HOT (damn) YOGA

I got duped into a session of HOT YOGA two nights ago at Yoga to the People on 27th St in Chelsea. "Oh I didn't tell you it was hot yoga?" my friend asked 2 minutes before we entered the studio. If he had, i wouldn't have gone.  I'd never done any yoga before, and I wouldn't think one's first time ought to be in a room set at 110 degrees.  But since I was already there, and I have been looking for ways to improve my fitness, I decided to give it a go.

When we walked into the lobby, there were two sweaty men sitting on the floor whose eyes seemed to cry out, "heeelp ... meee." For some reason I didn't think anything of it.

I got changed, filled my water bottle and then entered the studio.  At that moment I realized I was in for something.  The heat in that room was unlike anything I've ever known.  When it's hot like that outside, the sun is usually beating down on you with bright light.  But this room was totally dark, so my body wasn't quite sure how to respond. The simple act of breathing was disarming because you could actually feel the heat in your lungs when you inhaled.

And it smelled like a sex party.

We were allowed to trickle into the room over the course of the next half-hour or so, I guess to give people time to come to terms with the fact that they'd be spending their Monday evening in an oven.

What happened over the next hour is kind-of a blur. It was challenging in that the poses, stretches and contortions weren't made up of my usual daily body shapes. The forms rely heavily on balance and the engagement of very specific muscles. At one point, my heart was racing and sweat was raining down onto my rented mat as though I'd just stepped out of the shower.

It's a very strange sensation to be standing perfectly still while you're pouring sweat and your heart is beating double-time.

I had to stop once and catch my breath while the class carried on.  I re-joined a moment later, once i realized that while you're in a room set on low-broil, there is no breath there to catch.

I thought I might vomit, or collapse.  And honest-to-God I considered running for the door, leaving and never looking back. But I pushed through.  Ann-Elise, the instructor, later said, "if you're feeling like you might be sick, maybe that means you haven't been very good to your body lately and the real you is trying to break free."

So many times we are tempted to stay inside our boxes of normalcy, never to venture outside of our usual, daily poses. And even when we do, something inside will say, "wait! stop! you shouldn't be doing this."  Yoga is good for the body and the spirit because it is about pushing yourself beyond what you think your limits are.  Your body gets to move in new ways, increasing circulation to remote areas of underused bloodlines. And in your head, you understand better how you do have your own personal limits, but they're never as restricting as you think they are.

I learned something about who I am the other night. The light inside and the untapped potential are dying to break free. And all it took was a solo game of masochistic twister to show me.

Incidentally, at the end of the hour, I lay there for at least 15 minutes, unable to do anything but breathe. When I mustered a little strength, i basically crawled to the window to get to fresh air. Later, when i was able to get up, I walked to the bathroom, stuck my head under the faucet and drank the cold New York City tap water and--i shit you not--LAUGHED because it tasted so damn good.

I'm going back tomorrow.

UPDATE: Lonely Guy from poster was a comedian

According to this NY Post article, excerpted below, "Jeff, One Lonely Guy," is publishing a book based on the more than 65,000 responses he received from his weird poster that The Urban Boy Scout brought you back in December. I knew it couldn't be for real...

When a pimp calls to cheer you up, you know you have problems.

After Jeff Ragsdale, a stand-up comedian and actor from Harlem, was “near suicidal” following a painful breakup, he posted fliers around the city soliciting other forlorn New Yorkers to reach out.

“If anyone wants to talk about anything, call me (347) 469-3173. Jeff, one lonely guy,” read the fliers, which he plastered across the Upper West Side, Chelsea and the East Village in mid-October 2011.

A pimp soon responded with some free advice.

“You know, you’re too old to be posting your number on the streets, man,” he said. “What kind of chick would meet a guy from a street poster?”

ANGEL CHEVRESTT

FREQUENT FLIERS: Actor/stand-up comedian Jeff Ragsdale posts one of his “one lonely guy” fliers, which have triggered a flood of responses from across the globe.

He ended the exchange with an offer of “great women by the hour.”

Another man called to ask for advice about buying a co-op, and a Goldman Sachs trader gave him updates on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Others gave advice, and many vented about their own issues.

The first day, he got 100 calls and texts. A week after the flier went viral, he got a thousand texts and e-mails a day. To date — he’s still taking calls — 65,000 texts and calls have come in.

One day, he spent 16 hours on his smartphone.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/hey_we_re_lonely_too_jjtpdcWm72z57AQpA9C8GM#ixzz1pYxHYgG8 

Trapped in the Elevator!

Tonight I spent a half-hour stuck in an elevator in my building.  And I lived to tell the tale.  Below there are 2 separate videos documenting my captivity...

In the next video you'll hear even more of the disembodied voice of Satan laughing at my plight. I didn't panic, but any longer and i'd have pissed myself!

So now what? Do you think I should ask for a rent discount or something? I feel like some of my uptight neighbors would probably raise hell. I should march into the leasing office and demand compensation for my lost half hour and my pain and suffering, right?

Review: Marieann Meringolo's "You Must Believe in Spring!"

