Barry Graham's Blog, page 96

Francois Truffaut's 400 Blows: Too Painful to Watch, Too Important Not to Watch

This past week, I’ve been reading a collection of interviews with Francois Truffaut. I have a strange relationship with his film The 400 Blows.I think it’s one of the most perfect films ever made, and an important record of how hopeless life can be for children - but I find it almost unbearable to watch, for exactly the reasons that I admire it.

A friend once asked me if I would ever consider writing an autobiography, and I told him it wasn’t necessary, because my childhood i...

Towards a Fifth Foundation of Mindfulness: Dhamma and Decolonization

Towards a Fifth Foundation of Mindfulness: Dhamma and Decolonization:

Foucault, Marx and Fanon are as essential to my understanding of compassion in action as any Buddhist scripture, so I’m glad to read this by Kenji Liu in Turning Wheel:

As I would sit for long periods of meditation during silent retreats, I could sense the effects of capitalist discipline on my body. I recalled how my body and mind had been reluctantly trained to accept the nine to five work day. I felt my relationship to ca...

No One Is Born, So No One is Born Again

Author and Zen teacher Lin Jensen (whose books I recommend) recently posted an essay called “A Growing Circle of Heresy” challenging superstitious ideas of past lives. I wasn’t surprised by his note that no Buddhist publisher wanted it; the sad reality is that the Buddhist world (especially Zen) is as mired in orthodoxy, and as mean-spirited, as the worst of the fundamentalist Christian world.

Jensen’s piece brought to mind something I wrote on the topic of rebirth (whi...

No One Is Born, So No One Is Born Again

Author and Zen teacher Lin Jensen (whose books I recommend) recently posted an essay called “A Growing Circle of Heresy” challenging superstitious ideas of past lives. I wasn’t surprised by his note that no Buddhist publisher wanted it; the sad reality is that the Buddhist world (especially Zen) is as mired in orthodoxy, and as mean-spirited, as the worst of the fundamentalist Christian world.

Jensen’s piece brought to mind something I wrote on the topic of rebirth (whi...

Reassurance

In 1988, shortly before I began writing Of Darkness and Light, I read this from Kenneth Patchen:

“Come now, my child, if we were planning to harm you, do you think we’d be lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest?”

criminalwisdom:HYSTERICAL LITERATURE: THE ORGASM AS ART...

criminalwisdom:

HYSTERICAL LITERATURE: THE ORGASM AS ART (NSFW)»

In his latest project, Hysterical Literature, photographer Clayton Cubbitt takes a beautiful woman, places her at a table in front of a black backdrop and gets her to read from her favorite book while an unseen accomplice below the table attempts to bring the woman to orgasm with a vibrator. The results are an intimate, sexy experience that captures a beauty rarely found in most modern pornography.

More here.

I first saw the work of the French graffiti artist Space Invader...

I first saw the work of the French graffiti artist Space Invader in Banksy’s film Exit Through the Gift Shop.

Five Easy Fixes: Guest Post by Larry Fondation

We don’t have an economic crisis. We have a political crisis. The poor are not the problem; gays are not the problem; immigrants are not the problem; rich people are the problem.

We don’t have a spending problem; we have a revenue problem. We don’t have a social security problem; again, we have a revenue problem. The list goes on.

So here are “five easy fixes” — were we either to have the power on the side of the 99% or the political will on the part of “progressive” political leaders to...

daishinstephenson:slugDaishin Stephenson is an artist who...

daishinstephenson:

slug

Daishin Stephenson is an artist who meets life where she is. In this film she made when she met a slug, her camera eye accepts, but does not pursue or try to control. As the slug moves, the camera stays. She shows us its presence, its leaving and its absence.

Some Notes on Activism and Agitation

A friend who is becoming interested in social justice asked me for suggestions, from my own experience, of how to approach elected officials. I advised her to read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and she told me she was already in the process of reading it. I wrote to her:

Alinsky is a genius when it comes to organizing and activism. I only disagree with him on two points: I think he misunderstands Machiavelli, and his comments about “working within the system” are problem...