Tag Archives: Palm Springs

Trip to the Integraton in Landers, CA

The Integraton

Yesterday I went on the California Men’s Gathering outing (experience) to the Integraton, in Landers, California – which is on the way to Joshua Tree, just up the road from Yucca Valley, about 45 miles from Palm Springs.

The Integraton would take more space to explain than I have the expertise or time to do, so please see the link to their website, where it’s all explained in great detail.

The experience we had was called a Sound Bath. Basically, quartz bowls are played inside the rotunda of this building, and one taking the bath lies on his/her back, letting the sounds reverberate throughout the room and into the body, where they resonate with each of the chakras. This building has amazing acoustical properties, and the location is significant as a vortex of a tremendous amount of earth energy.

The story goes that George Van Tassel, who built the place in the 1950s, was visited by extraterrestrials who consulted on the design and intended for this place to be a haven for humans who needed to de-stress. I’m certainly all for that, and count myself in the group that should be de-stressed.

I found the experience to be interesting. The guide explained that because of the unusual gravitational energies surrounding this area, some people feel lighter in this place, and some feel heavier. During the experience, I felt it was like an extended Savasana pose (corpse pose) that we end yoga class with. I felt myself get extremely heavy, to where I could not move my limbs, as if I was sinking into the floor and becoming a part of it.

My mind would drift to dream-like imagery and topics, including a dream I think I had the night before, so it was a continuation. Then I would come back into my body, remember where I was, remember what these strange sounds (and not unpleasant sounds) were. Much like a meditation experience, that part of it.

Someone fell asleep and was snoring softly during this time (it takes about a half hour). So obviously, different folks have different reactions. In all, I’d have to say another cool slice from a very interesting area.

More photos:

This odd purple bed was just sitting there in the desert.

CMGers leaving the Sound Bath

Leaving the Integraton; that’s me in the mirror taking the pic.

Palm Springs: Mortgage crisis may delay local recovery until 2015

Link to Desert Sun article: Mortgage crisis may delay local recovery until 2015 | mydesert.com | The Desert Sun.

pool at Ramona Villas in Palm Springs

This was a fine kettle of fish to wake up to today, front page story in our local paper about the economy not recovering for four to five more years. So “the mortgage crisis may delay local recovery until 2015.”

I had a conversation with a friend last night about crashed real estate prices. Truly, if your home is only worth half of what you paid for it, what sense does it make to keep paying the mortgage on that original, fairy tale amount?
The main function of this ingredient is improving blood flow http://secretworldchronicle.com/category/podcast/season-nine-avalanche/page/2/ commander cialis to the penile region. We must free prescription viagra secretworldchronicle.com as individuals find the purpose that our creator designed us to persue. Existence of Sildenafil works like a cGMP inhibitor mainly for phosphodiesterase type 5, an enzyme, which soothes the movement of the illicit drugs but the illegal medicine trade is order cheap levitra going on as usual by the joint partnership of pharmacists and duplicate drug manufacturers. The whole world is moving and progressing and staying in the competition, we have sildenafil canadian pharmacy to keep fait on the available scopes and above all on you also.
We talked about the possibility of valuations rising again. But it was a bubble. They won’t rise to that prior level for years and years, if ever. For the amount of a mortgage payment on a 300K condo loan out here in Palm Springs, which would be roughly $1700 or so, not counting your HOA fees and such, you can easily rent a 3 or 4 bedroom single family home in a great area, with a pool!

It’s disheartening, frustrating, maddening and a looming national disaster – as so many people are in this situation. I wonder what will happen when they all realize prices are just not ever going to go up again, to any where near those record levels? What happens when everyone walks away? Continue reading →

The Dying Mall: Palm Springs

Palm Springs Mall lonely videogames and hallway

Palm Springs Mall food court, Gottshalks

I had to get my glasses fixed yesterday and found an (outstanding!) optometrist still open in this otherwise dying mall in central Palm Springs.

To be honest, this mall had seen better days even when I last lived here in 2006, but since then its anchor store Gottschalks has left, all the food court vendors are gone, as are most of the small local dress shops, and even the Christian Bookstore! Pathetic Ms. Pac-Man here couldn’t draw a teenager – and the high school is a block or so away.

Of course, at another end of this mall is a wonderful True-Value Hardware, with perhaps the gayest inventory available anywhere, and a short distance across the burning asphalt from there is the Camelot Theater complex, which is an authentic arthouse cinema and the location of the various PS film festivals. Additonally, in season, the Farmer’s Market occupies the parking lot on Saturdays.

I guess this is a story of the Great Recession. Palm Springs retail has often had hard going since all that moved down valley to Palm Desert and such years ago, but this is truly sad. Made me want to sit there and weep for the dying, or at least play some Pac-Man.

Two Subway Shorts: Touch and Subway Harmonies

Also from the Palm Springs ShortFest, two little movies that take place in the subway. In the 20 minutes inclusive that these films inhabit, there’s some serious emotional landscapes we cross with the female protagonists.

