Barry Graham's Blog, page 14

the zen of an angry, tattooed monk

bird tugs worm out of soft
ground
worm does not think "this should
not be happening."
—Daishin Stephenson, from outside into the cave

More at Angry, Tattooed Monk

THE PERENNIAL ADOLESCENCE OF JORDAN PETERSON

Reading this essay in The Guardian, it strikes me once again that in their myopic and monomaniacal view of something called "masculinity," Jordan Peterson and his followers are not men, but boys.

Luridly retro ideas of what it means to be a strong man have gone mainstream even in so-called advanced nations. In January Jordan B Peterson, a Canadian self-help writer who laments that “the west has lost faith in masculinity” and denounces the “murderous equity doctrine” espoused by women, was hai...

The perennial adolescence of Jordan Peterson

Reading this essay in The Guardian, it strikes me once again that in their myopic and monomaniacal view of something called "masculinity," Jordan Peterson and his followers are not men, but boys.

Luridly retro ideas of what it means to be a strong man have gone mainstream even in so-called advanced nations. In January Jordan B Peterson, a Canadian self-help writer who laments that “the west has lost faith in masculinity” and denounces the “murderous equity doctrine” espoused by women, was hai...

Bodhidharma's tomb, Glasgow

Visitor

Haiku

snow plunges
from tower block ledges
like falling bodies

If His Cave Was In Glasgow

snawin like fuck
Huike staunin ootside
shivrin

"Bodhidharma, ya cunt
let's in
ur A'll cut ma fuckin erm aff"

Zen: centuries of sexism

Me with Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck and her dog Lilly While Buddhism's arrival and arising in the West has many problems, I think its most important achievement might be the prominence of female teachers. In Zen retreats, we chant the lineage of ancestral teachers, and, egregiously, women don't appear on the list except in Western sanghas with recently dead teachers. As Norman Fischer explains in this article, some sanghas are now correcting this.

In our sangha, we end that chant with...

The Guardian's misquoting T.S. Eliot proves the importance of punctuation

The Guardian has recently published several articles about an art exhibition inspired by Eliot's poem "The Waste Land." Because the exhibition is in Margate, they're keen to quote a part that mentions the place. However, at least three articles in the paper misquote it, changing its meaning.

While trying bizarrely to reduce the poem, which has multiple voices,  to a personal depiction of mental illness,  Jonathan McAloon claims: “'On Margate Sands,' he wrote, 'I can connect / Nothing wit...

Haiku

winter street —
dog turd on pavement
shape and colour of autumn leaf