There are plenty of stiff days when I'm forced to think of this idea of effort on my first forward bend. Heck, there are days when just getting out of bed takes effort, right?
And the warrior poses, because of their relative simplicity, give us a chance to explore the various textures of effort we can bring to our practice, our everyday lives and even getting out of bed.
"Effort" traditions:
In Ashtanga Yoga, the idea of effort is embodied in the first two limbs of Patanjali's 8 fold path--Yama and Niyama can be roughly understood as: effort and relaxation. This also corresponds to the 6th step in the Buddhist "Noble Eight Fold Path," "right effort." While Pantanjali takes a more restrictive and arguably more ascetic approach than the Buddha's "Noble 8 fold path," the basic idea is the same: do things that create a life conducive to a experiencing fulfillment: a peaceful, non-violent, healthy mind and body.
"The sudden flash is a key to all Buddhist meditation, from the level of basic mindfulness to the highest levels of tantra. But it is not enough just to hope that a flash will come to us; there must be a background of discipline."
In other words, you won't find instant enlightenment for sale at the bookstore or at those expensive spiritual retreats. If you want to experience the peace, health, stillness, and special insight of the present moment, available through yoga, you have to make the effort to create the right conditions for it.
But while these paths usually deal with WHAT we should be directing our effort to, in order to create those conditions, I'm interested in HOW we exert that effort. As it turns out, it seems that the "WHAT": and the "HOW" might be the same thing....
Nope, not yoga shoes, just old friends made new again.
In our modern disposable economy, when things go bad we're supposed to "GO SHOPPING!"
But hiring a professional from my community to repair a well-made pair of old shoes gave me an opportunity to make a mindful choice toward non-violent foot-wear.
These particular old friends were a conscious buy from the start. They were well-made shoes in a classic style that never gets old. But more importantly, they're the flat, hard, thin-soled shoes that Alexander teachers and yoga teachers alike, both recommend. Yes, I paid a little extree for them at the time, but it was worth it to know they weren't made by child-laborers in Thailand. And that all that is difficult to find in today's current fashion market.
By choosing to repair old shoes instead of buying new, I: --opted out of an industry that depletes our resources and puts children to work in sweatshops over-seas. --strengthened my community by giving my money to a local professional who takes pride in his work. --helped my feet by stepping into a comfortable pair of shoes that are already broken-in, and perfect for my feet. --made 1 happy cow.
And all for the low price of $45! That's a huge savings! And now they look more beautiful than ever for the careful, hand-care they received--it's quality that shoes, I mean shows.
A new pair of shoes has never made me so happy, not to mention my community, my planet and my feet.
Because it's relatively simple, the warrior poses are excellent poses for experiencing this connection to that grounding energy.
So it's no wonder to me that the "Warior" asanas are named after the demon Virabhadra, as this grounding energy, not to mention that well-developed lower body strength has long been prized by martial artists, bar-room brawlers and competitive athletes.
That "energy" is how we experience the "structure" and the "power triangle" defense teacher Mark "Amimal" MacYoung talks about in his books on violence:
Let us categorically state: Martial arts poses were developed to create structure. If these poses are correctly taken, the body's own skeleton, tendons, joints and muscles will "lock into place." When this occurs your momentum will be delivered into your opponent.
As an aside, while MacYoung seems to be an expert on hurting people, his approach is about as "non-violent" a fighting method as you'll find--deglorifying violence and the "hero" mentality and emphasizing avoiding it instead.
And while we're on the subject of expert people hurting, I have to mention competitive fighter Benny "the Jet" Urquidez (why is it that hurting people earns you a cool nick name?) While I now have trouble with any sport that glorifies violence, Benny's body intelligence is masterful, and images of him in action have deepened my understanding of this grounding energy. If you don't mind the violence (after all, Virabhadra wasn't exactly all bubble gum and roses)here's one of the less violent clips of Benny available on youtube. Check out this "structure" he always comes back to--that's our "warrior" pose, no?
Feeling it:
Here are some tips that have helped me get in touch with this grounding energy:
The wall.
1. Breath. Take a high warrior position (like Benny in the video) with the front foot about an inch from a wall. 2. Allow your back leg to bend a little (which helps to feel the flow of energy) and let your upper body feel relaxed. 3. Breath. Relax. 4. Place your hand against the wall like an open handed "punch." Push. As you push against the wall, you may first feel your core tighten into a relaxed toned condition and your posture adjust appropriately to convey the force from your body into the wall. This will be your ideal posture for virabhadrasana. 5. Once your core is engaged and your body stops shifting, you will start to notice that same energy transmitting directly from your feet, (probably especially the back foot) into the wall.
