2237  One tango under God with no blasphemy at all

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:03:52 -0800
From: Carlos Lima <amilsolrac@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: One tango under God with no blasphemy at all

Huck Kennedy on broken embraces:

>

Nicole writes:

"Tango is not written in stone. Style is style. If everyone danced exactly
the same style, well... "

...Well...we'd all be ballroom dancers!

Huck, ducking
<

Why not, but why being so un-ambitious? If our ancestors were a little
smarter and would all agree on political and religious ideas we would have an
annual worldwide Hitler's day, and a state religion that everybody followed
and believed roughly fashioned after Lutheran Christianity, with liturgy in
bowdlerized High German, etc. It would have been brave indeed. What a pity.

Another advantage of the tango world massively converting to Huck's Tango
Style (sounds good!) is that it would all reveal a fine understanding of the
history of tango, to emulate, if not to rival, the fine understanding of
human history displayed in Mein Kampf.

Huck, I assume you are ducking while biting your tongue with your bill. But
you milonguero true believers sometimes leave me worrying so ...

Cheers,

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:35:58 -0700
From: Huck Kennedy <huck@ENSMTP1.EAS.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: One tango under God with no blasphemy at all

Carlos Lima writes:

> Huck Kennedy on broken embraces:
> > Nicole writes:
> > > "Tango is not written in stone. Style is style. If everyone danced
> > > exactly the same style, well... "
>
> > ...Well...we'd all be ballroom dancers!
>
> > Huck, ducking
>
> Why not, but why being so un-ambitious? If our ancestors were a little
> smarter and would all agree on political and religious ideas we would have an
> annual worldwide Hitler's day, and a state religion that everybody followed
> and believed roughly fashioned after Lutheran Christianity, with liturgy in
> bowdlerized High German, etc. It would have been brave indeed. What a pity.
>
> Another advantage of the tango world massively converting to Huck's Tango
> Style (sounds good!) is that it would all reveal a fine understanding of the
> history of tango, to emulate, if not to rival, the fine understanding of
> human history displayed in Mein Kampf.
>
> Huck, I assume you are ducking while biting your tongue with your bill. But
> you milonguero true believers sometimes leave me worrying so ...
>
> Cheers,

Querido Carlos,

Before you decide to lambaste someone, no matter
how tongue-in-cheek "good-naturedly," you might want
to have a friend who has more than your cursory knowledge
of English explain the posting to you before you have
Sancho saddle up your steed and you sally forth to slay
your windmill. Or perhaps I can translate all my postings
into Spanish for you, my Spanish would almost have to be
better than your English.

Okay to be as brief as possible:

1. My response to Nicole did not disagree
with her, but rather was in agreement. It
was a joke making fun of competition ballroom
dancers, each one an almost identical clone
of the next in style. One of the things
I like best about Argentine tango is that
everyone is free to create his or her own
style, without having some ballroom teacher
say, "No, we move our hands during the
rumba like this, no, move that finger here,
and this one a few centimeters there, use this
angle of the wrist...yes, just so!"

2. There is no "Huck's Tango Style" for
the world to convert to. I dance both close
and open as mood dictates and space permits.
As best as I can decipher your postings, this
is also how you dance.

3. I am not one of the "milonguero true
believers" that you are on a quest to hunt
down and subdue, apparently using the old wild,
wild, West approach of shooting everyone and
letting God sort 'em out after they're dead.

Huck

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 16:16:12 -0800
From: Carlos Lima <amilsolrac@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: One tango under God with no blasphemy at all

Huck, you are right that I missed something, though I did not intend to
offend you. I did assume, and I have acknowledged, that you were making a
humourous remark. But the idea that only one way is real is so constantly
repeated by many, that it just puts me off. I over-react.

Also, I got your name mixed up with another listero who I was convinced would
not mind the hyperbole. Finally, humourous on not, I did understand at first
ballroom dancer to mean ballroom dancer, or social dancer, as opposed to
performer. The specialised meaning of competitive ballroom dancer of the
English technique or American ballroom variety did not immediately pop in my
head this time. I thought you were mock-proposing the well worn idea that
those who do not dance like "us" are frustrated stage dancers.

I do agree that you have a good reason to be upset, and would have one even
if you were saying what I thought you were. In fact I was already writing a
follow up posting acknowledging the mistaken assumption in my last sentence
when you posting arrived. I sincerely apologize. I also hope that you forgive
my deficiencies in the English language, and find them a mitigating
circumstance.

Also, even though the hyperbole was meant, as you say, good-naturedly, still,
it would have been far better to omit it. In retrospect, perhaps I felt that
the obvious excess would leave no doubts that it was not meant to be taken in
any way seriously, but I should have been more sensitive. I regret that as
well.

Sincerely,

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 13:03:01 -0700
From: Huck Kennedy <huck@ENSMTP1.EAS.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: One tango under God with no blasphemy at all

Carlos Lima writes:

> Also, even though the hyperbole was meant, as you say, good-naturedly, still,
> it would have been far better to omit it. In retrospect, perhaps I felt that
> the obvious excess would leave no doubts that it was not meant to be taken in
> any way seriously, but I should have been more sensitive. I regret that as
> well.

Actually, I was more upset that you misunderstood
my posting and mistook me for someone else and lumped
me in with the "there's only one true tango" crowd than
over the actual hyperbole itself, which I found
entertaining.

So do not worry, Carlos, in my reply I was simply
trying to heap the hyperbole back onto you in equal
measure. A price had to be paid! :-) Alas, my wild
west metaphor probably didn't quite measure up to your
Mein Kampf one, but I have exacted my satisfaction and
have re-holstered my epee!

Of course, the irony is that probably our
philosophies on this entire embrace matter are very
similar.

Huck