NINE LIVES

Yesterday would have been my mother's 78th birthday....

Today I heard through the grapevine that Guruji has not been seen in the shala, and may be on around-the-clock care....

My cat-activist friend Deb recently dug up the following obit, which I wrote seven years ago....








FRITZKA T. KATZ (nee Cacananda), August 1987 to June 7, 2001

Fritzka T. Katz, 14 (that’s 70 to you and me), died in the hospital on June 7, 2001 after fluid in the lungs, most likely the result of a tumor, cause her to go into respiratory failure. Her cat mom was holding her when she passed.

Fritzka was the sweetest, softest, best cat in the world, and many songs were written in her honor. If more people had known about her, there would have been long lines to see her. On her second-to-last trip to the vet, several strangers peered into her carrier to inquire about the “beautiful, wee cat” and were surprised to learn that she was a dowager with only four teeth to her name (although more discerning fans, including performance artist and filmmaker Brigid Murphy, knew right-off that she was a grand dame of the old school).

Fritzka was born at Tree House in Uptown, where she was known as Franzia and lived in the office with her late, great littermate, Snarfee (nee Spumante) and an unnamed sibling whose whereabouts are unknown. After climbing onto prospective cat-owner Tim Hurley’s shoulder on March 4, 1988 and chewing on his hair, she was adopted by the rock star-to-be and her cat-mom, Caca.

Her many nicknames included Kitskin, Birdsong, Songbird, Eena, The Fritzkinest Kitzka, Little Miss Cat-Food-Naow, Toe-Cute, Princess Stinkybottom, Blackmouth and Kitty-Cat Mauser.

Although she liked to make guttural mewing sounds at birds and flies, Fritzka was not enamored of the great outdoors, and when she ventured forth it was with great crouching, sniffing and hesitation. She craved heat and enjoyed sitting in the sun. In the early days, when it was cold, she would sit with Snarfee on the stove above the pilot light. In later years, she would take a seat under the desk lamp, next to the computer; or on the modem or VCR. On particularly bitter winter days, she sat in front of the radiator and waited patiently for it to come to life.

She also loved affection, and enjoyed strewing her food all over the place. Sometimes her waste stuck to her bottom, which caused vigorous kicking of the hind legs, not to mention many artistic creations (including one particularly elusive and odiferous installation on the refrigerator door). She invented poo strings and poo poo paw printing and could clear a room with her output in less than 30 seconds.

A letter of hers was published in NewCity in 1994. She had her own E-mail address, doorbell and mailbox, and was admired by not one, but two of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds. She occasionally did consulting and voiceover work.

She was a paper-sitter who liked to rub her lips on plants and bike spokes, play with dental floss and roll on her back in the bathtub. Her favorite snack items were basil olive oil, soy margarine, macaroni and cheese, pancakes and certain baby food. She drank exclusively from the toilet.

When she liked a song – such as the Velvet Underground’s slower anthems – or a person, she’d roll on her back as if she were a grub, and sometimes would get so carried away that she’d smack her head on the floor. She was a top-notch player of Get Caca, Fake Bird and The Door Game, and could jump two feet in the air. She spent many a happy hour burrowing her nose into the elbows or armpits of the lucky few she allowed to get close to her. She did not like children.

Fritzka is survived by her cat-mom Caca, who is devastated by her loss; her beloved surrogate parents Doug and Natasha; her estranged cat-dad Tim, and countless friends and fans.

According to longtime yoga teacher Suddha Weixler, who knows about such things, she has already come back as “something even more beautiful.”

AMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!****


Eat it and weep.....

This is the full-length version of the undercover Humane Society video, which shows the unspeakably cruel treatment of cows at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company. It's the long version of the video that's been making the news, and which prompted the recall of 143 million pounds of beef.

What the media doesn't say is that the downed cows in the video had already spent their entire lives in awful conditions - why do you think they can't stand up? - giving milk and producing calves that stayed with them a single day before being shipped off to live out their entire lives getting fattened up in a tiny box before they, too, were slaughtered.

In the video, one of the cows had massive streams of water sprayed up its nose, so she (all of these were females, by the way) would think she was drowning and muster all her remaining fight-or-flight energy and stand up.

Others of course were shocked with cattle prods (which really, really does hurt; these very same cattle prods were used on humans by both Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard and certain stepmothers** we know).

I grew up on a farm with cows - and never, ever heard them scream like they do in the video.

It's hard to believe that so little has changed since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906.

Even sadder is the fact that people are more upset about the prospect of children getting Mad Cow-burgers in their school lunch than the cruel treatment of their fellow creatures.

But at least they might think twice now about eating meat.

And maybe they'll finally realize where it comes from.

Kudos to the Humane Society.

You can make a donation to them by clicking here. There's more video here.

The Humane Society is also spearheading a campaign to stop the US Department of Agriculture from adopting a horrifyingly low standard for meat products that carry a "naturally raised" label. The standard appears to be a marketing gimmick that would not address housing, diet or physical alterations such as branding, dehorning, and tail docking. You can learn more, and fire off a letter (before Feb 27), by clicking here.






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*In America, we think cows say "Moo!" In India (or at least Mysore) - where cows are treated with less cruelty - they think the cows say "Ambaa!"

**Ours was kept in the corner next to the china cabinet - within easy reach in case someone misbehaved.

YOGA + CHOCOLATE = BETTER THAN TV



Chocolate was everywhere on Thursday - Valentine's Day.

Trader Joe's was giving away three types of rather excellent dark chocolate truffles - I limited myself to just two - and later in the day Mr. Kotter and I shared Mohr Im Hemd (Hot Molten Chocolate Cake) at Julius Meinl (Austrian desserts are particularly dear to me because they're not oversweetened).

Chocolate was also all over public radio that day. Marketplace aired a wonderfully riveting piece about master chocolate taster Chloé Doutre-Roussel.

From the start, it was clear that she is more than just a globetrotting chocolate whisperer with an exquisite sense of smell (she was born in South America and raised in France, which explains her rather charming turn of phrase):

"When I was 14 I started to taste chococolate to find the best pleasure out of my pocket money...and I realized that when I was concentrating into the tasting of one chocolate, I felt the complexity, the intensivity, and that it was much more interesting than watching TV."

When I heard the next bit I sat up straight and thought, "OhMyGawd, she's also a yogi!"

"I have applied this theory of listening to my body to listening to my needs for rest, or where I want to go for holiday, or if I want to be with this person or not.

"When you do things that are not in tune with you, not only is it a waste of time, but you also harm yourself."

"

Jon Miller, the reporter, also stated that, "She told me about her desire to have a family and about the toll her constant traveling was taking on her body. We talked about her ongoing effort to reconcile her love of luxury with her arguably stronger love of austerity and quiet. She said she knew that chocolate isn't the most important thing on earth. But it's something she cares about, and something she knows about, and somewhere she can make a difference."

Definitely a yogi.

Her website is here.

LOVE ME, LOVE MY DIET

Thursday's New York Times has a piece about couples whose eating habits just aren't compatible.

You know - he eats meat, she's raw-vegan.

They're called "interdietary couples" -- which conjures up images of multicolored aliens.

The topic has allowed the writer to employ conceits such as "vegangelical" and "Man does not love by bread alone."

Some excerpts:

Ben Abdalla, 42, a real estate agent in Boca Raton, Fla., said he preferred to date fellow vegetarians because meat eaters smell bad and have low energy.

Lisa Romano, 31, a vegan and school psychologist in Belleville, N.Y., said she recently ended a relationship with a man who enjoyed backyard grilling. He had no problem searing her vegan burgers alongside his beef patties, but she found the practice unenlightened and disturbing.

Her disapproval “would have become an issue later even if it wasn’t in the beginning,” Ms. Romano said. “I need someone who is ethically on the same page.”

While some eaters may elevate morality above hedonism, others are suspicious of anyone who does not give in to the pleasure principle.

June Deadrick, 40, a lobbyist in Houston, said she would have a hard time loving a man who did not share her fondness for multicourse meals including wild game and artisanal cheeses. “And I’m talking cheese from a cow, not that awful soy stuff,” she said.

