Venti Soy Handstand with a Shot of Eccentricity

On Friday, I successfully kicked up in to Pinchu Mayurasana (aka feathered peacock, aka forearm balance) for the first time. I was excited beyond words, so of course I knew our Saturday teacher training class, geared towards all inversions, was going to be a disaster for me. I'd have all kinds attachments and expectations, and I wouldn't be able to do handstand, even though my teacher told me last week that I was thisclose.

Sure enough, I couldn't do handstand. I couldn't do pinchu either, and when my teachers kept saying I was thisclose I kept insisting, "I did it yesterday!" which attests to my ego, attachment and inability to live in the present moment. YogaFAIL!

To make matters worse, our teacher ended class with a meditation that involved envisioning all the organs of your body smiling. My liver could not smile, neither could my kidney. In fact, I thought, I don't even know where my kidney is, but I'm sure if I could find it, it would be frowning and irritated about my bad practice, just like I am.

Finally, the meditation ended and I got to stop envisioning my small intestines in a state of peaceful bliss. I returned to the wall and tried kicking up into any pose that would have me. No luck. Teary-eyed and despairing, I raced for the one thing sure to improve my mood anytime: Coffee.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at Starbucks, the man I yelled at for hurting the environment after he threw out my cup last week was at the register. I wasn't sure if he remembered me when he asked how my day was going so far.

"Well, I've been in Yoga Teacher Training for a few hours...so...ok."
"Whoa! Yoga training! That's crazy."
"Yeah," I continued, surrendering to the present moment. "I've been trying to kick up into handstand and I can't, so I'm kind of frustrated."
He laughed. "Handstand? I can do a handstand."
"Great!' I was happy for him. Really, I was.
"I can do a handstand and walk on my hands," he continued.
"Great!"
"In fact, I could probably do one right here in the middle of Starbucks."
"Great!" I forced out for the third time. Was that my spleen I felt smiling, or psychosomatic nausea?
"Yeah!" He handed me my coffee. "I could definitely do it." Before I could put away my change, he had come around the dessert bar and was placing his cellphone on the floor. He looked up me. "Read it and weep!" And then, right there in the middle of Starbucks, he dove into handstand (with a very curved back) and took a few steps on his hands before sliding down the floor.
"Wow!" I said, more shocked and amused than anything. "That's....great!"
He leaped to his feet. "I could probably walk on my hands all the way to the door!"
"Cool!" I told him, backing away. "Well...I'm going to go over there and put milk in my coffee, so if you want to try walking towards me that's fine, but otherwise I'll see you later!"
"I told you I could do it!" He called after me. "In fact, it was easy."
I hurriedly added soymilk and shot out the door. I had to admit that I was pretty entertained, no longer on the verge of tears and a little satisfied by the knowledge that his form was terrible.

Just goes to show you there's no problem that caffeine can't solve.

Smart Reactions to The Age Of Stupid

Since I saw "The Age of Stupid" a week ago, I've been trying to live conscientiously/be plagued by guilt and anxiety about the demise of our planet. As it turns out, I'm really good at being plagued by guilt and anxiety, but saving the environment is more difficult.

For example, last Sunday, I brought my paper Starbucks cup into Manhattan for yoga teacher training so when we took our break, I wouldn't have to get a new one. The man behind the counter glared at me and said, "Do you know our refill policy?

"Yes!" I smiled. "I can only get the discount if I bought the coffee in this store."

He shook his head at me and threw my cup in the garbage as though as I was some of kind of criminal. His rudeness, added to the rawness I felt after seeing that film, fortified with a two hour hip-opener practice lead me to literally shriek, "No! What are you doing?? I brought the cup to help the environment! That was the whole point. GOD." He mumbled an apology but my eyes were already on the woman filling the new cup. "I have a lid!" I yelled. "Do not do not do not give me a new lid!!"

One of my yoga classmates was waiting at the end of the bar for her soy latte and smiled at me with a mix of patience, amusement and concern. "It's ok, RB!" She called. "Just step down here. Just pay and come away. It's ok."

