Red Elephant

Yogaversary and other delights

Last night's class marks one year since I started teaching yoga, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I think I've gotten the most out of developing my own practice. Sure, going to classes is a great way to learn, but it really comes down to whether you can internalize the lessons, whether you can teach yourself, whether you can figure out what you're doing right and wrong.

I've also drawn inspiration from my teachers. Jed, who I've been studying with the past few years, has really gotten me interested in exploring things a bit more. It's not just doing the same poses over and over -- though there is some of that -- but listening to my own body. I've started off practices just stretching out, seeing what's tight, and seeing if I can make it feel better.

Another way I've approached my own practice is to take something that I learned in class or a workshop and break it down. For example, I have some students who just don't like Ardha Chandrasana [Half Moon Pose]. I've been trying to find other ways to approach the pose, rather than launching from Utthita Trikonasana, as most people do.

It's somewhat similar to Virabhadrasana III [Warrior III Pose], but I wanted to start from a much more supported and stable place, since that was the complaint that I was hearing, that it was too hard to balance. So, I had the class start in Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend), and take one leg back like Warrior III, but with the hands on the ground, just to keep the pose supported.

From there, we opened the hip up, moving towards Half-Moon, but building it up from the floor rather than launching into it. The other variation, I got from Jed, which is to start at an "L" on the wall with your palms on the wall, folding at the hips, feet on the floor. From there, you can take one leg back. You then open the top hip, and move towards a supported Half-Moon with your hands on the wall.

I've had good results, overall. Some people prefer the original pose & getting into it from Trikonasana. Others feel more supported building it from the floor, or using the wall as a prop. In any case, the exploration has been the key. It's not something I would have done a year ago, and that's the difference.

There's a teacher training exercise where you take detailed notes of someone in a pose so that you can re-create the pose with your body. That way, you can approximate the student's position and perhaps feel anything that's grossly out of alignment.

That's what it's really about, trying to figure out what's going on in your own body, and in the bodies of your students. This way you can do more than just practice the pose the way you first learned it. It becomes about learning principles of alignment, paying attention to what's going on in your body and asking questions.

Then you try to answer them.

Son of Brain Dump

And I'm back.

When I woke up this morning, rain was tapping on the roof, and there was a booming in the distance. The rain increased, and the thunder moved quickly our way. I was pleased, very pleased to wake up to these sounds. The first real thunderstorm marks the beginning of spring in my book. I can finally come out of hibernation, leave the house, start writing more, and sleeping less.

[Ed note - we did have a freak thunder-snowstorm earlier in the year, but that's not quite the same.]

It's strange how these things go in spurts. I get excited about a new thing, writing photography, what-have-you, and then I burn myself out too quickly. I've been trying to do this less, to really commit to things, and to begin slowly.

The best example of this has been yoga. I started back in 2002, almost four years now, and built my practice from once a week to several classes a week. This transformed once I began to teach classes and started practicing on my own.

This past weekend, I went to a great workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh. She's a Senior Certified Anusara Teacher, and she's a pretty amazing person. While we all learned lots of technical elements, I think her attitude is what was the most inspirational. She had a lot of fun doing yoga & helping people out. She talked about how it's transformed her life, and how it's helped her deal with the death of her son.

I learned plenty of technical things, including the importance of using your tailbone to solidfy the foundation in a pose and to integrate the whole body. I learned how to apply that, among other things, to make my backbends like Urdhva Dhanurasana deeper & more stable. She helped me re-learn Supta Virasana, which has always been tricky for me.

As important as learning the technical elements in more detail, was just the experience of attending a workshop. It's great to watch someone who is really dedicated to their craft present and practice. It's great to be around a bunch of other people who are eager to learn and practice themselves. It's great to dedicate a weekend to doing something you love.

And it's great when the excitement and energy from such a weekend carries over to the rest of your life. I'm excited to practice yoga right now, to push myself a little further than I have been, to try new things out. I'm excited to share what I've learned with my students. And I'm excited to harness this energy, to do some more writing.

I'll start with a little at first, and then build upon it. That seems to be the best way for me.

Things That Are Good

- Arctic Monkeys
- Cleaning off your desk, finally
- Finding a reason and time to write
- Chinese New Year
- Freshly swept floors
- Starting over
- Keeping up your own traditions, however untraditional they may be
- Filing a tax return, free of charge [where applicable]
- Paying off a big chunk of your credit card debt all at once
- Hearing from old friends
- Spending time with your family, even if the circumstances are distressing
- The del.icio.us extension for Firefox
- New York cabbies, waiters and bouncers who blog
- Listening to Arctic Monkeys
- Musical siblings

- Podcasts about Meditation and Buddhism
- Waking up to someone
- Going to bed after a long day when you've finished a lot of things you've been leaving half-done for entirely too long

Chocolate Biscuits

It all started with a throwaway comment on the daily notes for Questionable Content, one of my favorite webcomics. Jeph was talking about Tim Tams, which just floored me. I hadn't thought about them in years. You see, Tim Tams are these excellent Australian biscuits [cookies to us Yanks], dipped in chocolate.

