posture

Someone corrected another's posture. If it were a ballet class, I can see it. The pupils of dance want corrective measures. I suppose they do in the zendo too, but not in the same way. Imagine walking into church and being remonstrated for not making the sign of the cross "properly." Maybe it's just me. A problem with authority. But who likes to be "corrected"? Then again, one of my daughters has called me, an editor, Mister Corrective. Perhaps it boils down to how; it translates to tone. In a religious or spiritual setting, can you judge moral posture by physical posture? I tend to think not. And yet my morning zen reading spoke of body and mind being unified. So, yes, I understand the Eastern tradition's emphasis on form, such as during the tea ceremony. Perhaps that is why the master archer told Eugen Herrigel, in "Zen in the Art of Archery," you can miss every shot and still be a master archer. I must be a Westerner at heart. You might have a stance and a swing like Ted Williams, but you still need to get hits to be a good batter.

quote

"You have to live in the now, and you make your now."

-- Suzanne Farrell, as quoted in The Washington Post, October 5, 2008

A profound observation, really. And the quotation has two provocative and evocative elements: the part before the comma and the part after the comma.

It reminds me of someone I knew 20+ years ago in New Jersey. He was a member of a 12 Step program. He would say, "The now. N.O.W. There's no other way." It took me in my denseness a while to get it.

On (And Off) The Road

The trip with Ballet Daughter (BD) to Saratoga Springs, the place of "health, horses, heritage," the venue of midsummer night's pleasures, and the "scene of the crime," proceeded smoothly, providing an opportunity to muse about family, feelings, and other journeys, with this journey feeling strangely slow-motioned both at the very beginning and at the very end. Make of that what you will metaphorically. (Grammar Lesson: a long sentence is not the same as what laymen call a "run-on sentence"; length has nothing to do with that solecism. A sentence can "run on" for pages and still be legitimate and grammatically correct, and not qualify as a run-on sentence.)

For BD, it occasioned a temporarily tense but ultimately joyful reunion of balletic friends.

I fantasized solitary Saratoga pleasures: smoke a cigar, read the Saturday Times or The Economist, stroll along Broadway. Take in the crowds. Turned out to be too crowded for that. Expensive and hard-to-find parking. I soon wanted out of Dodge.

I settled for the definitely not upscale but tasty Boston Market, sitting at the counter listening to the woeful Giants on XM radio.

Turning left onto Route 9 South, I tried to take the way I had come but got a little lost. In that interim, the Giants' Randy Winn hit a grand slam to narrow the score to 7-6, with satellite radio frustratingly fading in and out. I got onto Interstate 87 in the shimmering sunset but bailed out at Route 5, knowing Route 5 West goes all the way to Buffalo. The motives? A little adventure, a sense of mystery, and why give New York State all that toll money? No, maybe the motive even touches on lostness, the flirtation with danger.

"Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know you won't! For you have found me. All I have to do is stay found." -- Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours

Taking Route 5 was like traveling into the 1950s, into the pre-Thruway world. A slower journey through Niskayuna and into Schenectady (to whom I had just sent a proposal on Friday; coincidentally [or not] I saw some of the routes cited in the proposal as well as the street where the document was sent).

Aquarius Gentlemen's Club, dark and shuttered, no neon to tempt me or others. A McDonald's (coffee as an excuse to use the bathroom, which had to be opened by a counter person; not a good indicator of the neighborhood's safety). Streets lined with vendors and visitors; storefronts and porches. Churches. Hints of better days. I was not afraid, but I knew my limits. Called Apple-of-My-Eye Son (AMES) on cellphone and told him of my wayward trek. Might've scared him a bit; he counseled me to be brief so as to avoid using up the phone's battery. Through Downtown Schenectady and out along the old Erie Canal and Mohawk River, on the opposite side of the faster and sleeker Thruway, the Thruway that provides fewer opportunities for careful observation and up-close human (or other) interaction. Two freight trains, each at least a half-mile long and maybe as much as one mile long, snaking by on my left peeking through treelines and staghorn sumac. The occasional shack, farms, a horse farm that looked like a small boomtown all its own. Dirt drag racing in Fonda or was it Fultonville with locals not wanting to pay peering over fences like a scene depicted by the false and sentimental Norman Rockwell. Amsterdam, its mills long gone. This is the sorry and sturdy heart of Richard Russo Country.

The Giants somehow tie it at 7 in the ninth.

Finally, at Canajoharie, I bailed out. It was all taking too long.

Back on the Thruway.

Back to Modern Life.

The Yankees announcer on trad radio said my boys lost 8-7, in 12.

The rain intermittent and slight enough for the windshield wipers to smear my vision.