Early in her set at uptown supper club Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, Marieann Meringolo asked her audience coolly and without irony, “Would you choose to be reincarnated for your lover?”

“No,” cried a voice from the audience, evoking a roar of laughter from the sparsely populated room.

Unscathed, Ms. Meringolo replied, “Well, you’re really going to have to use your imagination for these next few pieces.”

And she carried on, singing her collection of songs by Michel Legrand, most of which featured maudlin lyrics by sap-squad Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

That moment illustrated the inherent disconnection from her audience that Ms. Meringolo worked hard to bridge throughout her performance.  I’m not sure she ever managed to, but she certainly did try.

In cabaret performance the banter between songs is almost as important as the tunes themselves.  It serves to expose the real person beneath the characters, stripping away the artifice thereby endearing the performer to her audience.  Also, it should offer a light-hearted break from the sometimes high drama of the musical numbers. 

Ms. Meringolo’s songs were ballads: some loud, some soft, all saccharine.  The banter that should have been a respite after each foray into the Bergmans’ dated, schmaltzy sentimentality became instead an extension of it.

After singing songs with lyrics like “The world is like an apple whirling silently in space,” she chose to describe her relationship with music in this way: “The words of a song are the wine in a glass, and the music is the way I drink it into my soul.”

As directed by Eric Michael Gillett, this show was just too much heavy, serious emotion.  Even Macbeth had the porter scene to lighten the mood.

And then there’s the singing.  Ms. Meringolo is a singer of considerable strength and stamina.  She is at her best when she is understated and gentle, but she simply cannot resist the urge to finish every song with a modulation followed by a full-throated fortissimo. 

The best song of the evening, “Pieces of Dreams,” found Ms. Meringolo standing plaintively on stage, without vocal histrionics or melodic embellishments.  Her simple, straightforward crooning was sweet and pretty, and it conveyed the melancholic longing in the song’s lyrics.  For a moment, she was Streisand.  But then the band changed keys, and she put the pedal to the metal. 

Rather than “drinking the music into my soul,” like a glass of that lyrical wine she spoke about, the ending had all the subtlety of a frat-party keg stand.

A recipient of both Backstage Bistro and MAC Awards, Ms. Meringolo should stop trying to prove herself as a vocal powerhouse, and instead focus on telling stories with her songs.  The voice is there, and it is fine.  If she would let the song be the star, her talent would shine even brighter.  When a singer’s power is greater than her passion, it can raise questions about her artistic credibility.  Look at Christina Aguilera. 

Ms. Meringolo seemed perfectly at home in the beautiful, intimate, Feinstein’s, singing her concert “You Must Believe in Spring!”  She joined the audience off the stage for a number or two.  Once, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror that happened to be across the room, and briefly sang to her own reflection.  It was in these moments that she was most accessible, because they were charming in their casualness.

And I must mention her band.  The obviously well rehearsed trio of musicians had the benefit of being led by pianist Doyle Newmyer.  Ms. Meringolo, too, would have benefitted from such masterful guidance.  I can’t wait to see her perform a concert in which she herself is properly directed.

Marieann Meringolo’s "You Must Believe in Spring!" runs through March 18 at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, Park Ave & 61st St. For info or tickets call 212-339-4095 or visit feinsteinsattheregency.com 

Review: The ThreePenny Opera

my review for EdgeNewYork.com published 2/13/12

Hidden inside an unassuming building on Manhattan’s west side, tucked away on its third floor, hides the TGB Theater, a small but suitable black box where Marvell Rep has assembled one of the most collectively talented casts currently performing on a midtown stage.

"The Threepenny Opera" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht is a pioneering work of the musical comedy genre and one of those oft-produced shows that, despite its existence in several varying translations from the original German, has become a standard of the American theater. Sometimes when a show is such a steady presence on the New York scene (it has seen seven Broadway mountings since it premiered in 1933), we view each new production with a nostalgia that can temper the work’s impact.

Artistic Director Lenny Leibowitz has made sure that this production will not be viewed through that lens of nostalgia, but with a fresh and nuanced gaze. It is not simply a remounting of a treasured piece from the canon: it is a living, breathing-at times, exciting-theatrical experience.

The sprawling plot line begins with Peachum, an entrepreneur in Victorian London whose business is to demand a tax from all the street beggars in town, finding out that his daughter has spent the night with Macheath, a dastardly criminal known colloquially as Mack the Knife.  We have previously been introduced to Macheath during the prologue by one of the beggars, the delightful (and delightfully pants-less) Stephen Sheffer singing the show’s most famous song, "Mack the Knife," which chronicles Macheath’s history of murder, larceny, rape, and general heartlessness.

In the second scene, the pathetic wedding of Macheath and Polly Peachum, we finally meet our antihero. Cruel and thoughtless he may be, but there’s no question why Polly would fall for such a bad boy: as played by Matt Faucher, Macheath is also strong, sexy, and charismatic.  Emma Ronsenthal’s Polly is no shrinking violet in the shadow of Macheath’s muscle. She brings a fearless, devil-may-care quality to the naïve Polly, and her renditions of "Pirate Jenny" and "Barbara Song" are feats of musicality and acting, respectively. Her name could be above the title.