In “Touch,” (Jen McGowan, 2010) two women meet on the subway. The first woman we see is middle-aged, and appears worried or distraught. She’s too close to the platform edge. We’re worried for her. A chatty young woman joins her. She seems self-absorbed, anxious about the job interview she’s headed to. Will she understand what the stakes are for the older woman, right then and there, as we hear the ominous sounds of the train approaching?

still from Touch

Touch review

Like my college roommate Larry Fisher used to say, it’s not fear of falling, it’s fear of jumping!

In “Subway Harmonies,” (Leah Cameron, Canada, 2010) a fellow traveler has a secret. And it’s an amazing, fabulous one that slowly unfolds to us as we see her otherwise mundane Toronto day. Like Cinderella or the ugly duckling turning into the swan, Mrs. Wong transcends the ordinary to enrich us all.

still from Subway Harmonies

Subway Harmonies

Cohen on the Bridge: Rescue at Entebbe

Back to shorts I liked from ShortFest, part of the Palm Springs International Film Festivals.

“Cohen on the Bridge” refers to someone who arrives to save you from certain death. It’s a quirky phrase that means a great deal personally to the family of filmmaker Andrew Wainrib, who had relatives saved by one European “Cohen on the Bridge” during World War II.

This short is a black and white computer animated documentary about the 1976 Entebbe rescue, where Israeli Jews were held hostage at the airport in Uganda. This is a true life guns and planes hero story, better than any summer blockbuster because it’s true. The film builds so well, it had me on the edge of my seat for all 21 minutes. I also loved how the filmmaker personalized the story and brought us back at the end to the importance of “Cohen on the Bridge” and, by extension, that we all have Cohens in our lives. See it if you get a chance. The technology to do this is awesome. Here’s a video on the making of the film.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy4KTF3tAG8]

Cohen on the Bridge website

Desert Garden: 102 in the shade

Mesquite tree on the patio

Desert patio

I spent some time out here this morning watching a hummingbird that sat on a little branch in the shade. I can only assume it liked being in the shade of this big mesquite tree, which I planted in about 2006 and which has become enormous. It is so incandescently bright in the sun it’s surprising things don’t spontaneously combust.

Palm Springs Shortfest – Some Shorts I Saw

Better late than never: I volunteered at this year’s Shortfest in Palm Springs, and in the process, got to within hugging distance of James Franco.

James Franco

Alas, I did not get to hug Mr. Franco. I did, however, get to see some of the shorts, so I thought I’d say a thing or two about them here. Honestly, I am sorry this is so late, I mean, this festival ended almost two weeks ago. I’ve been depressed and scattered; I’m hoping a regularity in blogging, if I can find it, will alleviate the introspection.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyUWxV2rY-c]

Poppy, 11 minutes

From New Zealand and James Cunningham, an interesting GCI film about two Kiwi soldiers in the WWI trenches who find a live baby. And of course, what they do with the baby. I liked the message and the overall feel of the movie. Always assumed that trench warfare was no picnic, and this little movie does nothing to dispel that notion, nor should it. The only question I bring up is why CGI? I think the story, effective as it was, would have been more wrenching if we’d had actual actor faces to look at. I have some bias, of course, as I’m always thinking about employment in Hollywood and here are several roles that went to pixels. But don’t let that remark keep you from watching it when you get a chance. It’s quite good.

Born Sweet, 29 minutes

On the site link above is a trailer – I was unsuccessful on posting it directly here. This is a short film that told me about something I had no idea even went on – a huge problem of arsenic poisoning from wells dug by well-meaning aid groups in Cambodia. They actually made the lives of the people living in the areas they served so much worse by introducing this toxic substance into the water system. The film tells this story through the eyes of Vinh, a 15-year-old boy (who to me looked more like he was 10 or 11) and his daily struggles with the poisoning. The highlight is when he gets to video a karaoke for the country on the dangers of drinking the wrong water.

Gorgeously filmed, Born Sweet also fulfilled a major mission of the documentary form, which is to teach – as well as entertain, at least in this case. Filmmaker Cynthia Wade won an Oscar for Freeheld.

Benediction Awards press release link

Here’s the link to the press release issued yesterday about Benediction’s Reader Views award and Foreword finalist status.

Benediction Award Press Release

On the home front, I moved my stuff, and it’s now in boxes. I’m hoping to clear a path by the end of the week!

my makeshift desk, pardon the clash of the checked oilcloth table cover and the NOLA whorehouse lamp.

Throes of Moving…

I have been remiss about blogging in March. Tsk, tsk. I do have an excuse, I’m moving, and you know when you start ripping things off shelves and out of drawers, and put them in boxes, and place them in stacks in the corner or whatever, psychically other parts of your life also get compartmentalized and put away. For now. Put away for the moment. Here, at least, are a couple of pix of where I’m moving in Palm Springs, the condo with a lot of the new paint job done, and the piano which was moved to the desert yesterday from LA.

Jim's piano

Jim's Piano 2