On June 22, I my first triple.  I did 270 minutes of 26 postures in 105° temperature.  3 ninty minute classes.  I grew exponentially in strength and determination with each passing minute.  I didn’t expect to.  I expected the opposite.

270 is an interesting number.  So is 18, 17, 16, 105, 26, and 3.  But this post isn’t about numbers, so I’ll keep you in suspense.

I learned a new trick too.  A trick to focus on breathing.  I imagined that my breath was visible.  I only allowed my thoughts to travel the distance of each exhale.  My mind was restricted by the proximity of the air I breathed.

Oh, and Teddy.  Or Ted.  He said I could call him Teddy.  What a sweet man.  A few weeks ago he started a conversation with me.  He told me he used to have skin issues like mine.  He offered helpful, solicited advice.  He also told me he did 4 triples in a row.  12 classes in 4 days.  Dang.  So Teddy got me thinking about doing a triple a few weeks ago.

So, in early June, I started thinking about it.  I did several doubles with the premeditated desire to triple.  I brought extra towels and vitamins and pop-tarts, etc.

By June 20, I was certain that I would never triple.  Once I gave up reaching for the “goal”, the “goal” reached out to me.

First there was Marco.  Then Lisa.  I was whipped.  I was thinking about an austin style savasanna.  But I was feeling ok.  So I went to the front desk and talked briefly with Karen.  I told her I was gonna be in her class.  I told her I was gonna triple.

She said “take it easy .:. don’t kill yourself”.  I thought “GREAT! Nap time.”

But the mind plays tricks.  My third class on June 22 was my strongest class ever.  My mind was empty.  My body was warm and stretched. What seemed to take great energy in class 1 and 2, came without much effort in class 3.

I don’t think i’ll do this again. I don’t think it was good for my bones.  I am still aching.  Still shaking. Still recovering.  I feel like I ran a marathon.  Marathons are great.  But the impact is bad for certain folks.  Triples are super cool too.  But for my body and mind, they are too much.

Oh, and about the belt.  Since I started in March, i’ve lost at least one dollar’s worth of girth based on my belt holes.  Not sure you can see the holes.  The last two I drilled myself.  This is about as quantifiable as I can be.  I lost at least six inches.  The belt is just about fed up with me. (Another update! There are three additional holes, in sum, 5 new holes.)

quantifiable losses

Seriously, this is something that’s really happened in just a few months.  I spent about three hundred buckaroos at BYD Austin.  I have spent more mullah getting my old clothes tightened up, buying new (used) pants, and now this.  I gotta get a new belt.  If I drill more holes in this thing, it’s gonna fall apart.

And the Argentinian security guy.

It’s also about Cy Twombly.

It’s also about how my life got changed in a matter of moments.

And finally it’s about the smell of the museum and my friend who alerted me to it.

That’s all this is about.

I just found a new use for my yoga mat.  Maybe too, I have a new step in my daily routine. After two 90 minute sessions in Austin’s Downtown Bikram Studio (heated to 105°) I headed out to Barton Springs.  Btw.  BYDAustin is only for really cool austin people. Like you have to be tooootally cool (shoes or feet included) to practice there.  By “cool” I mean, you have to have some type of blood flowing through your system and should be able to stand on two feet.

Tonight was a special night at Zilker Park as the Austin Symphony was playing a free Star Wars concert outdoors.  For a moment I considered sitting on the lawn and listening to the music.  But I was hot and itchy.  I wanted to go for a swim.

Barton Springs Pool, Austin Texas

I grabbed the bag with my yoga mat inside and headed down to the water.  The sun had already set, the pool lights were lit.  The bugs were chirping.  Those harmonic crickets and junebugs (i dont know what bugs are making are singing really).

Speaking of singing.  There were two oldtimers playing a fiddle and guitar.  Actually, the oldtimers were really more like a 33 baby beer bellied fiddler and 19 Adonis-sssy rocker dude.  They didn’t know each other.  I know for sure.  They played like father and son though.  AND they played to 3 zillion year old oak tree the size of el paso.  Seriously, they were singing to the tree.

So, it’s June 11, 2010, warmish-hot Texas day.  I’ve been kickin in the bikram sauna hell for 4 hours and I go to Savasana at night in the water.

The year-round temperature at Barton Springs is around 69°.  It’s an oasis during the summertime and it’s usually packed.  People swim, people tan, people with dough, those w/out, all of them people, flock to the summer oasis. They all fit in.  All 1432 of them (or something close) cool off in the medicinal waters in the Heart w/in Heart of Texas, in the center of Austin, the center.  But in the late evening, there’s not many people.  Temp of water is still around 69°

My initial dip in the Springs was in the late ’70s, Grandpa Bob, an important man, took me and my brothers.  By “important” I mean … ummmm … he told us some really excellent stuff that we didn’t quite.  At the time, there were ladies without tops.  Grandpa pointed out the “breasts”.  My brothers and I at the time were under 10.  We only saw a diving board.  Well, we did also scope the mini train and the cotton candy and ice cream stand.  But the boobs?  Really?  Not the first I have wondered about that now dead guy’s vision.  Grandpa was doing his best to tell us important stuff.  We were visiting from Detroit.  Never been to Texas.  We got to the diving board really fast and dominated it with wicked rad cannon balls, occasional spastic flips and other fancy moves.

But that was then.  This is really about my Savasana on June 11, 2010, on a warmish-hot day.  I walked to the deepest end, got nearly nAKed, goggle’d up and flopped in.  The only way to do it.  Going in slowly is painful. I swam a few laps only to realize I was too tired to swim.  So I pulled out the yoga mat.

And guess what?  You’d never know it otherwise.  The thicker yoga mats make bitchin’ floats.  It allows enough buoyancy so that your body is mostly submerged, while your breathing holes remain above water.  It also cleans the yoga mat btw.  A value add.  But, the main thing, it allows for full extension.  Inhales and exhales do not cause rise and sink.  You can float.

And so I did.  Just laid there.  On my yoga mat.  Floating in 69° water in the Dead Body Pose, the Savasana.  For nearly an hour, I just relaxed, under the Texas stars, above enchanting underwater spring fed garden, near the multiple red-eared sliders, amongst the fish.  A perfect way to end a day of hard work.

Yeah … that’s right you sucka readers.  I gave you the real paragraph at the end of this post, above this sentence.

What I’ll offer you is only an account. Worse, a thirty-one year old memory, buffered by many unrelated memories and other’s accounts. My memory is good. It’s just that my head is filled up with a lot of other thoughts.

Downtown Detroit in the late 70′s. Not sure what was happening in the world. I was nearing 10 years old; could only see what was in front of me.

Mom took us (3 brothers) to see Marcel Marceau. We lived in Franklin Hills, off 14 mile, I think. We only went downtown for baseball or hockey games, parades, fireworks, to see Dad in the Rennaisance Center … uhhhmmm … we were downtown a lot. I thought I was about to say we didn’t go downtown that much. Anyhow.

