A fine beginning! I've been sitting at my desk for barely five minutes and i already got nine subscriptions canceled (among them, mine) and an audience worth a video-entryphone.
The Tangueros Quarterly Review's sales badly topped by The Tango Currier too!
Not even my mother would claim i'm doing a good job.
Competitors, who always see to their tummy, are jubilant: please Director Libreta, do flash your Alicarnasso-grocer untuous smile. I don't give up easily because, as El Provinciano used to say, puñalada en panza ajena impresiona pero no duele.
On the other hand the hard-and-fast rules of the depressing T-economy, call for me to pass proofs at least of this first issue, which is a proper assemblage of attractions, as i can't possibly refuse to define it, being in a Dodgem Cars manager's shoes myself.

To start with, we have a nice short story by Borges (take this, Libreta) about the literary and milonguero demi-monde in the Buenos Aires of the Forties; so far, it has been previously unpublished only once and it will be serialized on the Review the moment i write the next installments.
Then, a Garrison Keillor's piece relating the achievements of Jack Schmidt, the infallible Arts Private Eye, who is always wrestling for endowment funds: a tough guy the Nueva Compañia Tangueros really could use.
Besides, the El Moplo's wisdom will help the disciplined customer to cope with the current rules in the Buenos Aires' milongas.
A moving portrait of Pepito Avellaneda the Great and an article about the Sexteto Canyengue newest CD conclude the number.

There's nothing left but to wish the readers a good reading, and myself, in addition to all that stuff of brilliant tracks and celestial bodies, a quick recovery of nine subscritions, actually eight.

© TQR Jean Fajean - October 2000

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