Come on, Val. You know that's a typo - instead of samba they meant salsa. Oh, uh, well ....

Let's try again - maybe they meant a son. Although I doubt the polite, correct society folks would know how to handle an evening of sons.If they listened to a few, maybe they'd have the cojones to kick fidel's ass.

one word: stupidity.

Friggin unbelievable.

I sent this to a large list of Cuban Americans in New York City and I hope they will at least protest. Unfortunatly the Cuban American community in NYC is not known for protesting things like this. They don't listen to me - even when I send them tons of notices like this. They don't know how to do it too well and the Anglo urban types who go to events like this end up making fun of us. Besides for this to take on heat and the Cuban American community to go ballistic the order of protest would have to come from someone well known or an organization. I am a little guy and no one wants to listen to me - so most of these things in NYC go ignored by the Cuban American community because they say - who are you Mandingo? It's a shame though. This thing really needs to be protested! I don't know how many pro Castro events I find out about and I send things to the big NYC Cuban list and no one does anything! Last month an agent from the UN Cuban mission went to a Long Island public library to speak about the "wonders" of the revolution - I am not making this up - and I sent tons and tons of e-mails to all I knew to protest this. NOT ONE RESPONSE - NO ONE PROTESTED! I almost want to give up sometimes.

Thanks to Val for understanding how the Castro folks work and letting the whole rest of the world know.

Maybe instead of "An affair in Havana," they should re-title it "Prostituiting Havana." That is, after all, what they're doing by using Havana in order to make a profit. And like prostitution, there is no regard to the actual individual, which is why I understand them screwing something up as basic as Samba (which is Brazilian) instead of Salsa... or even Son... or Conga... or Rumba... or Guaracha... or Guaguanco... Palo... Mambo... Bolero... and even Cha-Cha-Cha.

They have a feast of music to choose from, and their choice of Samba say's it all. They're a bunch of ignorant-commie-pimps.

this cuban is laughing his ass off
La samba hhahahhehehe

I just LOVED this quote:
"If you're going to use the quaintness of Cuba and her culture and her little brown people to promote one of your causes, get it fucking right assholes. The fucking "samba" isn’t fucking Cuban, you pricks"

The following MAY sound as a put down on NY BUT.... IT AINT. It is just the results of a HUGE melting pot that hasn’t quite melted YET!

Last night i was watching a video by Eddie Izzard (in MY opinion the best standup EVER!) Taped in NYC and one of the routines made some obscure references to Europe and there was this strange " um, er what ??" kindd hush from the crowd.. To which Izzard responded" Do YOU guys know what I am talking about... ? hmmm do you EVEN know there are OTHER countries?"
In NYC we are ALL guilty of some terrible ethnic faux-pass at some point in our lives. Calling a Pakistani, Indian is a popular fuck up.
I was extremely embarrassed recently when someone I have known for years (Afghani) straightened me out on the fact that Afghanis are classified as Caucasian... Damn if I knew.
When I first came to NYC Cuban was synonymous with Puerto Rican and Vice versa.
It is REALLY amazing how little we know of each other’s cultures in NYC. Even at the highest “cultural” levels you find people who WILL believe that a Samba IS Cuban music or that a Mambo is Mexican music.
Sometimes it is pathetic; like someone at the Guggenheim museum (rather stuffy old lady) asked me (when I mentioned I was Cuban) “Picasso was Cuban, wasn’t he?” Hey (hell with it I said) YES HE WAS CUBAN!
My take is that to her "Spanish" and "Cuban" meant the same thing.

Songuacassal,
Very well said.

And this Anglo-Saxon yelled "Samba!!??" and woke up the dang cat.

Picasso; Cuban, cubist. Same thing, right?

**snort** I love the ignorance of the socially self-assured.... It's the Library. They must be right (NOT)

This is what I wrote to ksanderson@nypl.org (deals with the Young Lions activities at the NY Public Library)

I think that your celebration of Cuba is wrong, totally wrong.
Why is that I am such a party spoiler?
Because what you are celebrating is a repressive regime, headed by a bloodthirsty tyrant who has a knack for attacking the freedom of expression, the freedom of creativity and the freedom of thought of the Cuban people...
How are you celebrating that? By not denouncing that regime, by not having the courage of supporting the independent librarians in Cuba.
It's wrong to celebrate Cuban literature without condemning those who oppress its creators. Reynaldo Arenas died a New Yorker. He couldn't live as a Cuban... And Jose Marti was a New Yorker for most of his adult life, and is properly honored in Central Park. His statue is crying because of the lamentable spectacle of the NY Public Library consorting with a murderous dictator, those droplets aren't molten snow, they are called tears.
Please, remember the Cuban writers who are dying far from their land because they cannot express themselves with the same freedom you have here in their native country. Remember Cabrera Infante, remember all the monuments of Cuban literature that cannot be read in Cuba because the monster who rules Cuba decided that censorship was the way to deal with free spirits.
As a footnote, samba is Brazilian, not Cuban. But if the parents of the idea of celebrating Cubanness as sex and mojitos don't know much about the plight of the Cuban people they probably don't know a lot about Cuban music... Do they know about solitary cells for artists and writers? Do they know about repression and destruction of families? About executions and prison for dissidents? Do they know about prison for poets for the only sin of thinking independently?
Do they care?
Please be informed that I dropped my library card where I am not going to find it anymore.
Please be informed that your actions are deeply insulting...
Why don't you also have a SS Black Leather Night? Cabarets in Nazi Germany were fun, weren't them?
For a Cuban, fidel castro (not capitalized) is his or her homegrown Hitler. His dictatorship is our own homegrown Holocaust. So your celebration is as offensive as it would be a celebration celebrating nazi-fascism or as a celebration to read the verses of Osama Bin Laden, and yes it's as un-American as it could be. As it is to sell watches with the efigy and likelyness of an anti-American murderer Che Guevara.

