Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Return of the Not-So-Thin White Duke

Yoga for Cynics is back!

What’s that? You hadn’t noticed it was gone? Okay, judging by the date up there, it’s only been a couple days...but it seems like longer...maybe because the holidays happened...not all that eventful but, as always, so deep down expected-to-be-eventful that, on a deep down emotional level...they were eventful...kinda...and, in the midst of all that, the laptop that birthed this blog crashed on Christmas Eve...big time...Titanic into iceberg...kamikaze pilot into aircraft carrier...George of the Jungle into tree....not that I wasn't prepared...emotionally, if not financially...but who could have expected it to happen just before one of the only days of the year when you can't go out and spend money you don't have to buy another one?...drawing into sharp relief the extent to which I’ve become dependent on whatever computer I happen to own, as if it were a major bodily organ...

Thus...it’s somewhat fitting that the title of this post comes from Bowie’s Station to Station, which, like all good pretentious rock n’ roll songs from its era, is about coming down from a heavy-duty drug addiction...and yet, I had to alter it since, particularly after so much holiday indulgence, there’s no way I’m gonna pass for the thin white duke....One thing that's cool about the yoga crowd, they tend to be into healthy lifestyles but not at all into that anorexic ideal that tends to pass for being-in-shape in Western society...and yet, here I am feeling too fat to fit into a goddamn David Bowie song....

So, for now, I’m heading down to the beach for a one man yoga retreat ’til the New Year....began my boycott of New Years Eve events about a decade ago, after six lousy ones in a row...though there were a couple good times before that...sitting quietly on the red rocks overlooking Boulder until the hoots and hollers erupted far below to let us know it was midnight....tramping across frozen farmers’ fields in the Amish country at four A.M. to stumble upon cosmic vortexes...or at least they seemed like cosmic vortexes at the time....

...and, anyway, the shore’s a good place to be in the winter...walking in the sand from lunch ’til dusk...perhaps working off some waffle cookies and red wine...reading and writing late into the night...no internet access unless I wanna carry the computer around town looking for a signal....never mind if I end up doing less actual yoga on these retreats than if I stayed home and went to class like usual...in the season of giving, it’s always the thought that counts.....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh well, having fun and relaxing from the "demands" we place on ourselves is just as valid as anything else. Have fun, enjoy and feel free to be a Mr Blobby for awhile.

Anonymous said...

What? You didn't post for four whole days?? Oh the insanity of it all...

Since I knew about the Great Computer Disaster of Christmas 2008, how could I have missed you? Especially when you were emailing me daily anyways! ;)

I've taken to having very low key expectations for Christmas day... and this year it was just as well since, as soon as lunch was over, I was almost comatose on the floor and passing out from time to time (still sick I'm afraid).

And given that I'd been sick all week, I think I've actually managed to lose weight over the holidays, which is kind of unheard of...

Enjoy the beach. Just - get a little yoga in each day, a little meditation, and try some yoga nidra (no excuses any more!) and that should be enough to pass for a DIY yoga retreat.

Chat to ya soon, anyways xx

human being said...

i was almost absent for a while too... i'm catching up little by little... i'll be back to read your posts

just dropped by to say
Merry Christmas!
Happy New Year!
may all your days shine with light and brim with happiness and yoga...
:)
peace

Christine Vyrnon said...

nothing wrong with not doing yoga... and nothing wrong with boycotting, or girlcotting, new years... as for computers crashing... that sucks.

Erik Donald France said...

That was cool. Poor David Bowie is still recovering from his angioplasty, in a much lower key thiese days, God bless him. I think Iggy Pop is more recognizable these days -- who would have guessed?

The Detroit yoga crowd cracks me up (I only tried it a couple times). They do yoga for a long while and then rush out afterwards for massive amounts of booze, which makes me wonder what the yoga folks do in Russia . . .

Salud, Happy retreat!

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Daisy Deadhead said...

Wasn't "TVC-15" on that record? Damn, I loved that... I was working in a record store, and I could play it all day long. I drove my co-workers crazy with it.

I looked it up on Wikipedia to see if the song title was hyphenated, and I find this:

"TVC 15" was a single by David Bowie.

The song was inspired by an episode in which Iggy Pop, during a drug-fuelled period at Bowie’s LA home, hallucinated and believed that the television set was swallowing his girlfriend. Beyond oblique mentions to absorption via television, the lyrics are largely nonsensical. Bowie himself hasn’t been able to shed any light on their meaning beyond the Pop anecdote, having very limited recollection of the Station to Station sessions, due to his own heavy drug use at the time.

The song is considerably more upbeat than the rest of the album.


You just knew it had to be something like that.