Lumps of love, transmitted by wire.

My headphones endorsed the errand by playing the perfect cycling songs as I pedaled downtown to the bank, Toots Thielemans’ “Bossa Nova” gliding right on into Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter”. We had account data scribbled on an envelope in my pocket, five hundred of your dollars lurking around the ether somewhere reachable, and the perfect cure for a morning of mental mud washing the blech off my spirit.

A venomous dose of intimidation, and a steaming and stanking dollop of why-bother, were little piles of self doubt scat on my shoulders when I started, but they dried in the sunlight, weakened in the rushing air, and were scoured away by the wash of your generosity. I had money to pass on.

I have yet to master bicycling photography, and banks just
ain't pretty, so here's a couple more from the community
center where Alvaro volunteers.

Byzantine bank protocols were navigated with an easy smile nourished by the kindness of the 13 of you who had donated to help rebuild Alvaro's home, to find the best way to send every cent. No one takes cash anymore, but it turns out the best way is still to physically walk a money order down the block.

Colleagues from my Venezuela delegation and others, family, friends, and names I didn't recognize arrived in my inbox over the last week, all stepping up to help put a roof back over a family. The bank teller may have been bored, but I wasn’t.

(The sense of wellbeing y’all gave me endured, kicking the doors off the hinges of the Oakland Parking Citations Assistance Center, and I was the happiest person ever to wait in line to pay an exorbitant parking ticket. Confused the bejeebus out of the clerk.)

Stub of the most satisfying money order in history tucked into my notebook, I grinned my way around the jetstreams of Oakland, the morning’s sick inefficacy forgotten, feeling the flow, reflecting the rhythm. And no one seemed to mind a good mood, especially the woman who honked and waved while her laughter escaped the cracked window when my stoplight dance included a little traffic direction. (John Legend’s “Stereo” just wanted me to tell the turn lane when it was their turn).

Three of five delegates, dancers, musicians, and a magician

My feet were still drumming the earth when I arrived home just now, and what did I find? Two more donors, another lump of love to send Alvaro’s way. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back and do it again tomorrow.

(If you’d like to add to that errand, the fundraising page is still alive and dancing:  http://www.gofundme.com/AHomeForAlvaro)

(And since Tuesday’s blog pushed ahead of this one, I can update that to FIVE more donors, almost doubling our amount raised, bringing us within $50 of halfway. I’m going to need to charge my ipod for this…)

Gods and goddesses

“He is the grandson of one of Cuba’s most famous ballet dancers, the whole family does ballet, but he is having problems today. I am expecting a tantrum from him at any minute.”

The eyes of everyone in our small group moved past the iron-spined teacher in teal to the young dancer behind her, who showed no reaction to words nor gazes. “Does he not speak English, or is he just that poised, in mind and body?” we wondered.

Whatever the case, when the music started it was clear: we were no longer looking at a teenager both spoiled and bearing a crushing pressure, we were looking at an Afro-Cuban god of war, and his partner was no longer a beautiful Cuban girl, she was the matching sylvan goddess of love.

He was talented, she was stunning, immaculate.

As I mentioned in my other ballet post, I don’t have much experience with ballet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not normally like this. The technical elements of movement and physical prowess were there, yes, but so was an overriding sensuality and ripe humanity that I don’t associate with the stiff-faced dancers of broad cultural lore.

The goddess entreated him forward with cupped hands, which then lifted and slid down the curves of her body, over chest ribs hips, while his movements seemed designed to pursue, catch, possess their goal.

But the power clearly belonged to her. She pulled him forward, then pushed him aside, or set him to wait. He was on his knees, stretched on the ground, then lifting her high overhead, and always the sheer balance and grace of control was hers.

In the end she stood over him, calmly victorious, and we all remembered to breathe.

The teacher, guide of both the dance and the personalities, came forward, eyebrows sharp, something terribly falcon-like in her merciless eyes. She stood in front of him, dominating him from her shorter stature, and held up first one finger, then two, explaining in minute detail what he needed to improve.

So they did it again. Another round of enticing, approaching, diverting and controlling. Another series of movements painfully precise, carefully controlled and deliberately designed. Her feet on point, a feat I am starting to comprehend, and their spines so supple I suspect cartilage (if not rubber) has replaced bone.

