Barry Graham's Blog, page 116

Although all my books have been available on Amazon Kindle for a while, I only got a Kindle a few weeks ago. Since then, I think the only paper book I’ve read is Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain, which isn’t available on Kindle.

Daishin Stephensonwas giving me some shit (as is her wont) about this. “I haven’t seen you with a real book since you got your Kindle,” she said.

I looked up from my Kindle. “This is a real book I’m reading right now,”...

Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artistsby Kay Larson

This is a good book, but it might have been a great one if Kay Larson showed more interest in John Cage and D.T. Suzuki and less interest in herself. On the rare occasions when she manages to shut up about her own speculations as to what she imagines Cage may have been thinking at a given moment and just tells the story, her book is interesting. When she’s just quoting Cage’s words, it is com...

JAY HUFMAN GIVES A MESMERIZING PERFORMANCE AT MEMORIAL FOR MARK ERICKSON

Jay Hufman

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for Mark Erickson, an admired Phoenix musician and songwriter, who died a week ago today at the age of 36. (He left behind two children; to donate to a fund for them, click here.)

The church was full of people - family, friends, coworkers, bandmates. Various people took the microphone to tell stories about Erickson. My favorite came from a woman who worked with him, who rem...

Joe Biden told the D.N.C., “We have no intention of downsizing the American Dream.”

This quote, more than any other I’ve heard, defines the U.S.A.’s delusion.

That “American Dream,” based upon exploitation, was never sustainable. And it is over. The old fantasy is not coming back, no matter how much rah-rah-rah-ing the candidates perform, or how much so many spoiled, arrogant, infantile, frightened people want to believe it. The U.S.A. of the 20th Century is...

The euphoria among Democratic true believers (whose view of their party seems to be a hybrid of religious faith and devotion to a sports team) over Bill Clinton’s speech at the D.N.C. reminded me once again that Clinton, and Obama, and George W. Bush, are the political children of Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was the first president of this society of the spectacle, in which actuality is irrelevant and what matters is story - and the story must be simple, and told loudly, and must affirm the audience’s...

Dylan Byers writes:

…with every election cycle, campaigns are further battening down the hatches, setting precedents of media control that ultimately render the media powerless to do anything but wait at the mercy of a scripted quote, like dogs waiting for scraps.

He’s right. And I think it’s far beyond time for journalists to stop begging for access, and compromising their reporting for access - because access isn’t necessary. “Insiders” are servants who are...

For Labor Day, here’s the great Florence Reece singing her song “Which Side Are You On?”

After I posted yesterday about the feds’ letting Sheriff Joe Arpaio off the hook twice, some people have suggested to me that he’ll lose this coming election. It is a view that seems to be gaining traction, but it is wishful, even magical, thinking.

Arpaio will win by a comfortable margin - perhaps not as big as the ones he’s had in the past, but he’ll still win. He would have won even had the feds brought charges against him, but, now that he can use his “exoneration”...