sprung

Springtime in Seattle arrived uncharacteristically right on schedule this year, signaled by the vernal equinox which occurred overnight on March 20-21. Primavera's advent is usually on a two-month delay in this part of the world, but today it's fully here, with bright sunshine, gentle zephyrs, and pastel blossoms everywhere.

Robins chirp; frogs burp.

And it's intoxicating. The masses are out walking, biking, and driving, burning their $4 gas and enjoying the scenery, which includes Mt. Rainier looking like a colossal scoop of ice cream the deity (if you believe in that sort of thing) dropped from his cone.

Will it last? My magic eight ball says "Don't count on it," and Yahoo! Weather says the gloom and drip will re-commence tomorrow and last the rest of the month. So enjoy it while you can.

Maybe in April...

Gato Intoxicado
--30--

numa numa

Yesterday the young guy who is my upstairs neighbor asked me as we rode the elevator whether the yellow VW bug with the "All your base are belong to us" license frame was mine.

"Yeah," says I, "that's me."

"That was back in the infancy of the net," he said. "Very cool."

"All your base and the Numa Numa Dance were the greatest things ever on the web," says I. "You're familiar with the Numa Numa Dance?"

"Unfortunately," he says.

OK, not everybody is a fan of Gary Brolsma, the shy, overweight New Jersey teen-ager who made the "Numa Numa" video in his parents' basement in December of 2004. But I'm with the critic who said "It's really a thing of beauty to see someone so committed to a lip-sync." Besides that, Brolsma has an instinct for choreographic composition, and his scrupulous attention to the fine details of performance helped the video to go viral upon release.

Numa Numa's success, however, was mainly propelled by the song Brolsma chose to lip-sync, a Romanian-language hit "Dragostea Din Tei" (in English, "Love from the Linden Trees"), recorded in the spring of 2004 by O-Zone, a pop group from Moldova. Why would anyone travel to Romania to seek fame and fortune? That's another story.

The fact is, this obscure-seeming tune was world famous when Brolsma discovered it. It was number 72 on the U.S. pop 100, and number one all over Europe and in Japan for many weeks in the summer of '04. What I'm saying is that millions of people all over the world really loved this song, and for good reason. It's pure dance music, like the Macarena, with a beat that makes your toes itch, and leadsinger Dan Balan hammers the nonsensical lyrics confidently, and with charisma,

So enjoy the video, even if my sometime fellow elevator passenger doesn't.

O-Zone broke up a month after the video came out. Gary Brolsma has followed up his debut effort with other video projects, but without the same spectacular success. Dan Balan continues working a lot in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, but none of his recent stuff hits my G-spot. In retrospect it seems the Numa Numa moment was one of those magical occurrences which happen only once, never again to be duplicated.

DB
--30--

specie

In God we trusted; under Bush Two we busted.

With that in mind, I went shopping for silver today, and at a small shop in a strip mall bought a few old coins --

1921 silver dollars. There were two kinds minted that year: the Morgan, named for its designer, and the Peace Dollar (pictured), to commemorate the armistice that ended the Great War. I find the Peace Dollar more aesthetically pleasing, but since both are 90 percent silver they have identical value.

These things are intoxicating, and I can see why hoarders in earlier epochs became misers and loved running their fingers through piles of precious metals. Unlike paper money, checks, or an unromantic debit card, they're hard and shiny, kind of like Madonna's face, which they also resemble because they've seen better days but are still very appealing. They're also like magical talismans -- archaeological artifacts from a gone world and long-departed nation.

I don't know if there's going to be a currency meltdown of some kind, or a hyperinflation which would have the same effect. Those things are possible but not certain, and I don't know what the probabilities are. However, I would like to be prepared for such a long- or short-term emergency.

At the time these things were minted their one-dollar face value was way greater than the value of the three-quarters ounce of silver they contained. That's certainly not true any longer with silver trading at $35/oz. I'm not confident enough to say this is a word to the wise, but it's a suggestion.

E Pluribus Unum; don't neglect the states; you'll rune 'em.

--Troilius Crassassius
--30--

open de boxx

For today's post, open the catboxx.

Gato Renunció
--30--

15 minutes

Rebecca Black's "Friday," released by Ark Music Factory this past weekend on YouTube, has already gotten six-and-a-half million hits, and nobody knows why.

I mean nobody knows why any of this. Why this song? Why this singer? Why is everybody watching this? What's going on?

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday;
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend.
Partyin', partyin' (yeah!), partyin', partyin' (yeah!)
Lookin' forward to the weekend.

I presume Ms. Black herself penned (or keyboarded) these somewhat less than memorable lyrics, which she sings in an on-key and tonally adequate but affectless voice that resonates in a kind of nasally honk, accompanied by an autotune drone. Also, Rebecca is a very cute 13-year-old, but YouTube is loaded with pretty young girls singing dopey original songs.

So if it's not the song and not the singer which account for the millions of views, then what is it? Some have suggested that the inherent badness of this work is enough to attract attention, but it's really not all that bad. It sounds exactly like the music they play at the McDonald's in Port Orchard, which I call "machine pop." It's like music written and performed by a computer program, and sounds basically inhuman.