Home by 10:30.

Irish Stepdancer Daughter (ISD) performs a flying druidic leap into my arms.

"Daddy!"

Caught.

Safe.

"Will you snuggle?"

"Sure."

There, there.

Bipolar Bear Berlin Madness

You may've heard about Knut, the cuddly polar bear cub at the Berlin Zoo. In fact, if you have not heard about Knut, you are the only one, the lone ignoscentus among the legions of the global Knut cognoscenti. (Blog about it, if you have not heard about Knut. It's newsworthy in and of itself, since knowing about Knut automatically puts you in the know. Take Leonardio DiCaprio; he's so in the know he and Knut are on the cover of the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, fitting enough to be vain so famously, in a photo taken by the famous Annie Lebowitz.)

We saw Knut today at the Berlin Zoo. Knut was allowed to live after his mother rejected him; that's rich for all kinds of Freudian musing, speaking of another famous German.) Knut was allowed by his handlers to make a personal appearance between 1400 and 1500 hours. The press of crowds remined me of Beatlemania! Barriers held throngs back; uniformed guards controlled crowds by megaphone and stern reproach. Batches of people were allowed a 10- or 15-minute glimpse of the bear celebrity -- as popular as a bare celebrity -- human version. Women and children -- well, children -- were allowed along the first ring of viewers (speaking of that, we saw on Sunday a very original ballet rendering of The Ring yesterday; the short version, two hours; sort of a take by Maurice Bejart by way of Samuel Beckett by way of Richard Wagner -- at least to these eyes because the narration was all in German; it should've been called The Pole because there was more of long poles being swung than any ring or ring or Ring(s).) Back at the zoo there were international TV crews. Pushing. Bustling. Feverish excitement.

I saw a few glimpses, being in the Outer Ring.

Exciting? No. Mildly entertaining for a few minutes.

I get the cuddly and warm thing; I get the saved and rescued victim thing. But it's a polar bear (one that PETA ironically wanted killed)!

Later, back at the panda bear exhibit, a small handful. At the Washington, D.C. National Zoo, there would be throngs for the pandas (not thongs; they wouldn't fit).

Fame is such a fickle animal.

How bipolar.

What disturbed me was the artifice of it, the mob mentality of celebrity. If somehow a komodo dragon was deemed the object of fame, or a muddy hippo, or a violet macaw, would we be braving the lines and jockeying for space and snapping pictures, because this was Famous? This was a Cool Celebrity Animal? Probably.

The bipolarity of fame and fortune; celebrity and anonymity.

Thanks for your comments and your views; more later this week, perhaps; maybe some pix too.

Tschuss.

Spinmeister, Well-Heel Thyself

Well, there's spindoctors and then there's spinmeisters. And the latter are very well heeled. As in platinum or gold. Turns out, there's this d.j. in New York City who caters to the posh uppercrust, at fund-raising galas and such, pinkies-out affaires, attended by those with interchangeable first, last, or middle names (you know, like Whitney Brewster Harrington, or vice or thrice versa, or Alexandra Bennington Vermont).

As noted in today's New York Times, one Tom Finn is said to command $5,000 to $12,000 per night to play tunes for the rich and famous and powerful (and mostly white and mostly uncoordinated).

He does about 70 nights a year, it says. (What's he do on his off days? Spin pizza dough down at the corner pizza shop?)

You do the math. A minimum of approximately 5,000 times 70. Dollars. Not pesos.

Oh, he used to be with singing group The Left Bank. Remember their song? "Walk Away Renee"? Shite, he almost had his band aptly named. Should've been The Right Bank.

Up to $12,000 a night.

Give him his due. He's not just spinning records or playing CDs. He creates a mood (a mood to help people reach into their alligator-skin wallets or their Coach purses).

The story noted that he's the man for fund-raising galas, such as for New York City Ballet or high-society shindigs.

So let me get this straight. My daughter, and legions of other ballet dancers, train daily, often through grueling injuries, and do the actual performing of the art, and they all probably are lucky to get paid $12,000 a night combined, in total, for all I know!

And my wife, who is a neonatal intensive care nurse, actually makes less than $1,000 a night, even on the night shift. Can you believe it?

What's your salary per night? Or day?

You're right.

Life ain't fair.

We all know that.

But maybe this is what our opponents and "enemies" mean when they refer to our having a morally bankrupt society.

A d.j. at a fund-raiser (maybe even a fund-raiser for the poor -- a word no one would dare use there) reeling it in.

Laughing all the way to the Left Bank, or any bank.

What would Jesus say? (or pay?)

What would Kierkegaard say?

Laugh. Or....

Else.