Yes, this may all seem very mundane at first: "I'm pushing the wall and I feel the force in my body, so?" Well, yes, it's very mundane, but this experience is putting you in touch with you innate kinesthetic intelligence and focusing on this transference of energy has brought great mindfulness to my yoga practice.
In Virabhadrasana.
Now that your on your mat, how to cultivate this feeling in the pose? This helps me: 1. Visualize doing your warrior in the ocean with a giant wave approaching you. Take your pose and then strongly visualize that wave pushing you, let your body prep for the wave and direct that energy into the ground. Again you should feel your core and your essential protecting musculature energizing and your non-necessary muscles relaxing. Now rise up from that rooting energy and make sure to keep your torso erect. That's how I find my ideal warrior.
2. If you want to get into the spirit of Virabhadra, you can also visualize enemies pushing you from all sides--don't let them push you around! Let your body prep for it. But hey! Most importantly, relax and remember to treat those imaginary peeps with compassion!
3. Take a Tai chi class, especially one that does "push hands" practice. Tai chi and yoga are very complementary, to me. And "push hands is all about feeling the flow of this energy (again, look for the "warrior" poses:)
In the Hindu philosophy of yoga, all living beings have a vital energy force called "prana."
As someone with a rationalist temperament, I was a long-time "prana" skeptic. I don't like to believe in things that can't be proven to me with scientific methods. To me, it's a dangerous road, choosing to believe something simply because you want to: once you start making those leaps of faith, where do you stop?
So as I studied "prana" or it's apparent taoist counterpart "chi," I was frustrated to find these systems of "energy" and their explanations frequently contradictory and unsatisfactory. For example, there doesn't seem to be much consistency between the different kinds of "prana," what they do and how they relate to the "elements."
But for me, this remains: the reported experience of so many sensitive yogis and sages, with highly cultivated body awareness. And I have my own experiments with their teachings and so I have my own direct experience with some small part of this "prana" or "chi."
When my practice is good and I'm really in my body and aware of the flow of energy, strange things happen. This is a silly example, but, I'll go to open a heavy door and before I even I touch it, I get an intuitive sense of the door's energy. I'll feel my own energy connect with and, through me, connect downward to the earth and like an electric shock, straight from my hips, when those energies connect the door seems to fly open without feeling like I even moved my hand. It feels like the energy pushed the door. As if there were no muscular effort involved. When I'm that aware, everything feels well-coordinated, smooth, effortless and even a little "magical:" getting in the car, eating, walking and yes, yoga. To the rationalist in me, that "energy" sense is my kinesthetic body-intelligence crunching a bunch of numbers on the mechanics of opening the door, and then conveying that info to my conscious mind in a way it understands: "energy." It's a very real phenomenon. And that physical/mechanical intelligence is just one kind "energy" I've learned to experience in such a real, tangible way.
So it's easy for me to see how these great yogis and sages could reason by analogy and translate their profound experience into the accepted "scientific" language of their day.
From my theosophic world-view, I've learned to accept their intuitive experience of "prana" as truth and appreciate that our human intuition and body intelligence does not speak to us in "ohms," "torque" or "normal force" but instead in this more mysterious kinesthetic language of "energy."
For me, giving up trying to understand this energy and put labels on it and just accepting it has added a real beauty and utility to my practice.
...because “warrior” sounds nicer than “demon,” doesn’t it?
The warrior asanas, "Virabhadrasana" were named in honor of Virabhadra, the big ugly, googly eyed demon/warrior who wore severed human heads to Dahksa’s sacrifice party. He was conjured by a pissed off Shiva for one purpose alone:
To kick ass.
So to me, Warrior is an excellent representation of grounded earth energy at it’s fullest extreme: fierceness, stubbornness, getting things done, kicking ass and taking names all without breaking a sweat.
You don't get the "fierceness?" Just stay in warrior 2 for 5 minutes.
Still don't get it? Commit to a another 25.
In our western tradition, it could be represented by Taurus, the bull. It is grounded energy, sensual and earthy, body-centered in rest, possibly stubborn, but you know what happens when you piss off a bull?
