YOGA, COUNTRY, BLUEGRASS AND BLUES







Yesterday I did indeed go to see Swami Bua for his 6PM class. He lives near tony Columbus Circle but it's still technically Hell's Kitchen. He's in a very nice doorman-building, where apparently he's lived since the 1970's. It's hard to believe he was seventysomething when I was born. Makes 41 seem like not such a big deal.


His daughter answered the door; she was quite sweet and apparently takes care of him. He has the white beard still and is quite spry; he was holding court on a little bench in his living room, wearing a white dhoti, some kind of shirt and red Dr. Scholl's. ....

I had a hard time understanding the Swami, and vice-versa. Before anything, he had to determine if my teacher would be angry I was studying with him -- if I had his permission. He couldn't hear me so I had to write down my answers to his questions. I told him that since we weren't in India it was probably OK (the contract they have us sign at the AYRI seems to apply to Mysore only). This took about 20 minutes. No one else came during that time, so I had a private lesson. I felt very bad about this, like I was wasting his time.... It was classical hatha yoga and he was patient with me despite my inability to hear/follow directions (I usually act like a big clod the first several times I try something new; more than once he asked, "Do you understand English?" because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing / was getting it wrong due to nervousness, etc. I really am a retard when it comes to following directions; that's one of the reasons the rote nature of Ashtanga suits me so well).

So I wound up having a private lesson. He seemed to think I was flexible. After some standing and sitting twists, shoulderstand and headstand with knee-bends and twists he had me pull out a chair and sit by him. He asked more than once if I had any problems. I laughed nervously because I couldn't narrow it down to just one and shrugged and said, "not really." He seemed to think I'm a good person, which was nice to hear from someone who apparently knows about these kinds of things. It felt good to be in his presence. A privilege. I am kicking myself though for forgetting to bring the 1999 Yoga Chicago issue with his photo on the cover....

Afterwards I took the train to the East Village to meet the Hex at Angelica's Kitchen, which is perhaps my favorite vegetarian restaurant of all time (Chicago Diner, Blind Faith et al don't compare). We sat at the communal table; the others did not seem to be Communists. During our meal, one of them told his neighbor how Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell used to come over to his house when he was a child and "pound out the tunes."

To walk off the meal we headed south towards the Bowery. There was a small line in front of CBGB (which still hasn't been closed down). For some reason The New York Dolls show I'd read about in the paper that morning was not sold out. They were about to go onstage; after buying a couple of t-shirts next door we paid our $20 and went inside; the band was in the middle of their first song. They were awesome; David Johansen must be a yogi or on some sort of raw foods / all juice diet because he looked great and played the harp like nobody's business. We saw the set list and stuck around for the encore, Personality Crisis. The experience was made all the sweeter by the presence of Debbie Harry (who also must be on that diet) and the actor who recently hung himself on the Sopranos. A perfect evening, all in all.

Now I can tell Dorian Black's grandchildren that I had a private yoga lesson with Swami Bua and saw the New York Dolls play at CBGB.

Sure, it was 30 years too late.

But they don't have to know that.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PHOTO CREDIT: The Hex
(This was taken right after the show; the top arrow points to Debbie Harry. And yes, that's me, looking like a figure from a Munch painting -- with a bright shiny pink yoga mat bag. At CBGB).

GIMME AND LEMME

The third day of the workshop was the sweatiest by far; many buckets and toxins were shed, and I cursed my cotton top. We were in the center of the third row. David Life was in the glass room in front and Mike D. was in the back of da house. I think I saw Lino leave the 6AM class yesterday but that could have been wishful thinking....

The Speedo Man (tan, long locks, tattoos) in front of us was well-behaved (ie; no face-kicking) as was the very sweaty man behind, who fumbled through many a sun salutation trying to find the perfect location for his rug. Guruji's counting was a bit faster but not much; Supta Kurmasana was held for many days and I reached my goal of holding Utpluthi for his entire count; perhaps it was a bit short today, perhaps not.

The $3 chai was again perfect and sweet, and Sharath signed my copy of Mysore Style, the heavy $70 book of photos taken during Guruji's 90th birthday celebration last year (cash only; the proceeds benefit Guruji's charitable foundation -- the URL of which seems to have disappeared). It's kind of fun to see everyone's different idea of the proper dristi in poses such as Danurasana (nose? third eye?); much confusion is there. Also they seemed to have staged a few photos at the old, 12-person shala in Lakshmipuram. Interestingly, Sharath, who is assistant director of the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute, only appears in the book a couple of times.

