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missroseroseHello, book-friends! A couple of years ago, my local neighborhood-happenings blog posted a call for volunteers to help tutor kids from the local grade schools - my neighborhood has a big low-income and immigrant population, so there are a lot of children who can't get much help with their homework at home. I remember thinking that maybe I should apply, but shortly thereafter I started massage school and life sort of got in the way. Since then, I've thought about it more than once; it seems a good way to both get involved with and give back to the community. Still, I've had a hard time overcoming my hesitation. I've been concerned about the time commitment (nothing like running a business where availability is prized to realize exactly how much time the rest of your life takes up), and the last few times I tried dealing directly with kids, it didn't go so well (though admittedly that was en masse rather than one-on-one). This morning, the same blog posted another call, and wouldn't you know it, one of the available sessions they need tutors for is Wednesday afternoons, right up the street from the yoga studio where I work Wednesday evenings, and ends right when I'd need to leave for work. Kinda seems like it's not going to get any more pointed than that, heh. We'll see if I overcome my hesitation - I do have a regular massage client that likes to book during that time, but that's like once a month at most, or I might be able to convince her to shift her regular appointment time.
What I've just finished reading
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dimitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, by M.T. Anderson. I capital-letters LOVED this book. Not only is it a surprisingly good survey of 20th-century Russian history (I feel much more prepared to read The Master and Margarita now), it's a compellingly told tale of a very human person laboring to create art while under threat from no fewer than two fascist regimes, one of which disliked him personally for his talent and celebrity and the other of which was bent upon the destruction of his entire race. I doubt anyone can read the story of the piece's Leningrad premiere and not be touched; after nearly a year of starvation rations, the orchestra was down to seventeen members, many of whom barely had the strength to blow into their instruments; the government had to supplement with (comparatively) better-fed military musicians. Towards the end of the piece, the players were on the verge of passing out with fatigue, but the audience stood up, willing them to go on. The entire city heard the piece broadcast over loudspeakers and radios; the Russians blasted it over loudspeakers set up at the blockade in a huge display of defiance, proving that they were still alive, still creating art.
Later in the story, I found the tension between Shostakovich's global lionization and his personal desire to remain anonymous particularly poignant; Shostakovich was shy to begin with, and in the Stalinist era fame made you stand out, which could be deadly. And yet Shostakovich never stopped composing, not when his work was censored by the NKVD, not when Hitler blockaded his beloved home city and destroyed its food supplies, not when his Leningrad Symphony won him global acclaim, not even when the war ended, the iron curtain came slamming down, and his work was once again out of favor. He signed whatever statements the government put in front of him, no matter how reprehensible, but he kept composing; even more tellingly, during a time when compassion was definitely out of favor, he used what resources he could to help his friends who'd been caught up in the purges, paying for a fellow composer's son to attend conservatory and writing so many letters to the government that eventually they stopped paying attention to them. He may not have been cut out to be a hero or a martyr, but by all accounts he was a kind man, and he never stopped making art and never stopped trying to help people, which is a quieter and perhaps more effective sort of heroism in itself.
What I'm currently reading
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. Having found and studied under all three of the Magi, learning Buddhist, Hindu, and even Yogic disciplines, Joshua has returned to Nazareth and begun collecting disciples. I'm honestly not finding this part as entertaining as the first couple; maybe it's just that this story's been wrung out for jokes before (Christ and his followers were basically barefoot hippies! Isn't it funny realizing how they'd basically be outcasts now!), or maybe it's that Moore seems hesitant to satirize Christian philosophy as he did with others. Especially after the Hindu episode, which was oversimplified to the point of offensiveness and read like nothing so much as a white dude who'd seen Temple of Doom too many times writing jokes about a culture he had no context for, he's been surprisingly unwilling to examine Christianity with the same eye. I mean, I don't know a whole lot about religious history, but even I know that Christianity was a radical philosophy for its time; I don't think a single other major religion of the period preached tolerance and compassion towards those who wronged you. (One of the things I liked most about HBO's Rome, at least in the first season before it got all soapy, was how it got across the difference in primary cultural philosophy; forgiveness and compassion were seen as weaknesses to be exploited, not desirable traits to be emulated, or even pretended to.) It seems like that'd be a pretty good source of jokes, but perhaps Moore doesn't have the outsider's perspective towards Christian philosophy that he does towards the others.