The warrior poses are an excellent way to get in touch with that same physical-mechanical energy in a very direct physical way and learn a little about our human mechanical instincts and kinesthetic intelligence. And in turn, a deeper connection with that grounding energy can bring greater awareness into your warrior poses and the rest of your practice.
For more on the Siva-lore on Virabhadra:
1. A nice excerpt from the Srimad-Bhagavatam, 4:5:3-17 can be found here. 2. A nice overview including more excerpts can be found here
This week I started a new element to my practice, to set goals toward deepening my understanding, awareness and refinement in specific poses. Toward that goal, I named this week "warrior week."
So I set out to seek refinement in my warriors and I started researching...
and I started taking notes.
And then I realized, I have been writing about my yoga practice for almost 15 years. occasionally when I look at those notes, I'm often surprised to find them interesting: sometimes as personal progress markers, other times because of how boldly wrong those notes seem, and sometimes the notes serve of excellent reminders of tips and lessons, and finally, occasionally I'm surprised by the wisdom I found in the the simple practice of yoga.
And then it occurred to me that these notes might be interesting to someone else too.
So without further ado, Warrior Week, notes on the "Warriors."
Some say it’s “controlling,” controlling the body with the mind or controlling suffering, pain or desire. It’s taking control of your life with discipline. To yoke suffering and ride it out of town, John Wayne style. Samurai style.
And yeah, the classic texts, the yoga sutras and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika are filled with that: abstentions, observations, controlling the breath controlling the mind, controlling the body: no stuff, no wanting, no senses, no sex (yikes!)
I’m sure somebody needs that, but I think I’ve already got enough coercion in my life.
Others say forget the yoke, forget the control, yoga is joy. It’s ananda, samadhi, bliss. So says Steve Ross, and he’s bad-ass. So says Pantanjali and well, he’s the “father of yoga.”
And, I kind of like that: “yoga” as this bubble of love and light where pain and suffering become meaningless. And I don’t doubt that it’s possible. I’ve known people who were there in one fashion or another. And hell, I’m sure yoga can get you there a lot safer than heroin or crack can.
But I’ve got rent to pay. And whether I’m strung out smack or a love and light trip I don’t think you want me driving. Anyway, I don't think that's what Steve Ross wants me to do either.
So that brings me here: Yoga is joining.
Here’s how I take it, whether it’s joining “earth and heaven,” “Ha” (sun) and “tha” (moon, gives you “hatha”) or yin and yang…
for me it’s about finding your balance.
Heaven energy, or sky, or mind can take you anywhere. It can take you on the love and light trip or to a union with god or exploring infinite internal metaphors of creation—and I don’t doubt that they’re every bit as real and meaningful as my thumb is. And there is infinite wisdom there, yes…
but it won’t wash my dishes.
Or feed me, (unless I’m a real scoundrel—there are plenty in the world today who think they can buy wisdom and just as many who are willing to sell it.)
Anyway, paying the rent takes body. It takes earth. It takes learning to recognize a grounded energy that means you’re right here right now. And to me, “yoga’ teaches us to bring that infinite mind into the grounded now, with just the right balance, anytime you need it.
Now that’s wisdom I can use to pay my rent, wash my dishes and feed myself.
Quick, think fast: you’re in warrior 2 pose. Your arms are killing you and your front leg is starting to tremble. Where do you go? Up into your head, into the love and light trip? Do you “deaden the senses” and swim of into a sea of never-ending bliss?
Quick think again: your family is in crisis, a loved one has died, a friend is in danger, you lost your job, your family needs you… Where do you go? Up into the heavens? Union with god? That sea of never ending bliss?
Or do you come back to the mat? Do you explore the infinite inside this moment? You feel the grounded prana (energy) connecting from foot to foot and up your spine, supporting your shoulders, and that red fiery energy of lactic acid buildup warming your muscles? Do you live in that breath, the basic pulse of life and explore that wisdom inherent in the now? Do you bring that creative mind together with the creating energy of body?
And yeah, what you learn from that moment and what you need to learn will be different for everyone, and every moment: sometimes it’s a shot of bliss, others need a pint of control, sometimes it’s a little abandon and others a little discipline but there’s a joining together that means balance and for me that’s “yoga.”
It’s an exotic sounding word for a simple thing: be in your body, right now. Learn.
At least that’s what I’m trying to do.
NOTE: the Perry Ferrel picture is a postcard for sale at gorey details. And yes, it's very cool.
For the time, I'd like to use this blog to post my thoughts on my own yoga practice. I'll be posting my current journal as well as some writings going back about 15 years come April 22nd.
