Thursday, December 29, 2011

Well, Howdy-Do!

The Vetali's Gift, a Tantric Buddhist Vampire Romance.

I had a shiver of "Xena, Warrior Princess" mashup anticipation when I came across this, via Buddhist Geeks. 

The Disclaimer:  "This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living, dead, or in-between is probably intentional, but not to be taken seriously.

"This novel is for entertainment purposes only. Obviously you should not assume that anything on a web site with a name like “Buddhism for Vampires” is religiously or historically accurate.

"Do not try this at home. The stunts in this story were performed by highly-trained Buddhist professionals, under carefully controlled conditions. Attempts to imitate them may result in injury or undeath."

And  the Acknowledgments: "Should any actual Buddhism be found in this book, it is thanks to my teachers, particularly Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen. They are, of course, not responsible for my monstrous distortions (intentional and otherwise) of the precious Dharma."

And people think Buddhism is for wimps.  Hah.

The author, by the way, is one David Chapman, who writes and speaks on Buddhism as it is shaking out and waking up in the wild, wild West.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Somewhere on the Misty Mountain

... is my junior-high memory of reading "The Hobbit."

Of course by now everyone knows that Peter Jackson's movie (or at least Part I of it) will be out a year from now (those evil marketers, dangling this in front of all the fans!).

Now, "The Hobbit" was not one of my favorite-ever reads.  I kept waiting for the "good part" that my friend had promised me when she loaned me the book.  I turned the last page and wondered what the "good part" had been, and why did I miss it.

Looking at this trailer, I cannot for the life of me remember what the journey into Mirkwood was for, or who was along besides Gandalf and Bilbo.  All that really stuck with me was Bilbo getting the Elven short sword, and naming it Sting (couldn't listen to the Police, ever, without remembering that).  And that there was a dragon named Smaug. 

And, of course, the REAL delight - Bilbo finding the Ring, meeting Gollum, and the riddle game.

"What hassss it got in its pocketssssessss?"

The "Hobbit" trailer sets up the Company, but not the Quest.  And it emphasizes the discovery of the Ring.  So I guess they figure a good portion of their audience is pretty much in my position.

For the record, I did swing passionately through the LOTR books during high school!  So I'm not a total jerk.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Love Letter from Genre to Literature

... cuz you know they just can't quit each other.

I love that Horror and Fanfic write their own letters in the comment thread.

Commenter at 7:56 pm 12/14/2011 says,  "The important distinction among books is well-written and poorly-written. [Philip K.] Dick et al. have been adopted into the wider canon because they can write well."

I just picked up the recent literary best-seller Her Fearful Symmetry,  and it is a flat-out ghost story -- definitely well-written.

And this gets us to the question, Just what does "well-written" mean, anyway?   Page-turner?  Rich use of language?  Surprising ideas and/or emotions embedded in the action, descriptions, and dialogue?  Plot and character developments that startle but feel organic?  Authentic "voice" in the narration and dialogue?  The sense of a world?  I've picked up "best-sellers," even stuff from Oprah's book club, that had at best two of these elements.

In the news, we lost Russell Hoban last week and now Vaclav Havel.  I has a sad about that.

More happily, the local indie book store has sold out of Yu: A Ross Lamos Mystery, and will be ordering more for me to sign -- because friends who recieved my e-mail realized that they want to give the book as a gift!

Yay!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

This Holiday Season, Give the Gift of ... SLEEPLESS NIGHTS!


YÜ: A ROSS LAMOS MYSTERY

Better Than Coffee! Available to all e-Readers at SMASHWORDS.COM ...

Or, support any independent bookstore in the USA by going to INDIEBOUND.ORG and using their awesome ordering system!

 “It seemed you were writing about me and, actually, a number of people I know.… The result was that I put in a few sleepless nights as I read "Yu" from cover to cover.” – Mark F, Denver CO

“Going to sleep without knowing the outcome of Ross Lamos's circumstances was unthinkable.”  -- Kristine Smith, Author, Serval Son: Spots and Stripes Forever

“The story was intriguing and each chapter had a hook that kept you from putting it down.” – Amazon reviewer

“It so exciting that I did not want to stop reading. I had to find out what happened with Ross Lamos, his special gift, and his connection with the Jade owners. ... Ancient Chinese art and a smart mystery mixed with Buddhist wisdom make a soul rewarding read. Don't miss it. I will read it again. “—Amazon reviewer

"I started to read it like a book ... then I inhaled it like some kind of addiction.” – Don S, Seattle

