Cuartito Azul

Hi all. The repeat visitors among you may have noticed something different here. First off, I changed the address for the blog to something I think makes more sense. And since I was changing things around already I figured it might be a good time to shake things up a bit with the layout. I was never completely happy with the color scheme of the last one but for whatever reason the template only allowed limited tinkering along those lines, at least as far as I could figure out. This new template allowed for more flexibility color-wise (I think the template is called "Jellyfish," if anyone is interested).

Initially I went with a theme that was as close to the earlier site as I could get, but I didn't like where the new template placed the old photo (another fyi, that was a pic I took on my first trip to BsAs in 2003--my partner was the lovely Natalia Pastorino, a really beautiful dancer that I don't seem to hear much of nowadays but can be seen in that fantastic National Geographic issue on tango a few years back, dancing with her then partner Alejandro Nievas at El Balcón in San Telmo. Also, pictures from that article were subsequently used for current editions of Lonely Planet's Buenos Aires guides). So I removed the picture field which subsequently removed the picture, and when I set up a new picture field in a new location I decided to go with something different. The current photo should be familiar to the real trasnochandos out there. It was taken sometime in 2005 at roughly around six o'clock on a Saturday morning at La Viruta, as the room dropped into darkness before the solo violin strains of the Forever Tango interpretation of La Cumparsita began its wail over the loudspeakers, the blue lights gradually emerging to reveal the slowly rotating black silhouettes.

Given the color of the photo, I thought more of a blue theme would be more fitting. I tend to like darker colors so I kept it shadowy with the exception of the title, which I wanted to match the color of the Argentine flag.

Finally, there is the inspiration of the song, whose title I hijacked to head this blog post. It was this song which first turned me on to El Pibe de la Paternal, maestro Osvaldo Fresedo, with his distinctive singer Ricardo Ruiz.

Cuartito azul
de mi primera pasión,
vos guardarás
todo mi corazón.
Si alguna vez
volviera la que amé
vos le dirás
que nunca la olvidé.
Cuartito azul,
hoy te canto mi adiós.
Ya no abriré
tu puerta y tu balcón.

Hopefully, this new look works. I like it, but if anybody finds something they really think could be improved (ie. readability) please let me know. Thanks.