Hopefully, what will follow will be a journal of my own personal theosophical experiments with different yoga traditions including asana practices, "meditiation," diet and other elements of "yoga" practice and related traditions.
When I started this blog, I believed in being honest, even if it meant being irresponsible. I've learned that's a sort of violence.
Or rather, I still think that one should be outrageously and irresponsibly honest, but one should be compassionate in doing so, and not violent, as I have often been. I've made fun of people's beliefs, trinkets, religions and their dreams of meaning. Shame on me.
I was not skillful.
Use effects function. What "use" have I practiced here?
So here let the Dude lie in peace. I'll let this blog stand as a tribute to things I thought, and how my society taught me to say them.
I often said them badly. I've disrespected my readers with hasty writing and careless speling.
So, Please be compassionate with me should you read something here that immaturity moved me to write. Especially if you happen to be reviewing me for employment at your fine fast food establishment, or the Nobel Peace Prize or some such thing.
I am in the process of creating a few other web pages (perhaps one will be a blog....) that I'll post the addresses to soon.
Noun 1. An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something. (material copied from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913))
This is the kind of ambition I'm talking about. Not something exclussive to the clowns on the Apprentice. "an eager desire for... something."
I think that if we're honest we all cary around an image of who we want to be. That includes a desire for... "something." Right? The problem is why do you want it? Sometimes the answer is easy. I want to eat because I'm hungry. But sometimes the answer is more difficult. That's becuase the value is symbolic to us not utilitarian. And that's what I mean by "meaning" in life. Not some grandious concept, but simple symbolic "meaning" we assign to the things we want. The mundane thing I think all of us deal with when we look for a new car or a job or a house.
And that's the relation between Ambition and Religion. Both are a matter of believing in something that can't be proven. A leap of faith. It's about believing in something because we WANT to, not becuase it's true. Both are symptoms of the same human need: for meaning.
"Eat up up Timmy, your poo is getting cold." "Ok, mom." "And Timmy! don't you put your fork down on that table! You mind your manners and thrust that fork back into your bloddy eye socket where it belongs!" "Awe, do I have to?" "Timmy, you don't give your Mother guff!" Said Dad. "Timmy, you know that bloody oozing eyeballs are a proud tradition with the men in this family."
The flesh burning hot coals were particularly flesh-burningly-hot that morning on the way to the "Plato School of Coal Mining and Personal Dismemberment." The smell of his burning callases wisked TImmy away to a magical place in his memory. He thought of the day when his grandfather came up from the mine amid a pirade of flesh searing, moans and dancing ponies. Timmy admired his grandfather's devotion to duty. As was expected, after a life of toiling for the Lizard Man boss, Gramps severed all of his limbs but his left leg and hobbled out of the mine to present them to the Boss. Someday Timmy hoped to make the family proud: somehow he'd find a way to even chop off his left leg: now that would really be something.
A few years ago, the family wasn't so sure about Timmy's father. He went through a rough period where he got into some trouble, and we weren't sure he was going to pull through. He went off and became a musician, and gave up good honest dismemberment work altogether. When he came back to the fold the whole family was so proud. Timmy imagined how the same might happen to him. What if he didn't get into the Academy? He imagined how he might turn down a wrong path, the feeling was so VIVID. Eventually, perhaps he'd come back to the mine, and take a wife. Maybe he'd even become a councilor for troubled youth who were headed down the wrong path. He'd be able to really understand those kids. Maybe he'd even become a famous councilor, and lead a whole generation of kids back to the mine...."
"Because the creator of the universe of the universe just dumped us out here in the middle of fricken nowhere, and nobody has any idea what we're supposed to be doing."
So, if you're out there God, now would be a good time for boomy god voice, or burning bush, or something. You gotta teach someone how to pilot this rusty ol' hunk of rock....
So in our little corner of the Blogosphere, folks have been talking about ambition. And it's such an interesting subject to me, that recently I've written about 60-70,000 words on the subjet. And to me, what ambition, REAL ambition is about, is trying to find some way to give life meaning.
Because, frankly, if this is just a pleasure cruise, I want my money back.
But the problem is most people can't see how life can mean anything without buying into a whole lot of nonsense that noone can possibly prove. I guess you've just gotta pick something or other to beliee in and stick with it.