 “The blend of contemporary times and ancient China mingling back and forth with different tempo and pacing was masterful. Learning about swords and Buddhist dogma, the marketing of provenances dotted the stories of dating and intrigue of ancient royalty power grabs. All that and more kept you riveting to the page. There is something for everyone in these tales and more than one surprise ending. A great summer beach read or by the fireplace or late nights of unable- to -put -the- book -down bed reading.” – Amazon reviewer

I loved this book and it was a breath of fresh air. The historical elements were done well and the contemporary parts of the tale were woven in seamlessly.” – Dhympna DuMaurier, blogger, Culinary Carnivale

The author delicately weaves the past and present stories together, enticing the reader into this mystery, giving only glimpses of the whole, until it all comes together in a shocking and unpredictable ending. It left me stunned.” – Alan Chin, Author, Island Song

“A Ross Lamos series holds the promise of both past and present, sexuality and spirituality, coming together in a way that heals and reveals reality at its deepest, while giving the reader the pleasure of a page-turning mystery. So I look forward to more books in this promised series.” – Mark Horn, blogger, Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Friday, November 25, 2011

Slow Healing

My strategy against this common cold has been to sleep all day over Thanksgiving break, thus boring it to death.

 But there is a favorite band playing in about two hours at a local pub.  If I order tea and don't dance, maybe I will be all right.

Rock 'n'  roll can resurrect much of what we love in this world, but I want it to leave this cold alone.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Love I Am Love

Just watched the 2009 movie, I Am Love, which I bought just so I could marvel at the divine Tilda Swinton.  She has left me breathless ever since Orlando, way back in 1992.  I had a full-size poster of Tilda as Orlando, in black Elizabethan man's garb.  *Swoon* I wish I had not lost it. Moves and penury notwithstanding, I would have it still. 

Thursday, November 17, 2011

"Armistice Night"

My entire short story, "Armistice Night," is now posted online over at Electron Pencil, Starts out with a shout-out to a local book purveyor, the Book Savoury; scroll down to find my entire story.

"Armistice Night" was a 2006 Finalist, Adult Short Story, in the Pacific NW Writers Association Literary Contest.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Another View of Occupy

This essay also came across Facebook, but the author has given permission for his friends to copy and re-post it.

The author is Antero Alli, a filmmaker, radical astrologer, and performance art/ritual "instigator" living in Berkeley, CA.  I have worked, played and grieved beside Antero, and respect him to my marrow.  I think this is one of the finest things he's ever written.


On the Occupy Movement...

by Antero Alli on Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 4:25pm
The Occupy Movement.  At first, I did not know what to think about the Occupy Movement except that it looked like a massive protest against Wall Street greed and the oppressive Banking Industry.  It’s about time, I thought.  As a teenager in the Sixties, I recall how that revolution took to protesting against the USA in Viet Nam -- but  Occupy was not about war, it looked like it was about money...about how 1% of the populace was controlling global finance and how the 99% were getting the short end of the money stick. That was my first impression yet it felt too simplistic to me, like, the tip of the iceberg.  So, I stepped back and kept watching.

As more and more cities across the world found solidarity in the Occupy movement, I saw and felt a new kind of hope as more and more people left their cocooning homes, got out onto the streets and talked to each other.  This much alone remains worthy of celebration.  As I witnessed more people waking up to each other and sharing their personal and collective grievances and outrages (around being victimized by an oppressive 1% economic minority), I saw a deeper force of rebellion surfacing; a force deeper than money.  If the protest was triggered by the shock of economic oppression, the essence was not economic but social - was this a social revolution?  This perception felt like I was closer to understanding something important but I didn’t know what it was yet.




My mind backtracked to the Eighties’ Reagonomics era when consumerism seriously spiked towards a perpetually increasing investment of collective consciousness into the dollar.  By this time, money was also barely worth the cloth it was printed on (as an almost infinite amount of cloth kept being printed). I imagined millions of people being gradually duped, and duping themselves, into thinking money was more real than its intentionally symbolic nature.  Without realizing as much, many of us were eating the menu instead of the meal in a  collective hallucination resulting from confusing the symbolic for the real, the virtual for the actual.

Do the research: money is not “real” - money is a confidence game measured by Wall Street and consumer credit.  By the dot.com era, not only was money on the brain in a bigger way but the internet became the hot, new vessel for absorbing collective consciousness.  Here in cyberspace, countless “second life” online communities and pornographic  promises seduced anyone whose mind had already slipped enough to confuse the virtual for the actual.  Meanwhile, global banking systems and people’s hard-earned cash were transferred into the virtual domain of digital economics.  It’s a magic trick!  Where did all the money go?



