Word: says
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...myth-maker, the symbolist, the seer of truths. I have wandered down the pedestrian centuries, beneath the bright flags, toting a bag of legends and singing the old songs. I have been Homer's eyes. I suggested Mephistopheles. They say--with some salt to be sure--that I pinched Beatrice and Dante merely followed her flight to comfort. I am the Muse, the Artist, or if you will, the Human Venture. You may think my costume outlandish and my demeanor strange; but that is your fault, not mine. I have endured...
...Fuss. The Beat Generation have Zen wrong. "Because Zen truly surpasses convention and its values, it has no need to say 'To hell with it,' nor to underline with violence the fact that anything goes." Square Zen is just as far off the true beam. It is "the Zen of established tradition in Japan, with its clearly defined hierarchy, its rigid discipline, and its specific tests of satori." Though far better than "the common-or-garden squareness of the Rotary Club or the Presbyterian Church ... it is still square because it is a quest for the right spiritual...
Concludes Watts: "Having said that, I would like to say something for all Zen fussers, beat or square. Fuss is all right, too. If you are hung on Zen, there's no need to try to pretend that you are not. If you really want to spend some years in a Japanese monastery, there is no earthly reason why you shouldn't. Or if you want to spend your time hopping freight cars and digging Charlie Parker, it's a free country. In the landscape of Spring there is neither better nor worse;/ The flowering branches grow...
Each year, U.S. colleges and universities must say goodbye to many a famed and favorite figure. Among those retiring...
...cheerful nihilism?" asks a leading character in this highly diverting book, which is a comedy with a tragic ending and, occasionally, a farce with a philosophical meaning. The character who asks the question is Joe Morgan, a history teacher at Wicomico State Teachers College, who has taught himself to "say good-by to objective values." He believes that energy is "what makes the difference between American pragmatism and French existentialism...