. The milonga takes place on the restored historic hotel’s ground floor. Villar (who performs internationally) has spared no detail in his exquisite tango-themed Bell Epoque mansion with broad curving staircases of dark wood, Renaissance bronzes, frescoed walls, tiled skylights, three-tiered chandeliers, and pool on the roof. The dance salon is one of the most elegant in town.

Sin Rumbo – 6157 J.P. Tamborini, (11pm to 4 am, Saturday), In the 1920s at the Buenos Aire’s Hipodromo (horse track), a man bet on a horse that was such a long shot its name was Sin Rumbo (without course). The horse won and the man decided nothing was worthier of his money than a tango club. Sin Rumbo, in the renowned Villa Urquiza barrio that lends its name to a style of tango, is about a 20-minute taxi from downtown, in the same spot for more than 80 years. Locals love to tell you that this is where Robert Duval learned to dance. It’s quite beautiful.

Being a lefty in every sense of the word, I couldn’t turn down this op to speak at the Left Coast Writers monthly meeting at Book Passage.

Monday, January 5, 2009 – 7 pm -

Book Passage Corte Madera, CA

51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960

Directions

I’ll talk about “place” in writing, and of course with lots of discussion around my new book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story.

Autographed books for sale.

From LCW Web site:

“Left Coast Writers® was created to support new and established writers in the production and promotion of their work in a stimulating atmosphere of creativity and community.

The group meets regularly at Book Passage at a monthly literary salon with an amazing roster of guest speakers on the subjects of writers groups, long and short fiction, publishing, writer-agent relationships and more. Sign up for the salon and get a year-long subscription to the many services provided by Left Coast Writers®.”

I’ll be dancing and presenting my book TANGO, AN ARGENTINE LOVE STORY, Thursday, December 18, at the weekly milonga, held in the Caspar Community Center.

I am especially endeared to Mendocino’s tango community because they received me with such warmth and welcomes when I was budding (OK, I’m still budding. . . ). And, the dancers among them who would come to dance in San Francisco were among the most memorable partners. And, I was so grateful to find Frank Howard, the Mendo milonga host, available for a lesson when I was in that phase where I couldn’t breathe right if I didn’t dance tango every 24 hours.** I was up in Fort Bragg visiting my friend, Betty, when I dragged her off so I could get a fix.

Viva Tango Mendocino!

If you haven’t experienced it yet,

you need to.

More info here at Tango Mendocino’s Web site

And directions to Caspar Community Center here.

FYI – There is also a weekly milonga in Elk, on Sundays – see Web site for details.

Dear President-elect Obama,

I am writing to promote Argentine tango as the perfect “stimulus package” for our entire nation. Tango is definitely stimulating. It is affordable and minimalist (for us women: skimpy attire, one good pair of shoes, one good man, any wood floor, music). It’s organic—based on natural body movements, such as embracing, walking, flicking of legs. It is green with strictly clean emissions—only occasional sighs, coos, warm breath. Best of all, it’s innately peaceable, a dance born among immigrants of the urge for intimacy. Thus tango dancing guarantees, in one fell swoop to stimulate the economy for the masses, spread love, and end the wars that are costing us billions per month, all this while restoring our planet to health.

Viva el tango! If you don’t believe me, just read about it in my book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story.

Tango is clean, green, and never mean

This Post is also at my Red Room site:

It was purely synchronicity at the outset—four or five days before I heard about this novel-writing contest, I had penned a “character” in my journal who awoke in the middle of the night, oh no, not again, with the ennuis. I sensed there was more to her than a mere journal entry. But I’ve been busy with promo and public appeareances for my just-released memoir, TANGO, AN ARGENTINE LOVE STORY. Plus, I haven’t written fiction since Plot Theory (3rd place winner of Kurt Vonnegut short fiction ‘06). But the calling (back) was there.

I can’t believe I actually wrote a novel (in 30 days) with a beginning, middle, and end, with characters, a reasonable facsimile of a plot, a theme, a worldview, and whatever else the schools say you need these days—oh, a bit of literary license, and surrealism–to make book. Word total is about 64,500 words. When I wrote on November 1 or so, that I always wanted to write like Andre Breton, I was half serious, and of course, half sardonic. I’m a slow writer and I didn’t expect to finish the project. But knowing how I get so totally into a piece–sometimes even an email can take me two hours, IF I care too deeply, knowing how I burn to the core, my plutonium rods, I visualize, melting down, I set one guideline—not to “burn,” not to get that attached to it, the writing, the story, the characters. And for the most part, I didn’t. Hey, computer crashes, novel gone. C’est la vie. Adios, throwaway writing. There’s lots more where that came from. Right.

But then I did get attached – to the process maybe. Having this fictional landscape into which I could escape the reality of my current status (waiting for the book that’s out there to turn a profit—and being obssessed with how to do that which the publisher cannot afford to do—promote it) was dare I say, fun? It was work, too. And now I am attached to my novel, which I have functionally called, One Novel November (new title TK). And I will keep working on it. One little thing that helped me get it done—to keep the word count up– was this: in my memory’s fictional data bank I had a slew (or is it slough, too lazy to check now) of characters who came to the fore and offered to step in, be dusted off, and speak to my new character. I am terrible on plot—but I love characters and I really dislike having plot get in the way of their being, saying, doing what they want. This is a fatal flaw, I don’t wish upon any writer. But it is so—despite my best efforts to make it otherwise.

You were asked to submit a “cover” photo for the book, along with the words, at the contest Web site–which seemed a bit premature to me. But I did. The only photo I had that could by a stretch work (symbolically) was one of a big white, funnel-shaped (maybe lenticular) cloud (look near the bottom of this link’s page) in a deep blue sky; the cloud is being blown to shreds by the fierce wind of Patagonia. You can actually see the wind in this photo, no kidding. My Dad used to chant a poem, Who has seen the wind, neither you nor I . . . I’m not sure what this has to do with my book . . . will meditate on it.

Well, have to run and insert today’s changes into my ONN.