The Times Quotidian

Five Fav’s from 2009
by Rita Valencia

Always bold, Rita Valencia looks back on 2009 and hand picks some beauties!

1. Mad Men, Season 3, Episode 6, A Man Walks Into an Advertising Agency.
Anybody up for a little lawn mowing?

2. My New Kindle with computer-voice man reading Dante’s Inferno.

3. The Ride of the Valkyries scene in Act Three of Achim Freyer’s Die Walküre at L.A.Opera.

4. Tom’s Vegan Wrap Boots

5. Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza (which is in no way “anti-Semitic”).

Watch Jennie Stoller perform Caryl Churchill’s play, Seven Jewish Children- A Play for Gaza, which was written in response to the situation in Gaza in January 2009. This link will also give you the access to the written play. No children appear in the play. The speakers are adults, the parents and if you like other relations of the children. The lines can be shared out in any way you like among those characters. The characters are different in each small scene as the time and child are different. Please feel free to download the play. This play can be read or performed anywhere by any number of people.

2009 was a year for auspicious beginnings and none more impressive than the installation and blessing of the new Patanjali murti at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles. It was an honor to be apart of this ceremony and particularly fun to see the community come together, re-up on some old friendships and eat some very tasy cake. — NC

This post is in honor of Sri BKS Iyengar’s 91st birthday, December 14, 1918.

Patanjali Puja at IYILA
by Marla Apt

The date, Sunday July 12, 2009 and hour, 5:30am had been chosen according to Indian astrology as most auspicious for the sanctification of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles and installation of its new Patanjali statue. Indeed, the stars did align for IYILA on that morning. Not only was the Institute fortunate to receive a Patanjali murti (image) made by the hands of the very same sculptor who, under Guruji BKS Iyengar’s close direction and guidance created the image for the only Patanjali temple located in Bellur, India, but Sri Nataraja Shastri, Guruji’s personal Upadhyaya (family priest) happened to be in Los Angeles at the appointed time and date to perform the puja (ceremony).

With over 200 students present, Sri Nataraja Shastri began by blessing the space of the Institute, all of its students and yoga practitioners. Having previously requested a list of the current Institute faculty, he performed a special blessing for all of the teachers on staff. At the conclusion of the blessing of the Patanjali murti with traditional offerings and Abhisheka (ritual bathing accompanied by the recitation of mantras), he led all in attendance in the call and response recitation of the 108 names of Patanjali. Each name refers to qualities of Patanjali’s teaching as well as his contributions to yoga philosophy, Ayurveda and Sanskrit Grammar.

Nataraja Shastri continued the puja by chanting the 1,008 names of Vishnu and numerous mantras (sounds, syllables, or words used as objects of meditation in order to lead to transformation) chosen by Geeta Iyengar especially for the purification of the Institute and yoga practitioners. “The mantras, though difficult to understand, if one… listens with attention whole heartedly, can bring citta prasadanam [graceful diffusion of consciousness]. They lead one to establish calmness, quietness and peace.” Referring to Sutra I.7 Pratyaksha anumana agamah pramanani (Correct perception arises from direct observation, inference and the words of the wise), Geeta advises that jnana (gnosis) gradually develops through listening to the chanting of the mantras. The Sanskrit mantras are considered to be sacred sounds, in which the vibration of syllables voiced with correct pronunciation and accent have a purifying effect on the body and mind of the listener.

Nataraja Shastri is an internationally respected vedic scholar and it was an extraordinary experience to witness his breath control while chanting in proper Sanskrit recitation, which often necessitates uttering long phrases in a single breath. He has committed all of the mantras as well as copious texts (as those who have seen him chant for three consecutive days on the occasion of Guruji’s 80th Birthday can attest) to memory. In this way, Nataraja Shastri is part of one of the oldest unbroken oral traditions in existence, one responsible for the preservation of the ancient vedic texts.

The Institute’s new Patanjali murti provides students of yoga with the opportunity to contemplate the philosophical underpinnings of the practice and to forge an emotional connection with the long unbroken line of yogic transmission. Like the invocation to Patanjali that is recited at the beginning of yoga classes, the puja rituals are not religious acts and the symbolic imagery of the sculpture is not an object of worship, rather both are meant to serve as an aid to the practice of yoga as an inner journey toward our truest self.

This article will appear in the Winter 2009/2010 Yoga Vidya, the journal of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Southern California

About Sri Nataraja Shastri

Sri Nataraja Shastri is one of the highly regarded and most revered Vedic Scholars in Pune, India. He has been providing Vedic Ritual Services in India since 40 years and has continued to be guidance for a flourishing list of Yogic Aspirants. He has been flown to foreign countries several times to Conduct Vedic rituals and is the Chief Pundit for the Yoga Guru B.K.S Iyengar. His Vedic Chanting have been recorded and listened to by thousands around the world and has a huge following in North America.

Sri Nataraja Shastri is a patron of huge number of Temples in India and supports their maintenance. He was appointed as the Head of Committee of Satara Temple in India by His Highness Late.Shri.Sankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt. He is one of the pioneers to lend support to the Sakatapuram Mutt near Sringeri, Karnataka and continues to be an active sponsor. Currently Sri Nataraja Shastri resides in Pune and frequently travels abroad to share his Vedic knowledge and Wisdom.

