Posted to newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written on August 10th, 1994 by Ken MacLeod on behalf of Iain M. Banks.Available from www.vavatch.co.uk as A Few Notes on the Culture or from the (defunct) "culture data repository" as A Few Notes on the Culture (Part 1) A Few Notes on the Culture (Part 2)

    Thyestes depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented by fatal passion for her stepson. In The Trojan Women, the widowed Hecuba and Andromache await their fates at the hands of the conquering Greeks, and Oedipus follows the downfall of the royal House of Thebes. Octavia is a grim commentary on Nero's tyrannical rule and the execution of his wife, with Seneca himself appearing as an ineffective counsellor attempting to curb the atrocities of the emperor.

    

    In this lively book, Eric Maisel gives writers the guidance they need to take a literal or figurative soul-renewing sojourn to San Francisco. Maisel, one of America’s foremost creativity coaches, explores the how and why of making an artistic pilgrimage to the city, including the pesky problem of finding the perfect pied-a-terre for writing that elusive masterpiece. Thirty individual essays profile the best sections of the city for pumping up the juices (“The View from Bernal Hill,” “South of Market”), noted literati of the past (“Mark Twain and the Onion”), how to find the perfect landlord, dealing with those inspiration-inhibiting earthquake fears, and much more.

    Partly personal memoir, partly travel journal, the book explores ways in which the body survives and redefines the boundaries in a period of intense, unsettling change and disembodiment. At the heart of the book is how sound and silence in space, in memory and in the action of performance acquire meaning. Haunted Weather is a book that maps the 21st century sound just as Toop's Ocean of Sound mapped the sound of the 20th century.

    In answering the questions of those who turned to him for guidance, Yogananda expressed himself with candor, spontaneity, and insight. He knew when to relieve a somber situation with a flash of wit, and was able to transform philosophical truths into simple precepts for everyday living.

    

    Contemplation of time and the discoveries of modern science lead to the assertion that the mind is paramount and limitless.

    In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature in analytic philosophy, linguistics, sociology, semiology, and anthropology--to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.

    ‘Hiraeth - A home that never was’ by Mansi Narula Kashyap is a collection of poetry and prose about a home that the author believes does not exist in the real world but still cast a shadow or instil a sense of belongingness towards the same. Each poem will enhance the reader’s imagination, coaxing them to understand the depth of a home that never was.“For just a moment, my heart believes.The home that never was,Still makes me homesick.I do not even remember when we started building it brick by brick?The thieves have come and robbed us of all that we had,Trust, loyalty and love are now just in twisted weaves.”

    This is the earliest surviving text of the Sanskrit literary genre called kavya and probably provided models for Kali.dasa's more famous works. The most poignant scenes on the path to his Awakening are when the young prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, is confronted by the reality of sickness, old age, and death, while seduced by the charms of the women employed to keep him at home. A poet of the highest order, Ashva.ghosha's aim is not entertainment but instruction, presenting the Buddha's teaching as the culmination of the Brahmanical tradition. His wonderful descriptions of the bodies of courtesans are ultimately meant to show the transience of beauty.Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC FoundationFor more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org"