Skip to main content

Enrique Fernandez, Liner Notes from Piazzolla's Zero Hour

Often reprinted and quoted, so forgive the lack of originality in this post. Before I ever danced tango, I listened to this. It was Piazzolla that started my high-heeled journey. So every once in awhile I put the music on again, and re-read these liner notes.

Strip to your underwear if you're not in black tie. Get obscene if you want, but never casual. You feel an urge? Touch its pain, wrap yourself around it. Don't put on airs. What you seem must be what you are, and what you are is a mess, honey, but that's okay, as long as you wear it inside. Look sharp! Don't slouch. See anyone slouching here? Stay poised, taut, on guard. Listen to your nerves. It's zero hour. Anxiety encroaches, wave after wave, with every squeeze of the bandoneon. Already twisted by the contraposto of uprightness and savagery, this new tango turns the screw even tighter with its jazz dissonances and truncated phrasings. No relief. No quarter. At zero hour only passion can save you. Time is flowing backward and forward into the vortex. From the rooms come a warm air and a choked melody of syncopated gasps. Something throbs. A vein under your skin. It's inside you now, this bordello virus, this pleasure that tastes so much of anger and grief. When you find pools of pure, sweet light, bathe in their waters, balm for your lacerations. For the whiplash scars the bandoneon is leaving on your soul. If this were the old milonga of the slums, or those popular songs about painted faces and purloined love, you could let distance sketch a smile on your lips. Cheap irony. You won't get away that easy. This music is for you. It always had you in mind, your habits, your twitches, the tiny blood vessels bursting inside you when you hide what you feel. So walk in the parlor, bring your friend or come alone. Come hear the master as he unravels the wind inside the box, as he presses the growling tiger that threatens to embrace him and shapes the beast into a purring kitten. And tiger again. And kitten. It's all a game. You're going to play it too, you're going to dance with the tiger. Don't worry, your life is in danger. Remember your instructions. Listen up. And suffer, motherfucker, this is the tango.

-- Enrique Fernandez, liner notes to Astor Piazzolla's Tango: Zero Hour

Comments

happyseaurchin said…
harsh :)
i guess this accounts for the vibe at certain salons :)
should have this recorded to listen to before i enter :)
Mari said…
Personally, I have only felt that intensity at one milonga and it had more to do with the mix of people than the music played. It wasn't negative - it wasn't even intimidating (but I'm not a leader, and that's the intended audience of that piece) - just very intense. Like any tanda could be the one that changes your life.

Popular posts from this blog

Tim Ferriss and the Myth of Tango Mastery

Dear tanguero, I feel I should explain my reaction to your comments about Tim Ferriss. It touched a nerve and I didn't really explain my apparent hostility. It was certainly not meant for you. Several people have brought Tim Ferriss to my attention over this past year. I can usually make it a month before his name pops up again. For readers who are unfamiliar with him, he's the author of "The 4 Hour Work Week". He set a Guinness record for the most consecutive tango turns and has competed with his partner, Alicia Monti, at the Tango World Championship . As a social dancer the idea of a tango competition seems absurd. I don't think I will ever understand how something like tango could be judged - or why anyone would want it to be. But I digress. I think the most crucial detail of Ferriss's history, as I relate it to tango, is his winning Wired magazine's "Greatest Self-Promoter of All Time" . If there is any concept more out of synch with social

Tango solidarity when it counts . . .

Some fellow tanguera-bloggers and I have been having a wonderful online "conversation" via blogs, Twitter, Facebook and email - about the importance of sisterhood and solidarity. You can find Stephanie's post, here and her follow up here , and then Tangocorazon's here . I was so bouyed by the idea of women bonding, helping and supporting each other that I took some things for granted. I took for granted that it would always be easy, enlightened as I am /*cough*/ to be the sort of consistently nurturing and helpful tanguera that I am (in my head) . The truth? Where the rubber met the road (or rather when the discomfort hit the milonga), I wasn't. Here's a little background that gave me a better perspective on the events at the New Year's Eve milonga. These guidelines appear under the heading " Behavior at the Milonga " on Vancouver Island Tango: " . . . The smaller the tango population, the more 'effort' required from each one of th

"Proper" Tango Shoes

Periodically someone, usually a man, will be bring up the topic of "proper tango shoes." If he's referring to the problem (and dangers) of trying to dance in flip-flops, or mules, or platform shoes etc., those are definitely valid, and very helpful points to be made. The likelihood of damaging your feet is very high without the proper support of high quality shoes. My problem comes with the idea that the *only* proper tango shoes have 4" stiletto heels on them and fetish-worthy embellishments. (Okay, I'm pretty keen on the embellishments myself.) "goofy ballroomy shoes are a turnoff... get rid of them..." - Alex Tango Fuego (granted this is from 2007), http://alextangofuego.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-dance-or-not-to-dancebrutally.html And, in the comments on a blog post, Anonymous said... " This is a controversial one. If a follower isn't wearing tango shoes then it's usually a good sign she's not particularly good." From Ms. Hedgeh