This morning at Starbucks, I showed up with my cup from yesterday and told them I didn't want the discount, I just wanted them to reuse my cup. They told me that according to the Board of Health, reusing the cups was now illegal. Then they gave me the discount. Team America, F* Yeah!

I know--I need to bite the bullet and get a thermos, asap. So, that's step one. Step Two for me (and everyone else) might be to go back and read the comments on my original Age of Stupid post. A very sophisticated conversation emerged there, and some commenters provided helpful links. One "Gary O" wrote, "I just hope someone reads this" after a long reflection on his career as a Mechanical Engineer committed to creating better energy options. So read it!

Other commenters suggested blogs, movies, Web sites, etc such as:

http://www.beyondtalk.net/ (climate pledge of resistance)
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/ (Colin Beavan's the no impact man blog, from EcoYogini.)
http://www.transitionnetwork.org (The Transition Towns Movement)

For further reading on the subject, also visit the Huffington Post to read True Styler's speech to UN: Do We Really Want to be the Generation that Destroyed Ourselves? If there's anything I've learned in the last week, it's that reform is necessary. I heard on NPR yesterday that carbon emissions dropped 9 percent during the recession. But all the scientists say it's not enough, and if the economy recovers, the planet will suffer more. Now is the time to be active and make laws, because Starbucks and I can't do it alone. As Styler said:

The United Nations was created to bring order and responsibility to our world.

It is a magnificent testament to much that is good in humankind. You are the inheritors of that tradition. You are the keepers of that sacred flame. I am asking you -- no, I am begging you -- to live up to your responsibilities. Don't settle for warm words and fine-sounding declarations. Don't accept clever compromises.

As we go forward to Copenhagen, the signs are not good. In the face of the greatest crisis our world has faced for generations, too many powerful people are behaving with shocking irresponsibility. Instead of meeting the challenge of climate change, they are sidelining it in favor of short-term priorities. Instead of building a sustainable global economy, they are ignoring it in favor of short-term growth.

Instead of telling their citizens the truth, they are obscuring it in favor of comforting lies about painless solutions.

The 21st century is already a decade old. The time when leaders could claim not to understand the implications of the evidence before us is long past .

What Chris Brown Teaches Us About Yoga

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the video above, because my mother told me about it before I saw it, and if your mother tells you about something viral before you catch it, you know it must be huge.

This video, aptly titled "Jill and Kevin's Wedding Dance" is magical because it makes even cynical, cold-hearted non-believers like me think marriage might just be a wonderful thing (or at least an excellent excuse for a dance party and an open bar). The problem is that it's Chris Brown who's making everyone realize how beautiful love can be. Prior to this video, Chris Brown was only teaching us how love might cause you to miss the Grammy awards.

Still, personally, I've been dying to download "Forever" since, well, forever. But more than one person told me that if I did, I'd be "giving $1.29 to wife-abuse". I'm terrible at making my bed, lazy about laundry and inept at cooking, so I anticipate that I'm going to need a wife some day. I certainly didn't want a reputation as someone who thought hitting was ok.

However, last week, one of my roommates (who apparently bought the song before Brown hit Rihanna...) emailed me an MP3 of "Forever." After months of craving it, I've been listening to it non-stop for days. But I've been feeling a little guilty about it, so I decided to do the yogic thing and find the yoga in Chris Brown.

Chris's Karma Points

1) He knows about foundation. On Sunday, when we were doing practice teaching in training, I explained parivrtta trikononasana (revolved triangle) by quoting to the line, "All you've got to do is watch me/see what I can do with my feet" from the song. I told my students that while it seems like the pose is all about the fancy things you do twisting your torso and putting your arms in the air, the real meat and merit of the pose was all in the feet. Focus on what you can do with your feet, and it's expressive enough. The rest will just evolve.

