Lions Roar associate editor Mariana Restrepo talks to award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist Erika L. Snchez about her Buddhist practice and its impact on her new memoir, Crying In the Bathroom.

Erika L. Snchez, author of Crying in the Bathroom.

There isnt just one way to talk about what it is like growing Latinx in America. The Latinx experience is complex and multifaceted. No matter how different our experiences may be, there are many commonalities shared. For instance, the sense of not fully belonging, I believe, is a central experience that we share in common. As immigrants, and children of immigrants, we are caught in this in-between space in terms of identity. Never being quite American enough in our new environment, and surprisingly, not being Latinx enoughColombian enough in my caseto our families and friends back home. No matter what context we find ourselves in, there is an underlying sense of being an outsider, not quite fitting in. In a way, Erika L. Snchezs new memoir, Crying in the Bathroom, is for all the misfits who, like her, never quite fit in anywhere. Erika L. Snchez is an award-winning novelist, poet, essayist, and author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, a New York Times Best Seller, and a National Book Awards finalist.

Snchezs new book is a collection of personal essays where no topic is off-limits. Snchez talks about what it was like growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the 90s. She talks about the obstacles and challenges she faced and how they have influenced her throughout her life. Sex, spirituality, abortion, mental illness, and depression are just some of the topics that Erika discusses with a self-awareness that doesnt hold back. While her experiences are deeply personal, the way she skillfully talks about them in her essays has a universal quality, making them accessible and relatable to the reader. The genuineness, humor, and wit woven throughout her writing will make you feel as if you are talking to her for hours, catching up with a long-lost friend.

Throughout her memoir, Snchez also reflects on her relationship with her mother and how it shaped heras a daughter and the mother she will become. Ultimately, Crying in the Bathroom is a brutally honest and insightful love letter to her daughter. It is an invitation to know her in a deeply intimate way in which she never knew her own mother.

I sat down with Erika to talk about her new book, her Buddhist practice, and how Buddhism has influenced her as a writer.

Mariana Restrepo

Mariana Restrepo: Why did you write this book? What was the question that you were trying to answer?

Erika L. Snchez: I never planned on it. Nonfiction never occurred to me until someone asked me to write for an anthology on ambition, so I wrote Crying in the Bathroom. I wanted to write essays about things that I cared about; things that were personal, political, the macrocosm, the microcosm, all of it. I wanted to write a collection of essays that spoke to women like me. Women who never fit in anywhere, women who were weirdos in their families, women who have been trying to find a way to exist in this world that is so hostile toward us and so many other people as well. I wanted to speak to young women and perhaps change their trajectories. I wrote the book I wish I had read when I was coming of age and trying to figure out my life and place in the world.

You describe yourself as a perfectionist with impossibly high standards and expectations of yourself. How did that affect the process of writing a memoir, where you exposed all aspects of your life, confessing all your failures and shortcomings for everyone to read. Did that hold you back?

I couldnt have written that right after my depression. It wouldve been a terrible essay. But after a while, I was able to see the situation very clearly. It was cathartic emotionally; it hurt. But thats what catharsis is. It is a painful purging. I also really enjoyed turning this horrible experience into something beautiful. Poetry taught me to find beauty in the ugly, and Buddhism too. Buddhism and poetry are in line with one another. At first, I just expelled it, then I had to rewrite it. I lost count of how many times I did that.

You often talk about how Buddhist concepts, such as changing poison into medicine, are relevant in your writing, particularly in your poetry. Could you talk more about this and what changing poison into medicine means for you and your writing?

I think a lot about karma and how Ive been given this life. I am this person who descends from many people who have been very disenfranchised. The women in my family never had hardly any choices. Im the first one born here in the United States. And so my life is so ripe for opportunity in some ways. I never wouldve thrived in Mexico the way Ive thrived here. I always think about how arbitrary that is. Here I am, born in a place that makes me so lucky. But also not so lucky in the fact that my relationship with my parents is complicated and difficult.

We were poor, we experienced racism, and I have a mental illness I felt that I had to do something with all of that. I was the first woman in my family to have an educationMy mom only has a sixth-grade education. My grandmothers didnt go to school at all. I feel it is my job to take those stories and turn them into something that people will feel seen by and feel connected to. It makes all the suffering have meaning. You can find wisdom in that. When I do that in my writing, it feels really good to process so much of my reality, my karma, and then turn it into something that can possibly liberate or heal people.

Crying in the Bathroom, by Erika L. Sanchez. (Viking). On sale July 12, 2022.

Your book discusses how Buddhism has allowed you to come to terms with your self, living life on your own terms and living your truth. What does it mean for you to live your truth?