My theory is that even though this is a truly terrible song performed by an indifferent singer, it's well made, and the combination works. A terrible song by an unmemorable singer, if shot on a cell phone, is simply boring to try to watch, but "Friday" is kind of fun, And it has 6,932,810 views -- up by half a million or so since I started writing this -- plus new parodies of it are appearing every hour. Judge for yourself, and keep in mind that tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes "afterwards."

Note: The topic "15 Minutes of fame" was suggested by a random blog topic generator.

UPDATE: 26 Million views in one week. Fun fun fun fun.

--Chai Kowski
--30--

a fool's advice

This is the third month in the last five that the fool has shown up in my short monthly spread. It's actually three times in the last four, since the deck I used in January (Mexican loteria cards) doesn't have a fool card.

In December he was right in the middle of the spread, as he is this month, and back then I wrote a few words analyzing the image along with some comments on the history of the deck, over at Catboxx. In November he appeared on the far right (the place of honor!) of a four-card spread in a reading done by someone other than me. He may be a fool, but he's persistent.

Skeptics will say this is a coincidence, or possibly the result of careless shuffling. But I shuffle the cards thoroughly before each use, and in addition choose one pile of cards at random out of a triple-cut deck from which to select the three of 74 or 78 cards (depending on which pack I'm using). And I don't think it's a coincidence. I believe there's a message here, in the image.

But what is it? The homeless and essentially rudderless fool might be telling me I'm spiritually adrift, and looking for safe harbor. Or maybe it's something else I'm not quite ready to understand, and understanding is in the womb of time.

D.B.
--30--

drawing hope

Sometimes the New Yorker's famous covers say all that needs to be said. This week's by one of the magazine's regular stable of artists, Barry Blitt, is entitled "Hope is the Thing with Feathers."

That's also the famous first line of Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope," a metaphorical riff on the standard image of the Holy Ghost (or spirit) as a white dove. Dickinson, a gentle, eccentric, and reclusive spirit who died in 1886, no doubt would have been shocked and dismayed by just how much our contemporary, dictator-ridden world hungers for hope.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Click on the image for a larger view

Mike L. Angelo
--30--

smile please

Last evening on NPR's "Fresh Air," Terry Gross ran an old interview she'd done with Sam Chwat, speech therapist and researcher and "dialect coach to the stars." It was he that taught Robert DeNiro to sound like somebody from Appalachia for a role, rather than someone from New York City. Chwat died recently at 57, from lymphoma.

One of the things he discovered during his researches, though he was certainly not the first, is that facial expression helps convey vocal tone, which means we can hear people smiling on the radio. To document and assess the impact, Chwat created a strange justaposition:

One funny exercise that we have is we have people grin while reading into a tape recorder a bloody, bloody story, a really grotesquely bloody story from a tabloid newspaper and then play it back. It's not even their language. And all they were doing was grinning while they were reading the story and they will sound like the most psychotic thing going as a result on the playback.

I haven't heard any of these recordings, so I'll try making one of my own here at home. Sam Chwat's extremely innovative research technique has enormous possibilities.

Lost Writer "Q"
--30--

denial

I didn't want to admit it, but now I have to. And along with the admission comes yet another significant drug-related change in behavior. Where does all this change stuff end?

I've been drinking too much coffee. For years. The habit, which we fall into thinking it will make us more energetic and alert, ruined my sleep and ended up having the opposite effect.

I discovered this about a week ago when for some reason I didn't feel like having my usual two or three late-afternoon cups of hot, black Java. I had peppermint tea instead, then slept like a baby that night, without the usual two, three, or four hours of restless tossing that has been ruining my nights. For years.

Since then I've been repeating the performance every day and every night, so I guess it's now a rule -- no coffee after noon.

I'd read for years that drinking coffee in the afternoon will keep a person awake at night, but persisted in thinking myself an exception to the rule. Life is rough on the banks of denial.

Gato Tranquilo
--30--

enkralled

Holy #@$!!

Diana Krall is totally awesome in about every way imaginable. If I tried to watch any more of her 2nite I would absolutely plotz.

Check out this museum piece.

Sorry. I just had to get that off my chest.

Sidney Plotznik
--30--

walkin blues

The "new normal" price of oil is a hundred bucks a barrel, so what's a poor person to do? Whatcha gonna do when "the pump don't work cause some vandals took the handle."*

Nothin to do but walk.

I'm using neighborhood resources as much as possible. I've been out already this morning to see my tax accountant (right across the street) and make an appointment with the dentist (two doors down). Later on I'll walk the half mile to the produce market. Looks like a no-car day here in the urban hellhole I love.

Or it would be if I didn't have to go to Edmonds later this afternoon, eight-and-a-half miles over hill and down dale and out to the Salish Seashore. I guess I'll gas up while I'm out there.

*Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"

Gato Boxeador
--30--

yoga power

Meditation is not exclusive to yoga, and many people other than yogis meditate. As part of a complete yoga routine, however, meditation is the natural and logical culmination of the sequence, following asana (movement) and the concentrated, disciplined breathing called pranayama. It's the "mind" part of a practice meant to improve and maintain optimal functioning of the body, breath, and mind.

