April 2012
23 posts
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A.S.U.'s Downtown Devil Newspaper Prints a Puff... →
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Book Review: Beyond Religion by H.H. The Dalai...
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by His Holiness The Dalai Lama (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover, $24) The Dalai Lama is one of the most misunderstood public figures, and he is misunderstood in two major ways. His fame as a spiritual teacher, combined with the warmth of his huge personality, makes it possible for people to enjoy his presence without actually hearing what he says, and...
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Rap, Rock, Racism and The New York Times
Mr. DoggMr. Zimmerman Yesterday, as I worked on my new novel, the soundtrack to my writing was the great Dr. Dre album The Chronic. As I listened, I thought once again about something that has always bugged me about The New York Times’ apparent house style when writing about rappers. The Times’ standard is to refer to its subject by title and surname, e.g. “Mr. Smith” or...
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Hunger
About 16 years ago, I spent New Year’s in Santa Fe, NM, with some friends who lived there. Early in the evening of New Year’s Eve, my friend Bett and I had dinner with two friends who were older than us, and who intended to make an early night of it. Bett and I had other intentions - we were going to the big party at the Railyard. But that was still hours away, so we headed into...
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Kevin Drum, Like Obama, Ignores the Existence of...
On his blog at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum compares Obama’s requirement that everyone buy health care to the law that requires car owners to buy airbags and insurance. He writes:
When I bought my last car, for example, I was forced by federal law to also buy seat belts and air bags — and as far as I know, no court has ever suggested the federal government lacks this power. Why? Technically,...
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Kevin Drum, Like Obama, Ignores the Existence of...
On his blog at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum compares Obama’s requirement that everyone buy health care to the law that requires car owners to buy airbags and insurance. He writes: When I bought my last car, for example, I was forced by federal law to also buy seat belts and air bags — and as far as I know, no court has ever suggested the federal government lacks this power. Why? Technically, of...
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Against Zen Evangelism
I know of a Zen teacher who tells people who come to his monastery for sesshin: “Don’t be too Zen when you go home.”
I agree with him.
I recently asked a Zen teacher who has a high profile and who wants to reach as many people as possible with the Dharma if he had any thoughts as to how to offer the Dharma without crossing the line into evangelism. I added, “In saying...
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Guest Blog Post: The Five Capitals by Larry...
In order for any community, anywhere, truly to thrive it must possess five different kinds of capital: 1. Human; 2. Social; 3. Political; 4. Intellectual, and, 5. Financial. No single form of capital can be dominant; unrestrained by the others, each can create its own types of imbalance, and concomitant problems. Conversely, none can be absent either. The five capitals are to a healthy human...
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Great Zen Books that Don't Mention Zen
When asked to recommend “Zen books,” my friend Deb Saint Sensei says, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover, or any other D.H. Lawrence book.” I agree with her. I think people in the West have a tendency to get confused between Zen and an Asian fetish, and so to overlook the rich Zen tradition in Western literature. Here are a few other great Zen books: Hombre by Elmore Leonard...
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Great Zen Books that Don't Mention Zen
When asked to recommend “Zen books,” my friend Deb Saint Sensei says, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover, or any other D.H. Lawrence book.”
I agree with her. I think people in the West have a tendency to get confused between Zen and an Asian fetish, and so to overlook the rich Zen tradition in Western literature. Here are a few other great Zen books:
Hombre by Elmore Leonard
...
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Art Review: Richard Bledsoe at Deus Ex Machina
St. Ness Oil on canvasThe recent paintings of Phoenix-based artist Richard Bledsoe take the viewer by surprise. When I saw a few of them at Deus Ex Machina gallery last week, I was simultaneously amused and chilled, and I was unsure which response was the stronger. I am still unsure, and I think this might be what gives Bledsoe’s work its power. St. Ness depicts a Loch Ness Monster that is...
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The Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin, Tragedy and...
In this post, M.V. Moorhead writes: Though they were on TV all the time, The Three Stooges shorts were never favorites of mine when I was a kid. There was something oppressive about the drab, monochrome world they inhabited. The constant, daunting work, for which they were ill-suited and at which they were existentially fated to fail, the incessant, tedious beatings, and browbeatings, of the mild...
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Who Is Talking?
I’ve heard from people who’ve downloaded my Dharma talks from the Zen Center website. Sometimes they have questions, and sometimes I don’t have answers - because I don’t remember the talks. This is a good reminder of the insubstantial nature of the self. If I don’t remember what I said, or why I said it, or what prompted me to say it, how can I claim that the talk is...
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Vince Larue in Phoenix
Vince Larue, the brilliant French artist who illustrated Regarde Les Hommes Mourir, and drew the covers of Kill Your Self, How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy? and Scumbo, is here with me in Phoenix for a week. This is his first visit to Phoenix, and it’s great to see him experiencing the places that he’s been drawing for the last couple years. Our graphic novel Dark Heat is finished,...
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Book Review: Hell on Church Street by Jake Hinkson
Hell on Church Street by Jake Hinkson (New Pulp Press, paperback, $13.95) From time to time, someone writes a first novel so perfect that it seems like something that’s happening rather than something being read. Examples are James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, Vicki Hendricks’ Miami Purity, Benjamin Whitmer’s Pike, and most of all, George V. Higgins’ The...
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Art Review: Peter Bugg at Willo North
Public Eye by Peter BuggOn Friday, I was at Willo North Gallery in Phoenix for the latest show curated by Robrt Pela. On display was work by the always-excellent Michele Bledsoe, Jeff Falk, Steve Gompf, and a fine graffiti artist named DOSE, whom I hadn’t heard of before but whose combining of images of Bob Dobbs and a Day of the Dead skeleton I found beautiful and unsettling. The standout...
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Joe Arpaio Will Remain Sheriff and Do What He...
People are getting excited because of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I wish I could share their enthusiasm, but I don’t expect anything to come of it.
The Feds have been investigating Arpaio for years now, and nothing has happened. He was sued by the Feds before, and nothing happened (though, as I reported, Janet Napolitano lied to cover up for him). If...
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Video: Of Darkness and Light
In celebration of The Wrong Thing’s being nominated as best novel of the year by Spinetingler Magazine (if you haven’t voted yet, there’s still time), here’s a video sample of my first novel, Of Darkness and Light, which has been tingling spines since 1989…
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