The Mahler Cycle

Avik:




As we drove from Seattle to Bozeman, we heard the last notes from Mahler's Ninth and final completed Symphony (he started a tenth but died before finishing it). This marked the end of our cross-country Mahler cycle.

Consider for a moment that Mahler completed his First Symphony in 1886 and his Ninth in 1911. Imagine what the world must have been like without blogs, email, automobiles, and airplanes. Nature probably played a larger role in everyone's lives. It has been documented that nature, in particular the forests and mountains outside Vienna, played a great role in inspiring Mahler's music. In fact, many of the works were written in the composer's cabin in the Alps. Mahler references nature a great deal in his music, from birdcalls in his first symphony to the dying hearbeats in his last.

In high school and college, I listened to a lot of Mahler but rarely in settings outdoors. To hear all of Mahler's works while seeing some of the landscapes that might have inspired him was a unique and enlightening experience. Here is a sample of some of the landscapes which served as our Mahler backdrop:



Mahler 1: North Ridgeville, OH to Lake Anita State Park, IA



Mahler 2: Lake Anita State Park, IA to Denver, CO



Mahler 3: Denver, CO to Taos, NM



Mahler 4: Taos, NM to Albuquerque, NM



Mahler 5: Albuquerque, NM to Joshua Tree National Park, CA



Mahler 6: San Diego, CA to Zion National Park, UT




Mahler 7: Zion National Park to Salt Lake City, UT



Mahler 8: Boise, ID to Portland, OR



Mahler 9: Seattle, WA to Bozeman, MT




Of course, Mahler is not alone in taking inspiration from nature. Many modern day composers, such as Messian, take to the woods to write their works (as do authors, academics, and others). Later this summer, Carmen and Andrew will be spending two weeks as artists in resident on secluded Isle Royale thinking about, writing, and performing music.

Food, Wine, and Waves in the Northwest

Carmen:



We had an excellent day of rest in between Eugene and Seattle. We spent the day tasting wine, shopping for food, and playing around on the Oregon coast. Before we left Eugene we went to a wonderful natural grocery store called Sundance Natural Foods. Amazing produce and even more amazing bulk section. I could probably get away with no packaging waste if I bought all of my food and toiletries from this store.

The best find were the fresh Oregon white truffles! Oregon is known around the country for its fabulous mushrooms anyway. in addition to one very small white truffle (about the size of my thumb nail, only $3.50) we bought the most beautiful blue tinged oyster mushrooms, and a half a dozen white trumpet mushrooms. We ended up making truffled mashed Yukons for dinner (mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!! Anyone who know me, knows that I am the queen of yummy noises:)

After shopping, we stopped at two different vineyards outside of Salem, Bethel Heights and Stangeland, two places that specialize in Pinot Noir, which is of course what we ended up buying. The most interesting thing about Bethel Heights is that they have different blocks of their vineyards that are sectioned off individually so that different bottlings can be made. So, the block of Pinot Noir that is up on the hill ends of tasting completely different from the block that is down next to the road. We ended up buying "Southeast Block" which is was the vineyard with the lowest elevation. We thought it was the spiciest tasting, probably because it gets the most sun.



Stangeland (NOT STRANGEland) was completely different than Bethel Heights. Their Pinots were crazy and wild!

The Enlightened Northwest

Avik:

Of all the places we've visited, I like the Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana) the best. The landscape is lush with greenery, mountains, valleys, lakes, and rivers. The climate is mild year-round though it probably rains a bit more than I would like. By comparison, the Southwest (New Mexico, Nevada, Utah) has the beautiful terrain but lacks the greenery (at least in areas that aren't human irrigated). The Midwest (Michigan, Ohio, Iowa) has water and greens but lacks the interesting terrain. Plus it gets really friggin' cold in the winter!

Another great thing about the Northwest is the kind of people it attracts. At least when viewed from afar, people somehow seem enlightened. On our way from Eugene to Cape Lookout (Oregon), we stopped at a rest area to eat lunch. Halfway through, we saw a bicyclist with about 75 pounds of gear strapped to the front and back wheels of his bike. He came over to us and said that he had not talked to anyone in a couple days and asked if he could share our picnic table to eat lunch. We offered him some of our tuna and wine and he did the same with his food. His name was H.W. (yes, initials only) and he was biking from Seattle to Portland to meet up with his friends to go on a sustainability tour of the northwest where they would learn about sustainable food and housing development practices. It was really inspiring to meet a young college aged guy like this who was doing his small part to make the world a better place.

