Poop or Get off the Pot / #LentUnEdited

Dear People of God … I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

The Book of Common Prayer, Proper Liturgies for Special Days, Ash Wednesday, page 265

The habit of consistently eating healthfully and making correct and positive choices for what goes in our body is good for us. Making sure that on certain days we come home from work and we, instead of flopping on the couch, put on some music and shake our booty, which provides us with consistent opportunities to achieve an invigorated circulatory system. Establishing and sinking in to some patterns and habits, though, can become anesthetizing, often to our detriment. Sometimes when we’re not in a positive space spiritually or psychically, we can find ourselves taking comfort among the company of murmurers, people who just want to gnaw on bones, because it makes us feel less alone, and it sure does feel good to whine and wallow and really sink ourselves deep down in our misery, doesn’t it? A more appropriate and life-giving choice, however, is seeking wiser counsel among people who are dedicated to “whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, [topics of] excellence and / worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8). Sometimes, however, it’s only easy to see that we’re in a rut in hindsight. Sometimes in counseling friends who act like this, it takes a while to realize that they don’t want to be helped out of their muddle, they just want company in it.

We read in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that we are to “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” to “provoke one another to love and good deeds,” and make sure “not to neglect meeting together.” That sounds encouraging, but it’s not such an easy practice, this meeting together. Following the teachings of Jesus as Christ is challenging enough, but putting together a service which will rejuvenate and elevate our bodies, minds, and spirits on a weekly basis has provided us with the state of the Christian church today: everyone has their own flavor. Some like laser shows and body stirring anthems, jumping up and down and spirited sermons; some like to sit quietly in a room in silent prayer; some like to hear an encouraging pep talk with poems but little Scripture; and some, like us, follow the structure and liturgy of the ancient rites.

The practice of following The Book of Common Prayer is not an easy row to hoe (so much flipping !) and it is my humble opinion we’ve strayed far from even knowing what’s inside it (#LetsMeetInThePrayerBook). We’ve really got to dig deep, ‘cause it may look like there’s not much there, but the simplicity of what’s recorded is powerful and life-changing and I don’t think we pay enough attention to it (and it’s pretty much the document which guides our journey as members of the Episcopal Church).

Thing is, you can come and sit and hear the pretty music and sing (or not sing) and stand and sit and stand and cross yourself and shake a hand or two and sit and stand and kneel (or not kneel) and have “your little cracker” and “your juice” and go on your way, probably rejuvenated, I’m not knocking it, but The Book of Common Prayer asks us to live a life in a consistent rhythm, to pray several times a day, to meet at least once a week, to observe the traditions of a cyclical calendar, and, most importantly, to delve into God’s Word and explore the Sacred Mysteries of the Good News that Jesus sacrificed himself as propitiation, once, for all, and the hardships are over and done, the Law has been fulfilled. We’re to come together to remember that, yes, but also to live in the joy of that Good News.

The bidding I led with is one of the two times in the church year that the priest comes down to the lip of the altar and addresses us personally, in the name of the Church. “~Do this. Observe a Holy Lent. Examine yourself. Turn from your inappropriate habits…and meditate on the holy writings.~”

Often people rush past the “self examination” part and go straight to the “self denial” part … “What are you giving up for Lent ?!” “Oh, I’m not giving up anything, I’m taking ON something!” … The choices people make for Lenten “self denial” has always just slayed me (#NoJudge). All I can ever think of is “reindeer games,” which refers to the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated Christmas television special “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” (which to me is a painful and personal documentary of school yard shaming and bullying, but that’s stuff I’m still trying to work through). The Urban Dictionary defines them as, “any fun activities which are enjoyed only by members of a clique, the fact of which is often purposefully made obvious to anyone existing outside of said clique in order to make them feel inadequate and left-out.”