When I was studying abroad in Oz, Tim Tams were like little chocolate gold. They were a bit expensive, but we all thought they were worth it. We could buy them from the little shop in the residence hall, but they had to jack up the price further to make money.

I guess is that what I am getting at is that even then, when they were freely available, they were kind of precious. And man, were they good. Perfect thing to dunk into your coffee or tea. Or, if you were feeling adventurous, you could go for a Tim Tam Slam.

They're made by Arnott's, which is roughly the Australian equivalent of Pepperidge Farm. That is to say, higher-end brand-name baked goods & treats that you can still find in most supermarkets. The appearance of luxury, but still affordable to most folks. Well, and they were pretty luxurious. Or at least, hella-good.

I suppose the appeal like Walker's Shortbread. You've got a tasty cookie [biscuit, whatever] that they don't make around here. I've always been drawn to new tastes, new flavors, especially if they evoke faraway places. And especially if I've been there.

Erin, friend & former roommate, developed a taste for McVitie's, which are an English "digestive biscuit" [read as:  cookie] widely available in Britain & Scotland. When I emailed her for the name of said treats, she said she'd now have to run out at and get some. She also said she'd have to get some Irn Bru , a Scottish soda, available only at a local import shop.

I've always had a penchant for groceries from other countries. La Buvette, besides being one of my favorite places to get a bite to eat, or a glass of wine, has a pretty extensive import grocery. When I was younger, I used to go in there and check out the [then] strange foods from other places. I pictured myself older, more worldly, drinking wine and knowing what I was talking about when I ordered it.

Likewise, when I lived in Lincoln, I made an occasional point of visiting Ideal Grocery, which was a cross between a local market & import grocery, and King Tut's, which was run by an older Egyptian man. It was my source for feta, frozen falafel mix, and cheap spices. Plus, they make a mean Baklava.

I suppose these things are a little less exotic as the world gets more connected. I've found Milo in Asian markets, and Vegemite at the local Cost Plus World Market. Pocky is available at both. Hell, if I want some Tim Tams, I can order them from an American company that specializes in Australian imports. Hell, they even sell Australian boots -- Rossi's to be specific -- with American sizes.

So, if you've ever envied my R.M.Williams boots, you can get some that are almost as good -- I'm being a boot snob here -- but that are considerably cheaper. Come to think of it, Blundstones sell their boots domestically, now. While I'm all for them expanding their market, it kind makes one more thing less exotic, makes the world just a little smaller. One more thing that was one foreign and strange that is now commonplace, or at least more common.

It's a bit inevitable, I suppose, what with globalization. Still, there's plenty of things that people here in Middle America have never been exposed to. I occasionally meet people who've never had Thai food, or Dim Sum. But, I do my best to introduce them, open their eyes, give them some new flavor.

Brain Dump

Stream of Consciousness links post today, folks:

First of all, I am super excited that Jonathan Lethem won a MacArthur Fellowship. Actually, check out his site, the front pages cycles through a number of different images each time you load it.

He's one of my favorite genre fiction writers, or perhaps cross-genre writer would be a better description. He's written a bizarre romance between a man, woman & a scientific anomaly. He's written the story of a teenage girl that is a frontier-environmental psychological novel that takes place on another planet -- that has deer the size of mice.

I really loved Motherless Brooklyn, which is the story of a detective with Tourette's, which is being made into a movie by Edward Norton, who will also be starring as Lionel. I don't know how many of you saw The Score, but I think he'll do a faithful, yet tasteful job of playing someone with Tourette's. It should be interesting since in the book Lionel is perfectly able to narrate to us in normal tones about what's going on & how he responds to his Tourette's. But the tics themselves are considerably harder to handle.

While I'm on the subject of movie adaptations, I'm quite interested in Steve Martin's Shopgirl. I liked the novella quite a bit. It reads a bit like Milan Kundera, but in an American style, that is to say, it's a bit lighter. Instead of being set against, say, the Prague Spring, this May to December romance/love triangle is set in New York at the end of the 90s. Plus it's got Jason Schwartzman & Claire Danes. [hawt]

I've also been fascinated by the combination of plotting information on to Google Maps. There's the obvious usefulness of posting real estate listings. There's the pure entertainment of mapping HotOrNot. And there's the strange mixture of the two when you start mapping sex offenders.