They showed the film version of the book at Anthology Film Archives the other day but I got the timings wrong so we had a cherry knish next door at Yonah Schimmels instead. As we waited we watched people order, including Gimme and Lemme. ("Gimme" says, "Give me one of these" and "Give me one of those" while "Lemme" says, "Let me have this" and "Let me have that." Both the Hex and I are "May-I's."). We had the cherry knish. "It's a bit disappointing when it's microwaved," the Hex complained, although that didn't stop us from wolfing it down. The upstairs neighbor recommends ten minutes in a 350-degree oven.

Apparently I'm going to see the 116 year old yogi in Hell's Kitchen this afternoon. I'm terrified of course. We had a couple of phone conversations, if you could call them that, that go something like this:

HIM: (indecipherable)
ME: Swami Bua?
HIM: Yes! Speaking!
ME: I'm from Yoga Chicago.
HIM: Hatha yoga!
ME: Yes! Magazine! Can I do interview?
HIM: Hatha yoga! Each day at 1PM and 6PM!
ME: I can come and interview?
HIM: Anyone can come!
ME: I can come?
HIM: Anyone can come! But must call first!
ME: Can I come? Tonight at 6?
HIM: Classes are at 1PM and 6PM! Hatha Yoga!
ME: I come?
HIM: Yes
ME: OK! Good! My name is Caca!
HIM: (indecipherable).
ME: Caca!
Him: (indecipherable)
ME: I come! At 6!
HIM: God bless you!
--Click--

GURUJI IN NYC


Things learnt at the first day of the workshop:

-Midtown Lofts is not the Puck Building

-Arriving early for the 8am class means nothing, except missing out on precious sleep.

-The intensive is one week long, not two (no wonder so many people are there, including a large Chicago contingent).

-Guruji has lost some weight but otherwise looks fabulous.

-Sharath's back does pain him and he is indeed taking off the summer.

-Saraswati looks awesome.

-Guruji's count is slower than it was at 6AM in San Francisco.

-Practicing with wall-to-wall mats is kind of fun, except for the part where the guy behind you's big foot keeps getting in yo' face.

-Coming to NYC to see the family is never a bad thing.

-Before practice with Guruji, et al one can be full of piss and bile but afterwords it's disappeared and life seems to have both a rhyme and a reason.

-Perhaps one should extend one's stay in Mysore (May 8 to July 21) to July 31.

-Some people's lives actually move forward; Chris and Wendy's baby now walks, talks and makes sentences

-Chai is still $3

-The question of the day = "Where Miss Y?"

-The fabulous Indian breakfast of uppma has returned. It's served just down the street in a photographer's loft in what was once an historic olde hotel, and it's just as good as last year's.

-The $25 t-shirts are made in Peru and the large is kind of small.

-The last anyone's heard, my old teacher Eric -- the one who convinced me to start teaching -- is now teaching in Istanbul (not Constantinople).

DISTURB

tr.v. dis·turbed, dis·turb·ing, dis·turbs

1. To break up or destroy the tranquility or settled state of: "Subterranean fires and deep unrest disturb the whole area"

2. To trouble emotionally or mentally; upset.

3.
a. To interfere with; interrupt: noise that disturbed my sleep.
b. To intrude on; inconvenience: Constant calls disturbed her work.
4. To put out of order; disarrange.


CASE I: YOGA

Why should the following be so disturbing, when it really has nothing to do with one's sleep, work, emotional state or sense of order?

YOGA AND CHOCOLATE WITH DAVE ROMANELLI
At One Yoga co-founder and yoga teacher David Romanelli and Vosges Haut Chocolat founder and chocolatier Katrina Markoff have been great friends since their college years. Katrina and David realized their careers
each involved a unique type of "fusion." Katrina was fusing chocolate with curry, wasabe and chiles to create the Vosges experience.

David was fusing the 5,000 year old practice of yoga with modern music to create Yeah Dave Yoga. Katrina and David launched the Yoga + Chocolate experience in a 2004 retreat to Oaxaca, Mexico recently featured in The New York Times, Breath Magazine, Marie Claire, and NIKKEI (Japanese Wall St. Journal.) Pre-registration is required.

The Yoga and Chocolate workshop will begin with a tasting of chocolatier Katrina Markoff's Indian-inspired Naga creation consisting of sweet Indian curry powder, coconut, and milk chocolate. This will set the tone for David's 90 minute flowing vinyasa yoga class set to great music ranging from Sinatra to Puff Daddy and everything in between. At the end of class, you will be in a deeply relaxed, totally present state of mind as you are guided through a tasting of Katrina's Red Fire creation which consists of Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers, ceylon cinnamon and dark chocolate.

