Solstice Yoga Playlist
I’ve gone back and forth about using music in class — I did some for a few years, then none for a handful, now I’m back to using it more often than not. It has a big influence on the vibe of the class and I contend it should be used judiciously. I tend to choose music that is not particularly “yoga music” except for some mantra versions that are awfully nice. Rebecca liked my 1st day of Hanukkah playlist so much that she asked me to post it. Here you go (and stop by class through the New Year and you can hear it yourself):
Once — again
I had the opportunity to see the New York Theatre Workshop staging of Once, a play based on the John Carney film starring Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. I went in thinking it unusual for an adaptation to buck the more typical play-to-film route. It turns out lots of films turn into plays (if you don’t believe me, look here), and interestingly musicals are often the ones to do it. This production, directed by John Tiffany, uses Hansard and Irglova’s songs in a book written by Enda Walsh and boasts a cast of superb singers and musicians led by a convincingly brooding Steve Kazee and truly charming Cristin Milioti.
The leads, who have the same generic names, “Guy” and “Girl,” as in the movie, sang the daylights out of the hit songs that made the movie’s soundtrack, including “Falling Slowly,” which won the 2008 Oscar for best song (here’s this production’s version as an MP3).
The live conversion brought delicious treats, including watching the performers knock out flawless instrumental performances while singing in character (the cast is the only orchestra), and a clever use of supertitles to reverse translate English lines into the Czech the Girl’s family would naturally have been speaking; and I couldn’t resist the offer to walk up onto the beautiful bar room set to order a pre-show Guinness from the set bar. The smooth incorporation of dance and instrumental performance kept making me forget that this was also classic American musical theatre until the “numbers” were underway. The entire supporting cast was a pleasure to watch, with Elizabeth A. Davis shining as the siren who “seduces men for fun” when she’s not wielding a mean fiddle and David Patrick Kelly leading a pre-show hootenany that had us all toe-tapping as we found our seats.
The story of Once translated beautifully in this production, its tale of frustrated artistry and the force of love was moving and inspiring with a purity that invites the rare sincere use of the word “sweet.”
The run at NYTW was extended through January 15, and the production moves to Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on February 28.
Overdue film review: Bread and Tulips
I’ve loved Bruno Ganz since Wings of Desire became my favorite movie. This little 2000 gem has sat in our Netflix cue for months and I finally got to it tonight. What a joy of a film, though the initial motivation of the plot is — oddly — simply implied. A life-affirming call to joy like Shirley Valentine starring Ganz and Licia Maglietta, and the most realistic stereotypes I’ve seen. Enjoy Pane e Tulipani.
A transcendent idea about the arts
Occupy What?
I hear a lot of people of all political persuasions expressing frustration or even disdain for those in the occupy movement and it’s “lack of message.” I believe that lack of message allows for a breath in the endless political posturing that keeps us in such a rigid stalemate. Some patience with what the occupiers are bringing us could yield some fascinating new ways of thinking. One such example is from filmmakers Velcrow Ripper and Ian MacKenzie, which may seem naive at first but has a very substantive core message: a purchasing society does not need community and community is what is missing in America; love is a value as much as currency. Take a breath and allow in some alternative viewpoints.
no thought for the day
i am in the only place at the only time doing the only thing
A poem for the debt crisis
On the subway today,
An Asian woman notates a score, five or more parts, perhaps a symphony;
The woman of color in the green hoodie is mixing a poem about a French kiss, no doubt tasted in Brooklyn;
Two business people leaning against the don’t-lean door are discussing a reading of the one’s play — it was just a reading, she apologizes, though he is nonetheless impressed;
The nondescript young man against the railing caresses the head of an electric guitar case leaning lovingly against his belly;
I begin a poem on my way to teach yoga class.
There is no decrease in the importance of culture in the budget of my world.
Here are the keepers of the flame of our civilization, like yogis dispelling darkness in a lineage back to the gods;
They continue their work of non-market-value and offer us more than patriotic consumption…
more than brand-name poetry;
The creative abundance of the universe
flows from the riders
on the subway today.
by Peter Ferko
October 5, 2011
for the 20th time
just viewed High Art…again
Still love it after all these years. One of my favorite lines of all time:
Cyd: You look so serious
Lucy: I look serious?
Cyd: Yeah
Lucy: Well…I’m kinda hot…that’s kinda serious
Love you Lisa Cholodenko!
I need a laugh
I believe people are writing LOL when they are not actually laughing out loud. If the usage were an accurate reflection of the act, I am quite certain I would be hearing more laughter everywhere. Perhaps we need a less dramatic, but more honest acronym, for example, one of these: STM, NL, CAB, GAL.