Maybe even better than Nixon Bowling, is the ability to check out Celebrities Playing Table Tennis. Man, I wish I had a table. I also wish I had the Achiever's Edition of the Big Lebowski, which is coming out the same time as LebowskiFest-NYC this year. Yes, I'm a big nerd for wanting to go, but I have a feeling that Jim and I will hit the road one of these days for some serious bowling/movie action.

The British Library has an online exhibit of really old books, like the Diamond Sutra and Alice's Adventures Underground. I found the pages kind of hard to turn, but you can also have the audio read to you while you check it out.

Ever wonder to yourself, "What should I read next?" Well, here's a collection of answers for you. Just enter the last book you read, or a favorite book, and it'll do the rest.

If you are a fan, you might want to listen to cover versions of songs by The Magnetic Fields. Even if you are not a fan.

According to Jeff Roland, Sam Jackson is going to star in a movie about Snakes on a Plane. Damn.

For you hipsters out there, check out the annotated lyrics to LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge." Follow along at home. Tell your friends. You were there.

Finally, Will bananas become extinct?

Write More

I've been a list-maker again lately, and near the top is getting back to writing. For myself, for public consumption, anything to get the old muscles working again.

I'm really interested in short fiction lately. New on my radar is 365 Tomorrows. I love it first & foremost because it's short sci-fi stories, different visions of the future. But it's also a collaborative writing project. Five writers got together [along with a web-savvy compatriot] and decided to publish one new short piece of fiction for a year. Ambitious, but not all that difficult. It just comes down to dedicating the time.

Of course, I'm a fan of McSweeneys, both internet & print editions. But for some reason, I've been neglecting The Believer online. And while I've been a fan for a while, I actually have some bizarre little story ideas that I need to work up & submit. While it would be neat to get a short on the website -- or on something like Fray -- the process is the important thing. Like Max, who decided that he was going to do a graphic novel & then a webcomic, the main thing came down to sitting down & drawing regularly until it was done.

And, oh yes, he also did a novel last November. Again, it's about putting in the time.

...

Speaking of putting in the time, Max and I have been talking about getting fat. About making excuses to write, draw, housekeep, drink, or anything but exercise. Granted, there is still yoga Monday nights, but my personal practice has suffered. Thankfully, Kat & Nick have been good at taking me up on bike-rides. Nick and I did nine or ten miles tonight, so that was really good.

But back to getting fat. I've weighed myself a couple of times in the last week, and it's come out to about 200 lbs. each time. Let me write that out, two hundred pounds. Now, this isn't a huge deal. [Pun not intended, but kept.] I eat fairly healthily, and I do keep active, but it is a big paradigm shift. I've hovered at about 165-170 since high school, when I topped out at 185 while taking weight training.

Granted, I've probably put on some muscle with yoga, but I think there's more to it than that. Seems to me it's a combination of increased muscle mass & then some poor choices in the past couple of months with regards to diet and my yoga practice.

But more than anything else, it's changing the idea of my body image. It's not just my pants that are shrinking, I'm coming in at two bills. And while that may be just what I weigh at this age, I can certainly be in better shape. So, time to replace the biscuits and gravy for breakfast [for only $1.50 at the shop across the street] with some fruit smoothies. Get rid of the candy & get some more dried fruit.

And oh yes, get on the bike & back on the mat.

When I'm not writing, that is.

Treasure Trove

Just got back from my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary party at my parents' house. Man, what a day. It went a lot longer than I had anticipated, but it was their day, so I have no complaints. The food was good, the company was better, and the memories were amazing.

For starters, I found my grandparents' old 8mm projector and a whole bunch of old family home movies. And yes, they are movies and not videos. So, we sat back with the clickety-clack of an old projector, some golden oldies on the stereo, and watched some old films.

We started with some old vacation shots, trips to Minnesota, back before my parents were dating, to some places I've never been, much less heard of. Films of my mom, my uncle, their parents, and their dogs -- half Chihuauas. Pretty much a trip.

The real gems were the films of 'XMAS 1962,' my dad & uncle's state championship for baseball, and my mom's senior prom. The Christmas film was pretty amazing, as there were all sorts of great aunts & uncles, some of whom are dead. There was also footage of my great-grandpa Frank, who I've heard about but never really seen before.