You'll finish realizing that a scattered mind diminishes your sense of taste, hearing and smell and you'll remember that being present adds amazing flavor to every moment. This will be the ultimate sensory experience... great music, flowing yoga, inspiring spiritual message, and last but not least, a chocolate sensation not to be forgotten. Price includes Vosges Haut-Chocolat goodie bag (valued at $40).



Maybe it's disturbing because, slippery slopes being the way they are, we'll eventually find our way to "Crack Yoga," "Nitrous Pranayama," "Olestra Kriya Yoga," "Restorative Seconal Yoga," "PCP Vinaysa Flow With Knives," and so on. Talk about the ultimate sensory experience.

Although... wait......isn't yoga supposed to be about controlling the sense-organs (Pratyahara)?





CASE II: THE SHIELD SEASON FINALE

Why was the scene depicting the show's handsome moral center Lemmy being blown up by a grenade but living just long enough to see his toothy fellow Strike Team "family" member Shane scream an apology almost less disturbing than the sub-plot in which a master manipulator gives Dutch a lesson in "Pimpology 101," showing how he keeps his white MBA lady doing his bidding (including letting him mount her in the pokey); basically he says you give the woman a lot of love and attention and then take it away so that she craves it and will do anything to get it back -- sense-organs again. Dutch uses this advice to get the pretty rookie girl with the nice lingerie to start towing the line. Why so disturbing?



Maybe because one's own self has been played like an MBA / rookie woman?

Perhaps.

POLL VAULT: PLEBISCITES AND PARASITES --
The Story of Voting in Chicago

Today was primary election day. I already felt wretched due to the long weekend. The late morning's intense practice included a Yoga Journal Kapotasana prep with a chair that made me feel so nauseous I almost lost it and didn't want to move.






Nonetheless I put on some clothes and made my way past the goonda gauntlet* and to the polls -- which are inside the nearby high school.**





This year The Walking Man*** gave me my ballot. But it wasn't the usual punch ticket. Instead he handed me a pen and a giant piece of cardboard where you mark an "X" next to your choice. After voting for Cook County Board President, Water Reclamation District representatives and various unknown circuit court judges, you feed it to a scanner.




Apaprently it's the future.****



_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________


*The goonda gauntlet is the ubiquitous group of fat, burly, leather-clad ward committeemen or tools of Da Machine or bouncers or whatever who stand as close as is legally possible to the polls and harass, er, intimidate, er, ASK voters to choose their particular candidates. I suspect that saying "I'm a Republican" in this Democratic stronghold might put them off -- but on the other hand it may backfire and set them off. My strategy now is to go around the front of the enormous, block-long high school -- no small thing considering yesterday's piercing 20 mph wind -- and avoid them altogether.


**This is the same high school wherein the exquisite little 1980 film My Bodyguard takes place. And yes, Joan Cusack co-stars. The musical Grease, on the other hand, was inspired by co-writer Jim Jacobs's experiences as a greaser at Chicago's Taft High School. Grease opened at Kingston Mines Theatre here in 1971 and moved to Broadway the following year (where it became the second-longest running show in its history).

***The Walking Man is a thin guy whom I've seen trucking around the neighborhood for years, in all types of weather. But lately he's been missing and I've been worried. When I saw him at the polls I wanted to exclaim, "Hey! Walking Man! I've been wondering if you're OK" but since he was an election judge I figured it might not be a good idea. I did learn though that his name is Bruce.

****Oops! The new machines didn't work so well after all. Instead of the hanging chads we've always had (and never complained about or seemed to notice in this city where even dead people vote once or twice) there was trouble with the giant new cartoon ballots. After the polls closed it was learned that at least 15 percent of the votes didn't register and must be counted by hand; entrenched Cook County Board President John Stroger***** is apparently posed to contest the election from his hospital bed, where he remains after suffering a stroke several days ago. His opponent in the race is Forrest Claypool, former Chicago Park District Superintendent and former Chief of Staff to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

*****Cook County is the second largest county in the US and the 19th largest government in America -- meaning there's lots of $$ to be bandied about. During his long tenure Stroger built a giant new hospital that bears his name.****** Very Huey P. Long of him if you ask me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

******When he fell ill, Stroger was rushed not to his namesake but to Rush University Medical Center.

MANDY ROONEY


Every time they say "Saddam and his seven codefendents" I hear "Saddam and his seven codependents."



