Monday, June 27, 2022

Workout Circuits

First thing in the morning:

Situps - 24
Curls - 23
Dips - 23
Lat Lifts - 19
Shoulders (Front) - 24
Push ups 21
Shoulders (Back) - 23
Calves - 24
Single Dumbell Shoulder Raise - 9 (large)
Squats - 24
Jumping Jacks - 44

Last Thing at Night: (Yoga For Countering Sitting/Work )


Locust Pose - 22
Hand and Knees Wrist Stretch - 10 (one at time, each side, till you can do it both sides at once)
Modified Side Plank Pose - 24
Cobra Pose - 24
Downward Dog - 24
Low Lunge with Locust Arms - 20
S
High Lunge with Cactus Arms - 20
Warrior II Pose - 33
Locust Pose - 23
Camel Pose - 20 (still working to get there)
Supported Squat - 23 (prayer hands version, no block)
Seated Forward Bend - 23
Legs Up the Wall - 103
Sitting Lotus (switch legs, once each side) - 121
Jumping Jacks 43 


Weight Training:

1) 
Lunges 12 (alternate)
Pushups 22
Barbell Squats 22
Standing overhead big dumbell press 11
1/4 bent dumbbell rows (Small for now: 11)

2) 
Single leg deadlifts  4 
Burpees 4
Side Planks 21 (supporting arm bent for better support - when you can hold perfectly for a minute consider variations)
Sraight leg lifts on back 11 (toward chest/head)
Glute bridge 21 (laying down pelvic thrusts, on the last one hold for the seconds equal to the reps)
Crab Bridge 21

3)
Barbell Curls 17
Standing big dumbell 20 (alternating)
Sitting small dumbell 12
Wrist Curl 13
Hand Grips (Times, break, then hold for seconds) 17
Exercise ball walk 13


4)
Horse 27
Calf Raises 17
Deep Knee Bends 17
Small Dumbell Lunges 8
Large Dumbell walk 10


5)
Counter Dips 7
S
Tricep Presses 16
Lat lifts 16
Shoulder Press - front 16
Shoulder Press - back 12

6)
Push ups 19
Descending Push Ups 15
Elevated Push Ups 17
Four Limbed Staff Pose (Modified Plank) 31
Bear Walk 1
Core Roller

7) Sit up toe touch 19
Crunches 19
Leg Lifts 13
Side leg lifts 19
On back, legs toward chest 19
Farmers Carry with Large Dumbells 10

----------------------------------------------------

Work Routine:


Crunches 14 (method B - #11)
Curls 15
Airplane 15
Tree Pose 22
Standing Bow Pose - 20
Dumbell Curl 10
Tennis Ball on the wall
Back Roller
Goblet Squat w/ dumbell - 20
Arm Stretches, door frame, up & down - 3
Arm stretches on door frames - 20
Arnold Press - 10
Sitting, diamond leg, forward stretch - 20
Sitting, one leg extended - other brought in foot against crotch, side stretch - 20
Farmers Walk - 20 at work; 10 at home
Rotating shoulder shrugs (forward/backward) and neck stretches
Pointer stretch - ground| 22
Zottman Curl - 10 (little dumbell, when you do 20, switch)
Dead bug stretch - ground 24
Interlaced hands shoulder stretch - top of head, behind and above. Then interlaced behind lower back.
One Arm Swing - 10 (little dumbell, when you do 20, switch)
Opposite arms above and below (stretching upward downward) & gentle swing of arms/torso
(R/L)Calf/tendon and backward knee stretches
Dumbell Shoulder Press 22 (large, alternating)
Sitting in chair, cross leg, knee lift-stretch - 20
Sitting in chair, forward toward toe stretch - 20
Cross Body Hammer Curl - (large dumbells - 10 alternating arms)
Bodyweight Squats - arm upraised straight and along the head (32)
Plank - on weight ball (62)
Backward floor bridge plank - straightlegged 19
Backward floor bridge plank - bentlegged 19
bathroom/chair dips 19
counter dips 4
Legs elevated push ups 12
Calve lifts 29
Squats: partial 19
Horse 24
Straight arm plank 103
Forearm plank 103
Side Plank - right/left 15
Twist stretch in chair or standing
Push ups 25
Yoga side warrior pose 22
Yoga forward warrior pose 22
Yoga swan stretch - both legs 22
Yoga baby stretch 22
Face up cobra stretch & Down Face Dog 22
Push up stance/plank - alternating knee forward/back 28
Warrior II 33
Triangle Pose 23
Tree Pose 32 (work on v to the sky - both sides)
Bridge Pose 62
Seated Forward Folds 28 (work on getting lower as you keep your back from bowing)
Camel Pose 10 (work on perfecting)
Boat Pose 23
Backward Walking - 3
Toe to Heel Walking
Forward Step Up and Down 20
One foot up, hold position 33
Supine Transversus Abdominus Bracing with Leg Extensions (rotating, 11 each side)
High Lunge 22
Supine Spinal Twist 22