(After I was done teaching the pose I asked if it seemed out of place to be quoting Chris Brown in yoga and everyone said no, although one person did say, "RB, I have a feeling that when you start teaching, your classes will be like no one else's." Not quite sure what that meant. Oh well.)

2. He shows what happens when you don't stick to your intention. When my teacher asked us to set an intention for the class today, answering the question, "why are you here?" immediately, my mind (heart?) answered "Love!" Not necessarily romantic love, but just general kindness. Of course, this turned out be a day when everyone annoyed me, people were knocking my props over, and no one would smile at me. My teacher told us that yoga class was a good place to explore how we reacted when our intentions faced a challenge.

I realized that when my intent to practice loving kindness was not met with equal loving kindness, I got really really pissed off. In fact, I very quickly switched to disliking everyone. Hmm..I thought. Sounds like a certain notorious R&B singer I know (not B.I.G). So while I absolutely assert that hitting your girlfriend is unacceptable, we can all learn something about how not to act when your plans or perceptions are disrupted. Most of us aren't reacting with outward physical violence, but you might be surprised to find the tiny acts of violence you inflict on others or yourself when your expectation and intentions are not met. Those reactions compromise your intention--as we see with Chris Brown, his actions destroyed his noble intention, and a perfectly awesome love song.

3) His situation is so screwed up, it demands radical affirmation! First, two other people, Jill and Kevin (of the wedding dance above), picked up Brown's intention and manage to restore the song's popularity. Then, they got some criticism for helping to boost sales for a wife-beater. They responded by employing another tenet of yoga, Radical Affirmation. They took something bad, and made it something good by collecting donations for domestic violence charity on their web site, Jill and Kevin's Wedding. Now, something that seemed like an awkward mistake is helping people.

4) We learn the value of Ahimsa, or non-violence. If you need me to explain this one, this blog is above your reading level. However, I would add sometimes that ahimsa, one of the five Yamas (which are like the 10 commandments for Yogis) is sometimes interpreted as vegetarianism. This means vegetarians are the opposite of wife-beaters. Go Vegs!

5) Asmita, Or Ego, is one of big obstacles to a Yogic life. If you can put aside your ego to make a public apology, or put aside your ego to write a blog post about Chris Brown and yoga, you are obviously on the right track.

6) He's a good reminder that nobody's perfect, but that doesn't mean we can be judgmental. In Sutra 1.33, Punjali gives instructions on how we should treat certain difficult types of people (as opposed to how we normally do.) For example, we might feel an aversion towards wicked people. But we shouldn't, instead, we should be "accepting" and "neutral." In other words, it's ok to buy the song and listen to it a thousand times, even though "it might make us think we are approving of their bad behavior." We're not! We're just creating equanimity! What a relief. It's like I waited my whole life....

The Age of Stupid

On Friday, I almost bought teal converse sneakers, just for the fun of it. I know people who have lots of converse sneakers in lots of colors. Why not be one of them? But I ended up putting the shoes back and I am so glad I did, because on Saturday, I decided to be hip and politically correct and invite my friend and roommate to see The Age of Stupid at MoMA, which, I deduced from a brief scanning of MoMA's listing, was about global warming.

Cool, I thought. It'd be fun to tell everyone that I'm so environmentally careful that I see movies about global warming. After giving away my fake engagement ring on Halloween to some guy dressed as Run DMC, I'm no longer able to pretend to be married, so I figured appearing more eco-friendly would a good way to fit in in Park Slope for the time being.

Little did I know, seeing The Age of Stupid would not just make me feel like I didn't belong in Park Slope, but it made me feel like I don't belong on the planet. The premise of the film is that by ignoring climate change now, we're basically guaranteeing that the whole planet will be destroyed, and we'll all be dead by 2055. I may not be good at math, but I know that is soon. I will be 81, if I don't die in one of the hypothetical hurricanes or food riots that occur in the years before.

