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StrangeTango.com is a multilayered art installation in cyberspace…the documentation of a life in three iterations: as a film treatment, a book, a blog.
“What remains as documentation of a life?”
Strange Tango haunts the boundaries of digital streams and visceral storytelling, where pixels and dreams flow together.
Video, reportage, and nonlinear narrative meld in captured moments from the life of A. D. Tejada, artist - traveler - citizen of the world.
Life is a strange tango...
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 Thank you...we feel like Cinderella. I wanted to share these beautifully worded sentiments about the Strange Tango website/blog from friends and visitors around the globe… ~A.
“It is stunning. I don’t recall ever seeing a more beautiful, artistic expression on the web. Congratulations to you and your friends/colleagues on constructing such a beautiful installation. Truly an inspiring artwork.” California
“Stunning. Congratulations to all of you. What beautiful images and animation. Loved the video. Warm applause for you, Audrey, on day #1 of a new online journey… Strangely fitting, somehow, that tonight coincides with the Perseids meteor shower.” Cambridge, MA
“What you have done with StrangeTango.com is truly incredible. In seeking your own purpose in life, you are assisting others in doing the same, both through your own example and, perhaps most powerfully, by creating an environment which is unprecedented Continue reading Thanks for the Accolades
 The great room of the 2010 Showcase Home. A builder featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Ron Nance belongs to an elite brotherhood. The President/CEO of The Oaks Development Company brings his signature touch in fine homebuilding to one of the strongest luxury home markets in the country, my hometown of Lawton, Oklahoma. Continue reading The Oaks 2010 Showcase Home
 Jun Sandoval of AJ Pilipinas Whenever the Filipino-American community of Lawton-Ft. Sill in southwest Oklahoma gathers for a party or festival, a call is made to Jun Sandoval. Not only is Jun quite famous for his Filipino dishes, but he also loves to cook. Years ago, listening with interest, I heard rumors that the Sandoval family was planning to open a Filipino restaurant. “About time,” I would think to myself. “Even a large urban metropolis like Boston doesn’t have a Filipino restaurant—despite the proliferation of other Asian cuisines like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, and Tibetan.” Continue reading AJ Pilipinas
 StrangeTango.com celebrates a milestone first birthday. 15 years was the timeframe between my first interactive multimedia class and the launch of StrangeTango.com: Life as Art. In the 1990’s, the Boston University College of Communication was one of the first colleges in the nation to teach a course in new media technologies. I was one of the students in that inaugural class taught by Bill Lord, a former Vice President of ABC News and ABC News Interactive. Some classmates were building websites using html while I documented my family history as a cd-rom, Balikbayan, which means return to the homeland in a Filipino language. This was an exciting time, Continue reading Team Tango Birthday
 At the Lawton Farmer's Market, a truckload of melons from Daniel's Farm in Chandler is a glorious sight. Before I returned to the southwest Oklahoma town where I grew up, I lived in seven major American cities and traveled throughout the world. When possible, whether in Boston, Bangkok, or Dakar, I would look for local outdoor markets to buy the freshest and most alluring fruits, vegetables, and flowers in season. Continue reading Lawton Farmer’s Market
 My personal copy of this important new book by Charles Ogletree. Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School has written the much anticipated and definitive book on the high-profile case involving the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge on July 16, 2009. The incident is of special interest to me: I’m privileged to have worked with my longtime friend and mentor as well as with Professor Gates during my appointment as a Harvard Administrative Fellow.
THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT
The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America
By Charles Ogletree
Praise for Charles Ogletree:
“Charles Ogletree…has seized on the very public arrest of Professor Henry Louis ‘Skip’ Gates to teach Americans important lessons about the Constitution, the continuing relevance of race in America, and the ease with which an incident can escalate into a major event. Ogletree was there, knows all the participants, and has written a brilliant book from which all Americans can learn.”
—Alan Dershowitz, author of The Trials of Zion
Shortly after noon on Tuesday, July 16, 2009, renowned professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested by Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley on the front porch of his own home. The incident ignited a media firestorm and heated debate about race in America, as images of the MacArthur Fellow and Harvard professor in handcuffs splashed the front pages of newspapers around the country. In THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America (Palgrave Macmillan; Publication Date: June 22, 2010; ISBN: 978-0-230-10326-9), renowned Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree uses the incident as a lens through which to examine the complicated history of race, class, and crime in America. Continue reading THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America
 My mother's secret courtyard garden that I created for her. A secret courtyard garden for my mother reminiscent of the tropical paradise where she was born, a spot where she could sit outdoors in the shade and inhale the familiar fragrances that remind her of her native home. I always give creative gifts, and this one was designed to fill the senses.
Because my mother is from the beautiful Visayan islands of the Philippines, I wanted the natural and authentic look of the provinces. Beauty there is to be found in the rusticity of orchid plants decoratively hanging from trees or peering from a container wedged into a wall, in the harmony of ocean breezes, blue sky, lush greenery, and colorful flora. Continue reading The Secret Courtyard Garden
During the summer months, I love to cook on the grill beneath the portico by the kitchen. My family enjoys al fresco dining among the lush garden and water fountain as appetizing aromas waft through the air. For a week, June 3-9, I prepare lunch or dinner on the grill. My flavor profiles are global—combining Mediterranean, North African, and Asian influences. Meals cook in 10 minutes or less, and prep and clean up time is minimal.
 Skewered Beef Strips Day 1: Dinner is a pile of skewered beef strips marinated in sangria, soy sauce, garlic powder, olive oil, and a touch of salt. The meat cooks in 3-7 minutes and mushrooms are done in about 10 minutes. Using sangria saves extra steps…and you can imbibe while grilling if there is company. Continue reading Meals From the Grill
Still life composition with Armani.
To live life as art, attunement and scale are the essentials, not the resources of a financier or industrialist. Many images of beauty that I create—my handiwork—cost nothing at all, or very little, and yet, I live life to the fullest.
I have always appreciated the thought [...]
 My Neo-Zen garden. Throughout literature, the garden has represented sanctuary. Voltaire’s world-weary Candide retired to cultivate his garden, contented with the philosophy of living a simple life, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” The gardens I have cultivated in our various homes have always been contemplative spaces, an escape from the stressors and tedious demands of modern life, where people are quick to defend their positions rather than to actually communicate with one another. There is something essential and fundamental about being a part of nature and losing one’s self in the sensory delights to be found among what is green, vital, and growing.
At one time, I lived in and near Boston and was on a career track. My gardens in a pastoral exurb of Boston occupied more than an acre of abutting conservation land that could never be built upon. When I returned to my hometown in southwest Oklahoma, I simplified my life and made the transition from activism to artistry. Relocating to the Southwest region of the country, we moved to the city where my gardening space in a carefully manicured, prestigious neighborhood occupies a quarter of an acre, more an outdoor room than a garden to tend. Somehow, the metamorphosis seems appropriate given the austerity, the insularity, of our political and economic times.
Although I relinquished space, variety, and stimulation, I gave up little else beyond scale. My Neo-Zen sensibility is, at heart, my way of focusing on what is important, meaningful, and relevant to me. I create beauty through various media—writings, images, food, and gardens—as a portal to transcendence; within the constraints of scarcity, sustainability is attained through optimization. My garden lends itself to the elaboration of this elegant concept and worldview. Continue reading My Neo-Zen Garden
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