CityHippie: the Offbeat and Overeducated in NYC

Field of Dreams

2011-11-16T14:03:00.004-05:00

It's basically the same thing as the Bible, right? Don't freak out on me now, but it seems like if you translate "ask and thou shalt recieve" into normal-speak, it pretty much comes out as "if you build it, they will come." And it's true (pop culture philosphy never lies): if you want to do something, or have something, or create something, you can--as long as you set the intention. Apparently the same goes for asking for money!

So, that said, aside from waxing philosophical, the purpose of this post is to thank the fine folks of YogaBasics who gave me the scholarship that enabled my 200-hour teacher training at Laughing Lotus Yoga College (see, that's me up there, lookin at the ceiling!) It was refreshing to learn that financial aid doesn't die once you leave academia, and that there are organizations who recognize the validity of teaching as a career--even for those of us who have seven careers at once ;-)

Ezra Jack Keats: nostalgia for the rest of us

2011-09-29T10:46:00.008-04:00

How much do I love children's books? How much do I love the outer NYC boroughs (except you, Staten Island)? How much do I love LITTLE KIDS IN 80s OUTFITS?? So, so much.

Ladies and gentlemen: Ezra Jack Keats. A self-taught genius in turning gritty cityscapes into surprisingly cuddly collage. The patron saint of adorable, intelligent and refreshingly non-caricatured little black kids. The encapsulator of childhood memories for all of us kids who grew up in the Big Smelly Apple--those of us who found books like "Blueberries for Sal" and "The Giving Tree" to be far too full of suspicious greenery.

The melodrama-free Keats (no "Ode to a Trash Can" here) has got an exhibition at the Jewish Museum these days, chronicling his trajectory from nerd kid to enlightened artist. Put on your pink ankle socks and go.

nobody knew what Governor's Island was for...until now

2011-08-21T14:51:00.012-04:00

What happens when a crazyawesome yoga teacher goes, "Wouldn't it be cool if yogis took over that useless Governor's Island place?"

If that teacher is Laughing Lotus's Dana Flynn, this is what happens: Lululemon jumps on the idea, ships thousands of yogis (plus kombucha makers and whatnot) to the aforementioned island via ferry, and funds / markets the whole shebang as "Escape to Yoga Island," a mass urban midsummer peace-out.

It happened. And it was free. And everybody showed up with their mom + dog + baby + guru in tow. I was lucky enough to assist my rock star teacher Mary Dana in her class--aka I roamed around the grassy knoll and helped folks into bridge or caught their feet in forearm stand. Over the course of the day I also took two classes, ate a free lunch of organic snack samples and kombucha, developed a gross second skin made of sweat and dirt and blades of grass, and renewed my faith--not only in Governor's Island and the rest of the bizarre sprinkling of seemingly purposeless tiny land masses that surround Manhattan (their possibilities are endless!), but also in the power of Free Yoga Shit in general. Just when you've given up on New York freebies and resigned yourself to paying too much, for everything, all the time, the city steps up to prove you wrong.

fill 'er up

2011-07-28T10:57:00.005-04:00

One part underbelly of the earth, one part Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, one part trendy beyond belief: that's the general vibe of Chelsea Market's oiling-and-vinegaring-hole (get it, like a watering hole?) The Filling Station.

Here, in the adult foodie version of Candyland, shiny spouts abound, filling pretty bottles and taster cups with olive oil and vinegar -- in flavors like espresso, apricot, chocolate, champagne, butternut squash...the list goes on. Not to mention the jars full of multicolored salts (don't forget: the black truffle salt is pricier than the rest) to set you up for lifelong, joy-filled high blood pressure. Your salads will never be the same again.

A Window of Opportunity

2011-07-01T08:14:00.005-04:00

(It's a pun, get it?!?) Hear ye, hear ye, I'm issuing an open call to museumgoers of the universe: this weekend (yes, that's right, 4th of July weekend, when NYC heats up, empties out, and starts to look a bit like Broken Bow, NE) is your last chance to see the "Rooms With a View" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It's an obvious-yet-brilliant collection of 19th century paintings of - you guessed it - windows. People look out of them, at them, away from them, ignore them entirely, and/or the windows simply exist, seemingly independently of all human life or creation. They are gorgeous and understated poetic devices, those little panes of glass and what they do or do not reveal--and they were largely the subject of my English MA thesis (with a little Willa Cather mixed in there for good measure.) So, my offbeat and overeducated buddies, if you're a window fan, or a poetry fan, or a Caspar David Friedrich fan, or if you ever wondered about that thing I was writing for eight months, here's your chance to learn and love--without having to read all 66 pages.

Because Psychics are Too Expensive...

2011-06-27T19:14:00.010-04:00

...here's the eerily accurate soundtrack of my life (meme shamelessly stolen from my pal Katie at http://26b426.wordpress.com/) and here's the thing: I didn't cheat. I have witnesses (cat+boyfriend) at my side, stunned, flabbergasted, bewildered.

Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. New question-- press the next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.

Opening credits:
"Honey" Tori Amos

Waking up:
"Black Hand Blues" Jolie Holland

First day at school:
"Iowa (Travelling III)" Dar Williams

Falling in love:
"Signed, Sealed, Delivered" Stevie Wonder (bitchplease)

Breaking up:
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" Carole King (whaaaaa?!?)

Prom:
"Falling for the First Time" Barenaked Ladies

(this would have been way more successful as the "falling in love" song. Itunes fail.)

Life's okay:
"Because" The Beatles ("Because the world is round it turns me on..." I mean...sounds like life is OK)

Mental breakdown:
"Dissolved Girl" Massive Attack (totes)

Driving:
"Let it All Hang Out" The Hombres ("Sleep all day, drive all night" are you KIDDING ME?)

Flashback:
"Goin' Back" Carole King (AAAAAAAAHHHH!)

Getting back together:
"Amelia" Joni Mitchell (Um. That's my name. Plus makeup lyric extraordinaire: "Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm.")

Wedding:
"Hissing of Summer Lawns" Joni Mitchell (Ew "He bought her a diamond...put her in a ranch house on the hill...he gave her a roomful of Chippendale" Gross. Let's NOT get married, k?)

Birth of child:
"Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" Arcade Fire

Final battle:
"Don't Stop Believin'" Journey (Damn. Straight.)

Death scene:
"Why Can't I Be You" The Cure ("I'll eat you all up / or I'll just hug you to death." Not a bad way to go.)

Funeral song:
"Change Your Mind" Paul Kelly

End credits:
"San Francisco" Maxime Le Forestier (A bizarre song in French about hippies in America. C'est trop appropriee.)

Washington, D.C. (District of...CITYHIPPIE)

2011-05-23T16:46:00.005-04:00

So I like to make fun of D.C. sometimes, mostly because it, unlike NYC, it contains Republicans. Also because of its combination of what my friend calls "southern efficiency and northern charm" (get it? because the south is slow and the north has a stick up its butt??) Anyway, nothing like a few days with a hiptastic D.C. buddy to set my snarky self straight.

After vegan soy-cheese heaven at Pete's New Haven Style Apizza, a sweaty OMfest at Yoga District (above) and a taste (a metaphorical taste, duh, but ask me about the time-I-ate-soap story) of fuzzy organic sweet-smelling soapiness from Herban Lifestyle (top), I'm hooked. Turns out Our Nation's Capital is home to more crunchy goodness than the Upper East Side can spit at. You know what I mean.

Souen: Macrobiotic Meets Cheesecake

2011-05-06T10:25:00.008-04:00

So I was pretty much under the impression that "Macrobiotic" meant some sort of hyper-vegan diet that doesn't allow anything to taste like anything. As usual, I was wrong (what can I say, I'm a vegetarian who subsisted largely on ice cream for the first ten years of my vegetarianism).

A trip to SoHo's Souen proves that macrobiotic-ness is more about balance and eating local. Even (gasp!) fish is allowed! Granted, it's not THE most flavorful of food genres, and sometimes weird seaweed is involved, but who can hate on a meal that ends with vegan lemon tofu berry (wait for it) CHEESECAKE??

(PS I apologize for these creepy fade-out menu photos. The food really is good. And not creepy at all. Really.)

Copenhagen: CityHippie in a city of hippies

2011-04-07T09:39:00.008-04:00

OK maybe they're not totally hippies. Unlike us long-haired stateside hippie folk, they're delightfully polite. And clean. But behind that freshly-scrubbed exterior, the city is full of peace, love, cuddles, and organic kale.

Ten Things I Heart About CPH:

1. Everybody recycles.

2. Everybody eats candy. But it's ok cuz they exercise.

3. Everybody rides bikes.

4. Sometimes they ride bikes with babies.

5. Sometimes their bikes have built-in flowerpots. No joke.

6. I read an article in which a Danish artist was quoted as saying, "Flowers are a very important part of life." UM YES

7. Christiania, Copenhagen's weird old quasi-defunct anarchist hippie commune, apparently has its own government and flag. Or something like that. It certainly has good graffiti.

8. Bio Mio restaurant = cafeteria-style quinoa, taro root chips, and bizarre yet (obviously) nutritious cocktails.

9. Hans Christian Anderson. Because who doesn't love an excruciatingly depressing fairy tale?

9. Hygge.

There's still time: Another Blue Year Valentine

2011-03-15T16:09:00.011-04:00

Offbeat and overeducated films are often the most Oscverlooked (that's overlooked by the Oscars, we're very into word rearrangement today), even when they march straight into mainstream movie-going society via Michelle Williams' boobs. But disregarding their place in relation to cinema's Beaten Path (on or off??) I have only good things to say about Blue Valentine and Another Year.

To my untrained yet aesthetically snobbish eye, both films came off as delightfully, dizzyingly pretty (fireworks! gardens! the aforementioned boobs!) at the same time as they were painfully stark (that freaky metallic Future Room, that endlessly empty British winter...) These characters - these couples, mostly - show snippets from all points along the spectrum: young and pretty and alone, young and pretty and in love, older and shlubbier and drifting apart, middle-aged and alone and drunk and desperate, older still and wrinkly and - what's this? - yes, that's right, happy. Sure, the acting tended towards the extreme, and I often found myself either wishing the dialogue would stop or begging for it to begin, but isn't that also how things go on our own awkward rollercoasters of human interaction?

Anyway, the Oscars are over, but thank goodness for the Angelika.

Extreme Yogis at the Rubin Museum

2011-02-21T09:44:00.010-05:00

This new exhibit is simultaneously 1) an inspiring and beautiful testament to human strength and devotion AND 2) like some bizarre reality show that began in 3300 B.C.E. But in Chelsea, what else do you expect??

The Rubin Museum generally does a pretty spectacular job of showcasing Himalayan art in a non-boring manner. Ancient Buddhist objects and paintings share the space with contemporary works inspired by Buddhism's minimalist/chilled-out/cosmic influences, the architecture is lovely, and there's a kick-ass cafe.

To add to the mix, the Rubin's new "Body Language" exhibit displays photos of Sadhus (ascetic holy dudes - the word comes from our favorite sadhana) in full regalia: no clothes, covered in ashes, plenty of malas, dreadlocks, and face paint signifying whether they are devoted to Vishnu or Shiva.

On one hand, I'm in awe; these men (and occasionally women, but usually just widows, and usually when they're old) have given up their possessions, homes, and families to devote themselves to spiritual practice. That's great. I mean, I always try to get rid of useless possessions and convince myself that I don't actually need to live in a bigger space than I already do (or in a space with, say, a dishwasher). On the other hand, I'm skeptical. Isn't yoga supposed to be about balance? Shouldn't you be able to devote yourself to spiritual practice AND to your family? Of course these are reductive comparisons, but humor me: are the sadhu rituals (such as drinking out of human skulls and the daunting practice of - wait for it - "penis yoga") really more spiritually valid than plain old asana, meditation, and acts of compassion?

I read that sadhvis (sadhu women) are forced to remain low down along the "spiritual hierarchy" - definitely a minus point for us feminist yoginis. And is it just me, or does the term "spiritual hierarchy" seem like an oxymoron anyway? I love and respect my teachers more than they know, but I am not going to wait on them hand-and-foot for years until I am initiated as a teacher myself. Because I'm already a teacher, and always have been. You have always been a teacher, too. And so have my parents. And so has my cat. For me, this is how yoga goes. Yoga means "union," and in the practice of yoga we are all one: teachers, students, men, women, sadhus and cats.

I Heart Hopper

2011-02-10T09:37:00.006-05:00

Hey guess what? The Whitney Museum is having an Edward Hopper exhibition. I KNOW, THEY NEVER DO THAT! Just kidding, they do it all the time.

This particular exhibition, however, is trying (somewhat half-assedly) to be different. It's called, "Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time," and it has branched out to include not only the Nyack Nighthawk himself but droves of his contemporary painter buddies from various Realist and Ash Can persuasions.

But herein lies the rub: these other guys are entirely uninspired. Hanging amidst Hopper's eerie, Hitchcocky night scenes, a glaringly stylized boxing painting by George Bellows seems like a cheap knockoff of Hopper's intimate, true-to-life imagery. Such a cheap knockoff, in fact, that I can't bear to post Bellows's painting on my blog. You'll just have to Google its aesthetic atrocity for yourself.

I know the good old Whitney folks are just trying to branch out from the Hopper-only retrospective in an attempt to be less boring than they always are. But honestly, a ton of "boring" artists (the Beatles, Frank Capra, Billy Collins) are overplayed for a reason: because they have an outlook and an accessibility that nobody else has.

"Hopper is simply a bad painter," says critic Clement Greenberg, "and that's what makes him such a great artist." So next year, O Great Whitney, feel free to ditch the other guys and show another boring Hopper-only exhibit. I'm fine with boring.

