Saturday, October 25, 2008

Yogis for Obama

In New York this weekend, visitng my family...

The yoga studio I frequent in the city is called Laughing Lotus, and I like it, because in a city full of McYogas, it's easy to feel lost in the shuffle. Laughing Lotus is small enough to feel like a community, without losing any sense of legitimacy. The walls are bright pink and orange, and they have tea and cookies as you leave. Classes--vinyasa style (which links breath to movement and is often very flowy, moving at a faster pace) are challenging, and incorporate a refreshing variety of the more spiritual aspects of the practice--mantras (chanting in Sanskrit), pranayama (breathing) and meditation. Parker Posey does yoga here too, but whatever, in New York we don't care about famous people.

Before the practice started, our instructor, Alison, told us how one of her favorite students called her the other evening, saying, "I'm sitting in a bar eating a hamburger and drinking a martini...am I still on the path?"

It was nice, she was like "Do you think you're still on the path? If you think you're on the path, then you're on the path, you know, you take it step by step and learn to let go of things in your life when you're ready to. I smoked for two years and, you know, it was fun, but eventually I was like 'Fun? Or killing myself slowly?' So I quit. You do what you can."

Also, I've noticed that they "Om" louder in New York than they do in Baltimore.

At the 12:00 pm class (yoga is the perfect pre-brunch activity...as Christopher Hitchens says, one of the best parts of working out is the way a cocktail tastes after you're finished) on Saturdays, all proceeds go to benefit a certain cause. Most often, these causes are charities, they pick a new one every month. This month all proceeds go to benefit Barack Obama's campaign.

!

It's quite controversial (I told some Baltimore yogini friends and they were shocked...oh you New Yorkers, you're so openly liberal). But Alison did well tying in the spiritual with the political.

In order to make a lasting CHANGE in your life, it's necessary to make space for the new by letting go of the old. Every four years it becomes necessary to throw out the old administration in order to make room for the new one--we can't have two presidents, now can we? We have no problem doing this--esPECially this year. Yet why do we, Alison asked, in our quest to make change, insist on holding on to elements of the past--relationships, habits, past experiences, burgers and martinis--we no longer need?

Laughing Lotus's website tells us more:
Yogis and Hindus alike invoke and honor the elephant headed Ganesha at the beginnings of rituals and other undertakings. As many of us here in the U.S. seek new beginnings through voting in the upcoming election, we too ask for Ganesha's blessings as October's Love Saves The Day benefits the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Senator Obama embodies many values that yogis too embrace: compassion, honesty, and economic and social justice. Like yogis, he too seeks moksha, or liberation, though of a different kind. As he has said: "Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction." Obama advocates a yogic equanimity that is responsive rather than reactionary, and a humane morality, one that is not lost even in the face of fears about global politics and material well-being.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

On the Corner of Roland and 34th

Last week's sign:
DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU WERE BORN?
TRY BEING BORN AGAIN

Thursday, October 9, 2008

iTunes "Genius": Genius?

Usually I ignore those auto-update-install-latest-version-of windows on my computer, but in the interest of CHANGE, I recently decided to embrace progression and outfit my little white laptop with all the shiniest new accouterments.

Everything changed!! Here's iTunes:

CDs as crazy boxes (iTunes calls this "Grid View") and all sorts of confusing sidebars. But arguably the most alarming new feature, and the one that's garnered most of my attention since, is what Apple likes to call "Genius". Modest, Steve.

You select a song and, genius that it is, it creates a playlist--just for you. Like a glorified Pandora, but one you can skip through and modify at will.

So what I've noticed, is Genius is pretty good with the easy ones: Rilo Kiley's "More Adventurous" sets me up with a bunch of alt-folk-rock:"Scythian Empires" by Andrew Bird, Brandi Carlile's "Throw It All Away", and "Mr. Ambulance Driver" by the Flaming Lips--which was great, because that's an album I'll usually pass over. So yes, well done Genius.

But I believe this could be because I have much of this kind of music in my library.

And of course, my goal is to out-genius Genius.