I feel like the whole “giving up” and/or “taking on” aspect of the practice of Lent is such an enormous distraction from the first bidding, the deep “self-examination and repentance” we’re called to. If we “give up” chocolate, is that truly a soul-changing revelation and will we truly repent from ingesting it? I’ve heard of some people, and the lack of their understanding of cause-and-effect astounds me having worked in the service industry all of my 20s, who are going to forego dining in restaurants, and squirrel all that money away to donate it at the end of Lent. Meanwhile, there is some poor woman who works a second job as a waitress so that she can afford to get her kids new Easter outfits who is going without that tip. Wouldn’t it be more of a sacrifice, more of a gift, more in the vein of walking with Jesus, to go to that restaurant, have a cup of tea, and leave a crisp twenty dollar bill, just for satisfaction of giving and the benefit of a person working in service depending on those daily tips?

Self-examination is the first thing asked of us. In an age (or because of our chronologic age) where it seems as though we have no accountability to any presiding authority, it’s often difficult to know if we’re inside or outside appropriate boundaries. Here’s a boundary for self-examination: Why do we show up at church? What are we doing there? What are we contributing?

When we show up at church, do we swoop in with tales of woe, asking everyone to notice us, participate in the calamity of our day? “Oh, I’m so sorry I’m late! Oh, what happened to me! The horrors of my commute! Me, me, me!” Do we bring in troubles from the Outside? Or do we wipe Outside off our feet at the doors and come inside to settle in to the peace of the preparation of worship. I’m not talking about a fake smile and a, “Oh, praise Jesus, sister, I’m OK and I’m on my way!” but many of us want to spread our troubles around instead of being bearers of a Good Report. I gotta tell you, as a member of the Altar Guild? In the past? I’ve seen people treat the Sacristy like a Green Room backstage at a high school production of GODSPELL and I would just want to scream, “WHAT ! are you DOING ! here! This is a HOLY SPACE where people are preparing themselves to proclaim the eternal mysteries of GOD ! Why are you here ?! and WHAT are you contributing !” I’ve talked to people in the pews who only come on Sundays sporadically because they just need a “little church,” because “it’s always the same anyway.” Really?? Because the experience is not what’s being presented to us, it’s what we’re pouring in to it, it’s our collective concentration that turns this from a performance in to a Cosmic Mystery. We’re there to lay our lives down on that altar as a sacrifice, in tandem with Jesus’ sacrifice for us and for all, as we recall the preparation of Passover before the ultimate redemptive sacrifice.

Lent starts out demanding we contemplate our own mortality, too. Lent isn’t easy, Lent is a journey in a wilderness. As The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth M.C. Kaeton posts on her blog telling-secrets, <Not The Wilderness.  A wilderness. A place we haven’t yet explored A place as yet unknown to us. A place where we may confront things we have not yet encountered. A place where we can explore our own vulnerability. A space where we might discover the limits of our spiritual endurance.  / Indeed, how does this ‘sacrifice’ which leads us to ‘charity’ actually underscore our privileged status and emphasize – but not bridge –the chasm between rich and poor. What if we came to our eight-week Lenten journey with a real sense of ‘poverty’, with a full sense of our powerlessness and vulnerability and no measurable goals?>

We’re almost halfway through. It’s not too late to take stock and really change our hearts, minds, and behaviours if we came at this year casually or carelessly. It’s also just Spring, a time to pray that God’s Holy Spirit will “Create in us a clean heart and renew within us a joyous spirit” (Psalm 51). A time to shake off what once was, and to make room for a new “me”. To make sure that, when we enter a room, we can give thanks to God, “who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us spreads and makes evident everywhere the sweet fragrance of the knowledge of God. For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ which ascends to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing … an aroma from life to life, a vital fragrance, living and fresh.” (2 Corinthians 2). Let’s take up the practice of being a sweet fragrance, vital, living, and fresh, where ever God leads us, shall we?

(This post originally appears on the Blog of St. Luke in the Fields.)