I've heard and read many meditators of all stripes testify that they have been "transformed" by the practice. It's not for me to throw doubt on anyone else's testimony, but in my own experience, "transformation" is too strong a word. Instead, I find that meditation has softened my personality, smoothing out the rough edges and rounding the sharp corners. All the basic building blocks of the personality remain in place, but under the influence of meditation have become less angular, rounded and loosely fitted together where they were once straight and unyielding.

This is my analogy for the power of meditation; it's like the power of water in a clear stream moving over stones, gently and slowly but relentlessly wearing away their sharp surfaces and rigid angles, making them smoother and rounder, and at the same time brighter, as they harmoniously settle down into the creek bed alongside their similarly altered fellow stones.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

anchortown

I recently revived friendships with a couple of people I used to work with back in my professional musician days, long ago and far away in the fabled town of Anchorage, Alaska. It's been 30 years since Carrie and Jerry and I traveled into that unknown, frozen land to do a six-week gig as the house band at a little gin mill on a downtown corner, the Keyboard Lounge. I ended up staying for seven years, and Jerry stayed longer than that. Carrie, always the most volatile of the group, stayed about a year, left, came back, got married in Anchorage, and then left for good, ending up in Florida. I landed in California via Boston, then eventually returned to the home of my adolescence, Seattle. Jerry's been a music producer and nightclub owner in Texas for the last 20 years.

It was surprisingly easy for the three of us to resume the conversation where we left off so long ago, and that left me wondering whether people ever change at the most fundamental levels. I would probably seem like an entirely different person today than Dave the Drummer who appeared nightly at the Keyboard, drank too much, smoked too much, and talked too much using too much loud profanity, expressive of deep-seated resentments. My life has been transformed in many ways since then, and the transformation continues, but talking to Carrie and Jerry I realized that deep down, we're all the same people we always were. A person might refine himself and the way he lives, but the foundations of the personality are lodged deeply and immovably, having been set in place during the earliest phases of our forming personalities.

I think you can teach an old dog new tricks, and even new habits, but you can't change him into a different dog.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

the revolutionary

Jose Guadalupe Posada, the Mexican political cartoonist and engraver, is most famous for his amusing and often satirical calaveras (skulls) and skeletons, so I was surprised when I ran across this emphatically pre-mortem Posada portrait of the famous revolutionary from Morelos State, Emiliano Zapata.

It's a lovely, poster-ready engraving which captures the great warrior's idealism and ferocity, while its images of bullet holes foreshadow Zapata's violent death by multiple gunshot wounds. Posada lived and died during the Mexican Revolution, so this must have been one of his later works. He had enjoyed some notoriety during his career, but died unknown and impoverished in 1913. Zapata survived another six years, eventually keeping his date with assassins' bullets at a carefully-laid ambush in 1919.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

snowfall

Snow is falling thickly and silently all around town right now. It's too warm for any to accumulate this afternoon, but as it continues falling overnight and the temperature drops, Mother Earth and Father Sky will be preparing a new world for us to live in come morning.

This reminds me of another February, 39 years ago, when my wife and I came limping back to Seattle after a very rough patch of time in California. She was pregnant with our daughter, I was out of work, and we were all but homeless. We were fortunate to have some kind of roof over us when the snow fell after a few weeks' warm stretch, blanketing the red camellias blooming outside our window, then sticking around a couple weeks.

Everything gets quiet and very peaceful when it snows. Traffic gets reduced by about 90 percent and the accumulated drifts muffle what little sound there is. The timing of this event is good from my vantage point, and I'm glad to see it this time.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

post mortem

The politics of predation is just a single facet of our cultural decline. It goes along with TV shows and movie "entertainment" that consists mainly of violence and sadism.

When the rich and priveleged attack and loot pensioners, workers, and the poor it's one more indication that you're living in a culture that has lost its moral compass, and is on the skids.


Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

between two blogs

The sun is shining in Seattle; the mountains are out and it's a gorgeous day, with the cold, clear weather a prelude to snow, I'm told. For once, that's fine with me; I don't have to drive anywhere this weekend, and could easily walk the 18 blocks to a yoga class at Bitter Lake tomorrow morning, if need be.

Bitter Lake, pictured here with my old bicycle, the original Schwinn, is one of Seattle's many little hidden idyllic spots; on a nice day a it's a tiny, tucked-away pocket of paradise.

Now, I've been avoiding any political writing lately, and anyway over time I've made an effort to relegate all things political to that "other" blog. However, I do want to mention in passing that I'm enjoying reading Bostonian Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy," a 93-page pamphlet subtitled "A Conceptual Framework for Liberation," and a how-to manual for revolutionaries.

Sharp, now 83, is a hands-on instructor. He didn't travel to Egypt during during the recent brouhaha there (his health is now frail), but has been to every other world hot spot over the years as they occurred, and his little book was widely consulted by the activists in Tahrir Square.

It's rather dry (it's an instruction manual, after all), but edifying. A paraphrased content sample would be "Non-violent confrontation works; violence doesn't, because it will rebound on you." The little book is available for free PDF download, or, if you want the Html version simply Google "Gene Sharp From Dictatorship to Democracy" and choose Html.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

the 866 code

I've been getting calls on my cell phone from area code 866, but I don't answer them.

I caution people to never answer area code 866 calls.

