Saturday XXX · 3 November 2007
On this date in 1976, a 28-year-old C.E.J. drove a white VW Beatle through the snowed-in cornfields of Yellowstone County, past the feedlot with the cattle billowing steamy breath in the cold, five miles down Airport Road past the hilltop cemetery, around the corner and down past the country doctor’s house into Laurel, MT, a railroad town with the highest national rate of alcoholism, if not poverty and Evangelicalism rates to match. She parked at the high school, home of the Laurel Locomotives, and hauled herself inside to the voting booths set up in the gym with their levers and their curtains. They cut her to the front of the line.
I like to believe she voted for Carter, but the truth is it was probably Ford… though the negation, as they say, was in her belly.
Later that day she had her first baby, and took it home to her fireplace-heated, century-old Ranch house under giant cottonwoods on a rise above Canyon Creek. And the two of them would pretty much stay there in that grove, safe and doing nothing but cooing and eating and rolling around in front of the fire or out under the trees, for the next three years.
Thank you, Mom. I’m sorry I don’t really remember it.
I was increasingly together this week, relatively clear in mind and action. Please let it be an emerging trend. And I practiced a little harder than usual. By Thursday the edges were finally pretty well burnished and I thought somewhere in standing, “Is this what it takes to get to surrender?” It feels nice to be spent like that on a Thursday, spent in a Friday way.
But then right at the end, without putting any particular try into it, I made a convincing UKK-B for the first time since GT knelt down and talked me into it in August. Hello. I wonder if that is a regular part of my world now? I told the Editor that I had a feeling UKKB was really miiiiine and he said not to be a pose-whore.
“That’s not practicing yoga—that’s just doing a couple of moves you can do.”
Moves. Hee hee. We’ll see what happens Sunday.
Today, birthday things. All day. First some links.
● I’ve always felt Sigur Ros were cheesy and trying too hard to sound “beautiful.” But just a second. Maybe it’s just that they can’t help it. Here is a trailer to some film they made about their home. Beautiful. Otherworldly. They are screening tonight and playing an acoustic set. Think I'll go.
● I received this record (Sally Shapiro, mysterious Swedish disco princess!) as a gift this week. Sad disco, nostalgic synth. I like its moody precision, and like how it accompanies a night drive on the freeways of this decrepit city. Here’s a video of one of the singles.
● Via Souljerky, David Lynch and Donovan are hyping a new university where TM training is required. With a lot less style and too many words, here’s the same arbitrage happening at UCLA. Good discussion in the second article of the history and practice of MBSR.
● Very intriguing. Techsattva is a podcast that wants to "make sense of several systems of thought at once.... By denying the completeness of any one system, Techsattva hopes to... get a view of connections that exist between them." Wonderful intention, but we’ll see if they can do much with it. The recent show is on the subjectivity of neuroscience. About time. Includes a discussion of the implications of new neural feedback (like biofeedback, but more finely tuned) for meditators' state awareness and state maintenance. Nice.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: arbitrage
, astanga yoga
, beta state
, evolution
, having a body
, integration
, science
, sound
, spirituality
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Happy birthday, darling!!! I love Scorpians.
Posted by: V · Nov 3, 06:49 AM · #
Happy Birthday! Have a great one!
Posted by: cody · Nov 3, 06:53 AM · #
Happy Birthday, you!
Posted by: RE · Nov 3, 08:55 AM · #
Thank you, you three!
RE, the card is really the best. Just arrived.
I saw a few people tried to post and didn’t note that the first time you enter a comment here, it’s a trial run. So click “preview,” see your tentative comment, then click “submit.” Built in self-check mechanism [and wanker screen :)].
I got to go shower and open a present and then go catch some brunch.
xoxoxoxoxovo
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 3, 10:10 AM · #
happy birthday owl-woman! A lovely time of the year to have been born. Perhaps as the Tibetans beleive, your soul was hovering over your parents in early February 76’ and then decided to beam down upon the moment of conception. Probably a big fire in the home hearth that evening on a cold,country night had beckoned you.
In Nov of 76’ I was playing Romeo in a small Berkeley theatre. A really abysmal imitation of Leornard Whiting’s try at the boy lover. My balcony scene was memorably atrocious but at the time without much to reference it I thought I was the next Henry Burbage. One night in the sepulchre after I drank the poison and died I mistakenly rolled over and covered up the knife that Juliet then would need to off herself after she discovers my body still warm and twitching in its early death throes. In desperation and for want of any weapon to dispatch herself she proceeded to hug one of the faux pillars on the set and smash her little girl grill into the paper mache post. This led to fake expiration by cranial concussion and nearly dismounted the entire facade of Verona. Audience members reported afterwards that they thought there had been an earthquake at the very moment Juliet met her demise. Some however were not so naive and the critics were predictably unkind.
I am sorry to ramble. Off to swim. God bless and happy birthday again.
Posted by: tristan · Nov 3, 10:22 AM · #
Excellent birthday story and excellent neophyte actor story. Thanks to all.
Posted by: jlafitte · Nov 3, 04:22 PM · #
happy late birthday—i was, in a way, all hung up yesterday (blog post to come) and not near a computer—call this a slacker birthday wish!
Posted by: patrick · Nov 4, 06:59 AM · #
Happy Happy Birthday X
Posted by: skelly · Nov 4, 02:38 PM · #
many happy birthdays to you, owl(or whatever pooh used to say, and from me may i plus ou moins repeat winston churchill when he said,
“a day away from owl is a day wasted.”
happy birthday, all my love from montana to big sur,
your eeyore.
Posted by: eeyore · Nov 4, 06:17 PM · #
hope that the birthday feeling is lingering on… many happy returns!
Posted by: Sally · Nov 4, 07:12 PM · #
Thanks everyone. I was ok with the unusual amount of attention this year—other years I’ve kept it a secret. Also, usually physical presents annoy me and I just wish for massages and other experiences, but those (including a Calvino book from the parents—truly revolutionary) were welcome this year too. I seem to be interested in doing things another way these days.
I’d forgotten that Winston said that! It is true. :)
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 4, 10:44 PM · #
Hello,
Happy Birthday, sorry it’s so late!
cj x
Posted by: CJ · Nov 5, 01:59 AM · #
Happy birthday! The date is auspicious now whether or not any Presidents share it with you for their elections.
Posted by: Carl · Nov 5, 02:28 PM · #