When thinking outside the box just isn't enough
I bet the thick silence that comes after each song must be a shock to those attending their first kirtan (devotional call and response) singing circle. It’s been too long since I’ve taken part in one, and at the First Annual Montreal Yoga Music Festival I have to remind myself to resist the urge to clap and whoop in appreciation…
Bhakta = One who practices the yoga of devotion Break out your ankle bells and meditation pillow, the 1st Annual Montreal Yoga Music Festival gets grooving this weekend at Loyola campus. With 2 solid days of scheduled kirtan (devotional call and response singing), talks from such infamous locals as Dr. Bali, and even Kids’ Yoga […]
We’re a sensuous city left without a touchstone; a void where our collective weeks once coalesced. We have no physical literary souvenirs that can’t just as easily be printed from a computer in Denver…
I thought of Cabot Square. Oh, you may know it as Crack Park — the one across from the old Forum, the small oasis of green goodness that the strip desperately needs, the one that’s currently owned and operated by some of the crudest forms of humanity. I can think of no other spot in town that doesn’t even try to conceal its seedy side in the sun; it doesn’t pretend to have dignity or shame. Are you really drunk, smoking, pregnant, and fist-fighting on the sidewalk in the afternoon? Really?…
This past Sunday, I awoke too early for my taste. Rain was falling, the sky had a look in its eye that warned it would go on for days, and I had heard there were snowflakes in the city despite the green mist of buds spraying the trees, and the bravest most daredevil flowers proudly […]
Leadbelly is the grandfather of heavy metal. I had no idea. Nor did I realize how derivative Led Zeppelin was. Nor, frankly, had I ever given Zeppelin much thought at all beyond contemplating Stairway lyrics in angsty teenaged basements. I had wondered why there was no A in their Led, and now that I know, I’m keeping it to myself on principle. As to their name, it was predicted they would crash and burn like one. And did you know…
A friend messaged me looking for a witch. Is there a scavenger hunt I didn’t know about? Is there a non-drug induced apparition at your door that needs dispelling? No; he needed a spell “for good love. Or to attract good intentions. Or to be open to love.” I liked that he was open to the phrasing; as if he knew that somewhere in how we ask the question, we craft the limitations of our own answers…
Some days don’t go our way: we wake up late, hate all our clothes, stab ourselves in the eye with a hurried mascara wand and drop our keys while running for the bus. Then to the local trendy coffee shop, where the lineup gets us seething, and by the time we learn they have to make a new pot of our fave blend, and it’ll take ten minutes, something in us snaps. For every one hundred computer glitches, every hundred “vital” texts that didn’t…
Given the string of protests, nonsense (I’m looking at you, London, Ontario) and subsequent arrests lately — 226 in the Anti-Police-Brutality March, 94 students against tuition hikes at the Champlain bridge and an underwhelming 13 arrests at the London, Ontario riots (which if I’m reading this correctly, was just ridiculous, malicious chaos, and I hope they catch more of ‘em and lock them all up) — a lot of people will be heading to court in the next few months. Funny enough, I was there last summer…
Believe me, I was reluctant. When all this Shore hullabaloo started a few years back, I rolled my eyes and staunchly refused to watch. I make some seriously questionable viewing choices, but this, most certainly, was a train wreck I could avoid. I tuned out status updates that sounded oddly intriguing, even though they made no real sense to me…
When people think of rap artists, I don’t think the first things that come to their minds are intelligent, charismatic, smiling, eloquent, and approachable people, and I really wish it was. I fear it says far more about who we as consumers choose to make famous, rather than the available talent. As much as I’m thrilled to bits that I was able to catch Doomtree for 14.50$ in a cozy venue and that I could, and did pat performers on backs, shake hands, and get to look artists in the eye to say, “Hey man, great show”
While some of you reading this are shaking your heads confused, statistics in the US and Canada indicate that 17% of you know all too well what I’m talking about, and have had at least one episode of self-harming. Three quarters of those people are women; 40% of them have done it repeatedly. Still, I think for some people there is the follow-up question: “No really, isn’t there something wrong with these people?” The answer is conveniently two-fold: yes and no…
According to the Happy Tree Yoga website, HappyTree opened its doors by in the fall of 2007 with hope, heart, and a pot of tea that hasn’t gone dry since…That’s true; I know it is, because I wrote that line, and because I was there that night. What you’d be harder pressed to hear is the tale of how studio owner Melanie Richards and I were sweeping up woodchips…
So there I was, checking some of these great suggestions, like Cecil Otter, P.O.S., and Dessa, a philosophy grad poet who’s quoted somehere as saying she’d rather be your 10th favorite rapper than your favorite girl rapper, and while she’s easily in my top 10 as a rapper, she sings beautifully too…
The official statement is that the Harper government has no intention of reopening the abortion debate. I acknowledge this off the bat, as it means that I officially have nothing to be worried, let alone seething about. So why am I feeling particularly proprietary on the subject of my ovum…
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair ZX-81. Geeks, if you’re not already smiling, I’ll give you a moment to get Googling. Everyone else, let’s just say that this was before the Vic20 or the Commodore64, and if you don’t know what those words mean, let’s just say it was way before Facebook. I tell you this because it entertains me, but more to the point, because on occasion I like to look back and think about how I came up with the real OT (original technology)…
