One Thursday night last month, I taught a yoga class. It was the first in a series I’ve scheduled in L.A. leading up the monumental cultural event that will be the August publication of my yoga memoir Stretch. I figured the class, like most things yoga-related, could serve more than one function. Maybe I’d build a little audience for the book while also honing my yoga-talking and yoga-teaching skills. Essentially, it would be the yoga equivalent of an out-of-town opening.

I’d been preparing for weeks. First, I reserved the Shakti Box, a pleasant, warm, well-appointed space above the Video Hut near the corner of Vermont and Franklin. Some friends of mine had taught there. I liked the fact that it offered few frills, and also that it was very clean. Until the spring of 2009, it had been the private practice space of a nice woman named Edie, and then she decided to share the love. In addition to yoga, Edie books regular improv classes and a “Women’s Circle” at the Box, so clearly she’s open to different stuff. When I approached her with my idea for a “yoga comedy night,” she didn’t hang up on me immediately. She didn’t even hang up when I told her I was going to call the class “Club Sutra.” She offered a really reasonable rental price. Club Sutra was go.

"I have mixed feelings about zoos and parks, but they are such a great opportunity for teaching our kids respect for other species along with all the other fascinating stuff. Kids today grow up with all kinds of cutesy animal characters in their lives. Everything is neutered to by gentle and passive--benign. Sometimes even adults fall into thinking this way and are stunned when a mountain lion or bear attack happens in a state park or a shark attack happens at the beach. We avoid the realities of nature, and we especially avoid teaching our kids about death.

Harper Perennial, a publisher in no way influenced by the politics of its parent corporation, presents:

Coming this summer to a bookseller either near you or on the Internet.

When I went to my first San Francisco Yoga Journal conference in 2009, I mostly found myself wandering around the Hyatt confused, frustrated, physically exhausted, and waiting for lunch. This year, I returned with a strategy, a curriculum of sorts. I’d barely do any physical yoga at all; with that, I’ve become all too familiar. Instead, I’d begin my journey into yoga’s subtler aspects, its deeper mysteries. It was time for an introduction to Tantra.

Most people, if they’ve heard of Tantra at all, would say, “Oh, yeah, that’s that thing Sting and his wife do before they fuck.” Until pretty recently, I’d have said the exact same thing. And now, though I know far less about Tantra than I do about, say, the mechanics of the NBA Draft Lottery, I’ve begun to acquaint myself with some basic facts.

I'm not going to invoke the name of a Hindu God or invent my own style of Power Vinyasa Mega Bhakti Flow (TM). I don't believe in any God, and can barely get out of bed in the morning. So, "The Hot Jew Of The Yoga Generation" it shall be.

Use it with discretion, and I will as well.

Namaste,
NP

Image courtesy of the fabulous Yogabeans!

In its previous incarnation, we went with a black-orange-and-yellow palette, mostly to reflect the colors of the rubber duckie on the cover of the Alternadad hardback. Well, though I'm still definitely a dad, and will still write about that sometimes in this space, it should come as a great relief to many, particularly me, that the Alternadad era is officially over.

In its place, we've gone with something lighter, friendlier, and, in anticipation of STRETCH's arrival this August, more yoga-ish. What, you may ask, is that image in the top left-hand corner? Why, it's my face popping out of a lotus flower! According to Buddhist philosophy, the opened lotus represents the resurrection of an enlightened being who emerges, undefiled, from the chaos and illusion of the world. I doubt it's meant to be used, as I'm using it here, semi-ironically.

The lotus also has sacred meaning in yoga lore. The head chakra is often depicted or described as a thousand-petal lotus that opens toward the infinite. That lotus drips a sweet nectar, which you're supposed to be able to taste once you reach the highest level of yogic awareness. I'm not there yet, but I hope that when I get there (sometime in June) it tastes better than agave syrup. That stuff's just no substitute for cane sugar, in my opinion.

So hopefully I'll be posting here more frequently, and you all will return to this space as well to be my companions on the next exciting incarnation of my literary voyage throughout time and space.

Meanwhile, read this piece I wrote for Salon about my cousin in the Olympics. I think it's pretty good.

Thank you very much to Jennifer Robbins and Jason Swihart for their hard work.

Namaste,
NP

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!"

Lunacy can erupt in our house at any moment.

Elijah came into the bedroom, stuck his steaming face in mine, and yelled,

"WHY DID YOU EAT MY SPECIAL APPLE?"

"Your what?"

