Saturday XXVIII · 21 October 2007

Night before last I dreamed Alastair Crowley was watching the Editor and me from a second-floor window across the street while we played with sea creatures in turquoise tidepools. Crowley was wearing a billowy black cape and trying to look scary, hunched over like the grim reaper. Poser.

In the dream, I told the Editor, “Alastair Crowley’s up in that window, watching us!” And he replied, “Don’t tell me that—I’ll have dreams about him!”

Guess Halloween is coming. I just ran across a poem I wrote on Halloween a decade ago. Very dark. I remember writing it in my head while on a run along the train tracks after class, before an evening of waiting tables and before getting smashed in an old downtown Victorian overrun by us disaffected Philosophy majors. That is what happens when 20-year-olds read Sartre and write poetry. Good thing I stopped.

Rachel and I are seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company tonight. God. Being a little sharper on  X-men than on Chekov, I actually got the tickets out of excitement to see Magneto on stage, thinking “The Seagull” must be some obscure thing by the Bard. But no, it is Chekov. Only Rachel could help me understand that this play is no drama but just a wicked, wicked joke.

I’m going to do some Kundalini this morning and then secret down to the beach with the in-line skates that mysteriously showed up in the campus mailroom with my name on them. The departmental staff made me open the package immediately ('cos last time I received a non-Amazon box, it was cookies). That was embarrassing. By this token, I’ll understand if you want to disassociate from me when you learn I partake in either Kundalini or inline skating. Though you should probably lighten up and do some kriyas.

By the way. After much deliberation, it is Big Sur for Thanksgiving. It appears I’ll be stranded between equidistant (and I do mean distant) yoga in Mountain View and Santa Barbara, but correct me if I’m wrong. Any recommendations for what to do (the baths at 2 a.m., maybe, or afternoon snack at the Post Ranch?) and what to read (Henry Miller?) are welcomed.

Saturday links.

? Speaking of deliveries and of autumnal feelings, this record came in the mail for the Editor the other day. Beautiful. Nonsensical. So nice. Listen to the sample track embedded in the linked review. For the rest, though, send Bon Iver (this is a self-release and it sounds like he’s stuck up in a cabin in Wisconsin) some dollars. Right after you go back and pay Radiohead for that download you forgot to settle up the other day, weasels.

? Here is a clip from the recent Mindfulness and Psychotherapy conference at UCLA. Thich Nhat Hahn opens and then Jack Kornfield speaks about Burma. This related short interview—on warrior traditions in various faiths and the possibilities for activism rooted in Buddhism—is more provocative. “It’s one thing to be calm in a peaceful mountain monastery, and quite another to act calmly on a festering street corner in East L.A.”

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Categories: esoteric shit , having a body , sound , spirituality

Comment

1. the song from The Record is very pretty, Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens.
   and i LUV Jack Kornfield. his book title is my mantra- after the ecstasy,the laundry.

   Posted by: cranky housefrau · Oct 21, 04:07 PM · #

2. Definitely stop by Post Ranch for lunch or an iced tea or something. And almost directly across the street from the Post Ranch entrance is a pretty cool art gallery designed by the same architect. Where are you staying? There’s a shala in Monterey, I guess. www.ashtangamonterey.com… but I haven’t been there. When are you heading up?

   Posted by: jenna · Oct 21, 04:11 PM · #

3. Yes, CH, definitely. Other influences seem to be Damien Jurado and Califone. It is a really nice record.

   Jenna, great advice. We’ll be up there through the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I will email you when I know our plans for Sunday… just in case it would be possible to swing by Paso Robles that afternoon. (!) We are staying at Glen Oaks, which appears to be as anti-quaint as you can get for under $700 a night. From online searches, I gather that there is a terrifying number of Victorian B&Bs in this area.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 21, 05:30 PM · #

4. don’t listen to jenna! all she drinks is la tache. seriously big sur sounds so nice. and yes to henry miller. “Big Sur and the The Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch”, actually my favorite miller book. and richard brautigan’s “A Confederate General From Big Sur”. and of course, robinson jeffers, if you want to be grouchy:)

   Posted by: eeyore · Oct 21, 06:26 PM · #

5. Cruising in Portland and turn on the news to see my hood in Topanga is on voluntary evacuation. Very strange.

   Regarding Big Sur. Owl-girl would enjoy Deejun’s the oldest eatery in the Park, very good food served in romantic atmosphere by candle lite in a 100 year old coach house. Breakfast is outstanding at Nepenthe patio on a majestic cliff overlooking the Pacific. French toast or omelettes in the most spectacular place imaginable with blue jays hopping all over the premises begging for handouts and red tails on guard above soaring in the blue bluster.

   Up the road is the Bakery, a really nice local’s hang with fresh homemade breads and the like and a oak fired wood oven for roasting chickens and pizza. You have to call ahead to make Thanksgiving reservations for them since they are very popular. Pfieffer State Beach entrance is hard to find but really worth it. Its cloaked in all manner of strange sci fi foliage and the rocks at the shore are hikeable and magnificent. The trails just into the Ventana campground go straight up the mountains and are beyond words.

   Sorry to wax on. I just happen to have spent many vacations up there. There is even an old growth Redwood hike in one of the first campgrounds as you enter Big Sur from the South. Don’t recall the name but the trees are incredibly alive and vibrant, powerful and ever meditative.

   Hope I will be coming home to an entact neighborhood on Wednesday. blessings to all those who are newly homeless or under duress, tristan

   Posted by: tristan · Oct 22, 08:22 AM · #

6. one other recommendation. In the evening you can head up to the Post Ranch but then do the unconventional. They have a pool that is heated and outdoors and no one was in it the night we shed our unnecessaries and hopped on it. There are towels poolside that are very large and fluffy. I am not so sure that Esalen allows access to their bathes anymore unless you are actually staying there but after some good wine at the bar overlooking the ocean at Post its great to play like a kid and sneak in the pool. t.

   Posted by: tristan · Oct 22, 02:19 PM · #

7. Upton Sinclair’s Oil is purportedly pretty good and it happens that it’s set in your ‘hood.

   Posted by: Carl · Oct 23, 09:59 AM · #

8. eeyore, be nice. Oh but how i wish i could drink more la tache. The world would be a much more beautiful place, especially on those dreaded tuesdays. :)

   I’m in town up until thanksgiving, but then we’re off to scenic Auburn, Alabama early Friday morning until Tuesday. So I fear I may miss you on your way back down. Go Tigers.

   Sometime in the future, I also recommend staying at Treebones resort towards the southern end of Big Sur. Because yurts are cool.

   Posted by: jenna · Oct 23, 05:18 PM · #

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