Another interesting person we met was Sarah, a teacher in the Boise tango scene. Over pizzas and wine, she was telling us about how she studied dance at the University of Oregon in Eugene and then ended up falling in love with mountain climbing. Her mountain climbing experience led her to become a frontline forest fire fighter, a job which required her to stay in the forest for an extended amount of time and make sure that any fires are contained. Mountain climbing also led her on a trip to Mendoza, Argentina where she was first introduced to Argentine Tango and the rest of the story you can all fill in. So now she lives in Boise making a living as a Yoga teacher (did i mention that?) and teaching Tango as well.

Sarah, I think, epitomizes the Bohemian spirit that I admire in my tango friends. She works at her crafts with intensity, whether it be mountain climbing, yoga, tango, or other dances. Though she realizes that she is taking the road less traveled (and probably the road less financially stable), she continues down it since her passion for her endeavours trumps the comforts of a more conventional lifestyle.

Tenth Tango Stop - Portland, OR and Building the Tango Forest Quiz

Carmen:

Portland is one the places notorious in United States for tango dancing ("the creme-de-la-creme of tango dancing"). It was no surprise that our experience there was really great in terms of dancing, the crowds reception to our music, and to the social interactions we had with people at the milonga.



Megan Pingree, our host and contact for Portland, is one of the two people left who was part of the first Argentine tango classes in Portland started by Clay Nelson way back in 1993. We ended up chatting with her after an already late night (and soon to be very early morning) at her home after the milonga.



Megan talked about the way tango dancers in Portland work together, and how even some of the more difficult conflicts within the community have been repaired. It got me thinking about all of the stories we have heard on the trip from the organizers we have stayed with. For each place we have visited, we usually got the low down on all of the major conflicts within the first 15 minutes of sitting down to talk with the organizers, as if they needed to release the pressure that had built within their community. "ITS JUST A DANCE!!" one organizer commented in mid-stride of her story.

On the deepest level, tango community conflicts are almost all about struggles for power, popularity, or just plain monetary needs. However, on the surface I saw the conflicts manifested through some issues specific to tango: alternative music versus traditional music, open embrace versus close embrace, social dance style versus performance dance style, and interestingly for us, live music versus recorded music.

The healthiest communities can negotiate all of the these things, accommodating to many teachers, and opening up the possibilities for working together through many different approaches.

People can get really wrapped up into tango and with its conflicts. I think it is safe to say that the state of the friendships made through tango can dramatically affect the well being of a person and the feelings they have about a place. How many people have I heard ask when they are considering moving to a new town, "but do they have tango?" or as one dancer in Seattle asked me, "yeah, I am moving to Boise next month, what is the tango scene like?" ( I have also talked to many people who have flown all the way across the country to seek our a dance with a particular person that the only relationship they had to was from dancing tango. That is another story altogether. There are a lot of crazy tango dancers out there. Not me of course :)

Back to the community idea and conflict resolution....

Lets say that a tango community is like a forest (an appropriate image for the northwest!). The reality is that each tree (person/tango dancer) is struggling for light and nutrients so that they can grow taller, in dancer terms struggling to get better at dancing as well as for gaining acceptance within the social network of a tango community. Power struggles don't have to be violent, they are a fact of life. Very few people dance tango without some kind of struggle for knowledge, power, acceptance or inner peace, otherwise why would they do it?

Within the struggle for life a physical forest is made beautiful mostly through time: sunlight, water, growth and decay which over time makes for ecological diversity. Can't we all just get along?

I decided to make a little quiz for all of us tango fanatics and organizers out there to test how well we are contributing to our town's tango forest.

BUILDING THE TANGO FOREST QUIZ ( Inspired by Tango in Portland)

Do you cross promote events for the other tango teachers in your town?

1 pt distribute flyers promotion
1 pts email promotion
1 pts website promotion
2 pts regularly announcing someone else's event verbally at your own event

Have you ever personally invited someone to dance at your events that you know has bad talked you?

1 pt

Have you ever made your space available to other tango teachers at a substantially reduced rate?

1 pt

Have you ever encouraged a guest artist to perform with one of the local teachers?

1 pt

Have you ever set up a meeting or been a part of a meeting between all the teachers in one town to layout tango events so that they don't conflict with each other?

1 pt

Have you ever coordinated with the other tango teachers in your town to make sure there in about a 3 week gap in between guest artist visits or festivals?