Downtown was simultaneously sparkly and slummy. The furcoats breezed by the frozen coatless. Rodin’s “The Thinker” is awfully close to one of the more dying neighborhoods.  I think it’s been like that for awhile. Anyhow.

Downtown Detroit is where we nearly got mugged after the Hudson’s Thanksgiving Parade. Two bums jumped on our Ford Fairmont station wagon. Me, Mom and brothers were in the car windows rolled up.  The tore off one of Mom’s windshield wipers. I learned the term “bum” that day. Anyhow.

Mom took us to see Marcel Marceau. It was everything. Mom encouraged us away from our “nosebleed” seats. Half way through the second part of the show, she gently demanded us to “walk up and get a better look.”  We wanted to leave.  I think we were getting bored.  Mom said “Ok.  We can go as soon as you walk up to the stage and get a better look.”  We fell for her trickery.

For 7 minutes of my childhood, Marcel Marceau was within spitting distance.  I saw everything including his brow’s sweat.  He was really in a box.  He was really going down the escalator.  He was really talking on a real phone.  But not.

It’s possible I’ll end the post here. Seriously, the dude made everything out of absolutely nothing.

PS. I love my mom.  She did shit like this a lot when I was a little punk.  She also did some bad stuff.  She is my mom.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This stuff works for me.  This is not in Bikram’s Beginner Script.  I am not certified.  The experts are your teachers. Please inform me, via the comment box below, if there is anything in this guide that is either inaccurate or worse, dangerous.  I will modify immediately.  Again, I am not an expert.  This advice is based solely on opinion.

These tips, btw, aren’t repeated as part of the primary script used by instructors.  Before trying any of these tips, I adamantly recommend you listen to the instructor’s guidance first.  Your first goal should be to do exactly what your instructor is telling you.  If you aren’t listening carefully, then please stop reading this.

Hey!  I just realized that this is gonna take a while to write.  So come back every now and then to check for updates.  And please fell encouraged to add to this via the box below.  Your advice will be accredited to you once I add it.

Certain postures that are avoided, are avoided for a reason.  Think about your reason for avoiding the posture.  Ask yourself (or someone else) if it makes any sense.  It’s got absolutely nothing to do (i am pretty sure) with your physicality though.  My guess is that we avoid them because:

1. We think we look silly in them,
2. we have allowed our mind to defeat us,
3. we are afraid,
4. we have made a routine out of skipping,
5. we are worried that we might fall face down on our neighbors mat, whatever.

None of these are valid, justifiable reasons for not trying your best.  If any of these fears come into your mind, chase them out.  Tell yourself you look beautiful, don’t be afraid, don’t skip it, and fall down (no-one cares)!

There are twenty six postures, following are things that help me:

General

• Every single word the instructor says is purposeful.  Listen.
• Clasping all ten fingers is important.  In fact, anytime I am told to clasp or grab, I take it as an opportunity to shift my focus from the area that is burning to my hands.  For example, During camel, I dig my finger nails into my my ankle. In standing head to knee, i clasp my ten fingers so tight that it really hurts. It helps me return to breathing and focus.
• Squeeze every muscle from your bottom to your toes in the first several postures.  Many postures that follow rely on the strength you are building in the beginning postures.
• Suck in your tummy, it’ll make you stand taller and lift your chest.
• Sit directly under Bikram’s image in the southern studio at downtown location.  Look at him.  Gaze at him.  Have a secret conversation with him.  Pretend his is talking to you and coaching you.
• I haven’t done this yet, but reading about the history of these poses, who came up with then, why they are significant, etc. might be something to inspire and assist.

Standing Deep Breathing (Pranayama)

• There is an excellent reason to be on time for class.  This is it.  If you come late and miss this part, you’ll have to work extra hard for the next 87 minutes.  If you do come late, drop your stuff on the ground and start.  Don’t set up.  The instructor will probably call you out (in a non-embarrassing way) if you try to get settled during this initial exercise.
• Don’t be stupid (like me) and make this a strenuous effort.  The idea behind this, i think, is to relax your mind, get you focussed on breathing, and get a ton of fresh oxygen pumping through your system.
• Relax, breathe.
• This is a great opportunity to see stars.  Go for it.  Seeing stars early in class is a great way to begin.

Half Moon Pose (Ardha-Chandrasana) & Hands to Feet (Pada-Hasthasana)

• Again, this is not the time to kill yourself.  Relax as much as possible and listen carefully.
• You can go back super far.  I had a horrible, debilitating, incredibly nasty lower back injury.  When the instructor says “Don’t be afraid” you should trust them.  I was terribly afraid. I didn’t trust them. It took at least 50 classes for me to realize I shouldn’t be afraid.
• Make your legs solid.  Tighten everything below the waste.  Rock solid.
• On the forward bend, go slow, if you are worried (like me) about your back.  Tighten your stomach, go slow, and keep your spine straight on the way down.
• Another great opportunity for star gazing.  Go for it.

Awkward Pose (Utkatasana)

• This requires grit and determination.  Be determined.
• This also is the very first test of your concentration. Concentrate.
• If you listen to your instructor very very very carefully, you’ll rock this pose.
• If your legs are Elvis-shaking, make a mental note to have more electrolytes after class, and before class.
• You will have wildly succeeded in this posture IF you can maintain focus and balance while your nearby neighbors are falling over.  Go for it.  Be the most solid rock in your corner of the studio.  Imagine that nobody, not even William “The Refrigerator” Perry (the Chicago Bear), could knock you over.

Eagle Pose (Garurasana)

• A note to guy, this is a potential nut crusher.  Please read this.  If you are wearing you stuff loose (no spandex) there is a likelihood that you will crush your testicles.  To avoid this follow these simple steps: i. push your thighs together tight, ii.) arrange your junk (inconspicuously) in front of your thighs, iii.) when you go into the pose, do not “lift” your leg high over the other, rather, “slide” you thigh over the other.  This will keep the jewels out of harms way.
• If you’re a guy and enjoy the crushing sensation, disregard the previous bullet.
• If you do this posture well, you are gonna see star for sure.  Constrict everything and breath relaxed.  This posture feels great when you get it.

Standing Head to Knee (Dandayamana-Janushirasana)

• Now class gets more serious.  You need to focus deeper at this point.  Listen carefully to everything the instructor is saying!
• The most important tip I have is breath normal.  If you are struggling and gasping in this pose, the rest of the session is gonna be more difficult.  If you cannot go into the pose with balanced breath, go slower.  No need to rush.
• Another tip I learned from distance running: Run with a friend and talk.  If you are breathing too hard to carry on a conversation, slow down.  The more control you have over breathing, the longer you’ll be able to go.  Balanced breathing is an important factor for endurance.
• Edy emphasized this big time the other day.  ”Compress your abdomen!!!” He demonstrated the opposing force between the stretching forward of the leg balanced by stretching backward with the abdomen.  Pull your tummy back, stretch your leg out.  Push and pull!

