My Tango Diaries

  Di Sarli, Biagi, D'Arienzo, Troilo, Pugliese and Piazzolla I'm slowly working through tango composers and bandleaders - 6 so far! Di Sarli, Biagi, D'Arienzo, Troilo, Pugliese, and Piazzolla! A few made it into the 2025 Tango Calendar - an Art Only one HERE and an Art/Quotes/Birthdays version HERE , but it will be likely late next year before I finish enough for an entire a calendar. The individual art portraits are available on Redbubble , Society6 , Zazzle , and Fine Art America , with the largest selection of art and products on Redbubble. But all four sites have frequent sales in November and December, so they're all worth checking out to get the best prices. Remember that it can take a 1-3 weeks to get items printed, so order early if you need to get things delivered by Christmas.  Starting November 1st, my art posts will slow down a little bit while I switch to NaNoWriMo writing mode until December. I'll still be doing a few updates here and there, but at...

I forgot to post about the original 2025 Tango Calendar! It has the same tango art as the "Art Only" Calendar, but also has monthly tango quotes and tango birthdays of composers and band leaders. I took feedback from the last calendar and took the birthdays out of the grid and listed them next to the art so that the squares are free for notes. The new calendar is available on Zazzle here: https://www.zazzle.com/two_page_medium_only_2025_tango_art_and_quotes_calendar-256292986066986842    

 The first Tango Art Calendar (with the blue cover available here: https://www.zazzle.com/two_page_medium_only_2025_tango_art_and_quotes_calendar-256292986066986842 ) has tango quotes and birthdays.  By request, I've also created an "Art Only" version with a black cover, and is available here: https://www.zazzle.com/tango_art_only_2025_two_page_medium_calendar-256358921580815552        

 When I first starting creating tango themed art, it was mostly on my phone and meant primarily for social media. Memes, quick paints I could do on my phone while waiting in line, that sort of thing. When people asked me to start making stickers, posters and other printable products, I just transferred those designs to the various platforms.  At that time I was using vintage textures and brushes because I thought they fit well with tango photography and artwork - which was fine for social media. It wasn't fine on printed media. Some artworks did ok on some products and not others. Then I started working with SVGs (vector art) and I was able to create very clean lines in any size I needed and they printed so beautifully! And that led to the big question. Do I redo my old artwork? Slowly, but surely, the answer is yes. I've taken down the artwork that doesn't print well - or the specific products it doesn't print well on. And I've started redoing my more popular art f...

  The Good A few months ago, I went to Esquina Tango for my first milonga since before the pandemic. The anxiety wasn't as high as when I first started dancing, now 17 years ago, but I was still really nervous. The warm welcome I got from the organizers frankly stunned me. I mean that in the best possible way. I was afraid I'd changed too much. I've been ill and I've been through a lot. I feel like the last 5 years aged me 20. The welcome was a relief I never expected. I was also afraid that I wouldn't know anyone anymore, that I'd just sit and enjoy the music and count that as a win. Yay for me for leaving the house! A low, but manageable, bar. Instead I saw familiar faces, got hugged and kissed and passed around a bit in the hug line. I danced very little - though still more than I thought I would. Three tandas, two with people I knew. And I say this as a trainer, a teacher, and still an avid student -- I danced poorly .    I knew I'd be rough. Even thoug...

    One thing that increases my anxiety about returning to tango (online and in person) is the fraught debates over what constitutes unwanted, or "bad ",  behavior in milongas/practicas/classes. I won't wade into the specifics because I think those arguments risk missing the larger points. No matter how we decide to frame our community rules, or guidelines, for safe dance spaces - there are things we all need to remember, and work on. TL;DR: Humans are messy. Human interactions are messy.  We make mistakes. We're not as good as we think we are at reading other people, or at communicating our intentions. And alcohol makes us even worse. I took a "Dealing with Difficult People" training course when I worked at the University of Texas a few years ago. The first thing our instructor told us:   Someone out there thinks you're the *sshole.   Of course all of us had entered the classroom thinking we were learning how to deal with that other person, yo...