Back to the Occupy Movement. As I see it now, the O.M.. is not a protest against the bad economy, though many O.M.ers may disagree, but a protest against the entire culture itself. Money was just the catalyst or rather, the absence of money shocked the collective consciousness that’s been overly-invested in money for too long.  At its highest level, the O.M..  looks like it’s spearheading a cultural revolution in an attempt to extract itself from the influences corrupting our shared humanity.  These influences include whatever destroys our capacity to discern between an image of something and the reality that image represents. At essence, this “image vs. reality” confusion seriously diminishes not only our capacity for direct experience but more critically - of trusting firsthand experience as a source of authority.

At its core, I see in the O.M.. the human spirit struggling to assert itself over the brain-numbing amnesia we’ve all been subject to over the last thirty years.  To what degree O.M.. succeeds in breaking cultural trance on a scale that actually makes a difference  is yet to be seen.  In my world, this trance was broken long ago.  From my perspective, cultural trance can only be truly broken within -- at the level of the individual.  From here, we can branch out in contagion by our living presence to catalyze the awakening of others and to become strengthened by those whose personal example inspires our own.

Culture is bound together by language and words. Words, like drugs, can act as triggers to neurological states but when words (and symbols) are confused for the realities they represent, we can easily fall under their spell and become as legends in our own minds. If you can fashion your mind to see beyond the mind, you may begin accumulating enough 'cultural immunity' to stop wasting precious time and energy fighting the culture.  The culture will always win that fight.  Culture is not our friend.  Culture will eat you alive and spit you out. There’s a big difference between fighting against something and knowing what is worth fighting for.  I think what is worth fighting FOR is consciousness itself.  Don't take my word for it.  Break trance. Take a moment out of time and see for yourself.  Are you ready to occupy your consciousness ?



artwork by James Koehnline www.koehnline.com

Articulating the Heart of Occupy

I want to share a piece that came across the silicon net of Facebook.  If I leave it there, it'll disappear in the infinite scrolling that builds up and discourages real reading.

This a YouTube video, "Love a& Shadow in the Occupy Movement," featuring an amazingly articulate guy named Michael Stone.  It was shot at Occupy Vancouver. Two favorite quotes from Michael Stone:


"Love is not just a feeling -- it is what emerges when we give each other our face, when we give each other our attention, when we give each other the space to really listen to a diversity of viewpoints."

"We are cultivating intimacy, that's arising out of difference. This the spark that I would call Love. And it's what's carrying us, and what's warming us up. And it's the reason why we're going to win."

 I get goosebumps just pasting that text in. 

Another view of Occupy at the next blog post.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Back At Last, and More!

I am such a Bad Blog Mommy!  My poor little digital baby has been neglected and unfed.  Here I have been traipsing around the Southwest, Northwest, and Midwest since August, doing writerly things, having a blast, and not a word out of my ThunderMouth.  Such a mushroom, I have been.

Well, one thing I can announce right now: My 2006 short story, "Armistice Night," is being serialized at Electron Pencil, a new blog set up by my pal Big Mike - Michael Glab, that is.  Big Mike followed his Loved One from Chicago down to the Lap of the Goddess, the Knee Dimple of the Dharma, the Suprasternal Notch of Jesus - Bloomington, Indiana.  SoCent, as Big Mike calls South Central Indiana.

Big Mike is a dab hand at the daily rant.  He is also a major character, and in just a couple of short years has gotten acquainted with the movers & steamers here in B-Town.  Electron Pencil aims to illuminate the quality of creative juice that drives us here in SoCent.  (We tend to like activities that go around in circles: Roller Derby, go-cart racing, Little 500 bike race, circumambulating the Courthouse square looking at art galleries on First Friday, etc.)

One of my favorite Big Mike moments was listening to him give a play-by-play account of a juggler's act, on the radio.  He had done his homework, like any good sports announcer, and he mentioned the juggler's YouTube presence.  I called up YouTube and was able to watch the juggler's act online as Mike described it on the air.

So check out Electron Pencil for a daily dose of Big Mike -- and the next serial installment of "Armistice Night"!

Friday, August 5, 2011

An Offer Especially for E-Readers!

Were you swept away by my book, YU: A ROSS LAMOS MYSTERY?  Have you been trying to get your friends to be just as enchanted and entertained as you were?  Would they rather have FREE STUFF TO READ?  Tell them about this offer -- especially if they are caught up in their e-books!