1 pt

In the last 6 months have you refrained from participating in negative tango gossip or encouraged a group of people who were bad mouthing someone else to stop?

1 pt for each time

Have you ever invited another teacher to come to your class and sit in for free to just help out in the class?

1 pt

Have you ever (had the guts!) to speak to someone face to face (email doesn't count) in a diplomatic and respectful way about something you thought he or she was doing that was inappropriate at your event?

2 pts


SOME OF THE TANGO CLEAR CUTTING PRACTICES:

Have you ever closed your practica to everyone except those that were your students?

-2 pts

Have you ever intentionally scheduled an event that coincided with someone you didn't like or didn't agree with?

-2 pts

Have you ever unintentionally scheduled an event that coincided with another tango event in your town?

-1 pt

Have you ever intimidated or verbally confronted someone in an aggressive way because you don't agree with or don't like them with the hopes of them not returning to your events?

-1 pt

Have you ever grouped together with people to try an deny someone from attending your tango event?

-1 pt

Have you ever physically assaulted someone (I have heard about this!!!) at a tango dance over a petty conflict?

-5

TANGO FOREST RATINGS

14 to 10 You are on your way to growing an old growth forest (Lots of vegetation, tall trees, beautiful views)

9 to 5 The forest is growing, watch your logging practices (Soil and vegetation healthy but be open to better ways to manage the health of your inhabitants)

4 to 0 Forest in danger, your might be clear cutting or need to plant more seeds (Patches of the forest gone from poor long term planning)

-1 to -5 Clear cut, only a few trees hold it together (Tango community blinders on)

-5 to -12 Total erosion, there used to be (or could be) a tango forest here :( (Unbridled egotism, self-centeredness, greed)

Total:


How are your tango forest growing skills? Just something to think about.

My score for the community that Andrew and I started in Grand Rapids, MI two years ago: 4

(whew! I have got some growing to do)

Ninth Tango Stop - Boise, ID

Carmen:

Tango started in Boise (my hometown) about one year ago with thanks to Beth-Anne Osborn who single handedly wielded that tango community together from what she calls tango "poaching" (a term definitely appropriate in Idaho) that refers to going to other dance events, especially ballroom events and unabashedly convincing dancers to try Argentine tango classes.



I think it might it worked. 80 people showed up for the event! and the energy was great!!

Andy:
Dance on Broadway in Boise
or
Spoon Rhythm

There we were to tango
Posters with fishnet stockings, candle-sticks, Eminem, a queen size bed, microphones hidden inside black rimmed glasses, and an enthusiastic crowd of pink and green colored wrist band dancers.
Green was for the new-bees, pink was for the enlightened.
Beer, wine, and vodka was served, but no empanada was to be found :(
It was our first time playing together in a week but after a few songs our synchronicity was back.
Marcattos and syncopas right in time
as if two friends were sitting together on a picnic table in Joshua Tree eating a curry stew and as they each finished they set their spoons down at the same time.

So, if you want your music to be tight first try and finish your meals at exactly the same time without plan.

Later on, the bed was moved to center stage and the champagne was un-corked.
Ganchos and boleos flew, some timely, some not.
All as our lady reappeared transformed into a real rock star before we said farewell and good night.

Reunited

Avik:
After our gig in Salt Lake City, Debbie and I both returned to Michigan--Debbie (sadly) for the rest of the tour, and I for a weekend academic conference in Ann Arbor. The conference, which focused on a model of human behavior and motivations known as the Reasonable Person Model, was both educational and inspiring. The weekend in general was restful, but I must say that I was looking forward to getting on the plane to Boise to reunite with Carmen and Andrew. Which I finally did on Tuesday afternoon. Of course, I was envious when I heard they had been up to...

Carmen:
We spent the weekend with Mom and Dad Maret hiking, camping, and "shrooming" in the Sawtooth Mountains in central Idaho. We hiked and camped around Red Fish Lake, a body of water surrounded by steep snow covered granite mountains that spike up and out of a meadowed landscape. Red Fish Lake got its name from the thousands of sockeye salmon that used to travel to the ocean and back to spawn via the Salmon, Snake, and Columbia rivers. When sockeye spawn their backs turn bright red. According to my water biologist father, only five sockeye returned to Red Fish Lake last year, mostly due to the 14 dams that young fish must travel through on their way to the ocean and back.



On Sunday we went morel mushroom hunting in the burn areas north of Stanley, Idaho. We ended up picking about 15 lbs. of morels!! We have cooked everything from morel omlets, to fire roasted morels on the camp fire to morel pizza, and topped it off with a lasagne for Avik on his arrival back in Boise.