Thats a good question. Its a big answer, and the easiest way to approach it is to talk about what Ive always wanted for myself as a girl, as a woman. Ive always wanted to belong to myself first. I didnt want to get married and just be someones wife. I didnt want just to be someones mother. I wanted to learn, and I wanted to challenge. I was always a person who challenged the status quo, gender roles, and injustices in different forms. I felt angry about many things because we were living in a so-called democracy, but it doesnt feel that way. And so, all I wanted was to have a dignified existence, not have to rely upon a man. I never wanted to be at the whims of a man, that scared me, and Ive seen it, and its awful. I wanted to be a thinker, a writer, and a traveler. I wanted to make decisions about my own body, the way that I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. That hasnt changed for me. I still just want to be free. And to me, being free means making choices, having choices, first of all, because a lot of us at certain times dont.

Did becoming Buddhist bring about a shift in perspective?

It shifted everything for me. It made me realize so much that I hadnt confronted. The image of the mirror, the polishing of the mirror, comes to mind immediately because as soon as I started practicing, I was like, Oh, Im not really in love with my husband. I better change something because this does not align with who I am. Buddhism has had me question many things in my life, and I had to make some tough choices. I chose to leave my marriage, live by myself, and pursue this writing career, no matter what, because I knew that was my calling. It clarified things for me, things that I had been lying to myself about.

In your book, you talk about how you tried out different forms of Buddhism when you first encountered itfirst at a Tibetan Center, then at a Nichiren Center. Can you talk about that process?

I had always been so intrigued by Buddhism because, as a young person, I had a lot of inner turmoil, and I didnt know how to address it; I didnt know what to do with myself. Buddhism was perhaps this sort of far-away solution, but I never really pursued it until I was older. In my twenties, I went to a Tibetan temple but didnt feel comfortable there; I wasnt connecting to the dharma. It was so esoteric that I couldnt feel anything about it. It wasnt until I was introduced to Nichiren Buddhism by a good friend of mine. He was so joyful, authentic, wonderful, and intelligent. There was something about him that I really liked and felt inspired by.

At the time, I entered one of the worst depressions of my life. As I emerged from that, I started going to these meetings where people would chant together. The way that people had such camaraderie was beautiful.

When I read The Buddha in Your Mirror, the teachings were so clear. That was the book that really did it for me. Everything made sense to mecause and effect, karma, being kind, all the things that seem so obvious but are notit all clicked. That book really solidified things for me. A stranger bought it for me at the centers gift store. He was just like, You need to get this book because youre new and Im gonna buy it for you And he was right, I needed it.

What does your practice look like nowadays?

Im pretty lax right now. Im being really patient with myself and not getting mad at myself for not always chanting. I also hold all the teachings in my heart.

Thinking about impermanence has made my life so much easier. Thats something that I had always struggled with, to really accept that life is always changing, and nothing is certain. Now, with that deep understanding, I feel my life is much better, and I have less anxiety.

Has your understanding of Buddhism and your practice changed since becoming a mother?

I see how important it is to change karma. I dont want to pass on burdens or traumas to my child because its really unfair. I feel like its my responsibility to do the work all the time so that she has a happy life and so that I can be a good mother. In that way, it makes me more cognizant of the consequences that my trauma might have on her if I dont address all of it.

What was your parents reaction when you converted to Buddhism, and how has it affected your relationship with your parents and family?

They didnt fight me on it that much at all. They knew I would do what I was going to do. I had already rejected Catholicism, and they were mortified but just had to accept it. When I became Buddhist, my mom was excited because she thought it might help my depression and anxiety, and it did. Now she even occasionally asks if Im still chanting.

How does Buddhism influence your work and creative process?

It makes me pay attention. It makes me more mindful of what is around me. Im always looking for things that are beautiful or unusual or strange. I think that Buddhism, the practice of having to stop and reflect all the time, is great for paying attention to things that perhaps you wouldnt otherwise notice. Mindfulness is important to me as an artist. With it, I absorb the world and let myself be moved by it. Transforming poison into medicine is what I do with terrible experiences. My suffering is turned into art. My suffering has become books that people read, that people feel seen by, that people love.

The interrelatedness of all things is something Ive thought about a lot as a poet. When I read The Buddha in Your Mirror and started to understand the concept of everything being interrelated, it made sense to me because I had already thought about that for so long. Many different layers of the practice have helped me develop as an artist.