Other stand-out performers include Joy Franz, deftly navigating a rather pronounced vocal break as the sneering, conniving Mrs. Peachum; Chad Jennings, who brings character-actor competence and leading-man charm to corrupt cop Tiger Brown, and the wonderful Ariela Morgenstern, whose bribe-taking prostitute Jenny Diver looks like a jaded, unbowed Natalie Wood.


As it is the benchmark of Brecht’s Epic Theatre movement, "The Threepenny Opera" should, in production, continually remind the audience that they are viewing a play. Rather than be caught up in the action and transported to an alternate reality a la Stanislavski, we are aware of the artifice.


To act as aides memoires, the ensemble of beggars and whores introduce each scene and song with a hand-painted sign suggestive of those carried by Peachum’s beggars. They draw a patch-worked set of red satin curtains, every swing of which evokes the billowing scarlet from Macheath’s bloody past.


Brecht’s London is a town populated by beggars, thieves, and whores. Corruption is the standard. It’s kill or be killed in this Marxist send-up of Capitalism gone haywire. Macheath gets double-crossed by just about everyone he knows but still doesn’t have the good sense to get out of town. He uses his every opportunity for escape instead as a time to go and have sex with prostitutes. This is what happens when lust for hedonism precludes the anticipation of its consequences.


Brecht did not want to be preachy and pious in this cautionary tale, but in the end (somehow) Macheath gets what’s coming to him. The show may be close to a hundred years old, but I’m still not going to tell you the ending. Go see it.


"The Threepenny Opera" plays in repertory through February 28 at TGB Theater located at 312 W. 36th St, just west of 8th Ave. for more information, visit www.marvellrep.com

Brazil! Brazil!

a review of mine for EdgeNewYork.com published 2/15/12

The New Victory Theater is a microcosm of Times Square’s transformation through the end of the last century. In the 1940s it was home to Minsky’s Burlesque. Throughout the 1970s and 80s it was a porn cinema. Today it is the city’s only theater devoted to performances geared exclusively toward children and family audiences. My, how things have changed!

But its current show "Brazil! Brazil!" is probably not what comes to mind when you think of Children’s Theater: "Hansel and Gretel" this ain’t. It is a love song to -- you guessed it -- all things Brazil. It is a plotless, hour-long, fast-paced celebration of the music, culture, and global influence of the Brazilian people. And it’s actually pretty sexy.

Throughout, there are video projections of a soccer ball (canary yellow and Kelly green, the Brazilian National football team’s colors, naturally) bouncing its way through the streets and beaches of Rio de Janeiro, past street artists, footballers, children, and adults.

Co-Creators/Co-Directors Toby Gough and Dr. Hana Al Hadad have produced a show that takes us on that same journey, catching glimpses of Brazilian life and customs, from the point-of-view of a wandering, run-away soccer ball.

"Brazil! Brazil!" is part concert, part circus, and part dance theater. A five-piece band remains onstage throughout the performance, providing the soundtrack for all the festivities. With its two electric guitars and drum set, it is more of a rock-n-roll band than a traditionally Brazilian one, though it does feature heavy on Brazilian rhythms and percussion.

One of the first vignettes is a showcase of Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates dance and music. Here we are introduced to the show’s five strapping dancing men who will go on to dominate the bulk of the performance. This Capoeira is a tightly choreographed pseudo-battle with rapid high-kicks and quick spins that leave the audience dizzier than the shirtless heartthrobs onstage. It is interesting to note that the Capoeira is performed to up-tempo samba music rather than a traditional capoeira bateria.

While the Capoeiristas catch their breath and change costumes in the wings, a trio of "freestyle footballers" who have seemingly magical powers over their respective balls entertains us. These three have pretty impressive resumes when it comes to freestyle footballing. One of them (John Farnworth) participated in the 26-mile London Marathon all the while keeping a ball in the air. (Incidentally, during the marathon he was representing and raising funds for HIV charity Kick4Life.)

The children in the audience are particularly impressed by these gravity-defying soccer stunts. Judging by the "ooh’s" and "aah’s" coming from the crowd, I imagine they were all practicing with their own soccer balls the next morning.

The extravaganza is peppered with appearances by two beautiful women (for which Brazil also happens to be well known). Paloma Gomes sings a few traditional sambas, occasionally duetting with Mickey Beigi, who, in addition to being a dancer, is essentially the evening’s emcee.

But it is Gianne Abbott, lead dancer, who tries with lightning-fast gyrating and soulful dance moves to steal the show. Occasionally, she succeeds. Even after she leaves the stage at the show’s conclusion, one gets the impression that she continues dancing right into the elevator of her hotel.

"Brazil! Brazil!" arrives in New York after touring Europe, UK, and Australia as a show that could be Brazil’s theatrical ambassador to the world. Even if the families in the audience don’t understand every reference to lambada or samba or Carnival, the cast’s love and devotion to their own culture is obvious and infectious.

"Brazil! Brazil!" runs through February 26 at the New Victory Theater, 209 W. 42nd St. For information on tickets or attending a Capoeira workshop, visit newvictory.org.

NYC: The Rat Race Illustrated