May16

The Importance of Tone

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The Importance of Tone

I just got back from Zumba class at the cheapo gym. I wasn’t the oldest, and I wasn’t the fattest. It was more like an aerobics workout with an leader who could actually keep time to the music. (You would be amazed at how many aerobics instructors can’t keep time. Like it is elevator music in the background.) But I may have been the only one wearing dance shoes. I got them because they are required at the other place I take Zumba.

Last November in a OMG-my-birthday-is-in-a-month moment, I signed up for the “$100 for all you can eat in a month” at the expensive, tony Pilates studio called, ahem, Tone. I am so cheap, I got my average per class cost down to less than $5.

It is run by a Phillipina who sets the Tone. She is not a natural beauty (which is how they describe Michelle Obama) but her energy is irresistible. She looks 40ish which means she is 50ish, her long black hair flying like a witch when she leads Zumba. The room is packed. Max occupancy is 40, she squeezes in 44 because the receptionist and the other teachers want in also. Monica is a dance-and-movement teacher and the owner of the studio. I took her 6 a.m. Yoga class on New Years Eve (20 other women were there) and the class was held in the dark with a cluster of candles in the center of the room. This weekly class has 3 weeks of normal wakeup yoga and the fourth week is restorative (so totally feminine witch). This was the restorative and it was held in near silence, in the candlelit midwinter dark. Monica gave a quiet sermon about the end of the year and the start of a new one, renewal of spirit, renewal of love, renewal of commitment. “Joy in everything, all the time. Take a candle when you leave.” Talk about setting the Tone!

But Monica’s Zumba class is full of energy. Sherisse works for Monica, she also teaches the Pilates class at the cheapo gym and at city Park & Rec. Sherisse is black as ink, wasp-waisted and highly trained in dance-and-movement. She was at the front of the class along with her dreadlocked friend, also with a dancers shape. The Zumba class had some Latin rhythms, but many hip-hop songs as well. I tried to follow the moves, and the other white ladies didn’t look much better than I did, but Sherisse and her friend — wow! It all made sense when I watched them dance. Yes, they are trained dancers, but when they did the “urban” dances my eyes popped. It was so beautiful and strong!

I was in the back of the crowded room, trying to be invisible, but I was under the skylight and the beam of noontime sunlight illuminated my, um, blonde hair. In the mirror I could see that I looked radiant and dumpy at the same time. Halfway through the class, Monica paused between songs and waved to me, “Hi, Anet!” she said.

Frankly, I’d rather be invisible. But the energetic music really boosts my mood. Monica has set up Tone as a dance-and movement studio so the floors are bowling alley perfect, hence the requirement for clean dance shoes. Most of the people spend most of the time on the floor doing Pilates and Yoga, so the floors and mirrors have to be impeccable for the experience to be spiritually nutritious. So that is why I have dance shoes. And why Monica’s class is so popular.

May15

Can You Find Claude In This Picture?

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Can You Find Claude In This Picture?


Claude really enjoyed Spring this year. We have 3 tall shrubs that get red berries. When they begin to ferment, the birds flock over at cocktail time to get woozy and spit pits at each other. Two of those shrubs have nasty thorns (Pyracantha, pictured) but one does not (Cotoneaster). Because of the early hard frost last October, the Pyracantha berries did not form so the only ones left were the Cotoneaster, which is normally shunned by the birds. I guess it has the second best berries. All the shrubs are about 5 feet tall and are along a 4 foot fence.

Claude is the same color as the weathered wood fence. He would climb up to the top rail of the fence where he was hidden by the Cotoneaster, and he would wait. He would start waiting at about 10 in the morning. The birds would come by in flocks, and he would lunge. He often got one and it would sometimes get away, often with our help. He spent 8 hours a day on that fence rail when the berries were ripe. He was happy. The birds were not. I learned some new bird alarm calls.

May12

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

According to Wikipedia, this movie was released in the U.S. as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but the original title was (in Swedish: Män som hatar kvinnor) “Men Who Hate Women.” It is the first of a movie trilogy based on the award-winning crime novels by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson.  The three movies were big hits in Scandanavia and Europe.  The books are called the “Millennium Trilogy.”

It has been running for six weeks here in Santa Rosa, and when we went, the theater was full, mostly with people 40+. In an interview on PBS, the director of the movie said that the American marketing people thought that the original Swedish title was too tough for English-speaking audiences, but the original title is accurate. The movie is grisly without being titillating. It is absorbing and gripping, and (because it is part of a trilogy) it doesn’t leave you with all the answers neatly wrapped up.

It reminded me of the French movie “La Femme Nikita” in which a street urchin was trained to be an assassin and one of her teachers, Jeanne Moreau, showed her how to act like a lady. In the American remake, Bridget Fonda was tutored in loveliness by Ann Bancroft. This Swedish movie is just as tough and just as riveting. In the PBS interview, the director said that there was some talk in the US of remaking the movie in Hollywood.  I am sure they would take the sharp edges off it and make it ordinary.

I am looking forward to the next Swedish installment!

May1

The Mentalist

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The Mentalist

I started watching The Mentalist on CBS from the very beginning.  I was already a fan of Simon Baker from “The Devil Wears Prada” (he played the suave Englishman who woos Ann Hathaway  from her chef boyfriend), and I am a student of hypnosis.  The first season had lots of hijinks around hypnotic suggestion, intuition and telepathy.  The show opener included a definition of Mentalist as someone who uses the the powers of the mind.  All this seems to have faded away.

The show is one of the few that CBS has in the Top 10, and it is interesting to see how it has evolved.  The hypnosis stuff had pretty much disappeared by the second season, replaced with the “fake psychic” riff from “Psych” which does it better.  The very first episodes established Simon Baker as a man adrift after the brutal murder of his wife and daughter by Red John.  He was bent on revenge and found shelter with a rag-tag team of Sacramento investigators looking for the same murderer.

Now the through-line about Red John is very light.  Patrick Jane is no longer a troubled man with a charlatan’s past, he just seems to be rude to suspects and badly behaved during investigations.  And the biggest surprise of late is the inclusion of movie-star Malcom McDowell who plays an L. Ron Hubbard-like leader of a religious cult.

There have been so many movie stars crossing over to TV of late.  I like it but I don’t understand why it is happening.  Did the SAG, AFTRA union rules change?

Apr30

How to Build a Personality Disorder

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How to Build a Personality Disorder

Last weekend I went camping with a group of people, including a five-year old boy.  He was a delight and the apple of his parents eyes.  He was a late-in-life gift, arriving when his two older sisters were already in high school.  Diego and I spent several hours building sandcastles as part of the Doran Beach Sand Castle Competiton.  He wanted to win, and he looked triumphant when  his picture was taken with “Mr. Diego,” his pyramid-like sand creation with two sticks poking out at rakish angles.

I found myself thinking about the obituary of Dr. James Masterson who died on April 12.  Dr. Masterson won fame by pointing out that personality disorders like Narcissism and Borderline Personality Disorder are created by mistreating toddlers aged 18 to 36 months old.  It was clear that Diego had a very good opinion of himself and that he has been praised often.  Luckily, he has two big sisters who gave him frequent reality adjustments.  He had none of the black/white, on/off, love/hate fast-changing emotions of kids whose caregivers withhold love as punishment, then get all gooey when they feel guilty later on.  He was full of energy and ideas and loved to play.

Other kids were going around stomping on unguarded sand castles.  Not Diego.  He was inventing new games for chasing floating toys in the surf. What a joy!