Excerpt from:

Crying in the Bathroom: A Q&A with Author Erika L. Sanchez - Lion's Roar

Vassa in English is often glossed as Rain Retreat or Buddhist Lent, a yearly retreat for three months. Vassa is majorly practised byTheravada, Buddhism's oldest existing school. The three months are identified by the Lunar Calendar and take place during the rainy season. It usually starts in July and lasts till October. Vassa 2022 will begin on Thursday, 14 July and end on Monday, 10 October. During the spiritual retreat, the monastics remain at one place that can be either their monastery or temple ground and adopt ascetic practices.The Vassa retreat is timed to coincide with the monsoon rains of India and Southeast Asia. In Thailand, people observe "Khao Phansa" and "Wan Ok Phansa" as the first and last day of Vassa when the sale of alcohol is prohibited. This article will give you insight into monks' intimate ways of deepening powers of concentration and wisdom.Asalha Puja or Dhamma Day 2022 Date & Significance: Know Lord Buddha's Four Noble Truths, History, Rituals of Asanha Bucha Falling on Ashadha Purnima.

Earlier the Buddhist monks and nuns did not live in monasteries. There was a tradition of wandering mendicant holy men who survived in forests. Lord Buddha and his disciples followed this custom and travelled in groups from one village to another. They offered teachings, received alms, and sleptbeneath the boughs of trees. But as the downpour makes moving hard, people now prefer monasteries or temple grounds to observe Vassa.

Vassa begins on the first day of the waning moon of the eighth lunar month, the day after Asalha Puja or Dhamma Day, and ends on Pavarana Day. The Theravada schooladherents have stuck by and followed the teachings of Gautam Buddha inthe Pali Canon for over a millennium.The Vassa retreat is timed to coincide with the monsoon rains of India and Southeast Asia.During the Rain Retreats, many Mahayana Buddhist monastic rituals have periodicretreats or intensive practices observed at different levels. Both men and women participated in Vassa during the Lord Buddha's era. In the present-day scenario, monks dedicate Vassa by performing meditation. Then some Buddhists adopt more ascetic approaches, such as giving up non-veg, alcohol, or smoking.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 12, 2022 01:51 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).

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Vassa 2022 Start & End Date: What Is Buddhist Lent? Know History, Significance and Practices of the - LatestLY

Due to tightening of noose on China after Ukraine war by West led by the USA, now China wouldnt mindspilling blood for protecting its vital interests (ii)- Whatever is happening in Tamil Nadu (where demand for separation from India is raised) and Sri Lanka is not mere coincidence rather China is exploiting it for removing its major choke-point (iii)-China may try alliance of Islam & Buddhism to remove its major choke-point in Sri Lanka - South India region (iv)- USA facing major strategic challenge post World War - II which will crucially influence the outcome of Cold war - II between liberal Western democracy v/s 'authoritarian Chinese democracy

-The USA should understand that as per Japanese political commentators (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaYCBZ-mH1o ) former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by the Chinese Communist Party (because Abe allegedly had been consistently working for tilting US-policies against illegitimate economic / trade interests of China). Hence if now China has decided to protect its perceived vital interest by going to such an extent (as allegedly is the case of Abe) then what China will not do to remove the major choke-point in Sri Lanka - South India region, is anybody's guess.

The region of Sri Lanka and South India is the major choke point for China's vital sea route / trade and India has always considered it as the main military leverage against China. Hence it does not require a genius of strategic / military affairs to understand that what huge amount of efforts & resources China will put (i)- For separating Tamil Nadu (and some parts of South India) from India and (ii)- For bringing Sri Lanka under its strategic influence by using not merely money but Buddhism too - (In both cases, even some Buddhists of India may also help China).

The Jainism and Buddhism were major religions in Tamil Nadu up to 7th century A.D and then they were replaced by Hinduism even by mass scale killings (especially of religious leaders) and destruction of religious places (as mentioned also at https://karthiknavayan.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/ow-the-buddhists-and-jains-were-persecuted-in-ancient-india/) . Jainism is irrelevant (due to the fact that Jainism is neither the religion of majority nor the dominant institutionalized religion in any country hence Jains dont have the sanctioned coercive power of military or police under their governments) but the position of Buddhism is different. Hence one should not be surprised if Buddhism tries to come back to Tamil Nadu (and even in other parts of South India) in a major way with the support of China which would gladly support it for removing its said major choke-point in Sri Lanka - South India region.

At international level only when interests of powerful countries are involved then only wars or other developments take place which change the military & strategic scenario of the world or a region. Now when word power China is extremely interested in the Sri Lanka - South India region which has itsmajor-choke point then China will go to any length (in order to remove this choke-point by militarily separating Tamil Nadu & some other parts of South India from India ) especially when India (as per China) is working against Chinese interests through US-led QUAD.

This grave situation becomes doubly scary for India if (in the interest of removing its said choke-point) China uses willing Pakistan to simultaneously snatch at least Muslim Kashmir (if not entire J&K) militarily from India with the help of China [Pakistan is already under pressure from Islam (and from militant Jihadis who have given lot of lives and blood for Kashmir) and Pakistan itself is pining to separate Kashmir from India militarily as a revenge of 1971 when India militarily created Bangladesh]. In order to achieve their objectives not only governments of China & Pakistan but Islam in Kashmir and Buddhism in Tamil Nadu can make an alliance to simultaneously dismember India from North and South.

