Maria Finn's Blog

This October 16th & 17th, 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

The heartbreak competition had a wide variety of entries, and I truly enjoyed reading all of them. Some by highly skilled writers, and then there were very sincere sad stories by people still in the throes of heartbreak. Sometimes, our tales of heartbreak leave us feeling bewildered and wronged, but many people have picked themselves up and moved on. I was told that one entry was by an 11-year old girl. Her grandmother told me this and was shocked that someone this young could have already had her heartbroken. A lot of excellent, very well written entries came from the Stanford Creative Writing Program. And many heartfelt stories came from as far away as Argentina, and across the US from California, to Kansas City, North Carolina and New York City. One woman told me that she was finally inspired to sit down and write the story that she has been meaning to tell. I hope that this experience was cathartic for everyone and I thank you for participating and sharing your story. The winning story was chosen, based on many elements, but in particular for its ability to translate in to a tango song.

The winning story is “The Key” by Cherie Magnus. The judges wrote: I’m often drawn to characters living in the aftermath of their own successes, and I thought the author did a nice job of evoking that quality of nostalgia and regret. The vivid imagery and lyricism makes it suitable for a song.

As I send this, Marlan Barry is hard at work composing a tango song and we hope to have it completed by May.

I'm having way more fun that a book tour is supposed to be. I got to catch up with some friends in Seattle and I'm definitely going back for Seattle Tango Magic in late July as the tango people I met at the book event seemed so great. Plus, Jennifer Bratt and Ney Melo will be teaching there, and there's a salmon bake. As well, I have to go dance at Century Ballroom there. I missed the salsa dance there last Saturday night.

Then in Portland I got to see some friends from Homer, Alaska who I haven't talked with for way too long. We went out and remembered tales from our misspent youth. (Which doesn't seem to be over yet, we just like quieter music and the parties don't last for days.) As well, Valentango, one of the biggest tango festivals in the country was in full swing. While my friend Renee and I rested from the festivities at a nearby bar, one young lady sitting on a stool near us mentioned she might like to dance. Renee and I started urging her to start tango, and the bartender shook his head. "These tango people descend on Portland from all over the country. This is like a cult. They are obsessed." Renee and I brushed him off, but he persisted. "Don't talk to them about tango. It's like Amway!"

The reading event in Bellingham,Washington, a city where I was a little nervous about having an book signing because I didn't know a soul, turned out to be a wonderful experience. We had a really fun event last night at Village Books, one of the most charming bookstores I've ever been to. It's truly a community gathering place, with floors of book, two cafes, and they had some great Putomayo Cd's for sale. (I think the tango ones sold out last night). And the staff was just great.

With the urging of tango teacher Rebecca Niemer, several of the Bellingham tango dancers showed up and what was supposed to be a pre-event demonstration turned into a mini-milonga. We we chuckling about the guys in Carhartts rifling through guy magazines and trying not to watch the tango, but also not leaving. We urged them to give it a try, but most resisted.

Some of the dancers performed prior to the reading, which really sets a lively tone. Afterward, I went to the Bellingham Yacht Club for a milonga. One tanguero gave me a bouquet of Valentine's Day flowers!

But alas, it's time to leave the Pacific Northwest, unpack my rain gear, and get out the winter weather clothes, as I'm headed east.

Dean Olsher is the author of “From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords” (Scribner, June 2009), Olsher knows how words and emotions intersect into puzzles for the mind and the heart. He spent much of the last thirty years in public radio reporting on the arts and culture for NPR News and as the creator and host of The Next Big Thing, where writers, musicians, and humorists collaborated.

Tango Me Home: Since you are both a musician and writer, what elements in a story do you find would make for a good song?

Dean Olsher: Although there are songs that tell stories, usually the best words for a song lyric come from the point in the narrative where the story pauses and the singer reflects on his or her emotional state. This is how it works in opera and Broadway musicals.

Tango Me Home: Why do sad songs make us feel better when we are down?

Dean Olsher: Who knows? Albert Murray has a lot to say about this – specifically about how listening to the blues will take away the blues. I know that my own drug of choice is French musette, which sounds quite melancholy but acts on me as an antidepressant.

Tango Me Home: What songs do recommend for those suffering from heartbreak?

Dean Olsher: I am going to begin by cheating. After all, to be a song, you need both music and lyrics. But as I mentioned musette is, for me, the perfect soundtrack for heartbreak, and much of that repertoire is instrumental. Gus Viseur “Flambée Montalbanaise”

Moving away from musette but staying in Europe, this next piece is from Portugal and is not a song, either, but it is the best sonic representation of heartbreak I know.
Carlos Paredes, “Canção Verdes Anos”

Before listening to this next one, I have to admit that some of these songs come to mind simply because I was listening to them during moments of my own heartbreak. Your mileage may vary.

