Seven make-sense, easy steps (# 5 is “wash your feet ) for getting on your mat and doing yoga, particularly for Iyengar yoga practitioners. Continue reading »
TWO BRILLIANT FRIENDS – review of Elena Ferrante’s MY BRILLIANT FRIEND
My Brilliant Friend is a literary work about women and friendship that is not chick-lit, the first in a planned trilogy; it fictionalizes childhood and adolescence in Naples, Italy, during the 50s, chronicling the vicissitudes of Lila and Elena’s friendship; at the same time allegorizing the modernization of Italy. Continue reading »
12 STEPS TO IMPROVE YOUR DOWNWARD-FACING DOG (Adho Mukha Svanasana )
For yoga teachers and advanced/intermediate students, particularly Iyengar yogini: 12 Steps to improve your downward-facing dog Continue reading »
SADNESS OF THE SAMURAI: Book Review
The Sadness of the Samurai is a novel about justice, forgiveness and hope: we all bleed; some wounds heal; others remain. A wonderful, large read with many dark corners. Continue reading »
5 STEP IYENGAR YOGA WARM-UP
Follow these five easy steps to empty your mind and enlighten your energy before beginning your Yoga practice. Continue reading »
The 10th Victim Lives On!
Who else could make a film about the role of money, schizophrenia and the individual’s destruction and make it sexy, adult and stylish? Review of Elio Petri’s 1965 Italian film The 10th Victim. Continue reading »
THE NYMPH : Lina Wertmuller’s Reach for Divine Female Spirit
Lina Wertmuller’s THE NYMPH relies on overcharged sexual visuals of Stefania Sandrelli’s backside in this film about love, war, fate and virginity. Continue reading »
FILM REVIEW: The Way We Laughed (Così ridevano)
Review of The Way We Laughed unfolds the sacrificial tale of two brothers and won The Golden Lion, in Venice’s 1988 International Film Festival. Continue reading »
Review of MARCO FERRERI FILM Dillinger Is Dead: IF A MAN LOSES HIS MASCULINITY CAN HE EVER GET IT BACK?
Beautiful Anita Pallenberg plays the drugged out wife in this Marco Ferreri film that explores male existential sexuality. Continue reading »
15 Steps for Refining Your Sarvangasana
Senior Iyengar instructor Dassa Oppenheimer’s 15 Steps for refining Sarvangasana (shoulderstand). Continue reading »
Crisp & Heady Jazz: Wayne Escoffery at KITANO in NYC
Wayne Escoffery’s birthday jazz performance at Kitano Club in New York City coincides with wedding anniversary celebration of Boston couple. Continue reading »
THE SICILIAN GIRL ( “La siciliana ribelle”): a review
A complex story about a young Sicilian girl who transforms revenge into justice. Continue reading »
BEST RECIPE OF 2010: Riso, Patate e Cozze ( rice,potato, mussels)
COOKING IS AN ART & RISO, PATATE E COZZE (RICE, POTATO AND MUSSELS) is by far the most tasty dish this blogger discovered in 2010 and it put everyone at her table in a taste trance. Continue reading »
Review of Indian Film Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghant
Celtic Star Paul Pierce could double as Indian actor Ifran Khan in the 2006 film Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghante. Continue reading »
Peelpi Live Tells More Than a Documentary Ever Could
Comedy from India: Peepli Live, a not-to-miss Hindi-English film, takes you to rural India and tells the story of a farmer who might commit suicide so that his family can collect the money they need to save their property. Continue reading »
ERA NOTTE DA ROMA: When the lights went out
review of Roberto Rossellini film set in Rome during German occupation Continue reading »
Film Review: IO SONO L’AMORE / I AM LOVE
As a vehicle to test cinema and cultural IQs,IO SONO L’AMORE/ I AM LOVE will surely challenge every film buff Continue reading »
MORE ON QUIETING THE BRAIN FROM SENIOR IYENGAR TEACHER
Addition to the article on TEN STEPS TO QUIET THE BRAIN: POSITIONING THE EYE IN ASANA, PRANAYAMA, PRATYAHARA defines the difference between brain and mind. Continue reading »
TEN STEPS TO QUIET THE BRAIN: POSITIONING THE EYE IN ASANA, PRANAYAMA, PRATYAHARA
Senior Iyengar teacher Dassa Oppenheimer instructs yoga students how to quiet the brain by relaxing the eye. Continue reading »
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
Amandine by Marlena de Blasi is a very romantic, breezy, innocent story about a serious time in history.It is a book that you could read out loud to your young daughter on a Sunday afternoon. Continue reading »
Reflections on Franco Modigliani & Italy at MIT: with Renato Camurri and Nobel Prize Winners Robert Merton and Robert Solow
Franco Modigliani’s contribution to economics and reflections on Italy; an evening at MIT with Renato Camurri editor of a new book about Modigliani and Nobel Laureates Robert Solow and Robert Merton and Sloan colleagues Stewart Myers and Francesco Giavazzi. Continue reading »
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG: Be Prepared to Love (a Review)
Muriel Barbery’s novel THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG has a secret ingredient: being prepared to love. Continue reading »
SWANS AND PISTOLS : A REVIEW
REVIEW of Mary Leon Bing’s autobiography Swans and Pistols. Bing, former runway model and author of Do or Die writes about LA lifestyle, hermother and daughter and falling in love with a much younger man. Continue reading »
Review of “Sleep No More”: Disappointing Shakespeare
Theater/culture review of A.R.T.’s SLEEP NO MORE, a fusing of Macbeth and Hitchcock, now playing in Boston ( December 2009). Continue reading »
THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US Review of a Vittorio De Sica Film
THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING Review of famous Italian neorealist film, by Christine Palamidessi Moore. Continue reading »
How to do Pratyahara, the Least Known Yoga Pratice: Five steps, Five senses.
5 steps to Pratyahara, the least known and practiced of the eight limbs of yoga, as taught by Dassa Oppenheimer Continue reading »
How to Do a Proper Shavasana (corpse pose)- 10 STEPS
Ten important steps for doing a proper shavasana, corpse pose, as taught by Dassa Oppenheimer to her Cambridge, MA, students. Continue reading »
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Uccellacci e uccellini: his father myth
Pier Paola Pasolini’s film Uccelacci and Uccellini can be read as a reenactment of an ideal father-son relationship. A relationship that he was denied. Continue reading »
Art Is the Opposite of Disintegration: Woman of Rome, A Life of Elsa Morante
Italian writer Elsa Morante believed in telling the truth.l Review of her biography WOMAN OF ROME, A Life of Elsa Morante by Lily Tuck. Continue reading »
Elsa Morante’s ARACOELI: a disturbing story of memory, rejection and love
ARACOELI: Review of 1982 novel, reissued by Open Letters. A disturbing look at memory, rejection and love. Continue reading »