Then there was seeing my mom as a teenager, and a prom queen no less, on a date with some guy who was not my father. My dad was on the same reel, as he was the same age as my uncle Joe, Mom's bro. There's mom in a prom dress with long white gloves. There's my dad at about fifteen or sixteen in a black suit with a skinny black tie. And there's my grandma with 60s glasses and a killer lavender dress.

It was really amazing. I've never been much for home movies, but then I never knew these existed. It's one thing to see pictures of your parents as kids, but another thing altogether to see them getting ready for dates, fishing, or playing ball. It was amazing to watch them as they saw people they hadn't seen in years, sometimes struggling for names, sometimes instantly transported as the faces reminded them of other stories.

I'd really like to restore these old films, maybe transfer them to DVD for the rest of the family. As for me, I'd rather keep the old school projector and make that part of the experience. There's something about the medium that has it's own charm.

Furthermore, my Aunt Karan -- dad's sister -- was reminded of some old films from her mom & dad, both of whom have passed on. She doesn't even know what was on them, and had no way to know until now. So, that's another exciting development.

And, for what it's worth, I hope to find the old camera and maybe shoot some footage myself. I never put much stock into home movies before. However, there is something about it, about knowing that your parents were once your age, that they were young & beautiful, that they partied hard in their own way.

And there's the simplicity of how it can bring back memories. I don't have any home videos from my childhood, not that I regret not having them. But I think there is something to be said for preserving. Not spending all your time trying to capture every memory, but for saving a choice few & letting time dictate what memories it will bring back.

The Process

UPDATE -- I totally forgot to include Podcasting in my original post. I've given Kate & Cliff a shout before for Prerelease and for Cliff's new 'cast Thrift Store Vinyl, but they really belong in the list below, so I'll put them between #2 and #3.

So, I've been on a pretty serious music kick after the faint show tuesday night at Sokol. Like Sonali says, it's the start to the fall concert season. We've got some pretty amazing acts coming through, including:  Aqualung, Built to Spill, Sleater-Kinney, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Decemberists, John Vanderslice, Atmosphere, Of Montreal, Sage Francis, and Sufjan Stevens. If only I could get my hands on his records. They're still having trouble getting the disc at my favorite Omaha record store.

Regardless, I'm back in love with music & checking out all sorts of things right now. I was thinking I'd explain my process, since not everyone cruises the interweb as much as me.

1) Listen to the internet radio. I recommend 3wk, KEXP [out of Seattle], and Indie Pop Rocks! [on SomaFM]. 3wk will give you artist/song information in iTunes, and all three stations have a log of recent songs on their respective websites, and 3wk even has a download section. I'm also a fan of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, for their willingness to play indie rock, reggae, classic bowie, or whatever. Their live sets are also pretty great.

2) You can also start at an mp3 site, like my friend David's site largeheartedboy, fluxblog, or teaching the indie kids to dance again. [Or new today, Benn loxo du taccu - an African music mp3 blog.]

2.5) [Thanks to Brendan, Apologies to K/C] If you haven't already, check out podcasting, which is all the rage. Just ask Kate & Cliff, who do Prerelease and Solid State: Thrift Store Vinyl. You can find both shows and others on Odeo. There's also plenty of other sites [like Mashup of the Week] & the new built-in Podcast section of iTunes 4.9. You don't need an iPod to check them out. You can download them to your computer. It's kinda like underground radio for the interweb.

3) You can check out music review sites like Tiny Mix Tapes, or the pundits at Pitchfork. Take it all with a grain of salt. It's just opinion, after all. Some of it is just entertaining, and some of it is  really overblown.

4) So, a song or band has grabbed you, or at the very least, peaked your interest. You can check out Epitonic to find out a little more about the band, and maybe grab either the song on mp3 [if you heard it on the radio] or another song or two, if you liked what you heard. There's also Insound, which is organized a little differently, but allows you to cruise mp3s and also buy the CD pretty cheap from them, at a price close to what the indie labels charge to sell it themselves, and usually cheaper than Amazon. Usually.

4b) [Amended] There's also emusic, who allow you to buy mp3s that are DRM-free. That means they'll play on your computer, ipod, or any other mp3 player. I believe that both Max and Lindsy have tried it out, and liked it enough to subscribe.

5) So now you've got some new music, you'll probably want to make yourself a little mix and try it out on your favorite mp3 player, or in your car. iTunes is still my weapon of choice when it comes to music management/cd burning.

Like Rob Fleming in High Fidelity, I think there's an art to making a mixtape. [That's the book, not the movie, tho that was good, too.] But if it's just new music, throw it on a mix and see what happens.

While I hear a lot of music at work, I don't really listen to it until I'm in my car, or otherwise able to give it more attention. Sometimes it takes years for me to really hear an album, or a lyric. Then again, like with most art, you generally don't hear a lyric or have the line of a poem jump out at you until you are ready. After all, we re-read ourselves every time we go back through a book.

