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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...  |
Five years ago, I relocated from a Boston exurb to my hometown of Lawton, Oklahoma. In the space of a year, the national spotlight focused on Oklahoma and this city of approximately 100,000 located in the Texoma region between Oklahoma City and the Texas border. With the steady supply of newsworthy stories from the [...]
Kathy Houng Sometimes the Facebook algorithm gets it right. Based on our mutual backgrounds and interests — including Cornell and prestigious service organizations like Quill and Dagger and Sphinx Head — Facebook suggested I friend Kathy Houng. I vet everyone extended a friend invite and stumbled upon Kathy’s blog, Sunshine Spectacles, during the [...]  Roland Kelts
Roland Kelts was one of my first Facebook friends when I finally landed on the social media grid. “Stellar website!” he emailed me, by way of introduction. Although he was writing from Japan and I from America’s heartland, I quickly discovered that we share two enduring passions: a love of Japanese culture and of the New England Patriots. So when I invited Roland to write a guest column for StrangeTango.com: Life as Art, I suggested that his impressions of the Super Bowl or his expertise in Japanese culture would be fascinating to read. In fact, Roland deftly combines the two themes for a very personal, and poignant, exploration of identity in an increasingly connected world. When I depart Japan for the US, I usually target the American coasts. My flights out of Narita are bound for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Seattle, and many of my fellow passengers are Japanese, Korean, Chinese or Singaporean, with a smattering of other Southeast Asians. As a half-Japanese American, I am surrounded by my ilk—people who look and behave approximately like me. Most of my fellow passengers have dark hair, slender builds and tawny skin. We use chopsticks and drink tea. We grin subtly. With few exceptions, we speak sotto voce. The same holds true when I fly west from Tokyo to London or Amsterdam, with a smaller contingent of Middle Eastern passengers. Many Asians trek as tourists or businesspeople to flagship European cities, and numerous flights from the Asian continent connect through Narita. So while I am officially leaving Japan when I board my flights, I remain surrounded by reassuring remnants of Japanese culture as I make the multi-hour transition from East to West. But earlier this year, I took a slightly different route. And that, to paraphrase American poet Robert Frost, made all the difference.  Moulton Brown's New Age Traveler kit
My favorite travel agent booked me for automatic electronic upgrades to first class, so on two round trip legs between Manchester, New Hampshire, and Chicago, air travel was sheer bliss. On the second trip, I gave my seat to my father, who had joined me. He was pleased with the personalized service, comfortable seating, and the meal of fried rice, lechon (pieces of roasted whole pig), and wine.
 St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral, Santa Fe My husband and I love to pile into our comfortable SUV, throw in a few small pieces of luggage, and head for the open road with our family pet. We enjoy the time we spend together and the freedom of traveling at our own pace without the inconveniences that air travel now involves. I determine the total experience: the destinations, restaurants, and hotels, while Joseph plots the navigation. For our autumn tour, we had planned to travel westward to the Grand Canyon, perhaps the only major national park we have yet to explore, and from there visit family friends in Phoenix and San Diego. However, we were stymied by the severe weather front coming in from Colorado, so we spent the extra days working around the house and changed course to take us on an abbreviated loop through Amarillo, Santa Fe, Taos, Colorado Springs, and finally to Denver, where we would be reunited with our longtime friend Jon Tesseo—from back in the day at Lotus Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts—and his family. Heading back home to Oklahoma, we hoped to stop in Kansas City for its famous barbecue. Days 1 and 2: Amarillo, Santa Fe, Taos Continue reading Road Trip, Part I: Artistic Santa Fe and Taos
The Strange Tango personal website is a living and evolving art installation in cyberspace—the innovation is the first of its kind in how we marry art and style, substance and content. My collaborators and I are savvy about new technologies…this global platform was built via a remote process and is regularly updated and upgraded several times a week. The six of us are based on both coasts and in America’s heartland, so our discussions generally take place through email loops or Facebook online chats. The musings on art, self-expression, communication, and connection are thoughtful and relevant. Currently, we are working on the design for New Age Traveler, a chapter in my book, Millennium Muse. When completed, the art installation will be housed on the experimental space on the website, also called Millennium Muse. The Strange Tango project excites me, in particular, because of the intellectual and creative synergy between us across distance—it’s the quality and energy of pure thought. Continue reading New Age Traveler: The Creative Process  Me, upon first meeting Julio Iglesias.
“Does she yearn to discover the secret to Julio Iglesias, Japan, or Jesus?” Strange Tango, the epistolary novella An intimate hotel in Punta del Este, Uruguay, La Posta del Cangrejo is where Julio Iglesias and I both stayed—separately, of course…the staff gave me a tour of the suite where Julio stays when he’s in town. It’s fascinating what the universe sends your way when the time is right…I can honestly say that some of the touchstones in my life were never planned. Well into my twenties, I was conditioned to uphold traditional standards in comportment. But in my newly adult life, I allowed myself to become receptive to the unknown and emotionally invested in new experiences. I seized and followed to its furthermost limitations whatever the universe threw my way…and yes, my willingness to venture into uncharted territory changed my life. I had long hair down to my hips and my dress size was 0. Dangling earrings and dark red lips were part of my signature dramatic style. There was a certain power I could wield given this ability to infatuate. In a way, Strange Tango is my commemorative tribute to a fleeting time of youthful exuberance and physical beauty. In my meditative state of writing, I transposed, transferred—magnified—my reality into a heightened form of hyperreality and poured my passion into my work to create art. That is why I say Strange Tango is a literary work of art. By its very process, I could have been creating a piece of sculpture, or a painting…but instead it was a book. Continue reading Julio Iglesias |
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