Author name: Susan Taylor Brand

Barbie Movie: 9 Clues to the Meaning of Life

Go past the shocking opening of the Barbie Movie, which has a laughing Barbie towering like a Greek goddess over a bunch of drab five year old girls smashing their baby dolls. (The scene is a reprise of 2001, a Space Odyssey, which might be a bit confusing.) Travel past to zoom in on Barbies

Reviews, Reviews and Writing

Will Tea Break A Fast?

Will tea break a fast? And how I maintained my weight all these years … drinking tea All this noise about intermittent fasting has brought forth the question of what, exactly is fasting? In a world of so-called “cheat days,” are there cheat foods for fasting diets? First: Will Tea Break Your Fast? First of

Lifestyle, Healthy Living

Bikram Yoga: A Brief Evenhanded History

Bikram Yoga changed lives and revolutionized studio practices. Without doubt there was misconduct. Yet many yogis feel they owe him a debt for his hot yoga practice, even as they question his methods. Heard today in the studio: “Who was Bikram? Isn’t he sort of controversial?” This post will attempt to briefly answer questions about

Yoga, Lifestyle

A Man Will Never Leave A Woman Who … What?

The vicissitudes of web mastering: People have been searching here for the phrase “a man will never leave a woman who.” This seems to be coming from publishing the blog post “Who are the man women will never leave.” But the whole thing troubles me. The truth is, at first brush I could only speculate

Relationships

Vanity Cooking and How it Diminishes Quality of Life

Martha Stewart No More? Hello America I have bad news to tell you. Which could actually be good news. In the last thirty years, you’ve been sold a bill of goods about cooking. Cooking is not a game or a recreational activity. Vanity cooking has obscured a human truth. Which is that cooking is work.

Cooking, Lifestyle

How Can There Be Good if There is No Evil?

I was making coffee this morning and I was suddenly struck by this thought: how can there be good if there is no evil? This question of whether there is evil has been bothering me. I’m sure everyone knows about the initiative to frame discussions in terms of “my truth” and the idea that everyone’s

Meditations, Philosophy

Why Do Some People Not Love (Ok, Hate) Yoga?

I was minding my own business reading a surf blog when suddenly the author interjected negative sentiments about yoga, “a holistic discipline that combines physical postures and ethical principles to promote physical and spiritual well-being. It does very few of these things in my experience except breed a superior minded person with stretched out tendons.”

Yoga, Lifestyle

Is Being Smart an Advantage for Dating?

A few months back I reflected on this question: is being smart an advantage for dating? Rob Henderson has said that it is: I’m basically smart, aren’t you? You’re reading for fun, that makes me think that you’re above average in intelligence. Less intelligent people are watching videos. But is it possible: Being smart an

Relationships, Philosophy
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