Standing Bow Pose (Dandayamana-Dhanurasana)

• This posture requires even deeper focus.  Again, make sure your breathing is controled before you go into it.
• Once you grab your ankle, release the muscles in your holding arm, and begin a mini, preparatory kick with your held foot.
• You’ll hear that this is a “proud” posture.  What this means is that you really need to reach high, inhale deep, and straighten your body like an arrow.
• One Great Tip:  Ashley suggested that you count.  That’s right, focus on numbers and counting.  As you count, you forget about other stuff and you stay in the posture longer.  Count!!!
• I can’t do this posture right yet.  After 70+ classes, I am still wobbling bigtime.  Here is the point of this bullet.  Try harder every day, every session, don’t give up.  There was a moment when I got close to doing the posture right.
• If seeing your foot in the mirror distracts you, then look at the floor.  My concentration improves when I am not looking at myself during this posture.  It goes against the instructor’s suggestions.
• Instructors should note NOT to use names during this posture.  As soon as they call out my name and say “J! Kick back more!” I fall out.  That’s me.  I tune them out during this posture.  This is the only time I recommend, as a peer, to not listen to the instructor.  Make sure you hear all the instructions closely.  Make sure you understand them.  Listen for tips.  Don’t let them make you lose focus though.  Stay focussed. Or you will fall over and look completely silly and everyone will laugh at you and you will have to sit in the corner.
• Oh, this is a great pose for meditating on becoming rich.  I am pretty sure that’s why they say “Hold out your hand as if you were asking for money”.   Have fun with this.  Imagine that you will get a $100,000 if you do this pose perfectly.  All you have to do is not suck, and you’ll get paid.  Imagine that.

Balancing Stick (Tuladandasana)

• I stood this one out for at least 40 sessions.  The Bow Pose sapped me so entirely that I could barely stand at this point.  My first suggestion therefore is don’t be a wimp like me.  Go for it.
• When you take that giant step forward and lock both legs, slightly raise your back foot, one milli-inch off the ground. Commit your entire body weight to your locked standing leg.
• One instructor, who is super cool, suggests that you trace a line from the ceiling down through the mirror as you are going into the pose.  It’s very helpful to do this.

Standing Separate Leg Stretching Pose (Dandayamana-Bibhaktapada-Paschimotthanasana)

• The best tip I got for this was be flamboyant when entering into the posture.  Be as flamboyant as an eagle.
• As a former distance runner, this posture tore up many muscles in the back of my legs.  While it didn’t hurt (too bad) it looked horrible.  After 15 classes, the backs of my legs were black and blue.  I was embarrassed.  Like many other poses, listen to your body.  If there is a muscle spasm where there shouldn’t be, ask the instructor after class.  If you are bruising, ask the instructor.  What you will probably hear is that they have “seen it many times before”.  This assurance will make you feel a lot better.
• The reason this posture was killing me was entirely due to the fact that I wasn’t listening to either the instructor or my body.  Once I started to listen, my forehead was on the ground.  The only thing that kept me from getting it was that I was trying to “muscle” through it.
• One last note.  The next posture is a very sweet killer.  If possible, go easy on yourself during this posture.  Start getting excited for the next one.  The only way to get through the next posture is be as excited as possible.  Otherwise, it’s gonna suck.

Triangle Pose (Trikanasana)

• Make this your favorite posture.  Be wickedly excited when you get to it.  Imagine a marching band behind you and 13 thousand spectators.
• BTW, i think this posture is banned in many countries. Not in India, Mexico, Canada or the United States.  You have to do it.  As they say, “it’s the pinnacle” of the standing series.  Like I suggested earlier, don’t NOT try.  You have to TRY.   After all, you can’t do this in Rome.
• Get as much weight into your bent leg as possible.  Imagine that your foot is stuck in concrete.
• Arch and twist your back to put more weight onto that concrete foot.
• Of all the postures, breathing is the most critical in this one.  But if you can get through it without breathing, that’s cool too.  It’s all “downhill” from here.  That’s what they say. Don’t trust this.  Pretend the statement is true.
• Once you can do this posture, while maintaining controlled breathing, your fortunes in life will grow exponentially.  You will become more tall.  Your car will be more blinging.  Everyone will wave to you as you pass.  Flower petals will be delicately laid across the ground you travel.

Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee Pose (Dandayamana-Bibhaktapada-Janushirasana)

• This pose, you may think, is gonna be easy.  It is in fact a good pose to catch your breath from the previous pose.  But if you do it precisely according to your instructors guidance, you might find this to be deepest challenge of the standing series.
• At this point, your body is smokin’ hot.  Your heart is trying to break free and escape.  Your eyes are blood read.  You’re slippery.  You are a bit dazed and possibly confused.  If so, great.  That’s how you’ll know you’ve done good work, that you have tried hard.
• Considering your current state, try and do this pose exactly as advised.  It’s really very difficult.
• But if it helps, consider this to be a simple, breezy pose.

Tree Pose (Tadasana)

• Not sure about this one.  Still unsure if I oughtta put both hands in prayer when my foot’s slipping.
• Thrusting your hips forward helps.  This is something that works great in life too, outside the studio.  Thrust your hips people.  Flaunt it.  You got it.

Toe Stand (Padangustasana)

• Really?  A beginner’s pose?  No way.  But wait.  It’s possible.  During your first 60 days, you will do this posture once and thing, “Dang, I am so awesome!”
• Don’t sit on your heal.  Don’t look in the mirror.  Breathe deep.
• Once your fingertips can hover over the mat, next to your side, then take the next step and slowly lift one hand into prayer. Otherwise, just chill.

Dead Body Pose (Savasana)

• As soon as I am in position, I take a short, sharp inhale, then sloooowwwwly release through my nose.  I might do it twice.
• Eyes open does NOT mean focussed.  I cross my eyes, roll them back behind the lids, try to look through the ceiling into the sky, etc.  My eyes are always open.  They are just not looking at things.
• This should be known as the “deceiving pose”.  It’s so frickin’ simple, right?  Just lay back and chill, right?  Wrong.  They repeat over and over that it’s the MOST important posture.  The instructors make a really huge deal out of it.  Why?  Because is too dang simple.  By western standards the term “relax” often indicates an opportunity to drink (beer, soda, wine, whatever), flop down, feel the breeze, blow our nose, scratch our tortured behinds, fix our fancy costumes, etc.  This pose is the exact opposite, the extreme polar, of the western denotation of “relax”.

Bikram Style Sit Up

• Really be dramatic with your exhale.  Sometimes I make gun shot explosive noises on the blasted exhales.  It’s fun.  It lightens me up.