Those who answer those calls fall under the 866 curse, and great harm shall come to them.

Oh, no! It's the robot caller from the Agua Caliente Casino again!!

It's not area code 666 you need to worry about, nor Area 51!


--Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

trinity

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

winter passing

It's a rainy, blustery winter day here in Seattle, a nice day to stay indoors with the heat turned on and a cup of hot coffee, watching the drops splashing against the windows.

This is the time of year when people of the Salish Sea used to repair to their long lodges for the round dances.

It's blustery outside but quiet in my heart today. The clock ticks contentedly, telling me the world is at peace, despite the fact that many humans as well as other creatures continue suffering dreadfully, and I feel for them.

Painting by Poulsbo artist Robin Weiss.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

flying high

Okay, I've watched this a couple of times, and I know it's not humanly possible for anybody to do what this guy does with those two little drums. But he does it anyway; you just have to watch his hands to believe it.

For Zakir Hussain, younger in the video than he is now, this music is a spiritual discipline reflected in his face, as well as the result of thousands of hours of rigorous practice. Zakir is the son of the late Allah Rakha, also a master of the tablas. I was privileged to hear Allah Rakha in person when he accompanied Ravi Shankar on his US/West Coast tour in 1967, and it was a life-changing musical experience.

So now if you've got five minutes, check out this YouTube of Zakir Hussain playing a solo in Tintala, a 16-beat cycle, and the most commonly encountered in Indian classical music, and enjoy.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

evil things

This odd-shaped and sinister-looking 900-foot-long asteroid which some scientists say will probably hit the earth (by 2036) while others say don't worry about it ain't gonna happen, is named 99942 Apophis. It looks like a malicious ghost.

Apophis is the Greek form of the name for the evil old Egyptian god Apep, represented in ancient art as a huge snake. It isn't by chance that the serpent's image is also the pictogram for evil throughout C.G. Jung's Red Book. The identification of snakes with evil and with frightening intentions is universal.

In this picture the god Autun wards off the evil Apep. This whole business with this spooky looking little evil astorrhoid is creeping me out.

Click on the images to get a larger view.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

the mummy's curse

A tenacious and high-volume correspondent asks, "What are the implications for the US if the Muslim Brotherhood (in Egypt) succeeds?"

Well I can tell you what the implications for the US are if the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't succeed.

Our fate will be to fall under the curse of the mummy!!

Abdul al-Hazred, distinguished professor of comparative numismatics at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Mass., has written in a scholarly work that "Those who fall under the curse of the mummy, great harm shall come to them!"

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

physico-mental activity

One of the most frequently e-mailed New York Times articles in recent memory was a piece by Sindyan Bhanoo which ran on January 28 suggesting the possibility that meditation causes physical changes in the brain.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

Curious? Read it here.

I've been meditating for about a year now, about 12-15 minutes a day (nothing like the two hours a day the subject who is the article's main focus has been doing), and I've certainly noticed changes in attitude and outlook. But it never occurred to me that there might be corresponding physical changes as well. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since yoga asana (movement) practice has mental as well as physical effects.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

february read

The cards for February indicate positive developments on the horizon, in keeping with my horoscope which says great things will be happening for me, especially the first five months of the year.

The two of spades predicts the start of some kind of partnership having to do with work or health (or both, since my work is health-related), but not romance; that would be the deuce of hearts. I have no idea who this new partner, friend, or associate might be.

Eight clubs is an indicator of highly-focused mental concentration, of pursuing one's goals with an intense single-mindedness of purpose. That pretty much sums up my state of mind right now.

The trump card, Justice, indicates balance and amplifies the eight. If you're sure of yourself and your goals are creative and aimed at helping people, having a mission is not fanatical, but merely a sign of determination.

This is the first month of the last quarter-year that I didn't draw the Fool card to the spread, which tells me I now have someplace to go.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

renewal

Its appropriation in this country by a groundhog from Pennsylvania has obscured the ancient origins and great significance of the February 2nd holiday, formerly known as Candlemas, or from even more ancient times in Ireland, Imbolc.

It's one of the great cross-quarter days of the year: if you represent the year as a circle divided into seasonal quarters by the two solstices and the two equinoxes, then superimpose an "X" dividing the circle into eighths, Candlemas will be the line halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.

February 2 is actually the true beginning of spring, when the earth, now swollen with the winter rains, begins to stir. The daylight is waxing and darkness is waning, as the promise of the sun's return, made at the solstice, becomes abundantly manifested. Today's beautiful weather in Seattle is right on cue.

For those reasons and more, we celebrate Candlemas as a day of renewal and rejuvenation, a good time to shore up the New Year's resolutions and to re-commit to our plans of dedication to a discipline, a program, or a plan of action. Reflecting on the significance of the ancient holidays and feast days is also a way to re-connect with the consciousness of our ancestors, which was embedded deeply in the slow and majestic rhythms of the earth and sky.

For a more comprehensive treatment of this important day, see Seattle blogger Waverly Fitzgerald's School of the Seasons.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

outlook

Doing a regular meditation practice changes a person. I can't actually describe the changes, possibly because I have no particular goal or plan I'm pursuing. I just do what my teachers tell me, and try to do it according to their instructions.