Sincerely
C.B.

I sent them copy of the posting Tale of Two Libraries...

Hey, they may be right, after all, the samba WILL become Cuban after Lula hands over Brazil to castro.
As to the folks at the NY library, I myself, just refuse to have a battle of wits with unarmed persons.
AS to the NY home boys, they're letting those libs up there contaminate them, voting for Hillary and all.
Thats why some of them post here saying they want to go to DC and pressure the administration to let them cuddle up with castro and his animals.

Cubism --> Cuba. Hmmmmmm

Okay, we ARE taking credit for it, screw Picasso!

Actually there is some strange connections between Picasso and Cuba. Do a Google search for +Picasso +Cuba +"Wilfredo Lam". It IS interesting
Lam was a young Cuban painter who became a very close friend of Picasso’s in Paris and some of Lam's native Cuban influences (mostly African style painting. His mom was a "Santera") DID make it to some of Picasso's work.
After all Picasso DID say “Average painters copy, GREAT painters STEAL”

Also... There is a Picasso family in Cuba. Picasso’s grandfather migrated to Cuba and “married” a local black girl, hence forming what has been known as "The Black Picassos"
Pablo Picasso found it amusing he had a whole side of his family that was of mixed race. Often promising to visit, but never did.
But, I STILL don’t see how an educated "art lover" (wealthy no less) would make such ridiculous mistake.

Proceeds from the benefit will go to the International Fiction Fund

How appropriate

The theme of last year's dinner and dance, Ms. Sanderson added, was Truman Capote's "Black and White Ball," an event she called "a formal, serious thing."
Serious enough that her intellect rivals that of Paris Hilton.
There must have been some inbreeding somewhere along the line.

Scene: Sidewalk outside benefit.

A row of cages with one adult in each cage.
c
"I'm a librarian in Cuba."

"Help us."

"They burnt our books and threw us in prison for operating libraries independent of the government."

"This is 'An Affair in Havana' right now!"

"Please remember us when you drink your mojitos."

"In Cuba, they jail librarians who refuse to censor books."

"Right now, there are X number of librarians in jail. Excuse me, sir, ma'am, would you like to know more about the librarians in Cuba before you celebrate tonight?"

Literature, photos & testimonials handed to each patron on their way into the fund raiser.

Who's up for a quick trip to NYC?--scott

I am so outrageously pissed.

This is like holding a Political Fundraiser in 1942 focusing on the 'intrigue and danger' of the Warsaw, or a costume party in '92 entitled 'One Night in Kurdistan'.

Insufferable pricks in their ivory towers. Jesus.

is the nyc public library planing on sending the profits from this event to the independent libraries in cuba?

You know, I recall my folks telling me that all Latin American music (with the exception of Mexican Ranchera/Banda) came from Cuba. And after fidel, Cuba's place in music was lost. This is obviously "Cubancentrist" and of course true. Now, in regards to Samba in Cuba, solamente recuerdo un musico Cubano llamado Perez Prado, who combined Samba with Mambo. Anyhow, that doesn't prove Samba came from Cuba, but in the spirit of "Cubancentrism" I will say that not only is Picasso and Cubist art obviously Cuban, but hell so is Samba and by the way the Italians took friggin espresso from us. Cojones.

Songuacassal:
GOD damn that was funny ! And, I don’t think anyone wants to take credit for Rancheras!

Okay, Let’s push the Cubacentrism even further.

This is a personal experience and do not know the roots of this “myth”

YEARS ago I lived in London for a brief while and got to know the owner of a tiny little bookstore devoted primary to mystical stuff ( I was in my mystical period then, so were a LOT of gorgeous London girls --- YOU make the connection )

So, speaking to the owner of the shop I mentioned I was Cuban.. And without flinching the old fellow said knowingly “ah, one of the lost tribes…” . The refernce did not mean ANYTHING to me so he went to explain about the 10 lost tribes of Israel and how one of them had wound up in the Caribbean area, there forming the mythical city of Atlantis. Amongst mystics most likely Cuba was the MAIN island of Atlantis AND that the western most point of Atlantis was in fact Pinar del Rio. Amongst the cognoscenti there were a lot of facts in Plato’s narration and other civilizations that pointed to Pinar del Rio as a crucial clue as to the location of Atlantis.

