Mind, Body and the Nasdaq Opening Bell
I have begun yoga exercises. This all started when my mother came to town the week before. My mother has loving blue eyes which can take on an intense stare when she is talking about something she believes in. She talked about yoga this way. She had started reading an out-of-print bestseller, a yoga memoir of a balding writer who had experienced, and written about, the art’s wonders.
I ordered two yoga DVDs over Netflix. One is called Yoga for Losing Weight (it doesn’t actually make you lose weight, it’s the balance of your mind and spirit which gives you the strength to go dieting, supposedly…) and AM and PM Yoga. And there I was, a week later in the living room, desperately trying to hold the poses illustrated on the TV set. After three days, I have not yet noticed anything divine, or miraculous going on within. The exercises do heat up my body, they give me a slight burning sensation in my palms (which I attribute to the work of the mind) and do relax my muscles. Only to give me cramps the next morning.
On a different, but equally newsworthy note, I was invited to see Larry King setting off the Nasdaq opening bell last Friday. It was a sympathetic publicity gesture that gave me an impressive glimpse of the American publicity machine (I spent nine months in China as a publicity manager, the comparison of American and Chinese publicity is illuminating my days). The ceremony took place, as it does every morning and evening, in the Nasdaq studios at the base of 4 Times Square. The crowd of journalists and publicists skirted around the ring of cameras. At the center of the semi-circle stood Larry King, and his wife (perhaps, probably). Two minutes before 9 30, everyone was asked to begin clapping “you are live” boomed a tall woman with a headset after she had detailed the hardships of clapping for two-minutes straight.
Countdowns, any countdowns, make me nervous. I guess they harken back to cinematic bombs which have crystallized in my subconscious through years of viewing and re-viewing. By the time I had finished thinking this, the Nasdaq market had opened.