For example, GOD can give your life meaning. Its easy, you just join his club, and then you try to get more people to join the club under you, and if you get enough people to sign in this life, you get a Brand New Mercedes M-class when you die. So life HERE has meaning becuase you can get level up points for the next world. Cool!
The problem is, firstly, no one actually knows what the parking is like in heaven, or how good the public transportaion is, or how the Mercedes handles on milk and honey. And secondly, if some dope tells you that killing 1000 Arabs gets a lifetime of free oil changes, you can't prove him wrong.
And there are all different kinds of road maps that people use to find meaning, not just religion and as far as I can tell, they're just all the blind leading the blind. Here are some examples:
There's the famous, "keeping up with the Joneses:" OR: I don't know what the fuck I want, but if I'm doing better than that guy down there, I must be doing ok. The problem is the guy down there is looking at the guy down the street from him, he he doesn't know what the fuck to do either.
And there's the similar: "My dick is bigger than average" roadmap. People feel ok so long as they know that %50 or so of the people are a little more fucked than they are: "Got a car, a dog, a house and a family. Hey, I'm living the american dream."
The "whose your daddy." Where people feel ok, so long as they beat there parents. Whatever that means.
But if "winning" the game doesn't make you feel like your life was meaningful, you can try to find meaning through conflict and pain. Win or lose, conflict makes life FEEL meaningful. So everyone's going around poking themselves in the eye-- if they learn to see again, "they've overcome the odds" and if they don't, then they have a damn good excuse for being miserable-- at least they've got a place that way.
My favorite is the "prodigal son" roadmap. People do their best to make their lives all shitty. IF they pull through, they become a kind of hero. If not their lives are filled with meaningful conflict for years to come! It's win/win, hooray!
then there are the ambition. It's just the same? What's the most ambitious thing you can think of? Becoming the first NObel prize/ Oscar winning/ best selling author/ President of the United States of America? Prove to me that that means anything.
What will the perfect Job, house, car get you? Happiness?
Then I have a short-cut for you. Quite a while back psychologists started studying the brain chemistry of happiness. They did a bunch of tests on a bunch of people and were able to establish the peramiters of human happiness. Then they did a test on this buddhist monk.
Holy shit! This guy must have brain damage! He's off the scale in every way-- they thought they'd found the happiest most content man in the world, and that it must have been a biological gift. But then they did some other Buddhist monks, and they found they all had the same kind of happy content brain damage!
And they don't own shit, have family or drive sweet cars.
And yet, I'm writing this novel... this meaningless novel... Why?
So what do you want, and what does it mean?
And as a final thought Touche to Scott on Complacency. In my book I call this the "belief paradox." Believing in the sort of things that can give life meaning always leads to people doing shitty things to other people. But not believing in that sort of thing makes people the weak willed tools of the people who do believe those things.
I never do these, but you know why I like this one:
Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book. (Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.) 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions. 5. Tag 5 people.
Here are my results:
In groups of four, list all the problems you see in this neighborhood. Next to each problem list a solution. Share your problems and your solutions.
Awe, This video reminds me why I LOVE Morrissey. Somehow I missed this one when it came out. Only Morrissey can be so touching and so funny at the same time. I think that it's because the songs are sincere, but Morrissey's sincere way of dealing with things is this sardonic humor. Anyways, This video is both hilariously funny and very moving.
Fuckin' A, does that cow have a jet pack? That's fuckin hella! Where's my jet pack cow? I'll ride that bitch to the laundromat fuckin' space cowboy style, yeah. Yeehaow! And those cow garter belts are HOT!
So, you can look here to see one patent for a cow fart collector, that will save the world, because apparently cow farts = arnie geddon. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/05/patent_issued_f.php
So we have that whole HUMAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING THING that broad scientific consensus confirms. Especially important is that "human caused" bit.
But everywhere I look, people are denying it. And somehow a lot of them are using this FOX "news" cow thing as some sort of proof. For an example, look at a recent story at Slashdot where dozens of folks cited this FOX story about cows. Here's one example:
"Who can even make heads or tails of all this global warming stuff? We get reports like this, within a day of getting reports like cows cause more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation put together [foxnews.com]"
Yeah there was a bit like that in a UN report, but then right wing news orgs take it all out of context and use it like: "gee folks, what are these environmentalists thinking, cows are worse for the environment than we are! Stupid scientists!" And the worse is FOX "news" who ran the story with citations to OTHER RIGHT WING NEWS GROUPS creating a profound echo chamber of dumb.
