I invited each member of my tour to put up a blog entry on anything they liked. Here is another one: Buenos Aires from the eyes of an engineer :-)
Tango: A lot harder than it looks
Virtuoso pianists perform difficult pieces and make some these pieces seem nearly effortless to
play. It takes many years of practice to play with such ease. And so it is with tango. When I
watch dancers in the milongas of Buenos Aires, moving with ease and grace, I know that many
of them have spent years perfecting their dance. With this level of perfection, they make
dancing look so deceptively easy.
There is, however, one aspect of tango in Buenos Aires that seems to defy improvement
through practice, at least for some North Americans. This is the “cabeceo”, the signaling used
by a man to ask a woman to dance. It is -- I think -- some synchronized combination of eye
movement and head nodding. The porteños have it down but we from the north, particularly
engineers, can’t quite figure it out.
A few months ago, I went backpacking with a friend of mine, Mortimer, whom I have known for many years. Mortimer is a crack robotics engineer in Silicon Valley, and he just could not grasp the concept of cabeceo. He was utterly perplexed. They do that!? However, we both concluded that cabeceo facilitates natural selection and efficiency in the milongas, thus improving the dance. It is all for the good.
Biking: a lot easier in Buenos Aires than it looks
The bike lanes in Buenos Aires are awesome! They are well marked and sometimes have
concrete barriers that keep the autos from spilling over into the lane. I was able to ride around
town with ease, and it didn’t take the years of practice required by tango. There is a lot of
biking occurring in Buenos Aires as well as a lot of running and walking. It is all inspiring and I
wish this level of activity could be imported to the United States.
Dancing at Los Consagrados milonga
Well-engineered bike lane in Buenos Aires
Running and Riding in Buenos Aires. Extremely low carbon footprint.