LENT 2017: It Only Takes A Moment

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences reveal that our decisions are made seconds before we become aware of them. By monitoring the micro patterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex, the researchers could predict which hand the participant would choose to use to push a button in front of them 7 SECONDS before the participant was aware of the decision. “Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,” said a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist. Microseconds. It’s exhausting, but we need to be mindful of the fact that the quilt of our lives are stitched together by choices we make in split seconds. When that alarm goes off, what is our first thought? After we turn it off, what is the next thought? Are we filled with excitement and joy that we have been raised up for another new and bright day? Or are we already dreading the day ahead which was just a fresh new gift we received. Do we immediately think about jumping out of bed to thank God for the fact that we have a bed to rise from, we have blankets to cover us, we have a home in which to enjoy these blessings, that we are able to get ourselves up out of the bed? Or do we think, “Ugh, here we go again. What fresh hell awaits me...” There is always that split second we have to set the tone for the day. Engagement in anger is another scenario which offers a very clear microsecond. When we become offended, when we detect a slight or a criticism, whether intended or just coming from the mouth of a careless person, there is a nanosecond where the flush of adrenaline tries to fuel us to pick up the bait of offense and run with it. What we don’t realize, however, is the bait sits inside a bear trap which is more than happy to clamp down on our hand and not let go. General roaring and wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues. We can choose to connect with the flame offense offers, or we can quickly, at the outset, simply say, “Bless her heart, she don't know better” and move on, intentionally NOT engage so that we don't have to DISengage. #Lent is always about bettering ourselves, about recognizing destructive or useless patterns, about making more positive choices in our lives, and it seems it’s just as hard and just as easy as as a matter of a decision made in a split second. So let’s watch our brain patters more closely (and let’s be just as quick to forgive ourselves should we falter). #Lent2017

Welcome to #Lent2017!

WELCOME TO #LENT2017 ! The Book of Common Prayer bids us, the “dear people of God, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.” Wuhl, okay. Let’s roll up our sleeves, then, right? The first and most important point is to begin this journey with great hope and confidence. God is never outdone in generosity. So, if we make even a small change in our patterns, that is a tremendous opening for God to work in us. Let’s pace ourselves, though … as we begin these weeks of exercising our spirits, let’s be kind to ourselves when we might resist. Let’s not expect, look for, or demand progress. Let’s enjoy and live the process, even though, as with physical exercise, we might not like doing it every day. Let’s allow God to give the increase, the insights, the progress. “Perfection is a masculine desideratum, while woman inclines by nature to completeness.” … just as completeness is always imperfect, so perfection is always incomplete, and therefore represents a final state which is hopelessly sterile. Imperfection carries within it the seeds of its own improvement. If perfectionism is ever achieved, then the story is over, there’s nothing left to do. Perfectionism is, in and of itself, a death which always ends in a blind alley, while completeness is that silence between the OMs - a breath - and then we’re off again. All final spiritual reference is to the silence beyond sound, the intake of breath between the OM. Beyond the Om is the transcendent unknown, the unknowable. It can be spoken of as the great silence, or as the void, or as the transcendent absolute. That is why the supernatural is really only the natural. This is one of the glorious things about the tradition of seeing God as female, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't something ruling over and above a fallen nature, but we are all one, together, warmed, existing in the womb of the Creator. So let’s snuggle down comfortably in to this nest, be worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth, and begin practices which will result in a truly meaningful Lenten season. (me, BCP, Jesuits of Omaha, Jung, Joseph Campbell)

Contrology by Joseph Pilates

"The mind, when housed within a healthful body, possesses a glorious sense of power. / Contrology develops the body uniformly, corrects wrong postures, restores physical vitality, invigorates the mind, and elevates the spirit. / Pilates is gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control over your body. / Contrology is complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit where you first purposefully acquire complete control of your own body and then, through proper repetition of its exercises, gradually and progressively acquire that natural rhythm and coordination associated with all your subconscious activities. / You will feel better in ten sessions, look better in twenty sessions, and have a completely new body in thirty sessions.” - Joseph Pilates

Many of my friends have asked me about my experience with Pilates and so here goes: I know I have neophyte fever, but this practice has completely changed my life. I've never had this kind of command over my body in all the years I've lived, even from years of dance study, even from years of the practice of yoga.

