Showing posts with label author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label author. Show all posts

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

Who is the American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi?

Editorial staff, Wisdom Quarterly; Bodhimonastery.org; Chaung Yen Monastery (BAUS.org)

http://bodhimonastery.org/religion/teachersVen. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Theravada Buddhist monk. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944, obtained a BA in philosophy from Brooklyn College (1966), and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School (1972) in California.
 
He was drawn to Buddhism in his early 20s, so after completing his studies he traveled to the ancient Buddhist island of Sri Lanka off the southern tip of India, where he received monastic ordination as a novice (samanera) in 1972 and full ordination (upasampada) in 1973, both under Ven. Ananda Maitreya, the leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk of recent times.
 
He was appointed editor of the Buddhist Publication Society in 1984 and as its president in 1988.

Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha
He has more important publications to his credit than any other living Buddhist scholar, either as author, translator, or editor, including The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (a translation of the Majjhima Nikaya co-translated with Ven. Bhikkhu Nanamoli (1995) and an excellent anthology titled In the Buddha’s Words (2005).
 
In May 2000 he gave the keynote address at the United Nations on its first official commemoration of the day of the Buddha’s birth, great enlightenment, and final-nirvana (Vesak). He returned to the U.S. from many years in Asia in 2002 and currently resides in upstate New York at the Buddhist Association of the United States' Chuang Yen Monastery (BAUS) and teaches there and at Bodhi Monastery in New Jersey. He is currently the chairman of Yin Shun Foundation. More

Wednesday, 23 April 2014

It's Shakespeare's Birthday (video)

Ashley Wells, Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC; Delahoyde; Anderson; de Vere S.A.
Whoever it was who wrote these words must be remembered as world heritage (BBC)

There are tell-tale signs of the true author (de Vere Society Australia)


(BBC) William Shakespeare, the pseudonym of a British writer (likely the historical Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) and/or writers, wrote many popular and widely studied plays. They are unlocked by actors and directors at the Royal Shakespeare Company, a fantastic resource for students and teachers of Shakespeare. More
  • E-BOOK: The Hyphen, the Mask, the Daughter
  • E-BOOK: Shakespeare by Another Name (view)
  • What the world loses because of sexism as explored in Reincarnating Shakespeare’s sister: Virginia Woolf and the “uncircumscribed spirit” of fiction. The tension established between the writing subject and this vital “spirit” or “reality” has implications for the relationship between women and fiction Woolf imagines in A Room of One’s Own. For the movement of the writing subject beyond the self and towards the vital “spirit” of the “real” proves to be essential for the reincarnation of “Shakespeare’s sister,” that is, for the creation of a genuinely feminine literature (not the other SS).
  • VIDEO: Shakespeare's Restless World
    Neil MacGregor explores the world of Shakespeare and his audience through 20 objects from that turbulent period.
Edward de Vere (Oxfordian theory of authorship) rivals France's Moliere, Spain's Cervantes, Latin America's Garcia Marquez, North America's plain Jane Austin, England's Virginia Woolf, China's... well, everyone gets the picture. But who was "the Bard"? According to Dr. Delahoyde of Washington State University: 
 
The Real Shakespeare
Remembering literature (bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dtvpl)
 
J. Thomas Looney [Loan-ee], an English schoolteacher early in the 20th century for whom the Stratford myth [referring to Shakespeare's alleged birthplace] seemed worse than unsatisfactory, went back to the start of the logical process. 
 
From the works themselves he constructed a list of [at least 18] traits that must have been associated with the true author:...

Looney found a perfect match in the Dictionary of National Biography when he read about Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Looney published his discovery in 1920; unfortunately, therefore, some would like to dub this the Looney theory (though his name is pronounced Loan-ee, like Roosevelt). But Freud was convinced by it; Orson Welles was; Leslie Howard, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons, Supreme Court judges, scholars, and more and more have been ever since.

The de Vere family, originally from France, settled in England before the Norman Conquest. In 1066, Alberic (or Aubrey) de Vere sided with William the Conqueror and afterwards was rewarded with many estates. The youngest son of William, Henry, appointed de Vere the hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England -- involving duties associated with coronations.

De Vere is the Bard without getting credit.
The fourth successive Aubrey in the 1100s was created Earl of Oxford. An Earl of Oxford was a favorite of Richard II (and therefore is excised from that history play), another was given a command at the battle of Agincourt, and Earls of Oxford supported the House of Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses in the 1400s. One accompanied Henry VII in 1485 and proved himself invaluable at Bosworth Field. More


This is clearly a mask covering a face
Lady Susan de Vere (1587-1629), Countess of Montgomery, was the producer and "Grand Possessor" of the First Folio (1623), the Collected Works of "William Shake-speare," the pen-name of her father the Elizabethan courtier, poet, and playwright Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.
 
