Random Notes from the Capital Congress 2013 (DC Salsa Congress)

1. Psyon Mauricio and Shaka Brown did a great footwork/shine class on Sunday. They highlighted a wide variety of steps that have the potential to be mixed and matched.

2. This was my return to dancing after hurting my foot a couple of weeks ago.  I was happy to realize that it seems to have healed pretty well. I felt little to no discomfort most of the time.  I just had to make sure I stretched and warmed up appropriately.

3.  I got a painful, full force slap to the face Saturday night when a lady’s styling went awry.  Oddly, I was on the carpet just walking by the dance floor when it happened.  

4. New Swing Sextet did a really good set on Sunday, with lots of songs that were a manageable length for dancing.

Above: Terry Tauliaut and Cecile Ovide perform Saturday night at the 2013 Capital Congress

liquidnight: Édouard Boubat Little Girl with Dead Leaves Paris, France, 1946 “‘Little Girl with Dead Leaves’ was indeed my first photograph. But where are our first photographs? These lights that shine in our childhood memories. I was walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg after the war, in 1946. I had a Rollei camera that I’d bought by selling my big dictionaries. I was still twenty years old, I was a poet, I was in love. And of course, I wasn’t thinking about any of that at all. When your life is all ahead of you, all you want to do is live. And then years have passed by; the leaves fall every autumn. You don’t say no to beauty, you don’t say no to opportunity. When you’ve found something once, can you ever give it up again? The photo just happened. Just one. A very pale negative developed in a makeshift lab. Am I still twenty years old today? Am I still in love? If I say yes, I still have a chance of finding that light. I sometimes walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg and I have never seen another little girl dressed in dead leaves. Every little girl is a little girl for the first time and everyone and everything I meet are just as I saw them for the first time. There is no such thing as a first photo. There are only new photos. The light is brand new today.” —Édouard Boubat, Paris, France, 1992 From Édouard Boubat: A Gentle Eye

liquidnight:

Édouard Boubat

Little Girl with Dead Leaves

Paris, France, 1946

“‘Little Girl with Dead Leaves’ was indeed my first photograph.

But where are our first photographs?

These lights that shine in our childhood memories.

I was walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg after the war, in 1946. I had a Rollei camera that I’d bought by selling my big dictionaries. I was still twenty years old, I was a poet, I was in love. And of course, I wasn’t thinking about any of that at all. When your life is all ahead of you, all you want to do is live. And then years have passed by; the leaves fall every autumn. You don’t say no to beauty, you don’t say no to opportunity. When you’ve found something once, can you ever give it up again? The photo just happened.

Just one. A very pale negative developed in a makeshift lab. Am I still twenty years old today? Am I still in love? If I say yes, I still have a chance of finding that light.

I sometimes walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg and I have never seen another little girl dressed in dead leaves. Every little girl is a little girl for the first time and everyone and everything I meet are just as I saw them for the first time. There is no such thing as a first photo. There are only new photos. The light is brand new today.”

—Édouard Boubat, Paris, France, 1992

From Édouard Boubat: A Gentle Eye

Peter Collins, Louise Cordier, and companion at the 1956 Monaco Grand Prix.  Photographed by Thomas McAvoy for Life Magazine.

Peter Collins, Louise Cordier, and companion at the 1956 Monaco Grand Prix.  Photographed by Thomas McAvoy for Life Magazine.

Now Reading:

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing” (2013)

Liu Ye “Big Flagship (Red/Little Navy)” (2007)

Liu Ye “Big Flagship (Red/Little Navy)” (2007)

Hugh Holland “Team Lineup”

Hugh Holland “Team Lineup”

Tina Gillen “Astroland” (2008)

Tina Gillen “Astroland” (2008)

Photographed by Mikael Vojinovic

Photographed by Mikael Vojinovic

Getting ready for the Capital Congress (DC Salsa Congress).  Anyone on Tumblr going?

wren2972: Monaco 1956

wren2972:

Monaco 1956