I started exactly two months ago and I have just had my 11th session. What happened was, I was sick and tired of being bone-weary tired and having random aches and pains and squeaking cracking knees. I knew I needed to go back to dance class or yoga class, needed to start moving outside of the 2 miles I walk on my commute, and then there have been a bunch of stories of people our age just dropping dead within the last couple of years. I have a dear girlfriend who teaches Pilates in Virginia and I've watched her body transform from flawless dancer to potent panther. I know the history behind the practice, and I looked FOREVER for somewhere to train and, hello, there had been a studio right around the corner from us for years, but it just wasn't Time, obviously. Then, a couple of months ago I googled studios again and there up popped Gina at Zend and here we are. My husband and I agreed, we need to do this NOW while we CAN and not later because we HAVE to. I have another girlfriend who just told me something I didn't know: she lost and kept off 50 pounds JUST by doing Pilates, not dieting. It's absolutely transformational. It changes the way you live. I suggest you go somewhere to take a private intro class so that you can get indoctrinated properly in to the practice, and then move to classes. ALSO ! machine classes, not mat classes...IMHO, mat classes are too advanced for anyone just starting out, and I believe you can get injured. I got a book many years ago when I was dancing and young and all it did was hurt my coccyx. What I didn't know is that I hadn't developed the specific muscles needed to perform the practice and so I just gave up.

So if my hinges and bones and joints were all creaky and my knees were all wonky and my ankles would get all sore and my muscles were all tight, why didn't I just go back to my practice of Integral Yoga which has brought my soul and body salvation for decades?

I gotta tell ya ... there were times when I could pull myself up for the first back arch of the Salutation, but I just couldn't get down and comfortably throw my leg back to get even half-way through the first two postures. My knees were just too tight, no matter how much stretching I did beforehand. I was also wearing my shoulders like earrings and no matter how much meditation I practiced, no matter how much stretching I performed, I couldn't get my shoulders down, I couldn't get my legs to respond responsibly to my efforts, I just felt like I was on a treadmill of warming up enough to get out on the street for my day. (My day is a commute from Queens in to New York City which is a half-mile walk, climbing four stories of steps, climbing another four stories of steps in the city, and a quarter mile walk once I'm there, lather, rinse, repeat.)

So ... what's all the hubbub, bub? What makes this practice different from all other practices?

I promise my knowledge of myology (the study of muscles) is next to nothing but I have been a life-long lover of the study of kinesiology, the body in motion, and the physics of moving my massive frame through space has always intrigued me. What I'm about to describe is just my experience, and the guidance of our Pilates instructor over the last two months.

The concept, as I understand it, of the practice of the progression of Integral Yoga postures (regardless the class level, you always proceed through the same sequence of postures) is that you're using your entire body the entire time to stretch and lengthen all of your muscles as you're massaging all of your internal organs. During my daily dedication to this practice I always felt lithe and long and lean, my hip pans contracted and became narrow, moving me from the first time in my life from a 42 inch waisted pant to 36 inches, and my lower back was strong and pain-free. I could never keep myself upright, however, without a lot of concentration, and I always had problems keeping my shoulders down.

What I've discovered through Pilates is that yoga, to me, is like the stretching one does BEFORE a ballet class, making the muscles supple and poised for action; Pilates is the actual ballet class where you tone and discipline the body to be able to respond to your requests to perform the many movements that make up the dance.

Look how large the entire trunk of the human body is. If you look at the picture of the musculature above, there is an entire system surrounding and protecting the torso which I promise you I had NO knowledge of in my entire life. While yoga works through these muscles, Pilates demands that you engage them. That literally is the entire practice in a nutshell: Your only obligation, regardless the ancillary movements of any other part of your body, is to engage all of those muscles, and any other movement of your limbs is the result of your engagement of those muscles.

