Learned in the Garden Today

Try sweeping with the iPod on. Something heavy coming through. Maybe The Mr. T Experience, for example. And the body begins to follow certain movements. Nothing like the classic Townsend windmill, or anything else that would startle the neighbors. No, it's more subtle, the move of a bass player perhaps, more fitting to the slim body and long handle of the instrument in hand. The move starts small, with a splay of the legs, back slightly arched, knees pointing outward in the way that the Japanese might call, Ron-Pari. Thus supported, the hips begin to sway back and forth, shifting balance taken up by the broom, busy waltzing with the leaves and the twigs and the dust.

On the turntable: Mr. T Experience, "Making Things with Light"

On the nighttable: Idries Shah, "The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin"

On the reel table: "I was Born, But..." (Ozu, 1932)