Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Last summer when I was living in Brooklyn I was watching a doccumentary with my brother about Hitler and WWII. It was a doccumentary about Hitler's presence as an orator, and master of his own image. The narrator claimed that Hitler never let himself be photographed with his hands in his pockets. Thinking of this, not Hitler exactly, but where such an idea might of come from, the idea that being seen with hands in your pockets as a sign or weakness or ineptitude. Thinking of this I walked back the street back to my apartment, making sure that my hands and arms were swinging freeley, and trying to fill them with mindfulness, feeling it full on through to my fingers. I felt there was a difference, a way of being part of the city streets when inhabiting some kind of confident pose. Whereas, before, stuffed hands in my pockets and head down, I felt like I was a somehow vulnerable to the many sets of eyes I would walk past, the fact of my not rising to meet them an indicator or respect; for myself and thiers. So I worked on this, coupled with a quote from the Beastie Boys, "What's running through the mind comes through in the walk", thinking that a practiced posture will develop different habits, trying to be a better person. When walking down the street with a friend that summer, I told him what I was doing, thinking about a practice in moving. Telling the story much like the one I just told, his response was "Why do you want to be like Hitler?"