Colin Marshall talks to Tan Lin, professor of English and creative writing at New Jersey City University and author of the books Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, BlipSoak01 and Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource). His latest book, Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking, uses its form to escape the notions, conventions and structures of the traditional reading experience.

Tan Lin’s Tumblr

Tan Lin’s books: Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe (New American Poetry), Blipsoak01, Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource), Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking: [AIRPORT NOVEL MUSICAL POEM PAINTING FILM PHOTO HALLUCINATION LANDSCAPE] (Wesleyan Poetry)

Technology/business/culture writer Nicholas Carr (1959 - )

Architect Rem Koolhaas (1944 - )

Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker’s Joy of Cooking

Tan Lin’s BOMB Magazine interview

7 Controlled Vocabularies, Lulu edition

Writer David Shields (1956 - ) and Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

David Shields on The Marketplace of Ideas

Jonathan Beller’s The Cinematic Mode of Production: Attention Economy and the Society of the Spectacle (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture)

David Toop is a composer of sound, writer about sound, curator of sound and research fellow at the London College of Communication. His works in text include Ocean of Sound, Exotica, Haunted Weather and the Rap Attack books. His latest is Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener, which explores the sound of silent art.

David Toop’s web site

David Toop’s books, Rap Attack, No. 3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop, Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds, Exotica, Haunted Weather: Music, Silence and Memory (Five Star Fiction S.) and Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener

American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Oren Peli’s film Paranormal Activity (2009)

Dutch painter Nicholaes Maes and his Eavesdropper paintings

Irish painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992)

English novelist Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951)

Scottish novelist John Buchan (1875-1940)

English writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Irish writer James Joyce and his novel Ulysses (1882-1941)

Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

German electronic band Kratfwerk

Colin Marshall talks to novelist Todd Shimoda, author of 365 Views of Mt. Fuji, The Fourth Treasure and now Oh!: A Mystery of Mono No Aware. Shimoda calls his stories “somewhat experimental, post-modernish, dealing with Asian or Asian-American themes to some degree, but also broad questions of existence,” or “philosophical mysteries.” His latest novel documents an embodies a search for the elusive Japanese literary concept of mono no aware.

Persons/places/works/sites referenced in this interview, in the order mentioned

Todd and L.J.C. Shimoda's web site, Shimodaworks

Todd Shimoda's novels: 365 Views of Mt. Fuji: Algorithms of the Floating World, The Fourth Treasure and Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware'

The literary concept of mono no aware

Novelist Yukio Mishima (1925-1970)

Novelist Kobo Abe (1924-1993)

Novelist Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Albert Camus' The Stranger (Everyman's Library)

The Japanese concept of ikigai, or the worth of living

Chin Music Press

Kobo Abe's The Ruined Map: A Novel

An excerpt of Todd Shimoda's Ruined Map sequel-in-progess, Why Ghosts Appear

Colin Marshall talks to Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies founder Stephen Batchelor, author on, scholar of and educator about Buddhist topics. His latest book, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, recounts his journey from young spiritual seeker to devoted monk to questioning student to holder of the complex hybrid of principles and practices he has achieved today. This personal narrative builds upon and provides a background to his famously controversial Buddhism Without Beliefs.