Summer jam, all summer long.
Yoga means union
Yoga is one of those disciplines where the culture around it is silly - in that vaguely uncomfortable way where they’re aiming hard at middle-aged women with money to burn - but the “way” of it is fairly powerful and life-changing. It’s why, even though there’s a lot of yoga-related bullshit in the world (hurt your ears with MC Yogi), I still make a point to do it. I even got my guy into it, too. When he started, his feet were so flat that he walked like a cowboy and once, when we were on a singing beach, where sand merrily cries after you step in it - the sand did not sing for him, since he didn’t displace it at all. Now he has a faint trace of an arch.
For me, if I don’t go to yoga classes, I am much more likely to be wrought with anxiety*. But the semi-regular yoga class means that my lows are less low. That said, the quality of the yoga class counts. Since yoga has exploded, it’s easy to find a class, but finding a good, true teacher with the right training and manner, is much harder. I’ve taken classes in a variety of cities and it really depends on the situation.
New York City classes have erred on the side of “flow,” (at least the ones I could afford) with lots of yoga babes, tanned and ready to step on you for the best spot in the room, doing impossible positions in classes of 50 where it seems like they’re just powering through with muscle strength. The one class I took at Yoga For the People seemed innocuous enough, but then we started and everyone in the class started in with these sex moans and I literally couldn’t hold a position. I had to go into child’s pose where I giggled like a ten-year-old. There was another class where the women waiting formed a rugby-like scrum to get in the room, and Terry Richardson showed up. Then there’s the real risk of finding a teacher who just got certified along with other aerobic skills at the Y. (That sort of teacher is everywhere.)
It’s why, when I’ve come across particular yoga styles that require a lot of training, the classes have been generally reliable. And the teachers have erred on the side of extraordinary. But lately, my favorite teacher, something’s been off about her classes. They’re overstuffed with people. She makes students go into poses that are too hard, and their muscles convulse while she tries to explain it for the room. Her explanations have eight separate movements instead of a do-able five. The vibe of the people, previously a frosty New England hippie vibe (I’ve been there for a year and people still barely talk to me), has changed into rough and ready yoga babes, bending and practicing with an air of competitiveness. There were also yoga dudes who looked like they enjoy terrible music and even worse goatees. And the non-relationship you have with a yoga teacher gives you just enough information that it’s easy to speculate on the “why.”
For example: is there a breakup? Is she mad at the studio for depending too much on her and overstuffing her classes? Have the yoga overlords of her practice decided that she’s a yoga rock star instructor in training? Is she going to leave and start her own studio? Am I the problem, or is she truly sloppy lately? There are so many factors that can come into play. I can’t tell whether this is the malaise of a couple of weeks or a sign that I should probably try a new teacher. It is kind of a bummer, though, because it’s hard to find a yoga class that has that particular, magical, healing alchemy, even though it’s quite easy to find a yoga class.
* Imagine dealing with a super-obscure health-related situation where your genetic counselor recommends a therapist who only deals with people who also have your super-obscure health situation. And she just switched to a private ($$$) practice. Crushingly anxious.
The Otis Redding rabbit hole. Fall into it!
Titanic Pigeon Forge, TN
So between the replica of the Titanic (the “world’s largest museum attraction” where you can book a wedding, ladies and gents) and DOLLYWOOD, I think Pigeon Forge, TN is a must-see on any American road trip.
Celebrating America w/ Beginners and Midnight in Paris
The Fourth of July is generally one of my least favorite holidays, sneaking up on me every summer and reminding me that no, I don’t have a beach house, or much in the way of access to a beach house, or friends with beach houses. In the way that some women will always and forever romanticize Paris, I think I will romanticize a beach house, which probably comes from growing up by the beach but never with my own slab of land. In order to while away some hours on the sand, I have always needed strategies.
This year, the Fourth of July came on quickly. We had come up with plans, but they had all felt a little bit off. Our best friends up here had just had a baby, so we ended up seeing them on the third at a mutual friend’s lakeside cottage. A lovely lakeside cottage/redneck riviera (seriously, we got so many “yer not from around here” glares when we drove up the narrow dirt roads), but it was cloudy and chilly that day. Then, on the fourth, we had kind of forgot about what was open and what was not. Whether there were fireworks at places or whether they’d take Monday off.