But here's an example. Earlier today I was all set to go to my favorite political discussion board and mix it up with a few wingnuts, but then realized I didn't really feel like it. The combative impulse just wasn't there.

Meditation won't change the world, but it sure changes the view of the world a person gets from inside his own head.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

new cards for a new year

For my first reading of the new year I decided to try a new deck of cards. These are the wonderful Mexican loteria (bingo) cards which are used for that universally popular game south of the border. On the back of each card is a "riddle" or, more correctly, an aphorism which gives a hint about the identity of the image. These are used by the caller to enhance the game, but I've found that they are also clues, sometimes obvious and sometimes cryptic, which shed light on the meaning of the image.

For example, the first of my three cards drawn for January turned up one of the more arcane images, Las Jaras (the arrows). The aphorism Las jaras del indio Adan, donde pegan dan closely translated is "The arrows of the Indian Adam, where they stick." I interpret that as saying that the fundamental nature of people, or of any given person, the fundamental building blocks and patterns of what we call a personality, are set in place very early and don't change thereafter, no matter how many transformations one passes through. This is particularly pertinent to my situation, because even though I've experienced a lot of life-altering changes in the past few years, I'm still, at the most fundamental level, the same person I've always been.

Next came an image which I'd found mysterious until now, but it's meaning clicked into place when it appeared in the center of this draw, at this time in my life. No te arrugues cuero viejo, que te quieropa tambor reads the aphorism for the drum, which roughly means "You may be wrinkled, old leather, but I want to use you for my drum." I may be an old man, and an old wrinkled piece of leather, but there are still a lot of songs left in me. And in this case having drawn that particular instrument among the several in the deck may be significant as well. I wonder if there's still a bit of percussion in my future.

The final image, the simple star shining in a night sky, conveys the same meaning as the more elaborate star picture of the tarot deck -- hope. La guia de los marineros, "the sailors' guide," is the simple and transparent aphorism. It's a reassurance that the sailor on his long journey will eventually return safely to home port, and tells me I need to keep following the guiding stars I've depended on these past few years, which have led me out of a wilderness of despair and back into the sunlight.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

how it spoze to be

Yoga every day. Eating nothing but beneficial food, most of it either raw or very lightly cooked. Not smoking anything, not even vaporizing lately.

The result? Muscles toned, joints flexible, breath coming easily, digestion sound, mind clear and at peace.

This is the way a person is spoze to feel -- what Gary Kraftsow calls "optimal." This is how it spoze to be.

Etaoin Shrdlu
--30--

bananavocadorange

Lunch for me is the same every day. It's built around a banana, an avocado, and an orange, and may occupy an hour or two of each early afternoon.

More and more, I regard food as medicine which doesn't have to be unpleasant, or a chore to take, and fruit as the most natural food for humans, considering the state to which our digestive systems have evolved. It's mostly what our recent ancestors who lived in the trees lived on.

Oranges, bananas, and avocados are all teeming with essential nutrients. The 70 milligrams of vitamin C in a medium-size orange is its outstanding attribute, and it contains 237 mg of potassium as well. Bananas have even more potassium, 422 mg, but the mighty avocado seems to be the king of fruits, containing 975 mg of potassium and significant amounts of niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin A, and B vitamins in addition to four grams of protein.

I usually start with the orange, and even though I'm supposed to avoid dairy, I can't resist having a few slices of cheese with it. The wonderful taste of the combination is simply too good to pass up. Then comes the banana, al fresco.

It took me a long time to warm up to avocados, and I still don't like eating them by themselves. So I mash my daily avocado up in a bowl, mix it with a squirt of lemon juice and black pepper, and scoop it up with low-fat and very inoffensive tortilla chips from Trader Joe's.

I'd recommend this lunch to anybody except people who may be allergic to one or more of the three. It's filling, but also provides a good way for a person to maintain or lose weight, especially if you skip the cheese.

--30--

portrait 11/30/2010

--30--

straight 8

...............................The list of supplements I'm taking every day adds up to about $480 a month. The first six directly address symptoms of Parkinsonism, although some of them have additional benefits; N-acetyl-L-cysteine promotes respiratory function; D3 helps with skin disorders; marijuana is an anti-depressant.

Co-enzyme Q10................200/mo

Glutathione.........................110

Homocystrol.........................15

NAC.......................................16

Vitamin D3............................13

Marijuana...............................50

Red yeast rice.......................16
(cholesterol control)

Nicotine patch........................60

This tells me that I need to work enough to come up with about $500 a month in additional income.

In addition to the supplements, I follow dietary requirements: a daily dose of carrot juice, fish three to five times a week, lots of turmeric and pinto beans. Then there's exercise -- usually the topic of this blog -- including exercise for the breath and the mind.

--30--

sun

Monday, rained out, ugly.

Since then, warm with plenty of sunshine, and we're supposed to get more of the same 2day. Haven't missed a day on the bicycle.

You really don't expect weather like we've been having at this time of year.

No home practice today; thursday means yoga in greenwood in the pm. So morning and early afternoon will be devoted to house cleaning.

Better get started!

--30--

rain

Nasty, rainy weather today. I started to go outside for a walk at one point, but didn't even get to the end of the walkway before turning back and coming inside.