What the UN report really said was that the WHOLE of industrialized bovine agriculture, when you figure in LAND USE ISUES (for example clear cutting of rain forest in South America and Africa and other land conversion issues) and industrial processing and feeding and shipping and such accounts for 9% of global CO2 emissions. Which is slightly bigger than some average car DRIVING emissions numbers....
Cow farts my ass.
AND, seriously though, US style industrial agriculture is a MAJOR bad problem for a dozen reasons, to play it up as "gee folks cow farts hardy har," really gets my goat.
Here it is the lame "I haven't been posting" post-- so lame that it even repeats the title in order to fill up space with words to make it look like I actually wrote something here.
Alas, I'm sure that I won't actually write anything worth reading here.
But then again, I haven't done that in a long time.
Oddly, I have TONS of stuff to write about these days.
BUT, I'm using different outlets for that expression. I'm trying to get an easy english reader published. And I'm writing a novel. And singing some, though I've been sick for about a month and that puts a damper on the whole singing thing. I'm really bringing a lot of creativity to my teaching right now, and that's satisfying too.
When I started this blog I declared it an experiment. I wanted to learn about blogging. What do I want to write about? I wanted to eventually have a well focussed blog about... well, something. But what do I want to write about?
So, here's what I've learned:
Happy is boring. I'm pretty dern happy. Yawn. Sordid sex blogs that deal with the cruelties of the modern dating scene are REALLY interesting. My love life is happy and stable. Yawn.
I enjoy writing about singing and music in general. However, the things I'm interested in are too controversial to have a large audience and too academic for a blog. BUT I might find some ways to make some of these things interesting....
I enjoy discussion. However, a personal blog is not a good place to have discussion. It's not neutral territory....
I enjoy writing about ESL. Again, small audience, and I'm writing a textbook, so I have another outlet for that.
I have a whole big ball of related ideas about evolution, creativity and the meaning of life, but a blog is not a very good outlet for that.
SO in the near future, I'm going to be rethinking this whole blogging business. And probably it will cease to exist. BUT, in it's place I will probably start some new things.
In my classes, all of my students for the first time feel free to share their feelings about politics. They're all saying the same thing-- it feels like morning in America, but for real this time. I've heard stories the last few days about reoccurring nightmares of terrorist attacks and nuclear war.... That even the bluest of blue skies has a certain overcast to it. And why should the sky seem blue? We're reminded constantly that we're in an "unending war" or at best a "long war"-- one that it seems we have no chance to win. How can we win a war when we haven't even defined what winning would look like? And everyday we hear "terror, terror, terror" and I realize now that each time I hear that word something perceptibly tightens inside me. And people just want it to end. "The people" see that "the people" all over the world just want peace. A few nut jobs at the top and at the right of the international spectrum want war, but THEY are the crazy ones, not the rest of us! And after this election it's a little easier to see that. And the dark in the sky got a little lighter. And America feels a little bit of hope for the first time in 12 years.
Thank you "crooks and Liars" for posting this! Keith Olbermann is one of the only real journalists left. CLICK THE PICTURE to see his take on Habeus Corpus.
Or cut and paste this: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Olbermann-HabeusCorpus.mov
Well, I hate to blog on such a topic, but events will happen....
So I have several mixed and jumbled thoughts about this-- I'll try to organize them as best as I can.
Firstly, as to the Pennsylvania executions, why the Amish? A while back, I got to spend a bit of time with some folks in an Amish community-- they welcomed me into their homes and shared their music with me... Truly, these are the most innocent and decent folks I can think of. They lack the bad Karma that we all create with our violent culture-- and still they must suffer this tragedy.... And so this attack has saddened me more than any other in my memory.
Given that, I offer this up as a second course: I often say that I'm a conservative forced by circumstance to play the role of a liberal, and yet I suppose I'm now a true liberal. And as the definition of a liberal is: "a person so fair-minded that they refuse to take their own side in an argument," I've taken this opportunity to question my beliefs. Namely, my belief that capital punishment is wrong and that it is as horrible an act of murder as any act it is intended to punish-- no in fact it's worse, because it is carried out with the cool self righteousness and calculated self justification of a popular tool of political gain.
I've never understood the popularity of capital punishment. Not until now.
There are no valid "reasons" for CP that have stood up to the test of evidence. Far from a deterrent, it is pretty consistently statistically linked to a rise in murder and in crime in general.