The full article is here.


I prefer not to date meat-eaters - especially if they consume it in my presence.

And I certainly won't buy dinner if it includes something dead on their plate.

Even worse are those who attack my reasons for being meat-free since '87. Do I attack you for believing in Jeebus?

(Those of you who call yourselves yogis and still eat meat should read this article, called "No Yama, No Yoga." Yoga students who are not making "progress" or feel stuck in their practice should also consider cutting back on the meat intake. Fish, by the way, is not a vegetable. Nor are eggs.).


By the way, being meat-free has a long history even in the West:

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, famous for his contributions to geometry and mathematics, strongly believed in the reincarnation of the soul and preached an ethical lifestyle that included injunctions against killing living creatures, whether through animal sacrifice or for the eating of meat. His proscribed diet was very close to today’s vegan diet, and attracted two different classes of adherents. One group, an elite group who studied directly under Pythagoras called mathematikoi ("mathematicians" followed an extremely restricted regimen, eating only cereals, bread, honey, fruits and some vegetables. A larger group of followers called the akousmatikoi ("listeners" who attended lectures by the philosopher were allowed to eat meat and drink wine, but were required to abstain on certain days.

According to historical documents, Pythagoras told his followers, "Oh, my fellow men! Do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you denied milk or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter: only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass." His biographer, Diogenes, wrote that Pythagoras ate millet or barley bread and honeycomb in the morning and raw vegetables at night, and that he paid fisherman to throw their catches back into the ocean.

It's almost enough to make a girl want to study philosophy - since Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Ovid and Virgil also advocated vegetarian diets.

Almost.

Learn more about becoming veg here.

INDIAN (H)AIRLINES VS THE FLAVA SAVA




from the BBC today:

India court in moustache notice


India's Supreme Court has issued a notice to a state-run airline asking it to explain why an air steward was sacked for wearing a big moustache.

Victor Joynath De was grounded by Indian - formerly called Indian Airlines- in 2001 for refusing to shave off his handlebar moustache.

He had earlier lost a case in a lower court which ruled that the airline was within its rights to sack him.

According to Indian rules, all crew members should be clean shaven.

A moustache, if worn, should not extend beyond the upper lip, says the rule book.

The guidelines do not apply to Sikh employees who are allowed to keep moustaches.

Apparently his muzzy is a health risk.

Mr De's brush with his employers began in 2001 when the airline argued that his prized asset was a health risk, especially with him frequently handling food.

But wait - there's more.

The spokesman said that some passengers could be unnerved by such a striking facial feature.

At the time of his grounding, Mr De said he was proud of his moustache which had taken 25 years to grow and now stretches prominently across both cheekbones.....

He is a member of London's famous Handlebar Club, which has campaigned against his sacking.

The full article is here



Sparks' "Moustache" lyrics here. The more subtly handsome brother in the band (ie; the one in the video) sported that short, Hitlery moustache for much of his career.

DAS MODELL*




The first weekend of teacher training was amazing. Who doesn't like seeing her guru(s) and doing as many as three yoga classes a day, talking about yoga and the Bhagavad Gita and the Sutras and anatomy and Pranayama and Mantra and Asana and spending five hours five feet away from Krishna Das and meeting a fellow student who goes by the name "Cell Phone?"

But all good things must end (for a few weeks anyway).

Last night my flight home was delayed two hours; I got into Chicago around Midnight.

The windchill was -30.

I greeted the cat, stowed my stuff, took a bath, and went to sleep.

This morning I got up at 5AM and dumped out my suitcase. Then I filled it with clothes for a photo shoot, and downloaded directions to it. I ate and dressed for my 6:30 class.

Despite thw windchill, the car started. It's a Honda.

I taught Dharma's Level I class as usual. But could only remember one of the new changes and made sure to add it; an "easy" varation on Parvritta Parsvakonasana that's a lot harder than it looks (both the Level I and Level II sequences have changed a little bit from last year - in a good way).

Afterwards I headed to the three-hour shoot at Essanay**on Goose Island.

My mother was a model, and this was my chance to feel like it was to be her for a moment.

I liked the shoot more than I wanted to - although I suspect that being a runway / print / TV model for Marshall Field's, et al in the 1950's was a lot of hard work + very little glamour. She used to take the train in from McHenry, and would read science fiction novels to while away the time. When she told the other models that we'd one day be walking on the moon, they thought she was loca.

Funny - the stylist didn't choose any of the outfits I'd brought. It probably didn't help that I don't know what "business casual" means or own a suit with pants. Plus while putting my things away I realized that all of my yoga teaching togs are pilled and frayed.

(Bonus Flashback scene from my Audition:

PERSON WITH CLIPBOARD: Who is your agent?
ME: What?
PC: Your agent. Who is your agent?
ME: There's no agent. There's just me.
PC: ?
ME: I'm an actual yoga person.

Every beatifully-shaped, perfectly coiffed head in the room whips around and stares at the woman with the wild grey hair.

VERY PRETTY MODEL; Ooo-ooh, look out for her)

I really enjoyed being fed and fussed over; it made me re-parented again.

Plus everyone was so nice.

I don't think I've ever worn that much make up at one time.

Or made that much money.

Anyway, I may be appearing in an Aleve advert soon in a magazine near you. As the letter Z or E or B or I - or even Y.

And the photog may be appearing in a yoga class near you.












***

*Watch the video: Does it not look like these guys are contestants on a game show?

**Chicago's original Essanay Studio is where Charlie Chaplan got his start.

SNOW DAY!!


It turns out that we're in the middle of a full-blown Nor'easter; they're predicting up to 12 inches of snow before 6PM.

In Chicago there are strong winds and freezing pellets.

Dreyfus says there are whiteout conditions where he lives; the snow is actually horizontal.

Neither he nor Mrs. Drey went to work today.

Midway airport is closed, and some 500 flights at O'Hare have been cancelled.

But not my 11:45AM flight.

When it was time to leave for the airport, I could not make myself move. I thought, "Why go all the way there, and then find out the flight is delayed and I can't plug in my laptop because all the outlets are taken."

So I sought the advice of Gridlife the Air Travel Answer Man.

He asked if it was urgent that I get there today. Nope; the teacher training starts tomorrow morning at 11:15. The plan was to fly in a day early and spend the afternoon hanging out with Catsey - and possibly take in a B'way show in the evening.

Gridlife said that when the weather is this bad, and the travel isn't urgent, the airlines sometimes allow travellers to rebook for the following day.

I called AA and waited. And waited.

Finally someone answered.

Calmly and politely, I made my case.

It worked!

The nice lady booked me on tomorrow's 6AM flight, arriving at LaGuardia at 9.

"Now you can put your pajamas back on, and enjoy the rest of your day," she said.

No problem - except I'd never taken them off (Chicago is, after all, the hometown of pajama-wearing Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner).

Hopefully I'll have enough time to take a cab to Manhattan, purchase tissues and a gallon of water (which everyone is requested to bring to the first day of the intensive, along with a box of herbal tea - which I already have), sign in, say hello, and find mat space for Dharma's noon Level IV class.

There's nothing like doing a thousand Forearm Balances (see photo) three hours after getting off a plane....

In the meantime I'm pleased as punch to have an entire day to clean the house, catch up on phone calls and play with Kirby -- instead of spending it at the airport waiting in long lines for burnt coffee and stale sandwiches, and wishing my laptop's batteries had lasted long enough to make it all the way through Chalte Chalte.

Thank you, Gridlife!




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Gridlife also recommends taking a three-plug adapter to the airport, so that more people can plug their laptops into the few outlets that are available. I'd actually planned on bringing a six-plug power strip before I changed my flight today.









Photo of Satya C by Amy Dean

ORD


I'm supposed to fly to NYC today for teacher training with Dharma Mittra.

There is freezing rain and high winds.

And a new moon.

They're predicting five to 12 inches of snow between now and 6PM.

The plane is scheduled to leave at 11:45.

Five hundred flights have already been cancelled.

But so far there's been no call or text regarding my particular flight.

I think I'll bring the computer and some DVDs to the airport with me.

