The cloud came in

Read more here.One of my favorite stories about traveling in India is from my trip with Sarah and Olivia in 2005. We were in Raniket, a hill-station in the Himalayas, where my Uncle Bunty and Aunt Bindu have a beautiful house made of stone. In the daytime, you look out over the mountains and are instantly awed by the view. Then, the sun comes out and you realize that what you were seeing before were mere foothills, and that the crisp white peaks towering much, much, higher--the ones you thought were clouds in the fog, are the real mountains. One night, when Sarah, Olivia, my cousin Devika and I were getting ready for bed, a white ghost floated into the room through the window. We stared at it in awe, feeling chilled by its presence. After a few moments of stillness and utter disorientation, Devika shouted "it's a cloud!". Of course! It's only a cloud that just floated into our bedroom, how could we have been so silly. Wait a CLOUD JUST FLOATED INTO OUR BEDROOM?!?!?! It was almost as unbelievable as the ghost idea! As the cloud floated across the room out and out through the opposite windows, I had the feeling I had just seen something I might never see again. However, apparently now inside-clouds are on public display, ever since architect Testuo Kondo got a team of scientists to MAKE A CLOUD inside his building!

Hazelton

My brohemian Sandeep shared this new track from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and I am feeling it in my heartpiece!

Seriously?

WTF?!?! I cried! I laughed! All these conflicting feelings! But mostly I was just SERIOUSLY amused. Happy Monday! And thanks to Hans for sharing.

Not All Who Wander are Lost: Delhi, India

Namaste from Delhi, where I am here taking care of my grandparents (Dadiji and Dadima), whose home in the mountains was almost completely knocked down last week by a landslide. They are fine, though Dadaji's asthma is sometimes debilitating in the rain, and most likely their mountain home (where they live during the Delhi summer) will make it through the end of this year's late and disastrous monsoon. That being said, my Indian grandmother has much much more pressing concerns, such as my imminent spinsterhood. It's true kids. In her humble opinion, 23 is pushing the limit of marriageability, and the simple facts that I have a career as a dancer (immodest!), have held hands with (lets not even get into dating) more than one man (gasp!), and I don't live with my parents (licentious!) paints a pretty bleak picture of my future in her mind. Sometimes I get a gust of strength and courage and prepare long speeches about the empowerment of women and how times have changed, how I may not even WANT to get married (god forbid) and all the reasons why her fears are just downright ridiculous. But then I imagine the perplexed and hurt look in her eyes, her dreams for me shattered, and I just shrug and say "you're right Dadima" and smile reassuringly. In honor of my Dadima, I am posting these lovely videos from what looks like a dream wedding: simple, beautiful, personal, and creative(also I am in love with the Beach House song from the second vid). It's clearly missing Panjabi classics like the groom on a horse and the dhol drummers procession, which I wouldn't miss out on for the world- but other than that, IF and when I ever decide to get married, I think something like this would be worthy of all of Dadima's nights spent worrying.

Max, Margaux, & The Marvelows from Shark Pig on Vimeo.

Max & Margaux from Shark Pig on Vimeo.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost: San Francisco

SF is gorgeous, but DAYUM is it hilly! After all that hiking, plus walking uphill both ways everywhere (is that even possible? you ask? oh yes mes amies. oh yes.) my a*s was really whipped into shape! Back in the nice flat grid of NYC, I was finally able to recover from vertigo and work on some photos. Despite the sore glutes and dizzy spells, it was a glorious labor day reunion of three best friends from high school. Olivia Micou Cerf, Sarah David Heydemann, et moi, the three musketeers of MHS, were brought together as a trifecta for the first time since our absolutely INSANE post high school graduation adventure through Southeast Asia (our "Hello-world- we're- going- to do -stupid- things- in- you!" trip, as Olivia calls it). Though brief, this trip to SF was, as expected, filled with wonderful surprises including but by no means limited to: three attempts to watch the magical animated film MADAGASCAR, my first in-n-out burger, and lets not forget about the NUDIST HOT SPRINGS. A wha?!?! Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed for the latter.

