Banger's Blog

I have been reevaluating a lot of my old favorites of late - William S. Burroughs, William Gibson, J.G. Ballard, and now Philip K. Dick, and I find that all four have stood the test of time. In fact, if anything, I find that they have grown with me such that I find them perhaps even more relevant for me today as when I first became infatuated with their writing and ideas three decades ago. Back in the day, I was quite a Dickhead, as fans of the late Philip K. Dick call themselves.  I plowed through a good chunk of his 44 published novels, and got quite a bit out of them.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, his books were not about science, they were about the future, and the frustrations and challenges that ordinary people might face.  The characters lived in drab,  rundown tower flats (conapts) with annoying, overly-cheerful neighbors.  The talking machines were always making unwanted comments, and the vending machines didn’t work, and the government was te...

Just to drop some names,  Amanda Palmer recommended this book on Tim Ferriss’ podcast , and I've always been curious about Zen, so I bought it.   Dropping Ashes on the Buddha seems to be a very random collection of Seung Sahn’s talks and letters with very little background or context. Seung Sahn’s backstory as written in the author bio reads like a collision of the 1960s and the American Dream. One of the youngest Korean Zen monks to achieve enlightenment, Sahn moved to the US and worked odd jobs for a number of  while he learned English and built up a following in Providence, RI.  He went on to found Zen Centers across the US. The book's title refers to a question that Master Seung Sahn asks several students: “Somebody comes into the Zen center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha statue, blows smoke in its face, and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?” The answer winds up being something like: " All things in th...

I learned about Nnedi Okorafor in Afrofuturism . She is a young American writer of Nigerian descent who has been winning accolades and awards for her sci-fi novels. My ten year old daughter is always looking for books to read, and I saw that Ms. Okorafor had also written a book for young adults, so I ordered it. My daughter devoured it; since I have enjoyed her novels for adults, I decided to give Acata Witch a try.  It turned out to be a real treat! Let me start by saying that the first way in which Okorafor differs from other authors of “juvenile” fiction is that she can actually write. This is not formulaic claptrap with predictable characters and plots, it is a fully-formed novel that is written for a young audience. She does not condescend to her readers by oversimplifying her language, plot, or character development. She touches on some tough themes: ethnic and religious prejudice, serial killers, poverty, even weird food. Sunny, an albino girl of Nigerian desce...