One need not shed tears if Hinduism is replaced by Buddhism in Tamil Nadu or in other parts of India on a considerable scale but in this age of human-rights friendly global order it should not happen through violence. Therefore the USA should ensure that instead of being complacent, the Government of India immediately addresses two issues of federalism and language so that any danger (however small that may be) of separation of Tamil Nadu from India can be eliminated effectively and quickly ( as mentioned at:-

https://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/opinion-details/4033 ) especially in view of:-

(i)- Disturbing political developments in Buddhist majority Sri Lanka which during LTTE (Hindus) episode has burnt its fingers with Hindu majority India hence may come under influence of China because Buddhism is the largest institutionalized religion of China) and

(ii)- LTTE episode due to which the Hindu Tamils both in Sri Lanka and India have complaints against the Government of India dominated by North Indians. USA should know, China would do any thing (even by alliance of Islam & Buddhism) to remove its major choke-point in SWhatever is happening in Tamil Nadu (where demand for separation from India is raised) and Sri Lanka is not mere coincidence rather China is exploiting it for removing its major choke-point (ii)-

USA facing major strategic challenge post World War - II which will crucially influence the outcome of Cold war - II between liberal Western democracy v/s 'authoritarian Chinese democracy.

The region of Sri Lanka and South India is the major choke point for China's vital sea route / trade and India has always considered it as the main military leverage against China. Hence it is anybodys guess what huge amount of efforts & resources China will put (i)- For separating Tamil Nadu (and some parts of South India) from India and (ii)- For bringing Sri Lanka under its strategic influence by using not merely money but Buddhism too - (In both, even some Buddhists of India may also help China).

The Jainism and Buddhism were major religions in Tamil Nadu up to 7th century A.D and then they were replaced by Hinduism even by mass scale killings (especially of religious leaders) and destruction of religious places (as mentioned also at https://karthiknavayan.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/ow-the-buddhists-and-jains-were-persecuted-in-ancient-india/) . Jainism is irrelevant (due to the fact that Jainism is neither the religion of majority nor the dominant institutionalized religion in any country hence Jains dont have military or police under their governments) but the position of Buddhism is different. Hence one should not be surprised if Buddhism tries to come back to Tamil Nadu (and even in other parts of South India) in a major way with the support of China which would gladly support it for removing its said major choke-point in Sri Lanka - South India region.

At international level only when interests of powerful countries are involved then only wars or other developments take place which change the military & strategic scenario of the world or a region. Now when world power China is extremely interested in the Sri Lanka - South India region which has itsmajor-choke point then China will go to any length (in order to remove this choke-point by militarily separating Tamil Nadu & some other parts of South India from India ) especially when India (as per China) is working against Chinese interests through US-led QUAD.

This grave situation becomes doubly scary for India if (in the interest of removing its said choke-point) China uses willing Pakistan to simultaneously snatch at least Muslim Kashmir (if not entire J&K) militarily from India with the help of China [Pakistan is already under pressure from Islam (and from militant Jihadis who have given lot of lives and blood for Kashmir) and Pakistan itself is pining to separate Kashmir from India militarily as a revenge of 1971 when India militarily created Bangladesh]. In order to achieve their objectives not only governments of China & Pakistan but Islam in Kashmir and Buddhism in Tamil Nadu can make an alliance to simultaneously dismember India from North and South.

One need not shed tears if Hinduism is replaced by Buddhism in Tamil Nadu or in other parts of India on a considerable scale but in this age of human-rights friendly global order it should not happen through violence. Therefore the USA should ensure that instead of being complacent, the Government of India immediately addresses two issues of federalism and language so that any danger (however small that may be) of separation of Tamil Nadu from India can be eliminated effectively and quickly ( as mentioned at:-

https://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/opinion-details/4033 ) especially in view of:-

(i)- Disturbing political developments in Buddhist majority Sri Lanka which during LTTE (Hindus) episode has burnt its fingers with Hindu majority India hence may come under influence of China because Buddhism is the largest institutionalized religion of China) and

(ii)- LTTE episode due to which the Hindu Tamilians both in Sri Lanka and India have complaints against the Government of India dominated by North Indians

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After Abe's assassination USA should know, China would do any thing to remove its major choke-point in Sri Lanka - South India region. By Hem Raj Jain...

Leh: On June 13, Chokyong Palga Rinpoche, an independent Buddhist monk, attempted, what he called was a peace march to Kargil from Mulbekh. His march was aimed at mobilising support for the construction of a Buddhist shrine in Kargil, which is a Muslim majority region.

The march began on May 31 in Leh. He planned to reach Kargil on June 14. However, the local administration stopped it at Mulbekh, sensing trouble.