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Where is the dividing line between the body and the mind? In examining cases of spontaneous remission of cancers and other diseases, Robert Anton Wilson points out that such phenomena only remain inexplicable as long as we reside under the sway of the mind-body dichotomy. This bafflement persists because of what Wilson calls "our habit of thinking that anything we have split verbally must reflect a similar Iron Curtain in the non-verbal existential world.* This is similar, he points out, to what's happened in the physical sciences, where post-Einstein scientists no longer deal with space and time, but space-time. Similar considerations led the Buddha to conclude, contrary to Hindu orthodoxy, that there is no immortal self housed within the mortal body-mind, that such a concept is "an illusion, a dream," and that a "self" (or human being) is a heap of undifferentiated characteristics.

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As I went through daily practice today I was mentally in the breath as it united with the physical process. Effortless mindfulness, free of distraction, can be learned along with learning the habit of not differentiating.

*Quantum Psychology, p. 134.

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body & soul

Today is one of those days spent entirely attending to self-maintenance. Might as well; I have nothing better to do.

After a necessary and crucial good night's sleep, began the morning (after e-mails, etc.) with pranayama and meditation, the former accompanied by the mesmerizing drone of a tanpura, the latter in silence.

Breakfast, the usual couple of eggs, will be succeeded for the rest of the day by vegan fare -- fruit, nuts, brown rice type of stuff.

After a thorough shower, shave, tooth cleaning, and so forth, dressed warmly for the bike ride to Greenwood (even now, at 3 p.m., it's just barely above 50). I'm returned home from Capitol Hill now, so back to scrupulously working on leaving the faintest possible carbon footprint.

During an hour in the studio, fitted into place the final piece of daily practice, movement and exercise (asana). I noticed while working that daily yoga pays dividends; all my muscles are well toned, the body balanced and well proportioned if somewhat undersized and underweight.

Got my cardio workout on the bike ride home. (Going to Greenwood is downhill, returning is uphill.) I've become a believer in the necessity of daily cardio-pulmonary work -- as necessary as stretching and moving to achieve strength and flexibility.

Some people might say all of this is self-indulgent and narcissistic, and i suppose to some extent that's true. But I don't have much else to do, and anyway the better care each of us takes of ourselves now, the less someone else will have to take care of us later on.

Right now I think I'll go stir in what at this point is the only missing ingredient -- a nap.

--30--

simplicity

Yesterday I moved up to Capitol Hill for a few days of cat sitting, taking care of Ole. Besides having to drive more to get to where I need to go, being here is not much different from being home. Life has begun to be pretty much the same anywhere I go.

I moved across town with a small knapsack with a couple changes of clothes in it, a bag of groceries and supplements, a few toiletries, a laptop and a cell phone. I also came with a car, of course, but I'm getting to the point where I could carry everything I need on a bicycle, and ditch the car. I could be gone from home for six months and never miss a thing.

How simple my life has gotten. When I was married, owned a home, and was working things always seemed a lot more complicated. I think it was working that mostly made it that way, since a person needs to figure out how to fit in all that other stuff we need to do around working. But now life is amazingly simplified, and it gets simpler all the time, and any place I go, I'm home.

--30--

ascending

At this point it's all about breath. 50 Years of smoking can't be overcome, but with adaptation even emphysematic breathing can be optimized.

Practice starts with establishing a relatively slow and deep breath pattern, with abdominally-activated exhalation. Once movement begins, the initial pattern is retained for the duration of practice, and closely linked with the movements throughout.

Pranayama follows, and sometimes there's difficulty. The concentrated and purposeful breathing can be frequently interrupted by coughing, as the discipline of yoga activates fluids and impurities in the lungs and encourages the body to expel them. That's actually a good sign, indicating a slow but gradual improvement in the baseline condition of the respiratory organs.

Related: I've lowered the temperature of the marijuana vaporizer from 350F to 325, because the cooker was giving off a bit of smoke at the higher temperature. Smoking not allowed!

--30--

strength and weakness

It's not always easy to tell the difference between strength and weakness.

Sometimes belligerence and a willingness to use force seem bold and courageous, when they're really not. Sometimes tolerance and forgiveness seem weak or wimpy when they're actually just the opposite.

It seems ironic to me at times that at the same time I gather strength with age, the society I find myself living in falls ever more deeply into irreversible and fatal weakness. The profound spiritual illness we've suffered as a people is nothing new, but it becomes more intense as the nation clings ever more tightly to bad habits and destructive behaviors, especially indulging in perpetual and pointless wars, and abandoning the national conversation to a professional commentariat employed by a mercenary and commercialized mass electronic media.

That latter group has taken over the function of thinking for us, so we don't have to.

I contrast this sad situation with my own, personal circumstances. My body is getting gradually stronger, even though I have a couple of degenerative conditions which will no doubt grow worse at some point. My breath is still troubled, but improved and progressing. My mind is clear; my spirit becoming aware of itself, and acquiring shape and substance.

This is strange and interesting, and it's hard telling what my long-range reaction to the combined set of circumstances will be, or what it should be.

Illustration: St. Michael the Archangel defeats the Devil and kicks him down to hell.

--30--

fall sunshine

It was a wonderful, gorgeous fall day in Seattle today, with lots of clouds but lots of sunshine too, and temps in the low sixties.