And leftover Thai food and Paczki.

And a blanket.

SNOW ETIQUETTE




1. If you're out walking and you come across a car that is stuck and spinning its wheels, stop and offer help. Do not keep walking.

2. If it's the day after a heavy snow and no one has shoveled yet and you're a big, strong man wearing big, strong weatherproof boots and walking on a narrow footpath and you see someone coming towards you from the other direction, give way. Do not turn it into a game of snow-chicken.

3. If you are shoveling out your car, do not be a lazy sod and throw the snow into the street. This creates a hazard for everyone and makes you the worst kind of civic bad sport. Even if you are a petite person with zero upper body strength and no hat or gloves and a massive sense of entitlement, the snow belongs between the sidewalk and the curb.

4. If you shovel out a parking space on the street, it is not yours to keep. No matter how hard you worked, the street is public property. No. More. Dibs.

5. If you shovel an extra spot, there will be space for everyone - including the elderly humplimpett down the hall. Plus you will receive extra credit in your karmic bank account.

YOGA* IS EVERYWHERE -
INCLUDING PRIME-TIME TV

I had some strange new TV show on in the background while I was working tonight.

No, it wasn't Lost.

It was Eli Stone.

I wasn't paying much attention but I caught bits and pieces; the protagonist is a hard-nosed lawyer who keeps hearing George Michael's "Faith" in his head; suddenly he starts seeing signs and doing pro bono work and visiting an acupuncturist - who tells him that God is everywhere.

Next thing you know, he wins the case against the evil vaccine manufacturer, makes peace with his long-dead father and is planning a trip to India.

More here.




*that would be union-with-God yoga, not foot-behind-the-head yoga.





* * *



How funny - the evening news just showed A Red Orchid Theatre artistic director Guy Van Swearingen shoveling snow in front of the theater - like he's just another blue collar guy (actually, he's also a full-time firefighter). You just don't get that kind of dichotomy in NYC. Ah, Chicago....

FAIR IS FOUL
AND FOUL IS FAIR



The Washington Post recently ran a piece called, "In India's huge marketplace, fair skin sells."

It discusses how Eastern European models with dark hair and light skin are being featured in Indian adverts.

"Indians have a longing for that pure, beautiful white skin. It is too deep-rooted in our psyche," said Enakshi Chakraborty, who heads Eskimo India, a modeling agency that brings East European models here. "Advertisers for international as well as Indian brands call me and say, 'We are looking for a gori [Hindi for white] model with dark hair.' Some ask, 'Do you have white girls who are Indian-looking?' They want white girls who suit the Indian palate."

Indians' color fixation is also evident in classified newspaper ads and on Web sites that help arrange marriages. The descriptive terms used for skin color run the gamut: "very fair," "fair," "wheat-ish," "wheat-ish-medium," "wheat-ish-dark," "dark" and "very dark."

Family elders here commonly comment on a newborn baby's color, after checking out the gender. One of the best-selling skin creams in India is called Fair & Lovely. A men's version, Fair and Handsome, was launched last year.

"The Indian mind-set prefers light skin. My pictures are routinely Photoshopped to make me look a bit lighter -- a lot lighter, actually," Riya Ray, 23, a dark-skinned Indian model, said with a laugh. "But when I work in Britain and France, my color is praised as exotic. It is a two-way trend: Indian models are going abroad, and foreign models are coming here."

I can't help but think of Raj, from my first trip in India back in 2002.

He made frequent trips between Mysore and Bangalore on his silver Honda Hero Super Special motorcycle, and was seriously thinking about getting a helmet.

To protect your head? I asked.

"No, Cadda. To protect face from sun."

Huh?

"So I do not become too dark."

Even Desi TJ - who's lived here for eight years - was concerned last month that his skin looked darker after two months in the Subcontinental sun.

Silly man. Doesn't he know that gori girls dig that sh-t?

Apparently not.

Click here for the full article.

CHAI-IN'

I must say, it's fun to be a frigid hipster once in a blue moon.

After seeing Redmoon's surprisngly good Hunchback last night, we went for tea and talking instead of Heather McAdams' sold-out show at Hideout. It's such a relief to find out you're not the only one without prior knowledge of the Hunchback story. Plus walking around onstage and touching the puppets, contraptions, etc. and chatting to cast members after the performance conspire to make one feel childlike again. And it was snowing the entire evening.

Despite all that I couldn't sleep past 7:45 this morn, so I went to Mysore class with Suddha, who always attracts such a nice group. Marikay was there and afterwards we made plans to cross-country ski tomorrow afternoon - provided the snow hasn't melted.

After getting home I did my sitting and then called Ammu, who is in Bangalore working on a film. I started babbling to him about the incredible karma yogi Shashi Kapoor, and he told me that he'd been part of some big brothel scandal last year. I was aghast, and after we hung up I went online to see for myself. But I found no evidence of it. Nor did I find anything about the massive tsunami he said was poised to hit the US today....

I had a bath, put on Indian dress (with long underwear) and drove up to Devon to see Kirti and and overgraze her buffet with my editor. It was snowing again and of course I wore the wrong boots (the suede ones that look good but act like a sponge). We had Kirti's special homemade Gujarati chai both before and after lunch, so the conversation flew fast and furious.

Afterwards, still high on chai, I came home and worked on The Magnum Opus and homework and a restaurant review. Somewhere in there I called the grand-niece, who turned three today and received a purple Barbie bicycle to mark the occasion. Apparently she can't figure out how to pedal the thing. This information came from her father; turns out her phone attention span is even shorter than my own.

The chai is still animating me; rather than paying bills though, I think I'll stop and watch a bit of Muqaddar Ka Sikandar before hitting the sack. The soundtrack, by the way, is sublime.

MAD ABOUT SHASHI



I've been sick the past few days, which has allowed me to catch up on sleep - and movies.

Make that Merchant-Ivory movies. Written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

And starring the incredible Shashi Kapoor

First up was Shakespeare Wallah, about a touring British Shakespeare company playing to dwindling audiences in post-Raj India. The score was by none other than the great Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray.

Kapoor plays the playboy who falls for the daughter of the couple who run the touring company. She's played by Felicity Kendal - the younger sister of Kapoor's real-life wife, Jennifer.

Of course the playboy could not commit.

Next up was the first-ever Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala production, The Householder.

In this one, Shashi Kapoor stars as an unhappy college lecturer in a new, unhappy marriage.

It was so depressing at first that I nearly shut it off. His character reminded me of the worst aspects of my (formerly negative) self.

But I stuck with it, and it paid off.

One hilarious scene had the straightlaced Kapoor visiting the home of some Bohemian American expats who love all things Indian. They kept hammering away at him: "What type of yoga do you do? Hatha? Bhakti? What type of yoga?" and he was, like, "What do you mean?" There's a similar sequence with a crazy western saddhu wannabe in Heat and Dust.

What is clear about these movies (and the M-I film Heat and Dust, in which Shashi plays a down-on-his-luck nawab who gets the firangi girl) is how much the filmmakers love India.

It's an interesting collaboration: James Ivory is an American Protestant, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a Eastern-European Jew, and Ismail Merchant is (was) an Indian Muslim. The Householder was the first feature for all of them. Merchant got the money together and did all of the lawyering, accounting, etc. Jhabvala wrote her first screenplay (in a mere two weeks) and her husband, an Indian architect, helped fund the film.

Ivory had only made documentaries before. They were using the crew usually employed by Satyajit Ray, and when they disembarked from the train with all of their gear Ivory was flummoxed - and had to pretend he knew what to do.

The films are stunningly beautiful, by the way.

Apparently Ray bailed them out again later, when they brought him their first edit.

He re-edited it, and Ivory kept what he did - adding just a single sequence.

My next M-I-J film will be Bombay Talkie - starring Shashi and Jennifer Kapoor as a mysogynist Bollywood film star and a rootless, needy writer. Hmmmmmm........

All of these films, by the way, are available on Netflix.



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Apparently Shashi Kapoor swore off acting in 1992 and spends much of his time working with cancer patients).

Apparently he finally found his yoga: Karma Yoga.