“During the ceremony, all the four vedas namely, Rgveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharva Veda were recited by 20 Brahmins.” - Geeta Iyengar, on the occasion of Sri Nataraja Shastri 50th B’day

Cambria, Central Coast, California

© Nancy Cantwell

Sicilian Folk Music and Luciano Berio
By Nancy Cantwell

The immediate appeal of Luciano Berio’s (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) music is it’s ability to be conspicuously theatrical and unflinchingly intimate at the same time. There is no better place to explore this dichotomy than in the ECM New Series recording based on Sicilian folk music, Voci.  Berio’s dramatic compositions for viola and orchestra, Voci, and viola and percussion, Naturale, are sandwiched between a series of aural documents from the Ethnomusicology Archives of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome. These Sicilian songs form the starting points and the nuclei of a score lasting half an hour, six “core pieces” that the music heads toward and moves away from.* Berio ruminates on these vivid underpinnings, “I am not an ethomusicologist, just a pragmatic egoist: so I tend to be interested only in those folk techniques and means of expression that I can in one way or another assimilate without a stylistic break, and that allow me to take a few steps forward in the search for a unity underlying musical worlds that are apparently alien to one another”.

It is this kind of juxtaposition that makes the Berio dynamic so seductive. It is his inquiry into the relationship between a single line of melody, an intimate “logo” of a song, distinctive, particular and the sweeping staged and orchestrated concert pieces that completely captures our attention. Berio refers to the conundrum as the “impossible utopia”. These pieces are a call and response from past to present, from individual to congregation for composer and audiences alike and it is this complicit agreement that lends the music its power.

In Walter Brunetto’s liner notes, On Sicilian folk music, he remarks, “The lacerated vocal expression gives these songs incredible intensity”. It is the fundamental act of the singing that indeed cuts deeply. Space allocation unfortunately does not allow us a taste comparison between Berio’s compositions for Voci and their folk inspirations, but we can attend to two of the archived Sicilian songs.

Grido del venditore di pesce, Cry of the Fish Seller

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One of the archaic styles is the “abbanniatine”, the cries of the street vendors. Generally descending in pitch, these were meant to win the attention of passers-by. Melodic and ornamental elements made up the “logo” (distinctive cry) of each “imbonitore” (barker). On Grido del venditore di pesce, the basic tetracord is made ambiguous by the alternation of major and minor seconds between the fundamental not and the second degree.**

Novena di Natale, Christmas Novena

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Another common form of popular devotion is the “novena”. This reciting of prayers or songs for nine consecutive days is a preparation for certain religious feast. These performances are sometimes associated with “la questua” (the collection), an act involving taking the song from house to house in exchange for donations. On Novena de Natale,, in which the voice joins halfway through, unusual chromatic structures and conflicts can be heard between the notes played on the two melodic reeds of the “zampogna” (reed-pipe). This is a common instrument in Sicily in the “a paro” type. It has this name because of the two melodic reed of equal length, in addition to the two or three reeds producing a single fixed sound, the drone. The leather bag is made from goatskin turned inside out.**

*Luciano Berio’s Native Language, by Jurg Stenzl

**On Sicilian folk music, by Walter Brunetto

Portraits of Power, by Platon for The New Yorker
by Nancy Cantwell

I am a rabid fan of print. I was raised in the business and flipping through a magazine is my idea of heaven.

So it is with great reluctance to admit that there are just times when the web does a better job of delivering content. Portraits of Power, An interactive portfolio of portraits by Platon of current world leaders, with commentary by the photographer gives better content. Starring at the screen waiting to dig into these amazing profiles I noticed the date. It was December 7th. My computer doesn’t lie, it was December 2nd. Ok. Just then the familiar sound of the postman depositing the mail distracted me enough to let that go. But there in the mailbox was my copy of the latest New Yorker dated December 7th. Well yeh, time is relative right? Inside is the 27 page layout of portraits, an impressive spread for any magazine, but for The New Yorker, a gigantic commitment of pages.

For as much fun as I have perusing the print magazine, I was far more compelled, in this particular instance, by my computer screen. Not unlike The Interview Project, reviewed here on July 19, 2009, the Platon Portraits of Power web version had perfectly matched the content to its navigation system making the information more potent. The web menu gives one the ability to immediately rearrange the information by Country, by Name, by Age, by Gender and by Tenure. The thumbnails even provide little flags to identify each country. Now how fun is that! But fun aside, this feature allows the user to instantly build five new databases, five different ways to absorb the information, something the print edition could never deliver.

When the user drills down to the individual portraits one is also treated to a short reflection by Platon. Each individual is given consideration and each portrait is lovingly pored over by its creator. Especially engaging is the ten minute “About This Portfolio” in which Platon accounts the entire production, and give insights into the workings of the United Nations.

Personal favorites include Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, Toomas Ilves, President of Estonia, Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, Cristina Fernández, President of Argentina and, who can resist the ever so wily Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy.

Also, on a fashion note, it is a great study of glass frames. Clearly frameless is the style favorite among world dignitaries.