Categories
mexico

Cup Final Day…and I Have Writer’s Block

Oh I am in such big trouble. Meant to be going to Brighton today for a wedding. (Yes! I won’t be able to watch the FA Cup Final…gaaaahhhhh!) So I’m trying to hit my 500 word daily target on Jaguar but can I write? NO!

I’m stuck in some loop of memory, thinking about my aunty who died recently, and the university where she used to work, and how from the first moment I saw St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where I did my undergrad degree, it brought back powerful memories of a place which had meant so much to my family, before it was destroyed by an earthquake.

Compare and contrast…

St Catz (top) vs the late, lamented, earthquake-clobbered Universidad Iberoamericana (bottom).

…and…that’s it! Out of time, have to go. Come on you Reds.
Categories
cuba jaguar's realm other books salsa

Non-Stop Solemn Salsa

I have worked out…that from now to September, I’ll be attending a salsa event OR going on holiday every single week.

Including:

That should keep me very cheerful, all summer long! I’m a firm believer in the milestones-of-happiness approach.

I’ve dropped my writing target to a manageable 500 words per day. The plan is all done, in mega detail, so barring illness or other setbacks, I am aiming to finish a draft of ‘Jaguar’s Realm’ in time for my birthday at the end of August. That way I can have a joint celebration at…where else but Floridita. Yay!

Ah, the best laid plans…

Categories
cuba

Septeto Santiaguero

This one’s for motorpilot from Litopia.

Septeto Santiaguero
Forget Buena Vista Social Club – founding members Compay, Ruben, Pio and Ibrahim have all passed away. The best son band in the world is Septeto Santiaguero. Contemporary son compositions played in a upbeat, energised way, hugely danceable. We saw these guys on our last night in Santiago, in the famous Casa de la Trova.
Here’s a video from their latest CD ‘Los Mangos Bajitos’. It’s a wonderful guaracha called ‘El Culpable’.
(‘I get the blame for everything; I get the blame for my own stuff, I get the blame for everyone’s stuff, caramba – I get the blame for EVERYTHING!
They say I’m vain, cos I dress like a lad, they say I’m capricious, a drunk…
They say I’m a low-life, stuck me with it, cos I fancy my mate’s woman…
Someone loses a wallet, they mutter that I took it, without noticing that the wallet has an owner – me!’)
Categories
cuba salsa

Pupy y Los Que Son Son

A small break from thinking about superhero films. (Hint: there are only three different comic books in the final 5 – getting the order right, that’s the thing.)

To reminisce about Cuba (again) and about how great Pupy y Los Que Son Son are. I’ve been listening to their terrific CD Mi Timba ‘Cerra’. It’s so amazing, really hot salsa/timba, infectiously danceable. Almost as good as Los Van Van’s Chapeando.
Here’s the video for the delicious De La Timba A Pogolotti.
Pupy (Cesar Pedroso) is the greatest. This is what I love about salsa; some of the biggest stars are in their 60s. My daughter and I saw Celia Cruz on stage in London when she was in her 70s. She danced all the way through the show!

Like any of you care. I have to get some fellow salseros reading this blog.
Meanwhile, here’s a photo of one of their three soneros (improvisational lead singers) – my favourite, Pepito. He’s like a fiery, red-haired gypsy from Andalucia. This is actually taken in Casa de La Musica, Galiano, where my teenage daughter and I danced the night away with two Cuban hotties. While my lovely husband babysat. What a star!
Categories
cuba other books salsa

Orishas Dancing at Buena Vista Club in Oxford

Not the Buena Vista Social Club of massive Cuban-band-fame, but a monthly Oxford Cuban salsa event organised by local Cuban dance fans who arranged for us to have our very own locally-based professional Cuban dance teacher, Ariel.

I’ve been chatting to Ariel quite a bit since we happened to coincide in Havana when we were over there. I’d mentioned to him about seeing Yoannis and partner doing an improvised Afro-cuban dance in Santiago de Cuba. Maybe he remembered that, because at the end of the afternoon workshop in which he taught us the dance of Eleggua, one of the orishas, or Santeria deities, Ariel offered to dance to the song “Y Que Tu Quiere Que Te Den?” (And What Do You Want Them To Give You?) and show us the dances of all the orishas who are sung to in that song.

Which was a major bonus for me, because of something I’m planning for an important scene in my latest project codenamed ‘Jaguar’. No more info for fear of spoilers… Perry, one of the organisers of Buena Vista in Oxford, is going to put up a video on Youtube.

Another one of those weird coincidences – I saw a British woman dancing reggaeton and recognised her from the world-famous dance hall, Casa de La Musica, Havana, a few weeks ago. She was pretty unmistakeable – I’ve rarely seen a white woman, let alone British, move like that! When my daughter and I went to Casa de La Musica, the Cuban guys we were with were amazed and said about this woman – “She moves like a Cuban.” I went over to talk to her and her friend, and they were indeed the two women we’d watched dancing with two quite well-known dance teachers from Havana.

She told me that just over a year ago she went to Cuba to learn to dance for the first time – as a beginner! I was staggered!

That does it. I must practice reggaeton at least half an hour a day from now on.