Imperfections R Us

...said sorry, not feeling quite myself today...though knowing that simmering misery is at least as much myself as anything else I might be feeling...

`I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because I'm not myself, you see.'
Lewis Carroll

...been reading this book called Just Kids by Patti Smith, about herself and Robert Mapplethorpe as young artists in NY in the 60’s...listening to Blonde on Blonde and Beggars Banquet over and over, but too broke to go and see rock concerts...young artists aware of the legendary Andy Warhol factory scene nearby but lacking the cache to get anywhere near it...kind of funny, in a way...later on, Patti Smith asked should I pursue a path so twisted?...a line I’ve always liked...perhaps because the straight and narrow has only ever tended to get me hopelessly lost...

...one thing none of the yoga books say is that there’s probably no better time for a neti pot than when you’re sick-drunk....or that there’s no better cure for a serious hangover than a really intense vinyasa class...the kind that makes you silently chant what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger...

...another thing they don’t say is that getting sick-drunk might indicate that you’re in a very different...perhaps less placid...state of mind than you might have been telling yourself...

...recently read this book called Letters From the Dhamma Brothers...about a vipassana meditation program for inmates in a southern maximum security prison...(which, like the Dhamma Brothers movie, is worth checking out)....in one place, the point is made, in reference to participants who’ve been addicts, that meditation shouldn't be used as a substitute for drugs...and I get that...these techniques were developed with higher goals than another addictive behavior or a buzz...just like yoga wasn’t invented for killer abs and firm butts...but, at the same time, can’t help thinking if somebody’s looking for a buzz, wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to get it from meditation than from heroin?...or, would it be better if the yoga-as-exercise crowd joined the 40% of Americans who don’t exercise at all?....all in all, am inclined to think that if people are replacing something unhealthy with something healthy, that’s a good thing...even if it’s a watered-down version of a better thing...

...I useta use all kindsa crap to dilute my coffee before finally learning to enjoy it black...

...(yeah, I just compared yoga to coffee)...(but, ya gotta admit, better that than crack)...

...still not so sure, though, about the food co-op employee heard a couple days ago proudly proclaiming that he smokes organic cigarettes...

*cross posted at Elephant Journal*

When Precious Met Alice: Kind of a Movie Review #9

...went to see the new Alice in Wonderland...3-D, IMAX....guess you could say I’ve joined the twenty-first century...or the psychedelic era...hell, the movie cost more than I used to pay to see a Grateful Dead show...with some similarities...

...beyond trippy visuals, though, the movie offers little chance of expanding consciousness...a wealth of joyfully absurdist poetry sucked out of the story in favor of drably conventional Hollywood fantasy adventure...surrealistic pillows given way to cheesy swords...any feints toward poetic madness rapidly contracted, shriveled and shrunken away with lameass explanations for anything in danger of expanding the viewer’s imaginative scope...(the Mad Hatter gets turned into a boring action hero, for chrissake...like Mel Gibson with Carrot Top’s hairstylist)...

...all in all, more C. S. Lewis than Lewis Carroll...if more liberal-minded....a grown-up Alice making the story a bit less Victorian-pervy, more modern-day female-empowerment........as such, offering, I guess, a better role model for my young nieces than the standard Hollywood princess shrinking away dreaming of a handsome prince/sexy vampire...but that's not saying much...

...one pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small...
Grace Slick

...if not for concerns about subject matter leaving them permanently traumatized, I’d be more likely to recommend sending the kids to see Precious....hell, having read Sapphire’s Push a decade ago, didn’t know if I was ready for it...but, flying from San Jose to George Bush International...relaxed and flexible from all the yoga and beach time...if not enough to make a coach seat comfortable enough to concentrate on reading for three and a half hours...mind relatively open and non-depressed...had a little TV on the seat-back in front of me with fifty-something cinematic pills to choose from...and went for it...

...while the movie only vaguely implies at least one of the novel’s more horrifying aspects, there are lots more where that came from...in an utterly harrowing portrayal of a young woman, Precious, the likes of whom most of us would prefer to ignore...trapped in a rabbit hole of poverty, neglect, rape, incest, illiteracy, and AIDS...told she’s stupid and worthless by a mother who treats her as little more than an object to be used and abused...grown huge on junk food, disappearing inside....

`I can't help it,' said Alice very meekly: `I'm growing.'
`You've no right to grow here,' said the Dormouse.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (not in the movie)

...and yet, the movie’s ultimately about growth...kinda like yoga*...finding possibilities for expansion in unexpected places**...that sacred something remaining, no matter how fucked up and hopeless-seeming a person might appear on the surface...and the importance of having the compassion to see that something even in people it'd be easier not to have to see at all...

I am large. I contain multitudes...
Walt Whitman

...near the end, Precious' mother*** gives a monologue...revealing, even more than before, just how toxic she is to her daughter...and, probably, to just about anyone else likely to come in contact with her...but, also, the far more difficult truth that, in the end, she’s another desperately wounded human being...so twisted and lost in her damaged mind it’s hard to imagine how she could find peace...but one of us, nonetheless...if we can grow large enough to acknowledge her...

* that said, it should be mentioned that Gabourey Sibide, who plays the title character, says she hates yoga...would like to kill it, even....though I suspect that has more to do with airbrushed mass-marketed images than core philosophies...

** hell, it turns out Mariah Carey can act...who could’ve imagined that?...

*** played by Mo’Nique...representing one of the rare instances in which I actually agreed with Oscar...(though, if I had my way, Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep would win practically every year)...(then, if I really had my way, I'd probably be married to Cate Blanchett...but, anyway...)...

Going to Eleven: The Obligatory New Year's Resolutions Post

The Dormouse: You've got no right to grow here.

Alice: Don't talk nonsense. You know you're growing too.

The Dormouse: Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace, not in that ridiculous fashion.
Lewis Carroll

These go up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel, This is Spinal Tap

As I believe I said, or at least vaguely referred to (more likely), I don’t do the New Year’s thing. Nonetheless, to show my deep commitment to personal growth, I here present:

****Eleven New Year’s Resolutions****

1. To forget the lyrics to “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.
2. To write the Great Southwestern Antarctican Novel.
3. To be the first postmaster general of the United States to unicycle to the top of Mount Everest wearing leiderhosen made of pancake flour.
4. To master new and original yoga poses like Inebriated Oxen Herd, Three Point Sweater, and Muppet Off His Meds (and, of course, to translate each of those into Sanskrit).
5. To eat my weight in zinc every morning, half my weight in artificial sweeteners every evening, and wake up to drink a third of my weight in melted styrofoam every half hour during the night.
6. To read Moby Dick aloud, unabridged, backwards, to an audience of millions, with live musical accompaniment by Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, and Ludwig Van Beethoven (performing simultaneously).
7. To end all international conflicts that aren’t likely to inspire good movies.
8. To invent the one device that will make the xylophone, zebra mussel, and cotton gin obsolete.
9. To experience photosynthesis and deep-fry myself.
10. To have my tonsils, adenoids, and appendix replaced with those of Werner Herzog, Alfonso Cuaron, and Pedro Almodovar, respectively.
11. To make the Venus de Milo smile.

The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.
Walt Whitman