So tonight I went to my first yoga class in over a year. The teacher started off the class by giving some speech about the power of thought and the power of words. Words and thoughts that have a positive vibe are healthy and create positive energy, words and thoughts that have a negative vibe are harmful and create negative energy. To be healthy and to live mindfully, you must involve yourself in positive thoughts.

So with that, I give you, the Bay Guardian Wank of the Week

We actually have two this week because this week as we're going with more of a theme. One of the writers is having a serious Japanese Jones and wrote up reviews of both some an exhibit by some Japanese sculptor and an obscure Japanese art-flick that I'm sure was nothing more than an obscure Japanese art-flick even in Japan (thus making the writer that much cooler for seeing it- it's obscure in two countries).

Here's the money quote from the story about the Sculpture Exhibit, an exhibit that pretty much consists of Dolls With Attitudes

"What are these critters so angry about? What are they rebelling against? What have you got? Some observers might point to Nara's (the sculptor) guilty recollections of abandoning his dog as a child. Still others reach for Nara's musical inspirations – the soundtrack to his isolated days as a latchkey kid in northern Japan, one that today consists of new and old punk including NOFX, Sleater-Kinney, the Ramones, Green Day, Nirvana, the Clash, Sum 41, and the White Stripes. Selections by Eminem, Neil Young, and Gram Parsons stick out as musical aberrations, though like the sketched girls who yelp "Fuck!," they all embody an attitude that goes back beyond punk and rock 'n' roll to rage against a Japanese homeland that pounds down every nail that stands up and delicately forbids pubic hair from even the most ultraviolent and outrageous manga or hentai (anime porn)."

Thank you for listing his CD collection- Neil Young often makes me think of anime.

And here's the one about the obscure art-flick :

"RINGU RATTLED YOUR nerves, Ichi the Killer shot your equilibrium to hell, and Battle Royale declared war on your psyche. Now the trauma has faded, and you have to ask, "Where have all the Japanese cinematic scares gone?" The answer: the dis-ease can clearly, subtly be found in the lives of young Japanese women struggling for defined identities amid fluctuating gender roles, designer fashion, and the protracted recession of the past decade."

Love that "dis-ease" bit. And boy does that sound like a scary movie.

Now I know what you're saying- what about that whole "positive thought" bit? Shouldn't I be living more mindfully? Sure. But the way I see it, tomorrow's the start of the High Holy Days so all I have to do is fast next week and I'm golden.