For Rinpoche, it was easy to gain support from the locals in Mulbekh, which is predominantly a Buddhist majority area. Mulbekh is located 35 kilometres east of Kargil on the road to Leh.

Rinpoches march could indeed have stirred communal passions, because the monk has been raking up an old contentious issue regarding the establishment of a Gompa, a Buddhist shrine, in Kargil.

According to Rinpoche, in 1961, a piece of land was earmarked for the construction of a monastery in Kargil. However, local Muslims in Kargil say that no Buddhists resided in the town which is home to Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust (IKMT) and the Islamia School Kargil (ISK) making it difficult to maintain a monastery if established.

The 1961 order was amended in 1969 by the government and the land in question was earmarked for building residential or commercial complexes. The 1969 order also suggested that in no case should the site be used for any religious purpose.

Rinpoche has earlier blamed Kashmiri politics for rejecting the idea of having a Gompa in Kargil.

A poster released by Chokyong Palga Rinpoches supporters advertising the march from Leh to Kargil to press for the demand of a Buddhist shrine in Kargil.

He says his march was supported by the fact that Ladakh is now a Union territory and not under the control of any local Kashmiri politician.

The land, in spite of the 1969 order barring its religious use, was allotted to the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA). The LBA has maintained that religious events had, in fact, been peacefully taking place at the site all along, and this year too.

Speaking to The Wire, Chhering Dorje Lakrook, former Bharatiya Janata Party leader and minister in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, says that it is for this reason that the sudden march appears politically motivated.

Lakrook, senior vice-president of the LBA, said the LBA has released statements calling on people to refrain from using irresponsible and provocative language regarding the issue.

Another organisation which is involved in ensuring that better sense prevails is the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA).

Also read: Six Years On, Social Boycott of Minority Community in Zanskar Continues

To resolve the matter amicably in a region with religious diversity, the KDA wrote to the Kargil district magistrate, also calling the monks march politically motivated with a clear intention of disturbing the communal harmony and peace in the area.

KDA member Sajjad Kargili believes that the kind of brotherhood that exists in Ladakh is precious and should be safeguarded.

Kargili says, We are negotiating with Ladakh Buddhist Association, the main stakeholder of the piece of land. Some people are deliberately trying to disturb our harmony and the ongoing dialogue. We are ready to amicably resolve the issue once and for all. We also wont allow anybody to gain political mileage out of this issue.

Commenting on how the locals saw the march, Sheikh Nazir Mehdi, president of Anjuman Jamiat Ulama Isna Asharia Kargil (AJUIAK), says that the political parade was given a religious colour. This whole exercise was only aimed at casting Muslims in a bad light. We have asked them ourselves as to whom they need the Gompa for when there is no Buddhist population here.

The Wire spoke to locals in Kargil as well as Leh to understand how residents in both the districts felt about the march being led in a way that the administration had to intervene to stop it.

Sonam Dadul, a practising Buddhist based in Leh, walks all the way to Mulbekh to worship at the two Gompas in the monastery there. Dadul (48) also went to Mulbekh with fellow believers on June 14, on the occasion of Purnima.

Worship in Buddhism is a very personal deed. Buddhism does not teach us to flamboyantly display our prayers. The padyatra was a movement, it cannot count as prayer, explains Dadul.

A Kargil local, Ghulam Raza, frequently travels to Leh for business. Raza believes that peaceful coexistence in Ladakh should be a source of inspiration for the rest of India, in times when communal tensions are ripping apart the country.

Kargil locals also said that no Buddhists live even within a 20-km radius of the site and that the current building there is a Buddhist guest house and must remain so.

Meanwhile, Rinpoche has been actively urging Buddhists to join him on his yatras to restore the temple at the site, on Facebook. He has also been accusing Lakrook and Thupstan Chewang, the president of the LBA, of overlooking Buddhist values in the name of demanding statehood from the Union government.

While the LBA has again repeated that Buddhist rituals are, in fact, performed at the said site, Rinpoche has doubled down on claims that prayers are not allowed at the site.

The monk has also claimed that the march was shorn of any political influence.

However, at a recent event in Leh, during his address, Union home minister Amit Shah sent out a message through Ladakhi MP Jamyang T. Namgyal that the issue of the monastery would be taken care of.

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'Clear Motive of Disturbing Peace': Kargil Residents Doubt Monk's Campaign for Monastery - The Wire

Wrapping AI in an impressive physical package can magnify the perceived impact of new technology. Doing so uses seductive optics.

