Wednesday, Sept. 16 marked a very special day for students at Gault Elementary on Seabright Avenue: it was the first of what will become a weekly Farmers’ Market, sponsored by Food, What!? Every Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m., students and parents can buy organic produce from Freewheelin’ Farms at lower prices than other local Farmers’ Markets. Santa Cruz City School District Board Member Cynthia Hawthorne says that the market has been wildly successful so far, exclaiming that, “even the beets were gone!” after the first day.

I remember when my brother came home from boarding school with his mantra: “INGA” My hip Aunt also practiced.  Her mantra was “KARIM.” The concept was quite ahead of its time in this age of NEW.  The class was TM, or Transcental Meditation, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the yogi made famous by the Indian pilgrimage of The Beatles.  For those of us who remember, The Beatles quickly transformed, with these long stays in India and colorful clothes.   The practice “stuck” with George, as he meditated through life on his spiritual path.  . This concept was new to the west and quite questionable, as it seemed to reflect the drug culture of the time.  I wanted a mantra. What exactly is a mantra?  It is defined in Wikipedia; it is a “sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of creating spiritual transformation.”  A mantra is supposed to help a person focus their mind with its repetition, eliminating attachment, hatred, jealousy, desire, greed, and ignorance.  I haven’t heard too much about TM is the past few years, although with a little research, I have learned that there is a Transcendental Meditation Program right here is Santa Cruz, at 171 Seabright Avenue.  www.tm.org

The air of fall brings back memories of the smell of new shoes, crisp ironed clothing, new notebooks and Bikram Yoga.  I began my yoga journey with the Bikram Yoga method about 11 years ago and since then have discovered yoga’s larger world, like Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Hatha, Power, Forrest , Kundalini, Ananda, Anusara, Iyengar, Jivamukti.  Each practice has its benefits and striving to know and practice these different yogas has been the center of my world for these 11 years.  I always come back to the Bikram method, the hot yoga, for many reasons.  One is the familiarity.  Believe it or not, being in a hot ( at least 100º ) room for an hour and a half is a sweet feeling for me.  And the knowledge that I know which postures will be practiced is also sweet. The same 26 postures are practiced, kind of like a familiar drill. Home.  The added benefit is the actual studio, here in Santa Cruz, Village Yoga.  It is clean, colorful, and friendly.  Also – check out my “wall” of photos of the yogis – the yogis are great subjects.   Not only are the instructors excellent, but they are caring, engaged, and thorough with the students.  A wonderful place to visit.  A wonderful place to go back to.

Check it out.  There are generally 5 classes a day. www.bikramyogasantacruz.com.

Santa Cruz smokers will soon find it harder to legally light up in popular areas of town. The Santa Cruz City Council voted Tuesday to prohibit smoking on Pacific Avenue, Beach Street, and West Cliff Drive. The new ban also makes it illegal to smoke within 25 feet of public entrances and within all outdoor dining areas. City property, including the Municipal Wharf and all city parks, will be smoke-free as well. Police will give warnings for the first month of the ban, which takes effect on Oct. 20, and will issue citations after that. 

The smoking ban, which council members unanimously supported, was prompted in part by a 2008 report by the American Lung Association of California that gave Santa Cruz a “D” for underwhelming efforts to curb public second-hand smoke. The council also voted to increase the percentage of nonsmoking hotel rooms in Santa Cruz from 75 to 90 percent, and they will consider a new tax on the city’s cigarettes sales at a future meeting.

In the last blog we discussed the importance of detoxification and how we could support our bodies to “detoxify” from the chemicals that we are exposed to.  It is literally impossible for anyone on our planet to avoid toxins because our ocean and wind currents carry toxins to the farthest reaches of our world.  The level of toxic cbemicals in the native peoples of the pristine arctic circle, for example, are so extreme that their future fertility is threatened.  They dine on sea life that has consumed toxins carried to the arctic from the United States and other countries.  We are exposed to plenty of toxins in our own environment and the most important steps we can take are to enhance our own health and well-being so that our bodies can deal with their “toxic load.”

 

In this, my final installment on RollerCon 2009 (http://rollercon.net/ ), the international roller derby convention on the Las Vegas strip, we'll get to the real personal nitty-gritty, beyond the skating and the learning. Beyond the networking and the elbow-rubbing. Even beyond the tattoo-comparing, the hero-worship, the grand Black and Blue Ball and the V.R . (http://www.thevagineregime.com/ ) guerilla pool parties. After all of the aforementioned activities, the week concluded as many Vegas weekends do, with the exchange of drunken vows, in the form of a mass derby wedding (and I don't mean a "wedding mass").

The "derby wife" among skaters is a special relationship having little to do with the sexual orientation (or current pre-existing marital status) of either party gettin' hitched. The relationship is best described in the introduction of the official derby wedding vows, credited to Kasey Bomber : (http://www.myspace.com/kcbomber)

SANTA CRUZ - Deadheads of the world now have one more reason to anticipate the opening of the Grateful Dead Archive at UCSC’s McHenry Library. Composer Lee Johnson presented the score of his acclaimed “Dead Symphony No. 6” to the University Library last week at the 2009 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Marin Alsop, renowned conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, showcased Johnson’s work at the festival to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. The Grateful Dead Archive will open to the public next summer.

Believe it or not, a roller derby conference in Las Vegas did require a notebook and pen.  Seminars and roundtable discussions on topics ranging from Budgeting and Bookkeeping For Derby and Junior Derby, to Balancing Sport and Spectacle and Building a Better Line-up, served to educate newbies with start-up leagues as well as jaded established league members.  (Kudos to all who lead these classes - I believe I am smarter now than I was on July 30th.  I know it's hard to believe.) 

Of all the announcements made at last months's Comic-Con in San Diego, perhaps nothing shocked the show floor harder than when Marvel blew the roof off of the convention center and revealed their complete acquisition to the full publishing rights of Marvelman. A character whose legal history rivals the most intense dramatics on display in even the most well written comics. To anyone unfamiliar, this may seem like a head scratcher. Just who is this "Marvelman" and why should I care? Well, I can answer that question with a name: Alan Moore.

Years before Moore made the jump across the pond to American comics and began his complete alteration of the comic book landscape with his work on titles like Swamp Thing and a little known 12 issue series called Watchmen, there was a British magazine called Warrior .  An anthology comic publication comprised of several serialized strips where the bearded one began to cut his teeth at redefining what the medium was capable of. Marvelman was one of the main features of the book which also included V for Vendetta. While the character himself dates back to the fifties as essentially a rip off of Captain Marvel, family and all (A secret word turns an ordinary person into a super hero with powers beyond those of mortal men, blah, blah, blah), it wouldn't be until Moore wrapped his hands around the title before the book would truly take flight and become something incredibly unique and beyond compelling.

Every group of like-minded people has its annual summit, a combination group hug, think-tank, motivational kick-in-the-pants, meat market, and (sometimes) drunk tank. Fantasists have Comic-Con, pagans have PantheaCon, computer hackers have DEFCON, and the cinema elite have plain old Cannes (some of you just pronounced that correctly for the first time).