Youssou N'Dour, anyone? I highlight "4-4-44" off his "Rokku Mi Rokka". And, well, touche, I guess. Genius says, "Here are all the songs I recongize in your library that are sung in a different language." The West African Duo Amadou & Miriam, N'Dour's "Egypt", some of Seu Jorge from the Life Aquatic soundtrack, and a few from Milton Nascimento.

I'm not super impressed. I mean...duh, Genius.

What will Genius do when I throw it one of my favorite songs of the past year: Amy Winehouse's "Valerie" off of Mark Ronson's "Version"? Fairly mainstream duo, fantastic song...and Gasp! I get a cautionary exclamation point:

"Genius is unavailable for the song 'Valerie'
Choosing Update Genius from the Store menu will update your Genius results. If, after updating, iTunes is still unable to identify this track, please choose another song or artist."

I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but I think it wants me to buy something. No way, Genius. I'm disappointed in you.

Anyway, blog-followers, throw some super ridiculous Genius playlists at me.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The Blind Boys of Alabama with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band

DC -- grandiose headquarters of our nation that it is -- often alienates me with its too-wide sidewalks and homogeneous, politically-themed, business-casual dinner crowd...

...But I think the Kennedy Center is one of the most beautiful venues in the world to enjoy live music.

And putting some down-home-and-dirty gospel dixieland jazz on that stage will drag me in from Baltimore on an over-priced Amtrak train just to see what happens.

Sunday, August 29th marked the DC leg of the "Down By The Riverside" tour, featuring The Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, from New Orleans, Louisiana.

It was a musical jaunt, to say the least. PHJB played the first set, then the Blind Boys, then a soul-lifting encore of, what else, "Down By the Riverside". The show started promptly at 7:00 pm, and was over by 9:30, as promised... another reason I appreciate the Kennedy Center--punctuality.

The Kennedy Center Playbill calls the music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band music "timeless", but I disagree. I think it transports us back to a New Orleans that was still more synonymous with Mardi Gras than Katrina. The tapes to their most recent album were partially lost in the storm, moving the group to name it "The Hurricane Sessions".

Joe Lastie, Jr. on drums, reminded me of an octopus. Frank Demond on T-bone has played for 40 years with the PHJB (I liked his red socks). Big man Walter Payton, on bass, sat back all casual-like until he came up to the mic to sing a song about shimmying... and shimmy he did.
Clint Maedgen on alto sax had the most delicious voice of the lot--he sang like a sax. And Ben Jaffee, director, on the sousaphone, the son of the original owners of Preservation Hall (one of whom was the original tuba player), who won my "best hair" award of the evening -- a giant, bouncy, white man's afro. He also had the best bounce.

"How many of y'all been to Mardi Gras in N'Awlins?" trumpeter/vocalist Joe Braud asked before their final number. A bunch of people clapped and "Woo"'ed. "Well for those of you who haven't, I'm gonna take you there right now." And so proceeded an "As the Saints Go Marching In" parade around the concert hall. Yep, they got the mostly-geriatric and rhythm-impaired audience up and dancin'.

The Blind Boys (whose Baltimore connection I'm sure we're all familiar with) give me goosebumps. I became a fan after their joint album with Ben Harper, "There Will Be a Light," which remains one of my favorite albums, and features one of my favorite songs.

Once five and now only three, they've been together since 1939, when they met at the age of 10 in a school for the blind. On Sunday they came out in those fantastic red suits (suits you'd wear to gospel church on Sunday in the deep South), sunglasses on and smiling, hands on each others' shoulders, being led onstage by their bodyguard and sighted band members. "We wanna make a joyful noise tonight!" said group leader Jimmy Carter.

"Down in New Orleans" is their new album, and it features the boys of Preservation Hall, hence the decision to tour with them.

Their first number was "People Get Ready," which won them their first grammy. And, well, damn. Them blind boys can harmonize.

The two groups--gutteral gospel and toe-tapping dixieland jazz--came together through their enthusiasm to spread joy and get people out of their seats. "We can't build your house back," said Blind Boy Carter, owner of perhaps the most adorable raspy old-man chuckle in the world, to the N'Awlins Jazz Band, "We can't use a hammer and a nail, 'cause we the Blind Boys of Alabama... but we can give you hope."