The movie is part documentary, part cartoon, and part fiction. Pete Postlethwaite plays an archivist who has collected specimens of planet earth as we know it in a Noah's Arc sort of way, and uses an iphone-like computer to make a documentary about how we knew better in 2008 but were too dumb to do anything about it.

The documentary footage is real, and it is interspersed with cartoons demonstrating how gluttonous Americans are. Postlethwaite also offers commentary, while scrolling ferociously and tapping his screen to make selections. He has the iphone mannerisms down to a pat (which scares me, I don't know why.)

The documentary sections feature: "Fernand Pareau, 82-year old French mountain guide, Jeh Wadia, starting a low-cost airline in India , Alvin DuVernay, Shell oil man who rescued 100 people after Hurricane Katrina , Layefa Malemi, living in Shell’s most profitable oil region in Nigeria, Jamila and Adnan Bayyoud, two Iraqi refugee kids trying to find their brother, Piers Guy, a windfarm developer fighting the anti windfarm lobby in England." (see full synopsis.)

They are all trying to better the world in some way, but they are all either misguided or doomed to fail or both. The point of the movie is to convince us that we know how to fix global warming, but are committing suicide by ignoring it and doing nothing. I'm sure the point of the movie was to inspire action, but it inspired a total panic attack. Jamila and Adnan Bayyoud note that while they wear shoes until they fall apart, Americans throw away shoes the minute something breaks. It literally made me want to punch anyone I knew who buys shoes for fun. (file under: my career as a yoga teacher is as doomed as the o-zone layer.)

The movie does a good job of showing us how stupid we are, but less of a good job demonstrating how we can help it. Rather, the world of the film is filled with really stupid people. And it made me think that I knew a lot of stupid people too. (I also felt physically violent towards anyone I knew who had ever suggested it was a good idea to take a cab.)

That said, I do recommend checking out the site, seeing the movie if you can and joining the movement, "Not Stupid." On the site, you can e-mail politicians and learn to cut your emissions by 10 percent. You can learn more about the conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 that might help to set policy that will reverse the effects of global warming.

I joined, and hope to convert my hopelessness into action, but unfortunately, what I drew from the film is that humans are sort of biologically wired to consume resources until they're gone. Postlethwaite reflects that maybe we're committing suicide because we don't think we're worth saving, but I think maybe we're just driven by the laws of entropy. Maybe we're doomed by genetics to feverishly use everything until it's gone. If you agree, I encourage you not only join the Not Stupid campaign but also to join my movement, which involves pledging to never have children, throwing teal converse sneakers at shoppers in SoHo and then moving a farm with the next person I find who I can stand for more than an hour.

GrilledCheeseFAIL

Because yesterday was Veteran's day, I agreed to look after my friend's daughter so he could work while she had the day off from school. I showed up at the tail end of breakfast after an early morning ashtanga practice that I hoped would prepare me for a day with a five-year old. She was really upset when he left and did her best to thwart his departure by wiping her buttery fingers on his nice dress shirt and crying extensively. She insisted that he be the one to get her "dressed," but when I saw that the outfit she chose was a bright pink, footed flannel pajama suit, I observed, "it's a hang out on the couch and watch movies day!"

We settled down for "Ariel's Beginning." I had no idea that the Little Mermaid had a prequel, but it seemed like a great opportunity to practice restorative yoga poses and read Paul Krugman's The Return of Depression Era Economics, the next book on my review queue. Kids, I thought, as I snuggled into a pillow and delved into the Latin American 90s recession, are wonderful! Not only that, but after the movie, there was a bonus feature starring the girl who plays the little mermaid on Broadway giving a backstage tour of the theater. I had Musical theater, reason to panic about money and more time to worry that I can't do lotus pose--in short, everything I could possibly want. But then I had to make lunch.

At first, I was happy when she asked for grilled cheese. It seemed easy enough, and suitable for a chilly fall day. I got the ingredients out of the fridge and placed them on the counter. I gave my brain the cue, "make grilled cheese." My brain replied, "but how?"

