I'm a failure... not!

Health - first, I'm a failure. I failed a clinical trial, so that the drugs with the cool names of GDC-0973 and GDC-0941, while giving me acne, diarrhea and nausea, were not able to cure me. Well, then we tried something conventional unconventionally... According to the current ASCO guidelines, cetuximab does not work on KRAS-mutated tumors, period, end of story. Of course, cetuximab is expensive, so profit-driven insurance companies won't pay for the treatment that shouldn't work. However, thanks to Mr.Romney's CommonwealthCare and this one publication my oncologist and I got hope that my codon 13-mutated tumor might actually respond. And it did! My marker went down by the factor of 3x.

I'm super happy and took a week off chemo to celebrate. First, I played in the Boston Tango Jam. The next day ¡O, gnat! had a big concert And now I'm in beautiful Holyoke attending workshops with the wonderful Nick and Diana. Mark your calendars for April 1st! ¡O, gnat! will be playing a huge concert at Boston Alternative Milonga!

Live concert this Saturday

Some friends and I started a tango orchestra with the coolest name ever - ¡O, Gnat!
(Nick is not only the best cello player ever, but also a great band namer). This Saturday we're going to have our first public concert (the previous ones were in private residences, this one is open pretty much to all dancers). The Facebook event page is here

Milonga Especial "El Once" 11/11/11 in Newton!

Clean out your fridges and bring all rotten tomatoes to Newton this Friday as I will be performing a short choreography on stage at Milonga Especial "El Once" 11/11/11 in Newton

Update: the milonga was nice, but our choreography group decided we weren't ready yet. There were other people performing, though, and they were great

Inbetween days

While the tumor marker is up, it is not up significantly.
Nothing new visible on the PET/CT scan.
The doctors are giving me 2 more months of treatment-free frolicking until the new test, so I can stop worrying about cancer too much and prepare for our "untango" performance on October 21/22 (you heard it here first! mark your calendars, it's going to be nothing less than wonderful!)

Boston Skillshare

Boston Skillshare is coming to Simmons College again this year.
I will be teaching an introductory tango class just like the last year

Please forward this information to everybody :)

Tangoing in San Francisco tomorrow

Someone under the nickname tangocynic is posting hilarious (tango-hilarious) videos on YouTube. They are so true!

‎"I used to choose my holiday destinations according to the local sites and attractions; now it's either Buenos Aires or I check up on the Web where the closest tango festival is held"!
Well, I'm going to San Francisco for a couple days. What's my tomorrow schedule like?

• start at Bollyhood practica;
  
• move to Milonga Roja;
  
• end the night at Tango Revolution.

Time flies like an arrow

Time flies like an arrow -- and fruit flies like a banana!

I stopped writing for a short while, and now almost a whole month passed.
My health seems to be better, especially that I'm done with treatments (at least for now). I'm doing Chi Gong breathing almost every day, it seems to help.

As for tango, maestro Cabral was in Boston, teaching workshops. Here's an old clip of him, demonstrating a simple tango walk. Nothing can be harder than that!

Be realistic, demand the impossible!

I have two goals:

• Live to Alberto Dassieu's age
• When I turn 73, dance like him
  

I used to think that Osvaldo Pugliese's "A Evaristo Carriego" is both the most beautiful and the most difficult tango to dance to. But señor Dassieu makes it look so easy!

Performance tomorrow

I will be performing tomorrow at the European Talents event at Om Restaurant in Cambridge.

And despite the fact that my name starts with an S and my partner's name with an M, we will NOT be dancing to "Masochism Tango"!

Healing Tango

I am an Argentine tango dancer. I am a cancer survivor. Tango will make me cancer-free. Step by step, paso a paso. With each ocho, each cruzada, each boleo, each arrastre , and even, I dare say, with each gancho, cancer will be eradicated from my body, one malignant cell after another. Here's to HEALING TANGO!

Whatever happens, there's always hope. Never say never, or as the Hungarian actress and singer Judit Hernádi sang, "Sohase mondd".