A 2,000-year-old murder … a modern-day suspect … Three Imperial Chinese jades have kept the secret.  Psychic art dealer Ross Lamos must see it revealed, before the jades vanish again!

FREE DOWNLOAD FROM SMASHWORDS.COM!
Coupon Code for YÜ: A Ross Lamos Mystery: YB32G
Expires: October 3, 2011.    Promotional price: $0.00

$16.95 in trade paperback, ISBN 978-0-9845751-4-5
http://www.openbookspress.com, wholesale to booksellers through Ingram, Baker & Taylor,and others .

$2.99 at Kindle.com and Smashwords.com. Apple and Sony e-readers use ISBN 978-1-4524-9977-2

FREE SHORT STORY: “The Emperor’s Ring,” at Smashwords.com, from Chapter 6 of YU.
FREE CHAPTERS at www.joyshaynelaughter.com.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Do Not Join That Club

Listen up, rock stars and other artistes! Dying by overdose is trite, boring, conventional and places you squarely within everybody's expectations. Break out of the box. Rebel. Dare to engage with life and live to a grand old age - something that will shock everyone.


The genius who lives has nothing left to prove to anyone.



Friday, July 22, 2011

About Faith

A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook status, and I had to share.

FAITH
by Bill Scheffel
Unconditional faith is not something to believe in but something to know. It is not forcing myself to believe but encountering something believable, something undeniable, something innate. The encounter itself is intangible, a substance I cannot collect, bring home, or experiment on. I cannot prove its existence or even that it happened. Faith is packaged intangibility as terrain, an invisible homeland we emerged from, or once crossed over, or slept on for a night - that continues to exist as a spiritual echo or postcard.

The text says, “That mind of sadness, possessing faith, free from thought is the profound tradition of the genuine great warriors.” Faith is an innate aspect of the mind of sadness - which is unconditional sadness: the all-embracing mercy, love and compassion that is an ocean without shore, distributed evenly and without beginning or end throughout the timeless and unbounded cosmos. It discovers us as gravity, intangible attraction. The mind of sadness possesses faith as the universe is possessed by gravity.

The mind free from thought is like the moon without space probes or discarded fuel tanks. A perfect sphere of non-interference that has no diameter. The thought that goes looking for something it can never find is freed by outer space and faith flares in countless unique constellations. The profound tradition of genuine great warriors are those who open to witness this immensity without location.

These warriors have journeyed though countless light years of aloneness. Since awake travels at the speed of light they became ever closer to themselves. On an endless journey, they have nothing to dispense but gravity itself; compassion or mercy in all its faces - terrible fires or the miracle of water. The most perfect geniuses of awakened warrior-ship travel faster than the speed of light, which explains how they might arise between the thought we just had and the one we haven’t had yet. The gap in thought is our invisible homeland and our faith the felt evidence of each of their visits.


Bill Scheffel
31-May: 2009  Boulder
http://westernmountain.org/

Thursday, July 21, 2011

New Review Up at Amazon!

I really hope all that they say about word-of-mouth advertising is true -- because word of mouth about YU is just marvelous.  This is from a lady who was loaned a copy of YU by a friend of my mother.

"WHAT A WONDERFUL BOOK! The author paints pictures with her words so real that they draw you into the story. I swear that I could detect the smells rising from the pages. I wondered "what was real and what was fantasy." I was there in that story and loved it. I didn't want it to end. A great mystery written in intelligent lovely prose....almost poetry. It so exciting that I did not want to stop reading. I had to find out what happened with Ross Lamos, his special gift, and his connection with the Jade owners. IT is especially wonderful read aloud. Ancient Chinese art and a smart mystery mixed with Buddhist wisdom make a soul rewarding read. Don't miss it. I will read it again."

Oh my!  

Sunday, July 17, 2011

A Moment of Clarity ...

"One way to look at the US economy is this. We have 14.5 trillion on a credit card with a low introductory rate of 2.9%, good indefinitely. If we are late with even one payment, the interest rate adjusts to the default rate of 29%. And politicians are actually arguing that we should skip a payment and take the penalty, to demonstrate their regret for having run up the balance in the first place."

Thanks to Scott McCaulay of Indiana University.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Meet Me In St. Louis ...

I am headed for Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention for writers, readers, fans, publishers of mystery fiction! St. Louis, Sept 15-18. Promotional goodies for YU: A Ross Lamos Mystery will be in 1600 swag bags.  One of them will be available to everyone starting in August or September -- I'll let you know when it's up!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

E-book is out!

