Tomorrow is the biggest Milonga (Tango Dance) in North America in Portland. I’m not sure what to say about dancing. Most people are interested when I tell people that I do it, but the conversation inevitably shuts down along the following lines:

Me: Blah, Blah, Blah… Dancing.
They: Oh, have you seen that movie with the kids? Mad Hot Ballroom ( Read more... )

When I was in elementary school I read the book The Phantom Tollbooth over and over again. When I was in second grade I used to invent continents and was constantly drawing maps in the fashion of the map in front of Tollbooth. I’ve probably read it more times than any other book. I had’t read it in like thirteen years though. Recently I ran into ( Read more... )

Two days ago I ended up leaving downtown Seattle at around five pm. The five pm downtown buses are always sort of spiritual experience. They’re always packed and people are dead silent. Typically you’ll see a few readers and a few people slumped half asleep. I was standing behind a woman with incredibly bulgy eyes. The sort of eyes that give ( Read more... )

Awhile ago I told you about my mother's efforts to create an Iowa salsa dance web page.

Here's the result:


( Read more... )

Several weekends ago my Uncles threw a major dinner party at my house. Paella was served and expensive wine flowed like less expensive wine. The guests included a television director familiar with the (troubled) romantic life of Bill Nye Science Guy and a former ballet dancer that had dated Roman Polanski (apparently when you're Roman Polanski ( Read more... )

Location, Location, Location:

http://www.bailelatino.com

The sound [w] may be a realization of the /w/ phoneme, as in (i) and (j). However, it may also be an allophone of the /l/ phoneme, as in (e) and (h). In (f), /l/ becomes a syllabic '[w]', namely [u]. That is, there is phonemic overlapping between /l/ and /w/. In which contexts does the [w] allophone of /l/ occur? Your answer should be ( Read more... )

This anecdote is from a postcard to Emily Hainze that I wrote about a year ago. Most of my favorite anecdotes are from letters. The Neva anecdote (#4) was from an email and the Ike’s Game Feed was from an aborted letter. The following happened in Richmond ( Read more... )

My mom is trying to make a website that will serve as a source of information for the Iowa salsa dancing community. She's a novice web developer and the site's been held up because she can't figure out how to have the site feature a picture of a bunch of people in fiery hot salsa wear standing in a cornfield ( Read more... )

Yesterday I told someone that I was in love with them for the first time in my life.
Add me to the list of the broken hearted.