I did a long, slow, indoor yoga practice, but spent most of the day outside on the bike, just cruising around the neighborhood and soaking up as much sun as possible. Winters last a long time around here, and you have to take advantage when you can.

I have to say, hardly anything has ever given me a sense of empowerment, or of powerful independence, like this bike has. I think it could make the average person feel twice as strong.

I really have to get out and explore the Burke-Gilman Trail a little bit before winter sets in.

--30--

past imperfect

In dreams last night I found myself once more in the company of someone who was for a time very dear to me. She was giving me frequent injections of amphetamine, which I didn't want to take. But I submitted obediently, while questioning the reason why such a pointlessly harmful procedure was necessary.

I didn't get an answer, just an admonition that "You need to take your medicine."

The shots weren't particularly painful, and in the dream space I didn't feel the radical effect that would actually result from a dose of crank. But I knew that those closely-spaced administrations of the drug had to be doing me harm, and wondered why I was going along with the routine.

Then the curtain of darkness dropped, and when it was lifted again I was alone and standing before a bathroom mirror. I was shocked to discover that I had gone completely bald on top. "I must not have noticed because of this fringe of hair I still have in front," I said to myself, and then in one of those changes of perspective peculiar to dreams, saw the top of my head from above. I still had the aforementioned line of fuzz along the top of the forehead, and hair along the sides and back of the skull, but the entire top was as hairless and shiny as a cue ball.

I can't interpret the first part of the dream. However, chapter two is clear enough: a dream of losing one's hair, especially occurring in people for whom that fate is highly unlikely, is almost always a symbolic expression of emasculation.

Photograph by JKirlin.

--30--

different day, different world

Something is happening to me and I'm not quite sure what it is. This morning during meditation I descended pretty far down the mine shaft. It was very quiet down there, but also very bright, with lots of what looked like colored lights flaring and then fading, mostly purple and yellow ones.

Gradually returning to the world, I poured a cup of coffee and prepared to sit down to do battle on the internet. But I couldn't do it. Something was different. Instead of anticipating arguing brilliantly on a discussion board, or wowing correspondents with my flashy and elegant prose, I was mildly repulsed by the prospect.

So I took a shower and went grocery shopping (with a list of course), and even drove to the store -- the first Saturday I've driven since I got the bike, I think. Then I parked and walked up to the Uncouth Buzzard to get something to read. The interesting and unusual proprietor checked my account in his account books, rather than with a computer, as people once did and will again. And since my account is active, I got a used copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" for $1.37.

I've waited for about 50 years to start this book, and I waited until exactly the right time, the right day even. This guy's imagination is like an out-of-control zucchini patch, and he makes no effort to restrain it. it's all very Latin as one might expect. They experience the world differently than we do, and when talented express themselves with lavish exuberance.

I don't understand what happened this morning, and it certainly wasn't intentional. I don't know were this is leading, and it's a little strange at times, but I like it.

--30--

turbulence

The water and air of my mind are choppy, unstable, disturbed by the book I just finished reading, what I've been doing, and what I've been thinking. Even the morning practice failed to yield the sense of placid equilibrium it usually does, although it helped settle things down quite a bit.

We're partly political animals, that's for sure, and we should be. After all, we have to live in the objective world of concrete, cars, cats, and cluster bombs. So we look for a Moses or a Mohammad to lead us out of the wilderness of our own confusion. If we can get a grip on what's happening, we'll have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, and that will help us to know how to respond.

In his first sermon in the Deer Park, the Buddha said this world is a snare and a delusion. But I don't think he meant that we should respond with navel-gazing, withdrawal, and feigned ignorance. The world we look upon is a delusion because it never stops changing, but we still have to be here now.

Sculptural assemblage, "Paradise Lost" by Jud Turner.

--30--

optimum health

Achieving optimum health -- the best health we can enjoy under our particular individual circumstances -- is a fairly simple matter, but not easy. Though there are few rules, observing them means giving up a lot of the things we've grown used to.

Most of us really need to tighten up our intake of free radicals, that cell-destroying, one-electron-short matter we pick up heavy doses of in most restaurants, where cooking oil is used, re-used, and absolutely poisonous after a time. A lot of processed food releases free radicals as well. Overloading the system with free radicals leads to noticeable intestinal, skin, and immune system distress in most people in a fairly short time, with a few inexplicable exceptions.

As far as a very short dietary prescription is concerned, I can't do any better than echo Michael Pollan: "Eat food; not too much, mostly plants."* This abbreviated but comprehensive advice is as notable for what's left out as what's included -- Pollan implies we should eat little meat, very little in the way of dairy products, because we're eating mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes.

Any population that follows that simple formula will be very nearly free of obesity and diabetes, and a lot of heart and arterial problems would be more seldom seen.

Everybody should exercise. Morning stretches and later on a cardio workout of some kind are necessary to achieving and maintaining optimum health. A good cardio workout is a vigorous bike ride or swim.

Alkalized water as a constant drink helps balance Ph levels and contributes significantly to optimum health. Some people pay thousands for machines that alkalize their drinking water, but lemons are the best natural alkalizer, and a lot cheaper.