SOMEONE ELSE LOATHES PARTNER YOGA, TOO!

AND understands that yoga is a spiritual practice.

An excerpt:

Dharmanidhi referred to partner yoga as "a joke," rather than "bullshit," but the sentiment seemed the same.) Dharmanidhi, who is a recognized guru and Hindu priest, told me he thinks teachers who use partnering exercises to help their students gain more sensation and awareness "might have their hearts in the right place," but what they're doing isn't yoga. As Dharmanidhi explained it to me, the goal of yoga is to "achieve union with your essence" through a combination of physical and metaphysical means, including postures (asanas), breathing exercises and meditation. (Unlike the impression given by most American yoga classes, physical postures make up a very small part of this package.)

Traditionally, yoga is taught one-on-one, takes years to master and has nothing to do with improving the definition of your shoulder muscles. It also emphasizes emotional detachment, which is difficult to achieve if your head is in someone's junk. But Dharmanidhi's biggest point was this: Yoga is an integral part of Hinduism, and Americanized yoga -- whether it's called Ashtanga, Iyengar, Bikram, Vinyasa or anything in between -- is a bastardization of a spiritual practice.

The full article is here.

BLUE MONDAY

Everyone's making a big deal this year about January 21st.

Supposedly it's the most depressing day of the year.

This is according to U.K. psychologist Cliff Arnall, who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff, Wales. Apparently it has to do with money, weather, and failed New Year's resolutions. Arnall calculated it using seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.

Sounds like fuzzy math to me - especially when you consider that he calculated this day for a British travel firm. Apparently Brits book trips to sunny destinations when they're low, and this company wanted to figure out when to make its biggest marketing push.

If this theory were indeed based on fact - and I think it's bullocks - then it makes more sense to see the glass half full.

If today really is the most depressing day of the year - and we're just three weeks into it - then the rest of the year will be a breeze.




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For my account of the hell that was January 24, 2005 - that year's worst day of the year - click here.

SIBS

Yesterday SportMarty and I finally went to see The Savages. It was a nearly perfect film. It explored the death of an abusive parent and one of the most complex and long-lasting relationships there is - between siblings.

It got every detail right, down to the adminstrator pushing the legal documents towards Philip Seymour Hoffman rather than Laura Linney, to the sad, slow waltz you make to the bathroom with an ailing parent, to the reckless sampling the deceased's medication, to the type of car driven by the married lover (a vintage silver Volvo wagon). It was written and directed by a woman, Tamra Jenkins.

Plus they shot it in Buffalo. In the winter. When it was snowing. That takes some nakas.


It tugged at the emotions, yet somehow wasn't manipulative. In fact it was more funny than sad. Not once did it become sentimental; witness Linney wrenching her prized red pillow from the arms of a wrinkled woman in wheelchair, who screamed in anguish. There was never a scene where the siblings tried to placate or patronize their father.

Nor were the points Jenkins was trying to make driven into the ground; either you got it or you didn't (these included sutble slaps at institutionalized racism, mainstream attitudes towards the immigrant underclass, and self-indulgent bourgeoisie art; its details - such as how the airline gets a wheelchair-bound passenger from the gate to his seat - provided a sly commentary on just how dehumanizing life is today).

This was the second film in a row where I actually saw someone like myself on the big screen, which is a rare thing indeed. Linney played an unproduced NYC playwright who'd been raised by wolves and was coming to terms with her father's dementia and a bad relationship (thankfully they did not give this role to Jennifer Jason Leigh); in Starting out in the Evening Lili Taylor was an NYC yoga instructor dealing with her father's decline and trying to get herself heard in a recently-rekindled relationship.

Both women were single. And my age. And struggling with real issues. And not portrayed as pariahs.

Maybe this isn't such a bad year for movies after all.





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


After seeing the film, I had to call my brother (Dreyfus). It made me realize just how lucky I am to have him - a point my mother made again and again when he and I used to fight, and which was never driven home until after she passed.

MOVE OVER, SUKETU*

While listening to Eight Forty-Eight today I was reminded of my very first crush on a courageous Desi creative nonfiction genius -- sociologist and former Chicagoan Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, author of the new book Gang Leader for a Day.

It reminded me that sociology was my first love (I once quit a PhD program in sociology).

He also used to be a filmmaker - my other obsession (I once quit a Master's program in film).

And he's a writer to boot (I also once quit Medill's Master's program in journalism)!

He's like the me I'd always wanted to be - only with balls.

Sudhir did a lot of work at the old Robert Taylor Homes - aka the worst projects in Chicago, back when there were projects - and I remember writing something (brief) about him way-back-when for the Backwards R. He spent some 15 years documenting the lives of the people who live(d) there.

Actually, he describes himself as a "rogue sociologist" - which makes him all the more intriguing.

From an article in yesterday's International Herald-Tribune:

Dissatisfied with opinion surveys and statistical analysis as ways to describe the life of the poor, he reverted to the methods of his predecessors at the University of Chicago, who took an ethnographic approach to the study of hobos, hustlers and politicians. Much like a journalist, he observed, asked questions and drew conclusions as he accumulated raw data.

Apparently no one knew what to make of him because he wasn't white (like the police) or black (like the residents). This made it easier to trust him, and he was taken under the wing of a gang leader named J.T.

One glorious day J. T. lets Venkatesh get a taste of power and the problems that come with it. He allows him to make the daily rounds of the platoons under his command — six-man crews that deal in crack cocaine — and try to sort out the petty squabbles and mistakes endemic in a criminal enterprise comprising 250 underpaid, uneducated and violent soldiers.

All this is much better than toting a clipboard. "It was pretty thrilling to have a gang boss calling me up to go hang out with him," writes Venkatesh, who ridicules his own naïveté but just as often fails to rise above it.


Without question, Venkatesh is dazzled by J. T. and seduced by the gang life. He maintains enough distance, however, to appraise the information he is given and to build up, through careful observation, a detailed picture of life at the project. He writes what might be called tabloid sociology, but it rests on a solid foundation of data, like records of the gang's finances turned over to him by T-Bone, its treasurer.

Like everyone worth their mettle, Sudhir has ditched Chicago. He's now Professor of Sociology & African-American Studies at Columbia University.

One can't help but wonder if he too lives in Park Slope.

The radio piece I heard today is here. The interviewer, by the way, often attends my Thursday night ashtanga class.









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


*I still adore Suketu Mehta and will continue to stalk him whenever I'm in Park Slope.

Both he and Sudhir:

1. Did years and years of research before taking even more time to write their utterly amazing books

2. Were in verrrrry dangerous situations but stuck it out (among other things, Sudhir's affiliation with Gang A, made him a target for Gang B; Suketu had a gun put to his head by one of Bombay's top mobstas)

3. "Crossed the line" with their subjects (among other things, Sudhir adminstered a kick in the stomach to a wife-beater who had a choke-hold on one of his gangsta friends; Suketu accepted one of his subjects' invitation to co-write the film Mission Kashmir.

4. Ditched Chicago for NYC

SANTOSH*

On Friday night 20/20 did a theme show about happiness, exploring who has it (denizens of Demark, Singapore and Asheville, NC) and how to get it (stop shopping / quit complaining / get on a bicycle).

I prefer the word "contentment," since it's less loaded / manic.

But it's their show.

The found that having children does not make people happier. Ha!

Being married does. Wah!

So does having connections with other people, doing meaningful work and thinking positive thoughts.

They're also happy in Denmark because they don't spend all of their time shopping and they're not afraid of the future. If something happens, they know they'll be taken care of (the government pays for health care and spends more per capita on children and the elderly than any other country). Also, even the worst jobs seem to bring in a good salary, and 92 percent of Danes belong to some sort of hobbyist club. Plus they trust their government and ride bicycles.

I think we're unhappy in the US because we're isolated from each other and our culture is based on fear and accumulating useless dreck. We'd rather watch people abuse each other on our flat-screen TV than see our friends. (Also, the people here seem to think that the right to "the pursuit of happiness" means they are should be happy all the time - and if they're not, they're missing out on something everyone else has. This thinking breeds a very dangerous sense of entitlement.).

