saturday's void

farmer's market haul.  i'm making an eggplant stew for the locust salon on wednesday

i woke up with that all-too familiar fear of the bourgeoisie:  too many choices--what to do, what to wear, what to eat, how to spend the day.  i freaked out a little, worrying that i would somehow waste a precious day, but it turned out rather nicely.

1) primary series at 3 b yoga with gygi.  she's not my usual teacher, but she's great and it's always nice to work with a different teacher.

2) donuts from day's market & grocery shopping.  i haven't found donuts to rival top pot or mighty-o in seattle around these parts. still, it's something to do of a saturday morning.

3) farmer's market with lula.  we got about 25 pounds of organic locally-grown produce for 11 dollars.  including these absolutely divine cherry chocolate heirloom tomatoes.

saturday luncheon--salad of heirloom tomatoes, armenian cucumbers, lemon basil, sirloin strips and lemon

4) made a salad of market produce.

5) rehearsed cage's merce cunningham mesostics with christian for wednesday night's totally rad salon honoring john cage's 100th birthday.

6) went to salt lake h&m.  bought new dress for salon.  leopard.  & a few other things.  checked out the new city creek mall in downtown salt lake.

7) dinner at the tin angel.  i chose it because they serve tapas and a lot of small plates, which i love because you can try a lot of different things.  the espresso encrusted beef tenderloin with a port reduction sauce and gorgonzola was my favorite tapas, though the tenderloin was overcooked.  pretty much everything was a little overcooked, and some of the flavors were not balanced enough for  my taste, for example, a shrimp skewer wrapped in prosciutto was too heavy on the prosciutto so you didn't get the right mix of sweetish shrimp with a bit of prosciutto for contrast.  it was hard to taste anything but the prosciutto.  service was also meh, but that's normal for utah.  i can't think of any place in this entire state where i've had really great service.  but whatever.  it was fine-ish, and i'm a snob.  nice to know though, after a disappointing meal last saturday at mazza in salt lake, that we've got better restaurants here with communal, pizzeria 712, and black sheep cafe.

8) quick visit from eva.

9) bedtime snack of lula's unbelievably delicious kettle corn, with brown sugar and butter.

10)  watching dark passage with lauren bacall.

good night.

self-help

one of my (many) shameful secrets is how much i love self-help books.

i'm reading and working with several at the moment:  shawn achor's the happiness advantage, julia cameron's the artist's way, and the latest, the mindful way through depression by williams, teasdale, segal, and kabat-zinn.

i also count yoga as a self-help book in poses.

and i count almost anyone i admire as a self-help guru.

here are today's nuggets:

1)  "make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy"--william james

2) "it only takes one breath in and one breath out to come to a place of peace" --tanya the yoga teacher

3) "habits are like financial capital--forming one today is an investment that will automatically give out returns for years to come."  --shawn achor

4) "if you're afraid of butter, use cream." --julia child  & "the only real stumbling block is fear of failure.  in cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude."

5)  "the only cure for the fame drug is creative endeavor.  only when we are being joyfully creative can we release the obsession with others and how they are doing."  --julia cameron

6) "if something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. if still boring, then eight. then sixteen. then thirty-two. eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all."--john cage

7)  "no writer can justify ruthlessness for the sake of his work, because being human to the fullest possible extent is what his work demands of him."  --may sarton

everything to say

grateful for tacos

a twist on cage:

i have everything to say, and i am not saying it.

today was trying for a lot of petty, tiresome reasons.

i have too many big thoughts and grandiose schemes, and the minutia of the day can be so wearing.

i attempted to take this as a chance to practice patience and gratitude this day.

a chance to narrow my thoughts to the moments right in front of me rather than some far-flung imaginary time.

and to realize:  how bad can a day be with chipotle chicken tacos for dinner?

so look for a large and detailed post sometime soon.

and do make these tacos, asap:

1 whole roast chicken, meat removed and shredded
3 T olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 red peppers, thinly sliced
1 can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, roughly chopped
1 head garlic, minced
1 T cumin
1 T chili powder
1 T dried oregano
S & P to taste

soften vegetables and chipotle chiles in olive oil over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until they begin to get a little brown and caramelized.

add spices, chicken, S&P, and a little water to moisten.  maybe 1/2 c.  cook another twenty minutes or so until the the ingredients are well integrated.  adjust seasoning.

serve with warm corn tortillas, crumbled queso fresco, cilantro, scallions, limes, and lime-cumin sour cream.

prelude for meditation

the theme emerging for this weekend is a deepening of meditation practice.

there are some fun things on the docket--a potluck at a friend's cabin, a movie at the broadway in slc, a bbq on the patio sunday, but i'm most looking forward to carving out more space stillness and peace in my body, mind, heart, and home.

1. two-hour meditation workshop tomorrow at my yoga studio.

2.  this quote from cage:  "I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" --John Cage

i started browsing today, and will try one of the guided meditations this weekend

3.  the arrival of this book with a cd of guided meditations.  julie had heard good things about it, and recommended it to me.  i look forward to delving into it

4. this beautiful cage prelude:

Waking Up to the Very Life We're Living: A Late Summer Round-up

1.  A couple of days ago, I saw this woman walk in front of me in chunky metallic heels.  She walked in front of me for many blocks, never wavering.

2.  I missed the FREE Joan Jett concert at Coney Island LAST NIGHT.   I did not know about me, which is so not like me.  I'm still in mourning. 