During the Newt Gingrich revolution the major point was that it cost the tax payer less than incarceration-- proven even back then to be a fallacy-- (and since no one believes me when I say this here ya go: A Duke University study found... "The death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of imprisonment for life." ( The costs of processing murder cases in North Carolina / Philip J. Cook, Donna B. Slawson ; with the assistance of Lori A. Gries. [Durham, NC] : Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, 1993.)
"The death penalty costs California $90 million annually beyond the ordinary costs of the justice system - $78 million of that total is incurred at the trial level." (Sacramento Bee, March 18, 1988).
"A 1991 study of the Texas criminal justice system estimated the cost of appealing capital murder at $2,316,655. In contrast, the cost of housing a prisoner in a Texas maximum security prison single cell for 40 years is estimated at $750,000." (Punishment and the Death Penalty, edited by Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum 1995 p.109 )
"Florida spent an estimated $57 million on the death penalty from 1973 to 1988 to achieve 18 executions - that is an average of $3.2 million per execution." (Miami Herald, July 10, 1988).
"Florida calculated that each execution there costs some $3.18 million. If incarceration is estimated to cost $17000/year, a comparable statistic for life in prison of 40 years would be $680,000." (The Geography of Execution... The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America, Keith Harries and Derral Cheatwood 1997 p.6)
Anyway, to sum, there is no "reason" reason for capital punishment-- only a FEELING-- and that feeling logically is summed up like this: there are some things for which murder is a just response.
It has always been easy for me to point out the irony of this statement-- that ALL MURDERERS ALWAYS FEEL JUSTIFIED IN THEIR ACTIONS. There are very few broken pieces on this planet that sit around twirling their mustaches wondering what they can do in the name of evil that day. All people who do bad things think they are doing them for just reasons.
Anyway, the argument for CP then is always that it isn't about LOGIC, its about the FEELING that it would be cruel to take the possibility of a revenge murder away from victims. And of course, that I couldn't understand because I've never been a victim.
Well, for the first time, I find myself FEELING that if this guy hadn't killed himself, then he deserves to be brutally killed.
(But then another even more reptilian part answers: "no, death is too good for this guy-- too easy." In fact, I really resent that he killed himself. Such a cowardly way out....)
But for the first time I understand-- I intuit how easy it is to just say: a fuck the bastard-- hang em. It's so easy and it feels so good....
Finally, where's the big government response? I feel more personally attacked by this then by 911-- so where's my "war on violence as an appropriate response?" Because that's what I feel attacked by-- our cultural instinct to respond to any provocation with force. I'll bet we'll find out that whatever this guy was thinking-- he wasn't some monster. He was a decent family guy who was good to his wife and kids but he was infected with this idea that's very ordinary in our culture-- that violence is a justifiable response-- a JUST response even....
We go to movies and we're supposed to cheer when the bad guys get killed-- the more brutally the better. And people tell me all the time that Bush was right to bomb people and take revenge for 911, nevermind that the people who did it all died, and nevermind that justice was never even an issue: quoth Rumsfeld " we don't have enough evidence to convict, but we have enough evidence to bomb." So how are we supposed to argue when some fucked up guy thinks he's got to go kill some little girls for some messed up thing in his head? Hell, grab your gun buddy, it's the American way!
That is the fucked up shit we need a war on. We're makin' real bad Karma baby, real bad.
Millions of 20-somethings spat out their morning coffee this week as composed anchor men and women announced in stony seriousness that Saddam Housein had declared in court: "I will crush your heads." The imprisoned ex-all-powerful-dictator, in apparent effor to prove he's "still got it" extended his forefinger and thumb in a menacing gesture known all too well to fans of Saturday Night Live.
According to witnesses Saddam, held up his hand, squinted and repeated in a sqeeky voice: "I will crush your head, and yours, and you too! Ha ha ha! 'Aaaaa noo not my head!' Yes you tooo!"
Saddam expert Nassredin Hodja, a witness, said of the defendant's tactics: "it was really weird."
In Washington, a triumphant Donald Rumsfeld announced "we've found them, we've found the weapons of mass destruction!!!!!" Officials used a projector to show these rare satelite photos proving once and for all that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction.
Others believe Saddam's tactic to have been a successful attempt to attack the homeland. 2o-something Jerald Snatch recounted his memories of the fateful event: "Yeah, I was just doing the crossword puzzle, and my girlfriend listens to NPR or some shit, and then I couldn't believe what they were saying: 'I will crush your head!' Next thing I knew there was coffee coming out my nose. And that was my last clean shirt."