The confusing of AI packaging with AI content was evident in media excitement about a Buddhist robot who delivers messages to the faithful. The worlds first sutra-chanting android deity, modeled after Kannon the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, was introduced to the public last week, the report reads. The robot can move its eyes, hands, and torso, make human-like gestures during its speech, and brings its hands together in prayer. A camera implanted in the left eye to focus on a subject gives the impression of eye contact.1

Technologically speaking, nothing special is happening here. The messages from the Buddhist robot are pre-recorded and not the product of AI. The mouth movements are synced to the recording. This technology dates back at least to the Disney Hall of Presidents, launched in 1971. All the US Presidents in Disneyland give presentations akin to the Buddhist robot. Their mouths move and they gesture. The technology, dubbed Audio-Animatronic, was trademarked by Disney in 1964.2

But the packaging and context made this robot seem special. Monks gathered at the robots opening ceremony and performed with chanting, bowing, drumming, and the ringing of bells. The robot, named Mindar, was designed to look like an androgynous human, with special features designed to evoke both feminine and masculine qualities. the plain facial features give room for visitors to use their own imagination in how theyd like the deity to appear.3

Sound familiar? Like seductive semantics, here we have seductive optics. The AI looks generally human, but also leaves space for people to impose their own preferences.

The media obsession with the Buddhist robot story is due to seductive optics.

Some of the panicky AI-will-take-over-the-world talk grows out of seductive optics that is, the AI packaging. Author and poet Diane Ackerman confesses, Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.4

A factor contributing to fear of AI is the so-called Frankenstein Complex.5 The term, coined by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov6, originally described the fear of the mechanical man in science fiction of old. Frankenstein refers to Mary Shelleys 1818 novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. A young scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, sews together dead body parts to create a monster. (In the book Frankenstein is the doctors last name, but today Frankensteins monster is often referred to as simply Frankenstein.)

Thomas Edison first put the story to film in a silent 1910 movie.

Some of us are familiar with Boris Karloffs depiction of the monster in the 1931 motion picture classic Frankenstein.7

Todays film monsters are typically a lot scarier than those depicted in 1930s movies with their clunky special effects. But even today, Karloffs Frankenstein monster makes ones skin crawl. The question is, why? After all, he moves clumsily in slow motion; even someone on crutches could avoid him. Hes tall, sure, but the smaller, fast-moving, hard-punching Mike Tyson could no doubt take him in the ring. The monster is less dangerous than a bobcat or alligator, yet we get chills just looking at Karloffs Frankenstein monster, and we dont when thinking about alligators or bobcats. Whats going on here?

The Frankenstein complex is explained by a related idea dubbed the uncanny valley.8 The hypothesis is named after a dip in a regression curve. For the most part, and all other things being equal, as an object comes to resemble a human more and more, our reaction to the object becomes increasingly positive. But if the likeness is a near miss, we experience the uncanny valley. Anything not human that appears very nearly human is scary.

The Frankenstein complex/uncanny valley contributes to fears of (and fascination with) AI. Consider the chatbot Sophia the Robot.9 Sophia has its own Facebook page10 and has been awarded citizenship in Saudi Arabia.11 Its speech is augmented by facial expressions using small feature changes akin to those used by cartoonists (which we will discuss in just a moment). Sophias human-like container, its seductive optics, has little to do with its chatbot AI. (If you want to brave the revenue-generating ads, there are many interesting videos of Sophia on YouTube.)

Sophia is bald and the back of its head is clear plastic that reveals electronics inside its head. The Frankenstein complex/uncanny valley reaction might diminish if Sophia wore a wig, or this might plunge the robot deeper into the uncanny valley, since it still wouldnt look fully human. I suspect AI optics will get better to the point of being visually indistinguishable from humans when not closely examined. Currently, though, seamless human form representation in robots is not well developed. Its close enough, however, that marketers of Sophia the Robot and other AI can grab our attention via the uncanny valley. Today more than ever the goal in promotion is to get the attention of the reader and the media. Making things look almost human and, therefore, a little creepy does this.

Here are all of the excerpts in order:

Why you are not and cannot be computable. A computer science prof explains in a new book that computer intelligence does not hold a candle to human intelligence. In this excerpt from his forthcoming book, Non-Computable You, Robert J. Marks shows why most human experience is not even computable.

The Software of the Gaps: An excerpt from Non-Computable You. In his just-published book, Robert J. Marks takes on claims that consciousness is emerging from AI and that we can upload our brains. He reminds us of the tale of the boy who dug through a pile of manure because he was sure that underneath all that poop, there MUST surely be a pony!

Marks: Artificial intelligence is no more creative than a pencil.You can use a pencil but the creativity comes from you. With AI, clever programmers can conceal that fact for a while. In this short excerpt from his new book, Non-Computable You, Robert J. Marks discusses the tricks that make you think chatbots are people.

Machines with minds? The Lovelace test vs. the Turing test. The answers computer programs give sometimes surprise me too but they always result from their programming. When it comes to assessing creativity (and therefore consciousness and humanness), the Lovelace test is much better than the Turing test.