Drugs are always a problem. It's probably best to leave them alone entirely, but nobody does. Like a lot of people, I take two prescription drugs and both have side effects. But they also enhance my life and contribute to optimum health. So do some "recreational" drugs if they're not overused. We should probably stay away from drugs like nicotine and cocaine altogether, because they're so addictive. Alcohol is good for people and a wonderful social lubricant if taken in small to moderate amounts, and likewise coffee and marijuana, are both mood enhancers. In all cases, the biggest danger is from the temptations of overindulgence and dependency.

Finally, work, but not too much. Sleep as much as you want, unless you find yourself sleeping 13 hours a day, in which case you're depressed, and that's not healthy.

*Michael Pollan, "In Defense of Food" (see sidebar on left; click on "Read This Book").

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breath in, breath out

...(T)he Buddha spoke and said:

...the method of being fully aware of breathing, if developed and practiced continuously, will have great rewards and bring great advantages.

It is like this: the practitioner goes into the forest or to the foot of a tree...and sits stably...holding the body quite straight. Breathing in, one knows that one is breathing in; and breathing out, one knows that one is breathing out.

Breathing in a long breath, one knows, "I am breathing in a long breath;" breathing out a long breath, one knows, "I am breathing out a long breath."

Breathing in a short breath, one knows, "I am breathing in a short breath;" breathing out a short breath, one knows, "I am breathing out a short breath."

...This is how one practices.

"I am breathing in and making my whole body calm and at peace. I am breathing out and making my whole body calm and at peace."

"I am breathing in and am aware of the activities of the mind in me. I am breathing out and am aware of the activities of the mind in me." One practices like this.

"I am breathing in and concentrating my mind. I am breathing out and concentrating my mind." One practices like this.

The Full Awarenss of Breathing, if developed and practiced continuously according to these instructions, will be rewarding and of great benefit.

Taken from "The Sutra on Full Awareness of Breathing," translated by Thich Nhat Hanh.

--30--

fifth chakra

When I meditate it's on the chakras.

Up until now I've only done meditation on the first four, those lower points on the tree of life of the spine, on its trunk you could say, which is rooted in the earth and governs those parts of our existence we share with the animals, fundamental instinctive behaviors driven by the urge to survive, the need to procreate, to experience the transformations of birth, maturity, and death, and capacity for love.

These four are the eath-bound chakras, corresponding to the earthly elements: earth, water, fire, and air. I silently say the name of each, think of its characteristics, its associated element, its attributes and qualities, then with the breath going out silently chant its one-syllable root mantra, five breaths for each chakra.

Today I incorporated meditation on the fifth chakra, called vishuddhi, which is at that big knob at the top of the thoracic spine, where the neck begins. It corresponds with the throat, and governs the functions of voice, communication, and speech. At this point as a species we depart from the animals, since words are not things, but abstractions which symbolically correspond to things, and are beyond animal understanding. This capacity to form words and make speech is something we share with the gods rather than the other creatures on earth, thus the material associated with the fifth chakra is the ether of space, which is not of this world.

--30--

in memoriam

Donald S. Brice, professional newsman. 1917 -- 1983.

Born on this day in Morenci, Arizona.

Had he lived till now he'd have been 93, the same age as the late Daniel Schorr, with whom he had a lot in common.

--30--

Too Much Yoga II

For only the second time ever I think I'm yoga'd out.

Got up this morning and about 2/3 of of the way through my asana routine my daughter called. It was early, and she'd just got up and was on her way to the place where she coffees up.

Then, after a quick shower, it was off to Edmonds and working for an hour with the old guy who has Parkinson's and also suffered a couple of strokes. Poor guy. It's not yoga exactly, but it is exhausting.

Then it was the drive home, a quick lunch, and time to saddle up and head for Greenwood where I taught an hour-and-a-quarter class to four lovely ladies. It was a terrific class, but when you work with an older crew they like you to demo everything. By the end of it I was over yoga for the rest of the day, and right now I'm sitting in the Green Bean decompressing. The sun is out, it's after five, and the day is winding down. I just need to caffeinate, and find the energy to pedal home.

I'll be up early tomorrow, as usual. I've got class at 9:30 (as a participant, not an instructor).

--30--

simple moves

I did my daily routine at Whole Life today where Sheryl led us through asana practice, and it was great. I've noticed that when yoga movements are left purposively simple and uncluttered, when there are not overly many of them and each is explored thoroughly, and the instructor moves through the sequence slowly and gracefully, with due deliberation, that it's much easier to tie one's breath to each movement, which is one of the main objectives of this discipline.

It begins with a complete preparation of breath and mind; the depth and frequency of breathing during movement is established before movement begins, and the mind cleared of extraneous clutter. The exercise of the asana sequence then becomes more like a formal dance than calisthenics, and the transition to pranayama, during which movement ceases and all attention becomes centered in the breath, is seamless. Following that, the stillness and internal focus of pranayama leads naturally into the deep interiority opened up during meditation.

I've done little more than scratch the surface of this discipline for the body, breath, and mind. Still, that exploration, which grows gradually deeper with time, has made a tremendous difference in my life, especially enhancing the ability to see clearly. Some of the time I feel as if this vision is transmitted by an interior eye.

--30--