It was just as hard to breathe the second time.

We applauded. Heartily. The raptor teacher turned to us “Thank you for that applause, it will help him. He has a performance on Saturday, and thinks he cannot do it. But I will not let him run away.” He stood behind her, spoiled, talented, dedicated, under intense pressure, and in precisely the right place, on this unique island of art and passion.

Cubans are magical

Did you know Cubans can fly? I knew about the salsa dancing and the talking fast, but the flying, that surprised me.

I didn't think much of the ballet during my first three decades of life. Didn't think about it at all, in fact. It was an archetype assigned to a gender not my own, a cliché for generic jewelry boxes and little sisters' Halloween costumes, nothing of interest to me.

Then I met a real-life ballerina. Instead of mincing around talking like Glinda from the Wizard of Oz, she showed me the practice and persistence required to get the foot to tap at just the right place at just the right time, and somehow a dance that had been prancing, became art.

So I walked into Prodanza, one of the schools in Cuba’s world-renowned ballet tradition, with cautious optimism that I might see something cool. That was when the teenagers started flying. The first was a boy built from rebar and hickory, sailing through warm air soaked with sweat and dedication. After he eventually consented to gravity, the other boy followed his flight path, leaving a twin con trail through the room’s stratosphere.

Four girls followed, their legs unhooked like snakes’ jaws, so that their knees tended to float around at ear level. They spun in impossible circles, arched in implausible directions, and their faces reflected a devotion and poise beyond their years.

And it was only warm-ups.

Sometimes there's dance in the current

Tonight is penultimate night's eve, 48 hours from now I'll be surrounded by people trying to sleep on a red-eye flight to Mexico City, too bored with the miracle of flight to look out the window. Traveling again...excitement and nerves have been simmering in my stomach for days, warring factions that rise and fall independent of reason, oddly balanced...

So what better way to spend tonight than a travel writing reading. Because that's not an awkward phrase. The Weekday Wanderlust series has been going for x years in San Francisco, and is a familial den of pleasantries, community, and catiness, a common interest shared among moderately disparate people. My favorites are the groupies.

This was my second, more comfortable than my first, and I felt at ease as I stood long-term in line for the single overworked bartender, watching the faux-innocence of the lady who cut in line, and the brazen dickishness of the guy who followed her lead. Chatting with a couple fellow aspirants was a bonus, and I took my place without qualms as a wallflower at the back of the room when the chairs were gone by the time the glacial bartender passed me the glass of overpriced wine*.

(*Maybe he thought I was with the JP Morgan conference, instead of the writers gaggle?)

I enjoyed the readings, particularly the cleanup hitter, and debated trying to mingle when it was done. I felt comfortable, yes; after all, these people have no power to hurt me, there is nothing they can take away when you have nothing to start with. But not so at ease that I wanted to try and mingle.

My new headphones have better quality sound than the last ones, and the Aloe Blacc song that came on as I walked away was just right to make my legs swing steady, irresistible, so when I reach a red light I turn to find the green. This mood happens sometimes, street surfing, following the currents of the city, accepting whatever road it tells me to follow.

I passed a block west of the station, but that didn't matter because I had energy to burn off, the euphoria that comes after leaving a tense situation. Maybe I wasn't as comfortable as I thought? Or maybe it was just the January air, warm as the sigh after a good meal, embracing like the casual presence of an old friend.

Pass two girls, one more obviously attractive than the other, so give my best flirting smile at the “lesser” of the two, a currency she seemed to value.

Good song followed good song, and I couldn't help but respond. The first dance steps were pure gratitude to B.B. King.

The cute little filly standing outside another hotel with two others is going to notice me. Lift the chin to show her I'm the Emperor of the World, an impersonation both convenient and true, and watch her look back a second later. Give her a smile and a look, see it reflect. But the legs never slow.

There's something about suits that makes me want to celebrate not having to take myself that seriously. That accounted for the next dance steps. Well, that and The Black Keys.

Then dance was just in the currents of the evening, as I jigged my way across intersections, spotlighted in the headlights of taxis, and bopping past the windows of crowded restaurants.