Wind-Removing Pose (Pavanamuktasana)

• The other day, Kathy reminding class that this is the easiest posture to fake.  BUT, she continued, it is also one of the most important postures to do right.  If you focus and really pull hard, you will receive incredible medical benefits.
• It took me about 45 sessions before I could grab my elbows.  I found it helpful to slide my forearms across my thighs until I was able to fold my arms in.  I did this while on my back.  Slide arms and gram elbow.
• “Eventually, your whole spine, from top to bottom, will rest on the floor.”  Until I get to this point, I will focus on either the top or bottom of the spine.  Trying to get the entire spine on the floor is too difficult for me.
• Compressing the abdomen allows for me to go deeper.

Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana)

• Huge insight or clarification.  I am not sure this is real!  We are told “Take a deep inhale, look up, and with 100% back strength look for the ceiling”  100 percent, really?  Here is the clarification.  Start with 100%.  Lift up with 100%.  When you can’t go more, use your arms, to raise yourself so that your belly button is touching.
• If the only part of your leg touching the ground is the top of your foot, it helps.

Locust Pose (Salabhasana)

• This one is definitely the easiest one to give up on.  Don’t.
• If you don’t feel tremendous pressure in your arms, if your fingertips aren’t shredding holes in your towel, you might need to adjust yourself.

Full Locust Pose (Poorna-Salabhasana)

• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here

Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)

• Use your legs.  Relax your arms.  Pretend your arms are just sticks and your fingers are hooks.  Kick.  The instructor says it all the time. Kick.

Fixed Firm Pose (Supta-Vajrasana)

• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here

Half Tortoise Pose (Ardha-Kurmasana)

• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here

Camel Pose (Ustrasana)

• In my opinion, this is the greatest posture in the history of the time and space continuum in the universe of yoga, forever, since the creation of the universe.
• I have found recently, that relaxing everything from lower back down, helps me go further.  When our beloved teachers recommend that we “push” forward, I push with my arms.

Rabbit Pose (Sasangasana)

• Kathy D. just schooled me on this trick last Saturday.  Btw, every Sat from 2-4 through Sept, Kathy D is gonna give posture clinics.  They are loads of good fun.  Anyhow, she suggested simultaneously pushing down your ankles while pulling.  As soon as I pushed my ankles (while pulling) I felt a wicked awesome feeling in the stretch.

Head to Knee Pose and Stretching Pose (Janushirasana and Paschimotthanasana)

• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here

Spine-Twisting Pose (Ardha-Matsyendrasana)

• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here

Blowing in Firm Pose (Kapalbhati in Vajrasana)

• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here
• blah blah blah bulletts goeth here

For example: You will need to hydrate. You have to modify your consumption of caffeine and alcohol (cut it out!). Rest is important, you will need to sleep. Having a laundry machine that works is a great benefit. Vitamins, yep! Whole grains, absolutely! Massive volume of Electrolytes, hell yeah!

In fact, read as much as you can, often. Especially stuff posted by Nora Jeanne. She is a good writer. I think it’s partially due to her listening skills. Good listeners often make good writers.

I read them. They helped a lot. I also made a few of my own. Here they are:

1. Smile. This might be the goofiest of all. But something happens to your brain chemicals when you smile. Frowns make stuff hurt. Smiles make stuff sweet.
2. Think ROI. Oh there are sooo many meditations on this. If you think of money as obessessively as others, then this mediation requires little sweat. This practice is waaaay less expensive than hockey or duck hunting. You’re avoiding expenses related to butt implants. You’ll be able to re-use your sexy college clothes. And if you are really super dope … you’ll get a Tesla. “Momma, give me money.” Isn’t it obvious what Mr. B is teaching us?
3. Show up. Once you get there ask for help. Bikram and other Yogi-peoples are super duper sweet. They practice sweetness. Let them be sweet to you. All you have to do is show up. Like Ice Pick Edy said, you don’t have to be mega-disciplined to do this stuff. You just need to show up. Everyone is looking out for you once you show up.
4. Make a friend. Seeing people you know makes you happy. You cheer for them, they cheer for you. I met a totally sweet person that started the challenge the same day i did. She inspired me in a ton of ways. We’re not ever really friends; acquaintances at best. But she totally motivated me. If you are on a team, great. If not, make a few buddies.
5. Listen. After 20 days, I was bugging out with the repetition of the instructors. On the 23rd day, about to die, I heard something. Mardy said “Breathe Dammit!” (she didn’t say “dammit”, of course not). Our instructors repeat stuff 100s of times, expecting us to “listen” just once. On the 27th day, I did my best to listen, to every word, to every inflection, to every priceless piece of advice. Day 28 was excellent.
6. Mess with your mind! The most challenging part of Bikram is our big fat super smart good for nothing heads. Since it is out to get you, retaliate. Shut it off. Stop thinking. Whenever I am fighting with my mind, I think about gumdrops or pickles. I don’t like gumdrops or pickles, it’s how I punish my mind when it’s misbehaving.
7. Do it for Yourself. I love this one, totally. I got it from Lisa. For the first 30 days, I was doing Bikram for others. I wanted to prove something to Jonathan O. and H. I wanted to show them that I was awesomely excellent. I wanted to show someone special (who left me) that I was disciplined. I wanted to save my friends. I was NOT practicing Bikram for me though. Once I started thinking about myself – how I was benefiting – I began to experience new wondrous things. Give yourself a big huge hug during the “wind removing posture”.
8. Set micro-micro goals. This is a trick I got from ultra trail runs. Don’t think in terms of hours or days or weeks, even minutes. Think in terms of seconds. “I am gonna one more posture.” When you reach the goal, set another, do the next posture. When running 30 miles, I would always look for a tree in the distance. I’d tell myself “Just make it to that tree, then you can stop.” When I got to the tree, I would look for another and keep running. When you are struggling, concentrate on the moment, where you are right now. This is a pretty good way to live.
9. Plan to celebrate success. Celebrate by giving yourself something more challenging. I learned this from a Marine, a real tough dude. After my 27th straight arm pullup, he said. “Way to go! now you try for 30 pullups!” I wanted a t-shirt, but got something better.
10. Be Thankful. Just live that way. Thank everyone. Even the jerkwad that cuts you off on 5th street. The universe has it’s reasons. Thank your instructors. When you say “Namaste” (even if you have no idea what it means, like me!), say it as if you are thanking them for saving your life. Say it with feeling.
11. Stevie Wonder. This is the most important of all. Listen to Stevie Wonder. Buy all of his compilations and listen to Stevie before and after every session. Crank it up. Sing along. Move your spine and shoulders. Sing until you’re eyes fill with tears of joy.
12. Turn off your hot water or even more radical, shut off your plumbing. I actually did this for a few days. Without running water at home, I was forced to go to the studio. I had to shower. An additional value add: You can justify eating out for a few days considering that you can’t wash your dishes.
13. OMG. This was the MOST IMPORTANT ONE of all. But I can’t remember it.
14. Tweak your diet. No “sacred cows”. Really. Nora Jeanne helped me with this. I asked “What should I eat? My endurance is pitifully weak.” She asked me if I was a vegetarian and if yes, for what reason. I liked that she wanted to hear my motives for not eating meat. She suggested that I slowly introduce some meat into my diet. It worked. Plus, I have a new found love for Mr. P. Terry. Those doubles w/cheese are freeking excellent. I am ending this blog right now. I am gonna get my double w/cheese on.
15. In Case of Emergency. Have a bag ready to go. Call it your “no-excuse” bag. Think of it like that storied suitcase pregnant families would put next to the door in case of sudden contractions. One of the easiest reasons not to go somewhere is to think you are not prepared. I have missed class for this reason a few times. Now I have at least one set of towels, water, mat, etc in my car. I have no excuse.
16. Come Early. The oddest part of this practice is that we tend to stress too much about getting there. If possible – fully aware of life’s franticness – show up 20 minutes early, and chill out in the heated room before class. Prepare your mind to stop.
17. You look Awesome. Take it from me, i look like hell in class. Sometimes, I am purple, other times black and blue. I don’t care. More important, neither do you. I am not in class to get dates. I am not there to indulge my inner-narcissus. Bikram is about fading out of your hyper-judgemental dispositions. I like to imagine I am a gazelle or a bird or a leaf blowing in the wind. I go to Bikram to purify my imagination.
18. Dedicate. During the first moments of class, maybe even when you checkin, dedicate your practice to something. A person, an event, a thought, a word. Focus back to this dedication when you are struggling. Imagine your practice is critical to the existence of this dedication.
19. In case you didn’t catch this, the “dead body pose”, the savasana, is the most important of all to get right. Don’t waste a single second. Get into it fast. Go back to breathing controlled.

