Barry Graham's Blog, page 61

WHO’S AFRAID OF MACHIAVELLI?I think Machiavelli’s...

WHO’S AFRAID OF MACHIAVELLI?

I think Machiavelli’s analysis of power is the most brilliant I’ve ever read, so I enjoyed this BBC documentary about him. I have two quibbles with it, one minor, one major.

The minor one is that it is historically erroneous to claim that Neil Kinnock was beloved by the Labour Party during his time as its leader. He was a deeply divisive figure, loathed and despised by much of the party’s membership (including me at the time; I’m one of the many who left the party b...

For Father's Day

For Father's Day:

I’d been drinking a bottle of root beer. It was on the floor at my feet. I picked it up and went to the kitchen. They’d stopped yelling at each other and were talking calmly now. They both looked at me as I came in. My mother didn’t say anything. My father said, “Get out of here. We’re talking.”

I didn’t say anything either. I just swung with all of my weight and smashed the bottle of soda on the top of his head. He was lucky that it shattered on impact, or it might have frac...

I’ve written before about how Portlanders love to wait in...

I’ve written before about how Portlanders love to wait in line. I took this photo this evening outside of Salt and Straw on NW @23rd. While the great and the good complain about homeless people obstructing the sidewalk, it’s obviously fine for hordes of rich people to take it over.

I notice that the more a neighborhood gets gentrified, the more you see groups of nobs commandeering the sidewalks. I suggest the judicious use of shoulders and elbows as a way of democratizing the streets.

Under the Skin, a realistic depiction of Glasgow

I saw Under the Skin a couple days ago. It’s superb, and very different from the novel it’s based on, which I couldn’t get through. In the film, the characters aren’t named, no explanation or backstory is given, and we’re not privy to anyone’s thoughts or motivations beyond what we see them do. There’s little dialogue, and most of it is in Scots without subtitles, though Scarlett Johansson speaks with an English accent. Her performance is brilliant an...

How is the mental practice of zen meditation different than mindfulness

I’m not all that knowledgable about mindfulness/Vipassana, beyond some casual reading about it. My lifelong practice has been Zen. There seems to be a lot of overlap between Vipassana and the Zen practice of shikantaza (“just sitting”), and thought-labeling as taught by Charlotte Joko Beck. The biggest difference I can see is between Vipassana and koan practice.

For comparison, I recommend the books Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn andTaking the Path of Zen by Robert Aitken. Th...

The Last Tiger is Tony Black's most brilliant and resonant novel so far

When Tony Black’s first novel outside of the crime genre - His Father’s Son - was published, some saw it as a departure for the author. It wasn’t. Black has always been deeply concerned with father-son relationships (the heart of his Gus Dury novels), and His Father’s Son was a deepening of that exploration. Now The Last Tiger - set not in urban Scotland but in Tasmania - goes even deeper. It’s the best book so far by this fearlessly honest and compassionate writ...

My French publisher just sent me this article that appeared in...

My French publisher just sent me this article that appeared in Premier magazine a couple years ago. It seems I’m a white trash Buddhist monk and one of the most touching and interesting authors of my generation.

Zen and The Wire

In the great TV series The Wire, Major Howard “Bunny” Colvin has a habit of randomly asking his police officers: “Where are you right now?” When he asks, he expects them to be able to give their precise location - the street corner or address, the floor of the building, the compass direction they’re facing.

It’s a good question for the Zen practitioner, especially if applied to more than geographic location.

Where are you? Who are you? What makes it “here”?...

Three new stories from Bart Lessard

I wrote a few weeks ago about the greatness of Bart Lessard. I’m now happy to report that he has three new stories on Kindle. Click on each cover image for a link.

Ray Glister owes money to the wrong people. To have him make good on the debt, a crime syndicate has put him to work in a basement. There he uses his skills in magazine production to make illicit pornography. He thinks he has seen the worst of it. He is wrong—and it turns out that he is not alone.

Thirty years have passed since...

M.V. Moorhead reviews One for My Baby

M.V. Moorhead reviews One for My Baby:

“This noir quickie is violent, erotic, and capped, in its jolting climax, with an unexpectedly cheeky dash of black comedy. Set, as so often with Graham, in the bars and crashpads of Phoenix, this gripping tale is about as much fun as $2.99 can buy you these days (a dead-tree edition is also available, for a few bucks more).”