Norwegian Wood

If you asked most of my friends and family who or what has inspired me the most creatively, they would probably be able to tell you that it is the work of author Haruki Murakami. They would know that because I created an evening length dance-theater piece my senior year at Barnard inspired by his work (with the very talented producer Julia Bloch), but also because I recommend and gift his books to the people I love. Murakami writes in spirals, and he creates parallel universes in which people are like us, except that they are more connected to things from which we are often detached: dreams, ghosts, spirits, states of being. I couldn't be more excited about the upcoming screen adaptation of his novel Norwegian Wood, it looks like it's going to be magical!

Thanks to Rex for sharing this :)

Also, this song is so pretty.

and the lyric so bittersweet! It. Hewts. Ow.


found on Black Eiffel.

Bed Bath and Beyond

When I grow up, I do not intend to live in a practical home. Instead, my house will be a whimsical nest. I'll have big spherical copper wire birdcage hanging from the ceiling, swings instead of chairs, a book corner with a library ladder, a beautiful little garden designed by my brilliant mother, and last but certainly not least, I will have a bathtub in my bedroom. There. I said it. Getting back into rehearsals and dancing everyday has reminded me (and not subtly) how much my body craves a hot bath at the end of each long day. Having trouble picturing such a thing? I'm talking about the bathtub in the bedroom, pervs! Well, here are some ideas:

Art out of Light

In the fall of 2008 Eric and I went to the Guggenheim to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibit there. Whether it was the rain, or my aching knees, or just another bout of hanger- on our way out I was impatient and was not particularly interested in the Jenny Holzer exhibit For the Guggenheim, being projected on the museum's exterior walls. It's funny how two years later, on a Monday afternoon, I was struck by what an absolutely beautiful and terrifying concept it is to make art out of light. I looked through her massive portfolio, which spans across continents as well as content: from famous poetry to her own prose, from truisms to dadaist musings. How I could have walked away from these beautiful words being hurled onto the walls of my city escapes me. I hope that by the next time I come across her work I will have mastered the art of "be here now" enough to be able to appreciate it in the moment.

Little by little, and also by great leaps.

Trying to settle back in to life in NYC after a month away is like trying to do yoga on the branch of a very tall and wobbly tree, while its hailing toxic shit from the sky and an army of people are trying to ax down the tree from the ground, one annoying blow after another. You are hyper aware of the potential for danger and disaster, it's almost impossible to get into the flow because there is so much distraction, and it is very, very hard to find your balance.

Over the past week, however, I stumbled upon two things that have actually done wonders to ease my mind, and make my subway rides far less anxiety inducing. The first is the Irish folk group Lunasa, whose sound is both soothing and exhilarating, particularly in this song, Morning Nightcap:


The second thing is the poem below, by Pablo Neruda. It strikes such a chord with me in this moment, and I could read over and over and over and over.


October Fullness

Little by little, and also by great leaps
life happened to me, and how insignificant this business is.
These veins carried my blood, which I scarcely ever saw,
I breathed the air of so many places without keeping a sample of any.
In the end, everyone is aware of this:
nobody keeps any if what he has, and life is only a borrowing of bonse.
The best thing was learning not to have too much either of sorrow or of joy, to hope for the chance of a last drop, to ask more from honey and twilight.

Perhaps it was my punishment, perhaps I was condemned to by happy. Let it be known that nobody crossed my path without sharing my being. I plunged up to the neck into adversities that were not mine, into all the sufferings of others.
It wasn't a questions of applause or profit.
Much less. It was not being able to live or breathe in this shadow, the shadow of others like towers, like bitter trees that bury you, like cobblestones on the knees.

Our own wounds heal with weeping, our own wounds heal with singing.
but in our doorway lie bleeding widows, Indians, poor men, fishermen.
The miner's child doesn't know his father amidst all that suffering.

So be it, but my business was the fullness of the spirit: a cry of pleasure choking you, a sigh form an uprooted plant, the sum of all action.
It pleased me to grow with the morning, to bathe in the sun, in the great joy of sun, salt, sea-light and waves, and in that unwinding of the foam, my heart began to move, growing in that essential spasm, and dying away as it seeped into the sand.

-Pablo Neruda