We are on our way tomorrow to Portland via the Columbia Gorge.

Eighth Tango Stop - Salt Lake City, UT

Carmen:
It was dry, sunny, and hot when we arrive at Barbara Zakarian's house, a fellow tango dancer who lives a few blocks from the Mormon Temple in downtown Salt Lake city. She had a wonderful house for dancing and rehearsing, and we were treated to a delicious home cooked meal made by Barbara before we drove out to the milonga which was in a south suburb of Salt Lake City called Murray. Luckily for us, Barbara's son was going on a "vegan for a week" diet, so she treated us to a chick pea vegetable curry stew with couscous.



The milonga was at the Murray Dance Studio a two-sided dance center that we ended up sharing with a group of ballet dancers. (It was fun to see the chemistry when ballet dancers interact with tango dancers.) Salt Lake City was our first city on the tour where none of us had been before, so it was great to see so many people show up for the lesson, about 30 people, and for the milonga, about 50 people. Although tango has been going in Salt Lake about 10 years, there were many people new to tango, and it was great that we could be a part of so many people's first time dancing.



Barbara Zakarian's Saffron Curried Chick Pea Stew with Veggies

Julienne the following:
2 sweet potatoes
2 turnips
4 carrots
2 zucchini

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
Saffron threads
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder
1 lemon halved and then quartered

1 can tomato juice
2 cans of chick peas

Saute turmeric and cumin seeds in olive oil, add onions, saute for 3 minutes, then add vegetables and saute for 5 minutes more. Add tomato sauce and cook for 10 minutes or until vegetables are soft but not mushy. Add chick peas and saffron threads. Season with salt to taste and serve with lemon wedges.

Serve over couscous.

The Pacific to Zion via Sin City

Avik:

Yesterday we left San Diego on our way to Zion National Park.



After we passed through the San Bernardino Mountains, we were in desert country. After a few hours of driving through the desert, we started to see some strange sights for water starved country. Things like golf courses and water parks.



And then we started to see billboards advertising casinos, buffets, and ridiculous entertainment. Yes, we'd arrived to that desert oasis known as Las Vegas. Just for the novelty of it, we stopped in Vegas to get gas. I wanted to gamble away the change in my pocket but you couldn't play quarters in the slots anymore! And I was feeling lucky too...







Finally, we made it to Zion around 5pm.



We decided to take a hike before cooking our dinner. The trail we took was called the Watchman Trail. It started out pretty easy and we looked at all the desert sage, flora, lizards, and snake (only one). Eventually we started going up and pretty soon we were a few hundred feet higher. At the top of the ridge, the view was amazing. Words can't really do it justice, but Zion National Park had 26 million visitors last year. Now I know why. Pictures can't really do it justice either but we have a bunch in our Picasa album (just click on any of the pictures in this page).









One of the nice things about taking a trip like this is that you can get to know your travel mates. I've known Carmen for nearly 4 years now and we've always been very friendly. But I realized on the way back down the trail that our relationship had evolved. Whereas before the trip she used to ask me how school and tango were going, now she asked me: Would you eat me if we got trapped in the wilderness? I guess after such an amazing view people get contemplative. And hungry..




Carmen:

When we got back to the camp, I made an impromptu dip of avocados, green onions, tomatoes, lime, salt, and basil. Andy hooked up a delicious eggplant chili spiced with New Mexican chilies, cumin, and mustard seed. We washed it down with five bottles of Stone's Levitation Ales (we left the sixth for breakfast the next morning). Deb and I passed out with "The Guy" on a blanket we laid in the dirt while Andy and Avik set up the tents. Then Avik went into food coma while Carmen and Andy did all the dishes. It was a restful night in the land of milk and honey. Next stop Salt Lake City...

Tango Carnies

Carmen and Deb:

The circus begins at 8PM

We unleash the music's engine

An electric powered mechanism of cables, sound board, lap top, mics, and speakers

Strings, bellows, and air keep the merry-go-rounds within a merry-go-round a spinning ronda

Every night a new city, with wooden-floored parking lots where dancers pay their $10 to coast on a counterclockwise carousel, riding beats up and down, embracing their black, white, and red colored ponies

Gated spaces, mirrored and dimly lit, we walk the centrifuge for miles and miles into the wee hours of the morning, all for the main attraction: the tango roller coaster's elusive high

Or is the biggest draw the hot chicks with their black lace and colored satins, painted lips, tawny shoulders, white pants, round seats and exposed thighs?