Which is to say, we ended up at the movies. We saw Beginners and Midnight in Paris. Running away from a rainstorm, we ended up at a showing of Midnight in Paris that was far too early to avoid the post-apocalyptic fireworks-related shitshow nearby home, so we ended up driving away to a delicious restaurant bar where we had a lovely dessert made with wild strawberries and the finest of scotches. I think my favorite traditions on the Fourth of July is either - finding a rooftop party with wonderful people in a real city, or hiding out from it all in the air-conditioned heaven of the movies, if I am stuck in a variation on suburbia.
Beginners was a truly lovely, empathetic film made with real feeling. I loved it. Bruised, human characters heavy with emotion, learning to love in a life that can seem alternately whimsical and cruel - it was beautiful to watch. Christopher Plummer’s performance as the father who comes out of the closet at 75 was just so vivid and touching. Ewan McGregor was newly hot again (I was reminded of the fact that I’ve loved him for, like, 15 years, since I was a hormonal high schooler) and was charismatic enough that you could relate to his sad, passive character. Melanie Laurent was annoyingly, perfectly French, making dowdy clothes chic and generally seeming like a real girl.
The structure of the film was impressionistic, rooted in memory, and I think that’s where it faltered a little bit. By the fourth act, I was squirming. I expected the film to end so many times; I was under the false impression that the father’s story was more major than the love story. I was wrong, and the love story whirred on and on, to irrational breakups and makeups and more. It simply wasn’t as strong as the father-son relationship. The film kept hitting notes that, if fine-tuned just slightly, probably would’ve made me cry, but instead, I was on the verge of tears the whole time. The difference felt significant. Nevertheless, the film’s been whirring around in my head and I’m so glad that I saw it and that it exists.
Now Midnight in Paris was on a whim. It was basically the only film that we were sort of interested in playing nearby. You know what’s playing at drive-in theaters right now? Cars 2 and Mr. Popper’s Penguins. It’s gross. Our only other option was Tree of Life at the crappy indie theater, and their screens would just be insulting to Terrence Malick’s vision.
But man, Midnight in Paris. I think I don’t like Woody Allen movies. Please don’t hate me. It’s funny, too, all the men in my life tend to hate Woody Allen movies and what he stands for. My family didn’t raise me on Woody Allen (the same way they didn’t raise me to care about the Red Sox), and consequently, I have a hard time caring about any of the whiny - if smart! - rich people that populate his world. It helps that, as a man, he’s obviously a terrible person, too. (And probably a genius. Example A: his dreamy, brilliant, estranged son Ronan Farrow, your new boyfriend.)
The plot of Midnight in Paris is so great: ennui-filled writer who thinks he’s a hack travels through time to the golden age of Parisian literary culture, the 1920s. It is an English major’s dream and I laughed, heartily, at the ridiculousness of Ernest Hemingway and the zippiness of Zelda Fitzgerald. The 20s are such a pleasant visual feast for the eyes - men were required to dress well, and flapper dresses are generally flattering on all women, with baubles and beads and a shape that swings.
But there’s a latter-day Woody Allen movie surrounding that idea, where the dialogue is all on the nose and the women are shrewish harpy bitches. It’s just so exceedingly unpleasant! And, yet, on the other hand, there is also the return of Owen Wilson, where he takes his surfer dude delivery and winds it around the Allen-manque character, an effect that was weirdly appealing. Or tolerable, at the least. Between Wilson and the Hemingway character, we didn’t walk out of the movie. So there’s that. However, I learned one thing this Fourth of July, and that is this: I don’t think I’m ever going to see another latter-day Woody Allen movie again, unless there’s alcohol involved.
Musings of an Inappropriate Woman: Mad Men: Meta-story of Women's Liberation or Patriarchy Porn? →
Cassandra writes: Question for a bright feminist - why do so many women get upset that I find mad men depressing? If I say it looks like patriarchy porn men say fair enough but lots of women get upset and say it’s a metastory of womens liberation. no doubt you get many random pop culture…
Well, here’s the thing - I have tried to get my Mother into Mad Men. She’s seen a couple of episodes, but has said, “I really don’t want to relive that, honey.” In some ways, as a ginned-up soap opera that’s a record of a time where ideas were backward, it’s completely depressing, depending on your context. It feels like a lot of the Mad Men audience is at the age where it just seems exotic.
*Whether it ends up as a metastory about women’s liberation probably depends on how the show ends, is my guess. Is it Don Draper’s story, or is it Peggy Olsen’s?
Miss U, Paul Schneider. Can never really spell your name right. Would trade a million Aziz Ansari scenes of improv where I’m all stoney-faced and not laughing for one scene of you in Parks and Recreation. Even if it’s for shallow reasons.