Buddy Blog: The Post-Teacher Training Blues

2011-02-02T10:39:00.007-05:00

I'm teaching my first official open-to-the-public yoga class today. In honor of that unnerving fact (and in hopes that I don't step on someone's face / forget to do standing poses / leave everyone in savasana for 45 minutes) I'm posting a link to a recent Elephant Journal article by Melanie Parker, my Yoga Buddy (that's right, capital letters - things in Yogaland are pretty darn official) with whom I spent the most harrowing and heartening four months of my life: teacher training.

Here's an excerpt from Melanie's article. You can (and should) read the whole thing.

Remembering that it is you who defines your experience is a struggle, but it is a struggle that offers innumerable opportunities for self-reflection and spiritual growth. Clearly I cannot claim to have completely integrated this lesson into my everyday method of being, but it is one of my most important post-teacher training practices by far.

No one is judging you as harshly as you are judging yourself. There is no way to quantify the terrific vibrancy of one’s spirit. Although I do believe there should be standards and a degree of reverence when it comes to teaching asana, pranayama and meditation, it will ultimately be your own unreasonable standards that stunt your evolution in any area of your life – not the standards imposed upon you by anyone else. Simply put: get out of your own way.

CityHippie out of the city

2011-01-21T10:18:00.010-05:00

So my family lives in southern Connecticut, and sometimes I like to visit them. (But what, you ask, could CityHippie possibly find to do in suburbia?? Read on, dear overanxious reader.)

Even uber-bougie Fairfield County actually has a few (OK very very few) non-JCrew-ish spots. For example: Dressing Room Restaurant in Westport (attached to that cultural mainstay, the Westport Country Playhouse) is certainly not cheap, but it is super fresh, local, and organic; they even list all of their CT supplier farms, in case you were wondering where your food was this morning. And it's Paul frickin Newman's restaurant, so it HAS to be awesome (it also has to have good salad dressing.)

Another CT go-to of mine is Blackbird Yoga in Georgetown. Aside from their chill and non-crowded classes, the studio is just so darn pretty. Seriously, turquoise and white never looked so good.

The moral of the story: "suburban" doesn't always rhyme with "lame." Only sometimes.

presents!!! overeducated, not overpriced

2010-12-16T10:02:00.004-05:00

I'm getting everybody books this year. (That's right, family, I just told you what your xmas present is. The mystery is lost forever. Sorry.)

But living on Tenth Avenue, just a couple of blocks away from the literary mecca that is 192 Books, and "having little or no money in my purse" (that's right, bitches, I just quoted Moby Dick on my blog, you got a problem??) it's only logical that I would stock up on beautiful brilliant $15 paperbacks for all of my loved and quasi-loved ones.

The best part about 192, aside from its cozily crammed shelves, esoteric texts and MFA-wielding staff members, is that all sorts of authors traipse through it all the time, signing books like it ain't no thang. So instead of supporting The Man by spending $15 on a paperback at Borders I can support The Pioneering Independent Underdog by spending $15 on a 192 paperback that just happens to be signed by Paul Muldoon. Word.

Imagine All the People, Drinking Wine in Peace

2010-11-19T08:49:00.006-05:00

It's rare that the veggies and the meatfolks can come together on a Saturday night and leave equally satisfied. At Cafe Ino on Bedford Street in the West Village, THEY CAN. With magically delicious paninis (like, so seriously delicious - I wouldn't be surprised to discover they're spiked with crack) from roasted vegetables+goat cheese to pork loin + spicy mayo, everybody's happy. Nobody is forced to eat mung beans with tofu, and nobody is forced to eat the vegetarian-in-burgerland fallback, Bread Sandwich With Pickles. This is one of those tiny NYC oases (because you CAN pluralize "oasis," although Liam Gallagher begs to differ) where friends and family can toss aside their ethical/culinary differences, join hands in a beautiful harmony, and celebrate what dinner is really all about: the wine.

Haircutz on the Cheap

2010-11-03T18:06:00.004-04:00

Having experienced both NYC haircut extremes ($6 haircut that made me cry, $75 haircut that made me punch people) I have finally found my happy place. The Aveda Institute in SoHo offers $20 chippity-chops that include shampooing, aromatherapy scalp massage, and blow-dry. And, you know, the hair-cutting part too. Yes, they use organic all-natural nice-smelling things. And yes, it's $20 total - all done by their super-trendy well-trained students. These may not be Officially Graduated And Certified Hairstylists or whatever (yet) but they know their shit, and it doesn't take too long to trust them - even when they are using a razor blade near your face. Also, they want to get an A, so they're not going to screw up. Right?

Eating Local and Making Shit Up

2010-10-09T10:26:00.010-04:00

I'm hardly a chef - I don't like recipes because they contain numbers, and hence, math. BUT the good thing about vegetarianism is that you don't really have to COOK stuff (ie "Is the meat cooked enough??") Instead you just heat stuff (or not) and, like, put it on a plate. Duh.

Better yet, eating local as a vegetarian eliminates all awkward food decision-making (ie "Does cheese go with fish?") because vegetables in season go with each other. You just go to the farmer's market, buy a bunch of veggies, and shove them together in a delicious harmony. (Hint: the does-cheese-go question is easier with vegetables, too. The answer: yes.)

Photo: salad! Made-up recipe: from the farmer's market: roasted beets, the last of the heirloom tomatoes, parmesan. From Somewhere Else: capers, salt, olive oil. (Hey, nobody's a perfect locavore. Not even Barbara Kingsolver.)

Photo: muffin! Made-up recipe: from the farmer's market: a bunch o' mac apples, 2 eggs, a big drizzle of raw honey, splashes of milk. From Whole Foods: 1 and 3/4 cup whole wheat pancake mix (the mix is genius. It has baking powder and math things already in it) 1/4 cup oil. Yes, there's some recipe here, but there's also a lot of ignoring-of-the-recipe. Because whoever said you can't make shit up when you bake...has obviously never struggled with addition.

Lying, Cheating and Stealing: The Story of a Sadhana

2010-09-30T13:47:00.005-04:00

I am instructed (note: this is NOT my idea) to begin a daily personal yoga practice, one of the requirements for yoga teacher certification at Laughing Lotus. My first plan of action is to cheat. Why not?? Three days a week, I work as a blogger/editor at an alcohol and drug addiction recovery nonprofit. I bike three miles to the office, work for ten hours, bike three miles home, eat, sleep, repeat. I can't imagine waking up even earlier than I already do, just to squeeze in a Lotus flow. The rest of my week is much more flexible: working at the yoga studio, tutoring, writing. So...a “daily” sadhana will have to mean “four days a week.” It sounds good enough to me.

This is the “when” worry. The “where” worry is somewhat more obvious. The only place to roll out a yoga mat in my apartment is on the floor between the cat litter and the cat food. I feel extremely guilty taking over this tiny, smelly space – the cat's only territory in the entire world. Prudence (the cat) has to begrudgingly climb over my child's pose in order to access her breakfast, and inevitably returns just to snatch the mala beads from my hand and hide them under the bed.

So, two weeks in, and I'm cheating on the Yoga School rules while stealing prime real estate from my pet. To make matters worse, I'm telling myself that this is the best I can do. (That's where the lying part comes in.)

The turning point is surprisingly simple: we are assigned to choose a mantra and chant it, at least once a day, for 40 days. It is almost too easy. I mean, no, I can't fit a 30-minute vinyasa sequence into the nonexistent space of my workday mornings. But I can fit a measly little mantra, can't I? Just one? So I roll out my mat at 7AM on a Monday. I'll chant “guru brahmha” etc. once and then make coffee. Except chanting once seems silly. I chant the mantra three times. By now my voice is warmed up, so I make it six times. I mean ten. Now Prudence is awake and watching me from across the room, fascinated. I might as well take advantage of her momentary preoccupation, and do a downward dog. And some sun salutations. Maybe a headstand.

Week three: “four days a week” has translated back to “daily.” Prudence has gotten used to things and become a rapt audience / occasional yoga practitioner, instead of a vicious asana attacker. Somehow, the nonexistent space of my mornings has sneakily expanded to accommodate my sadhana. At 7:30 AM after my vinyasa practice, I'm lying on the floor in savasana, cheating on the hang-ups of my own mind, and stealing time.

Chelsea Morning (coffee, of course)

2010-09-26T09:39:00.010-04:00

I know, I know, I should leave the neighborhood once in a while. But honestly, as Joni sings it: when you wake up and it's a Chelsea morning and the first thing that you do is peer into your ghetto hand-crank coffee grinder to discover that it's entirely empty of organic free-trade coffee, time is of the essence. (OK, Joni maybe didn't sing that.) Here's why there's no excuse for Starbucks:

Joe Coffee (23rd btw 9th and 10th aves) My go-to coffee spot. What's not to like about cold-brewed ice coffee and vegan green tea cookies?? There are also some other Joes: in the West Village, Union Square-ish, Grand Central and on the UWS. For those of us who live...elsewhere.

Cafe Grumpy (20th btw 7th and 8th aves) Follow the frown! Grumpy wins "best logo" for sure. They also accept credit cards, which Joe doesn't. Sometimes even the cash-less deserve good coffee.

Grey Dog Coffee (16th btw 7th and 8th aves) The newest addition to the Chelsea coffee cavalcade offers "real" food (as opposed to just cookies) in addition to open-air seating and booze.

Ninth Street Espresso (Chelsea Market, btw 15 and 16, btw 9th and 10th aves) You can't really sit here, nor would you want to (the stampeding marketeers would step on you) but this place is great if you're doing the latte-to-go thing. And instead of sitting down and doing "work," you can wander next door to Anthropologie...oooooooh...

There you have it. In "Chelsea Morning," Joni Mitchell really does sing about having breakfast in her apartment: "milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too." Kind of lame, Jones - you obviously ran out of coffee and didn't know where to get some. Maybe if you had been a little more awake you wouldn't have hooked up with Jackson Browne. Whatever.

And another: Sankalpah Yoga

2010-09-10T16:47:00.005-04:00

I have to admit, blogging for a living does cut down on the "me time" (and by that I mean, time for my own blog as opposed to the one I'm paid to write.) Yes, that's right, folks - I am ghostwriting for a respectable nonprofit, and you may call me Ms. Professional Blogger. But back to this here blog, where I give myself no requirements involving "serious" writing, correct fucking grammar, curse words, or oxford commas.

So, what's a Labor Day without some difficult (no, not childbirths) asanas? I took advantage of the Lotus being closed for Labor Day re-sparklifications and hopped on over to Sankalpah Yoga, still (kind of) in the 'hood on 28th and 5th avenue. The studio is gorgeous (like, now I want to paint sanskrit all over MY walls, too) and the class was tough and left me happy-shaky-strong, without leaving me absolutely drowning in a pool of my own sweat. Thumbs up - and now I have another pretty place to go the next time all this blogging gets me down.

Yet another branch of the yoga tree: Studio Anya

2010-08-22T16:32:00.004-04:00

Studio Anya (29 West 24th St.) is the yoga studio that swallowed a weight room, a spa, a library and your mom's kitchen. This schmancy - but simple - studio offers an odd - but effective - fusion of yoga, pilates, weight training and breath work, with some interpretive dance thrown in there for good measure.

Your first class is free, and you can also make yourself some free tea (or oatmeal!) and browse books on hummus and house-building while you wait for your session to begin in one of the (exquisitely air-conditioned) classrooms. Although the yoga style may not be your cup of chai - it's more "gym" than "om" - you'll be smitten by the atmosphere for sure. The place even smells like zen.

The Iyengar Conundrum: Yoga Sutra NY

2010-08-13T11:20:00.006-04:00

In case you didn't know by my current state of excitement / nerves, I'm about to start a yoga teacher training program at my wonderful place of practice / employment / hanging around, Laughing Lotus Yoga Center. From September to December, I'm pretty much going to live there. So I figured should take advantage of these last few weeks of freedom - I mean, summer - and check out some new and different studios and styles of yoga. First stop: Yoga Sutra, a newly renovated studio on 39th and Fifth Avenue, which offers Vinyasa, Iyengar and Ashtanga classes. Bonus: your first class is free (and was I really planning to come back? Not really.)

I've dabbled in Ashtanga (those long poses! that symmetry!) and we all know that I swing my way through a Vinyasa boogie practically every day. So a trial Iyengar class seemed like the logical choice, and boy was it...not what I expected. I knew that Iyengar focuses on alignment and involves props, so I kind of imagined a restorative class or something similar to the healing Yoga for Scoliosis classes I've taken. But Iyengar at Yoga Sutra is like slow-paced boot camp, with the instructor yelling out "HOLD! HOLD! HOLD!" like we're a soccer game and she is a Madrilena. Also, there was something about the whole experience (not just right angles and the perfectly measured limb-distances, but also the teacher constantly insisting that I was wrong and had to start over) that reminded me of high school math class. I kind of wanted to shrink into my seat and doodle on my imaginary textbook.

Here's the thing: I'm accustomed to a free-flowing Vinyasa style of yoga that encourages me to "move like myself," which fosters not-necessarily-yogic elements like dancing and laughing and falling on your ass. That is the kind of yoga I've grown to love. But does that mean I've been neglecting alignment? I know that I've learned the correct positioning, I haven't been injured, and my vinyasa teachers provide excellent adjustments. But have my warriors been too wide? My Prasarita Padottanasana too narrow? I guess the compromise is to go back to Vinyasa with an Iyengar-tinged mind, trying to take breaks from the bliss and making sure I don't put my knees in danger. Because (sorry Yoga Sutra) I don't think I can take another math-class-ish, soccer-game-ish yoga class. Childhood soccer trauma was what sent me running to yoga in the first place.

American Bohemians: the beginning of it all...