Considering that more shelf space in book stores and libraries is dedicated to Shakespeare, and more movies cover the subject than any other, that makes Susan de Vere the most important person in history.

Yet, she has been completely erased from the picture by the elitist snobs of the Stratford Sham Industry. Until the de Veres came along there was no book, no Wikipedia page, no documentary, and no movie about this very resourceful woman, who despite the social constraints of the time, cunningly figured out a way to send us the ultimate "message in a bottle."
 
Still unpublished before Susan de Vere’s First Folio and otherwise lost to posterity were:... More

By Another Name
Mark Anderson (shakespearebyanothername.com)
Shakespeare by Another Name (Anderson)
The debate over the true authorship of the Shakespeare canon has raged for centuries. Astonishingly little evidence supports the traditional belief that it was Wm. Shakespeare, the actor and businessman from [the hamlet of] Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Legendary figures such as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Sigmund Freud have all expressed grave doubts that an uneducated man, who apparently owned no books and never left England, wrote plays and poems that consistently reflect a learned and well-traveled insider's perspective on royal courts and the ancient feudal nobility.

Recent scholarship has turned to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford -- an Elizabethan court playwright known to have written in secret and who had ample means, motive, and opportunity to in fact have assumed the "Shake-speare" disguise.
 
Yes, I was wearing a mask! (DVSA)
"Shakespeare" by Another Name is the literary biography of Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare." This groundbreaking book tells the story of de Vere's action-packed life -- as Renaissance man, spendthrift, courtier, wit, student, scoundrel, patron, military adventurer and, above all, prolific ghostwriter -- finding in it the background material for all of The Bard's works.

Biographer Mark Anderson incorporates a wealth of new evidence, including de Vere’s personal copy of the Bible (in which he underlines scores of passages that are also prominent Shakespearean biblical references). More

Wednesday, 12 March 2014

Contemplate Pussy Riot (Masha Gessen in L.A.)

CC Liu, Irma Quintero, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; LFLA; Johnny Whiteside (laweekly.com)
Balaclava-clad Pussy Riot portraiture (theguardian.com)
 
Pussy Rioting at Mark Taper (C.D. Sinyakov)
When rebel collective Pussy Riot took its court-banned "Punk Prayer"* into Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior two years ago, it was not a gimmicky stunt but a legitimate act of revolution.

Prompted by Pres. Vladimir Putin's cynical, ongoing, and deeply manipulative embrace of the church and its national congregation -- essentially and outrageously reducing the culture of Eastern Orthodox Christianity to a propaganda wing for his oppressive regime -- Pussy Riot was compelled to protest.
 
Nadezhda Nadia Tolokonnikova, the young mother who became the face of Pussy Riot

American Pussy Riot supporters (P.J. Richards)
Rarely have art and agitation collided so memorably. This visit from Russian-born journalist-author Masha Gessen, discussing her new book, Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, should be a profoundly, mmm, arresting affair. The Pussy Riot phenom is far more complex and genuinely radical than the facile carnival of DayGlo balaclavas and whip-wielding Cossacks that the mainstream media gleefully serve up.
Anti-Putin protest (blog.foreignpolicy.com)
And the outspoken, openly gay Gessen (author of 2012's scorching The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin) is the ideal voice to place the subject in its proper sociopolitical context [with the American losses in Sochi, the liberation of Ukraine, and the tug-of-war over Crimea].

Pussy Riot supporters, Germany (AFP)
Gessen is joined in conversation by St. Mary's College Professor Suzi Weissman. Expect a thorough and illuminating dissection of this ardent, fearless, and endlessly admirable gang of stink stirrers. 
 
[Remember anyone with a balaclava -- a colorful knitted ski mask -- can be a Pussy Riot activist. "Riot," according to Nadia, means an uprising, "upstart," a putsch as seen in Ukraine.]

TONIGHT: Los Angeles Central Library, Mark Taper Auditorium, 630 W. Fifth St., downtown.; Wed., March 12, 2014, 7:15 p.m.; free, reservation required. (213) 228-7025, lfla.org.

*PUNK PRAYER: Saint Maria, Virg Yin, drive away Putin/Drive away! Drive away Putin!//Black robe, golden epaulets/All parishioners are crawling and bowing/The ghost of freedom is in heaven/Gay pride sent to Siberia in chains//The head of the KGB is their chief saint/Leads protesters to prison under escort/In order not to offend the Holy/Women have to give birth and to love//Holy shit, shit, Lord's shit!/Holy shit, shit, Lord's shit!//Saint Maria, Virgin, become a feminist/Become a feminist, Become a feminist//Church praises the rotten dictators/The cross-bearer procession of black limousines/In school you are going to meet with a teacher-preacher/Go to class -- bring him money!//Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin/Bitch, you better believe in God/Belt of the Virgin is no substitute for mass-meetings/In protest of our Ever-Virgin Mary!//Saint Maria, Virgin, drive away Putin!