Pieces from a World Intact · 11 October 2008

Warm short October day with golden glow in the light and dried leaves in the breeze. I sit an my old metal desk next to the tall tall window that looks on to a square of warm humming-green lawn and beyond that Royce hall (Josiah R being another hero, I’ve been remembering). A 10-by-12 square of light flashes on to the 8-by-10 pinup calendar on my wall (my idea of pinup is a vibrating Rothko, red and orange). It's a woman across the quad with her Macbook.

Driving home Tuesday, sitting in two-way gridlock on Ohio around Sepulveda. In the rearview a woman in a dusty Corolla shakes her head just as John McCain’s voice comes through my radio saying “Obama and his cronies.” Roll down the windows of my Civic, listen to the debate in surround soud.

Jasmine tea, with little flowers.

Wednesday after practice, a two inch neon green ficus leaf attached to the window. With swaying antennae and a perfect trapezoidal little green head. Forget human “creativity” (derivatives, accounting, executive powers) and the messes it makes. I thought evolutionary creativity like this only happened in the fecund tropics? Brilliant little green bug hypnotizes me with its dancing antennae. Good trick.

Took part in pre-dawn Stephen Colbert Practice a few mornings. These are important times and he is, well, just a little bit perfect. So repressed! And the almost-irrepressible grin. Still, Colbert Practice hilariously compromises one-pointedness practice in a way that reading the NYT in the mornings does not—very intresting to see my mind produce cutesy one-liners while supposedly focused on putting feet behind the head and shit. Probably something like dreams and meditation-retreat epiphanies—the one-liners prove to be worthless when you look at them again back in beta state. Guess my Stephen Colbert Practice just is not very advanced. (Watch this.)

What else? I just slept 12 hours. The Editor has had a cold all week. Maybe this is my immune system fending it off. Later I’d like to write a little bit about what’s going to happen to ashtanga in the coming economic hard times, and do a Patriarchy Redux, and also come back to that Budhismo y Yoga post that Juan Andres put together recently. For now, ethical consumerism. Suddenly, my dissertation is quaint. I don’t mind.

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1. i have a secret crush on Stephan Colbert myself. Hope you don’t mind, but i gotta put that clip on my blog too.

   Love your insight!

   Posted by: Laruga · Oct 11, 08:33 PM · #

2. Good to see you, L. Also, this is so great.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 12, 09:51 AM · #

3. I love it when you write this way! You should write novels. Sci-fi or post-apocalyptic ones..

   I always thought the one-liners were still brilliant, but we just didn’t see them in their full profundity back in the beta state?

   Posted by: susananda · Oct 12, 11:25 AM · #

4. I love it when you write this way, too! You are a little too good at everything, aren’t you? That’s ok. I ain’t mad atcha.

   Owl! The trees are going to be getting naked soon. Doesn’t it give you the shivers?

   Posted by: joy · Oct 12, 12:05 PM · #

5. Stephen Colbert! yes! (though, I have to admit, I love Jon Stewart above all)
   Where do I sign up for Parkour? That stuff’s fantastic! Thanks for the link.
   Also, totally agree with everyone above- very nicely written post (so odd and dreamy).

   Posted by: Liz · Oct 12, 04:00 PM · #

6. Richard Freeman is a parkour fan. No kidding. He talks about it in one of his podcasts.

   :-)

   Posted by: karen · Oct 12, 04:57 PM · #

7. It gives me the shivers in the best way, Joy.

   I like your theory Susananda… beta state misses the best insights? But maybe it’s true… in a sense the best art is that which takes straight out of beta and makes you engage it in a state of sublimity…? Not to privilege sublimity or anything.

   I am excited about the Parkour women… esp the part where she says she uses bars not just for efficiency but for her self-expression. Brilliant.

   I am also excited that you like the writing here. This is what happens when I don’t edit and don’t set out to say anything. Most people who read my other writing HATE it when I alliterate or get at all picturey. I only did it here because I felt like posting but not like saying anything in particular. :)

   About fall, and Colbert, and etc… to undermine the fourfold categories of last week (Est, Testos, Dop, Seri and Meyers-Briggs) I offer A SIXFOLD TAXONOMY FOR WHAT KINDS OF PEOPLE WE ARE:

   Headstand or Shoulderstand?
   Coffee or Green?
   John Stewart or Stephen Colbert?
   Spring or Fall?
   Dogen or Eat, Pray, Love?
   Cat or Dog?

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 12, 05:05 PM · #

8. Aaah! I have missed this somehow, Karen. Which one?

   Oh: HGSFDC

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 12, 05:07 PM · #

9. About parkour and practicing until the very end of one’s existence. Two-fer!

   http://yogaworkshop.com/blog/richard-freeman-obstacles-to-yoga-talk-02-loose-ends-and-stinky-mats-oct-28/

   Posted by: karen · Oct 12, 07:11 PM · #

10. Headstand, Coffee, Jon Stewart (because I loved him first, and I’m faithful), Fall, certainly not Eat, Pray, Love, Cat and Dog.

    Good morning!

    Posted by: joy · Oct 12, 11:06 PM · #

11. Shoulderstand, Green, Jon Stewart, Fall, um, not sure what Dogen is but it must be better than Eat, Pray, Love, DOGS

    Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Oct 13, 04:56 AM · #

12. headstand, coffee, JS, spring, dogen, dog

    for the last three, some zen wisdom:
    “spring comes, the grass grows by itself”
    and
    “does a dog have buddha nature?”

    for the first three, i don’t know of any ancient zen commentary — but surely they are the stuff of some modern zen.