In Pilates Anatomy by Rael Isacowitz and Karen Clippinger, we’re told:

</The powerhouse, or core, can be described as the area from the bottom of the rib cage to a line across the hip joints in the front and to the base of the buttocks in the back. Joseph Pilates placed great emphasis on the powerhouse, considering it a physical center of the body from which all Pilates movements should proceed. Many Pilates exercises are designed to strengthen the powerhouse, and there is a desire to keep the powerhouse working consistently throughout a given exercise. If the powerhouse is being used appropriately, the limbs should be able to move in a more coordinated and connected manner.

<Some Pilates practitioners and many people in disciplines such as dance, fitness, and rehabilitation also refer to this area as the core and the desired maintenance of appropriate positioning and activation during movement as core stability. Core stability can be thought of as the ability to keep the pelvis and spine in the desired position while moving the limbs or the whole body through space without undesired distortions or compensations. Someone who is not maintaining desired control of this area in a given movement and who arches the lower back or moves the pelvis excessively is often said to have a weak core or demonstrate poor core stability or poor core control./>

It is this very concept which has given me, for the first time in my life, the most holistic and peaceful feeling I've ever encountered in my life. We're practicing once a week and the from the moment we leave the studio to the moment we return, my body spends that time continuously self-correcting ... pulling itself up, re-arranging itself, tucking itself in, so that I'm constantly in a state of perfectly erect alignment. My core is like a corset in which my very being sits; my torso is high, my neck balanced on, not sunk down in to it ... for the first time in my life my shoulders are completely relaxed and down where they should be, but it's no longer a conscious struggle to keep them there, it's a result of the core's engagement insisting everything be where it should be. As Joseph Pilates said,

"The Pilates Method teaches you to be in control of your body and not at its mercy. / Contrology is designed to give you suppleness, natural grace, and skill that will be unmistakably reflected in the way you walk, in the way you play, and in the way you work. / Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. Our interpretation of physical fitness is the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind fully capable of naturally, easily, and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneous zest and pleasure."

And it does.

Is it "expensive"? In New York City it generally sits around 30$ a session. I'm VERY cheap and for ever I wouldn't even consider paying that money because it seemed an insane amount to me. But as I said before, we need to do this now while we can and not later because we have to. Here in the city? What is that, six Starbucks? Three beers? It's less than two movie tickets. It's certainly less than a meal in a semi-nice place. Plus: this isn't just a practice, it's a lifestyle, and I hope to keep a vow that I won't go another week of my life without practicing in a studio on the equipment.

I also strongly suggest to go the extra mile at first and take private sessions. There is indeed a period of indoctrination, a period of learning not only the lexicon of the spoken vocabulary of the practice but the lexicon of what it feels like inside your body. The luxury of "gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control over your body" in a private one-on-one setting sets you up for a lifetime of success. "To achieve the highest accomplishments within the scope of our capabilities in all walks of life we must constantly strive to acquire strong, healthy bodies and develop our minds to the limits of our ability. Joseph Pilates."

We walk in to the studio, and I place my head on the head rest and lay my shoulders in the blocks, press my spine against the bed and begin to breathe. It's like "going back to one," like the first plié in class, what original Martha Graham Troupe Member Ethyl Butler would say at the beginning of our sessions: "Friends: Let's Begin ... and ONE ..." It's home. It's salvation. It's the beginning of every new breath. And as my girlfriend Jenn says, It may be uncomfortable at first because it's different, it may be strenuous at times, but "at least you're lying down!"

So that's where we are today.

"Not only is health a normal condition, but it is our duty not only to attain it but to maintain it. Everyone is the architect of her own happiness It’s the mind itself which shapes the body. A few well-designed movements, properly performed in a balanced sequence, are worth hours of doing sloppy calisthenics or forced contortion. - Joseph Pilates."