If you e-read, check for YU: A Ross Lamos Mystery at Smashwords.com. It should download for any reading device.

Price is $2.99 at Smashwords and at Kindle.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

A Stargazer's Ecstasy

Today is Monica Wilson's 61st Birthday and 49th day since her passing -- in the Buddhist tradition, this is the completion of her journey through the Bardo realm.  Next stop, rebirth somewhere!  And I know she will stay with me to guide more writing.

So, in her memory, this link to an awesome astro-video.

View and rejoice.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Literary at Last

I have my first in-print, by-ghod literary journal publication.  The fogey part of me is tickled by this milestone; my other literary publications have been online.

The journal is BACOPA, out of the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, Florida.  It's an annual book and really very good, high quality poetry and fiction.   The story is "The Stronger," set in Southern Indiana in 1910 and based on my grandfather's life as a bookish farm boy.

"The Stronger" is the title story of a four-story collection, all based on memories and family legends from my grandfather's life,  reaching from the 1870s to the 1950s.  Hopefully the next story will soon find publication, too!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Aw, tell me what you REALLY thought!

My friend Don, from the Seattle area, bristles at the requirement that he actually buy something from Amazon.com in order to be able to post a review there.  He got YU: A ROSS LAMOS MYSTERY as a Christmas gift.  So, I'll put his remarks right here:

"I started to read it like a book ... then I inhaled it like some kind of addiction. I usually only read for fun on vacation or business trips on airplanes. Ask Bev (my wife) how many mornings she found me in my chair reading your book before digging into email!!!!

I told Bev that she needed to read it. She inhaled it too.

I totally cannot believe that this is the first book you have written. I can't say what I enjoy more, the story line, or the jumps back and forth through time to tell the story."

Thanks, Don!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

OMG You Guys!

I just read through this page at the web site of A Room Of Her Own, sponsors of the writing retreat at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM, that I am honored to attend in August. Yes, that Ghost Ranch.  Georgia O'Keefe Ghost Ranch.

 I cannot beleeeeeeve that I will be sharing a dorm-style bathroom with many of these ladies!

I have a lot of homework reading to do.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Here and Gone

At 4:44am, on 4/11/11, Monica Wilson passed beyond the veils. Monica was the great, majestic friend who showed me her Han Dynasty jades and told me the story of her life and tragedy in the Chinese Court more than 2000 years ago ... and I knew this was a story that was mine, too, and I had to write it as a novel.
She touched thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest with her energy and charisma; she steered her complicated, extended family as matriarch and anchor of passionate good sense;  she bore and raised four exceptional human beings, helping each of them understand their exceptional past lives; she guided children of the Sakya Monastery sangha through the beginnings of Dharma practice in Buddhist Sunday School.
She read cards and astrology charts for a huge clientele, helping people find balance and hope, while divining the World's Changes in their struggles.  She was a glutton for information (oh, Gemini!) and snacked on conspiracies. (We got off on challenging each other.)
Monica's wild intuitive talent was grounded by expert critical thinking, and her leadership of spiritual discussion groups (aimed at really raising consciousness) transformed the strange into the straightforward. For so many people, hanging out with Monica raised our tolerance threshold for weirdness into the stratosphere.  
She changed us, her friends and clients, collaborators and onlookers.  The space left empty by her passage out of this world into the Other is large.  
We will fill it, by becoming the people she taught us to be.
Vale
 

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Who's That Girl?

A new review of YU is up at the blog "Culinary Carnivale," a delightful melange of reviews, recipes, and reflections.  And the reviewer, who it turns out lives here in my town, is the wonderfully-named Dhympna DuMaurier.  I just had to say.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Book Promotion and So Much More ...


Today, YU and I sponsored a day of the Spring Fund Drive for WFHB Community Radio in Bloomington, Indiana -- my home town, and current place of residence. See www.wfhb.org for live online streaming.

Is this something more than a way to get my book mentioned twice an hour, all day and night, heard in six counties? Well, yes. I have volunteered with WFHB since 2007 in the News Department, and its accomplishments in service to the six-county area are astonishing.

As a full-power FM community broadcasting non-profit, WFHB is is run and programmed entirely by volunteers, more than 200 of them, plus four paid staff members. This makes the station's content, format, planning and administration fully accountable to the community -- its volunteers and listeners.

With local news and election coverage, a free-form music mix, free publicity for service non-profits, and generous focus on local bands and venues, WFHB does more with its under-$250,000 budget than other community stations do with twice the money and more paid staff. I hope YU readers can tune in or log on, enjoy, and support a leader in community media!