And whenever I hear "midterm elections," I can't help but picture some kind of test or exam.

If only....





MORE MANDY



"It's not an act of God, it's an act of guys - guys exploiting other guys.....If the mining company is fined 250 bucks, it's like two cents."

Studs Terkel's explanation of the not-so-recent mining disaster



"Curiosity did not kill this cat."

Studs' epitaph of choice.



"A slovenly, loud-mouthed Jew"

Can't remember if it's how a boss once referred to Studs-the-"enthusiastic agnostic" or if it's his second choice for the headstone.

OLD SCHOOL.

While researching hundredsomething yogi Swami Bua I came across the following interviews. First some background: Buaji came to the US in the 60's with the help of the former Shah of Iran*, whom he cured of some awful illness using yoga. He's been teaching yoga in his Hell's Kitchen apartment** twice a day since the 70's -- never charging a fee (you hear that, Mr. Bikram?) and only eating what's given to him. He's taught and inspired countless people, including a teenage Satya Sai Baba (no relation), and to them he's a household name. They say he's still teaching. I have his telephone number but am reticent to call....


World of knowledge: we harness the expertise of the brawny, the brainy, and the bearded to solve your most confounding conundrums
Men's Fitness, Jan, 2005 by Jeff O'Connell


WORLD'S TOUGHEST MAN

Ex-mobster Gino Gioe spent 10 years knocking out people in prison.

Is there such a thing as karma?

I believe in karma wholeheartedly. What goes around comes around. Who's keeping track of it? He is [nods to an approaching homeless man, laughs, hands him a bill, and recoils]. This is the filthiest man in the world.

What is the most painful way to die?

That fuckin' machine they put you on to stretch you--the rack. And, at the same time, having an ice pick in the hole of your dick. Slow-torture-type stuff.

Why does every single woman on Earth love the movie Grease?

I think it was the coming-of-age movie for most women. Grease wasn't just a word, it was a rebellious thing: the dancing, the hairdos, the whole nine. It allowed them to be who they wanted to be.

WORLD'S SMARTEST MAN

Christopher Langan has an IQ of 195. Einstein's was just 160.

Is there such a thing as karma?

The universe keeps a perfect record of time--it's just that your access to this record is limited by your senses.

What is the most painful way to die?

Alone, unloved, and unfulfilled. They say that burning alive runs a close second, but I can't seem to find any firsthand comparisons.

Why does every single woman on Earth love the movie Grease?

Most women have dreamed about or enjoyed a whirlwind summer romance, and the score is quite popular.

WORLD'S OLDEST MAN

Swami Bua is about 115 and teaches hatha yoga in New York City.

Is there such a thing as karma?

Whether you believe in it or not, karma will interfere with your day-to-day life. It is God who guides. Without his imperial command, not a single blade of grass can move! You may think, "I am doing." That is ego. Ego can beguile us.

What is the most painful way to die?

To commit suicide. That is the greatest sin. You are taking your own life by yourself. You are not supposed to. That is the greatest way of having painful death.

Why does every single woman on Earth love the movie Grease?

A man and a woman must have companions. If you don't have a companion, it is a sin.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group





Swami Bua also has a thing or two to say about vegetarianism. From Esoteric New York:

If one is a human being, one must be a vegetarian, says Bua. When you eat meat, you are eating a dead corpse. The human was not meant to eat corpses. It is man's duty to safeguard and protect animals.






-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Imagine what the world might look like if the Shah had died of that illness.

**Imagine, at age 116, with rent control, what Swamiji's monthly rent must be. It could inspire a musical....Which reminds me -- Sita Ram is tomorrow night. It's another world premiere by the Tony-winning Lookingglass Theatre (sorry, NYC -- you won't get to see this one for a couple of years).

WORDPLAY



Tendrils



and



Entrails.


So similar and yet so different.


"He felt it in his entrails when he stroked her soft tendrils...."



CONUNDRUMS 101

Why must the blizzard come not on one's day off, but on the day one teaches not one not two not three but four effing classes, two of which are downtown?

How did one wind up spending over $30 at the Dollar Store yesterday? Does one really need a better colander when others are starving / being bombed, tortured, raped, and pillaged / having nervous breakdowns / dying of cancer / living in refugee camps / pissing on the Bill of Rights / getting pink slips / driving SUV's?

Why the addiction to the 5AM Oxygen network yoga show Inhale, which one mistakenly keeps calling "Exhale?"

Why so hard to make the Mac use boldface type and post pictures?