Now, this old bookshop owner was in fact of Jewish descent, had NEVER been to Cuba, had never even met a Cuban before meeting me.
He was quite disappointed when I explained to him I actually was BORN in Cuba but did not have any Cuban blood since both my parents were Spaniards, still he found my connection to Cuba quite intriguing and attributed a LOT of the extraordinary excellence that comes out of the island to the fact that perhaps Cuba was indeed blessed with some kind of mystical powers. Just the Cuban soil is EXCEPTIONAL unique in the world. As far as I know no other place in the world you find "Tierra ColorấH"

Let’s face it, we have (disproportionably) contributed a LOT more to the world in terms of sports , arts, letters, music, even FOOD , that our small size would likely produce. I mean you do not know of any “German” restaurants and Russian music hasn’t REALLY taken off in a big way. In Sports we were kicking everybody’s butt way before Castro made sports an international communist propaganda campaign

The unusual way in which foreigners LOVE the island is quite poignant. Spaniards still moan over the loosing of Cuba. When something is totally hopeless a Spaniard will still say “So what, we lost Cuba so how bad could this be”. To jump in a taxi in Taiwan and hear Benny More blasting on the radio is just kindda surreal!

Even in 2005 there is a mystical quality to the Island that we Cubans have experienced and that foreigners seem to instinctively love.

Well let’s fast forward to about 4 years ago when I see the headline. “ATLANTIS FOUND OFF THE ISLAND OF CUBA”

There are a couple of books to this fact at Amazon. I read one of them and was blown away at the facts. Indeed a cave in Pinar del Rio matches to a *T* (I never understood what matching to a *T* meant) one of the most descriptive holy places in Atlantis.

Again, this is as “CUBACENTRIC” as you can get (and a lot of non-Cubans are gonna go "there THEY go AGAIN) but it is there, and quite available for those willing to Google +Cuba +Atlantis.

I leave it up to you all to come up with your own conclusion ;)

Killcastro, add to that that the island is also world traveled, they had a nature flick on PBS not too long ago on Cuban wildlife which stared that Cuba was formed in the Pacific ocean and traveled westward before the central American istmus existed and is came to rest where it is now. Figure that one out!

ATLANTIS??? WOW!!! Coño why stop there? It's been said by some experts that Atlantis was a metaphor for the lost Garden of Eden. Therefore, in the spirit of Cubacentrism, Cuba is Atlantis and Atlantis is really the lost Garden of Eden, thus Cuba is actually the lost Garden of Eden! There, now Cuba is in Bible.

cohetedude:
Was formed in the "PACIFIC" and traveled west ward or was form in the pacific traveled eastward and then the itsmus closed ?
If it was formed in the PACIFIC and traveld westward to where it is today that would be (in typical Naw Yawkah lingo... a muddafuckah!)
One notable thing here is that the only place in the world that I have seen with exactly the same fruits as we have in Cuba is Taiwan!

No real explnation for this but they have, mamoncillo, guanabana, chirimoyas, zapote etc etc etc... and even the NAMES of the fruits sound similar as what we call them in Cuba!

Killcastro, no kiddin' mi socio, I saw it with my own two baby blues in PBS. Horita nos van a comvertir en chinos o hawaianos tambien! Que barbaridad!

Songuacassal
Hmmm it goes deeper than THAT!
If Atlantis was the garden of Eden and Cuba was Atlantis then human life itself BEGAN in CUBA !
No wonder they say Adam and Eve WERE cubans
why ?
They didn’t have clothes to wear, they only had fruit to eat, they couldn’t leave the garden. And they called it paradise.

But... all kidding aside, the Cuba = Atlantis thing is actually a REAL theory
check this out :
http://andrewcollins.com/page/articles/atlantiscuba.htm

cohetedude
Hatuey had that "chinese" look to him. Nice head too!
I still don’t see how in hell Cuba traveled WESTWARD from the pacific to where it is today. Unless someone on board had a GPS and one HELL of an outboard motor.

But if PBS says so….
This is the same PBS that keeps exalting the fact that Castro got rid of Batista , uh? ;)

(Deep PBS announcer voice)
“In 1959 Fidel Castro and his band of rebels, rid Cuba of the tyrannical oppression of the USA backed government of Fulgencio Batista”

PBS has a unique way of distilling historical facts to the most simplistic (and asinine) sound bites.

hahaha... Good one KillCastro.

Besides, life did begin in Cuba and I think that's something that we all knew and just kept to ourselves. Well... that and that God is Cuban, so I guess Samba is an obivious and petty claim! (I guess this would also make castro Satan?)

As for Atlantis, I wasn't kidding about researchers relating it to the Garden of Eden. However, Alantis = Cuba? That's news! I seem to remember hearing that Atlantis was part of American Continent that was once close to the Iberian Penninsula, and as it floated away it looked like it was sinking. Anyhow, I'll go ahead and check your link. Gracias.

Bueno, killcastro, Adam and Eve may have been Cuban, but God definitely was! A Supreme Being que le saca una costilla por la gandinga a un tipo medio bobo pa hacer a una jeva y despues le da ella una manzanita, (puede haber sido un mamey) para que con esa lo joda, ese sentido de humor es Cubano, ni lo dudes.