The most amazing thing about the show was this:

They said that 50 percent of a person's "happiness" is based on genes (this was bad news for me, considering the forebears' attempts at hari kari). Ten percent is based on current circumstances, and a whopping 40 percent is in our control.

Forty percent! In our control!

And then they dropped the biggest bomb of all: If you spend a half hour every day sitting quietly and thinking about kindness and compassion for two weeks, your perspective will change and you will start to become happy. It's actually been scientifically proven:

"The happiness activities are not going to surprise anyone," Lyubomirsky said. "I mean, they're things like gratitude, forgiveness, relationships, savoring the present moment, meditation. I try to sort of determine to what extent those things are supported by research."

Davidson would agree. He has studied the brains of Buddhist monks, men who spend their lives deliberately forcing positive emotions, and their happiness is off the charts. His new data claims that if a person sits quietly for a half-hour a day just thinking about kindness and compassion, their brain will show noticeable changes in just two weeks.

"In many ways, this is the most important idea in neuroscience in the last decade," he said. "Our brains are just waiting to be transformed, and they're always being transformed. But we can take responsibility and change the brain in more positive ways."

"Research is showing pretty convincingly now that happiness is really within us, it's not outside of us," said Lyubomirsky. "It's in what we do. It's sort of how we act, how we think every day of our lives."



One can only magine what would happen if people watched 30 minutes less TV each day, and used that time to sit.....

GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly would go out of business.







Part I of the 20 / 20 piece is here.

Part II (with the monks) is here.

(Funny - I don't remember them talking to any nonwhite Americans for the show).

More on Denmark here.

I can't help but wonder about their immigration policy, being a quarter Dansk and all....





*Santosh = Hindi for contentment or happiness

FINALLY - NEW COINS!



My favorite of course is the five-gallon coin.

Yours?



Thanks to Dreyfus for the link.

GUEST POST:
CATESEY'S REPORT ON THE 1/11 ANTI-GITMO MARCH IN DC



(which may bring to mind Truman Capote's famous one-liner about Jack Kerouac's On the Road: "That's not writing at all. It's ty-ping.")

the procession form the washington mall to the
supreme court was quite stunning and effective a long long line, 2
by 2 i think we were as many as is currently in gtmo to date. all
clad in orange suits and black hoods hands behind our backs heads
down utterly silent in fact dc seemed so quiet not sure
if any regular people live there anyway we get to the court and
then those risking arrest went and kneeled on the steps of the
court no one is allowed on the steps at any time meanwhile a
group had gotten inside the building and were hoping to unfurl a
massive "close guantanamo " banner unsure if that happened as
there were conflicting reports cops everywhere just waiting to get
stuck in which they did sometime after the kneeling on the steps
all were taken away they may get out tomorrow maybe monday
whilst they were being taken away the permitted demo area was
chanting "arrest bush" "arrest cheney" "stop torture" there
was also a little stage and some speakers pete seeger's grandson
was playing freedom songs on the guitar the family business
apparently. the day had started with an amnesty international
rally at the mall, in the rain some speakers and general calls
for action the rain stopped the minute the procession started the
night before i fell asleep under the large wooden suspended jebus
in the church only to be woken all night by mass snoring of all
varieties thank god for the walkman we performed a piece and
people liked it i got a couple of "oh you're the guy who did the
great piece last year" lets hope we dont have to do it again next
year

postscript:
My other lawyer-cum-rock star ex and I ran into none other than Thurgood Marshall on those very same steps back in 1987.

WEAR ORANGE ON FRIDAY

"I'll be wearing orange because I believe in human rights." — Susan Sarandon

The first prisoners arrived at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, 2002. Guantánamo quickly became an international embarrassment. It has made a mockery of our laws and values for six long years. We won’t allow seven; this is the year we are going to end the national disgrace

Nationwide, the ACLU has set January 11th as a day of protest, declaring that it’s long past time that we put an end to illegality and close down Guantánamo. The ACLU and organizations across the country are asking people of conscience to wear orange to protest Guantánamo. I hope you will consider standing in solidarity by wearing orange on Friday as well.

More info here.

SPAY OR DIE



This awesome video was created by the Alliance for Humane Action, a new humane (not human) resource network for Northern Illinois. "Whether you're looking for a low cost spay and neuter clinic, a feral cat program, or help for an injured turtle you found on the side of the road, our Resource Network, once complete, will be the place to find the best resource."

My dear friend Deb is one of the group's cofounders. (It's though her that I found my naughty cat Kirby).

Click here to read her blog.


I know that some of you are thinking, "That video is cute, but I want my cats to be 'free' and 'natural' and don't want to 'fix' them.

Well, consider these sad statistics from PAWS:

- One female cat and her offspring can produce over 420,000 cats in seven years!
- Euthanasia is the #1 killer of cats.
- 80% of impounded cats are killed in shelters every year!
- Only 2% of impounded cats are reunited with their owners.
- In 2004, 24,092 cats and dogs were killed in Chicago's
shelters because there were not enough homes for
unwanted animals.
- Spaying and neutering stops the cycle of breeding.

For info on free or low-cost neuter and spay in Chicago, go here.

"BUT THE CLASS AT THE GYM IS FREE"

Apparently some people are getting hurt in yoga class.

From a piece Sunday's "Iowa City Press-Citizen":

Many people such as Miller suffer injuries from yoga, but instead of quitting they alter their practice. There are a variety of ways to explain the pain, such as matching the wrong technique to your body’s needs, as in Miller’s case. Others suggest the problem is rooted in inexperienced and overzealous teachers and participants jumping on the yoga bandwagon.

Recently, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that 14 million people practice yoga or tai chi in the U.S., which is up 136 percent since 2000. With that surge, there have been an eye-popping number of injuries. The commission reported that 13,000 Americans were treated in a doctor’s office or emergency room for yoga-related injuries over the past three years.....

.....The recent “yoga craze,” as Footner describes it, has cast a spotlight on this ancient practice and exposed yoga as a way to care for people’s bodies, which is a good thing, she said. But it also has opened the door for injuries due to ambitious but insufficiently trained instructors and participants.

“There are a lot of untrained people teaching yoga,” Footner said. “When they don’t know what they are doing, people can get hurt.”



But wait, there's more:


Tips for finding a good yoga instructor

 How many years have they studied yoga, before becoming a teacher? Where did they train to become a teacher?
 Do they practice daily outside of their class?
 Ask them about their continuing education.
 Ask them about their certification: How long did it take?
 Watch if they are paying attention to what you are doing. Are they moving around the room in order to observe and assist, or staying in one place?
 Did the teacher ask you about any injuries or physical conditions, such as recent surgeries, high blood pressure or pregnancy?
 Is the teacher demonstrating how to do a posture or expecting you to just follow along?

The question they neglected to include is Why did they decide to become a yoga teacher?

The best answer is, "My teacher asked me to."

Depending, of course, on who the teacher is.


The full piece is here.

CASTE IN 'MERICA


A suburban man recently allegedly set a fire, in which his daughter and her husband and son died.

The father has said it was because the husband was of an inferior caste (the son-in-law's surname seems to place him somewhere in the merchant or "third" caste.

So yesterday Eight Forty Eight did a piece on how caste plays out in America.

The intro:

India’s caste system has been in the headlines ever since Subhash Chander was charged with murdering his pregnant daughter and her family last weekend in the south suburban community of Oak Forest.

Prosecutors say Chander deliberately set his daughter’s apartment on fire-- killing her, her unborn baby, her son and her husband. Chander is reported to have been angry that his daughter married a man from a lower caste.

The story shocked many Chicagoans used to different attitudes toward class and social background in the US. It made us curious to find out just how closely Indian immigrants adhere to the caste system once they settle in the U.S.


Hear it here.

THE NYT DISCOVERS THE NETI POT




From yesterday's article, spotted by Catesey:

Originally part of a millennia-old Indian yogic tradition, the practice of nasal irrigation — jala neti — is performed with a small pot that looks like a cross between Aladdin’s lamp and your grandmother’s gravy boat. The neti pot made its way into this country in the early 1970s as a yoga meditation device, but even as yoga became mainstream, the neti pot remained on the fringes of alternative culture.

