Heading off to Wat Pah Nanachat today.

Hello! I have a couple of copies of my zine, Neoplatonistcore!, with me that I can mail (probably no later than tomorrow-ish) to anyone who would like one. Post an address here or e-mail to zostrianos (at gmail).

In the future, you can order from Fields Book Store. You probably should avoid the P.O. Box in Pittsburgh - in fact, ennuiette, if you are ( Read more... )

So, I'm flying to Bangkok in a few hours, Inshallah. I have given up on the train for the moment. In Bangkok I plan to mail my taxes to the IRS (yes, late) and maybe sit around the Thammasat University library and read. I'll probably just be there a couple days. Then it's off to Wat Pah Nanachat in Ubon Rachathani. I am pretty much completely ( Read more... )

Art-to say it in advance, for I shall some day return to this subject at greater length-art, in which precisely the lie is sanctified and the will to deception has a good conscience, is much more fundamentally opposed to the ascetic ideal than is science: this was intuitively sensed by Plato, the greatest enemy of art Europe has yet produced. ( Read more... )

So, the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok got held up by flooding and now I'm back in Chiang Mai. This took fifteen hours or so, for some reason. I met a cute Thai guy on the train, and also a Thai girl who gave me a booklet from a Buddhist organization that is - this part was not entirely clear to me - in contact with Maitreya, in case I "finish ( Read more... )

"Which Nietzsche? What Buddhism? Both are moving targets. 'Buddhism' today encompasses a large array of religious schools and teachings, due to the fact that it has been so adaptable; and not all of them are obviously compatible with each other. To become a Buddhist, then, is unconsciously or consciously to construct a personal belief-and-practice ( Read more... )

Hey, has anyone seen the movie of Mishima's Spring Snow? It's in Japanese and it looks like it came out last year. I think it's showing in Bangkok right now.

Spring Snow / Haru no Yuki (short Wikipedia page)

I was going to write a bit about the Sea of Fertility tetralogy here, but there's maybe too much to say. Mishima has an interesting ( Read more... )

So, I finally got my train ticket to Bangkok. I should be leaving Chiang Mai on Monday. I think this post is going to be a combination of a to-do list for myself and some reflections on things I've been thinking about lately.

I finished reading Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals the other day. Good stuff, highly recommended ( Read more... )

Thing one ( Read more... )

Stockdale on Stoicism I (PDF)

This is one of the most powerful documents I've ever read. There is a part II as well, but I haven't been able to track it down on the Web.

Up until recently, the only knowledge I had of Admiral Stockdale came from having seen his poor performance in the 1992 vice presidential debates. 31seel, somewhere, made a brief ( Read more... )