{"id":5725,"date":"2009-04-11T19:09:29","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T00:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5725"},"modified":"2009-04-11T16:13:47","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T21:13:47","slug":"the_perfect_ble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/11\/the_perfect_ble\/","title":{"rendered":"The perfect blend of East and West"},"content":{"rendered":"

On my way to the East Village last night, I stopped by a store which is arguably ground zero for shameless Orientalism in NYC, East-West books<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

This store is exactly as over the top and ridiculous as the name suggests. It’s the kind of place where one (White) salesman was dressed in a very handsome lime colored Chinese silk jacket while another (white again) had 3 sandalwood malas on one arm, several around his neck, and at least one on the other arm. Their list of books and other offerings<\/a> is very left coast, the sort of thing I encountered regularly when I lived in the Bay Arya, but rarely see in skeptical, ironic NYC.<\/p>\n\n

Soon after I entered, in the CD rack, I found Jaya Lakshmi’s<\/a> “Jewel of Hari.” I love the blurb that introduces the album: Yoga! Mantras! Flamenco! Veils! It’s nearly a perfect listing of New Age clich\u00c3\u00a9s, it has everything except Zen, Native Americans and gnostic wisdom. <\/p>\n\n

<\/a><\/center>\n<\/p>\n\n

My favorite item on sale, however, was the image of Obama as transcendant being, his third eye of wisdom a glowing globe. You see, this way he’s both seer and seen, because instead of an eye, we have the world which is perceived by the eye …. no, I didn’t get it either but then I’m still working on one hand clapping so more advanced koans (and Cohens) are beyond my meager capacity. <\/p>\n\n

Still, I know that somebody, somewhere has this up on their wall, perhaps garlanded and on an altar, and this thought provides me with an endless source of mirth.<\/p>\n\n

p.s. apologies for the poor image quality, these were surreptitious cell phone shots, not photos from a real camera. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On my way to the East Village last night, I stopped by a store which is arguably ground zero for shameless Orientalism in NYC, East-West books. This store is exactly as over the top and ridiculous as the name suggests. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}