That is, until now. Due to a confluence of influences, the neti pot is having what can only be termed a moment, sold in drugstores, health food stores, even at Wal-Mart and Walgreens.

"The practice gained wide exposure last spring when it was introduced on Oprah Winfrey’s show by a frequent guest, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and an author of health books. Dr. Oz explained that bathing the sinus cavities in a warm saline solution can reduce symptoms of allergies, cold, flu and other nasal problems....


I've been using the thing since they demystified its use at last February's teacher training with Dharma Mittra.

The results have indeed been amazing.

Just make sure that you use 1/4 tsp fine, non-iodized salt and lukewarm water - mixed well. Also be sure to stack one ear on top of the other when pouring (so it doesn't go out the mouth - which isn't as bad as it sounds). Most important: Lower the head and snort hard at the end, so you get everything out.

Expletives are optional.

HOW TO SNAP OUT OF IT

Receive a call from India just before Midnight NYE

Zzzzzzzz

Wake up. Eat fruit. Pay estimated taxes. Clear off desk. Go back to sleep.

Make calls to friends.

Water plants.

Chai up.

Write.

Practice, ending with Chandra Om's half-hour guided Yoga Nidra (savasana)

Sit.

Pet the cat.

Make Hoppin' John and greens.

Write.

Watch the snow fall.

Make calls.

Eat.

Talk on phone.

Receive invitations to visit friends. Notice near-blizzard conditions outside. Decline.

Take down Xmas tree.

Finish watching Taming of the Shrew

Start sorting through / purging videos. Call Gridlife. Learn that some are worth $24.99 and up.

Make more calls.

Clean out bathroom cabinet.

Start watching Shakespeare Wallah

Write short-term goals in brand-new journal.

Read a chapter from The Mastery of Love.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Wake up at 5:15AM. Chai up. Clean up.

Trudge half-mile in -3 windchill to snow-encrusted car.

Car starts!

ARE THE HOLIDAYS OVER YET?

During rough times in the olden (pre-yoga) days, I'd be susceptible to infomericals selling dreck and telemarketers wanting me to switch phone companies. I was so vulnerable I'd buy anything. That's how I ended up owning a prissy mint green sweater from the Home Shopping Network and "The Fabulous 50's" CD box set from Time/Life Books.

Nowadays I turn to self-help books. This bit of wisdom from The Four Agreements really hit home today:

"In your whole life nobody has ever absued you more than you have abused yourself. And the limit of your self-abuse is exactly the limit that you will tolerate from someone else. If someone abuses you a little more than you abuse yourself, you will probably walk away from that person. But if someone abuses you a little less than you abuse yourself, you will probably stay in the relationship and tolerate it endlessly."

Now that we've said "Rumpelstiltskin," does it mean that the monster will finally disappear?

A THOUSAND WORDS

Sunday, December 23, 2007; 3047 N. Lincoln Ave.

THINGS I SAW TODAY WHILE RUNNING ERRANDS:

1. A coyote pacing back and forth behind the fence of the Jewish Graceland cemetery. (When I stopped my bike to look and make sure I wasn't seeing things, it too stopped and then moved back a few feet, raised its nose in my direction, and sniffed the air. I'm not sure whether he went out for a sandwich later on or not).

2. A man crossing Ashland Avenue at Foster on a unicycle. Right in front of my car. (He was wearing a helmet).







THINGS CATESEY AND HIS COHORTS HEARD TODAY WHILE WEARING ORANGE JUMPSUITS AND HANDING OUT ANTI-GUANTANAMO FLYERS AT ROCKEFELLER PLAZA:


"I support the camp. Fill it up."
"You're all sick!"
"I hope you get beheaded!"
"Commies!"
"Liberals!"
"Get a life!"
"Shame shame."
"They deserve to be there - they attacked us!"
"Couldn't you choose a better time to do this? Thanks for ruining our holiday!"



(The people saying these things were tourists)

NO. MORE. DIBS. - ???

From today's "Chicago Tribune":

City snow shovelers told to kick chairs to the curb
Tribune staff report
December 21, 2007

CHICAGO - The Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation is telling city residents to move their furniture off the streets.

Every winter, some residents use tables, chairs and other items to reserve shoveled-out parking spaces during snowstorms, but city officials say people haven't been removing their markers after the snow clears.

"While we don't condone this practice, we are generally tolerant of it in the hours following a big snow," Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Michael Picardi said in a statement. "It stopped snowing on Sunday."

Streets and Sanitation workers have been instructed to immediately begin clearing away furniture left in the street.


Methinks the denizens of The City of Big Chip on Shoulders are not yet ready to practice this sort of self-restraint and non-attachment - particularly since more snow is predicted for Sunday.

AUGURY

I found this in my personal, handwritten "secret" Mysore Diary, in an entry from March, 2002:

....I woke up from a nap and dream in which Sharath turned into a health club owner demanding money from me....

THE SNOW DONCE



SportMarty and I had plans to see Asimino Chremos's new piece Red Swan Red Swan last night at Links Hall. She's been dancing in Chicago forever and I teach on Friday mornings at her place, Silverspace. But for some reason I'd never seen her perform.

I suspected that the show was going to be good, because I'd been looking at the red tutus she was going to wear for weeks. In fact Asimina and one of the regular Friday students recently put them on and did poses in them - which was hilarious. (I actually took some pix, and will ask for permission to put them up). You really haven't enjoyed yoga until you've done Caturanga Dandasana in a bright red tutu.

But I digress.

Long before they predicted yesterday's blizzard - which "punched the nation in its midsection" last night - we decided to walk to the show. It had more to do with parking than the poor polar bears, but that was the plan.

Meantime it continued to snow. And snow. And snow.

SportMarty called when he was halfway to my house, and told me to wear an extra layer because the wind was kicking up.

We trudged to the performance, complaining loudly about the inflatable holiday lawn decorations that are causing the polar ice caps to melt. The wind whipped the snow into our eyes, and we wondered why we hadn't worn ski goggles.

We also discussed whether or not we'd see any drunken Saturday night barhoppers wearing cleavage-showing shoes and tank tops - something we see each and every time we hang out, regardless of temperature. I bet that we would.

There was a good turnout for Asimina's show, despite the weather.

When they let us in the performance was already in progress. Dancers were writhing and rolling around on top of one other, flinging each other around, doing somersaults, etc. I think it's called contact-improv. It was mind-blowing to see bodies move like that, when you're used to the discipline and same movements of yoga. Also amazing was that no one messed up and put the other person at risk. Maybe they're like the BDSM folks, and have a secret password or something.

The space is next to the El tracks, and a few trains went by.

At one point, a ladder appeared in one of the windows. A short time later, a man's head appeared. He knocked on the window, and they let him in. For a moment I thought it might be Bobeisennow (with whom I went to India in 2002). But when he took off his many layers of clothes, it was clear he was not.

He finished the dance with Asimina, who then changed into *another* bright red outfit - while we watched.

Then she began to move to live music. It was riveting.

The show was a tribute "to the memory of Anna Paskevska and all of [Asimina's] ballet teachers."

Then she tore down some of the set, and put on a tutu and pointe shoes. She got up on them and began to move towards the middle of the room taking miniscule steps and making tap-tapping sounds. It was like she was on stilts. Then one of the musicians mic'ed her feet, and the sound reverberated even more. The image was startling.

The final act had her in black, and was sad.

I don't know what it all means, but it was awesome. She can move like no one else.

And the whole thing lasted about 45 minutes.

Brilliant



* * *


On the way home we stopped for mediocre Chinese food at Chen's (NOTE TO CHEF: NO ONE, AND I MEAN NO ONE, CAN CONSUME THAT MUCH SLIMY BORING TOFU IN ONE SITTING - ESPECIALLY WHEN THE DISH IS CALLED "STIR-FRIED GREENS") and watched the storm get worse. There was more snow, and it was horizontal.

