A still from “Jogo de Cena” (Playing) 2007 by Eduardo Coutinho.
Coutinho ‘interviews’ actress Fernanda Torres in a fake ‘audition.’
published on JANERA.com, Dec 08, click here
WHAT does it say when one of the filmmakers featured at a documentary film festival is 40 minutes late for his scheduled round-table event? True, it’s Friday night in New York, and it’s storming out. True, Brazilians have a more elastic sense of time, and the filmmaker had just arrived from Brazil. Maybe he had gone to some other event that had run late?
“I’d like to say I went to see a wonderful film from Estonia or Mongolia,” said a sheepish João Moreira Salles when at last he took his seat in the already-started panel. “But I did not. I went to see James Bond.”
So went the second day of Documenta Brazil, a documentary film festival hosted at the King Juan Carlos Center at New York University Continue reading ‘Documenta Brazil 2008: Rhythms of Brasilidade’
published in Conscious Enlightenment Media’s magazines, Nov 08; click here
A few blogs picked this up including the Utne Reader.
IN EARLY August 2008, Margot Andersen’s newly-married, 29-year-old son was hit and killed by a car while crossing a busy highway in Chicago. For Margot, a social worker in Chicago schools for more than 13 years, the pain of the sudden, tragic loss was overwhelming. Enrolled in a yoga teacher-training program, and recently trained in LifeForce Yoga, a type of yoga focused on mood management, Andersen turned to methods she knew would have an immediate affect on her emotional stamina — yogic breathing, visualizations and mantras. Continue reading ‘Off the Couch and Onto the Mat’
published in The New York Times Thursday Styles section, May 08; click here
WHEN Raquel Prieto moved from Northampton, Mass., to Boston in January, there was one thing she sought as urgently as an affordable living situation and a job: an advanced yoga class.
As a dedicated yogi, she wanted to work on meditation and on poses, or asanas, requiring a lot of strength and flexibility and a deep mental focus.
Even after spending $700 and two months trying out studios, she still hadn’t found a place she could build on the advanced practice she developed in a Northampton studio. So she patched together a combination of home practice, classes at a nearby yoga center, visits to a meditation center and trips back to Northampton.
“I’m not thrilled,” said Ms. Prieto, 23. “It’s hit or miss.” Her search for satisfaction, she said, “was a huge emotional thing. I got depressed.” Continue reading ‘Yogi, Take me to a Higher Place’
published on JANERA.com, March 08, click here
AT 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, students wait anxiously to be buzzed in through the heavy, wrought-iron gates at 142 Rua Dr. Gabriel dos Santos. Beyond lies a large, colonial house with a broad, wrap-around veranda. As students march upstairs to the old-fashioned classrooms, the wide-plank steps creak noisily underfoot. By 3p.m., schooled in the basics of documentary film making, they’re back on the street—shooting their first video on a digital video camera. Continue reading ‘Celluloid Dreams’
Published on December 15, 2007
in Essays.
Artist and writer, Kim White, has been blogging about fables recently and asked me to submit a story I wrote a few years ago.
Bill Reid’s “Raven”
She writes, paraphrasing me (!), “This blog focuses on fables, but when Joelle Hann submitted, “The Sun Rises and Sets on You,” a modern update on the Haida myth, “Raven Steals the Light,” I couldn’t resist putting it up on the site. Joelle recasts the old man as a disgruntled, out-of-work banker holding the light of the world hostage in his shoe. New York City and all of its inhabitants toil away in darkness, while he refuses to let go of his treasure. The Rasco tricks him out of his little bit of wealth and scatters it to the wind. Joelle says she wrote this years ago, but given our current financial crisis, her retelling of this ancient folktale seems prescient. Continue reading ‘The Sun Rises and Sets on You’
published in The New York Times Thursday Styles section, August 07, click here
THE words “Do you come here often?” are not sweet nothings when you are going into final relaxation during a yoga class. Nor do most yoga practitioners welcome someone who flirts shamelessly as mats are positioned during the lull before the teacher arrives.
Now, a popular online video starring a lech named Ogden has the yoga community chuckling in recognition and talking about the problem of men who come to studios in search of phone numbers rather than enlightenment. Continue reading ‘Between Poses, a Barrage of Pickup Lines’
When circumstances kept Nashville-natives Tom and Daphne Larkin from moving to California in 2004, the last thing on their minds was opening their own yoga studio. But as experienced yoga teachers, they realized they had to listen to the obstacles.
Continue reading ‘Music City Goes with the Flow’