A security guard slept in a chair, unaware of the performance I put on for him, though the two waiters smoking behind me enjoyed it. My last move brought me around to face the gorgeous woman who had stopped to watch. She gave me a smile like lust, and a laugh like licking, but I'm sorry ma'am, I'm too in love with the night to fall for you.

Five months ago I found a $20 bill on the sidewalk on the way home from what was already a good night. That combination meant the money was clearly not for me, and I've carried it since, waiting for the person I'm supposed to give it to. But oops, I took it out last week, it was sitting on my desk. So when I passed the saxophone player, filling an urban canyon with Coltrane's familiar My Favorite Things, I could only give him my last $10. I consider the task half-completed.

My wallet felt better empty.

It's amazing how sweaty one can get while dancing around San Francisco. When the time was ready, I took my place on the BART platform, determined not to scare anyone. We are modern people, bitter at the indifference of strangers, desperately alone in our bubbles, utterly opposed to anyone who threatens this.

But...damnit..those French guys in C2C are just too catchy, and my cup overfloweth with groove. The sustained gaze of spectators threatened to put a damper on me, but it was an empty threat, and the tomfoolery continued until the train frottaged its way up to the platform. Sexy train.

Once on the train I turned off the music to behave myself. That's a personality-free environment. Breathe.

At first, I admit, the heads bent over cell phones looked to me as mourners too stupid to realize they were at their own funeral. A dozen victims, overdosed on Candy Crush. Cerebrums corroded by Farmville cyanide. But those thoughts are so wonderfully dark that I couldn't help but laugh them away.

In front of me a gorgeous man conversed with a gorgeous woman in the curt and clear tones of Spain's Spanish, beloved to my ear. She was explaining BART to him, their stop would be 19^th Street, and when she informed him that we were currently under the water of the Bay, he was impressed behind his flawless complexion under perfect hair, she had green eyes above lips too perfect to kiss.

At 12^th Street they looked around in confusion, consternation, peering for a sign, half steps towards the door. She gnawed on one of those perfect lips, and I had to intervene on its behalf.

“19^th Street is the next stop.” Did you know green can flash like fantasy as it says “Thank you”? It was the perfect opening for conversation, and the palabras swarmed through my brain, but no, I was too shy, too self-conscious to speak to them.

The yang that danced through the streets of San Francisco was satisfied, its yin now in effect, and everything was as it should be.

Good night San Francisco.

Fire-breathing dragons and go-go dancers at Glow

The Dragons of Eden, by Lucy Hosking, more info here

Among the aging hippies, LED-addicted Burners, and baby-toting Generation X/Y/Zers at last weekend's “Glow: A festival of fire and light”, the fan favorite had to be the dragon. It polled well among those less prone to caricature too.

The bus length shiny silver body like a segmented wyrm built on top of a mobile home chassis (and headed by a multifaceted glass ball where the driver sits like the villain in the end-of-level robo-monster) was certainly eye-catching when it came around the corner, but it was the seven sharp-toothed dragon heads that really got your attention. As if that wasn't enough, closer inspection revealed the open-ended propane canisters lurking like tongues in each head's mouth. That really, ahem, fired the imagination.

“Does the dragon breathe fire?” asked wide-eyed children throughout the night. Parents lifted speculative gazes to the heads, then ran worried looks over the surrounding flora and fauna, all of which looked suddenly flammable.

“I think so, honey. Let's not stand right here, okay?”

Casey Gerstle, the Lightwalker

Nervous parents edging away from draconic destruction got help from the magnetic pull of flickering flames, four-storey projections, and eerie sounds coming from the crowd clustered in the courtyard nearby. I followed them over.

Fire spun on brass pipes, dragonflies cut from Volkswagens looked at me with hubcap eyes, and a line of exuberant artists shot flames into the air on a surreal arsenal of flame throwers. The crowd migrated between the attractions brought together by the Museum of Art and History, joined by the “Lightwalker”, who peered down with relentless amiability at children, adults, and flocking photographers alike. And at an event designed to showcase the skills and work of Santa Cruz's resident contributors to the annual Burning Man phenomenon, there were as many cameras as flames.

Lucy Hosking playing Satan's Calliope

Explosions back on the street created a current of bodies to surround “Satan's Calliope”, a Jetson's-style car, pyromaniacal pipe organ, and marvelous means of musical mayhem, all in one. The same remarkable woman who made the dragon created it, and this one she got to play with. Literally. It was connected to a keyboard, and as her fingers tickled the ivories, flames and explosions blared from the trumpets and pipes with screams like the devil's bagpipes.

