THE PAGE TURNS

October 2, 2019October 3, 2019

The Travel Writing Experiment

Off again on another October adventure we go! Since I typically post something travelly directly to social media, I thought I would try, perhaps for at least a week, putting the few pictures and thoughts out in daily blog form rather than a daily photo and long blog weekly. Shall we try? Let’s shall.

Traveling Like a Well Oiled Machine

The Fun Car, aka the red Subaru, aka O’Hara, does like to go. We are the kind of people that have packing down to a science, have taken photos of the insides of suitcases and the back seat, so that we know the most efficient way to strap down that laundry basket full of extra shoes and warm coats, and have tucked away the extra book we may never read, the ear muffs (going north in October!), and a kite or two (coast). Last year, it was 8500 miles down and across from Albuquerque to the Upper Peninsula, from California to Ontario. This year, we are far less ambitious and only look to go Moseying up the Left Coast, San Francisco to Victoria, Canada.

Pacific Coast, Mendocino. Photo by kajmeister.

The coast does not disappoint. The first day will be home up to Mendocino, a traverse through the vineyards north of the Bay, cutting through multiple tall tree groves and farmer’s markets. The outside temperature, reported by the car, starts to drop degree by degree as we pass westward by the Schultz Museum in Sonoma and the Navarro River Grove. The road is very twisty; apparently, we did not take the usual way through Willits. Instead we are winding, and winding, and winding up 128 through teeny towns of Philo and Boonville. The problem was that I was driving, at my request, and in this unusual move, KK started as navigator rather than as Formula One racer. Hence, we apparently took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

September 25, 2019October 1, 2019

The Curious Twists and Turns of Tango

Argentinian street dancers, photo at wikipedia

The room is dark, red, smoky. The sound of a violin or bandoleon rises and falls, sinuous and beckoning, or perhaps blunt staccato, like a heartbeat. A couple dances, close enough so that as their bodies bend together, they seem to be one line, two long legs and long arms, or with legs bent at the knees between and against each other. This is tango.

The marvelous show Tango del Cielo came to a nearby local theater last week, and I have been humming “Libertango” ever since. The show is the brainchild of Argentinian Anna Maria Mendieta, harpist for the Sacramento Symphony, who took us through the history and mystery of the dance. The group and staging was spare, only three musicians and only three dancers, but tango doesn’t need much to evoke all of its history and passion, just a pluck of the strings and a stamp of the feet.

Tango Histórico

As tango itself has evolved more than once, even spawning nuevo tango and more than a dozen dance variations, you would think it older than a century and a half. Compared to belly dancing or even opera, it’s a veritable toddler of a musical style. Yet, just as Americans might raise their voices over what constitutes classic rock versus metal versus emo, distinctions barely decades old, it’s not surprising that other people would argue over tango. Nothing starts fiercer fights than disagreements over art. Especially proper art.

Argentinians don’t hesitate to fight over what constitutes a proper tango. They created the music and the dance, so as with any creation, as it changes, there are growing pains. Tango was born in the late nineteenth century, at the border of Argentina and Uruguay, where immigrants and former slaves combined their cultures and music. The two countries have long argued about where it started and who owned it, finally coming together in 2008 to celebrate UNESCO granting the dance its “international cultural heritage.”

September 18, 2019September 25, 2019

We Don’t Remember the Future Imperfect

Author’s Note: I apologize, in advance, for mangling Spanish, misinterpreting quantum physics, and injecting so many puns into this essay.

Time is perfect. We are imperfect. We remember only the past. We don’t remember the future.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.
Zadie Smith

This quote from English novelist Zadie Smith is today’s provocative question (muchas gracias, Fandango). It suggests we remember the negatives and hope for the positives. The future hasn’t occurred, so it can be what our imagination creates. This is also a play on grammar, which is a subject much on my mind these days as I am attempting to learn Spanish. So, for me, the tense is confusing. The present might be more like the collapse of a wave, given that the arrow only goes one direction. But the Multiverses suggest that the arrows might go several directions, if we could but see them, and that would make the future perfect. Let me explain what I mean.

One view of the Multi-verse, photo of Into the Spider-verse by Sony Pictures

Tenses Are Difficult. Futures Are Also Difficult.

The use of the word Tense, in the sense of verbs and grammar, comes from the Old French word for time which was tens. That’s not to be confused with the current French word for time, temps; language has changed. Language, like time, moves forward (and collapses). The word does not refer to “tense” as in stretchiness, which comes from the Latin tendere. This is why Zadie Smith’s quote is a looping play on words, since it mixes emotions and grammatical expressions, and either deliberately or innocently uses them wrongly. Tense does not mean tension. It is a homophone. Which is intense. And perhaps what she intended.