2010-08-06T19:38:00.006-04:00

When I go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Costume Institute is rarely on my agenda. I'm not a very Chanel-oriented chick. More of a Wyeth-Hopper-O'Keefe kind of museum-going gal. Plus, the mannequins kind of freak me out. That said, on this particular sunny Thursday, I was shocked to find myself (along with a dear friend's dear mother) wandering into a Met fashion exhibit - and becoming absolutely engrossed.

The exhibit, titled "The American Woman," follows the trendy U.S. chica from the 1890s forward, through some surprisingly strong stereotypes: Gibson Girl, Flapper, Politico, Screen Siren...but the most enthralling section was devoted to the early 1900s Bohemian Era - a major turning-point in American fashion that could be alternatively titled The Corset Gets its Ass Kicked. All of a sudden, the cinch-waisted dainty damsels of the 1800s have disappeared and been replaced by bra-less women in snazzy, free-flowing, comfy-looking gowns that - a few crazy kimonos aside - seem surprisingly wearable. (That square-necked number on the upper left?? Yes, please!)

So, let's get this straight: circa 1900, all of a sudden, stylish American women (many of whom were artists, performers, etc.) kicked their corsets to the curb and started wearing drapey dresses and flowers in their hair? Next thing you know, they're protesting for women's rights, embracing their sexual selves and getting into psychedelic substances. Yes, folks, it's true: this was the beginning of the hippies.

Clinton Street Baking Company: When Waiting is Overrated

2010-07-23T11:28:00.004-04:00

We did it! We found the portal to pancake Narnia. And it's to be found only at 9AM on a weekday.

Usually, you can fly to Chicago in less time than it takes to get a table at Clinton Street Baking Company. On any given Sunday (or Saturday, or weekday after 10AM) the LES brunch boon has a horde of hungry hipsters (and of course tourists) trailing outside its door and down the street - rain, shine, blizzard or Pride Parade notwithstanding. And since I'm hard pressed to pay for stuff in general, I'm even MORE reluctant to stand in line for three hours (in the WEATHER) in order to pay for something. Especially if that something is pancakes, which I can easily make at home.

That said, the Clinton Street pancakes (not to mention their coffee, huevos rancheros, and, according to a certain meatloving friend, their sugar-cured bacon) are pretty freaking amazing. Worth a three-hour backache? Probably not. However, the 9AM-weekday-loophole cuts the wait short and makes it all - cash, crowds, waking up early - worthwhile.

Book Review: Overeducated Heaven

2010-07-09T09:27:00.007-04:00

This may be the best book I've read all year. The most obvious reason for my esteem? Forgive the analogy, but "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" is a high-class literary "Gilmore Girls," full of witty banter, popular culture, and epic life lessons. Not to mention a sadfunny cast of idiotic uppity characters mixed in with some serious shit (isolation, class battles, pre-adolescent suicide contemplation, etc.) What's not to like??

"Hedgehog" absolutely consumed my month (June 2010 of course) with its soul-struggles and funny philosophy. Set in a schmancy apartment complex in Paris, it follows the perils of the overeducated: a brilliant twelve-year-old who hides her intellect, and the world's most well-read (or so we thought...) middle-aged concierge.

Aside from being delicious to read, the novel is also something of a surprise yogic text, a call-to-arms of psychological consciousness: "Can one be so gifted and yet so impervious to the presence of things? It seems one can. Some people are incapable of perceiving in the object of their contemplation the very thing that give it its intrinsic life and breath, and they spend their entire lives conversing about mankind as if they were robots, and about things as though they have no soul and must be reduced to what can be said about them - all at the whim of their own subjective inspiration."

And on that note, I will stop conversing about mankind and go smell some goddamn roses.

The Great Cake Debate

2010-06-26T11:14:00.005-04:00

Forget Brooklyn vs. Manhattan. One thing that New Yorkers looooove to argue about is cupcakes. For serious. It's worse than the Los Angeles FroYo wars; every New Yorker has their favorite spot for overpriced baked goods. And while I can't speak for Brooklyn, here are my opinions (possibly in decreasing order of suckitude):

Crumbs (addresses too numerous to count): This is the cupcake Starbucks. Everything is Venti-sized, gross, and expensive. But, lucky for you, Crumbs is ubiquitous in this city - so when you get a craving for stale cake with a removable frosting lid, you won't have to look very far.

Magnolia Bakery(401 Bleecker Street): WTF?? Everyone is obsessed with this place for no apparent reason, especially now that it has half-assed outposts in godawful places like Grand Central and Radio City Music Hall (ewwwwww Midtown). This place is like another Serendipity - and didn't Serendipity turn out to have rats? Yeah.

Sweet Revenge (62 Carmine): Gimmicky but ingenious, this combination of the Three Holy B's (Bakery, Bar, Bistro) seems to be an oft-covered subject of mine. The beer / wine / cupcake pairings totally make up for the crappy service. Although one time my soup was cold, too, which was annoying...

Billy's Bakery (184 9th Avenue): Now we're getting somewhere. The origin of my love for red velvet, this Chelsea standby is a not-too-pretentious institution. Their pumpkin pie ain't bad, either.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine (126 Rivington): And the dark horse wins! At $1.50 a pop, these cupcakes are the cheapest treat around. Kooky atmosphere and fab frosting are the...wait for it...icing on the cake.

free outdoor yoga takes Manhattan (on an epic scale)

2010-06-09T16:54:00.004-04:00

I can never decide whether to write "before" posts or "after" posts. Pre-event excitement for something that may turn out to be a failure? Or post-event praises for an activity that no one else can share because it's now over? Anyway, the various upcoming yogic solstice celebrations have left me downright giddy, so I'm writing about them before they've happened, based on the sheer faith that they will be amazing.

First, on June 21, there are free outdoor yoga classes in Times Square all day - to celebrate the ups (community! energy!) and downs (noise! traffic!) of New York City yoga. Then, on the 22nd (technically post-solstice, but who gives a flying crow?) there is yoga on the Great Lawn in Central Park, complete with free yoga mats and a fabulous lineup of yogi musicians. All for the price of a subway ride - or better yet, take your goddamn bike. This is yoga, people!

Butterfly Conservatory at the Museum of Natural History

2010-06-07T14:48:00.002-04:00

Here's what happened: we tried to eat at the Popover Cafe but it is apparently closed "by order of the Commissioner Of Mental Health" (WTF?!?) and then we tried to go lose ourselves in the pretty flowers at NYBG but the B/D wasn't running because it was a weekend and that's when the subways go on vacation. Apparently. So we grumpily ended up at the American Museum of Natural History (because who HASN'T been there a zillion times, right??) but were pleasantly surprised by the following:

1. The Butterfly Conservatory, where you can amble around a room-sized rainforest with a rainbow of beautiful butterflies and creepy moths - any of which may land on your hand / face / butt at any moment. Easily more thrilling than popovers.

2. Hugh Jackman was there too, enthralled by the little flying fellas. Because even Wolverine loves pretty pink wings.

Uptown OM: Neighborhood Holistic in Harlem

2010-05-20T10:34:00.004-04:00

A few Sundays ago I did the unthinkable: I left the Lotus! I left Chelsea! I braved the subway (I had to BUY a METROCARD for crissakes) and went all the way up to 128th and Malcolm X Boulevard (see generic Harlem photo) for a "yoga for back pain" class at Neighborhood Holistic.

Here's what was nice about it:

1. I do have back pain, and the class probably helped

2. The class was small and the teacher was able to do hands-on assists

3. Fun props

Here's what was not nice: leg lifts, butt crunches (?!?) and abs, abs, abs. It reminded me of all the things I used to hate about working out before I discovered yoga.

Basically, the class had my brain going "exercise! exercise! exercise!" and yearning for the sneakily-strenuous yoga practice that I have come to call my own. For me, yoga is like the sugar on the grapefruit...the cheese on the broccoli? Whatever. The point is, I'm usually so busy focusing on breath, meditation, alignment, chanting, and just general not-falling-over that I completely forget I'm exercising. I'm like a little kid who will eat "chickpeas" but not "garbanzo beans." I'll hold navasana until the cows come home, but ask me to do a sit-up and I have traumatizing gym class flashbacks. Sigh.

But hey - there must be SOME people out there who want to get their gym class nostalgia on?...am I right?...Bueller??

Breaking Up is Fun to Do: "Breaking Upwards" at the IFC Center

2010-05-13T13:33:00.006-04:00

In the grand scheme of things, $15,000 is not a whole lot of money. It will pay for you to go to a liberal-arts college for about five seconds, and god knows where the Wall Street folks toss that kind of cash. In movieland, $15,000 is what, like 1/1000th of "Titanic"?? My point is: the fact that Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones cranked out this witty, accessible and low-tech emotional thinkpiece for a Hollywood pittance of $15,000 is pretty remarkable.

For the uninitiated: "Breaking Upwards" (showing at IFC) follows actors (and directors, producers, singers, songwriters, on-set chefs...not to mention real-life folks) Daryl and Zoe as they a) decide to break up, b) realize this sounds awful and difficult, and c) thus strategize their mutual untwining via an open relationship. The resulting film is a sarcastic, esoteric but entirely unprickly hipster rollercoaster / therapy session. Daryl and Zoe even brought some big guns in acting along for the ride: Andrea Martin, Olivia Thirlby, and Julie White, all of whom - on the Screen Actor's Guild minimum daily salary of $100 - happily populate this pseudo-documentary world based on Zoe and Daryl's own stormy relationship. This is one dynamic duo who may be short on cash, but who make up for it with resourcefulness, honesty...and snark.

The Green Table: Local Food AND Air Conditioning!

2010-05-03T10:38:00.008-04:00

It's all the fun of a sidewalk cafe (namely, "outdoor" seating and people-watching) but it has the NYC summertime key ingredient: air-con. The Green Table is smack-dab in the middle of the indoor hub that is Chelsea Market, so it's a bustling scene on any day but especially those (like yesterday) that are miserably hot and begging for a kir cocktail with local cassis. In the food realm, the harvest salad and the heirloom baby beets are surefire vegan-pleasers, the egg dishes and mac n' cheese will make a non-health-freak-vegetarian's heart sing, and there's plenty of that meat business too, for those OTHER people. Everything is local and in-season from the farmers markets, plus you get to watch those nattily-dressed art dealers and gay guys speedwalk home from work while you eat.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden: the off-season argument

2010-04-19T10:32:00.012-04:00

Of COURSE the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is amazing in full, colorful bloom. But consider this: I went on a Tuesday in March and a Tuesday two Tuesdays later in April, and my verdict is that I will happily choose the off-season any day. The March Tuesday was cold and misty and the few flowers that were in bloom (magnolias, irises, the beginnings of tulips) required some serious searching-for. And the best part was the total solitude; I felt like Mary Lenox in "The Secret Garden," alone on the moors except for some old dude with a cane and a tweed coat (really, he was there.) So, with the entire BBG to myself (Mr. Tweed excepted) I did the only logical thing: I pulled a Beatrix Potter and sat down in the middle of the path to draw the earliest of spring flowers until my fingers went numb. And then I went into the greenhouse and drew those, too.

Fast forward to the Tuesday in April: sunnier, more colorful, exponentially multiplied flowers - but the gardens are packed with people (did I mention admission is free on Tuesdays??) and you may spend all day in the 3-mile line for the bathroom. The moral of the story: of course go to the BBG in April. And May. And June. Whatever. But also go when it's cold and damp and questionably-flowered. Because then everybody else will be at MOMA.

Folk Review (OK, just praise): Margaret Kilgallen

2010-04-11T18:28:00.003-04:00

This is going to be an inarticulate blog post, I can tell. Mostly because Margaret Kilgallen's artwork leaves me speechless. She is an absolute phenomenon, lauded by her contemporaries as a "rare creature" - not to mention that I personally believe her to be the modern messiah of folk art. And a pretty swell lady to boot.

I like to categorize her (totally freehand) murals and paintings as stencil-meets-circus-meets-boxcar-hobo, infused with nostalgia and humor and that sort of beauty that is found only in ugliness. Of course the tragi-comedic, silly-biblical aspect of her work is heightened by the fact that she is something of a modern martyr: pregnant and suffering from breast cancer, Kilgallen had to choose between treatment and the baby. She chose the baby, and died three weeks after she gave birth. She was 33 years old.

Although the emotional, ghostly image that remains of Kilgallen contributes to her elusiveness and mystique, the strength of her art is very much an enduring reality. She has been and remains my favorite folk artist. And she still would be if she were alive and doing something dumb, like being on a reality TV show. Or something.

The Summer of Love is alive and well at MOSEX

2010-04-05T16:55:00.009-04:00

Who knew Fifth Avenue had so much racy, raunchy, healthy hippie chutzpah? (Certainly not Bergdorf's.) The Museum of Sex, or MoSex, as stupidly amusing NYC lingo would have it, is bringing out the big guns (tee-hee!) this spring with an exhibit on the history, struggles, and successes (sex-essess!) of the condom. The exhibit starts with ancient roots (penis sheaths) and leads through pre-Victorian incarnations (linen, oiled paper) to the rubber revolution, makes a left at the AIDS epidemic, and then plows straight on through to the mysterious advent of the condom dress: a fuschia frock made out of repurposed - but thankfully not reused - rubbers. Yeah, that's right - Bergdorf's can suck it.

Folk Art Meets the Original Desperate Housewives: Victorian Photocollage at the Met

2010-03-28T17:27:00.008-04:00

On a regular day, the Metropolitan Museum of Art doesn't really crack me up. The museum conjures up many images (culture, crowds, Caravaggio) but comedy is not usually one of them. Especially not wry, bizarre, absurdist comedy in the guise of starched propriety. UNTIL NOW.

This exhibit (and yes it DOES qualify as folk art, seeing as the artists are all untrained, ostensibly bored, upper-class Victorian housewives, NOT professional painter-collagers) is a hilarious hodgepodge of assembled works on paper, culled from centuries-ago scrapbooks. They are, on one hand, cutesy combinations of stiff-necked family photos and frilly watercolor flowers, fowl, and furniture, stuck together by dainty but assumedly un-brilliant ladies of leisure and exhibited to visitors as frivolous entertainment.