    Posted by: karen · Oct 13, 04:57 AM · #

13. spring comes, the grass grows by itself

    I like this one. Karen, how ancient is Zen? Is it not a fairly recent melding and spin-off from some other things?

    Posted by: Carl · Oct 13, 10:20 AM · #

14. The establishment of Zen is traditionally credited to Bodhidharma (early 5th century). He was a monk from southern India who journeyed to China. A fierce and interesting character.

    Here’s a little more from wikipedia:

    “Chan, as it is generally called when referencing Zen Buddhism in early China, developed from the interaction between Mahāyāna Buddhism and Taoism. Some scholars also argue that Chan has roots in yogic practices, specifically kammaṭṭhāna, the consideration of objects, and kasiṇa, total fixation of the mind.”

    My favorite zen thinkers are definitely ancient!

    Huang Po ?-850
    Hongzhi Zhengjue 1091–1157
    Dogen 1200-1253

    Aw, are people really going around thinking zen is just another new age amalgam??? If so, I am very sad…

    Posted by: karen · Oct 13, 11:23 AM · #

15. Don’t worry, Karen, I don’t think many believe Zen = new age.
    i don’t know anything about it, but when I hear “Zen”, I think ancient, wise, etc. I think we’re all intrigued because you’re “in the know”!
    Owl, I think I am:
    headstand
    coffee
    Jon
    spring
    ... certainly NOT EPL, but don’t know Dogen
    CAT, but starting to balance the scale with DOG. They’re awesome.

    Posted by: Liz · Oct 13, 11:37 AM · #

16. sirsana (the king of all asanas -BKS I.)
    tea? green what? is masala chai tea a choice? at least not coffee although at one point I was a true french roast fiend until I realized I never got enough of what I really didn’t want…
    colbert (because satire is dying art form in these serious times; although sometimes his character is so real feeling that I get real feelings of disdain and don’t want to pollute the citta even more with the negativity)
    Spring (potential)
    Dogen (eat, pray love and self aborption= nausea)
    Dogs (a better sentient being for my projections)

    Posted by: e&sj · Oct 13, 11:57 AM · #

17. I didn’t mean to imply that Zen is New Age. But the fifth century is relatively late when viewed in the total chronology of Asian cultures, which reach back at least several millenia BCE.

    Posted by: Carl · Oct 13, 12:07 PM · #

18. :-) Okay, zen can be Chinese New Age.

    Posted by: karen · Oct 13, 01:15 PM · #

19. All first column for me. What does that reveal?

    (Headstand, Coffee, Jon, Spring, Dogen {or not EPL to be precise} & Cat)

    Posted by: cody · Oct 13, 01:28 PM · #

20. You’re a leftist.

    Posted by: karen · Oct 13, 01:49 PM · #

21. My choices are…
    Handstand,
    Roibos,
    Doonesbury,
    Summer,
    Plain Girl,
    Cats…
    so what does that mean?

    Posted by: Carl · Oct 13, 08:26 PM · #

22. I am very new to headstands, so it must be shoulderstand;
    I love both coffee and green tea, but am not allowed either (so barley coffee and decaff tea for me);
    John Stewart, cause I only discovered the other guy on this blog;
    spring, summer, fall and winter (if the mindset is right, otherwise any time of year can be total crap, I assume you were talking about seasons, not springing and falling while doing parkour- which by the way is scarry, in my mind all that concrete = bruises);
    I have not read Dogen, but EPL I think is seriously flawed;
    God, how I miss my dog.

    Posted by: Fatou · Oct 13, 10:00 PM · #

23. headstand
    coffee
    Christopher Morris
    Autumn
    Meetings with Remarkable Men
    Admire cats, love dugs

    Posted by: meniscusmerangue · Oct 14, 12:57 AM · #

24. Meetings with Remarkable Men, eh? Crazy book. In a good way, crazy.

    Headstand
    Coffee
    don’t know
    Fall
    Dogen (I’ve never read EPL but I have read some Dogen and it blew my mind)
    Cats

    Owl, the greatest insights always seem so ‘yes, so what?’ afterwards… obvious and trivial. But I think it is that we commune with these insights and realise their true profundity, in much the same way as one can merge with the object in meditation. And afterwards it is still an ordinary object.

    Posted by: susananda · Oct 14, 01:10 AM · #

25. Hmm, in this six part diagnosis, apparently I am virtually the same person as Liz, Karen and Cody (coincidentally all yogis I’ve met??).

    Headstand, coffee, Stewart, spring (ALWAYS), have heard better things about Dogen than EPL, but have no experience of either one, and I would take BOTH cat and dog; right on Joy!

    For other personality algebra, I’m coming up ENFP these days, rather than my 2003-era ENTP. Ashtanga is apparently making me both softer and harder, hah!

    Two thumbs up for parkour. Yummy yummy.

    Posted by: patrick · Oct 14, 05:06 AM · #

26. What fun to read everyone’s response to your little quiz, Owl! Everyone seemed up for the game.

    Posted by: Liz · Oct 14, 10:20 AM · #

27. I knew I could trust Karen to help with the push-polling effort toward Dogen…

    But leave it to you post-dualist thinkers to deviate from the EITHER/OR model.

    As for Zen… so Christianity is the Western New Age? Godhelpus.

    Time for a seminar. Emoticons,

    (0v0)

    Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 14, 10:22 AM · #

28. —Emoticons,—

    wha ha ha ha ha, I love it.

    Posted by: joy · Oct 14, 12:14 PM · #

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