Live in the Present Moment

To live in the present moment requires a change in our inner posture. We have to calmly observe our own stream of consciousness and see its compulsive patterns. These patterns drive our small “ego” self which are the illusions of our thoughts, a passing fantasy. That’s why it’s called the false self. It’s not real. It’s the past and gone, or the future and imagined. Some people don’t have a clue who they are apart from their thoughts. Meditation moves us to the level of pure and naked being, of pure consciousness, naked awareness. We must force ourselves to wait in silence. In silence all our usual patterns assault us, patterns of control, addiction, negativity, tension, anger, self-blame, self-loathing, and fear, they all make an appearance to assert themselves. Thomas Keating teaches a beautifully simple exercise: Imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a stream. Observe each of these patterns coming by on little boats saying, “Think me, feel me, define yourself because of me.” Acknowledge that you’re processing them, feeling them, judging them, but don’t let them come up and hug you or make a home around you, keep them in their boats and point at them and name them: “resentment toward so and so,” “an embarrassing moment from second grade,” “an ill word toward someone who has passed away,” “so and so told me / whispered / got in my way…” Admit each moment, wave to the boat, and keep it floating down the stream. That stream is our stream of consciousness. We have to become the watcher, where we sit over here and observe those boats without judgment, just in acknowledgment, over there, until we realize those episodes are not us, they don’t define us, they’re just fancies. If we’re over here then it’s a perception, it isn’t intrinsically us, it’s not even a part of us anymore. What’s the point of such contemplation? God doesn’t want us bound by these illusions, God wants to continuously remind us of our intrinsic worth and value, not shadows of our past or worries over our future. God wants to help us send that garbage downstream and infuse us with prophecies of bounty and success, and wrap us in a blanket of eternal love and care, which God can do once we, and our limited minds, are finally out of the way.

– kind of Richard Rohr, sort of

We Must Live With Death

We must live with comfort in the specter of death. The more we live the more we must walk among the memories we hold which death leaves behind and come to terms with our perception in navigating its shadows. Think: When you die, do you want your family and friends to walk about miserable? atrophying in yearning and sadness? maybe for a little. But don't you, rather, as you're living, get your absolute life when your loved ones come back in your presence to recall, eyes glowing and full of life, their experiences and passions and loves and adventures? The longer we live the more death we must navigate. Truth: Death is for the living (and "never a convenient visitor" Dan Ade+), for the dead are too blissful in peace to care for our sadness. And if the relationship before death was complicated, what good is going through that drawer again. Nothing we do can affect the past. What is always best is to collect the most precious, life-giving moments, and stitch those golden threads in to the quilt we'll leave behind when it's our time to move on to That Heavenly Country. Yes, there is a hole death leaves, there is an emptiness, but those are the joining borders between each square of our quilt. "Oh, but for one more phone call, one more dinner, one more hug." But you know one more is never enough; we want a lifetime of those moments. So...we must pick ourselves up, make the ache a part of our breath, live with the empty, and love again, with more vigor, with abandon, because we must one day come back into their presence to recall, eyes glowing and full of life, experiences and passions and loves and adventures ... not with a life unlived because we were too sad to live it.

<...and if there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died I’m willing to wait for it...> - Hamilton the Musical

For Kent: Customer Engagement

John Robbins, Illustrator, Educator, Life Saver.
http://bit.ly/1rA7X0W

I was a lonely, scared, severely gay little 12 year old in 1973. I mean, Bette Midler hadn't even come out yet, but I was sure trying to.

You know how spastic I am now, you can't believe how spastic I was then, and even the teachers didn't know what to do with me. I guess now they would just drug me and put me in a corner. But my interests were all over the place and I couldn't really find a focus for any of my energy. Enter: John Robbins. What a huge crush for me.

