Celebrate Banned Books Week all month long with City Lights
Celebrate Banned Books Week all month long with City Lights |
- Celebrate Banned Books Week all month long with City Lights
- Bangladesh promises to protect Buddhists after attacks
- Review: Rude Awakenings, by Ajahn Sucitto & Nick Scott
| Celebrate Banned Books Week all month long with City Lights Posted: 01 Oct 2012 02:00 PM PDT  Ferlinghetti, in the 50s, in front of City Lights Banned Books Week, which runs from September 30 through October 6, is celebrating its 30th year of fighting censorship. In honor of the occasion, the legendary City Lights bookstore in San Francisco — which was charged with obscenity for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl — will feature Banned Books events for all of October. Authors John Waters, devorah major, Jack Hirschman, Beth Lisick, Stephen Elliott, and bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti will each share an excerpt from a favorite banned book in a video on the City Lights blog. City Lights Bookstore will feature a special section of Banned Books, many from the authors' reading lists, and many of the videos will be shared on the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression's website as well. Banned Books Week gives City Lights a chance to revisit an important part of its own history — Ferlinghetti's 1957 obscenity trial for publishing Howl and Other Poems. At Ferlinghetti's trial, the judge ruled that the poem was not obscene, stating "I do not believe that Howl is without even 'the slightest redeeming social importance." This precedent of "redeeming social importance" allowed other books that had been considered obscene, including Lady Chatterly's Lover and Tropic of Cancer, to be published in the following decade. For more about how the Beat poets changed society, read "Howl of Resistance" by poet Stephen Mooney, explaining why we need the Beats' example of resistance to conformity more than ever. You'll find it, and more about literature, on our Art and Buddhist Spotlight Page.
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| Bangladesh promises to protect Buddhists after attacks Posted: 01 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT Bangladeshi Buddhists who were displaced by rioting and violence on Saturday have started returning to their homes as Bangladesh's government promised to protect them. Soldiers and police have been deployed to the districts of Cox's Bazar and Chittagong, near the Burmese border, and the government has banned public gatherings in the area. Security officials say they've detained 166 people in connection with the riots. About a thousand Buddhist families fled their homes this weekend, after Muslim rioters swept through a Buddhist neighborhood, looting and setting fire to at least 40 homes and 10 temples. The riots began after a photo of a burned Quran appeared on a local Buddhist man's Facebook page, though it's still unclear who posted the photo. Read More @ Source
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| Review: Rude Awakenings, by Ajahn Sucitto & Nick Scott Posted: 01 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT  Ajahn Sucitto, as might be expected, supplies the more insightful pieces, exploring not only the Indian backdrop and its inhabitants, but his own reactions and shortcomings. He isn't scared to criticize his traveling companion either, at one point lamenting how Mr. Scott fumbles his way through the daily Buddhist chants, getting basic words like Buddha and Dhamma mixed up, and ending up with Bumma! For his part, Nick Scott describes his constant struggles to get the two of them around the holy sights of Meditation with woefully inadequate maps, and a prevalence to seek out difficult terrain in the desire to see Indian wildlife, rather than! take the more direct route – much to the chagrin of the ajahn. Again, as with Ajahn Sucitto, Scott is very honest in his appraisal of his own mind states, admitting at one stage of the journey that he even endangered their lives with his behavior. Constant everyday struggles include getting Ajahn Sucitto's inflatable bed to inflate, finding suitable venues for sleeping, the constant barrage of questions form the inquisitive natives and the often comical attempts to find somewhere to eat before the noon deadline that the Buddhist monastic rules contain. The official bureaucracy of various Indian institutions often seemed to exist to thwart the duos attempts to fulfill the aspirations of the two pilgrims to see as much of Meditation's historical attractions. At one point, it seems they won't get to see the supposed ashes of the Buddha, as they didn't fill out the appropriate form – until an ingenious, if not ludicrous piece of lateral thinking gains them access. The challenges that the two Englishmen face aren't always so harmless, however, and towards the climax of the book they find themselves in a life threatening situation in bandit country that surrounds the place of the Buddha's enlightenment, Bodh Gaya. This is a truly distressing event that can leave the reader genuinely wondering whether the both of them will get out it alive. The kindness displayed in the wake of this part of the tale balances out the harrowing accounts of the near fatal encounter in the woods of Bihar State. So, all in all, this is an enthralling account of a journey through the places that the Buddha visited during his lifetime, including Lumbini (the Buddha's birthplace), Kushinagar (the place that he died), and of course, the above mentioned Bodh Gaya. But, it is the inner travels of Ajahn Sucitto and Nick Scott that really capture the imagination and admiration of the reader, surrounded as they are with wonderful descriptions of India, its people, and the teachings and history of Meditation. Once read, this book can stay with the reader for a long time afterwards, with the tastes and smells and raw emotions that the two pilgrims write of merging with one's own memories as if one had been there with them. A life changing book, in deed. Rude Awakenings: Two Englishmen on Foot in Meditation's Holy Land, by Ajahn Sucitto and Nick Scott was published by Wisdom Publications in 2006.  
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