It was fantastic.

Some Dancetronauts observe, some boogie

Flames flare and die, but the sternum-popping bass of the Dancetronauts never dwindled. On their bizarre Bowie-esque trailer and rising spaceship thingy, the DJs stood in astronaut bodysuits while scantily clad go-go dancers (is there any other type?) did their thing to the sides... It was weird. Here were all these artists on one hand, and an instant neon frat party on the other.

It all seemed slightly scandalous until I passed one mother who stooped down, pointed her child's attention to the booty-shaking and said “Look honey, those are called go-go dancers.” Very educational evening. Besides, our inner monkeys love bass, and the world's even more multifaceted than the driver-chamber of the dragon-thing, where a succession of people sat and waved their hands in front of the motion detectors that snapped the heads' jaws open and closed.

Santa Cruz is a groovy town but it knows its bedtime, and not long after 9:00 the Dancetronauts played their last song...but there was one more act to go. Samba music, dancing on stilts, burlesque choreography, fire eating, and leather corsets. Maybe it was five acts.

Whatever it was, the Samba Stilt Circus was incredible. The crowd gathered around and four-thousand eyeballs could not look away.

I can't recall ever seeing as large a group of humans in so good of a collective mood, grins and shaking hips across the generations, and in the end, no one noticed that the dragon heads never did spew their fire. Rest easy, moms.

And bring the kids back tomorrow night, they're going to like Part 2 even more...

Dancing with Jesus.

One of my favorite effects of traveling is the tendency to feel (at least functionally) comfortable in nearly any situation. This is easier some times than others. Eating with your right hand in Nepal? No problem. Scooping up fried worms in Zambia? Okey dokey. Dancing in Cartagena? Gulp.

It was some Italian guy's birthday (I never find out whose exactly) and a few of us went out dancing. To me, dancing is something your body does with the music, fairly automatically. If necessary, all you have to do is repeat a mantra of "why NOT embarrass yourself?" or "is it really embarrassing if you'll never see these people again?" or even "is being embarrassed really that bad?" That thing some people do that they've studied, learned, memorized? More power to them, but that's something else. Some sort of performance art (or just an infallible technique for getting laid) but not dancing as I understand it.

So there I was, doing my little white boy dance, which has served me well enough in various countries. But now I'm in a part of the world where they start salsa dancing at age 14 months. Seriously. I have seen tots, barely able to walk, bopping and swaying to the beat. Pint-sized show-offs with rhythm.

My Colombian companions were tolerant of my gringo disability, but I was definitely bringing down their average. Then I found salvation. I found redemption. I found Jesus.

He came from out of the flashing lights, across the smooth floor, hips shaking, arms swinging, hips gelatinous. All those paintings you've seen of Jesus were wrong. He's not an anorexic victim of a gang beating, eyes rolling up into his head of long hair in a divine seizure. No, he has short hair, latino-tan skin, bright white teeth, fairly tight pants, and a silky shirt unbuttoned a bit, not a puncture wound in sight.

And he's about 19.

Jesus posted up next to me, pointed at my relatively sedate feet, then down at his own which proceeded to swing and kick impishly. He stopped and looked at me expectantly. I gave it a try, although I felt a bit like I was doing the Running Man. He nodded in acceptance, if not enthusiasm.

Then he put his hand on my hip and pushed. My own poor British-descendant joints did their best to duplicate his gooey torso slide, and again I got a resigned nod.

Jesus reached down and tapped my wrist, where it was hanging uselessly at hip level, then raised his finger and wagged it back and forth, no no no, like a teacher at a high school dance. His own hands took up swinging forward and backward, much higher and faster than mine. I gave it a go, feeling a bit like I was on a Nordic-track infomercial.

Put all of this together and you had one rockin white boy, looking down in incomprehension at what his body was doing, afraid at any time that it would all fall apart, like the riding a homemade bicycle down a precipitous mountainside.

Jesus nodded and smiled, the Colombianas laughed, the music continued, the aguardiente flowed like water, and I dare to hope I didn't embarrass myself too badly that night. Praise Jesus.