Blog
Media, poetry, articles, art, videos and random nuggets that tickle me.
Top 10 Albums of 2021
10. FS Blumm & Nils Frahm - 2X1=4
8. The Weather Station - Ignorance
6. Quickly, Quickly - The Long and Short of It
4. Snail Mail - Valentine
2. Darkside - Spiral
9. Kinlaw - The Tipping Scale
5. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince
3. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
1. Ana Roxanne - Because of a Flower
It Was Hard Not To Include:
Billie Eilish, Sturgill Simpson, Hildegard, Joy Orbison, Floating Points, Steve Gunn, Nala Sinephro, Grouper, Kerala Dust, Badbadnotgood, Yasmin Williams
Also Good:
Maple Glider, Grouper, Penelope Trappes, Little Simz, Park Hye Jin, Madi Diaz, Indigo De Souza, Ka, Tirzah, Ethel Cain, José Gonzales, Kasey Musgraves, The War on Drugs, Helado Negro
Last Year’s List
On the Tip of your Tongue
Schedule
Mondays: (Pacific Time)
9:00-10:00a — Zoom
Tuesdays:
6:15-7:30p — Love Story Yoga
Wednesdays:
9:00-10:00a — Zoom
Thursdays:
4:30-5:45p — Love Story Yoga
Fridays:
9:00-10:00a — Zoom
Saturdays:
11:00-12:15p — Love Story Yoga
All online classes can be found here.
Register for In-Person classes here.
To Recognize
Ummm
Common Ground
I woke up excited because the news made it sound like we were maybe going to be okay. I walked outside with the dog and the sun was shining and we deserved it. I listened to a podcast about how podcasts were really popular. Down the hill, a woman stopped to give the dog a treat, and the dog was quite pleased. I removed my headphones. The woman said something but I didn’t make it out because fabric covered her mouth.
“Yeah,” I said.
There was a line at the coffee shop. I asked the barista if he’d gotten that sweet sweet vaccine yet, which is maybe an inappropriate question?—a notion I didn’t consider until three other people in line began arguing over the efficacy of vaccines. They had different opinions on the facts, or maybe they’d heard different facts, or the facts were changing? Whatever it was, they wanted to get to the bottom of it, loudly.
I pretended I was invisible and snuck quietly out the front door, relieved to find my own precious opinions strengthened by caffeine. A guy with an electric skateboard scooted up the street. He had headphones on and his knees were bouncing rhythmically as he carved arcs on the pavement. His arms extended like wings; his face beamed, wide open.
New Podcast Interview
Oh My God!
I made an NFT
Buy the original image for the low price of 1 ETH here!
Being Human
Sight
Vascular
These are the books I read in 2020
Many of these are so great and I thought many thoughts and felt many feelings, but I have bolded texts that I especially recommend. Also, for the record, I especially recommend NOT reading Moby Dick.
BOOKS!
How Fiction Works - James Wood
You Have the Wrong Man - Maria Flook
The Fall - Albert Camus
Last Evenings on Earth - Roberto Bolaño
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - Alice Munro
Girl With Curious Hair - David Foster Wallace
Jesus’s Son - Denis Johnson
The Lying Life of Adults - Elena Ferrante
A Lucky Man - Jamel Brinkley
The Art of Subtext - Charles Baxter
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self - Danielle Evans
The Half Known World - Robert Boswell
Taking Care - Joy Williams
Sylvia - Leonard Michaels
Snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway
The Art of Fiction - John Gardner
My Struggle Volume Two - Karl Ove Knausgaard (re-read)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante
My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
Story of a New Name - Elena Ferrante
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay - Elena Ferrante
The Story of the Lost Child - Elena Ferrante
Recollections of my Nonexistence - Rebecca Solnit
The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel - Alexander Chee
Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss
Topeka School - Ben Lerner
Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner
10:04 - Ben Lerner
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
The Idiot - Elif Batuman
Summer - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Ardor - Roberto Calasso
Catapult - Emily Fridlund
Airships - Barry Hannah
Sudden Traveler - Sarah Hall
This is Very Important
Update on Classes
Happy New Year!
I will be away for the first two weeks of 2021, and back to normal schedule starting Monday the 18th of January.
Two updates:
I’m offering a package of recorded classes, which can be found here.
Upon my return, I will be teaching a regular class on Tuesday nights! We’ll see how it pans out, but for now the idea is to start nice and swiftly, and then do a bit more yin/restorative/subtle body work for the final third of class. I’m excited about this and happy to finally take all the advice/requests in teaching a class outside of business hours… Sorry it took so long!
It has been a gift beyond my ability to describe to have the yoga practice, and each other, in this new/weird/glorious way during the pandemic. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support, but more so for your incredible consistency and commitment to your own practice. I am exceedingly proud to be a part of that.
There has never been a better time to have a sincere (and sarcastic) relationship with uncertainty and change, and with routines that organize and metabolize all the debris that accumulates throughout life. We really are so lucky to have the practice, and its momentum and clarity and structure, propping us up. Onwards!
I hope your days ahead are full of serendipity and creativity and revelation.
Yours always,
Jason
Top 10 Albums of 2020
10. Dougie Poole - The Freelancer’s Blues
Super weird millennial Americana with all the right flair
8. Adrianne Lenker - Songs
Misty-eyed, atmospheric, savant singer/songwriter gorgeousness
6. Perfume Genius - Set My Heart on Fire…
A super idiosyncratic pop album about love and yearning and fucking off
4. Blake Mills - Mutable Set
Impeccably soft songs that swell and diminish and embrace throughout
2. Moses Sumney - Grae
The vanguard of creativity in every sense of the word, a start to finish ride
9. The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go On Sinning…
Super weird millennial ambient music that transports with close listening
5. Destroyer - Have We Met
Crystal clear and lively, a soundtrack of unapologetic angst
3. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bold Cutters
Earthen sounds and cutting poetry and the unadulterated energy of it all…
1. Fleet Foxes - Shore
Cinematic and symphonic and painterly, a large album of small details
It Was Hard Not To Include:
My Morning Jacket, Khotin, Nicolas Jaar, Grimes, Beatrice Dillon, Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby, Haim, Phoebe Bridgers, Emily Sprague
Also Good:
Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens, Bob Dylan, Polica, Kyson, Agnes Obel, Pantha du Prince, Four Tet, US Girls, Hania Rani, Aesop Rock, Bill Callahan, Kelly Lee Owens, Hayley Williams, The Avalanches, Loma, The Microphones, Kate NV