My Friend Leonard

So I finished the sequel to A Million Little Pieces. I am unsure as to how much of it is fiction versus reality since all of the controversy was about the first book. Regardless, it is a great read and I liked it even better. Leonard is quite the character and James owes him his life for many reasons. The fact that he turned out to be a gay mobster (like Vito Spatafore in The Sopranos) didn't suprise me. After all, if you read the credits at the end of AMLP, you already know that Lilly commits suicide and that Leonard dies of AIDS. I don't get the impression that Frey thought he would be writing another book. Well things are different in MFL, as not much info is given at the end in terms of his wife Maya and their child. Perhaps a third book is in the making? We shall see.

Monet in Normandy

Went to see the Monet in Normandy exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday. Absolutely fantastic and mind-blowing stuff. I have always liked the Impressionists...Monet being my favorite. To see these in person rather than from a book or print is like the difference between HDTV 1080p and a B&W 9" TV. This exhibit is apparently traveling around the country, save for the Water Lillies which is part of CMA's permanent collection and is "too fragile to travel" along with the rest. Get out there and see it if you can!

Osho: Tao, The Pathless Path

Back to reading about the Tao. Osho has some unique perspectives on things. There really are very few people who understood Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen, etc. and all their idiosyncrasies like Osho Rajneesh. This book focuses on 5 parables from the Lieh Tzu . He was a Taoist sage living circa 400 - 350 B.C.

More later.

The Kite Runner

Recently read The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini. This book is a few years old now but escaped me. It was on the NYT Bestseller list for over two years. Quite a feat for a first time writer. He has another book coming out, A Thousand Splendid Suns. It isn't a sequel but is also about Afghanistan.

Great book, but in a way a little predictable towards the end. Also, why does there always have to be a male rape thrown in somewhere? It's what 24 would do if they were on HBO instead of Fox (so now they just do a lot of torture since that's apparently more socially acceptable on network TV.)

Next up: Something classical. Hmm. How 'bout some Tolstoy. Death of Ivan Ilyich oughtta do it.

A Million Little Pieces

Just read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I had heard a lot of the hype about this. I went to a Wayne Dyer workshop in Boston a couple weeks ago and he recommended it. Apparently, the guy "embellished" a few things in this memoir and didn't say so. He also used some quotes, most notably from the Tao Te Ching without giving proper credit. (Let's face it, unless you can read Chinese from 2500 years ago, you are reading somebody's translation which is copyrighted.) No matter, the story is fascinating and highly recommended for anyone struggling with addiction. It reminds me of Burroughs' Junky, but more coherent. I liked it so much I am going to read the sequel, My Friend Lenny.

Went to my first Tai Chi class at the new dojo...

I hadn't been practicing much over the last several years. I decided to go back to class for a tune up. Problem is that I couldn't find anybody in Cleveland that teaches the Yang 108 Movement Long Form. Everybody was either doing the Yang Short Form or Wu, Sun, or Chen styles. I really focused on it one day and said to myself, "Hey, BMac, there's got to be someplace out there." So I did some reintensified Googling and lo and behold, The Shao-Lin Center pops up. WOW! As they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

So I go Saturday and meat the Sifu. Very nice man and a small class - only about 5 of us. It was awesome to get back in that environment and just relax. As the Sifu told me, he has seen the Yang form done all over the world and it's different everywhere you go. His was definitely different than what I learned in Texas. No matter - it will do me just fine. I can't wait to go back.