the Jewish Al Pacino

On Friday nights the Van Gogh Museum is open late, 'til 10:00. Gone are the busloads of tourists crowding in front of each painting. Instead, the visitor finds the area in front of the stairwell transformed. Blockish blue chairs are gathered around a drum kit, baby grand, stand-up bass and hollow-body Gibson, and serious jazz afficionados take in the quartet's variations on Shiny Stockings, A Train or Blue Rondo a' la Turk. A video cam captures the audience and projects their images onto the ceiling within the green field of a Van Gogh. I buy a whiskey and ask someone to dance. We cha-cha, west coast, even samba a bit and the Europeans grudgingly make a little room and tolerate us with disdainful looks, "Serious jazz. Not for dancing."
During a latin number I notice we are not alone. A tiny older couple has taken the opportunity to share the dance space we've created. She's hot in a tight black skirt and sweater. He's cool with jacket collar turned up, hair brushed back, Italian shades, polished loafers. Al Pacino on a small scale.
They mambo with minimum effort and the unspoken knowledge of each other's moves -- where her hand will be, when he will hit the break -- the anticipation and flow that comes with decades of partnership.
I slip over between numbers and introduce myself to Ira and Harriett, both in their 70's, he with a recent triple bypass, returned to the Amsterdam of their youth after successful lives in the New Amsterdam, of the New World. Once considered the mambo king of Manhattan, Ira still likes to dress up a couple times a week, and escort his Lady to a club for jazz or latin. The little Jewish Al Pacino slides a handshake and tells me, "It's cool, Man. It's cool."