Why so many vinyasa flow teachers named Erin / Erica?

How can the 'Merica increase its debt limit (to $9 trillion) yet again? Did we not at one point have a balanced budget?

Could it have something to do with why they're teaching Chinese to elementary school children?

Why Jon Stewart, and not moi?

BUNK DEBUNKED

Conventional wisdom says...

Don't buy a car from a friend.

and

Don't let your boyfriend's daughter cut your hair.

Yet so far (knock wood) the Civic I brought from JuJu has been fun to drive. It's several steps up from my old ride in that it has a trunk that opens and doors that unlock and an interior light that works and a gearshift that's marked and tires that stay inflated. Apparently it even has air-conditioning. Now that's the future.

And I love the hairstyle that Calendula created for me in her west suburban kitchen. For some reason it didn't take a week to get used to the shock of losing six inches of the stuff. (I've been trying to grow out the grey since 2003, because you can't remove henna and I hate short hair, and it had grown quite long). Perhaps it had something to do with the Seabreeze Dorian force-fed me but Calendula somehow talked me into bangs, saying they're "fun," while the whole time I was thinking, No, I have to teach and go to India and I have deadlines and I'll have to grow them out and there's no room for fun, dammit .



She cut off all the red ratty hennaed dead Medusalike stuff that clung to my neck, and fashioned some diagonal bangs across my face. I immediately felt a million pounds lighter; it must be how the flappers felt when they bobbed their heavy hair in the 1920's.

So I'm no longer a two-tone feral mess -- although Dorian described my playful locks today as "grey with brown highlights." Whatever. I kind of look like someone who's nice, and to whom nice things may happen.

But not one who wears Gap clothes.

Which reminds me -- I saw two back-to-back episodes of the British What Not to Wear on Saturday and would like a £2,000 cheque to blow on a wardrobe to match my new 'do.

I suspect this new look will help me in my brand-new quest to become more charming -- a trait I've always associated with obsequiousness, fakery and pure evil. I tend to flit between brutal honesty and quiet hostility, and considering the lack of career, health insurance, property, etc. it's pretty clear that it hasn't always worked. So I'm trying to be, well, nicer -- and to remember that most (not all) other people are not out to get me.

I tried out some of this charming stuff at Sopranos night last night. I'd set down my salad to get some dressing and the mildly inebriated woman near me screeched, "This is my seat! You can't take my seat!" Instead of getting into it I said, "Hi I'm Caca -- have we met?"

Somehow that diffused the whole thing.

But I didn't return to that table again, did I.

AFTER MALCOLM WAS BORN, MY DOCTOR TOLD ME I HAD IRON-POOR BLOOD

I'm starting to think that Billy Corgan did the same bad things I did in a past life and hence we were rewarded with not dissimilar childhoods.* Except that he somehow went on to have a fabulous career and lose his hair, etc. and I, um, well, at least I lead an interesting life.

To wit: Today after practicing yoga and teaching a class and forgoing chai I donated blood and did not feel faint like last time but just utterly exhausted. It seems that the older I get the more of a toll it takes. Or maybe it was giving up the caffeine until afterwards (because drinking it beforehand inevitably causes me to fail the iron test; one's hemoglobin level, whatever that is, must be 12.5 or higher in order to give blood. And I'm one of those boring, borderline anemic holier-than-thou vegetarians).

I don't know much about Mr. Corgan's iron levels, but the hue of his luminous pate suggests they too hover somewhere around 12.5. I do know that he has not blogged since June 2005, which according to my research was a red-letter year for starting the things (his began earlier that year). Two thousand ought six, on the other hand, is the year for quitting. Some have not only stopped writing but have taken everything down as well. Unfortunately the latter group includes the excellent writer, Canadia-born soprano Erin Wall, who until she quit seemed to live a very interesting life indeed. Others just seem to have stopped writing. Apparently the blogosphere (oh how I hate that term) is no longer an edgy neighborhood but a vast boring suburb full of white folks in Gap clothes.

Indeed: While researching a story today I found out that my instincts were correct; many writers and artists of various sorts have started the things for one reason only -- because their marketing person told them to. I wonder if they'll be rewarded with book deals anyway.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Cowboy Bill and I also shared similar young adulthoods, if you count the fact that we both used to be regulars at Jim's Grill back when he lived in a house on Greenview and I was in an illegal firetrap basement apartment a block away on Bosworth.

NO MYSORE NO CRY

Gridlife's miles finally posted to my account.