I decided the bread should go in the toaster oven first, then should be cooked in a pan. I avoided burning the bread in the toaster oven, and congratulated myself on the achievement as I layered cheddar cheese on the buttered sour dough slices. Yes, this was definitely how grilled cheese was made. I sighed with relief and turned my attention to the soup. And then the smoke alarm went off.

I turned off the burner, moved the pan and ran to open the windows. "You're not allowed to have the windows open," my little friend told me. "It's not safe."

"Well, don't stand over there for now, ok? They need to be open for the smoke to go away." She agreed, and went with a blanket towards the alarm and started fanning the air.

"I'm helping you!" She cried.

I thanked her and when the wails of the alarm had subsided, I shut the window and returned my attention to the troubled sandwich. The cheese was hard as a rock, but the edges of the bread were already completely burned. I reignited the stove, this time with a lower flame. Master of subtly, expert problem solver, babysitter extraordinaire! I thought. I served the soup as an appetizer. Then the smoke alarm went off again. I ran to the windows.

"I'm cold!" yelled my ward. "And I hate this soup!"

"I'm sorry!" She had changed out of her flannel jump suit into a Disney princess nightgown. I wrapped her in the blanket she'd been using to fan the smoke alarm and assured her, "when I serve your sandwich, it will get the taste of the soup out of your mouth, but you have to eat it."

But what to do about that pesky sandwich? The bread was now miraculously both soggy and burned, while the cheese was slightly rubbery, but solid. Then I recalled my college boyfriend's passion for tuna melts, which he insisted his Mom cooked in the oven. Although I'd technically written her off because she hated my guts, perhaps she might be on to something.

I stuck the sandwich on a plate in the oven and waited. And waited. Wasn't cheese the sort of thing that melted quickly? It had only taken me about 7 minutes in an oven to completely destroy my ipod. Wtf??

"I hate this soup!" Shouted the little one.

"Ok." Breathe. Just breathe. Then I remembered the best advice my father ever gave me: diffuse and deflect. I turned it over to her. "You have two options. You can wait for me to keep cooking the sandwich until the cheese melts, or you can eat it now with the cold cheese."

Apparently, it's really not true that women want the right to choose. She started to cry. "My option is daddy."

"Daddy's at work, honey, I can't bring him home."

"My option is daddy!!"

"But 'option' means that something is possible. It's not possible for daddy to be here. Pick one of the other options." I always knew that formal logic class would pay off, someday.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!!!" She screamed.

I sunk to the floor of the kitchen, nestling myself between the island and the stove, staring at the stubborn sandwich. "Cook!" I whispered, as the voices in my head started to sneer, "you can't even cook grilled cheese! What can you possibly contribute to the Planet Earth?"

[art shot of my arm reflected in the oven, as I sit on the floor and contemplate pulling a Sylvia Plath.]







"I hate this soup!! I want daddy!" She howled. I hoisted myself up and walked over the table, grabbing the spoon. "Here, I'll feed you the soup, and when it's gone, the sandwich will be ready." She seemed to agree, but after receiving the second bite, spit the soup back in bowl and continued bawling, "I want daddy!"

I tried more reason. "But just think, if today were a normal day, you'd be at school. You'd be fine!"

"Yes but when I'm at school, I don't have to be with you!!" I recoiled back. Much like the bread, I was burned. But I forced myself to go on.

"What did I do to you?"

"You're bossier than all my nannies!" She began to howl.

"Bossy how?" I demanded (case in point. But oh well.) I softened. "I mean, if you tell me what I did that is bossy, I won't do it anymore."

"You're just bossy," she sobbed. "It's just how you arreeee."

I lay my arms down on the table and hid my head. When I closed my eyes, I saw an image of my dear, sweet, wholesome new Englander ex, with that horrified sneer he had used to express that I was a morally devoid, over-harsh and self-absorbed eccentric. I heard the ex before him, explaining to me over Prince and warm beer at a cast party that I just wasn't the sort of person a man would want to start a family with.