After paying, we put on our many layers of clothes and headed towards my house. On the way we saw some fratdrunks in plaid golf shorts dart across the street to another bar. But still no tank top ladies.

During our walk, we realized we were trudging faster than the cars on the street.

We decided to stop at Julius Meinl for some molten chocolate cake.

The Viennese coffee shop is owned by an Austrian company that's been around forever, and is quite authentic (it's their only outlet in the US). They serve tea and coffee on a silver tray with an actual teaspoon, a side of water, a tube of sugar and a little cookie. Their desserts are amazing.

To our surprise, a classical duo began playing some exquisite music. Turns out it was the Sharon Chung Duo; apparently she is or was with the Civic Orchestra -- which is the farm team for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

After gorging ourselves on tea and cake, we layered up and headed outside for the final leg of the trip home.

The storm was even worse.

Yet there were still a few people out trudging.

And that's when we saw them, right in front of Toons.

Two drunken girls, clinging to drunken guys.

One woman was in middle the street, standing in the slush, trying to get a good grip on her man - who was trying to hail a taxi. But there were no taxis.

The other woman was near the door, standing in a snow drift, getting shelter in her boyfriend's arms.

Both women were wearing spike heels and tank tops.

Tank tops.

In a blizzard.

High heels.

In snow.

We thought we'd seen it all (And began speculating about why the men didn't act like men and leave the ladies inside and get the cab while they waited. Apparently chivalry really is dead).

But we hadn't seen it all. Yet.

Because then we heard a bellow from the woman in the street.

"WHY AREN'T YOU HOLDING ME THE WAY HE'S HOLDING HER??"

Ah, maya.....

TREACLE

On Wednesday we went to opening night of Joffrey Ballet of Chicago's Nutcracker. It was the 20th anniversary show. (The Joffrey, by the way, is the dance organization featured in the Robert Altman documentary, The Company. They moved to Chicago in 1995).

My expectations were low - I've seen The Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre (overrated) and the Ruth Page version of the Nutcracker with my mother and grandmother at the Arie Crown Theatre way-back-when. I remember not a single thing about the performance - except that we managed to find the place, which was 1.5 hours from our town, and that we weren't late.

But I was excited because the Joffrey version is being performed at the exquisite, acoustically perfect, Louis Sullvian-designed Auditorium Theatre. Previously I'd seen Frank Zappa and Sonu Nigam perform there (not at the same time, thankfully). I also saw a Philip Glass opera. But never a ballet (I don't understand ballet).

When we arrived in the lobby, we heard the dulcet tones of a really terrific children's choir, singing an ethereal version of "Winter Wonderland" - my favorite holiday carol.

There was electricity in the air (and not just the static kind). Everyone was dressed in their best clothes, and we spent many happy moments listening to the choir and watching everyone make their entrance.

It was like a parade of too-cute Princesses and Fauntleroys. We saw so many matching sets of kids - little girls wearing velvet dresses, red tights, patent leather Mary Janes and oversize bows in their (perfect) hair, boys in velvet suits, bow ties and yamulkes - that we lost count.

Finally, we went to our seats - which were amazing. We were just seven rows behind the orchestra pit, where the wonderful Chicago Sinfonietta was raring to go. In fact we were so close that during the performance we could hear the beads clicking on the costume of Mr. Coffee from Arabia.

We read the synopsis beforehand, so we'd know what we were seeing. (Actually, TJ read it aloud because the print was small, the light was dim, and my scary old lady half-glasses wouldn't fit into my fancy purse).

The ballet was jaw-dropping, as was the music. There was so much going on at any given time that the many children in our section didn't get bored - and neither did I.

In fact there were so many exquisite moments that tears came to my eyes several times. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to sit there and watch something so beautiful, made possible by so many people, while wars waged and people outside begged for change. I also marveled over how startling it is to see something up close that is peformed by real people in real time and is not being viewed on a screen. And all done without words - which made it the experience even better.

Interestingly, most of the kids left at half-time. Perhaps they knew that after the first few numbers, the second part was more "adult" (ie; boring). But still rather breathtaking.

Afterwards, we walked up State Street to look at the holiday windows at Marshall Fields, er, Macy's. The theme - surprise! - was the Nutcracker.

MERRY F-ING XMAS: BAD TIMES AT THE BACKWARDS R

Catesey told me this morning that the Chicago Reader just dumped four of its senior staff writers - John Conroy, Steve Bogira, Tori Marlan and Harold Henderson.

I was dumbfounded. I knew the new owners were cutting heads.

But this is a travesty - especially when you consider the writers who remain. (This excludes the brilliant Ben Joravsky, who remains the sole muckraker at the paper. Week after week he goes after the city, and finds dirt that eludes the big papers, with their resources. Yet one can't help but fear that his days too are numbered).

John Conroy singlehandedly broke the story of Chicago PD police torture back in 1990, and has kept it in the public eye ever since. His story archives are here - for the time being at least.

The torture case has finally had its day in court - one of the lead attorneys is an avid ashtangi - and the city must now pay $20 million to the plaintiffs (actually we're paying. But that's another story).

Tori Marlan is a careful investigative reporter who wrote about such things as Guantanamo (interestingly, her ex - who writes about food - has not been canned. Yet.).

Bogira's stories about the Cook County Courts became a book that inspired an upcoming HBO series.

Henderson was hard to categorize - my favorite kind of writer.

Apparently the Reader story was important enough to get a mention on today's Democracy Now! and a big story in the New York Times, in which David Carr writes:

It is as if Creative Loafing executives bought a shiny new doll and then once they got their hands on it, felt compelled to tear its head off.


Some background - The Reader is a free weekly that goes back to the 1970's and has (had) a reputation for excellent writing (sorry NYers - it was far superior to the Village Voice). Its focus was super-local, and the style was along the lines of the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town." Things started to go downhill in 2002, after beloved editor Pat Arden was fired. The paper got a raunchy resdesign that elimited a lot of editorial content in September 2004, when TimeOut Chicago came to town. In July the Reader was sold to Atlanta-based Creative Loafing, which owns other free weeklies. Many employees were soon let go, and the paper turned into a tabloid. Some sections shrank. More editorial was lost. They started paying writers (me) less for their movie capsules. More staffers were purged.

As former Chicago magazine media writer Steve Rhodes says in (on?) today's Beachwood Reporter:

...this is an age when the bean counters, marketers and greedy corporate suits have completed their victory in an age-old battle against the very journalists upon whose work they profit. This is a battle that has always existed in the industry, but newsrooms have lost by getting arrogant and lazy while remaining uneducated about the business side of their business. Instead of scrutinizing the false claims of their corporate masters the way journalists might be expected to, journalists of this era instead have absorbed the marketing values and selfishness of their paymasters while chasing off the kind of creativity and imagination that could very well have saved their organizations from the kind of doom - oh boo-hoo, our criminally huge profit margins aren't as fantastically fat as they once were - that has become the norm as actual, real reporting disappears when it is needed most.


The Reader's actual Dear Journalist memo was excerpted in The Chicagoist:

Unfortunately the financial pressures of our industry continue unabated, and I'm very sorry to announce that as a cost-cutting measure we eliminated several positions in editorial this week.

The people we cut — John Conroy, Harold Henderson, and Tori Marlan, as well as Steve Bogira, who's been on a leave of absence — are all staff writers, and as you might guess, this move represents a shift in the financial structure of our relationship with contributors.


I'm by no means a great writer or reporter, and no one has really noticed my absence from the Reader. But the letter does remind me a bit of the Dear Caca E-mail I received back in 2004 - just ten days before I was scheduled to return from a trip to India and resume writing the Days of the Week calendar (a job I'd held for eight years, and which made up 3/4 of my income):

I'm looking forward to having you back in the paper, but I think it's time to make a transition to a new DOW writer, and this leave of absence is as good a time as any to make the change. There are various reasons this seems like a good idea, not least the benefits that arise from making change for its own sake.

Please don't in any way interpret this as punishment or retaliation for your having taken time off.

One can't help but thank one's lucky stars that one didn't bite when a staff writer position was proffered back in 2003. That silly intuition - it's never wrong.

