April 2008 Archives

Finally!  I've been watching this kid's videos all year....(he's doing a dance a day...he's up to 357)  and finally some Velvet Underground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9_PhFy7XvY

This guy is taking 365 portraits....I was 337.  I think I look tired and perplexed, but maybe I was.....

What am I doing everyday this year?

art x 365 = ?

So I'm doing my Monday post a tad early this week, because I need to nap and catch up on a few weeks lost sleep. Then I need to go to my friend Evan's passover seder, which is probably going to be about 60% hardcore traditional seder, 30% hipster reverie, and 10% Buddhist infusion.

I thought I'd throw a few short things at you excellent excellent people. You can throw them back if they wriggle too much.

1) Swami Nichtern political predictions: Clinton wins Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday by 6 points, makes hardly any dent in delegate situation, then loses both NC and Indiana on May 6, and drops out on May 8, giving Obama a suddenly glowing endorsement and eventually becoming Senate majority leader.

2) A link to the online version of the article I wrote that just came out for Kripalu Magazine, "The Psychology of Ecology" is up HERE. Apparently they print about 300,000 copies of it, which sort of makes me want to hide. I think there are also almost 19,000 copies of One City in print. Makes me feel oddly naked, like there's hundreds of thousands of paperdoll versions of me running around and mingling drunkenly without my say-so. Next time around I'm just going to publish ranting manifestos on the backs of cocktail napkins. No more than 20 copies, max. Let me know what you think, since the article's sorta what the whole I.D. Project is about. I really don't like writing nonfiction, but people keep telling me to, so I do.

3) And now, something I just found a few days ago. Seriously, I didn't even know this man had a website. It is definitely a Moment of Zen. He'll be at the IDP on Wednesday May 14, for a Guest Lecture Entitled "It's the End of the World as We Know It." Seriously, that's the title. He's a weirdo.

4) Dean Sluyter will visit the IDP for a Guest Lecture this Wednesday April 23. Jessica says he's great, and I believe her.

Now, Time To Rock The Pesach!

Photo Updates:

[gallery]

A Rousing Good Time had by all. Much vino, much laughter, much singing in Hebrew. I gotta say though, let's not forget that the Egyptians had Buddha-Nature too.

Now that I know everyone's top ten albums, what about books?

If I was packing and could only bring ten books, I'd pick the following...wrapped in sheets of poems numerous as styrofoam peanuts, of course... (Rilke! Rumi! Sexton! Whitman! the Beats!)

And if I contradict myself...well, you know what Walt says....

1.  Catcher in the Rye  -Salinger

2.  Nightwood  -Djuna Barnes

3. When Kafka Was the Rage  -Anatole Broyard

4. When I Was Five I Killed Myself -Howard Buten

5. Echo -Francesca Lia Block (runner-ups:  Weetzie Bat and I Was A Teenage Fairy)

6.  Narcissus and Goldmund -Herman Hesse

7. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -Roald Dahl

8. The Bell Jar -Sylvia Plath

9. The Power of Now -Eckart Tolle

10. A blank notebook to write my own, even if it doesn't read as good later

(my apologies to all those great books I can't fit here or am forgetting...I feel like I'm trying to remember my list of 'thank you's at the Oscars the the exit music is playing......)

As mentioned by I.D. Project Board Member and all-around homie Jerry in class on Monday Night, the video and story:

"This is the video from Beijing to the song that my boyfriend [wrote in NYC] in 2002. The song is called Taboo and it's about how much we love playing the board game Taboo with our friends which can really get out of hand. Of course the kids from Beijing seem to have missed the sarcasm. We randomly found this on youtube. It's pretty weird."

-Jerry

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=p9EfFxrq8o0]

Hey Everyone...

I just saw this amazing movie/documentary called "The Dhamma Brothers". It is the story of the Alabam prison system introducing intensive Vipassana meditation retreats into their prisoner treatment programs. I had seen "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" which is about the introduction of meditation into prisons in India... also amazing and I highly recommend it. But what made "The Dhamma Brothers" so remarkable is that it happened in Alabama, the state with some of the most PUNITIVE correctional facilities in the country. Plus Buddhism and meditation in general, arrived in the prison as this really foreign (witch-craftery) kind of discourse that threated the Christian standard. The film is really inspiring and moving, but never in a sentimental way....

See this movie!!!! (Watch the trailer first.....)

http://www.dhammabrothers.com/

peace and love,

cassmaster P