On the OTHER hand, however (and this is a much better hand), these watercolor photocollages are the psychadelic subconscious outpourings of repressed - but unabashedly creative - female minds. And from the stifling 19th-century domestic world of needlepoint and afternoon teas, it is kind of amazing that these little slices of cynicism have managed to escape into the light. Their makers may have been coiffed and corseted and quiet on the surface - ah, but underneath: they were also surrealist, incisive, insightful, ridiculous, darkly humorous, and pretty brilliant after all. Not bad for Stepford, circa 1860.

HippieLit: "Girls Like Us" by Sheila Weller

2010-03-21T18:37:00.004-04:00

OK, so I have never really been a biography fan. My aversion to biography probably stems from a combination of ADD (I'm supposed to read about ONE person for THREE HUNDRED PAGES?!?) and a general disdain for the genre's pseudo-academic self-importance. "Girls Like Us," however, is a total non-biography, and it's fantastic.

For one thing, it's a biography of three people - Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon - each of whom is a musical and cultural legend in her own right, and each of whom could be (and probably has been) the subject of her own specific biography. At first, lumping them all together as the stellar exemplars of an entire generation of women seems like a terrible idea - but, as things turn out, it works brilliantly. Weller manages to successfully separate and intertwine the epic and endlessly entertaining life stories of the Brooklyn songsmith, the Canadian folk faerie, and the Manhattan-sprung sexpot performer so that their alternation and combination makes perfect sense.

Bonus for those of us with (real or imagined) ADD: just when you get tired of reading about one superchick, Weller switches gears and starts writing about a different one.

Miracle on 28th Street: Yoga Union Center for Backcare and Scoliosis

2010-03-17T16:35:00.005-04:00

Scoliosis is a bitch. Basically it's med-lingo for "crooked spine" - mine has a moderate but substantial curve of about 30 degrees, and it tends to cause me moderate but substantial pain.

Being the yoga-obsessed chick that I am, I was appalled and slightly embarrassed when I discovered Alison West's Yoga Union Center for Backcare and Scoliosis, which has been lurking on, of all streets, West 28th Street (Punch line: I live on West 28th Street). How this amazing place bypassed me during the past three years of not-ever-really-leaving-my-neighborhood, I'll never know.

Needless to say, I hauled my crooked ass to a class, and the whole thing was pretty much a revelation / quasi-religious experience. The teachers, Alison and Mimi, looked me up and down (from the front, mind you, they've got xray vision or something) and somehow divined that my spine had a right thoracic curve. Then, with the help of ropes and hooks and props galore, they helped me yank and twist myself into some difficult - but magical - spinal spaces. The most inspiring thing about the class was the feeling of, awkward as it sounds, being part of a little crooked community. My "moderate" curve was small potatoes compared to the 50 degree+ curves of some of these yogis - but they were also yanking and twisting up a storm, and I was watching with awe and admiration, trying to mimic their wonderful spine-shifting shapes.

So, the moral of this story is this: whether or not there is a God (or a Santa Claus), I am thanking him / her for the miracle of Alison West and the Yoga Union. Because I'll take a happy back over eternal salvation any day.

Video Folk

2010-03-07T18:05:00.005-05:00

Folk music and music videos don't usually get along very well. Mostly because folk music is subtle and heartfelt and music videos veer towards more obvious extremes (moody vs. booty). Often, as proven by the 80's cartoon catastrophe that was A-Ha's video for "Take on Me," the only thing worse than a music video full of naked chicks and/or melodramatic hair-blowing is a music video full of low-budget animation.

Trust the Be Good Tanyas to prove me wrong. The video for their song, "Human Thing," is not only a (gasp!) folk video, it's also low-budget-animated (with beautiful hand-drawn figures) and some of them are naked low-budget animated figures. But it is absolutely gorgeous and entirely original. And I love it. Cartoon hair-blowing and all.

There's white wine, and red wine, and then there's green wine

2010-03-04T10:02:00.004-05:00

Green in temperament, that is. Because green-colored wine would be scary. But "green" wine - organic, biodynamic, often from local NY state grapes - is tasty, sustainable, and way less gross than those spirulina shakes. It's also the specialty of Appellation, a snazzy and enviro-chic wine boutique in, of course, Chelsea (what can I say, I like to keep it real in the 'hood.)

Granted, I'm no wine expert, but I do know that Appellation's offerings are delicious (for you) and nutritious (for the planet). Also, the last time I showed up to Appellation on my beach cruiser, three wine dudes appeared, opened the double doors, helped me bring my bike inside, and then proceeded to safeguard my bubbly Gruet in bike-ready, pothole-proof packaging. That's what I call (eco)friendly service.

Indie Lit: Books of Wonder, of course!

2010-02-26T11:48:00.008-05:00

It's about that time. That time when I unashamedly write a blog post about one of my illustrious and beloved workplaces. The latest on the roster is Books of Wonder, an independant children's bookstore in Chelsea. We specialize in chaos, cute babies, and old and rare kiddie lit (ridiculous objects of antiquity like the original fur-covered edition of "The Little Fur Family" and an $80,000.00 signed copy of "The Wizard of Oz") but carry everything from Sendak to "Skating Shoes" to run-of-the-mill crappy teen lit, vampires and all. Basically we are the cast and set of "You've Got Mail" - if you add "Twilight" and subtract Tom Hanks. But things are generally better without Tom Hanks.

Sweet Revenge (because booze and cupcakes are vegetarian, obviously)

2010-02-15T10:33:00.003-05:00

So, yes, I have been a "vegetarian" at some level for about twenty years now. I went from eating only bacon to only turkey to pure vegetarianism, and these days I'm a vegetarian+fish. Because apparently fish are good for you. Whatever. All of this aside, even the most hardcore vegetarian needs a break from their duties as Captain Planet. And since it's not a good idea to just go have a burger after decades of meat-abstinence (hello, indigestion!), cupcakes and alcohol always seem to do the terribly-unhealthy-yet-somehow-still-vegetarian trick.

Which leads me to Sweet Revenge. It's a cafe/bar on Carmine that ingeniously combines two of New York City's most troublemaking obsessions - because who hasn't drunkenly fought with a loved one over the age-old bakery debate of Billy's vs. Buttercup?? Forget those boring bakery standbys; Sweet Revenge serves up classy cakes (from straight-up chocolate to the cardamom/pistachio/rosewater "Casablanca" cake) alongside perfect wine and beer pairings selected for each cake flavor. Best of all, since Sweet Revenge is technically a bar, it stays open well after that crummy Crumbs place shuts its crappy little frosting-encrusted doors. Bring on the midnight snack.

Ephemerui: Actual Innovative Dance (Better Than That "STOMP" Nonsense)

2010-02-08T10:08:00.008-05:00

Yes, I know, "STOMP" was entertaining. But there's only so much meaning that can be conveyed by such a hyper-precise level of choreographed movement. As a dance-watcher, I much prefer a multi-dimensional experience that is intellectual as well as visual. Enter Ephemerui, an alternative dance company (and no, "alternative" does not mean a bunch of naked hippies spinning around aimlessly on stage) that focuses on a truly novel concept: structured improvisation.

It's a mediation that is long overdue in the dance world, which is often polarized between wacky, formless improv on one end and conservative dance pieces that are inextricable from their specific "steps" on the other. Ephemerui, led by Brooklyn-based dance dude Benjamin Rasmussen, finds the perfect balance between these two extremes; they meet once a week for a rehearsal/creation-session in which the six members organically and spontaneously bring forth their work from certain established concepts, outlines, movements and chronologies. The resulting performance, although subtle and free from percussive broom-banging, is absolutely enthralling. Ephemerui's work runs the gamut from passionate to awkward to poignant to frightening to hilarious - basically, it's a lot like life.

HippieLit Fail: "Tales of a Female Nomad"

2010-01-30T17:14:00.002-05:00

Rita Golden Gelman is a wonderful children's book author who, at the age of fifty, made the admirable decision to live the rest of her life without a permanent address. And a-globetrotting she went, from backpacking in Mexico to eel-catching in Bali and beyond. Basically, a life to which many wanderlusting, adventurous hippies aspire. Sounds like a great premise for a memoir, no?

Oh, no. Sadly, Gelman is just a bit TOO talented at writing for children. Her memoir (unfortunately geared towards the over-21 set) is an endless array of ridiculously simplistic sentences and lists, lists, lists. Gelman Lists what she packs. She lists the gifts that she brings. She lists her outfits and her meals and her groceries and her recipes and most annoyingly, she lists the names of her friends. It's like one of those bad anecdotes my sister sometimes tells, one that never seems to develop a plot: "We were all at the table, me, Bob, Billy, John, Jan, Timmy, Pat, Patty, Jose, Juanita, Jim, Jimmy, Jimbo..." Lists are a great tool for getting five-year-olds to learn their letters and practice reading. They are not a great way to engage a reader who already knows how to read.

And, to top it all off, poor Gelman is suffering from major delusions of grandeur. Not only does she imagine that a reader would care about her meaningless daily habits ("I bite into another scone and breathe deeply") but she also imagines that by bumbling her way into different cultures, setting up house and sprinkling around some American dollars, she is bettering the lives of others and becoming "one" with the world.

It's rare that I give up entirely on reading a book, but sadly, I'm halfway through and "Tales of a Female Nomad" is going the way of "A Day No Pigs Would Die" - I refuse to find out how it ends. Perhaps Gelman will convert to Islam or register as an official member of a Maori tribe. I'll never know. I will be happily busy rereading "Harry Potter," reveling in J.K. Rowling's wit, advanced vocabulary, and general grasp of syntax.

Nostalgia Folk: The Be Good Tanyas

2010-01-24T13:18:00.004-05:00

Canadian folk trio The Be Good Tanyas picked up the legacies of folk greats like Joni, Joan and Carole...and ran with them. They skipped the angry-girl-folk trend of the 1990's (sorry, Ani) in favor of down-home bluesy tunes with haunting vocals. Then they plunged into nostalgia and threw in some banjo and North American folklore for good measure, and thus became a folk force to be reckoned with.

Their painstakingly unique 2001-2006 albums "Blue Horse," "Chinatown," and "Hello Love" have hardly gotten the critical recognition they deserve (although they were featured on "The L Word," which is always a plus) and the retro-chic gal group - made up of Frazey Ford, Sam Parton, and Trish Klein, below - have since disbanded. Still, here in outer Chelsea (or OuCh as the NYC hipster abbreviations would have it) it's just not Sunday morning without the Be Good Tanyas on the record player. (Sadly - or luckily? - nostalgia is alive and well in today's world, and my snazzy retro-chic record player is from Target.)

Badass Yoga: Jivamukti

2010-01-18T21:26:00.002-05:00

No, Mark and I don't hang around the apartment practicing this pose. However, Sharon Gannon and David Life, founders of Jivamukti Yoga School (Broadway between 13th and 14th streets) probably do. And Jivamukti, boasting world-renowned teachers and frequented by an assortment of famous dudes I don't really know (who is Russell Simmons anyway?? Whatever, apparently he was on the yoga mat next to me in class) is undoubtedly the most likely place to successfully teach us this pose. The open-level classes are challenging, vinyasa-based groove parties with some traditional Jivamukti-style philosophy tossed in for good measure. The best part: in addition to the teacher, there is usually a wandering assistant or two to ensure that everybody gets hands-on adjustments. The worst part: $20 for a drop-in class. Luckily, first-timers get an unlimited one-week yoga pass for $25. Which means that I will be at Jivamukti every day this week, and then never again. Until I become rich. But by then I will have already perfected my ability to do badass inversions like this one.

Somewhat Folk Review: Georgia O'Keefe at the Whitney

2010-01-11T10:41:00.004-05:00

Flowers and vaginas. Pretty much the top of the hippie list of favorite things. But don't let her reputation fool you; one of modern art's most famous feminists, botani-fans, and nude models (see! Georgia did it, too!) did not JUST paint those undulating pink parts that we all know and love. In fact, the Whitney Museum's current exhibit spotlights O'Keefe's lesser-known, more abstract works - including a loan from Vassar College's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Gallery! (Way to go, Vassar. Way to help out the little people.)

Although, honestly, none of her dots and swishes exude the sort of breathtaking majesty of the vag-flower, O'Keefe's abstract stuff provides a valuable exercise in viewer interpretation, since it is usually still based on a concrete object or place. Take this triptych (above), for example - is it a wave? A tent? The mountain in "The Nightmare Before Christmas"? (Answer: It's whatever you want it to be. Except it's probably not a vagina.)

Hippie Lit: "Made from Scratch" by Jenna Woginrich

2010-01-03T10:53:00.003-05:00

If you're anything like me, you will undoubtedly read this book (like any book in January, really) out of a mid-winter desire to NOT leave the couch. But watch out: before you know it, you will be up and un-blanketed, running around town gathering supplies in order to cook, bake, knit, and grow your way into your own fabulous urban (or suburban) homestead. Woginrich is an office-bound graphic designer by day, but on nights and weekends (and early early mornings) she moonlights as a down-home farmgirl, making her own clothes and food while raising a veritable menagerie of chickens, bees, dogs, rabbits, etc. She's got tips up the wazoo for first-time homesteaders who are short on farmland.

So, yeah, it's true that I hardly left my apartment this weekend. But I did knit, embroider, plant herbs, bake bread, churn butter, and try and train my cat to pull a sled. So I'm excused, right?

Pure Yoga: that shit is FANCY

2009-12-29T11:34:00.004-05:00

Vassar College has Fancy Cake. The Upper West Side has Fancy Yoga. And unfortunately, in the latter case, "fancy" is synonymous with such clunkers as "commercialized" and "superficial."