But it is interesting to read what Reader media writer Mike Miner has to say about it - and to see him try to report the story without pissing off the new overlords (the full text is here):

They're gone because the Reader couldn't afford to go on paying them their salaries -- "As you might guess, this move represents a shift in the financial structure of our relationship with contributors," True wrote. They're gone because a few years ago Craigslist moved in on our classifieds section -- and classifieds represented a huge portion of our income. They're gone because the old Section One -- the editorial section -- was for decades the tail that wagged the dog here, and when revenues fell it became impossible to continue to allocate the same funds to it.

I called the boss, Ben Eason, in Tampa and reminded him that the last time we'd talked he was saying John Conroy deserved a Pulitzer Prize. (That's a popular idea around here. He's been writing about police torture since 1990, but there's no Pulitzer for persistence, no matter how important the subject.) The first time Eason and I talked, just after Eason had bought the paper this summer, I said that Conroy was, in effect, the canary in the coal mine -- as long as he was OK readers would know the Reader was OK.

"I know, I know," said Eason, who was informed of True's intentions before she made her move. "All I've done is, I've said this is what the budget number is. This is what we’ve got to have. And it’s the same number that’s been out there since August."

Eason and Creative Loafing have some interesting, and let's hope brilliant, ideas about the future of the Reader and the CL chain of six newspapers. "It's ultimately to me a navigation problem," Eason told me. "How do you keep putting out a newspaper at a quality people expect and how do you migrate this stuff to the Web, which is ultimately the future? We’re in a fight over who can tell you more about the street corner in Chicago....."

Whatever. What I do know is that it's nearly impossible to make a living as a writer anywhere these days - let alone find an entity that will publish your work in a place where people will actually see it.

I wish them the best.

CACA'S FIRST CONFERENCE WITH GURUJI
Tuesday, 1.29.02
Old Shala.


Today was my first day of practice…

The carpet on the studio floor is bordered with (counter-clockwise) swastikas.

Satsang (ie conference with Guruji) takes place in the shala’s little lobby. A few people are already sitting on the floor when I arrive a few minutes early. Two chairs are empty. It’s clear that the ornate one is for Guruji. So I sit on the one next to it.

“That’s Sharath’s seat,” says a bald man wearing all white.

Oops.



More people arrive, and finally Guruji slips in wearing a crisp white dhoti(sarong), Yoga Moves tank top and three fresh white Shiva stripes across his forehead. And Ray Charles sunglasses (he's just had cataract surgery).

Everyone sits on the floor looking -- at each other, at the kids outside on the street playing on their bicycles, at the clock, at the photos on the shelves, at each other, and at Guruji as he silently read the newspaper in Kannada, the local language.


Sharath pulls up on a black motorcycle wearing wraparound sunglasse and Levi’s, straight out of GQ. He disappears for a few minutes and comes back wearing bike shorts and a tank top (he’ll be teaching Indian students here later).

He sits on the chair next to Guruji – my chair – and begins to read the other newspaper.

Then they start to go through their mail. More students show up wearing Punjabi dresses and baggy fisherman’s pants, granny shirts, and regular New York attire. All of them are white. Some arrive on scooters and motorcycles.

Each time one enters, they greet Guruji and touch his feet, and he looks up from the newspaper and says, “Yes, yes, hello.”

Guruji disappears for awhile to register some students in his office upstairs, and then comes back. Two senior students from New York – C. and W. – sit near his feet. “So many new students,” says C.

A thin, dark Indian man with a moustache delivers a package. On the way out he lightly kicks someone. He immediately brushes his hand over his eyes.

“This is Indian tradition when they kick someone,” Sharath explains.

Then he leaves to teach in the tiny adjacent shala, where we do our practice every morning.

Some students sneak away when no one’s looking. Now there are about 25 of us sitting and sweating on the floor.

The package is from a London book publisher. C. starts reading the letter that accompanies it.

“Please forgive my presumption for writing to you…-”

“Good! Good!” Guruji says, interrupting him.

The place erupts with laughter.

Later, someone asks Guruji what the opening chant is about. He looks at C. and starts chanting the mantra.

Then he ends the conference with his most famous quote.

“Yoga is 99 percent practice, one percent theory.”

Dismissed!



Later we go to Allen Little’s massive apartment, just around the corner from the shala.

LANCE LINK, SECRET CHIMP



Today's ashtanga.com newsletter has a link to some public Q&A's with Pattabhi Jois from 1991, translated (?) from French to English by Guy Donahaye.

In it, Guruji addresses such burning issues as:

What happens if you do the sequences out of order (illness will come).

What to do when there is no sound on the inhale ("He is not controling completely abdominal and anus. Anus you control, stiff (strong) breathing is coming, with sound breathing....If long breathing, inhalation is not correct or if only the exhalation is coming long, that is heart trouble is starting. That is very bad").

Why we shouldn't practice outside ("Energy you doing practice practice outside, your heat is not coming out. Heat increasing and poison is not coming out. Poison means sweat… Your strength is gone. Your temperature is gone.").

What floor to practice on ("Third, fourth floor he is doing yoga - very bad. Underground he is doing yoga, very bad. First floor, that is all.")

What to do when you're feeling lazy and don't want to practice (eat proper - sattvic - food)

When to do full vinyasa (when you don't have to work and can spend five hours on your your practice)

Whether it's OK to heat the room / keep the windows open during practice (too much heat is bad, because the heat should come from within - HOPEFULLY THOSE OF YOU WHO TURN THE THERMOSTAT UP TO 90 WILL HEED THIS - and one open window, high up, is good).

Some excerpts:

Question: Why should we not practice on full and new moon days?

Answer: That day is very difficult day. Two stars one place (conjunction) is going. New moon also, full moon also. That day very dangerous day. You (take) practice (on that day), anyone can have a small pain starting. That pain is not going very quickly. Long time he is taking. Some broken possible. That is why that day don’t do.


Question: While doing tolasana at the end of practice, which is the correct drishti?

Answer: Both sides: Pull up. Pull upping time you take Nasagra dristi. One also here also, both dristi, no problem. Nasagrai dristi and broomadhya dristi.


On why to do vinyasa:

"Without vinyasa you don’t do asana. Why? One part (of body) you bending - you can understand? For example, paschimottanasana, Ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana, you doing one leg, bend one leg, and take back your foot. How long? Long time. After little (restricted) blood circulation, every joint stopping. After again take up, jump back again, next posture, next leg you put it. After your jumping time, tight your whole body, don’t loose, tight it (for vinyasa, the body should be engaged, not relaxed). After blood circulation automatically is going (moving). That pain quickly is going.

"You without vinyasa, you do every pose (without vinyasa), all the joints so blood circulation so blood circulation not correctly. Circulation is not coming, stopping there (in the joint). After sitting posture you do completely, all body sick, gradually sick(nes is) starting. "Oh! Yoga is given (making me) sick - not liking" (i dont like it). People is not liking. That some asana - "Oh! It is very bad. Very pain is coming. Oh! left it (I dont want to do it). That asana don’t do!" Some people is telling. Why that? This is method you don’t understanding (why? because they dont understand the correct method). That is why you this method you follow - no trouble! Body also is very perfect. You can understand? That is the method."


The full text is here.

And tomorrow I will post an account of my first conference with Guruji, which took place over a decade later - in 2002.

LA PROFESORA PERISOSA

At a recent yoga-related luncheon, someone asked me how many classes I teach per week.

"Fifteen," said I. "Soon to be 18."

Gasps were heard.

Eyebrows shot up.

Hands covered mouths.

"Why do you teach so many classes?" someone asked.

"To earn a living," I answered.

They were still perplexed, and talked about how they were teaching less.

What I didn't say is that when you're single and don't have a spouse / partner with whom you share expenses, and need to plan for retirement and trips to India, etc., you take on more classes. Also, it's rather enjoyable.

Then they asked a question that made my jaw drop.

"Do you still practice on your own? Or do you work out with your classes?"

OF COURSE NOT, I said. It's not a workOUT, for one.

And I demonstrate only when necessary in class.

Yes, I still do my own practice.

Without it I'd be a fraud.