With All Things Fania

Missed the garbage run last night.  Not sure what happened but our usual routine of garbage placement up at the top of the driveway was overlooked last evening.  In my mind, I seemed to recall that they might come by as early as 7:00AM.  Puttering around at 6:30AM with the sun already up, I set out with the trunk filled up of garbage and recycling.  Glistening with the Pidge on WFMU, hauling out the trash and brushing the snow off the package of mail there at the side of the box. 

 

Calls until nearly one.  Got my skiing done immediately thereafter.  You could now see water flowing beneath the deep snow and ice in the brook. I tried to get lost in the mind game of numeric cycles so my body would concentrate on keeping pace, sliding as much as I could, starting over once again, once I reach the number one-hundred. 

Each of these days this week were to have been days of phenomenal achievement. China has the week off.  Many of my routines are on hold.  Important, till now peripheral matters, were going to have gotten the attention they deserve.  I wanted to redo my LinkedIn page.  It’s hopelessly out of date and people use it as a tool to figure out who you are.  But I took one look and decided to postpone things once again.  Haven’t contacted my daughter’s teachers.  China will be back to work tomorrow. 

Johnny Pacheco died this week.  May he rest in peace.  It was during the period immediately after I first returned from China in 1994, living in New York once again, after missing the city so, I fell in love, finally with New Yorican salsa and became obsessed with all things Fania, particularly from the classic period before, say 1980 or so.  Distinctive voice that had a particular unmistakable coppery pull, nothing at all like his sweet flute lines, that hair, that smile and no he wasn’t from Cuba, nor Puerto Rico, he went to high school in Brooklyn. He hailed from the Dominican Republic and he was smart and enterprising enough early on to form a label and which proved historic.  In 1994 the cassettes were all I could find and I still have them all, as the were once invested with such power when they were rare. 

 

 

 

Wednesday, 02/17/21