Yoga Sequencing, by Mark Stephens. I've fallen somewhat short of my chapter-a-week goal this week, though in fairness, this is a particularly long chapter on sequencing within asana families. I feel like this is one section where the material was adequately covered in my teacher training; there've been some good bits of advice, though nothing that's really given me new insight. (But then, I still have *hangs head* two-thirds of the chapter to read, so stay tuned for updates.)
What I plan to read next
Time to pick a new audiobook, and I just saw on Goodreads thatasakiyume is reading Ann Leckie's new book Provenance, which Brian already got on Audible - for once, I think I know what's up next!
What I've just finished reading
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dimitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, by M.T. Anderson. I capital-letters LOVED this book. Not only is it a surprisingly good survey of 20th-century Russian history (I feel much more prepared to read The Master and Margarita now), it's a compellingly told tale of a very human person laboring to create art while under threat from no fewer than two fascist regimes, one of which disliked him personally for his talent and celebrity and the other of which was bent upon the destruction of his entire race. I doubt anyone can read the story of the piece's Leningrad premiere and not be touched; after nearly a year of starvation rations, the orchestra was down to seventeen members, many of whom barely had the strength to blow into their instruments; the government had to supplement with (comparatively) better-fed military musicians. Towards the end of the piece, the players were on the verge of passing out with fatigue, but the audience stood up, willing them to go on. The entire city heard the piece broadcast over loudspeakers and radios; the Russians blasted it over loudspeakers set up at the blockade in a huge display of defiance, proving that they were still alive, still creating art.
Later in the story, I found the tension between Shostakovich's global lionization and his personal desire to remain anonymous particularly poignant; Shostakovich was shy to begin with, and in the Stalinist era fame made you stand out, which could be deadly. And yet Shostakovich never stopped composing, not when his work was censored by the NKVD, not when Hitler blockaded his beloved home city and destroyed its food supplies, not when his Leningrad Symphony won him global acclaim, not even when the war ended, the iron curtain came slamming down, and his work was once again out of favor. He signed whatever statements the government put in front of him, no matter how reprehensible, but he kept composing; even more tellingly, during a time when compassion was definitely out of favor, he used what resources he could to help his friends who'd been caught up in the purges, paying for a fellow composer's son to attend conservatory and writing so many letters to the government that eventually they stopped paying attention to them. He may not have been cut out to be a hero or a martyr, but by all accounts he was a kind man, and he never stopped making art and never stopped trying to help people, which is a quieter and perhaps more effective sort of heroism in itself.
What I'm currently reading
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. Having found and studied under all three of the Magi, learning Buddhist, Hindu, and even Yogic disciplines, Joshua has returned to Nazareth and begun collecting disciples. I'm honestly not finding this part as entertaining as the first couple; maybe it's just that this story's been wrung out for jokes before (Christ and his followers were basically barefoot hippies! Isn't it funny realizing how they'd basically be outcasts now!), or maybe it's that Moore seems hesitant to satirize Christian philosophy as he did with others. Especially after the Hindu episode, which was oversimplified to the point of offensiveness and read like nothing so much as a white dude who'd seen Temple of Doom too many times writing jokes about a culture he had no context for, he's been surprisingly unwilling to examine Christianity with the same eye. I mean, I don't know a whole lot about religious history, but even I know that Christianity was a radical philosophy for its time; I don't think a single other major religion of the period preached tolerance and compassion towards those who wronged you. (One of the things I liked most about HBO's Rome, at least in the first season before it got all soapy, was how it got across the difference in primary cultural philosophy; forgiveness and compassion were seen as weaknesses to be exploited, not desirable traits to be emulated, or even pretended to.) It seems like that'd be a pretty good source of jokes, but perhaps Moore doesn't have the outsider's perspective towards Christian philosophy that he does towards the others.
Yoga Sequencing, by Mark Stephens. I've fallen somewhat short of my chapter-a-week goal this week, though in fairness, this is a particularly long chapter on sequencing within asana families. I feel like this is one section where the material was adequately covered in my teacher training; there've been some good bits of advice, though nothing that's really given me new insight. (But then, I still have *hangs head* two-thirds of the chapter to read, so stay tuned for updates.)
What I plan to read next
Time to pick a new audiobook, and I just saw on Goodreads that
asakiyume is reading Ann Leckie's new book Provenance, which Brian already got on Audible - for once, I think I know what's up next!