The Cardigans, “Lovefool”

Finally, closer to home: Beck “Lost Cause”, Tom Waits “All the World Is Green”

I’ve saved the best for last. However, I can’t find any sites that have licensed the original recording. There is this somewhat flawed live performance on YouTube. The flaws are in their own way heartbreaking.
Randy Newman“Marie”

And anything ever sung by Nick Drake

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My own marriage was, in retrospect, based on a lot of bad decisions. But while I should cringe while reminiscing, I can’t help but be a little proud. Not that I married late in life, had a short, tumultuous union that ended with him having an affair and me going from salsa to tango. The horror of divorce, the shame of public failure, the emotional devastation of heartbreak, and, not to mention financial catastrophe—I can’t say all this was worth it. But as I listen to people tell me their own stories of forgoing their better judgment and taking a swan dive into the murky waters of love and marriage, I just can’t help but admire them—particularly the risk takers. And in doing so, perhaps I’m admiring my own bad, impetuous choices.

I recently met a man who recounted his short marriage. He told vignettes that made it clear the union was a symptom of his innermost pathos and disturbances reflected back to him in the form of another person. Her other virtues, “hot with big rack” is how he put it. And even now he can’t figure out what possessed him to get married, but he offered the insight that it was based on a type of sex that may in fact be illegal in some states.

There are many reasons to get married. Security, wanting to have a child, health insurance, but most often, it’s for a blinding, weak-in-the-knees LOVE. And who doesn’t admire this—the leap into our very best and worst selves. Though the next time one enters this realm, it’s a little more slowly, a little more cautiously, and one hopes uses the mind as much as the heart.

Heartbreak Competition

As Valentine’s Day approaches, write about your tale of heartbreak in between 100-200 words. Restrain from a rant and using the guilty party’s real name. (Though it’s tempting) Use a pronoun or just an initial. He or she will know who they are. Craft your brief story with a beginning, middle and an end. What did you learn from this? How did it change you? Looking back, was it the best thing that ever happened to you? Or did it stay the worst? Was there an ironic twist? A happy ending?

We will post the entries to the Tango Me Home Blog. (www.tangomehome.com). Maria Finn will choose 10 finalists. All finalists will receive a copy of her heartbreak memoir, “Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home”. These will then go to our panel of judges who will choose the winning story. This story will be arranged into a tango song by Marlan Barry. All rights to the song will be the property of the composer, but the winner will have his/her story of heartbreak immortalized into a work of art. For rules, guidelines and to enter visit http://tangomehome.com/heartbreak-com....

Check it out--it has vintage footage of tango dancers, and the wonderful dancers Jennifer Bratt and Ney Melo. (And me, talking about heartbreak and tango.)

http://tangomehome.com/videos/

Next month I have two books being published. On February 9th, my memoir about having my heart broken and learning to dance,"Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home" is being published by Algonquin Books.

On February 16th, Rizzoli is publishing a book of mine, "A Little Piece of Earth, How To Grow Your Own Food in Small Spaces."

I feel like I'm giving birth to twins who have two different fathers. But having actual children changes life drastically--so I'm told. But authors often refer to their books being published as "the calm before the calm". Big expectations yet life remains pretty much the same.

My last book tour for "Mexico in Mind" was a disaster. My suitcase was stolen at the first stop, LAX, so I lost all of my favorite clothes. A paper in my hometown, Kansas City, only wrote about my fresh divorce in their listings, and my parents had not even told their friends. I got food poisoning in Tucson, my brother's car he had lent me broke down in Northern New Mexico on a holiday weekend and had to be towed back to Albuquerque. In Phoenix, only five people showed up for my reading and two of them were confused as they thought I was the local psychic.

But I remain an optimist and this year, I am going to twenty different venues for my tango book. As I set up book events, I hope to convince people to learn to dance, so my events are going to be as interactive as possible. There will be dance demonstrations and in some venues, wine, live music and tango lessons will be part of the book presentations. There will be tango parties in Art Galleries in Sausalito and Half Moon Bay, and an Argentinean style asado at a butcher shop in Brooklyn; I will be overlapping with tango festivals in Portland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona, and we will have an event at a hip new Speakeasy and Wine Tasting room in the heart of wine country this spring.

To see a list of them, visit: http://tangomehome.com/author-tour/