Here is the real news. I have been praying to God. Everything after this statement is less important.

Every day, for the last 13 days, I have spent anywhere from 5 – 30 minutes praying.

My main request to the fine people of G.O.D. Inc. has been for relief from manic, obsessive, obsession that I have with myself (bad sentence structure i know) … to clear my mind from self-centered thinking so I can spend more time thinking about other people’s crap. Seriously, that’s what I am asking for.

I have never really prayed with the exception of christmas eve, cool toy prayers. My experience in the past few days has been totally, completely, astronomically, dumbfoundingly non-plussing.

I should be honest.  I am a bit skeptical.  I have a sneaking feeling that one of my enemy/friends (my friends are also my enemies, and reversed) has bugged my room.  As an extended April Fool’s joke, they are distributing audio recordings of my prayer sessions to folks, instructing them to do the exact opposite.   Paranoid?  Hell no.  Plausible? What isn’t.

In the event that the previous paragraph is inaccurate, then mios dios is a wicked good prankster.  Here is why:

1. I asked for clarity and was given paralytic confusion.  I swear to, uhh, well, I promise.  The other day I prayed deeply that I be granted clarity to do the right thing.  What I received instead was a disproportionate amount of confusion.  The next time I prayed, I tried a different angle.
2. I humbly asked that my thoughts be calmed and optimistic.  My request was fulfilled, inverted.  I found myself hyperactively pissed off.  I swear I promise.  Everyone, everywhere was out to get me.  People looked at me like a dog might look at Joe Merrick.  Moms looked at me like CH’ester.  Whispering people were silently dissing me.  I was furious.  Fuck them!  I was cursing people everywhere.  The popped blood vessels on my bruised forehead told the story.  Again, I tried yet another angle when I prayed.
3. I asked to be muted, I was given a million thoughts to express.
4. I asked for creativity and was immediately dulled.
5. I asked for light and that very same day the City of Austin posted a utility disconnect warning on my termite infested screen door.  Not cool Mr. Electric! Not cool at all! Damnngit

What the HELL heck?  What exactly am I supposed to do?   Were my prayers getting me in trouble, comeuppance  for 39 years of ill will?

The moral.  Don’t pray!  And don’t fake pray either.  If I were to “fake” ask for confusion, anger, mutation, dullness or darkness … I have absolutely no doubt that I would’ve got it.

I must be screwed.

Although, it could be, nah.  There is no freakin’ way.

Why the disclaimer … to emphasize that this testimonial is my own personal experience. For example, if you and I were to sip from the same glass of wine, we’d taste the same thing. However, your sipping experience will be waaaaay different.

Not me. Dang!

My personal experience with Bikram Yoga will be different than yours, but it’ll also be the same.

On March 1st, 2010, I was in many respects spiritually, emotionally, financially and physically unfit. On March 1st, I was midway through my 39th year of living; the downward velocity of life was remarkable. A close, trusted friend encouraged me to join him for a hot yoga session. I declined, opting to re-watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

On March 2, 2010, I accepted his offer.

A brief, personal, pre-Bikram physical account:  My ribs were hurting due to pressure from fat stored behind them.  I had reached the last hole on my leather belt.  I found it hard to discern where my chin ended and neck began.

At 33 yrs old I herniated my L3/L4 disc.  Several months later, apparently unsatisfied, I ruptured, tore, decimated, etc. the same disc.  My solution was a standard western medicine approach.  I got an steriod epidural.  I took pain pills.  I used a heating pad.  And I stretched every day, just a bit.  I continued along in life – with less physical activity – as if nothing really bad happened.

I was born with severe allergies (inflamed skin, red eyes, straw breaths, killer sinus, etc).  Living in LA in the early 70′s made it exponentially worse.  Moving to Detroit in the late 70′s didn’t help either.  By the time I reached Austin, my allergist exclaimed “Damn, you’re the worst I have seen!” A compliment for an early teen.

Prior the spine injury, I was undaunted by my ailments.  I became a superstar at indoor rock climbing gyms.  I ran marathons and ultra-marathons.  I did 20 fully extended pullups in DC to get a Marine t-shirt (had no idea they’d be calling me for a year afterward.)  Having asthma increased my lung capacity. I could hold my breath for 90+ seconds.  At 33 years old, I was in pretty dang good shape.

Then my previously mentioned disc exploded.  I gained at least 40 lbs between 2005-10. Doctors thought I was depressed, so they prescribed SNRIs and sleeping pills. [Unrelated: Hallucinogenic NYTimes Article]

Aside from health, I lost a few other important things. But this post is more about what I gained.

Without anything better to do, I went to Austin’s Downtown Bikram studio.  Following are a few, life enhancements that have materialized before reaching my 60th class in 60 days.