Machines with minds? The Lovelace test vs. the Turing test The answers computer programs give sometimes surprise me too but they always result from their programming. When it comes to assessing creativity (and therefore consciousness and humanness), the Lovelace test is much better than the Turing test.

and

AI: The shadow of Frankenstein lurks in the Uncanny Valley. The fifth and final excerpt from Non-Computable You (2022), from Chapter 6, focuses on the scarier AI hype. Mary Shelleys Frankenstein monster (1808) wasnt strictly a robot. But she popularized the idea now AI hype of creating a human-like being in a lab.

Notes

1 Thisanka Siripala, An Ancient Japanese Shrine Debuts a Buddhist Robot, Diplomat, March 5, 2019.

2 Audio-Animatronics Trademark Details, Justia Trademarks.

3 Siripala, An Ancient Japanese Shrine.

4 Marr, Twenty-Eight Best Quotes.

5 Rushing, Janice Hocker, and Thomas S. Frentz,The Frankenstein Myth in Contemporary Cinema, Critical Studies in Media Communication 6, no. 1 (1989): 6180; Sam N. Lehman-Wilzig, Frankenstein Unbound: Towards a Legal Definition of Artificial Intelligence, Futures 13, no. 6 (1981): 442457.

6 Lee McCauley, The Frankenstein Complex and Asimovs Three Laws, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, 2007.

7 To see a 1935 Universal Pictures promotional photo, visit Frankensteins Monster, Wikimedia Foundation.

8 Maya B. Mathur and David B. Reichling, Navigating a Social World with Robot Partners: A Quantitative Cartography of the Uncanny Valley, Cognition 146 (2016): 2232.

9 Sophia (Robot), Wikimedia Foundation, last modified October 12, 2021.

10 Sophia the Robot, Facebook.

11 Chris Weller, Meet the First-Ever Robot CitizenA Humanoid Named Sophia That Once Said It Would Destroy Humans, Business Insider, October 28, 2017.

See more here:

AI: The Shadow of Frankenstein Lurks in the Uncanny Valley - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

By Barb Brouwer

Contributor

A warm breeze blows gently through a window of the Salmon Arm Meditation Centre.

There is peace and welcome in this place.

Several rows of chairs face a shrine, which is home to a large statue of Buddha. In front of the shrine is a photo of Geshe La Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, a master practitioner.

Mike Boudreau, who teaches at the centre and leads weekly meditation sessions, became a practising Buddhist in 2010. The economy had stalled and Boudreau, who owns Technology Brewing, had to downsize his business and, in his words, felt sad for himself.

Nancy Whitticase, a local yoga instructor at the time, sent Boudreaus wife an email letting her know Kelsang Sanden, a teacher from Fraser Valley, was going to lead meditation sessions in Salmon Arm.

Skeptical, Boudreau said he procrastinated for several weeks then attended his first session cautiously, looking for some form of manipulation.

Instead, he was introduced to what he says is a scientific method of finding happiness, which is in developing a happy mind.

Holy cow, this guy figured it out 2,500 years ago, he said of Siddhartha Gautama, a wealthy prince who lived in northern India. Moved by suffering in the world, Gautama left the family compound against his fathers wishes.

Determined to find the answer to happiness, Gautama meditated beneath a Bodhi tree for 49 days before attaining enlightenment. He then set about sharing his path to enlightenment with the world.

Boudreau has learned that most peoples reality is mistakenly based on attachment, when the source is actually ones own heart.

Read more: Salmon Arm innovators robotics win over Okanagan Angels investors

Read more: Salmon Arm firm receives funds to develop mushroom-picking robot

He believes in the universal law of karma and reincarnation, and said every action a person does creates the cause for them to experience that action in the future.

There are two universal wishes; to be happy and not suffer, he said. If we truly dont wish to suffer in the future, we can purge negative karma and reduce negative mental habits.

Finding happiness requires patience, something he described as the mind that joyfully accepts whatever is appearing in ones life and something that can never exist with the presence of anger.

We need to identify habits that make us want to do positive things and try to let go of the negative, he said, noting Buddhism is a non-judgmental practice and practitioners do not tell others how or what to do.

Boudreau follows the Mahayanist tradition of Buddhism, which seeks to benefit others.

To do that, we have to be on a path to attain enlightenment, he said. This is about training your mind to be peaceful, which leads to happiness, which, in turn, helps others to be happy.

Meditation classes will begin again in the second week of September. To find out more, go online to shuswap.kadampamediation.ca. To register, open the weekly classes tab.