S
Staff Pose 20
Upward Plank Pose 20
Extended Side Angle Pose 20
Half Splits 20 (need to perfect)
Pigeon Pose 21
Half Lord of the Fishes 21
Thunderbolt Pose 21
Breathing Exercise 3
Kneeling on the Floor (61)
Sit Cross-Legged (61 each way)
Scissor legs 12
Garland Pose 21
Bridge Pose 30
Bear Plank 30
Bicycle Crunches 10
Hollow Body Hold 30
Diamond Pushup - 5
















Thursday, June 16, 2022

Nick Estes - The Empire of All Maladies: Colonial Contagions and Indigenous Resistance

One of the most potent myths of mainstream U.S. historiography concerns what Indigenous archaeologist Michael V. Wilcox calls “terminal narratives”: an obsession with the death, disappearance, and absence of Indigenous people rather than their continued, visible presence and challenge to colonialism. The most obvious example of this tendency are historical models that assign blame for the mass killing of the Indigenous to invisible, chance forces—above all, the diseases colonizers unwittingly carried with them—rather than to calculated warfare and theft over centuries of relentless European invasion. - Estes, Nick. "The Empire of All Maladies: Colonial Contagions and Indigenous Resistance." The Baffler #52 (July 2020)

The Northman (USA: Robert Eggers, 2022)





Even if “The Northman” had been a dreadful bore — and not a primal, sinewy, gnarly-as-fuck 10th century action epic that starts with a hallucinogenic Viking bar mitzvah, features Björk’s first narrative film performance since “Dancer in the Dark,” and ends with two mostly naked men fighting to the death atop an erupting volcano — the simple fact that financiers had the chutzpah to bankroll such a big swing in the face of our blockbuster-or-bust theatrical climate would have felt like a (pyrrhic) victory against the forces of corporate homogenization, no matter who was behind the camera. - David Ehrlich (source below)


The Northman (USA: Robert Eggers, 2022: 137 mins)


Brody, Richard. "The Northman: Just a Bunch of Research and Gore." The New Yorker (April 21, 2022)


Daniels, Robert. "The Northman." Roger Ebert (April 22, 2022)

Eggers, Robert. "The Northman: Anatomy of a Scene." The New York Times (April 29, 2022)

Eggers, Robert and Alexander Skarsgård. "The Northman - Behind the Scenes." (Posted on Youtube: May 2022)

---. "The Northman: Beserker Raid Break Down." IGN (Posted on Youtube: April 23, 2022)

Eggert, Brian. "The Northman." Deep Focus Review (April 21, 2022)


Feldberg, Isaac. "Norse Power: Robert Eggers Revives the Viking Age." Letterboxd (April 27, 2022)

Gabrielle, Matthew and David M. Perry. "The History Behind Robert Eggers’ The Northman." Smithsonian (April 22, 2022)


Hudson, David. "Robert Egger's The Northman." The Current (April 12, 2022)

Price, Neil. "Viking Expert Breaks Down The Northman Weapons." Wired (May 3, 2022)

Scott, A.O. "The Northman: Danish Premodern." The New York Times (April 21, 2022)

Strong, Hannah. "The Northman." Little White Lies (April 11, 2022) 


"What is the Slavic Language in The Northman." History with Hilbert (Posted on Youtube: May 13, 2022)

"Why The Northman is a Masterpiece." FilmSpeak (Posted on Youtube: May 2022)

Wilkinson, Alissa. "The bloody, fantastical The Northman refuses to be modern." Vox (April 25, 2022)




Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Lizzie O'Shea - The Judgement of Paris: Facebook vs The Communards


“Solidarity grows through increasing liberty, not through constraint or obligation,” writes [Kristin] Ross. “Personal autonomy and social solidarity do not oppose each other, but instead reinforce each other.” In an age in which online spaces feel more divisive and polarized than ever, perhaps it is time to ponder how we can create conditions of personal autonomy that give rise to greater social solidarity. Perhaps it is the structure of these spaces that is at fault, rather than the individuals within them. Centrally determined “community standards” enforced by automated takedowns and de-platforming might generate tendencies that are more infantilizing than civilizing. A sense of freedom with responsibility in online spaces is unlikely to be cultivated when those who set the boundaries of good taste and political correctness are more interested in applying constraint than promoting solidarity.

...