"MY SPECIAL APPLE THAT I PICKED OUT AT THE STORE AND MOMMY BOUGHT FOR ME! AND YOU ATE IT! WHY? WHY? WHY?"

"I didn't know it was a special apple. I just ate an apple."

"YOU DID TOO KNOW!"

"No, Elijah, I was out of town. Mommy didn't tell me you had a special apple."

He stormed out of the room. I got out of bed, moaning. Elijah stood at the kitchen table, continuing to scream about his apple.

"Of all the apples you could eat," Regina said.

"How the hell was I supposed to know?"

"HOW THE HELL WERE YOU SUPPOSED TO EAT MY SPECIAL APPLE?" Elijah said.

"Don't say hell," I replied.

"THAT'S IT! I'M NOT EATING BREAKFAST, LUNCH, OR DINNER TODAY!"

"That's your problem."

"NO! IT'S YOUR PROBLEM, MISTER!"

"You know, Elijah, that apple was kind of mushy."

Elijah snuffled.

"It was?"

"Yeah. It had a big brown spot."

"Oh," he said. "Then can I have a different apple?"

"As soon as you apologize."

"I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"Don't let it happen again."

"OK."

And he didn't yell at me again until 2:30, when I picked him up at school.

"Daddy," he said. "When I get home, can I go online to www.killthebackyardigans.com?"

"I don't think there is such a site."

"WHY NOT? HOW DO YOU KNOW? YOU'RE LYING!"

I've got to teach this kid how to meditate.

"MAMA! I HAD A BAD DREAM!"

Though she normally gets out of bed at the speed of sludge, Regina was up and running before the boy finished his sentence, as though she'd been launched by tightly-coiled springs. My own response in these situations tends to be slower and fuzzier. I gradually gained some waking consciousness, and staggered toward Elijah's room.

Regina was busy talking him down.

"What happened?" I said.

"I dreamed that Shaq ate us!" Elijah said.

He wasn't referring to the itinerant sheriff-pimp NBA All-Timer. Our dog Shaq is old, blind, deaf, hobbled, and flatulent. We have to add hot water to his food so he can gum it down. Eating us isn't on his agenda.

"Hardly likely," I said.

"And then he ate himself!"

"Even less likely."

"I'm scared!"

"It'll be OK."

"Can I sleep with you?"

"You know the answer to that."

Many people let their children into bed with them after a bad dream. We aren't those people. Once you open the sheets to visitors, the odds of having a 12-year-old co-sleeper are reasonably high. Horror stories of the family bed abound, and we want our damn privacy at bedtime. We help our kid through the rough dreams, but then he stays in his own room. The night belongs to us.

Regina plugged in a string of accent lights that hang around the boy's dresser, and we went back to bed, unaware that the night's terrors had just begun.

This seemed like a teachable moment, as President Obama would say. I'd use the opportunity to give my son a simple lesson in media criticism.

"Now, Elijah, what do you think that commercial is trying to tell us?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think it's trying to say that if you eat at Carl's Jr., a sexy lady is going to come over to your house and lay on your bed?"

"I don't know."

"Well, do you think that would happen?"

"No. The commercial is trying to tell you that if you eat at Carl's Jr., you're going to be clean."

This was an interesting angle.

"Why?" I said.

"Because the lady takes a bath at the end."

"Oh."

"That's lying, daddy, because if you eat at Carl's Jr., you're probably going to be dirty."

Sex doesn't sell to seven-year-olds, thank Jeebus. But they end up getting the point anyway.

But now a rebirth is coming. I'll debut a new design sometime early in 2010, and hopefully will start writing every day, or at least several times a week, and the amusements will start again. I hope, like the swallows to San Juan Capistrano, or some post-burrito reflux, my readers will return.

Meanwhile, I'm guest-blogging over on Details.com for a few weeks. Here's a link to my first post.

And here's my latest yoga column for The Faster Times. Please to enjoy, and see you back here soon.

Namaste,
NP

Pause.

"You mean metal?"

"Yeah, metal. What is metal anyway?"

"Well, it's like rock and roll, but really loud and extreme and grinding."

"That sounds good."

"It is good. Sometimes."

"I like loud music."

"OK."

"But I don't like crowds."

"OK."

"That's why I want to listen to rock at home, but I don't want to go to concerts."

"Your choice, kid."

"Daddy?"

"Yes, son?"

"Guess what two things I'll never do?"

"What?"

"Kill myself, or watch The Backyardigans."

"OK, but if you had to pick one?"

"Watching The Backyardigans. But it would be close."

The boy is clearly not yet ready for Nirvana.