Seventh Tango Stop - San Diego, CA

Carmen:





We drove three hours from Joshua Tree National Park down to San Diego, and picked up Debbie Crosser, our tango violinist friend from Grand Rapids at the San Diego airport. Our back seat was already bursting, but we managed to squeeze in her amp, violin, and bag. We met our hosts Linda and Daniel Escobedo along with Linda Garwood at Ciao Bella, an Italian cafe owned by the Escobedo's that hosts weekly tango events in La Mesa (a west suburb of San Diego). They completely refreshed us with Coffe drinks, smoothies, and a tomato, mozarella, basil salad with fresh bread. Andrew moaned about the coffee, "ohh, I can tell we're on the west coast now."

That night we taught the musicality class and played for the milonga at a dance studio called Dancefor2 in San Diego. As with all the other places we have played so far, the milonga was well attended, and people were excited about the live music. It was great to play as a quartet, Deb's violin filled out the sound and acted as a glue between the flute and the other two chordal instruments. When we played the first tango of our first set, Gallo ciego, everyone just sat there and listened attentively. Afterwards they clapped with enthusiasm and then Avik joked about their group being the first to just sit and really listen to us play without dancing. By the middle of the second song almost everyone was up and out of their seats dancing, about 70 people!

The next day Andrew, Debbie and I visited Pacific Beach while Avik taught private lessons. That night Avik and I taught a class on milonga, and then all four of us joined with 6 other San Diego musicians: Marzio, Mila, Justin, Clayton, Sabah, and Marcel for a workshop and jam on tango music. Many of the dancers from the community stayed to listen. We danced afterwards to recorded music, our feet still going even though we were beat!

Joshua Tree National Park

Group Response:



Hot, dry, sandstone
Fear of snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas
I wasn't even really there, I was passed out on the ground
"Magnificent Desolation"
Endless stars...

Sixth Tango Stop - Alburquerque, NM

Carmen:



New Mexico Tango Ramblings

We awoke in the wilderness at 9,500 feet
We wound down mountain roads with the thought of aspen groves, their dinosaur trunks and Dr. Seuss tufts reaching for the blue sheet of a sky

A neon lettered sign tied with twine to the back of a red mini-van read CAUTION! Pilgrimage
Men and women carried wooden crosses and bright red and yellow silk flowers
What if our lady of Guadalupe danced tango?

In the basement of another arts center, the floor newly polished. Her molinettes would float, in her velveteen slippers each step prancing with cobble stoned hips under the cream shawl. Moving not too close to bald heads or beef fated bellies.



If Gandhi danced tango he would have danced close. His embrace not only an act of compassion, but a personal test.

My room for the night is smooth around the edges, adobe style architecture, and sparsely decorated with only a few items: wicker furniture, some draped fabric, pink and gloosy, turquoise bracelets and beads.

If there is one thing in common between this house and our other tango hosts it is the placement of the TV, hidden or subdued by a larger social gathering space.

Jenny's TV sleeps under a native woven table cloth next to Sheba, the constrictor snake that has already coiled up her 8 foot body for the night.

Forget Gray's Anatomy, Law and Order, or even The Food Channel, the heat lamp above her cage is the pacifier.



The final pondering before I fall asleep:
If Helen Keller danced tango what type of music would she dance to? Traditional or alternative?
Her feet would take in the vibrations, but would the sound of a recorded bandoneons vibrate differently than live ones? Would they shake her heart? Turn its rhythm around into an up-beat?

We made it to New Mexico!

Carmen:




What a drive from Denver to Taos! Amazing views: 14ers in the southern Colorado Rockies, desert plains at the New Mexico border filled with bushy white clumps of yuccas in bloom, and switch-backed mountain roads studded with small town adobe architecture. Each town had a local cemetery with small wooden crosses and bright silk flower bouquets adorning each gravestone.



We stopped at a local winery 10 miles southwest of Taos called Vivac, owned by two brothers native to Taos who specialize in working with wine varietals from North eastern Italy. We also stopped at Chimayo Trading in Ranchos de Taos to buy some Navajo and Hopi jewelry as gifts for friends back home.



We continued south on Highway 76 to the Santa Barbara campsite in the Carson National Forest and made a delicious sandwich with goat cheese, radishes, radish greens, avocado, tomato, and sprouts. We washed it down with the bottle of Nebbiolo from Vivac.

