Volkswagon Polo, Making of the New

This October 16^th & 17^th, the state Capitol grounds in downtown Austin will be filled with authors, readers, and chefs and musicians in a weekend long extravaganza at the Texas Book Festival.

I’m super excited to be traveling to Austin for the event—not just for the Latin dancing scene, huevos rancheros and books galore, but at my presentation of Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home, Austin tanguero Alex Long and his partners Elif Ayse & Marina Flider have agreed to dance a demonstration of tango, milonga and vals!

So my room will be the lively, passionate one. Please come to the event if you can and pass this invitation along to the tango curious and the lovelorn.

Saturday, Oct. 16th 3:30 – 4:15

Capitol Extension Room E2.028

July 28, 2010

Summer is the time for flings and affairs, a season that evokes daydreams about what could have been. But if you don’t fancy yourself straying, books are an ideal way to live vicariously. You can explore all the naughty things you can’t quite bring yourself to do, fantasize about the love you long for, or, on the more serious side, plumb the pages for truths about our human capacity for ecstasy and pain.

It’s a luxury to ride the crest of a character’s emotional life, from the agony of betrayal, to passion’s joys. Here are some recent titles that take a fresh look at illicit love.

Visit the Full Article!

Fresh from a painful divorce, travel writer Maria Finn sought solace in something that made her happy: tango lessons. In her 2010 memoir, HOLD ME TIGHT & TANGO ME HOME, Finn recounts how tango slowly took over her life, until a trip to the birthplace of the dance, Buenos Aires, gave her the confidence to open her heart again. Finn discusses how she mingles memoir with history to create her non-fiction.

Listen to it here: http://www.prx.org/pieces/49109-travel-writer-maria-finn

Listen to “Tango Me Home/The Key” winning story of the Heartbreak Competition

Composed, Produced, Engineered and Performed by Marlan Barry
with Violin by Maxim Moston and Spoken Word by Ana Valle
Inspired by story “The Key” by Cherie Magnus
 

“The Key” Instrumental Version
 

Amazon Download is available Here and Itunes coming soon.

I came upon this article recently. A “Tango Protest” is planned to make a statement about survellience in Tampa, Florida. It sounds like some high-tech tango.

Called Tango Panopticon 2.0, it’s the latest in a series of what artist Robert Lawrence calls “Tango Interventions.”

Lawrence, a University of South Florida associate professor, is mixing his love of the tango with his disquiet over government surveillance.

The dancers in each city will go through their paces in front of private and public surveillance cameras. In Tampa, they will be in Ybor City, which has several cameras along Seventh Avenue.

“We’re trying to reclaim the public space,” Lawrence said. “The idea is to say, ‘We know you’re watching us, now watch us do this.’”

Lawrence is working with Adriana Iamnitchi, an assistant professor in computer science and engineering. She and USF graduate student Michael Stillo created a web-based system to display the dancers in each city in real time.

Read the full article Here

This is a little painful for tango dancers to watch, but they pull off a nice cadena. And she has nice, tanguera facial expressions and a lovely decollete.

Watch video, with morbid fascination here: Pamela Anderson and Damian White

Book Pod is a great series of audio interviews with writers by Barbara Finkelstein. Her interview with me about “Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home” was featured this week.

Maria Finn
Dancing out of the night
Monday, April 19, 2010

The travel and gardening writer talks about Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home, her memoir about learning to dance tango and overcoming heartbreak.
LISTEN Dancing Out The Night

Last week a profile of the book event at the Meat Hook in Brooklyn aired on Italian television. While it was translated in to Italian, I think they called the beginner’s lesson a New York City milonga. Tango people will find this kind of funny.

To see the video, click here .