h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What a wonderful and totally inspiring entry.

I've always wanted to try some Latin American dance, and now my dancing taste-buds are well and truly tingling.

I had heard that the original tango was in fact a dance for two men, frequently performed in brothels. Is this something you know about too, and how does it relate to the dance you describe here?

Well this entry has already blown me away... can hardly wait to sample the real thing.

In the meantime, I shall place a link to this stunning entry on my space. Thankyou so much for sharing it with us.

Thank you for your gracious compliments. You're more than welcome for the entry. Thank you for linking it to your page.

I'm Jake - The Tanguero, Muse of Salon Style Argentine Tango. Unfortunately, I accidently logged myself out of h2g2 a week or so ago and couldn't remember my BBC login information. Hence, a new persona - DenverMan. I'm delighted that you enjoyed my article. It was fun to write. It started out as a series of posts to the usenet group alt.romance about 2 years ago. I started having a discussion with a women about dancing, and dancing the tango in particular. One thing led to another, and here we are.

The dance that I described began in late 19th century Buenos Aires. At the time the population consisted primarily of freshly arrived immigrants. The overwhelming majority of those immigrants were men. My original tango instructor said the ratio was about 10:1, men to women. As a result, brothels were pretty popular places and about the only place you could dance. Dancing was considered vulgar by polite society, and was a working class ghetto kind of thing. To the polite society of Buenos Aires at the time, dance halls were considered to be fronts for brothels. And frequently, they were.

As it was, the overwhelming majority of the immigrants were working class and in order to get in to a dance hall/brothel, you had to demonstrate that you were a VERY good dancer. Given the male to female ratio, the competition to dance with a woman was pretty fierce. She had her pick and would only dance with the best. If she'd dance with you, AND she enjoyed it, you could pretty much count on being able to take her upstairs and get your ashes hauled. Hence men would practice with each other so they could get into the brothels to dance, and, well, take care of other business.

This is also why men learned how to be followers first before the were ever taught how to lead. At the entrance to the brothel, there was an older guy/bouncer who would dance with you. If you were a good follower, you got in. Because if you're a good follower, you'd know how to lead properly. If you flunked the bouncer's test you went back to your bording house to practice some more.

Tango would have remained a ghetto dance for a long time if some upper class rakes hadn't learned how to do it. These young gentlemen then went to Paris and taught it to their friends. Once tango got to Paris, it exploded. It was the hottest thing to hit in simply ages. Vernon and Irene Castle learned how to tango in Paris. They cleaned it up a bit and exported it to the United States where it took off like a rocket as well. Once tango made it big in gay Paree, it got exported back to Argentina. When it was re-introduced in Buenos Aires, it was still considered a bit risque, but acceptable to high society, and quickly became THE DANCE. Everybody in Argentina danced tango, rich and poor. Later in the century, during the 1940's, the military took over and supressed it. Dancing tango or anything else in public was forbidden. Once things lightened up in the 80's, tango made a come back.

The history of Argentine Tango is pretty fascinating. But all that's fodder for a different entry.

That is fascinating. Thankyou so much for telling me all that. There is certainly plenty there for another entry, which I will very much be looking forward to.

You really should try and recover your previous identity, or you will lose the credit of this wonderful entry. I'm sure TPTB would be able to help you recover it. In fact, I think I've seen a page somewhere for this very purpose. I'll keep a look out for it and let you know.

I've only just re-registered myself since the BBC took h2g2 on, so I made a point on writing down my new password and details.

Have you written anything else yet under either of your IDs? I must go and check...

You are quite welcome. Thank you for your kind reply.

I sent an e-mail to TPTB a week ago about recovering my prior identity. But I haven't heard back yet.

I posted a few articles on my Jake - the Tanguero page that I doubt I'll ever submit. But of the two I've submitted to the peer review, both have been published.

I have some ideas for topics that I want to write about. I just haven't finished researching them, let alone writing them. LOL!

I read some more yesterday.

The cafe sounds very nice, quite unique I imagine. I also read one of your unedited entries, and commented. I want to go back and read another, about adventurer v. ? was it... I'll have to go and see.

Wonderful writing. If only I could do the same.

You're welcome. I enjoy reading your entries as well.

Perhaps I'm simply better at appreciating other's work than turning my own hand to it. I have to confess to having spent most of my time here in the past engaged in gratuitous conversation rather than productive research or writing.

Your conversation is both charming and graceful, and I would keenly feel its absence should you chose to no longer engage in it.

With so many delightful conversational partners, the merest thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the slightest possibility of crossing my mind.

Or to put it another way, I hope I shall be around here for a while yet.