My mind is still reeling from last week's foray into Yoga As Mass-Marketed Urban Trend (sounds like a Vassar seminar!) at the unbelievably shiny, unbearably hip, eerily club-like (or at least lounge-like) Pure Yoga studio on 77th. What, you ask, could have possibly lured me out of my downtown hovel and convinced me to brave the 1 train and the snowy slopes of Broadway in order to sit in a weirdly-lit sterile room with a bunch of housewives and do repetitive and uninteresting yoga poses?? A free class, that's what. Obviously.

A dear yogini friend of mine happens to work at Pure Yoga's retail shop. She's a brilliant lady with a knack for selling giant purple designer yoga mat bags - and she kindly invited me to try a free class with her. However, as the class progressed, it became clear that we should both run, not walk, back to our sweaty, scrappy, donation-based yoga origins. I'm not sure which was the scariest: the studio's supermodel attendants, the impeccable color-coordinated interior design, the muscled teacher dude who straddled my face while I was in cobra pose, or the aforementioned teacher dude's instructions to "dedicate your practice to something you value: like a favorite pair of pants."

Really?!? Pants. Not love, honesty, or world peace. Not even a favorite pet. Just pants.

HippieGifts: Damn the Man! Save Christmas!

2009-12-21T00:14:00.004-05:00

We all know that the likelihood of me "going shopping" is only slightly greater than the likelihood of me participating in organized team sports. That said, it's four days until Christmas and negative-something days until Hanukkah, so my time for embroidering ornaments and infusing liquors is limited. Chances are, so is yours. So let's not waste these precious days getting icky gifts at consumerist behemoths (yes, Target, I'm talking to you, bitch) for everyone on our lists. Here are some much better ideas:

For the Art Fart in your life, skip the overdone MOMA store and head two doors down to the gift shop at the Museum of American Folk Art for handmade kitsch aplenty.

Barnes and Noble?!? Really? Unless you plan to shower your favorite Bibliophile / Unemployed English Major Friend with the latest Dan Brown crap, check out the hand-printed and hand-bound (that's a lot of hands) books and subscriptions at Brooklyn's Ugly Duckling Presse

Believe me, Grandma don't need no more slippers. In fact, she probably spends all her Grandma time knitting her own, for crissakes. So why not show your support for her octogenarian craftiness by supplying her with tools of the trade? City Quilter on 25th has an awesome selection of fabrics and fixings, and Downtown Yarns on Avenue A is pretty much alpaca heaven.

Yes, it's possible: you CAN save the planet AND please a Product Junkie at the same time, and you don't even have to plant a tree or enter the cultural abomination that is Bath and Body Works. My friend's company, Herban Lifestyle, has a better, earth-friendlier version of everything offered by that aforementioned godforsaken smelly warehouse. And we all know that my store, Sabon, is the mecca of natural vegan soaps for everyone from lychee-lovers to folks of the more, ahem, patchouli persuasion.

Don't let your Snobby Foodie Friend guilt you into getting them a gift certificate to Babbo. Remind them where good food really comes from with some nifty Greenmarket gear, or better yet, traipse over to the farmer's market itself for some winter treats like maple candy, smoked fish, apple molasses...the list goes on.

We know your Undereducated Little Brother wants some piece of crap from Best Buy. Or an itunes gift certificate. Or a Wii. Or whatever. But this is so much cooler: Montreal-based Yellow Bird Project has enlisted a shit-ton of indie rock bands to design T-shirts to benefit charities. The designing and the charity-choosing is entirely up to the musicians themselves. So, like, yeah your brother would love to get one of his favorite band's CDs. But wouldn't he REALLY love to get a T-shirt DESIGNED by his favorite band, a shirt that happens to support art, music, and AIDS research all at the same time?!? Way to save the world, little bro. Way to save the world.

Shall I make a pun? Something about the naked truth, perhaps?

2009-12-14T18:25:00.008-05:00

This is a very risque blog post, especially for a tea-drinking, scarf-knitting, cat-loving 95-year-old-woman-at-heart like me. The subject of today's exciting post (and PG-13 rated photo) is my recent foray into the surprisingly unexciting world of nude modeling.

Maybe this was actually one of my more stereotypical career moves: a tree-hugging vegetarian Vassar gal (with lesbian earrings, apparently) agrees to take part in a respected photographer's collection of so-called "artistic nudes," ends up in a Chelsea photo studio in her birthday suit, developing minor back cramps and brushing up on her nude meditation skills. All in a day's work for a cityhippie, right? Oddly enough, none of this seemed very out of the ordinary, nor was it that awkward. In fact, although my first instinct was to take the money and run, I ended up being happy I stuck it out (ha! puns!) for the length of the somewhat tedious photo shoot. I mean, if you can chill out naked in front of strangers, you can pretty much do anything, right? Yeah, that's right. I can do anything.

Veg Patrol: Angelica Kitchen

2009-12-09T00:13:00.004-05:00

Tiny, trendy, AND vegan?!? No, I'm not talking about Moby. Although he is all of those things. But I digress. The little vegan hipster to which I'm referring is Angelica Kitchen, the east village's go-to tofu hole. I hereby declare my life plan: while away my happy and healthy days there, in a corner booth, guzzling down fresh apple-carrot-ginger juice. And you should, too. Because, honestly, despite its undying reputation and skinny waiters in plaid shirts, Angelica manages vegan perfectionism while giving off a decidedly un-pretentious vibe. I wish I could say the same for Moby. But I suppose it's not easy being short and bald.

Community Yoga: Just Another Reason to Love the Lotus

2009-12-04T00:11:00.014-05:00

So now that I've successfully escaped my cozy cubicle and my promising career as a speechwriter (Sam Seabourne was already feeling threatened) what on earth am I doing with my days?? Well, aside from the run-of-the-mill teaching and writing and soap-selling, I pretty much go to yoga class. And since teacher-writer-soapsellers don't make the big bucks, I tend to opt for New York's signature donation-based classes - unfortunately, these cattle calls usually involve jam-packed studios and zero individual instruction. Except! My dear Laughing Lotus. As always, their weekday Community Class (2:30-3:45PM) offers attentive teachers, innovative asanas, groovy music, and a kitschy painted goddess coming out of the wall: all for a pay-what-you-wish price. I usually shell out five bucks, which is much less than my officewear dry-cleaning ever was (and I'm convinced that those polyester work pants were terrible for my karma.)

HippieLit: this just in

2009-12-01T11:29:00.011-05:00

Talk about offbeat and overeducated.

Exhibit A: Comic book history of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and co., in all their rambling, bloodshot-eyed glory.

Exhibit B: Non-novel about the perils of being a carnivore and the values of the veg, from the trendy bespectacled Lit King himself, Jonathan Safran Foer (who has frighteningly and unsurprisingly been referred to as "JoSaFo" in those nether parts of Manhattan that refuse to speak without abbreviation. TriBeCa, I'm looking at you.)

Anyway, these neon tomes recently started appearing on bookstore front tables everywhere, and I haven't bought or read them yet, and I'm STILL posting on them. That's just how pretentious they promise to be. And we all know I love me some pretention.

masters of low-fi folk: the Mountain Goats

2009-12-01T10:59:00.003-05:00

Nothing warms up a cold Chelsea morning like the scratchy sounds of the Mountain Goats. I wake up, hand-crank some coffee beans, put on some jangly Goats tunes and I feel like I'm in some sort of alternative Appalachia - or at least in my college painting studio where the professor would only play the "Americana" radio station, regardless of reception quality.

Based in North Carolina, the Goats have an ever-revolving cast (of drummers, usually) that revolves around songwriter / singer / guitarist / pianist John Darnielle and his signature style of recording on the most low-tech recording devices available. Like a 1980's boombox.

That said, the primary source of my Goat love is Darnielle's lyrics, which are often sad, snark-filled poems that would turn Billy Collins green with envy. My personal favorite: "I love you. I love you because / you gave me sausage and cheese / when I was hungry." And the truth has spoken, folks.

Death By Yoga: Bikram at Yoga to the People

2009-11-23T17:56:00.008-05:00

FYI (in case you live in Nebraska or under a very un-trendy rock) Bikram yoga is hot yoga - a specific series of poses to be done in an extremely heated room. At Yoga To the People's 27th street outpost, "extremely heated" = a miserable 105+ degrees Fahrenheit.

Let's do a comparison study. Your usual vinyasa yoga class: breathing deeply, happily grooving through the poses and trying out new bizarre ones (hello, sideways crow!) before flying upside down into headstand, smiling all the way. YTTP's Bikram yoga class: unable to breathe, doing the same poses over and over, trying to fight the overwhelming feeling of total suffocation and rising nausea while the midwife-wannabe instructor is yelling at you to "push!" and your hearing goes funny and all the colors in the room start to blend together and there's a very high chance that you're gonna puke. Personally, I'd rather be at the dentist.

Freeganism: It actually has nothing to do with cheese!

2009-11-20T10:38:00.011-05:00

Sometimes I can be a pretty half-assed hippie. It must be the lingering influence of my privileged Connecticut upbringing. Here's proof: until recently, I sort of had a vague idea that Freeganism was some sort of Veganism, except you were allowed to eat cheese (because, honestly, what hippie doesn't like cheese?) Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Freegans actually don't give a damn about cheese - unless, that is, it's been recently tossed into a dumpster. As I have now learned, with the help of well-spent hours on freegan.info, Freeganism is based on contributing as little as possible to that great big evil economy. Hence jumping in dumpsters in search of tasty treats.

Although I'll admit I have mixed feelings about the actual dumpster-diving part (although if you're up for it, I applaud you) I realized that I am already involved in various Freeganesque activities, like local eating, craftsmanship, bartering, repurposing, waiting outside the bakery for free muffins at the end of the night, general sustainability, and of course the almighty mantra of Not Buying Crap. So I'll give myself an A for effort, but I'll save the A+ for the real Freegans - those much mightier than I. And I'll also keep checking freegan.info for indescribably cool NYC Freegan events and tips like "How to Find and Eat Wild Mushrooms in Prospect Park."

Tompkin's Square Farmer's Market: From Junk to Pumpkins. Ha.

2009-11-17T11:25:00.007-05:00

My first order of business in returning to the States is to instruct you, my fellow eco-savvy locavoracious New Yorkers, to hop on over to the Tompkins Square Farmer's Market this Sunday (7th Street and Avenue A, 8AM-6PM, open through November so catch it while you can).

My mom thinks it is beyond sketchy that this area, once a haven to NYC's 1980's heroin junky population and formerly known as Needle Park (how my mom knows about all this, I refuse to ask) is now a family-friendly spot for picking up apples and arugula. The best part: this is one of NYC's few all-accepting food stamp-friendly farmer's markets. Which means that cash is still king, but if you're of the poorer persuasion (ie me) you can swipe your EBT card in return for a fun bunch of food stamp tokens, which you can then trade for fancy maple syrup and other expensive items that you probably wouldn't buy with your actual money. And nothing beats sweets and tokens - it's just like going to the arcade!

Just another travel excuse: Northern India

2009-11-17T11:13:00.007-05:00

Yes, I haven't written for a bit, and I know all of my dear friends and blog-followers (not to mention Sam Rosenbaum's mom!) have been missing out on their weekly dose of NYC hippie antics. But my excuse is that I've been missing out on them too, as I was running around India doing offbeat and overeducated hippie activities such as becoming a badass Hindi-speaker, getting covered in mehndi (which is now freaking out my soap store customers), jumping up and down in front of the Taj Majal, and doing headstands at 4AM at an Indian farmhouse. But I'm back now, so just chill out, ok??

Veg Patrol: Community Food and Juice

2009-11-06T10:57:00.005-05:00

Somewhat lame name, decidedly good food - for veggies and meatheads alike. Community Food and Juice, on Broadway between 112th and 113th, recently reopened (after a fire, I think) and inspired throngs of joyful Morningsiders to line up outside and recommence the exciting-yet-boring NYC weekend ritual known as Waiting For Brunch.

But never fear: the folks at Community know how to make the wait worthwhile - not only is there a 7-grain waffle (with rum roasted apples and pears and cinnamon creme fraiche) and a Barnard Bear (hot lemon, mint, apple cider and honey) waiting for you at the other end of that brunch line, but if you're lucky the servers/foodfairies will bring you some free tasty treats while you're waiting. And no matter what, the wait won't be as long as at Sarabeth's.

The Quest for Free Yoga Continues: Lululemon

2009-11-02T13:00:00.009-05:00

I found another one! And it may be the best deal yet. Although my standby studios (Laughing Lotus and Yoga to the People) both offer donation-based classes, AND I recently discovered the amazingly free yoga open house day at Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, so far Lululemon is the ONLY place in New York that offers weekly yoga classes, 100% free. Correct me if I'm wrong (which I hope I am, because more free yoga = happier and healthier me. And perhaps you, too.)

Anyway, every Saturday at 9AM at Lululemon's Union Square branch, you can pop in for a not-too-crowded class that features a different guest teacher every week, moonlighting from various studios across NYC. So if you don't like the style, just wait a week. And after class you can step straight out into the Union Square Farmer's Market for lavender-mint tea and a delicious pumpkin muffin. Or, hell, buy a whole pumpkin pie. The yoga class was free, so you're allowed.

Because its Halloween, and this is better than candy.

2009-10-31T18:08:00.005-04:00

Just a quick post to say Happy Halloween (when brainstorming costumes, my boyfriend idiotically suggested we dress as hippies, to which I responded "Um, how would that be different from any other day of the year??") and to rave about a newly discovered sweet treat. At first glance, Raw Ice Cream Company's yummy stuff seems to be made out of nothing: it boasts that it is dairy-free, sugar-free, soy-free, gluten-free, rice-free...the list goes on. Given the remaining ingredient possibilities (I dunno, seaweed?!?) this could turn out to be pretty disgusting. OH but it is not. It's actually fabulous (and seaweed-free): made from cashews, coconut, agave nectar and magic, this stuff is even better than Haagen-Dazs. So skip the candy and cancer sticks tonight (Twix, duh. They're worse than cigarettes) and enjoy some raw vegan ice cream goodness.

