CITY
The secret of life in the big city is wear a suit, because you can take a shit anywhere. Folks are, like, “Hello, sir, welcome back!”
–Paul Feig
Photo diary: Berlin part 1 (people)
April 13, 2015(click photos to enlarge)
Great to visit my old friend AA Bronson, who went to Berlin for a one-year artist’s residency and decided to stay. Above: in his kitchen. Below: with me, Ben Haggard, and Joe Miron, a photo taken by AA’s husband Mark (in front of one of General Idea’s Pills pieces).
I was in Berlin at the invitation of my friend Kai Ehrhardt to teach a couple of workshops and facilitate a panel discussion at the Stretch Festival (see http://www.stretch-berlin.com/), a fantastic gathering of soulful embodied men from all over Europe.
Some “Stretch-hoppers” from Kai’s Authentic Eros team, chilling afterwards in Neukolln: Robert Farrar, Achim Kraemer, Peter Bollinger, Andy Saich, Kai, Peter Kogelbauer, and Eric Martin (aka Lerouge). Below: me with Tom Barber, a handsome British yoga teacher who has relocated to Berlin.
Quote of the day: MARRIAGE
March 17, 2015MARRIAGE
What does a good marriage have in common with good writing? Consider these rules from Strunk and White’s the Elements of Style: “Place yourself in the background.” “Avoid the use of qualifiers.” “Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity.” “Do not overstate.” “Do not explain too much.” To which I’d add: Show, don’t tell – though an occasional “I love you” never hurts. And avoid the passive voice – especially of the passive-aggressive variety.
The comedian Henny Youngman’s most famous one-liner was “Take my wife – please.” But he and his wife, Sadie Cohen [above], were apparently very close. She didn’t mind being the butt of his jokes and often accompanied him on his tours. I read recently that Sadie was terrified of hospitals and, during the prolonged illness that led to her death, Youngman had an intensive-care unit built in their bedroom so she could be looked after at home. When she died, they’d been married more than sixty years.
— Sy Safransky’s Notebook, The Sun, March 2015
Photo diary: March miscellany
March 17, 2015(click photos to enlarge)
birthday lunch with Michael at a fancy sushi joint called Sushi Sen-Nin
We didn’t try the fog or the dew but the eel was pretty good and so beautifully presented, as was Mt. Fuji (below)
I spent the weekend on a personal writing retreat at a dreary airport hotel in New Jersey where the food choices were less glamorous
have you noticed that no one loves grape jelly? it’s the choice always left over at breakfast in diners everywhere
Quote of the day: BOOKS
March 8, 2015BOOKS
Books can be mentors, even providing a moment of initiation. R.D. Laing, writer, philosopher, and revolutionary psychiatrist, tells of this discovery in a small public library, while he was still an adolescent in the 1940s. He came upon Kierkegaard while
eating my way through the library. I mean I was looking at all the books…working my way from A to Z…The first major thing of Kierkegaard that I read…was one of the peak experiences of my life. I read that through, without sleeping, over a period of about 34 hours just continually….I’d never seen any reference to him…that directed me to it. It was just this complete vista…It just absolutely fitted my mind like a glove…here was a guy who had done it. I felt somehow or another within me, the flowering of one’s life.
This moment of initiation is also like a ritual of adoption. Kierkegaard – along with Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche – became one of Laing’s spiritual parents, a member of the family tree that nourished his acorn and fed his intellectual fantasy. You expect less from your natural parents, and they become easier to bear once you have discovered the other family tree on which the life of your soul depends.
–James Hillman, The Soul’s Code
another eye opens 