There are still no numbers reflecting the economic damage done by this week's staggering drycleaning bills.
Just finished another run of Reagan's Children stuff. I think it went really well and I got a really bad picture of me in Time Out, which is cool. Tonight I'm singing in Milwaukee in another new work Karl Jenkins' Armed Man. I'm very excited about that! And on top of that, I start teaching again this week and I'm really excited about that!! And I just got a new beer (Fat Tire) and a biodynamic port ("Bouteille Call" the coolest name for a wine ever!) to try, and I'm excited about that!!!
So basically that's got me thinking...
Life is good. It's good on all fronts.
And now, this is the tiniest thing, but it's still there:
BUT
It's just this thininess of always wanting more, wanting this dream of something that can't exist... or can it.... and if I make those perfect circumstances exist, will I want...
just a little
More.
In other news, today's listening:
Audra Mcdonald's Seven Deadly Sins. Very interesting pieces composed for the singer. If you want some tunes, look here. When you click on the link, it will be on the 1st hour installment. I could do without the bits of Audra explaining the pieces, but she IS charming. I'm still not convinced that she belongs on the Met stage.... The word is that she will be featured in a leading role at what used to be the benchmark opera house of the world. It is an interesting attempt to bring opera to a wider audience but I'm afraid a misguided one but I'll try to keep an open mind-- We'll see....
So, I considered myself an actor long before I started singing, and it was as an actor that I came to be a singer. I was already getting paid to do straight theater when I went to my first opera. At that point, I hated musical theater, and I expected opera to be even worse. I hated that it was all mugging, and the movements lacked any purpose and there wasn't really any acting at all....
My first opera was a choir (which I was not in) field trip, and I only went because I had crushes on half of the girls in the choir.
I was blown away.
Not because of the music, which I didn't really get, but because of the acting-- real acting!
Later, when reading "writings in restaurants" I discovered that the guy who many consider the most important modern acting teacher agrees with me. As I read more, I learned that David Mammet writes over and over again that he finds the acting in opera today consistently better than acting on film or on broadway. This is because what most opera singers do is direct and simple and there is a reverence for the script and for the text. The good ones don't mug or try to show off their acting they just f@ckin' do the thing!
SATAN! I'll start with the most accessible one: Yep, this is Sam Ramey playing satan. Opera was often the Marilyn Manson of it's day. In this piece Satan mocks god, and even gives him an obscene gesture! How do you think this went over in ultra catholic Italy?
OTELLO. Next most accessible-- Placido Domingo is just plain exciting. English subtitles.
Old School PUNK ROCK! This clip is vintage punk rock to me from the costumes to the irony, raw emotion and open mockery of the audience. The clip is a play within a play-- the commedia dell'arte stock plot mocking the cuckold husband. The actors are husband and wife performing a show as husband and wife. In both cases, the husband has just discovered that the wife is having an affair. the actor no longer finds the show so funny, but the audience doesn't get that he's gone off script, "bravo!" The wife keeps trying to return to the show as if nothing happened.
OPERA REVOLUTION. For hundreds of years it has been opera that led the way. The two major revolutions in acting technique in the 20th century were led by opera singers. The first was Feodor Chalyapin, who was the father of what became known as the "Stanislavski Method" after the man who wrote down Chalyapin's teaching. The second was lead by Maria Callas. In the early 40s, Callas brought renewed realism and even vulgarity to the stage. Legends abound about the real-life touches she brought to scenes such as taking off her shoes after a party-- revolutionary at the time. Her controversial performances were to inspire a revolution in acting that would eventually reach Broadway in the late 40s and Hollywood in 1951 with Marlin Brando.
Though she was known for "dominating" an audience, here she brings simplicity and honesty to what was a "dead" repertory at the time:
September 8th and 9th at 10:30 at night, and Sunday the 10th at 9:30PM. I'll be singing the role of Michael Reagan (! yep that one) in a cabaret featuring excerpts from a new opera called Reagan's Children. The picture above is from the premier of the show a few months back. I just got the recording from the premier and it sounds pretty good. Take a listen to the Michael Reagan aria: Meditation.
Manager/director at Lillie House Permaculture and the Transformative Adventures Cooperative for supporting Community Transformation Leadership. Former market manager, program manager for a food sovereignty organization, co-organizer of Van-Kal Permaculture, former principle organizer for the So-mi Permamixer, farm loan officer, family farmer, adjunct at McHenry County College.