One more thing...

2009-10-27T21:46:00.007-04:00

Along the lines of simple living (see today's other post) I came across this hilarious and frightening photo / blurb today. I don't know if it's an ad for a book or a movie or a new cult, but let's all pay off our debts quick or these pink briefs will start popping up everywhere from here to the L train. Shudder.

"The Simple Living Guide" by Janet Luhrs. It's better than the Bible.

2009-10-27T21:31:00.007-04:00

Forget the bible and its centuries of devoted readership. Read this instead! And then base a religion around it! Go.

I know, it looks cheesy. But don't judge its hokey self-helpish cover: from yoga to quinoa to getting rid of debt, this Janet lady has the remarkably simple, can't-believe-I-never-thought-of-that answers to all the big questions. (Question: How do I live with a job that drives me crazy?Answer: Quit. Question: How do I do get out of debt?

Answer: Stop buying crap. Amazing!)

All in all, an extremely inspiring and reassuring pat on the back for a poor-yet-happy peasant like myself. Way to go, self. Janet believes in you.

Sivananda Yoga Open House: because nothing beats free food and eye exercises.

2009-10-20T14:09:00.006-04:00

Since I fled my cubicle and my big-ass salary last June, I have made MANY many important discoveries, possibly the most important being that poverty has its benefits. Duh, I know that Gandhi figured this out WAY before me, but I am speaking from the point of view of a cupcake-eating, sleep-loving, apartment-dwelling Westerner, so I like to think I'm more accessible than Gandhi. Anyway, aside from its usual happy effects - living simply, helping the planet, spending more time on friends and art etc - being poor has made me MUCH more creative in the entertainment department. Instead of tossing some $20s (not to mention many hours of my day) toward yet another pair of shoes or three (or seven) mojitos, I end up keeping an eye out for things that are just as exciting yet much less expensive. Usually they turn out to be better for my health, too. Case in point: for two years, on my weekly walk home from the Chelssea Whole Foods, I have passed the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center on West 24th Street. Back when I had cash, I never gave this place a second glance - I was perfectly happy spending $100 a month on yoga elsewhere. Last week, however, as I strutted past with my Whole Foods bags full of exciting food stamp purchases, I picked up a flyer, hoping to scope out a possible free introductory class. What did I find instead, you ask?? Get this: a full-day yoga open house, conveniently happening the very next day, completely free of charge. Turns out the Sivananda Center opens its doors once a month for a free lecture, free demonstration, free yoga class, free vegetarian meal, and free guided meditation. (Did I mention it's free?) I only made it to the class and lunch (the important parts, right?) and although it wasn't my usual style of yoga (eye exercises were indeed involved) it was simple, relaxing and rejuvenating. And then there was food. Needless to say, I will be back next month.

Grounded Coffee: home of the lucky unemployed

2009-10-16T20:04:00.007-04:00

On a dark and stormy Thursday, around 11:30 AM (neither lunchtime nor first-cup-o-joe time, mind you) I collapsed into a seat at Grounded coffee shop at 28 Jane Street and was shocked to find the place completely packed. Who are these people? I wondered. The coffeeshop was full to the brim of warm, comfy, lounging, reading, chatting, crossword-doing and java-sipping folks. They weren't tourists, students, or wealthy housewives - at least, they showed none of the obvious signs (maps, textbooks, mountain-sized diamond engagement rings). Then how, I asked myself, were they lucky enough to while away this rainy New York workday in a happy land far from cubicles and construction sites, within the cozy confines a delightfully well-furnished coffee hole with my lovely friend Brenna as barista, brandishing the Worlds Best Vegan Cookies?!? The answer is simple, of course. Because these people are the few, the proud: the unemployed. And, as a quite half-assedly employed person myself (I was, after all, there myself at 11:30 AM on a Thursday) I paid for my cookie in nickels and joined the party.

Two of my favorite things (soap and jews) at Sabon

2009-10-07T16:53:00.007-04:00

So it seems only natural that I write a post on one of my many (many, many) current places of employment and enjoyment: the Israeli-based all-natural soap company called Sabon. "Sabon" means "soap" in Hebrew, and we all know I love soap AND I wish I was Jewish - so obviously I ended up working here. There are seven stores in Manhattan (and one on LI but honestly who goes there??) to delight any blueblood hippie who yearns to bathe in olive oil and patchouli (don't worry, there are normal scents too.)

After two years of cubicle-crouching, I consider it a privilege that I now get to ride my bike to this mecca of retail coziness instead, and get paid to take part in the cheap therapy that is chopping soap and wrapping pretty paper packages. Plus, I now smell delicious 24/7. Really. You'll believe me when you smell me.

Hippie Lit: "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver

2009-10-01T20:01:00.011-04:00

So here's what happened: our favorite slightly-overemotional-but-still-beloved author and her family decided to eat local for a year. With two exceptions (coffee and olive oil, duh) everything they chowed down was produced in their backyard or in the yards of their neighbors. And they liked local eating so much, they kept at it when the year was over. And they're still going. That's what I call badass.

I'm teaching Batik classes at Make Workshop! And you're invited.

2009-09-28T13:23:00.008-04:00

Yes, this post is a shameless plug for my own artwork and employment. Whatever.

Any self-respecting NYC crafter knows and loves Make Workshop, even if they've never been able to afford one of their classes. In my high-rolling bygone days, back when I was making the big bucks at NYU, Make was one of my frequent splurge spots - and it was well worth it. It was within Make's hallowed halls that I learned valuable life skills (crocheting, blockprinting, embroidery) that have ended up saving me hundreds of dollars on christmas presents. Anyway, I'm thrilled to have been invited to peddle my wares (ie put together the most hodgepodge Batik 101 course ever created) at Make this fall. I'll be teaching two intro to batik sessions for crafty adults, on Saturday Oct. 17th and Sunday Oct. 25th, from 1-3:30. Sign up or just check out the (extremely flattering) class description at: http://www.makeworkshop.com/content/classes/classes_batik.htm

Meanwhile, since this is the shameless plug post, I may as well tell you that a couple of my batiks, along with some paintings, prints and whatnot are for sale on Etsy at: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6482516

And I just may give you a blog-follower discount.

"Perspectives" and Various Free Admission Tactics at the American Museum of Folk Art

2009-09-26T00:06:00.006-04:00

This week, I sallied forth to my trusty art standby, the American Folk Art Museum (45 West 53rd Street) for two reasons: 1. To see an exciting exhibition of Paula Nadelsterns kaleidescopic quilts (image above) and 2. Because I came bearing free museum admission passes that I had found inside a Folk Art magazine that I had accidentally stolen from the museum last year. (Seriously, my theft was a total accident, the magazines were displayed in the museum cafe in a very we-are-complimentary-please-take-one-of-us-home sort of fashion, and it wasn't until I got on the subway that I discovered the magazine's price tag. Wups.) Anyway, much to the dismay of both my artistic anticipation and my thievery, when I reached the museum I was out of luck: 1. The Nadelstern exhibition had recently ended, and 2. I had forgotten my double-free passes at home. Sigh.

But wait! As any determined art-viewer will discover, it turns out that AMFA admission is free during exhibition installations. Which is right now. So, all you lovers of free-form creativity and asymmetrical painting, get going! Run, gallop and steal (ha) your way to 53rd street to catch AMFA's one-floor exhibit, "Perspectives: Setting the Scene in American Folk Art." They've got a random but delightful selection ranging from a salvaged New England mural to some quintessentially folk landscapes (like the image above) to works by Der Folk Fuhrer himself, Henry Darger. It's small, it's hodgepodge, but just consider it a folk art sampler platter and don't complain. Because, remember, it's free. (But those magazines on display in the museum cafe, however, they are NOT free. Oh no, they are not.)

Hippie Lit: "Huerfano" by Roberta Price

2009-09-21T10:21:00.006-04:00

This highly recommended reading is a time warp back to the roots of hippiedom. It's called "Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture" and it's by Roberta Price (oddly enough, parent of a Vassar kid - apparently hippie fruits don't fall far from the tree. And that was a terrible metaphor.) Price's writing is hardly poetic, but her honesty and earnestness (not to mention all those naked people!) really grab a reader's attention. The book will inspire you to run out and build your own cob house ASAP. The setting: a commune in the 1960s American west. The plot: a true story of sex, drugs, and sustainability. Rock on.

Back to NYC and its Expensive Vegetables: Dirt Candy

2009-09-20T13:21:00.007-04:00

And I'm back! Writing about NYC like I'm supposed to, instead of raving about my transcontinental hippie tour. One of my first stops back in the Big Dirty Apple was Dirt Candy, the East Village's new-ish vegetarian spot at 230 East 9th Street.

No, I didn't make that comic strip myself, but it just goes to show you that other veg-heads in the blogosphere are much more excited about Dirt Candy than I am. OK, OK, the food is delicious, but the restaurant itself is shiny and tiny, you can never get a reservation, and a five-item menu containing not much more than overpriced fungi can become exhausting. Of course, if you're poor like me and get food stamps from the government, then you don't have to pay for your groceries, so you can take your would-be grocery money and spend it at all sorts of high-priced eateries like this one. Ironic, isn't it?

Farms and beaches in the Great Lakes State, and then this hippie heads home.

2009-09-18T11:19:00.009-04:00

Last stop before the return journey to good old grimetastic New York City was Holland, Michigan. This sleepy (read: sleepy, not dull. I like me some sleep once in a while) little lake town's beaches are happily and completely free from the unbeachly accoutrements boasted by our fair Long Island Sound (aka trash, goo, mutant plants and animals of indeterminable origin). Plus, some well-rounded, all-ages-and-walks-of-life yoga classes are available around the corner in Saugatuck, MI at Satya Yoga (satyayogacenter.net). "Satya" means "truth" in Sanskrit, and it must have been this claim to honesty that convinced even my couch potato sister and my boyfriend's inflexible 60-something dad to try the metaphorical yogic waters at Satya, to great success! And last but not least, August is blueberry primetime in Michigan, and we only had to go a couple of blocks before we found rolling Smurf-colored fields of pickable berries, selling at an unheard-of price: 50 cents a pound. 50 cents doesn't buy gum in New York, let alone a pound of delicous antioxidants. Needless to say, we ate more than we bucketed. I think we survived the fifteen-hour drive back to NYC on blueberries alone.

Hippies with funny accents: Minnesota!

2009-09-08T16:20:00.006-04:00

I'll admit it, when I was first dragged (yes, dragged) to witness Minnesota in it's mid-January frigid glory years ago, I expected nothing more than a state full of moms from the "Bobby's World" cartoon. But I have no problem admitting that I was wrong: yes, they talk funny, but Minneapolitans are some hiking, biking, yoga-doin badasses that even boast multiple versions of the genius invention that is the coffeeshop-cum-bike-store (see carsrcoffins.com and oneononebike.com for more on caffeinated greenwheeling).

Above is a photograph (the one with the people in it) of a class at Core Power Yoga in Minneapolis, Minnesota (www.corepoweryoga.com). My boyfriend's sister's friend (who may or may not know Kevin Bacon) teaches there, so we racked up the discounted classes during my week-long stay, and oh boy (as the Minnesotans say) were they sweaty! However, although the Core Power style of "fit yoga" is practiced in a heated room, the room is only heated to a not-yet-awful-but-still-helps-you-get-bendy temperature unlike the suffocating atmosphere of most traditional Bikram (hot) yoga studios. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just don't have gills.

Next up was a leisurely bike ride to Minnehaha Falls (above, duh) to bask in Midwestern nature and recall the Longfellow poem: "As one sees the Minnehaha / gleaming, glancing through the branches/ as one hears the laughing water/ from behind its screen of branches." See! You thought I had forgotten the supposedly "overeducated" aspect of this blog, but never fear! Although Longfellow certainly doesn't get poetry points for rhyming "branches" with "branches," the Minnehaha Falls are a sight worth the literary entanglement.

Pilgrimage to the Hippie Homeland: Portland

2009-09-02T23:51:00.005-04:00

Where, I ask you, can you find an entirely tattooed mass of young, unemployed, coffee-toting dreadlocked white folks willing to get stoned, drive to the coast, and do a some good old yoga "on the rocks"?? Only in Portland, Oregon.

Not that I did any of that. On the contrary, I spent the majority of my Portland trip holed up in the wonderfully air-conditioned basement apartment my family was renting on Hawthorne Boulevard, marveling at the 105 degree sunshine that the supposedly rainy city had produced just for us.

Never fear! We successfully escaped to the coast, the temperature dropping a whopping 35 degrees in less than an hour, picked some scrumptious Oregon blueberries, and headed back to the boiling, yet oh-so trendy, City of Roses (wilting roses, perhaps?) to lounge around Portland's renowned Powell's Bookstore (www.powells.com). FYI, Powell's is the largest independant bookstore in the world, and, praise the dreadlocked lord, it is air-conditioned. Take that, overheated Strand Books!! Finally, the trip was rounded out by an accidental private yoga lesson at Yoga Shala Southeast (yogashalapdx.com) - basically, I was the only loon willing to lug a yoga mat in 105 degrees, so nobody else showed up. Which meant that I got a customized, one-on-on yoga tutorial worth $100... for only $10. Cheers to global warming.

Cityhippie Goes West: San Diego and L.A.