3.  Not that these two events are related, but I'm mourning the death of the great David Rakoff (aged 47).

3.  I spent this evening alone on The High Line where I saw the art work below.

 4.  I spent two hours on The High Line.  I had a snack from Northern Spy, a ginger/peach popsicle from People's Pops, and a Blue Bottle iced coffee.  There is now no reason not to spend the entire day on The High Line.

5.  Plus, there's a John Cage installation there now.  And Cage's 100th birthday's coming up, as you know from Lara.   I sat in front of the installation, listening and watching and also looking at Cage's Wikipedia entry on my phone.  I like this quote from the entry, and I hope this is accurate, because it's awesome:

"[Cage] described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living""

--Lara, I think this is an excellent way to describe why we are blogging here this year.

preparations: john cage 100

preparations

i don't know why i decided to attend the free concert of cage prepared piano pieces in the MOMA sculpture garden in the summer of '88.  

i had no one to go with, knew very little of cage or his music, and it was very hot out.  but i went anyway, heard this, and became a devoted fan.  and then attended the two other cage concerts in the sculpture garden series that summer.

i

i love the sound of prepared piano, and always hope that c. will have performances of his own very strong pieces with preparations.  alas, it's logistically difficult to program prepared piano music, so it's rare to hear it live.

right now i'm immersed in cage.  studying him for exams, studying him to enhance my inner work & spiritual practices, studying him as i prepare to teach again in the fall, and, (this is the best part) getting ready for a special 100th birthday celebration for cage on september 5th at the locust salon.

some really cool people have agreed to perform so far.

here are some of cage's ideas about teaching and studying that i'm thinking about as school preparations ensue:

john cage: some rules for students and teachers

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

RULE TWO: General duties of a student - pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher - pull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: be self-disciplined - this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: "We're breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities." (John Cage)

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything - it might come in handy later. 

cagean: i have few things to say, & i am saying them

i have nothing to say


and i am saying it--


--john cage


***


i had a dogwood tree in the back yard when i was a little girl in virgina.


what tree did you have


when you were a little girl?


today was a dog, dog day.


thank dog it's night now.  cooler, more hopeful, somehow.


Dogwood
BY WILLIAM JOHNSON

Dog days doggone dog-tired dogwork of summer,

mowing the grass we're all coming to

the dog tags of you, me, I, we, stashed in a box,

doghouse throwaways. Even the namesake

tree whose blossoms some call Jesus-flowers

for the rust-grooved tips of the petals

as if nails now removed had indented

the shape of a cross, betrays my mood

how all those springs ago

seeing our tree nailed with bloody after bloody

crucifix I said this beauty's no foo-foo

and sure enough my dog-weary dearie

mowing today, the spring long gone,

I brush a limb on whose tired leaves mites amble

the edible thoroughfares and as if to confirm it,

our neighbor's mutt runs along the fence yapping

dogwood dogwood dogwood as the mower chugs on,

our train leaving for the city beneath the grass.

chance operations

 almost swerved into mcdonald's for a double cheeseburger, but resisted, came home, and made this instead

today i had lunch with a wonderful composer.   we talked about chance, randomization, happenstance, choice, improvisation and all that.

you know.

the stuff composers think about all the time.

my composer said:

the mind craves


both order & chaos

& i think he's right.  we're only comfortable with chaos for so long.

we're only comfortable with order for so long.

we need both.

here's my book balloon poetry prompt for today, inspired by the composer.  in the spirit of loving the order and the chaos equally well:

Poetry Prompt #4—Aleatory
A theme has seemed to emerge this month (thank you so much, Janet, and Book Balloon, for having me!) as I thought about practices that encourage innovation and progress in poetics:  that of lessening the over-determination of the poet.  It seems, at least in my own practice, that the more I focus on a specific outcome, the less successful my work, my life, and even my own heart feels.

This is not to say that there are not good times, places, and reasons to learn technique, to study hard, and to put your self through some rigorous training.  But there’s also a time and place to admit that words are much more powerful than the poets who use them, and we’d best step aside and let them do their work in the world.

With this in mind, I turned to composer John Cage & his practice of using the I Ching and chance operations to create new compositions.  Although Cage’s method of randomization was complex and ever-changing, we can simplify it and use chance to tap into the power of association, random happenings, and the smells, sounds, and smoke rings that emerge when words stand next to each other, no matter what the author’s intent.

This prompt has two phases:

Phase 1:

Roll a pair of dice.  Write down the number you roll and then compose a line inspired by that number. 

Your line must start with that number. 

If so inspired, you may continue and create a couplet, tercet, or a quartet.  (You may decide to continue working in couplets, tercets, etc., or you may decide to change the number of lines with each roll of the dice.)

Repeat for a total of ten rolls.

Phase 2:
Despite your intention to not have intention, themes may have begun to emerge,  and you may have begun controlling your text in all the devious ways we’ve been trained in, so phase two will help you to loosen your grip on the need to control again:

Roll the dice.  When you roll a number corresponding with a number that begins one of your lines, that line or group of lines becomes the beginning of your poem.

If you have more than one line beginning with that number, choose the group least likely to make a “good” beginning to a poem.

Your subsequent rolls will determine the order of the subsequent lines.  Each time a number corresponding with a group of lines comes up, that group will be next in the order of the poem.

Again, if you have more than one line beginning with the same number, choose the lines that seem the most out of order to go next.

Repeat until your poem has found its own order.


legwear: my favorite olio yoga pants

inspiration: randomness & vegetables

looking forward: to the tasty dishes my girls always bring to bookclub