More Yoga all the time...

My wife is forever forwarding wonderful links. Today we shared very passionate turtle sex and a comic book manual of Householder Yoga.
I am blessed.

www.flickr.com/photos/avi...4573265102/

www.youtube.com/watch

Books out the yin yang or Shelf vs Self

Thanks to Glenda for the lead on paperbackswap.com It's a great idea. See her posting on it and use her as a referral. I don't need the extra swap credits because I'm collecting them faster than I can cash them in. We're always knee deep in books here.

Joining the site is making me reassess my relationship to the printed word. Pulling titles off the shelf to send out to new homes and amassing a “wish list” online to replace them finds me taking stock of ideas that have been on hold for years and are ready to be jettisoned.
For instance I concede that I will never read an in depth analysis of the British miner’s strike of the mid-80s, no matter how much I enjoyed the music that went along with the benefits and fundraisers of the time. Same thing for a memoir of the Pullman Strike I bought on a field trip to that neighborhood one Labor Day some years distant. Being there was enough.
I got a lot out of selected passages of the Lenin Anthology, but it’s about as likely that I’ll find myself defending the barricades as it is that I’ll ever curl up with that one again.

On the other hand, for 15 years I had intended to read Chaos by James Gleick. I ran into a copy at the thrift store the other day. I haven’t been able to put it down. I guess I’m finally ready to grok my fractal universe.
It’s kept me from getting back to volumes on tantric ecstasy and global environmental collapse that have been in my brief case since mid summer. When I carry titles with me and don’t devour them like snackfood, I wonder if I’m depriving myself of a healthy diet or if I just packed them along to impress an imagined commuter reading over my shoulder…

The first actual arrival from the Swap is Serpent Power, an early 20th century translation of key Sanskrit texts on Kundalini. An asana workbook and a volume of oriental mythology are expected soon.
The shift of my shelf space from radical labor history to the wisdom of the ancients reflects a shift in lifestyle for sure. But how far down the deck will these new titles get shuffled before I actually get past the introductory chapters. Or will they be evicted in a decade with the spines uncracked?
We all make a fetish of the object. It gets absurd. When I recently got a good lead on a bit torrent site I found the complete works of Crowley, Stephen King, Joseph Campbell, Papaji, Ganga Ji and a dozen other enlightened masters, the Golden Bough, key works of the Kabalah, plus an archive with the inviting title “1400 Scifi Fantasy And Classic Ebooks” In one night I downloaded a lifetime of magic, mindfulness and escapism in prose.
Just because I could.
If I had a direct feed to the library of congress and a decent pocket computer, would I send all the paper on my dozen bookcases to be recycled?
How much of my ego is wrapped up in the titles I surround myself with, both read and unread. Do the bound volumes serve as “the company I keep” and collect dust in anticipation of someone's judgement?

Weird Tales pulp cover collection

So, somewhere in a land of Three's there was a discussion about H P Lovecraft. That prompted me to make a slide show of my colection of pulp art and place it on you tube.
Where did the covers come from? Once upon a time I had a wonderful, well paid job with my own window office and lots of downtime. That didn't last. But over a course of several months I did a lot of browsing on Ebay admiring the cover art of old magazines. There was heavy trafficing in Weird Tales magazine which is a pulp that ran from the 20' through the 50's with several revivals since then. Rather than get into a costly collecting mania, I decided to grab as many cover scans as I could. I tried to get a complete run of jpegs, but after a few months I got bored hunting for the missing issues.
I recently got a new Mac, so this is my IMovie test drive as well as my own little Halloween celebration. Music is "Green Fuz" by the Cramps.

I thought I could embed the movie here, but I guess not.
Here's the link anyway www.youtube.com/v/42Q-4Js8fYg
There are over 200 covers in the clip, played in chronological order, with a little bit of editing to keep things on the beat.

East coast gothic

Medford Massachusetts
Dry egg yolk enamels
the 1957 oblong of gas station china
so heavy that the clatter has been baked in
and escapes only as a clay thud

ants are in the baseboards
the door to the cellar is off its hinge
There is so much dog in the carpet
that the smell is odorless under it's own weight
unless you dare to add water

The hardwood from the armoire to the bookshelves
is etched with the echo of heels retracing
the path of misplaced cash that slipped
beneath the armchair cushion anyway

The matchbooks in the porcelain bowl beside the pipe rack
promote dry cleaners and carry out
establishments whose phone exchanges
all begin with capital letters.
They are mostly unstruck

The rabbit foot keychain dyed a primary blue
so loud it causes you to mishear simple requests
was forgotten in the sewing table drawer
when the ferris wheel came down at Revere Beach

The button eyed doll on the four poster bed insists
that the landlady eats children and cheats foreigners
But she doesn't come around much anymore
since the squatters nailed shut the door.

Whale Spout (Remnants of Nat'l poetry month)

Whale Spout
Among the reasons my wife won’t speak to me
you'd have to include allowing our daughter
To chant “Om nama shivaya”
loud enough to bemuse all of Office Depot
Her 5-year-old spirit
echoing off the laptops and padded mailers
as "Oh the mushy bayah”
proof that sanskrit is a living tongue

Why would the missus bedgrudge
the half hour before kindergarden
when my girl plays tabla in the basement
until daddy's half embalmed by the drone of Om
turning prayer beads until fountains of Now
spray like the 30 foot spout of a blue whale

A geyser of observations reactions and blessings,
that rain down to join rivulets of language
racing across terraced forrest floor
to flow over palisades onto broken tree branches
and human debris caught in
rapids of attachment intertwined with intention
to churn against moss covered boulders that
break distraction
with a roar that pulses over and against itself
resolving to a deep vibrating tone
as the river finally empties
into the ocean of buddha mind and shakti body

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti time for school