2009-09-02T18:34:00.006-04:00

I didn't manage any yoga while in San Diego, mainly because I was busy getting my ass kicked at a weightlifting class and then getting in a car accident. Needless to say, by the time I reached L.A. I was in dire need of decompression. First, my dear friends Kreeks and Bari took me out on the town in L.A. to an exceedingly Williamsburgesque fete sponsored by the nonprofit 826LA. The party was complete with mannequins, PBR, free fruit and backlit teepee lounges. And I thought I was thousands of miles from my dear old Bedford Avenue!

Nevertheless, my most satisfying LA day was spent solo, strolling through Santa Monica and shopping for the "perfect" afternoon yoga class. And I found it in Bhakti Yoga Shala (another Kreeks recommendation, bhaktiyogashala.com). The one-room studio is the pet project of well-known Santa Monica yogis Govindas and Radha, and it combines spirituality with some tough physicality. Govindas even helped me with my troublesome headstand!

Cityhippie Hits the Road: Connecticut

2009-09-02T18:10:00.007-04:00

First stop along my hippie summer, oh-so-exciting New Milford, CT, home of Bucks Rock Performing and Visual Arts Camp, where I lent my artistic skills as well as my endless patience to the important task of teaching teenagers how to batik (for those of you unfamiliar with my favorite pasttime, this means painting fabric with hot wax and dyeing it different colors. What thirteen-year-old doesn't want to do that?!?) In my down time, I dragged my aching, now-multicolored limbs over to New Milford's only yoga studio, Harmony (harmonyyogadance.com) for some surprisingly on-the-mark relaxation. Don't let the Appalachian hicks fool you - New Milford's backwoods yogis pack some serious OM.

Recession-Friendly Zen: Yoga to the People

2009-06-17T11:50:00.005-04:00

It's sweaty. It's crowded. It's absolutely free.

Although still a Laughing Lotus devotee, Yoga to the People on St. Mark's Place continues to be my second-in-command, my "other woman," my secret (or blatantly obvious) love affair. Granted, its nonexistant price (suggested donation $6? or something? I don't even know because they never make you pay it) inevitably draws a jam-packed floor of NYU students, East Villagers and poverty-stricken yogis from across the five boroughs. This makes for limited individual attention, and just about as much personal space as the rush hour subway. Or Whole Foods on a Sunday night. BUT IT'S STILL SO GREAT. There are so many different skill levels, body types, and outfits (jeans have indeed made an appearance) that you can't possibly be self-conscious. Bonus: there are some really loud, vocal people here, so much so that Yoga to the People has been nicknamed "Moo Yoga" by my friends and I. Don't ask. Just go and see for yourself.

Farewell Veggies at Cafe Blossom

2009-06-17T10:52:00.004-04:00

We all know I've been obsessed with Chelsea's trendtastically vegan Blossom (9th and 21st) for years now. And we also may know that this particular CityHippie (me) is about to follow in the footsteps of my hippie foremothers and embark on a decidedly offbeat and overeducated journey (tomorrow) out of the city and into the woods of New Milford, Connecticut. Never fear, I'll return to the hallowed shores of Manhattan before the summer is up.

Anyway, what better way to wave goodbye to the city and its secret hippieness than a farewell meal at Blossom's uptown little-sister branch, Cafe Blossom (Columbus and 82nd)?? I had never made it up there before (hello, three-mile walk) but it was worth the trek for some quality gal-pal time and the cafe's low-key vibe. It has everything its near-perfect downtown sibling lacks: less pretension, better lighting, same quality vegan chow. I ordered the shockingly pasta-like raw zuchinni linguine (vegetable shreds convincincly masquerading as noodles) and sighed wistfully. Zuchinni linguine, when I am eating bread and peanut butter in Connecticut exile, I will think of thee.

Let's go a-flower-pickin', the Highline is finally here

2009-06-15T12:44:00.010-04:00

Above = Before
Below = After

Ok, this second one is a computer-generated illustration. But it really does look like that, now that the long-awaited Highline has officially opened its skygates on 10th Avenue (wait a minute! I live there!!) between Gansevoort and 20th. The landscape architects did a crackerjack job of incorporating the old rails (for those of you living in a box, or at least outside NYC, the highline was an old, abandoned, elevated train track that has now been reconfigured into a lil' slice of country in the city sky.) They even planted railroad-appropriate wildflowers in a charmingly disheveled fashion, making the entire park seem like a mutant cross between Tribeca and rural Vermont. My kind of mutant.

Subtletea on Madison: proving that the terms "cozy" and "midtown" are NOT mutually exclusive

2009-06-11T15:39:00.006-04:00

In the unlikely event that you desperately need to find me on a weekday between noon and 2PM, and I'm unreachable by phone or facebook (the former much more likely to be non-functioning than the latter) NEVER FEAR! I am here, in the cleaned-up hippie haven that is Subtletea, on the corner of 30th and Madison. The same place where I have spent every lunch hour for the past two years, drinking tea instead of eating lunch (because lunch can be eaten at one's desk while "working," thus giving an appearance of dedication to one's job, while facilitating the tea-break hour outside of the office, tallying up a sneaky total of TWO "lunch" hours in one day!!)

Subtletea was founded by two smiley brothers, Tim and Todd Cella. It's got everything from tea lattes to "bucket-sized" (I coined this term) iced teas to smoothies and soups to (yes, folks) coffee. It's got a communal table filled with borrowable copies of US Weekly and various other high-class literary treats. It's got bucket seats and squishy pillows. Best of all, it's a mirage-like oasis smack in the middle of the cultural wasteland that is midtown. More so than my office, my friends' apartments, and even the NYU library, Subtletea has become my second New York City home.

Yoga Boo: Midnight Yoga at Laughing Lotus

2009-06-09T17:17:00.006-04:00

This photo is a lie! I was anticipating just this sort of blissful, jazzy, bongo-filled sacred space when I happily trotted up to Laughing Lotus last night, psyched for one of their infamous "Midnight Yoga" sessions. The marketing is fail-safe: Live music! Lights! Chakras! Two hours of delicious sweatfest, culminating with a midnight "om" to ring in the weekend! Not so. Oh, no, dear Laughing Lotus...I think we should start seeing other people.

Ok, that's not true - I'm still devoted (addicted?) to LL's Happy Hour classes, hardcore Lotus 2/3 sessions, and general ecstatic atmosphere. However! The Midnight Yoga definitely left something to be desired. The advertised "live music" was a dude sitting crosslegged in the corner, playing some uninspired records. The "lights" were a piddly string of christmas twinklers. And instead of taking advantage of the two-hour class to, I dunno, incorporate some interesting or complicated poses, the instructor (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) instead filled these endless hours with a retardedly simple - and exhaustingly boring - string of warriors and downward dogs. I sacrificed a Friday night of gourmet dining and clubhopping (ok, fine, Whole Foods and an umpteenth viewing of "Empire Records") for this?!?

Esoteric Princess Pony? Sounds like a sure sell.

2009-06-08T13:41:00.010-04:00

Flashback to 1989: my bosom buddies and I, clustered around a posse of ponies. More than slap-bracelets and scrunchies and the upcoming Disney disaster that would be 1991's "The Little Mermaid," these ponies overtook our tiny lives as sparkle-hoofed forces of nature. And last week at Greenpoint's Champion Coffee (1108 Manhattan Ave) they rode back in on a wave of plastic-flower-scented nostalgia.

The story goes (is "once upon a time" more appropriate here?) that Champion's owner bought some blank ponies (Hasbro.com!) for her daughter's birthday. Amongst the kiddie-festooned equine festivities, mommy had a revelation: how about distributing these albino ponies amongst professional artists for reinvention? Then, how about auctioning these toys (now safely qualifying as Works Of Art) for the big bucks?? The clincher: how about donating the aforementioned big bucks to a local charity??? Best pony plot EVER.

And so: we came, we saw, we drank ingeniously-brewed Pony Punch (cran-raspberry juice, lime, ginger syrup, vodka and bubbly, served from giant jugs reading "PONY PUNCH = NOT FOR KIDS") at Champion Coffee's art opening / auction / pony party on May 29 (yes, I'm delayed in reporting, perhaps I was recovering from the punch). The coffee spot's backyard was packed with an expected assortment of artists, hipsters, collectors, free-booze-searchers, as well as actual kids (of the under-twelve set) but the event itself was entirely unexpected. For those of us who tire of contemporary abstract art and hyped-up Chelsea gallery openings and wine and wine and wine, these ponies - and their punch - were a horse of a delightfully different color.

Somewhat Folk Review: Photography and the American West at MOMA

2009-05-27T10:57:00.005-04:00

Quick, there's still time! This hodgepodge exhibition has something for everyone, and it closes June 8. At first glance I was somewhat annoyed at the all-encompassing-ness of the show; its title is "Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West" and basically the MOMA folks just grabbed every photograph with any association to our country's wilder, younger half and tossed it in amidst centuries of myth and some tumbleweeds. However, walking through the junk-shop setup of Cindy Shermans (pictured), ancient daguerrotypes, and amateur snapshots, the exhibition's concept really grew on me.

Nobody likes a book with only one character (or, for that matter, a character with only one characteristic) and the same holds true for an exhibition. Yes, there seemed no rhyme or reason to the photographs' style or subject matter (parking lots! transvestites! mountains! guns! mullets!) but anyone trying to find a "theme" for the past 1.5 centuries of .5 of the U.S.A. would certainly end up S.O.L. Yes, there were cowboys and indians, but there were also Japanese internment camps and Burning Man and Doris Day and Area 51 and pretty much every lyric of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." Not to mention the West of today, what with Butch Cassidy's recent death and the Terminator presiding over California's government. It's a motley crew indeed.

And yes, I know that MOMA is hardly a folk art mecca, and the over-commercialized likes of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams are anything but offbeat. Still, this show is like a circus sideshow of communal pasts, and it's certainly worth the trip west (young man!) of Brooklyn.

Sunday Under the Whale: Ensemble ACJW and some Cousteaus at the American Museum of Natural History

2009-05-18T17:11:00.013-04:00

It was offbeat ("let's put on masks and mimic whale songs!") it was overeducated ("let's determine whether we have high levels of flame-retardant chemicals in our bloodstream!") and it was certainly earth-huggingly hippielicious. Yesterday from 1-3PM, the American Museum of Natural History (79th st. and Central Park West) hosted its Millstein Science Series: Sundays Under the Whale. What this means is that a motley crew of ocean-oriented folks (a poet, a painter, a handful of musicians, and - most weirdly - two of Jacques Cousteau's grandchildren) assembled underneath the museum's life-size hanging whale, in order to pay homage to the wide wet world.

First up were the Cousteaus: Celine and Fabien, the latest generation of the Cousteau diving dynasty. My initial instincts about them were correct: although young, smiley, attractive, and certainly PBS-series-host-worthy, the Cousteaus are not exactly thrilling public speakers. I vaguely remember some anecdotes of their charmed childhood (France! California! Coral reefs! Privileged existence!) but mostly I dedicated myself to the coloring books and soy crayons that the museum, in a stroke of genius, provided for children and 23-year-olds alike. The Cousteaus showed us many a PBS-series clip (of course they actually DO have a series, which only adds irony to my initial observations of their boringly wholesome demeanor) chronicling the Saving Of A Whale and the Importance Of Recycling. And then we were on to part two.

The program's second installment was decidedly less snooze-worthy and even more deliciously esoteric. Ensemble ACJW, uber-creative young musicians who have all received fellowships for exactly this sort of thing, took the stage for an hour of oceanic interpretation. There was whale moaning and wave-crashing and flutes doing dolphin-y things and at one point I think they stuffed the piano with paper. The most iconic performance was George Crumb's "Vox Balaenae," (because plain old "whale voice" doesn't sound title-worthy) - a piece that is apparently the beacon of the world's aquatic-music repertoire. To round off the multimedia experience, a painter (and his paints) were also brought onstage to create animated ocean landscapes that put the Cousteaus' TV excerpts to shame.

And finally, the highlight of the day: Brent MacLaine, Canadian poet / English Professor (the dual profession that all poets, Canadian or otherwise, must inevitably have) read from his humpback-whale-praising work. MacLaine climbed onstage in his distinguished white-haired-poet glory and addressed the roomful of Greenpeacers and their antsy kids, beginning his whale poem with a resounding "Call me bigwing!" that probably made Herman Melville do a little happy-dance in his grave. Note to PBS: please give Brent MacLaine a TV series. Or at least let him replace Fabien Cousteau.

Veggie Review: Blossom (Chelsea)

2009-05-11T10:51:00.007-04:00

Around New Year's Eve, 2007, my boyfriend asked me to move into his Chelsea apartment with him. Like many Manhattan couples before us, we were thrust into blissful cohabitation after only a few months of dating, with only our love and our hopes for cheaper rent to sustain us. However, I'm pretty sure that if meat-loving Mark knew that Blossom (9th ave and 21st street) was lurking just around the corner from our humble abode, he would have stuck it out in bachelorland and I would still be in Queens.

Here's a typical night at our place:

Mark: Wanna go out to eat?

Me: Blossom?

Mark: Cool, so where should we go?

Me: Blossom?

Mark: How about Empire Diner?

Me: Blossom?

Mark: Sweet, Empire Diner it is.

This recurring dialogue (reminiscent of our nightly Bogart vs. Bruce Willis "What movie should we watch?" debate) is inspired by my unparalleled affection for seitan scallopini, smoky tempeh feijoadinha, and ravioli with cashew cream. Blossom produces them all (the tasty vegan dishes, not the big-eared actors) in spades. What's even more surprising than the all-organic, all-vegan menu (HOW is that chocolate ganache cake NOT made entirely of cream and butter? Magic, folks, that's how) is the high-class atmosphere, complete with dim lighting and a Chelsea-chic electric fireplace. This is not your average hippie hole.