The trail head for the hike up to Truchas peak (the second highest peak in New Mexico) was right next to our campsite. We walked about 6 of the 32 miles round trip up and back form Truchas. The most striking feature of the hike was the aspen groves. The average aspen rose more than 40 feet and we walked over many with 4 feet girths that had fallen over the winter and were blocking the trail.



The sun was setting behind the mountains before we got back to camp, and we ended up eating our best camp meal yet, fire roasted pepper and tomato black bean stew with homemade corn tortillas and salsa verde in the dark! Luckily Andrew did his mountain man duty of gathering lots of wood to keep us warm by the fire before we crawled into our cold sleeping bags. It got down to 30 degrees at night!


Super New Mexico Lunch Sandwich



Loaf of Ciabatta
Small package of herbed goat cheese
2 slicing tomatoes
1 avocado
1 bunch radishes with their greens
1 box of sprouts

Cut ciabatta in half the long way. Spread goat cheese on the bottom half. Slice tomatoes, avocado, and radishes then layer each over the goat cheese. Wash radish greens carefully then add on top followed by the sprouts. Cut into thirds.


Black Bean Roasted Pepper and Tomato Stew



Roast the following over the fire grate:
5 roma tomatoes
3 bell peppers, 1 each color, red, yellow, and green
2 anaheim peppers
4 banana peppers
3 serrano peppers
1 whole red onion, un-peeled
1 whole garlic clove
Other ingredients:
1 can black beans
½ bunch cilantro
salt

Peel peppers, garlic, and onion. Then, finely chop all ingredients and add black beans with juice and then the chopped cilantro.


Fire Roasted Salsa Verde

1 lb tomatillos
3 green onions
½ bunch cilantro
salt

Fifth Tango Stop - Boulder, CO

Carmen:




Yesterday, Ellen arranged for us to be a part of practica in Boulder hosted by Nick Jones and Tara Fortier. Before the practica we stopped by Nick's house in downtown Boulder for some hang out/tango nerdiness time. Nick showed us one of his strategies for developing his bandoneon technique. He plays Bach inventions, alternating bellows out then bellows in every other bar. He pointed out that the structure of Bach's music allows for a methodological way to learn the bandoneon's keyboard, which from what I can tell is like a mad man's typewriter, no logical order, which different notes for when the bellows are going out versus when they are going in.

Nick also brought out his 78s of different orchestra recordings that he bought in Buenos Aires. The first recording we listened to was Biagi's Quejas de bandoneon and it was like actually hearing Biagi on piano for the first time. The balance between the instruments was also different; we could hear the subtleties of the different attacks for each instrument, and the timbre of the bass and the piano were right there in the mix. After we listened to Pugliese's Malandraca Avik said that he wished he could play the 78 format for his students because the clarity of the sound would have a greater impact on them for understanding Pugliese's music.

At 8:30pm we participated in Nick and Tara's lesson which was on the ways a follower can negotiate back leading. There were about 40 people again, but in a much smaller space this time, which made for a really energetic night. After the lesson, we set up in the middle of the room and played four tandas of music unamplified (which is always nice) with Nick who joined us on bandoneon and Erica, a recent tango music convert on Double bass.

That night, exhausted again, we slept at a sweet downtown Denver pad owned by our lovely host and tango dancer Patricia Muscari. This morning, we were greeted by Ellen at 7:00am who sent us off with some amazing locally baked pastries.



Nick's Tango-Nerdiness-Time Pick-Me-Up Drink

Port Wine
Strong German Liquor (something similar to Everclear)
Raspberries
Red Apples
Blackberries

Soak 1/2 cup of each fruit in the Liquor for 2 days in the fridge. To serve fill a shot glass 1/3 full of the Port then top off with the fruit/liquor blend. Be sure to fish some of the fruit out of the bottom of the jug to have along with the drink.

Fourth Tango Stop - Denver, CO

Carmen:




We met our liaison, Ellen Yong, for Japanese food in downtown Denver after a nine hour drive out of the plains and officially into "the west". Ellen, an organizer for Tom Stermitz gave us an in depth low down about Tango Colorado and what to expect that night. It ended up that 40 people participated in our musicality class and 100+ people danced during the practica. A lot of folks were still in town from the Denver Memorial Day tango festival, and overall there was a lot of enthusiasm for what we did.

It was exciting to build an energetic rapport with all the dancers through our music, and it was great fun dancing in between our sets. The only regrets I have for the night is that we were so engrossed that we forgot about taking photos!