Got to meet one of my filmmaking heroes at HotDocs Film Fest a few weeks ago, documentary legend Frederick Wiseman.

More than a couple times on my own films I’ve started out trying to do something in a Wiseman mode but then quickly changed courses when I realized how difficult it is to simply observe. When future historians or aliens or androids or whoever comes along next wants to see what American (and sometimes French) life was like during the last bunch of decades, they could do no better than cooking up some space corn, settling into their retractable hover-boy, and tuning into any one of  Wiseman’s treasures.

He’s currently in post-production on a new film set in Jackson Heights, Queens—widely considered to be one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the world.

Two views of Toronto:

The first is my daily perspective.

And here’s a shot from Toronto Island I got recently.

This is the 5 minute version of a 30 minute film I made this year about Fire Lotus Temple, aka the Zen Center of NYC, on the occasion of its 15th anniversary in Brooklyn.

Since 2002, Times Square has been hosting a giant, all-day, free outdoor yoga festival on the summer solstice as a counterpoint to the New Years celebrations that take place 10 days after the winter solstice. This year, 16,000 people pre-registered for five different classes. I feel quite fortunate to have been involved, even if it was just editing together all the footage. Though I have to say, there’s nothing like sitting in a darkened room, hunched over a computer, editing 15 hours of yoga classes to make you feel like a knotted snarl of linguine that was left in the pot over night.

Big thanks to Aradhna for supplying the music.

Originally uploaded by creative_arson

Following some recent wanderings, my friend Madeline asked me to write an article for her excellent travel blog, Gypsy Atlas. This week she’s been posting the results in segmented fashion. Click HERE to read all (or something) about Left Coast Zen.