1. The belt that I wore in my 30′s became too big.  I am now wearing the belt I wore in my 20′s.  I think I lost 10 pounds yesterday.  My body was becoming more balanced.  My ribs don’t hurt anymore.  [An aside: When a dude's ribs begin to hurt, is Eve to blame?]
2. I can take deep breaths.  I can feel fresh oxygen entering my system.  Instead of my trained puff of albuterol, I relax and breathe.  Unless it gets really bad, then I take a puff off the inhaler.  I don’t want to croak yet.
3. My mindset is different.  Prior to Bikram, I perceived my ailments as a controlling force of my actions and decisions.  At this moment I am the manager.  I control my ailments.  I tell them whether it’s OK or not to flare.  Well, sort of.  The pollen season this year was pretty dang rough.
4. I can concentrate.  I can sleep. I can balance on one leg. I can go deeper with a smiling happy face.  I can lock the knees, I can lock the knees, lock the knees (even if the ligaments and muscles in my thigh and calf are getting shredded).  I am eating better foods.  My senses are heightened.
5. Newton’s 1st and 3rd laws are real.  Well of course.  Theoretically, these laws make a a lot of sense.  Yet, knowing the theory and actually seeing it demonstrated are entirely different.  In accordance to the 1st law … my body was at rest and was tending to stay at rest.  Then, my aforementioned friend (acting as a physical force) set my booty in motion.  With regard to the 3rd law: It’s plain to see that anything that really sucks has the potential to become super sweet. Lemon flowers are sweet; but the fruit is not.  My life was sinking toward a nadir, then rocketed with Bikram toward an unanticipated apex.

At first, I scoffed at the shiny, happy motivational stories about Nixon, Kareem, McEnroe and others.  ”Yeah, whatever!” I thought.  The scoffer was taken to school.  The skeptic is now a believer.  I have transformed.  I have personal evidence it works.

I don’t want to jinx myself and write more.  I don’t want to fall into the trap of confident complacency.  I want to go for 120 classes in 120 days.  My back still hurts.  I still have wicked allergies.  I still have a bit of a buddha in my belly.  I can’t yet get my freaking forehead on the ground (almost there!).  Can’t bite my toes on the penultimate pose. I fall out of postures.  I gasp for air.  I even started crying one day. Crying! But no-one could tell because my face was red, eyes already bloodshot.  And finally, I haven’t done my taxes yet.  So I really have to stop.  I have 4 days left.

And the best for last.  I know when I go to class today I will be taken care of.  The staff of BYDAustin bear witness to the sweet fruits of continued practice.  Mardy, Nora Jeanne, K(C)athy D(M), Karen, Donna, Jonathan, Ashley, Ice Pick Edy, Susan, Suzanne, Jeff, Tyler and all of my sweaty peers inspire me.  When I am feeling really super duper crappy, and I drag myself into the studio, hiding my eyes with my oversized hat, I feel welcomed.  Warmly welcomed.

Postscript:  Here are a few not so obvious guidelines I followed to get to 60 sessions in 60 days.  They are silly, like this post, but pretty dang serious too!

In the lower right of Brueghel’s springtime picture, Icarus has splashed down into the water with legs thrashing. All else in the landscape turns away. The wind is pushing the ship’s sail in the opposite direction. The plowman and horse, the shepherd, the setting sun, and the shining port city all shift the audience’s eye from the tragedy. I did not even notice the drowning boy on my first glance of the painting. The one exception is the angler, also in lower left, whose head is focussed downward, as if pulling in a fishing net.

In my perspective, the angler is one of the more intriguing characters in the landscape. His arm is reaching out toward Icarus, but appears only to be pulling something else out of the water. A person so near who could potentially save this drowning boundary pushing, mortal youth . It is this individual who captures the human disposition to ignore other’s sufferings more intensely, in my view, than any other element in the scene. It is conceivable, that his peripheral vision is at the nearest degree of seeing the tragedy. Yet the angler’s focus is on his own necessity and the other figures are clearly looking away.

Brueghel’s work is based on Book VIII of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The Story of Daedalus and Icarcus. In Ovid’s account, the ploughman, the angler, the mountain shepherd, “stare, and view ‘em with religious eyes, And strait conclude ‘em Gods; since none, but they, Thro’ their own azure skies cou’d find a way.” Brueghel’s representation, creates a different interpretation to support the premise of human passivity.

One of the more recognized poems about this painting was authored by W.H. Auden. For the last 20 years, I was under the impression his 1940 poem Musée des Beaux Arts was about Pieter Brueghel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. A few months ago, I found that my impression was wrong. Harper’s Magazine clarifies in an article from November, 2008. “The bulk of the poem is clearly about a different painting, in fact it’s the museum’s prize possession: ‘The Census at Bethlehem.’”

Although, the last stanza of Auden’s poem does substantiate how the “Old Masters” were never wrong about suffering by referring to Brueghel’s Icarus.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

From a JSTOR article, Bruegel’s Fall of Icarus: Ovid or Solomon by Lyckle de Vries the authenticity of Brueghel’s Icarus is called into question. The painting in the Musées des Beaux-Arts is arguable as “its authenticity was more or less ruled out by technical examination” and its “condition is not perfect.” In addition, the article refers to a second version of the painting, held in a separate museum. The authenticity of the second version is not questioned. These examinations would undeniably be critical to a collector of art. Although, the theme created by Brueghel is what has guided me for years.

I began this essay considering many powerful personal interactions with art. I once sat for three hours on the second floor of the the east wing of The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. entranced Alexander Calder’s Untitled mobile in the atrium. I have written several essays in my undergraduate years during the 1990′s on works of Edvard Munch, David Siqueiros, and Wassily Kandinsky. What sets Brueghel’s Icarus apart from other works of art is that it has provided me a conceptual framework for living, a framework for connecting with my human environment.

New pages in my life reveal new meanings within this work. As I move forward in life, Shapiro’s words seem different, improved, more precise. I memorized this when I was 16 for a high school project in Detroit.

I read this poem when I was discovering new things.

“Adam & Eve” by Karl Shapiro

I. The Sickness of Adam

In the beginning, at every step, he turned
As if by instinct to the East to praise
The nature of things. Now every path was learned
He lost the lifted, almost flower-like gaze.

Of a temple dancer. He began to walk
Slowly, like one accustomed to be alone.
He found himself lost in the field of talk;
Thinking became a garden of its own.

In it were new things: words he had never said,
Beasts he had never seen and knew were not
In the true garden, terrors, and tears shed
Under a tree by him, for some new thought.

And the first anger. Once he flung a staff
At softly coupling sheep and struck the ram.
It broke away. And God heard Adam laugh
And for his laughter made the creature lame.

And wanderlust. He stood upon the Wall
To search the unfinished countries lying wide
And waste, where not a living thing could crawl,
And yet he would descend, as if to hide.

His thought drew down the guardian at the gate,
To whom man said, “What danger am I in?”
And the angel, hurt in spirit, seemed to hate
The wingless thing that worried after sin,

For it said nothing but marvelously unfurled
Its wings and arched them shimmering overhead,
Which must have been the signal from the world
That the first season of our life was dead.

Adam fell down with labor in his bones,
And God approached him in the cool of day
And said, “This sickness in your skeleton
Is longing. I will remove it from your clay.”