Holtmann/Norris Wedding Photos

Finally, after much ado [& organizing & minor editing], I give you the photos from Mike & Abby's Wedding [Flickr Album]. It was one hell of a time, and I documented quite a bit of it. I've never been much of a photo-guy, but maybe that's just because I've never had a camera that I really loved. I inherited some lenses & flashes from my dad, which I use with an old Canon AE-1, but even that hasn't gotten the use that my new little digital camera has. I do like the way it shoots black & white, tho.

But back to the wedding week & weekend...

It was really about hanging out with the people. Obviously, getting to see Mike & Abby is a treat. Like a lot of my out-of-town friends, I'm lucky to see them once a year. We had some good drinking time the first night I got there, and throughout the trip. Belgian Ales were the preferred beverage, and I can't think of the Belgian White Ale that Brandon loved so much. Anyone else remember?

Ahh, Brandon. One of Mike's cronies from high school after he transferred from North to Bryan. I've met Brandon a few times, and we crossed paths a couple of years ago when he was selling advertising for a local television station, and I was the one who got to listen to sales pitches for the office. Lucky me. Brandon was also in Boy Scouts with Mike.

There's also Eric, who went to school with both Brandon & Mike. All three of them were in Boy Scouts together. Staying with me so far? Good. Now's the part where it gets inbred. Eric and I were good friends in Jr. High. We were both soccer players & on Math Team, in computer programming together, and running in the honors clique.

That's right, we were nerds together.

Rounding out the male end of the wedding party was Benjy Kahn. I've met Benjy before, too, but it's been years. And there's been plenty of changes in all our lives in the meantime. Great to swap stories with a fellow wit, and a fellow Benjamin. As if that wasn't enough, there was Ben Williams from South Africa [and his wife Jhoti], who win the furthest travel award, I think.

Met lots of other people, but these were my boys, the ones with whom I spent the most time. And an excellent time was had by all. But I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

...

Tech Stuff for anyone who cares, as in not many of you:  There's a great iPhoto Export to Flickr Plug-in that made this whole process easier. Seems there's also a Standalone Upload Utility for OSX [10.3] For you PC Users out there, there is also a Flickr Uploader for Windows XP [download link here], as well as one for Windows 2000, ME and 98 [download link here], or you can just check them all out at the Flickr Upload Tools Page.

I'll probably put the photos up here on the old Typepad site in a bit, as I've got a bit more versatility in displaying photos here. Flickr's just so damn easy to upload, though! The site also lets you blog photos, so we'll see whether I can turn that into an easy way to create an album here. We'll see...

Mini Me & Mama Mia

It's been one hell of a long time since I used a Macintosh at work. Like maybe five years. It's been tough, die-hard Apple-fan that I am. Well that all changed last week as the new server arrived at work. And by server, I mean Mac Mini & Macintosh Panther Server Software, all of which cost me slightly less than the Microsoft server software alone. Needless to say, I'm pretty freaking stoked.

Look, it's so pretty. That is to say, pretty freaking small. It's as powerful as my desktop, if not moreso, and it's like 1/16 of the size. Granted, there's a lot of air inside my PC, not to mention dust, and that's the main difference. I'm not going to rave too much, because there's not too much difference in the applications I use at work, especially since I've been pushing Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice at work. But there are some subtle differences, like iPhoto, that I'm really enjoying.

Not to mention that I own a much newer legit version of Photoshop than the one that I have on my PC [try Photoshop 5 LE, that came with a scanner], so I can do some pretty powerful stuff. Just moving from the scanner edition to a full version is big, not to mention jumping a couple of generations. Woot. I'll be posting on b3ta in no time!

I mean, not at work. Of course not.

It seems like it's been forever since I've posted. Been to a couple of weddings in the meantime. Mike & Abby's and Ian & Sarah's. Photos will be forthcoming, both in album form here & on my Flickr account. Mike & Abby's wedding was quite the event -- not only because I was in the wedding, but because I spent a week [and around a thousand dollars] whooping it up in the windy city. Gawddamn that was a good time. Put my shiny new digital camera to work.

I also ate ridiculously good food -- large amounts of it -- and returned with lots of new things to cook, some of which I et, and some of which I done just thought up. Yessum I did. Spicy Falafel after having it at Sultan's. Flaming cheese after having it at The Parthenon. And of course, deep dish pizza from Giordano's. Although, Max just told me that you can get UNO pizza at Hy-Vee.

Dat's what I'm talkin' about.