After The Nutcracker and Dispatches from the Yoga Wars

Last year, Spencer Dew wrote a piece about The Nutcracker for Sightings that I really liked and I meant to get it up before Christmas actually came, but since the Christmas tree in our living room is still up, I think it's not too late.

I have always had a great fondness for Tchaikovsky since I was first introduced to him and Rimsky-Korsakov in music class at St. Timothy's elementary school. I listen to the entire score of both The Nutcracker and Swan Lake nearly every week, and so I was pleased to be able to see the Carolina Ballet's production of The Nutcracker and Black Swan (both of which were great) two weekends ago.

My article on "dark tourism" at Jonestown for Sightings

From time to time, I publish a column on the online journal Sightings. It gives me a chance to write about things besides Hindu myths.

In the past I’ve written about Jesus rock, Charles Manson, and the role of Indo-European themes of hospitality in The Last House on the Left.

This week, I wrote a piece about “dark tourism” at Jonestown, which fits squarely in the 60s pop culture analysis niche I’ve carved out for myself (and by “the 60s,” I mean 1965-1975).

If I had more space, I might have talked about the 1980 made-for-TV movie Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones with Powers Boothe.

You can read it here.