X-Men: Days of Future Past
Pop Focus: Transcendental Meditation with the Beach Boys
The Beatles get credit for introducing Transcendental Meditation to the masses, but they weren't the only pop band to cross their legs and say "om."
The Beach Boys were right along with the Fab Four when it came to embracing the practice.
Mike Love -- along with Donovan -- was with the Fab Four when they visited India in 1968 to study with TM's founder the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The rest of the Beach Boys -- with varying degrees of enthusiasm -- also took up TM and the band mentions the practice in a number of songs, including the manic "Transcendental Meditation" off the Friends LP and the calmer "T.M. Song," which if the B-side to 1976's "Rock and Roll Music" single.
The group (or at least Love, Brian Wilson and Al Jardine) even recorded an L.P. at Maharishi International University in 1978, dubbing the result The M.I.U. Album. Hardly anyone liked it.
Back in the 1960s, taking up meditation or yoga was seen as eccentric and far out. The Beatles were even taken to task by William F. Buckley and others because they felt the band was leading youngsters astray from Christianity with these pagan practices.
Today, of course, everyone has a yoga mat and numerous medical journals have published studies showing that the radical practice of sitting down and breathing deeply for 20 minutes twice a day can lower your stress level and protect you from heart attacks.
I've not been through any T.M. trainings or prescribed a mantra, but I do meditate on occasion and wish I did it more often.
Here's a look at those Far East gurus, the Beach Boys:
The Beach Boys were right along with the Fab Four when it came to embracing the practice.
Mike Love -- along with Donovan -- was with the Fab Four when they visited India in 1968 to study with TM's founder the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The rest of the Beach Boys -- with varying degrees of enthusiasm -- also took up TM and the band mentions the practice in a number of songs, including the manic "Transcendental Meditation" off the Friends LP and the calmer "T.M. Song," which if the B-side to 1976's "Rock and Roll Music" single.
The group (or at least Love, Brian Wilson and Al Jardine) even recorded an L.P. at Maharishi International University in 1978, dubbing the result The M.I.U. Album. Hardly anyone liked it.
Back in the 1960s, taking up meditation or yoga was seen as eccentric and far out. The Beatles were even taken to task by William F. Buckley and others because they felt the band was leading youngsters astray from Christianity with these pagan practices.
Today, of course, everyone has a yoga mat and numerous medical journals have published studies showing that the radical practice of sitting down and breathing deeply for 20 minutes twice a day can lower your stress level and protect you from heart attacks.
I've not been through any T.M. trainings or prescribed a mantra, but I do meditate on occasion and wish I did it more often.
Here's a look at those Far East gurus, the Beach Boys:
Teaser and pics: Doctor Who - Mummy on the Orient Express
Here's peek at this week's episode of "Doctor Who":
Pop culture roundup: Twin Peaks; cartoonists who changed the world; Dylan's lyrics; Superman
Yeah, "Twin Peaks" is coming up. With that in mind, it's worth reading this fascinating re-review of the "Peaks" prequel film, the darkly troubling and ultimately dissatisfying "Fire Walk with Me." (I'm still excited about the new "Twin Peaks," though).
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Read about 16 cartoonists who changed a world (from an upcoming book on the same topic).
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The New York Times has details on a new collection of Bob Dylan's lyrics.
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The big news in comics creators' right last week was Marvel Comics' settling with the Jack Kirby Estate. Though details are scant, the upshot is Marvel paid a lot of money to Kirby's out of fear that - if a case went to the Supreme Court - the Kirby's might have a claim to at least some of the rights to the many characters Kirby created for the company over the years.
This week, lost in the shuffle, is the news that things didn't go nearly as well for the estate of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster vs. DC Comics. The Supreme Court opted not to hear the case. The upshot of this one is that, because Shuster made a deal with DC back in the 1970s not to pursue legal rights to Superman, the company would pay him, and his survivors a year pension of $25,000. Some of Shuster's family have since continued to go after DC, but the 1970s deal likely hurt their chances.
There's a good overview of the case here.
Read about 16 cartoonists who changed a world (from an upcoming book on the same topic).
The New York Times has details on a new collection of Bob Dylan's lyrics.
The book is not simply an update of the previous compilation, “Lyrics: 1962-2001.” Christopher Ricks, a British literary scholar on the faculty of Boston University (and the author of the 2003 analytical overview, “Dylan’s Visions of Sin”), edited the lyrics and wrote a lengthy, philosophical introduction, with the sisters Lisa and Julie Nemrow as co-editors.
The songs are presented chronologically, including alternative versions released as part of Mr. Dylan’s archival “Bootleg Series.” The album covers, front and back, are reproduced.
The way the songs are laid out is meant “to help the eye see what the ear hears,” Mr. Ricks said. “If you print the songs flush left,” he added, “it doesn’t represent, visually, the audible experience.” So refrains, choruses and bridges are indented. And where Mr. Dylan intended a line, however long, to be unbroken, it sprawls across the 13-inch-wide page.
The big news in comics creators' right last week was Marvel Comics' settling with the Jack Kirby Estate. Though details are scant, the upshot is Marvel paid a lot of money to Kirby's out of fear that - if a case went to the Supreme Court - the Kirby's might have a claim to at least some of the rights to the many characters Kirby created for the company over the years.
This week, lost in the shuffle, is the news that things didn't go nearly as well for the estate of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster vs. DC Comics. The Supreme Court opted not to hear the case. The upshot of this one is that, because Shuster made a deal with DC back in the 1970s not to pursue legal rights to Superman, the company would pay him, and his survivors a year pension of $25,000. Some of Shuster's family have since continued to go after DC, but the 1970s deal likely hurt their chances.
There's a good overview of the case here.
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