Too little, too late -- all the Chicago-Bangalore flights from May to September are gone, gone gone.

And to buy the thing would cost $2376.

I don't think so.

WHAT THE HELL

I just learnt that a man is planning to alter my Yoga Chicago article about the upcoming Lookingglass, et al. performance of Sita Ram and post it on some website. Apparently he also plans to add his name to it and publish it in The Indian Reporter.

Over my dead body.

PUNK NOT DEAD

Apparently the following graph is too violent* for my otherwise Erma Bombeck-y treatise on why March is by far the longest and most hateful month of the year:

"Is it any coincidence that the month inspired the terms Mad as a March Hare and March Madness? That last term isn’t about basketball -- it’s about losing it during a winter that never ends. Like Brian Nichols, who killed three people outside an Atlanta courthouse on March 12. The next day Terry Ratzmann opened fire at Living Church of God in suburban Milwaukee, killing seven. On March 21, Red Lake High School student Jeff Weise killed ten people, including himself. Two days later a man opened fire at a plumbing store in Arlington Heights (he missed). And on the 24th, Rockford’s Michael W. Mitchell brandished a box cutter and tried to steal a gun from a store in Florida, so he could “take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo.” "


Something tells me they won't like this replacement much, either, since I've removed the local references *and* mention the dreaded W-word:

"Is it any coincidence that the month inspired the terms Mad as a March Hare and March Madness? That last term isn’t about basketball -- it’s about losing it during a winter that never ends. Last year there was a record number of domestic shootings in March, in places as diverse as an Atlanta courthouse, a suburban Milwaukee church and a Red Lake, Minnesota high school.

"In fact the name March is derived from Mars, the god of death and war, and in Roman times it was considered an auspicous time to do battle. (Apparently it still is -- considering that the US invaded Iraq in March three years ago, and this March the country appears to be on the brink of civil war)."

It's enough to make me want to take up arms.....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course it's all the violence that's violent, not the paragraph.

WORD OF THE DAY

Blogroach

noun. A reader who infests the comment section of a weblog, disagreeing with everything posted in the most obnoxious manner possible. Sample usage: "Her brother is such a blogroach."

(coined by Stacy Tabb)

From Samizdata.net




NOT-SO-NEW WORD

Blagojevich ("Bluh-GOY-a-vich")

proper noun. An Illinois governor and former Golden Gloves boxer with a good head of hair who invests in the future by implementing a state-subsidized health insurance plan that covers every child in the state.* In 2004 Blago issued a controversial executive order requiring all Illinois pharmacists to dispense emergency birth control medication even if they object on moral or religious grounds (the last provided fodder for a recent Daily Show segment, which ended with the all-too-relevant tag, "The question remains: Who will control the woman's body - her governor or her pharmacist?" See a blurry copy of the video here or search the Daily Show website).



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


*Apparently adults under 65 can still go f--k themselves when it comes to health insurance.

**In related news, Wal-Mart announced a few days ago that its pharmacies will start carrying the morning after pill. Not that they'll actually dispense it in a timely manner when time is of the utmost essence;*** the company also said that individual pharmacists who are "uncomfortable" filling the 'scrip can send customers to another pharmacy -- where they may very well receive the same treatment. Of course you never hear about pharmacists declining to hand out Viagra -- or insurance companies unwilling to cover it. Wonder why that is....

***Spread the word: Women who find themselves in this situation can take two to five regular birth control pills and achieve the same results.****

****All this does is inhibit or delay ovulation to prevent pregnancy. It does not kill the fetus because there is no fetus to kill.

OOPS! SPOKE TOO SOON

The venue for the first week of Pattabhi Jois' NYC workshop has been changed from the ballroom of the historic Puck Building to some place called Midtown Loft (267 Fifth Avenue at 29th) which looks like it has a ballroom and a view but is in some unknown (to me) neighborhood and several F-stops further than the old place from the Hex's Park Slope digs.

Top photo of the pre-dawn Puck Ballroom with lunging Satya courtesy of Katstan. Photo at left is of Midtown Loft

WOMAN PLANS, INDIA LAUGHS

Sharath is indeed taking off May-July and won't be teaching at the AYRI in Mysore. Word is that the shala will close in August while Guruji, et al again go on tour.

Unfortunately Certain Bloggers were planning to go to Mysore June-August and had even obtained work OK and enough miles for an award ticket and are now quite flummoxed indeed.

Fortunately there are still plans to see them in NYC at the end of the month. At least there's that.

Photo of Guruji and Sharath at the old shala by Satya Cacananda @2002