Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Yoga, Biking, and Booze


Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing scene of autumn.
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs.
Ryonen

Any system was a straitjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humorlessly. I didn’t believe in systems. Anything human was imperfect and ultimately absurd. What did I believe in then? In humor. In laughing at systems, at people, at one’s self. In laughing even at one’s own need to laugh all the time. In seeing life as contradictory, many-sided, various, funny, tragic, and with moments of outrageous beauty.
Erica Jong

...managed to make it to the 7:05 A.M. sit this morning...my first morning group meditation in many months...thanks, ultimately, to a long weekend of excess...insanely sweaty vinyasa yoga, biking, and booze in unseasonable heat and humidity, enough to knock me out hours earlier than usual last night, so that getting up shortly after the sun was no problem....this might be how the old Zen monks did it, but I sort of doubt it...

Monday, May 21, 2012

Dickens Didn't Know the Half of It...


...for creative types, this is truly the best and worst of times....never in the history of the world has finding a receptive and appreciative audience been so easy...

 ...now is the era where
everybody creates...
Patti Smith

 ...that is, even if what you’re doing is so esoteric that only three or four people in the world could possibly appreciate it...solo upright bass instrumental interpretations of  obscure gangsta rap b-sides, expressionistic black chalk drawings of dolphins in bondage masks, cynical musings on yoga practice...in the past, the chances of those weirdos stumbling upon what you do, even if you could find a gallery, coffee shop, or magazine that’d let you put it on display, would be about nil...but, chances are, one or two of those people is on-line right now...

 No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson

 ...and, yet, the likelihood of getting paid for creative work grows ever slighter....(if Van Gogh were painting now, he'd likely feel less isolated, with people all over the world "liking" his art...but he'd still, probably, be broke)....I got fans all over the world, and, until recently, a person with fans all over the world could expect to have royalty checks rolling in....then, similarly, thanks to the virtual world, I’ve got friends all over the world...and, until recently, a person with that many friends had no problem finding a date for brunch...

i don’t understand: my ideas are universal
but my audience is five guys at the shell
station people just don’t get it
Andre Codrescu

...quit looking at the analytics for this blog a couple years ago...and glad I did...was getting too caught up in numbers of readers...or viewers...or visitors...or clicks....ended up using artificial means to get more people here, even if most stayed just long enough to take a glance and click away: gratuitous link-dropping, pornographic tags, posting every other day, whether or not I had anything worth saying...anything for these all-important digital marks of approval...

One of these days and it won’t be long, goin’ down to the valley and sing my song, sing it loud sing it strong let the echo decide if I was right or wrong...
Bob Dylan      

...finally decided to get all Bhagavad Gita-ish and forsake the numbers...simply do my best at putting something good out there, and try not to worry so much about the fruits of my actions..........which is not to say a little money wouldn’t be nice...

Monday, May 14, 2012

Yep, That's About It, Right Now...


...after years of trying, got my mom to go to a yoga class, in her assisted living community, only to face the realization that, though showing up might be half the battle, it’s still not the same as actually participating...

...couple days earlier, back in Philly, a friend I sometimes see in yoga class was acting stranger than usual, commenting dreamily on the colors of everybody’s t-shirts as they walked in and rolled out their mats....I thought about making a joke, asking if he’d taken psychedelic drugs before class again....then, later, talking to him, realized it was probably a good thing I didn’t...

 Yeah, art may imitate life, but life imitates T.V....
Ani DiFranco

...the more beneficial meditation is likely to be, the less likely it is you're actually gonna wanna do it....the complete opposite is true of getting wasted....it’s in those times when it’ll be least beneficial, most thoroughly counterproductive, that it’s most enticing...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 108.19
 
...meanwhile, outside the studio, a movie was filming...Walnut Street going east to west instead of west to east, I noticed...and, somebody told me, the street signs had been changed, so Walnut Street’s not even Walnut Street...Philadelphia, perhaps, not even Philadelphia, anymore...fake gunshots and grenades going off all through our vinyasas...
 
...lately seems like there's nothing whatsoever to do and everything in the world to be done....this is where it all ends and begins....killing time before the apocalypse which is always right now...