Memory & Tibet

Greetings,

Here are a couple of new reads for you.

Moonwalking With Einstein...by Joshua Foer. 

..."Before writing was common, human beings had to use their own brains for information storage, and before books were indexed — making it possible to gain access to them in a nonlinear way — people labored under the “imperative to hold” books’ contents in their own mental hard drives simply to find particular bits of information. Poets in the oral tradition, like Homer, relied on repetition and rhythms and other patterns to recite their work from memory, and in the ancient world, exceptional memories were both exalted and widely known."

Colin Thubron a travel writer and novelist has published To A Mountain In Tibet. He has written about the Near East, Russia and The Silk Road.

“You cannot walk out your grief,” he tells himself. “Or bring anyone back. You are left with the desire only that things not be as they are.” This is the reason he has resolved to go “walking to a place beyond your own history, to the sound of the river flowing the other way.” 

Metta.

Who cares?

Greetings,

Here's an article on literature and how novels come to the internet by Laura Miller in The Guardian. She writes for Salon.

..."Do the people who constantly pester us for our opinions care what each and every one of us really thinks? Sort of and not really. What they require are opinions in bulk, so many of them that they can be analysed and averaged out and processed into useful data. Only then can they be sold, and then used to encourage us to buy more stuff. Our judgments matter, but primarily in aggregate, which makes us not so different from the faceless mass of television's audience as we are sometimes led to believe. The main distinction is that the crowdsourced are active collaborators in the commodification of their opinions, while TV viewers just get to sit on their duffs."

The Guardian...

Metta.

Temple of Literature

Sitting down in Hanoi. Before dawn Hoan Kiem Lake is tranquil.

Hundreds of residents walk the circumference, practice tai-chi, stretch, meditate, lift weights, play badminton, read morning papers, chat with friends, and relax. Women spin red fans as their teacher watches, instructing them in movement. Dance.

The Jade Mountain Temple sits on an island in the lake accessible by a narrow red bridge. Turtle Tower stands on a small island in the center of the lake. Orange light dances off the surface.

I walk to the Temple of Literature. Founded in 1070 as a Confucian temple and established at the first university or Imperial Academy in Vietnam in 1076.

Read more...

Metta.

We are all born free

We are all born free is a new children's picture book celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Synopsis:
We are all born free is an outstanding and beautiful picture book celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Artists and illustrators from all over the world offer their personal interpretation of the Articles, making them easy to understand for young readers. Children aged 6 and over will take great pleasure in discovering an exceptional illustration as well as a fundamental right on every page they turn.

Published by Frances Lincoln in association with Amnesty International, with forewords by David Tennant, who describes this collection as a 'beautiful book' in which 'you’ll find thirty rules for the world to live by' and John Boyne, for whom this book 'might be the most important one that you ever own.' 

We Are All Born Free has already been translated into more than 30 languages and sold over 200,000 copies.  more>>

Metta.