Maybe, I frenetically hypothesized, if I started crying, she'd stop crying. I imagined what the ex would say about that. That I was immature? No...another word that started with "I.." Ah, yes. Insane. And that was why I was unqualified to make grilled cheese, sustain a relationship, or care for a child. I thought about what my mother would say about that. She'd say, "Stop your catastrophic thinking!" And then maybe she'd tell me how to make grilled cheese... But for now, I had to go against my grain and learn an impossible skill: coping with criticism.

I fled to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. There had to be some way to take this constructively, maturely and improve my behavior. I'd met one of her nannies. What did the other nanny do that I didn't do? Then it hit me. The other nanny cooed and squeaked. I talked like a grown-up. Maybe kids were like dogs, and if you cooed and squeaked at them, they never knew you were saying, "your horrendous moron! The ASPCA was so right when they said Golden Retrievers were over-bred."

I marched back out and removed the still-not-cooked sandwich from the oven. "Ok!" I sang. "Time to have some yummy sandwich that silly me goofed up on!' Squeak, Coo, Giggle: Miracle.

We finished lunch, and I launched into some squeaking and cooing about how cute her clothes were. She smiled at me, "You can have them when I grow out of them, for when you have a baby. Then I'll get to see my old clothes because you can bring the baby here!"

"Bring it here?" I choked. "I don't know, honey. It might take me a lot of years. I'd have to get a boyfriend, then get married and then have a baby. How long do you think that will take?"

"Two years!" She replied confidently.

"What? That's kind of soon!" And what if she was some kind of prophet? I was running out of time to date horribly inappropriate men and complain about my life!!!!

"Well," she looked at me as though I was missing something major. "The parents decide when the baby comes. It doesn't have to take that long." Then she leaned in very confidentially. "You know, I actually have a boyfriend."

"Really?!" Remember, I told myself: squeak, coo. "Who is he?"

"He's the talking trash can at Disney World. And..." her eyes lit up. "He's not even operated by remote control!" For the first time since I'd started slicing the cheddar, my mouth cracked into a relieved and glorious smile.

"Don't laugh! It's true."

I curbed my enthusiasm but embraced my tremendous joy. "I'm not laughing sweetie. I think it's awesome. And so are you."

When her dad came home, in the name of full disclosure, I told him everything. "I know!" he commiserated. "That damn cheddar! It just won't melt. I have no idea what's wrong with it."

Awesome.

The Hypochondriac at the Cell Theatre: It's Sick

As faithful followers of this blog know (there must be 2 or 3 of you out there...) I have mixed feelings about illness. On one hand, I like making fun of people who worry about swine flu. On the other hand, I like googling random symptoms and diagnosing myself with rare diseases based on information I can find online. On one hand, I won't go to doctors or take antibiotics, on the other hand, I'm mildly addicted to Excedrin.

While I may be confused about my feelings on health and well-being, I know exactly how I feel about satire. I love it. So I was very excited to get an invite to The Hypochondriac at the Cell Theatre. The play is a modern adaption of Moliere's Le Malade Imaginaire in which a very rich man is duped by doctors into thinking he is very ill (with what disease, we don't know) and needs oodles of expensive medicine and enemas. (So basically, he's a Hollywood star, except bald and in a bathrobe.)

In this adaption, brought to life by my fellow Revolving Floor contribut0r Chris Harcum (who also plays the title role, Mr. Argan), Matthew Gregory, Shira Gregory and Greg Tito, Moliere's message about the idiocy of doctors is converted into a critique of our pill-popping society. The set TV played occasional commercials for made up diseases like Wandering Eye Syndrome (when your boyfriend stares down other girls' shirts) and Mr. Argan's brother Barry (Douglas Scott Sorenson) reveals a magic cure for heart disease: exercise. (Duh!)