Before we consciously knew what Stranger Danger was, there were people like Mister Rogers who would invite you over to his house and talk directly to you, just the two of you together, and tell you stories, and play with you, and sing you songs, and introduce you to his friends ... John Robbins did the same thing, only for the pre-teen set. He was a teacher, yes, but he was also an illustrator, and he would start out sketching, and then turn to the camera and tell you how that drawing fit in to the story of an exciting new book ! Then they would have a voice-over of people reading from the book, and then at the end the picture would be done, or we'd come back to him and he'd give us a bridge to a later portion of the book, and then he'd say goodbye. AMAZING books, and he loved to introduce you to series. Some of these books I read annually to this very day.

Now...my physical attraction to this man is so obvious, not only for my "type" but for the era, #GayClone, #PornStache, and his soft southern lilt was so inviting, and he was in jeans and had that groovy necklace shining, it was like a real teacher you had a crush on inviting you over to his own house ! to make drawings for you and tell you stories ! (Later when he went from The Book Bird to Cover to Cover, he got a leather wrist band just like Bobby Sherman in Here Comes the Brides.) But the other thing I remember was the books he had in his apartment behind him. I remember loving the word Bauhaus and looking it up at the library and going down a rabbit hole of beauty and excitement and ingenuity, and realising for the first time that there was a world outside of the one I could find in the pages of a Sears and Roebuck catalogue.

Here's a whole episode of him introducing us to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series ... [you may know them from television, but] you may not know that you can read about this family in 8 different books."

I'm engaged because someone I find attractive is telling me a secret about something and he's telling me about it while I'm watching him create something himself.

Now, it's this one-on-one engagement, this secrecy, too, this being invited in to someone's home and life that's made YouTube the phenomenon it is. A perfect example of this is in the life of a fanatic. I couldn't become engaged with the original casting of WICKED, but then my cousin went in as the percussionist and I needed to do some homework so that I could talk to him about his life. There became nothing I didn't know about the show from the audience's POV and then the DELIGHTFUL, DEEPLY talented, and delicious Lindsay Mendez of Dogfight fame went in to the show for its 10th Anniversary and did one of thee most SPECTACULAR series of videos from HER point of view. Her day before the show, what it's like in her dressing room, we got to meet all of her cast mates, she'd take us through her quick changes, we got to run around backstage with her before and during ! the show ... we became a part of her life and part of the life of the show we'd known for ten years, but now we knew lots of secrets.



Hamilton has recently made good use of this type of marketing as well. Knowing so many people can't get in to see the show, but know the show, they come out on to the steps of the theater and perform Ham4Ham, selections from the show, fun skits, audience involvement, and it keeps us engaged with them on a personal level.

So too, Twitter comes in to play and these people read Tweets during the filming and answer questions, or like or answer back on Twitter. It makes the audience member feel special, noticed, engaged.

Where I'm going is, I don't have a brick-and-motar to stroll into anymore. I can't put aside an afternoon to look at dust-jackets and find a few new titles. The Times and the NYR are fine (my 12 year old self didn't even know those things existed, although if I were 12 now I might...), but these same conversations come up in the Episcopal Church: those are viable but antiquated ways to communicate information and they're not really bringing new butts in to the pews. I'm still spastic and my tastes are still all over the place. I just finished the Nicolle Wallace three-parter White House backstage novels, Game Change by Heilemann and Halpern, I'm in the middle of Off Script by Josh King and I'm also reading a YA steampunk series by Jackqueline Garlick called The Illumination Paradox.

I need faces to fall in love with to guide me to books, or at least faces to trust, to tell me what THEY find exciting...a LIFE of books, an ARC of books, not necessarily XTITLE coming out YDATE. And I don't mean SPECIFIC faces, they could be an avatar or a comic, I just need the IDEA of someONE who HEARS ME, who responds to MY questions and needs, who interacts with ME. I need someone to NOTICE me. The 9 year old girl inside me needs someone who looks like Six from Blossom to tell me about Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club series.

The 13-year old rebel girl in me needs someone who looks like Pauley Perrette from NCIS to tell me about Kim Harrison's Hollows series with all those kick-ass woman in them.

and all of Sybil's "alters" need Scott Hoying & Mitch Grassi from SUPERFRUIT and Pentatonix to tell me about the novel Auntie Mame and DV by Diana Vreeland.

