Bridgeport through an iPhone

Kimball

There are not a lot of people teaching martial application for Tai Chi, which is a shame, because it can be very powerful. This is a short section of a form as executed by Paul Kimball in Bridgeport. I shot it with my iPhone, so it's not terribly clear, but it's clear enough. Note any lack of unnecessary flourish. Health club practitioners wouldn't get into it.

Visiting the master

Today, make the drive to Bridgeport for an advanced tai chi lesson. I'm not an advanced tai chi guy, but the teacher certainly is. My tai chi has been on minimal life support for the past year, so I'm hoping this might kick it into gear a bit. I may be alone in this, but I happen to like the south side. It's far more interesting that the burbs. Not saying I'd want to have my wife there, but I like visiting on my own.

Friday off

Today was a little rough. Someone the other day smashed my right rear car door, smearing it with their red paint, and then fled without leaving a note. I hate those people. This is the same as reaching into someone's wallet and extracting $500. After dealing with my insurance agency and determining that it would be better to just pay for it myself, I threw my bike on the back of the car and headed to the Arboretum where I pedaled in 90 degree heat for an hour. I go to Bridgeport tomorrow for some authentic tai chi. Looking forward to it.

Napping: the poor man's opera

LA Theatre Works

I've been periodically listening to LA Theatre Works, which produces radio plays. I've listened to Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, Shadowlands and a play about Frank Lloyd Wright called Work Song. Most recently, I listened to Top Secret, a play about the legal battle between the Washington Post and the Nixon Administration over the Pentagon Papers. Some of these have been pretty good.

I grew up with a weird bent toward radio drama and comedy. I've met people my age or younger who are hooked on old radio, and they're equally odd. I've since gone back and listened to several comedies only to discover that they were surprisingly bad. They did not trust America to get good humor and relied on some pretty hokey stuff. The format is good for drama, though, and some episodes of "Suspense" are positively terrifying. Radio leaves more to the imagination.

What easily breaks radio's fictional dream is awkward but necessary exposition to make up for not being able to see what the actors are physically doing and where they are. So a skillful weekly show like LA Theatre Works is most welcome to me. It uses great actors and focuses on some pretty interesting scripts, though Top Secret was more of a heavy handed re-enactment than a play. The ending to me was too obviously ripped from The Cain Mutiny in which the attorney who represents the heroes of the story then drunkenly admonishes them for being too delighted with their victory, warning them them of unconsidered consequences.

These things are great for the iPod and for playing in the car. Even if you have short commutes, like me, it's amazing how much time we spend in the car. You can get through an unabridged novel in a week or so.

coyote

There is a split second between experiencing a surprise and contemplating it when everything slows down and I am of one mind. When fishing, it's just as a living thing strikes the other end of my line. When driving it's when a Chevy Suburban does a 720 across four lanes of black ice right in front of me on the way to the Kansas City Airport. Since I am never of one mind, I relish these milliseconds of clarity perhaps more than most. This morning it was a coyote. A sly looking 35 pounds of sallow brown fur and teeth. Amy had told me there was one skulking around the other day, which may be why my own surprise on stepping out the front door with the dogs was so brief.

We followed him at a distance of 30 yards or so. He showed a disconcerting lack of concern over the suburbanite and his soft dogs. Crumley and Iris pulled on their leashes and showed hackles and all of that, but they were quiet about it. I don't know if their lack of usual bravado betrayed an uneasiness with actually catching up with a wild thing or if they were reverting a more primal silent running. Or maybe it was simply curiosity.

He finally slipped between two townhouses and we resumed our walk. Later as I ate half a grapefruit and read the Sun-Times, Crumley let out three booming barks and I looked up through the patio door to see the same coyote trotting through the backyard. It makes sense. They're resourceful and found everywhere from Alaska to South America to Central Park. The Western Suburbs has millions of rabbits and squirrels, and we're near multiple forest preserves. It was fairly early so it's possible he'd been out night hunting and had gotten far away from his den and was now attempting to find his way back. I know these townhouses all look exactly the same to me.