Perhaps I will never get my cheese-guzzling, Wisconsin-born boyfriend to down a plate of pesto-rubbed tofu (or even watch "The Maltese Falcon") but aside from the countless benefits of living together (lower rent, cuddles, 24-hour available bug-killer and tough-jar-opener) moving to Chelsea was worth it because of the vegan food.

Yoga Review: OM at Union Square

2009-05-06T15:18:00.007-04:00

As mentioned earlier, I've been taking classes at Laughing Lotus Yoga (19th st. and 6th ave.) fanatically since I moved to NYC. I love the place like a middle schooler loves Zac Efron. Thanks to LL, laughing - and yelling, roaring, falling loudly and unabashedly on my face in an attempt to do grasshopper pose - has indeed become my yoga norm. What a difference when I clomped into the dimly-lit, creepy-quiet den of OM (12th st. and Brodway) one Monday evening. If Laughing Lotus is an infectiously cheerful, bubblegum-chewing teenage girl, then OM is her grown-up, seriously chilled-out sister. Nobody was high-fiving over the front desk, bras weren't flying across the changing room, and the classrooms were free of animated discussions about pets and kirtans and commuting from Brooklyn. At first I thought I had made a mistake - but I left the Intermediate Vinyasa class with stretched spirits (metaphorically) and improved form (literally). Yes, OM's omnipresent silence is kind of eerie (is this a library??) but after a while you get used to the tinkly music and spa-like atmosphere. And the teachers are no joke: these wispy nymphs know their shit. There may even be - gasp! - a slightly greater attention to correct positioning than there is in my beloved Lotus land. Although if they ever come to fisticuffs (yoga street rumble, anyone?) the Lotus folks will kick the OM folks' asses any day.

An Unfortunate Folk Review: Ammi Phillips and Mark Rothko at AFAM

2009-05-01T13:32:00.009-04:00

I'm all about whipping out what my tenth-grade english teacher called "the golden shovel" and bullshitting your way through your final papers - but that is NOT the way you should curate a museum exhibition.

This is a somewhat posthumous(lucky for you!) review, seeing as the exhibition is no longer showing at the American Folk Art Museum (53rd Street and 6th Avenue). Yet, unlike other short-lived artistic endeavors ("Freaks and Geeks," anyone?) there were no throngs of obsessed fans whimpering over its demise. On the contrary - everyone breathed a sigh of relief as Mark Rothko's intense, abstract color blocks and Ammi Phillips' clear-skinned, eerie portraits awkwardly parted ways. It was like a bad blind date - let's hope they don't keep in touch.

Each of the artists, of course, has something going for him. I am definitely a fan of Phillips' un-trained hand and the prematurely-Disney smoothness of his creepy 19th-century portraits. And I have to give credit to Rothko; although not a folk artist (and not even a very exciting modernist) he nevertheless manages to stick some colors (or one) onto a canvas and sell it for millions of dollars. Props to him. But an exhibition entitled, "Ammi Phillips and Mark Rothko: Compositions in Pink, Green and Red"??? Yes, both artists use these colors. They both also use other colors. By this logic, either artist could be exhibited alongside any other artist, just as long as you picked the right paintings and made sure they didn't clash. I understand that museum folks these days sit around and scratch their tweedy heads and wonder how they can possibly come up with an exhibition that has never been done before - but they need to be able to do better than throwing together similarly-colored works, standing back and hoping for the best. C'mon guys, this is why they pay you the big bucks.

Their use of pink, green and red is the ONLY thing that Phillips and Rothko have in common, and unfortunately AFAM's matchy-matchy arrangement fails to produce the revelation-via-juxtaposition for which the curator is desperately (and I mean desperately) digging. Definitely a winter of discontent for the usually-stellar folk haven - but now that it's over, let's hope that everybody has learned from their mistakes. If they haven't, we can expect to see something to the effect of "McDonalds and Pokemon: Compositions in Yellow and Red" opening in the fall.

Poetry and Purple Potatoes: the Union Square Farmer's Market

2009-04-27T12:04:00.012-04:00

If this sign thinks there's madness at Union Square Greenmarket in the springtime, it obviously didn't see the market in January. Now THAT was crazy: people trudging through a blizzard with baskets full of apples and potatoes, one frozen hand clutching dollar bills and the other hand kept somewhat functional by a paper cup of hot cider, arguments about goat cheese barely audible over the wind, and me finally turning towards home wondering what on earth I'm going to do with the three heads of cabbage I just bought. All of this in sight of the warm, well-lit, free-sample laden beacon of Whole Foods. But no! We will not give in to prepared sushi and SoyDelicious ice cream! We will remain out amongst the frozen farmers!

THAT, my friends, is locavoracious madness.

And well worth it: if it weren't for the January Greenmarket, how else would I have been forced to learn six different ways to eat cabbage? What else would have motivated me to spend all night googling recipes for turnip pudding? How else would I have discovered that purple potatoes are actually non-alien food items? It's one (albeit awesome) thing to hop over to the market on a summer saturday for buckets of berries, but winter stand-shopping is more than that; it's an incentive for creativity, for palate expansion (not the orthodonture type) and even a source of pride. Yes, you did it: you left the comforts of your overheated apartment, braved the perils of snow and sleet and crosstown bus, just to get that perfect purple potato. Granted, the potato farmer actually woke up at 4AM in Pennsylvania in order to stand here for nine hours in mittens and a balaclava - but hey, moral support is everything.

Folk Review: Iron and Wine at Terminal 5

2009-04-24T09:39:00.009-04:00

Once, when I was feeling sad, my ever-imaginative ex-boyfriend suggested that maybe I should stop listening to Iron and Wine and other (get this) "suicide music" of the indie-folk persuasion. Needless to say - although Sam Beam's melodious voice and cuddly beard may have brought a tear to my eye on occasion - his songs have certainly not inspired any suicide wishes. Until now.

Keep in mind that I am utterly devoted to Sam Beam (who is Iron and Wine in its entirety, FYI for those of you who were imagining, you know, a BAND band) and his tunes fill my endless numbered days, laying in the reigns at such great heights with Jesus the Mexican boy. (That was a song-title-compilation joke.) Mostly I am in awe of his poetic lyrics in these linguistic dark ages of "Under My Umbrella-ella-ella," and I am amazed that he continually constructs such perfect, haunting little melodies out of what are usually super-simple chords. Bonus: I can actually play these chords. Too bad I can't sing like Sam. Maybe it's the lack of beard.

So, when I arrived at Iron and Wine's Terminal 5 (56th street and 12th Ave) concert this winter, I was prepared to shed tears of emotion, but unfortunately those emotions ended up being boredom, weirded-out-ness, and leg pain (Terminal 5 has no seats, something you dont notice when you go to bop around awkwardly to Spoon, but slow folk is another animal. It NEEDS seats.) At any rate, the opening band was late and bland (ooh, a poem!) and Sam himself was even later. He played the bare minimum of beautiful Sam Songs (three) and then brought out a big backing band that attempted, unsuccessfully, to turn the quietest of whisper-folk into something that ended up resembling 80's synth-rock played through jello. I felt like Kevin Bacon was going to leap from the sidelines at any minute and do a slo-mo spin.

It's not that I'm against experimentation. The big-band-backing worked for Joni, for Ani, for Sufjan. Maybe Sam's music is just too dear to my still-teenaged heart, like Santa Claus or Jonathan Taylor Thomas. He will always remind me of simpler days.

So I hurried home, put on a recording of "My Lady's House" and pulled out my guitar. If Sam Beam is going to have a backing band, it might as well be me.

Veggie Review: Curly's (14th Street between 1st and 2nd Aves)

2009-04-23T13:40:00.009-04:00

I never order pancakes for brunch, because there are usually healthier options - but, I ask you, WHAT could be healthier than vegan pancakes made with flax and quinoa and covered in mangos?!?!? Answer: Nothing.

Ten more reasons to love brunch (and everything) at Curly's:

1. Good coffee.
2. Tofu scramble.
3. All-vegetarian, but vegan-friendly.
4. Paper placemats.
5. Crayons.
6. The opportunity to have your weird little placemat drawing forever immortalized on the Curly's wall (extra points if the subject matter involves tofu).
7. The L train. Wait, that's a terrible reason.
8-10. Good coffee.

What more do you need?

Yoga Review: Laughing Lotus

2009-04-23T09:25:00.004-04:00

There's nothing quite like 5:30PM at Laughing Lotus (W.19th Street between 5th and 6th Aves). It's packed with hugs and headstands, and you've never seen people strip off their suits and stockings so fast, in favor of drawstring pants. Sometimes only a rotated triangle pose can chase away those office-chair blues.

I've been yoga-ing for thirteen years (which wouldn't be impressive except for the fact that I'm 23) because here's the thing: it just keeps getting better. It started out as something I did in addition to my ballet classes, but it didn't take me long to realize that yoga fine-tunes all the things I love about ballet (strength, flexibility, coordination) without ballet's bad points (bleeding feet, ridiculously expensive performance tickets, eating disorders). So here I am, fifteen pounds heavier than in my ballet days and yet miraculously able to do a headstand for the first time in my life (hint: turns out that if you can't get your feet up in the air, it's not because they weigh too much. Who knew??)

Back to Laughing Lotus: I've been tooling around various NYC yoga spots, which will all be reviewed here shortly, but rest assured that LL will remain my home base. They bend, they twist, they chant, they give you free cookies, they offer everything from uber-relaxing "Lounging Lotus" classes (I like to call this Lazy Yoga) to hardcore, sweaty, where-the-hell-are-you-asking-me-to-put-my-leg(and-how-on-earth-is-it-supposed-to-stay-there) advanced sessions. Not to mention pretty painted walls and a friendly atmosphere that will please hippies and housewives alike. Not that you can't be both.

Folk Review: Henry Darger at the American Folk Art Museum

2009-04-22T09:24:00.007-04:00

It's hard to decide what is more enthralling about Henry Darger - his delicate, bizarre-o renderings of little girls in strange landscapes, OR the fact that he was a mostly-crazy, entirely un-taught recluse who spent most of his life inside his apartment, compulsively cutting and tracing images from magazines and advertisement which he received, in true recluse style, in the mail.

Another fun fact: Darger penned a 15,145-page manuscript entitled (wait for it) The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm. Although actually READING this book is likely an activity reserved for fanatics, it's still absolutely necessary (and well worth the $7 admission) to pop into the American Folk Art Museum (6th Avenue and 53rd street, right next to MOMA and a perfect alternative for those Saturdays when MOMA resembles a crowded Whole Foods rather than a museum) and become baffled by Darger's expansive imagination.

The AFAM has a great (I want to say "swell" in keeping with Darger's 1950's cartoonishness) collection of Darger's works, primarily in pencil and watercolor, and they are also currently showing a Darger-centric exhibit ("Up Close: Henry Darger" on view until September). Possibly the best part of examining these oddball illustrations is the fact that they are, for lack of better analogy, kind of like an episode of Gilmore Girls: chock-full of pop culture references (ha!). Amongst the Tolkeinesque dragons and Alice and Wonderland-like giant insects, Darger inserts little bits of clothing catalogues, Kewpie dolls, comic books, and even pays homage to the Morton Salt Girl (you know, with the umbrella).

The AFAM, although I adore it, is often hit-or-miss (coming up: a review where I complain about the Ammi Phillips / Mark Rothko exhibit!) but Darger is definitely a hit, for stoners and old ladies alike. Possibly because he is living (dead, actually, so nevermind) proof that in the realm of folk art, not only are you NOT required to attend art school - you don't even have to leave your apartment.

2009-04-21T17:16:00.005-04:00

I was looking through my artwork to find the most hippified piece to be the first photo on this blog. This one is probably it. (Batik on cotton, 2003). More on batik soon, this summer when we venture into the hippie Mecca that is Bucks Rock...

The first one

2009-04-21T16:49:00.002-04:00

Basically, after years of denial, it's time to admit it: I come from a long line of hippies.

My oldest we-sorta-kinda-know-who-they-are ancestors were prairie farm folk, which meant that they were churning their own butter and frolicking in the daisies when they weren't co-mixing with Native Americans (the ORIGINAL earth-loving American hippies) to produce strangely brown, blue-eyed, gender-bending flower children. (For example, my baby brother, who looks like a light-eyed Mexican in a family of blondes and spent many of his toddler years putting on our mom's lipstick and clomping around in her heels.)

My grandfather, may he rest in peace, wore tie-dyed socks for the majority of his adult life. Bearded, ponytailed, and brandishing a formidable M.D. degree, he headed a Oneness Center (http://home.mchsi.com/~onenesscenter/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html) where hippies go on Sundays instead of church, to meet fellow hippies and feel immense relief every time they say "Namaste" instead of "Amen."

Then came my parents: they protested Vietnam, they toured with their band, they hitchhiked from Nebraska to New York, they lived in one room in Hells Kitchen during the early 1980's anti-Reaganfest, my mother gave birth to me and all four of my siblings STANDING UP.

As for me, I grew up on Tofurkey and breast milk (the latter was a one-time occurance: my sister dared me to drink from my brother's bottle when I was eleven), I gave up meat at age four, I took my first yoga class at age ten, in middle school I favored peasant blouses and bellbottoms, I got my first haircut (twelve inches) at the age of thirteen, I dated acoustic guitar player after acoustic guitar player. I went to Vassar College (lesbians! pot! clothing-optional campus!) and majored in English, relishing the outdoor poetry classes and the blatant lack of sporting activities. However, my response to any and all comments on my hippie heritage and / or demeanor was always a resounding, "Ew. No."

Somehow, I ended up in New York City (Hint: NYU was the only grad school that accepted me. Turns out their poetry classes aren't even outdoors. WTF?!?) I work as a writer, I study literature, and I moonlight as a yogini, painter, crafter, wannabe vegetarian chef, locavore, collector of kitsch, and - I'm ready to admit it now - hippie.