Now, I do love my BookBub, it shows me pretty pictures, there are sales on books, I can choose all the genres I'm interested in, but my problem is (a) I feel like I'm not getting a very WIDE selection of publishing houses, and (b) it comes TOO OFTEN ! and (c) some of the titles are ... uninspired ...



I KNOW it's TL;DR, but Social Times has a fantastic article about INFLUENCER MARKETING here: http://bit.ly/1TLpUTn and an article summarizing something from MILLENNIAL MARKETING here: http://bit.ly/1TuGKTQ which tell us that

...a stunning 97 percent of millennials today don’t turn to TV news or magazines to influence their purchasing decisions, which doesn’t bode well for the ads that support them. As a result, more and more brands are turning to influencer marketing to establish meaningful connections with their target audiences. It’s no surprise that 75 percent of brands are currently using influencer marketing in some capacity… Influencer marketing is most effective when the influencers produce sponsored content in the same style that made them successful in the first place–engaging and trustworthy stories, opinions and reviews. This content is valuable because it has been proven to establish a meaningful emotional connection with people, ultimately influencing them to take action. If a brand is too “hands-on,” it is easy for the content to lose its authentic tone and feel, making it just as ineffective as traditional advertising…

THE ! KEY ! IS ! CONSISTENCY ! ! ! and a private, shared lexicon. This gives the audience "a sense of control in a world filled with chaos" (CLUELESS). Some of THEE most successful YouTubers became so because, like, Simon and Martina, who I've been following for a decade on EatYourKimchi.com, have regularly scheduled segments:

• Wednesdays: TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) - Fan questions about living in Korea, Korean culture and society and their personal lives answered by the Stawskis
• Thursdays: WANK (Wonderful Adventure Now Korea) - Showing popular places to hang out as well as road trips, or
• FAPFAP (Food Adventure Program For Awesome People) - Eating out in Korean restaurants, food delivery services, cooking Korean dishes and convenience store items
• Fridays: Livechat - Chatting with fans, opening of care packages
• Saturday: WTF (Wonderful Treasure Find) - unusual products and devices from all over the world, an Open The Happy video - Korea unrelated videos such as movie reviews, make-up tutorials and montages of their pets or DICKS (Discussing Interesting Contemporary Korean Slang) - a segment hosted by employees SooZee and Leigh about Korean and North American slang words
• Sundays: K Crunch Indie - Introducing Korean indie music, or Speaker's Corner, uploaded every Sunday on their You are Here Cafe channel, with many people leaving messages in their coffeeshop booth, discussing popular topics in the news in Korea or around the world.

Lastly, and not off-topic, I promise, is my participation in panels. I ALWAYS want my voice heard because they're my gay dollars and, although I am penurious, I am a BRAND queen and I love a bargain but I want P&G and other big corporations to KNOW that I'm choosing them over a bargain brand because I think it worth my time and expense. I've been on the NPR panels for decades, but that's more for feedback about what to keep funding, but the most satisfying brand relationship in my adult life has been with Stop&Shop. I signed up to partner with them about five years ago and it's electrifying. One of their concentrations during this period has been to offer local produce, local ingredients, and ask why we don't buy the already-made foods instead of getting the ready-to-make offerings ... I'm sent surveys once or twice a week and, although the chance to win $10 gift cards is a nice incentive (I've probably won about 10 times), the point is, they will present X logo or Y logo, would you like peppermint-flavoured treats during Christmas, how early should we put them out, should we keep using paper coupons  ... tell us in DETAIL WHY you like this over that ... and I'll participate and then I'll walk in to the store and see my vote counting ... or not ... but it makes me an integral part of not only their corporate life but with decisions that directly impact me. And it gives me, however false, a sense of satisfaction that I'm being heard, that my voice matters, and so I go back time and again to their brand because it's OUR brand, it's my brand, and I'm helping to make it great.

 So, anyway, that's my two cents. xoxo