Put differently, what constitutes acceptable content is always a political question, constantly being negotiated and renegotiated by those who hold power and those who do not. Public bodies, like courts and parliaments, are often the forums for such debates, which is why they are a common focus of struggle. In the digital age, however, enormous private entities like Facebook (or Twitter, or Google, etc.) are increasingly the hosts for these discussions. When citizens and policy makers ask Facebook to curate content or design algorithms to do so, the implicit assumption is that people cannot be trusted to have these conversations themselves. Of course, some people are awful online—and this can have real world consequences, for which we need remedies. We need to have cultural norms and practices that minimize this behavior, that cultivate shared understanding and mutual respect. But we ought to be careful about assuming that tech companies can achieve this by us appointing them as cops.

...

We could start with the assumption that these digital spaces are open and belong to the public. Why not require that the design of the newsfeed algorithm be made transparent? Why not allow people to redesign their content feeds and become active participants in creating their own sense of self rather than having it curated for them by a tech bro? Why not ban the microtargeting that underpins and animates this business model? A data extraction approach to monetization operates by exploiting our emotions to keep us hooked as audiences to be sold to advertisers. As essential pieces of digital infrastructure, why do we accept that these platforms remain in private hands, beholden to the bottom line?

We could pay moderators to manage groups of a particular size, and allow those roles to be elected and accountable, much in the same way as we might pay district council members or representatives. Imagine a social space on the internet that wasn’t filled with ads! Imagine a web where content moderation decisions were governed by a public charter with an accountable board of elected representatives. Perhaps it is even possible to conjure a platform that doesn’t leave complaints about harm buried in some cyber slush pile, but that actively found a strategy to take those complainants seriously and to design rules around resolving their concerns. Platforms, services, and tools could be designed not just for the average user but with the most vulnerable user in mind. Maybe you don’t like these ideas (maybe you do), but maybe there are lots of other ones out there, waiting to be articulated, discussed, adopted, tested, or discarded.

By breaking down the divide between action and consequence in online social life, we might start to “set capacities in motion” that aim to rebuild a sense of freedom with responsibility. It is an argument against outsourcing politics to machines and the few who build them, and in favor of greater public participation by the many in rulemaking in the digital age. It’s not to say it would be a seamless experience of delight; it would certainly feature conflict. But it could be a place where people could collectively explore ideas in conditions of freedom, without being organized in a clandestine way by billionaire tech overlords.

O'Shea, Lizzie. "The Judgement of Paris: Facebook vs The Communards." The Baffler #56 (March/April 2021): 9, 11-13. 

Thursday, June 2, 2022

The Innocents (Norway/Sweden/Denmark: Eskil Vogt, 2021)




 The Innocents (Norway/Sweden/Denmark: Eskil Vogt, 2021: 117 mins)

"Four children become friends during the summer holidays, and out of sight of the adults they discover they have hidden powers. While exploring their newfound abilities in the nearby forests and playgrounds, their innocent play takes a dark turn and strange things begin to happen."
Nicholas, Alexandra-Heller. "The Innocents." Alliance of Women Film Journalists (April 22, 2022)

Saito, Stephen. "Eskil Vogt on What Leads to Bad Behavior in The Innocents." Moveable Feast (May 13, 2022)

Tallerico, Brian. "The Innocents." Roger Ebert (May 13, 2022)

Vogt, Eskil. "The Innocents." Film at Lincoln Center Podcast #397 (May 13, 2022)





Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Zadie Smith: "In my capacity as a writing teacher, I've noticed, in the classroom, the emergence of a belief that fiction can or should be the product of an absolute form of 'correctness.'"

 "In my capacity as a writing teacher, I've noticed, in the classroom, the emergence of a belief that fiction can or should be the product of an absolute form of 'correctness.' The student explains that I should believe in her character because this is exactly how X type of person would behave. How does she know? Because, as it happens, she herself is X type of person. Or she knows because she has spent a great deal of time researching X type of person, and this novel is the consequence of her careful research. (Similar arguments can be found in the interviews of professional writers.) 

... Writing is a far larger act of presumption. Sensing this, we seek to shore up the act of writing with false defenses, like the dubious idea that one could ever be absolutely "correct" when it comes to representing fictional human behavior. I understand the desire - I have it myself - but what I don't get is how anyone can possibly hope to achieve it. What does it mean, after all, to say "A Bengali woman would never say that!" or "A gay man would never feel that!"? How can such things be possibly claimed absolutely, unless we already have some form of fixed caricature in our minds? (It is to be noted that the argument "A white man would never say that!" is rarely heard and structurally unimaginable. Why? Because to such a self is to be afforded all possible human potentialities, not only a circumscribed few.) --  Zadie Smith. "Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction." The New York Review of Books (October 24, 2019): 6, 8.