These messages were interesting and relevant, but for me, the real joy of the show was witnessing a kind of comedic brilliance that we don't see frequently in modern shows. Maybe I'm nerd because I think Moliere is hilarious, but this cast brought the work to life with the perfect blend of vaudevillian slapstick, tight delivery and genuine acting chops. Moliere's characters are stereotypes, but in The Hypochondriac, they become real in a way that is simultaneously comfortingly familiar and piercingly refreshing. In short: I LOVED LOVED LOVED this show for its ability to entertain, offer social commentary, and remind me of how essential classical theatre is.

For example, nobody writes great women like Moliere does, and Vivienne Leheny, as the brilliant and conniving maid, Toinette, does an invigorating job of proving it. Harcum is impetuous and determined as Argan, rising to the tremendous challenge of playing the ass and victim in a troupe full of willful characters. Kyle Haggerty brings levity and hilarity as a socially inept and idiotic young medical student. As Argan's hyper-rational brother Barry, Sorenson shines like a beacon into the dark mesh of hysteria and self-absorption that plagues the other characters.

So, in short, I recommend the play. And maybe giving up pills, too. The day after I saw the Hypochondriac, we learned about the Ayurveda in Yoga Teacher Training. Ayurveda is a holistic form of health care that advocates creating a lifestyle suited specifically to one's constitution. Apparently, I would have no physical or mental problems if I just napped, quit caffeine and ate lots of oatmeal. Easy! (she says from her perch at Starbucks, empty Venti cup faithfully by her side...)

My teacher warned us that choosing this path isn't easy, but I really think I can! Fare thee well, dear Excedrin. It's been real.

DoDos Around the Web: The Band, The Politician and Big Bird

It's been said that things always show up in threes. I noticed that my last two posts on PopMatters.com were related to Dodos. One was a review of the San Francisco-based band, The Dodos, at the Music Hall of Willamsburg. There, I discovered that the Dodos are lot more interesting than they sound on their last album, which was produced by Phil Ek, who has worked with other not-immensely-interesting bands like the Shins. (Not that I really have anything against the Shins...)

The other was a review of Ralph Nader's new book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! in which Nader proves over the course of 736 pages that he is, himself, a Dodo, or at the very least, a bad writer with delusions of grandeur.

I was waiting for the third Dodo to fall from the sky when I saw Cookie Monster on the Google homepage and realized it's the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street. The PopMatters Mixed Media Blog has Sesame Street covered, too, with the Sesame Street Turns 40 Video Collection. You can also visit the official Sesame Street Homepage for more child and adult-friendly videos.

Personally, I love all things Sesame Street, but nothing more than the movie Follow That Bird, the story of how Big Bird goes to live with a family of Dodos so he live with animals "of his own kind." It turns out of course that even though the Dodos are birds like Big Bird, his real friends are the one on Sesame Street who may not look like him, but certainly understand and love him. Still, the Dodo family is pretty hilarious and from what I remember, Follow That Bird is a top-notch film. On a whim, I decided to some hunting around YouTube for Follow That Bird videos and found this song, "Ain't No Mountain You Can't Climb." I was surprised to discover I remembered all the words, but concluded the song is probably the reason why I was such an astoundingly over-confident three-year old.

Mainly I think this song is so great because Sesame Street is so realistic and ironic. While Jennings is spouting his cheery, kickin' country inspiration, Bert and Ernie are fighting about the color of Big Bird, Oscar is driving off the road, and Cookie Monster is looking for cookies. In fact, Big Bird is no where close to home, but tapping his webbed-foot along to a catchy tune certainly doesn't hurt. Grown-ups get the sad humor of Big Bird hopping delighted off the truck only to realize that he has no idea where Sesame Street is located, but it doesn't take away from entertainment value of the tune. Somehow, Sesame Street finds a way to make fun of everybody and inspire toddlers at the same time. This is basically my goal in life. (minus the toddlers.)

I think of all the characters, the Count has the best idea. He points out that no road is too long, as long as you can count telephone poles. If you suspect you are in for a long wait, it's always a good idea to find something to be passionate about other than the ticking of the second hand on your watch.