“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.” – Ovid
How bad is it going to get?
With Trump “in charge” for the next eight months, my best/worst guess is VERY, VERY BAD. Sorry to be truthful, but future facts are what they are.
How are we as a society going to get through this? (A big question, beyond my scope.)
How are we as individuals going to get through this? This, I can deal with a little better.
I, for one, refuse to get sick. The Tiny Goddess – at her finest – is helping keep things here super-clean, fully supplied, and tightly quarantined. She’s going to save our lives. We’re going to survive this and, just for spite, be healthy and happy.
Here’s how, day to day, I’m going to do it. (Some of this could work for you.)
YOGA … YOGA … YOGA
I’ve been practicing yoga for more than twenty years, and yoga is going to be a big help getting me through the Trumplague. We started with a class once a week, and now we’re up to four times a week. I could honestly do a class every day. Nothing starts – or ends – the day better than a yoga class.
Of course, our recent classes have been on FaceTime. But it works. It’s certainly better than nothing.
And now there is so much yoga on the web, on YouTube, that anyone can do yoga. No matter what your mobility, age, experience, or square footage … even if you are wheelchair bound, if you have crippling back pain, there are things in yoga that you can do that can help you.
Inside and out.
Yoga is good for your body – strength, flexibility, balance, etc. – AND for your peace-of-mind. At the same time.
Do it. Start today. Yoga helps to free your mind from your problems, and works out your body, too.
And it’s not just me:Harvard Medical School Recommends Yoga to Deal with Covid-19 Anxiety
There are hundreds of internet yoga sites. Here are a few:
Three great yoga teachers I personally recommend --
warrior2wolfe.com
breathedeepyoga.com
http://ninasnowyoga.squarespace.com/
… and …
Introductory yoga class – 30 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No2u_Dq_9ho
1 hour beginner’s yoga class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=007wRUnd7c4
Everyday Vinyasa Flow Class – 20 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEYSO-Tc2Go
Yoga for Strength – 40 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kOCY0KNByw
Alternate Nostril Breathing – 10 minute class – Even if you’re in a wheelchair, you can do this. It works!! (Hillary Clinton loves this.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VwufJrUhic
BOOKS … TO YOURSELF AND ALOUD
Books never let you down. From when you are a baby (read to by adults) till you are a very old person (read to by volunteers or books-on-tape) and all the time in-between, books never let you down.
And now, more than ever, is the time for books. Nothing takes your mind away, nothing fills your brain, more than a book. Movies and TV and music are good, too, but reading, being completely cerebral, using none of the five senses -- (besides sight, I guess – but letters themselves aren’t beautiful: it’s the concepts they represent that are), is the purest, deepest, inner experience. When you’re deep into a good book, it’s kind of like blacking out: you are truly out of yourself.)
Currently I’m enjoying ROUGH IDEAS by Stephen Hough, a book of short, brilliant essays by the amazing British pianist/composer/essayist/poet/painter/ teacher. The first classical performing artist to win a MacArthur “genius” grant, Hough was named as one of 20 living polymaths (along with Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, etc.) by The Economist and Intelligent Life magazines.
I fancy myself as being fairly smart, but this guy is super-duper-smart. Some of the essays are fairly technical about piano-playing and composing, but it’s a pleasure to be in the company of this brilliant, open-hearted man.
And the TG and I have resurrected an old pastime of ours: reading out loud to each other. For our first book – and I think there might be more ahead – we chose Raymond Chandler’s FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. I’m a big Chandler fan, have read his seven novels, and have a nice, little collection of books about the author, a troubled, difficult man.
When casting around for a book to read and finally settling on a Chandler, I did some research and discovered that FAREWELL, MY LOVELY is widely considered by Chandler experts to be his masterpiece. They might be right. So far, it’s like listening to the most intelligent, witty, perceptive, subversive music. The music of Los Angeles. When he writes, I can hear Bogart speak the dialogue. I can picture the streets.