He said also, “I made you strike the sheep.”
It began to rain and God sat down beside
The sinking man. When he was fast asleep
He wet his right hand deep in Adam’s side

And drew the graceful rib out of his breast.
Far off, the latent streams began to flow
And birds flew out of Paradise to nest
On earth. Sadly the angel watched them go.

II. The Recognition of Eve

Whatever it was she had so fiercely fought
Had fled back to the sky, but still she lay
With arms outspread, awaiting its assault,
Staring up through the branches of the tree,
The fig tree. Then she drew a shuddering breath
And turned her head instinctively his way,
She had fought birth as dying men fight death.

Her sign awakened him.   He turned and saw
A body swollen, as though formed of fruits,
White as the flesh of fishes, soft and raw.
He hoped she was another of the brutes
So he crawled over and looked into her eyes,
The human wells that pool all absolutes,
It was like looking into double skies.

And when she spoke the first word (it was thou)
He was terror-stricken, but she raised her hand
And touched his wound where it was fading now,
For he must feel the place to understand.
Then he recalled the longing that had torn
His side, and while he watched it whitely mend,
He felt it stab him suddenly like a thorn.

He thought the woman had hurt him. Was it she
Or the same sickness seeking to return;
Or was there any difference, the pain set free
And she who seized him now as hard as iron?
Her fingers bit his body. She looked old
And involuted, like the newly born.
He let her hurt him till she loosed her hold.

Then she forgot him and she wearily stood
And went in search of water through the grove.
Adam could see her wandering through the wood,
Studying her footsteps as her body wove
In light and out of light. She found a pool
And there he followed shyly to observe.
She was already turning beautiful

III. The Kiss

The first kiss was with stumbling fingertips.
Their bodies grazed each other as if by chance
And touched and untouched in a kind of dance.
Second, they found out touching with their lips.

Some obscure angel, passing on his course,
Shed such a brightness on the face of Eve
That Adam in grief was ready to believe
He had lost her love.  The third kiss was by force.

Their lips formed foreign, unimagined oaths
When speaking of the Tree of Guilt. So wide
Their mouths, they drank each other from inside.
A gland of honey burst within their throats.

But something rustling hideously overhead,
They jumped up from the forth caress and hid.

IV. The Tree of Guilt

Why on her way to the oracle of Love,
Did she not even glance up at the Tree
Of Life, that giant with whitish cast
And glinting leaves and berries of dull gray,
As though covered with mold? But who would taste
The medicine of immortality,
And who would “be as God?” And in what way?

So she came breathless to the lowlier one
And like a priestess of the cult she knelt,
Holding her breasts in a token for a sign,
And prayed the spirit of the burdened bough
That the great power of the tree be seen
And lift itself out of the Tree of Guilt
Where it had hidden in the leaves till now.

Or did she know already? Had the peacock
Rattling its quills, glancing its thousand eyes
At her, the iridescence of the dove,
Stench of the he-goat, everything that joins
Told her the mystery?  It was not enough,
So from the tree the snake began to rise
And dropt its head and pointed at her loins.

She fell and hid her face and still she saw
The spirit of the tree emerge and slip
Into the open sky until it stood
Straight as a standing stone, and spilled its seed.
And all the seeds were serpents of the good.
Again the snake was seized and from its lip
It spat the venomous evil of the deed.

And it was over.  But the woman lay
Stricken with what she knew, ripe in her thought
Like a fresh apple fallen from the limb
And rotten, like a fruit that lies too long.
This way she rose, ripe-rotten in her prime
And spurned the cold thing coiled against her foot
And called her husband, in a kind of song.

V. The Confession

As on the first day her first word was thou.
He waited while she said, “Thou art the tree.”
And while she said, almost accusingly,
Looking at nothing, “Thou are the fruit I took.”
She seemed smaller by inches as she spoke,
And Adam wondering touched her hair and shook,
Half understanding.  He answered softly, “How?”

And for the third time, in the third way, Eve:
“The tree rises from the middle part
Of the garden.” And almost tenderly, “Thou art
The garden. We.” The she was overcome,
And Adam coldly, lest he should succumb
To pity, standing at the edge of doom,
Comforted her like one about to leave.

She sensed departure and she stood aside
Smiling and bitter.  But he asked again,
“How did you eat? With what thing did you sin?”
And Eve with body slackened and uncouth,
“Under the tree I took the fruit of truth
From an angel.  I ate it with my other mouth.”
And saying so, she did not know she lied.

It was the man who suddenly released
From doubt, wept in the woman’s heavy arms,
Those double serpents, subtly winding forms
That climb and drop about the manly boughs,
And dry with weeping, fiery and aroused,
Fell on her face to slake his terrible thirst
And bore her body earthward like a beast.

VI. Shame

The hard blood falls back in the manly fount,
The soft door closes under Venus’ mount,
The ovoid moon moves to the Garden’s side
And dawn comes, but the lovers have not died.
They have not died but they have fallen apart.
In sleep, like equal halves of the same heart.

How to teach shame?  How to teach nakedness
To the already naked? How to express
Nudity? How to open innocent eyes
And separate the innocent from the wise?
And how to re-establish the guilty tree
In infinite gardens of humanity?

By marring the image, by the black device
Of the goat-god, by the clown of Paradise,
By fruits of cloth and by the navel’s bud,
By itching tendrils and by strings of blood,
By ugliness, by the shadow of our fear,
By ridicule, by the fig-leaf patch of hair.

Whiter than tombs, whiter than the whitest clay,
Exposed beneath the whitening eye of day,
They awake and saw that covering that reveals.
They thought they were changing into animals.
Like animals they bellowed terrible cries
And clutched each other, hiding each other’s eyes.

VII.  Exile

The one who gave them warning with his wings,
Still doubting them, held out the sword of flame
Against the Tree of Whiteness as they came
Angrily, slowly by, like exiled kings,

And watched them at the broken-open gate
Stare in the distance long and overlong,
And then, like peasants, pitiful and strong,
Take the first step toward earth and hesitate.

For Adam raised his head and called aloud,
“My Father, who has made the garden pall,
Giving me all things then taking all,
Who with your opposite nature has endowed

Woman, give us your hand for our descent.
Needing us greatly, even in our disgrace,
Guide us, for gladly do we leave this place
For our own land and wished for banishment.”

But woman prayed, “Guide us to Paradise.”
Around them slunk the uneasy animals,
Strangely excited, uttering coughs and growls,
And bounded down into the wild abyss.

And overhead, the last migrating birds,
Then empty sky.  And when the two had gone
A slow half-dozen steps across the stone,
The angel came and stood among the shards

And called them, as though joyously, by name.
They turned in dark amazement and beheld
Eden ablaze with fires of red and gold,
The garden dressed in dying in cold flame.

And it was autumn, and the present world.