So read a book, or have someone read one to you. And if you’re the one who is lisening, close your eyes. And escape.
And, if you can’t think of anything else to do, read my books: WHAT IT WAS LIKE and WHEN I GOT OUT.
LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE
Take pleasure where you can, however you can. Immerse yourself in whatever you enjoy. I love opera. (I guess it’s in my blood: my maternal grandfather claqued for Giovanni Martinelli, Rosa Ponselle, and Lawrence Tibbett.) So I’ve been watching the free HD broadcasts – one every 24 hours – of the Metropolitan Opera. They’ve been putting up very famous operas with very big stars, and I’ve watched most of them.
I don’t see the broadcasts when they are sent out live on Saturday afternoons. In Los Angeles, they come on at 10:30 in the morning, and that’s too early for me. I’m at my farmers’ market at that time. I can listen to opera at any time of day, but I can’t be in a dark room with a bunch of people watching one. Not on Saturday morning.
So it’s a real treat for me to see some of these broadcasts for free -- right on my nice, big iMac, in excellent Bose sound, on one side of my screen -- while I work and play on the other side.
And no matter how many times I’ve listened to some of these operas (CARMEN, LA BOHEME, LA TRAVIATA, IL TROVATORE, EUGENE ONEGIN, etc.), it’s great to see them with subtitles so that I appreciate all the nuances of the words as they pass by in song. (“So that’s what that line means!”)
I watched a lot of good-to-great opera all week, but the relevation was NATALIE DESSAY in Donizetti’s comic opera LA FILLE DU REGIMENT.
I’ve seen Ms. Dessay in concert before – (she was in “My Top Ten Gumbo of 2015” for her singing the highlights from Handel’s “Julius Caesar” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) – and in assorted clips, I had never seen her in a full opera before.
What a performance! She did this production (by Laurent Pelly, with first-class co-stars Juan Diego Florez, Alessandro Corbelli, Felicity Palmer, etc.) to the highest accolades in London, Vienna, and New York, and you can see why.
It’s a triumph for her, using her voice, face, and body, throwing herself around the stage. Her tomboy portrayal of the girl mascot of an Army corps is as winning, as varied, as lovable a performance as I’ve seen in a long time. She won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera in 2008 for this FILLE: well-deserved. I think she changed the way that this role will be performed from now on.
“Chacun le sait” – from LA FILLE DU REGIMENT – a few minutes of her sensational Olivier award winning performance (as transferred to the Met)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE5DyvqXxsY
Nine more minutes of Dessay’s FILLE – when the production played the Vienna State Opera – Everyone wanted to stage this crowd-pleaser, with two reigning superstars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PditzowFUG8
More LA FILLE – Juan Diego Florez sings “Ah, Mes Amis” – with the nine high-Cs that made Pavarotti a star
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aS6M8j3pvQ
End of Act I of LA FILLE – Dessay’s lovely “Il Faut Partir”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-VGv66Wpaw
In her post-opera career, Natalie tries big-band singing – including “Fever” in French
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfKpKJsWbjw
And this week, free RING (and more Wagner) from the Metropolitan Opera’s archive of HD broadcasts. I’ll take it.
And AUSTIN CITY LIMITS is putting some of its archives online for free, too!!
Some hot new talents: Anderson East!! Colter Wall!!
Opera and country. Two of my favorite things.
WORK LIKE HELL TOWARD THE NOVEMBER ELECTION
I fully intend to live through this. And then, help get revenge on the assholes who let it happen. And crush them into the ground for so abusing and betraying the American people.
It’s time to bury the Republican party and all its “ideas.”
… AND MOST OF ALL …
Take care of your friends and family, close or far away. We all seem to be too far away these days, but we’ll get though this. FaceTime and texts and frequent phone calls and Zoom and shared pictures will suffice for now.
Stay as happy as you can. Don’t let the virus win.
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