Karl Shapiro (1913 – 2000)

BIOGRAPHY

Karl Shapiro’s poetry received early recognition, winning a number of major poetry awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, during the 1940s. Strongly influenced by the traditionalist poetry of W. H. Auden, Shapiro’s early work is “striking for its concrete but detached insights,” Alfred Kazin writes in Contemporaries. “It is witty and exact in the way it catches the poet’s subtle and guarded impressions, and it is a poetry full of clever and unexpected verbal conceits. It is a very professional poetry—supple and adaptable.” Stephen Stepanchev notes in American Poetry since 1945: A Critical Survey that Shapiro’s poems “found impetus and subject matter in the public crises of the 1940′s and all have their social meaning.”

Although his early traditionalist poetry was successful, Shapiro doubted the value and honesty of that kind of poetry. In many of his critical essays, he attacked the assumptions of traditionalist poetry as stifling to the poet’s creativity. “What he wants,” Paul Fussell, Jr. maintains in Partisan Review, “is a turning from received and thus discredited English and European techniques of focus in favor of honest encounters with the stuff of local experience.” In lectures and essays, Shapiro championed the works and poetic theories of Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams, two poets who broadened the possibilities of American poetry by defending new prosodies of open form.

In the poetry of both Whitman, which he memorized in his youth, and the Beat poets, Shapiro found a confirmation of his own idea of feeling over form. In his collection The Bourgeois Poet, Shapiro broke with his traditional poetic forms in favor of the free verse of Whitman and the Beats. Critics observed that the new poems also contained insights and an apocalyptic tone that was shocking compared to other poetry being published at that time. Writing in American Poets from the Puritans to the Present, Hyatt H. Waggoner finds The Bourgeois Poet “a work of greater poetic integrity than any of Shapiro’s earlier volumes.”

Person, Place and Thing, containing poems that had won the Levinson Prize when published in Poetry magazine, was applauded by the critics. Directly confronting subjects such as love, the history of the South in which Shapiro grew up an outsider, or the war in the South Pacific in which he served as a medical corps clerk, the poems were received as palpable “attacks.” His most frequent target in the poems, relates Ross Labrie in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, was the “dehumanized technocracies” that fostered urban decadence and sent men and women to war without regard for their worth as persons. In a Poetry review of a later book, Love & War, Art & God, David Wojahn comments that social criticism has always been part of Shapiro’s work. Wojahn writes, “From the very beginning, Shapiro identified himself as an iconoclast, and his outsider’s role extended beyond his attacks on social injustice. At a time before it was fashionable to do so, he proudly proclaimed his Jewishness and set himself against the main trends of Modernism.” Coming of age in the United States had much to do with his development as an iconoclast. In his introduction to The Poems of a Jew, he wrote, “As a third generation American I grew up with the obsessive idea of personal liberty which engrosses all Americans except the oldest and richest families.” In a Paris Review interview, Shapiro explained how being both a Jew and a poet also partly accounts for his point of view as an “outsider”: “I’ve always had this feeling—I’ve heard other Jews say—that when you can’t find any other explanation for the Jews, you say, ‘Well, they are poets.’. . . The poet is in exile whether he is or he is not. Because of what everybody knows about society’s idea of the artist as a peripheral character and a potential bum. Or a troublemaker. . . . I always thought of myself as being both in and out of society at the same time. Like the way most artists probably feel in order to survive—you have to at least pretend that you are ‘seriously’ in the world. Or actually perform in it while you know that in your own soul you are not in it at all.” Wojahn points out that Shapiro’s stance as a social critic does not make the poems cynical. “For all his stridency, Shapiro could be a wonderfully tender poet. . . . This side . . . materializes in empathic portraits like ‘The Leg’ and ‘The Figurehead,’ as well as in the poems that focus on Shapiro’s experience in the military during World War II.”

Shapiro published the Pulitzer prize-winning volume V-Letter and Other Poems in 1944 while serving with the U.S. Army in New Guinea. V-letters were letters written by American soldiers and microfilmed by censors before delivery to the United States. The poems recreate the tension between the intensity of wartime experiences and a sense of detachment from events that many soldiers felt while trying to conduct their personal lives over the obstacles of distance and the added obstacle of the censors. Though he appreciated what the award would do to establish his career as a writer, Shapiro felt more honored when he found out that copies of V-Letter and Other Poems had been placed in all U.S. Navy ship libraries.

In 1988 Shapiro published the first volume in a planned three-volume autobiography. This first volume, titled The Younger Son, details Shapiro’s childhood and early manhood, including his World War II experience and the beginnings of his literary career. While “the poet,” as Shapiro refers to himself throughout the volume, divulges little information about his relationship with his parents and the experiences of his youth, he is more expansive when discussing his wartime tour of duty, when he managed a prodigious poetic output while caring for wounded soldiers. He arrived home in 1945, having just been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for V-Letter. Commenting on the author’s use of the third-person in the book and the resulting detachment from his life that is implied, Sewanee Review contributor David Miller notes that “The mood is an eerie one of diminishment and distance.” However, Miller concludes that “The Younger Son is beautifully styled, honest, and fascinating.”

Shapiro continued his autobiography with 1990′s Reports of My Death, the title referring to inaccurate media reports in the 1980s that Shapiro had committed suicide. The volume covers the period between 1945, when Shapiro returned home from World War II, and 1985, chronicling in the process Shapiro’s literary development; his stints as editor of Poetry and Prairie Schooner; his controversial decision to vote against Ezra Pound as recipient of the first Bollingen Prize for poetry; and his gradual fading from the literary limelight during the 1970s and 1980s. Again referring to himself in the third person, Shapiro openly discusses his numerous extramarital affairs, his disgust with the American literary scene, and his frustration at being dropped from the prestigious Oxford Book of American Verse. “Shapiro has written a beautiful book, not only tracing the long career of ‘the poet’ but doing so in dreamy, mellifluous sentences that sometimes left me feeling euphoric,” remarks Morris Dickstein in the Washington Post Book World. Several critics expressed disappointment with Shapiro’s decision not to date important events and not to identify people who figure prominently in his story. World Literature Today critic John Boening avers that “such indirectness may make the book rough going for future generations.” Nevertheless, Chicago Tribune Books reviewer Larry Kart declares that Shapiro’s two volumes of autobiography “not only rank with Shapiro’s finest poetic achievements but also will come to occupy . . . a high place in the canon of American autobiography.”

Examining Shapiro’s career as a whole in the Small Press Review, Leo Connellan remarks, “Poets owe Karl Shapiro, first for creating a sound and music in language that no other poet has surpassed.” Secondly, Shapiro has helped to support the work of new poets by including their works in textbook anthologies. New York Times contributor Laurence Leiberman sees Shapiro as one of “a generation of poets who . . . wrote a disproportionate number of superbly good poems in early career, became decorated overnight with honors . . . and spent the next twenty-odd years trying to outpace a growing critical notice of decline.”