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Focused on the positive: Salmon Arm entrepreneur pursuing path to enlightenment Salmon Arm Observer - Salmon Arm Observer

Tomioka Tessai and Japan art: Flow of Edo, Meiji, and Taisho

Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

Tomioka Tessai(1837-1924) was born in a mainly isolated period in Japan. This concerns the Edo Period that would succumb to the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Of course, Chinese culture and ideas remained potent in Japan throughout the Edo Period. However, before the ending of Edo, the gradual encroachment of America and other Western nations was occurring.

Spirituality, philosophy, and the world of high culture were all embedded within the soul of Tessai. Yet, the Meiji Restoration would alter the dynamics of Chinese culture and civilization that had benefitted Japan enormously. Hence, Japanese nationalism responded to Western colonialism and modernization by copying similar ideas. Therefore, the power dynamics of Northeast Asia were changing dramatically.

Tessai was a bridge in the Japanese art world. For example, he spanned the ending period of eminent bunjinga artists (literati art that looked to Chinese art and ideas). Equally, he was among the earliest artists to focus on nihonga art (Japanese style art that emerged during the Meiji Period).

Also, in the realm of religion, philosophy, and nationalism: Tessai is a bridge to the internal dynamics of the Meiji Period. Hence, during his informative years: he studied Buddhist scriptures, Confucianism, and Taoism. However, with anti-Buddhist edicts and the destruction of vast numbers of Buddhist temples and compounds, Tessai now began to support the restoration of Shinto shrines in tune with the changing power dynamics of Meiji.

The Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art says, Tomioka Tessai was born in Kyoto City, as the second son of a Buddhist vestment dealer. He studied Chinese-style painting in the combination style of both Northern and Southern schools, while being under the scholarly mentorship and support of the Buddhist poet Otagaki Rengetsu. After the Meiji Restoration, Tomioka served as a Shinto priest in present-day Nara, Osaka and Kyoto. Tomioka was an Imperial Household Artist. In his final years, he pursued the ideal of a free, unrestricted man of letters.

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Tomioka Tessai and Japan art: Flow of Edo, Meiji, and Taisho - Modern Tokyo Times

By PTI

AURANGABAD: Amid a row over the national emblem installed atop the new Parliament building in Delhi, its sculptor Sunil Deore said the sculpture should be seen from a distance and from the same angle as the original version at Sarnath is viewed.

The controversy over the national emblem atop the new Parliament building erupted on Tuesday with the opposition accusing the government of giving a "ferocious" look to the sculpture and insulting the symbol, while the BJP dismissed it as yet another "conspiracy" to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi had on Monday unveiled the cast of the national emblem on top of the new Parliament building.

The new statue is an adaptation of an ancient sculpture 'Lion Capital of Ashoka' at Sarnath in Uttar Pradesh, dating back to 250 BC.

Its sculptor Deore, who is based in Aurangabad, claimed that he has made the replica of the emblem based on its original version, and added that the new sculpture should be viewed from a distance.

"The original structure is 3.5 feet, while the height of the new one is seven meters. The photo (of the one atop Parliament) which has gone viral on social media is shot from the ground-level angle. But if it is clicked in the manner that shows it parallel to the ground, we can see that it was copied from the national emblem," he told a news channel.

"I am an artist. What sort of expressions people look for I cannot tell. I studied the original model, made a small replica of it initially and a bigger one later. I have made the sculpture only after a detailed study and by following the routine methodology. I had no purpose to show any expressions. I did what is authentic," Deore said.

People should see the emblem atop the new Parliament from the same angle as the original sculpture of Sarnath is viewed, he said.

The opposition parties have accused the Centre of replacing the "graceful and regally confident" Ashokan lions with those having menacing and aggressive posture, while the ruling BJP asserted that the lions atop the new parliament building are a "scaled up" version of the original emblem.

India's democracy has been deeply influenced by Buddhist ideals and symbols, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Wednesday and referred to the national emblem taken from the Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath with the 'Dharmachakra' engraved on it.

The mention of the national emblem by the president at a Buddhist event came amid a controversy over its newly-unveiled cast atop the new Parliament building with the opposition accusing the government of insulting the symbol by giving it a "ferocious" look.

The BJP has dismissed the criticism.

Addressing the Dhammacakka Day 2022 celebrations at Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh through a video message, Kovind said that Buddhism has been one of the greatest spiritual traditions of India.

"Many holy sites associated with the life and teachings of Lord Buddha are located in India. Among those many places, there are four main places,first Bodh Gaya, where he attained enlightenment; second Sarnath, where he gave his first sermon; third Shravasti where he spent most Chaturmases and gave most of the sermons; and the fourth Kushinagar, where he attained the Mahaparinirvana,"Kovind said.

He said that after the Mahaparinirvana of Lord Buddha, many monasteries, places of pilgrimage, universities associated with his teachings were established that have been centers of knowledge.

"Today all these places are part of the Buddha circuit which attracts pilgrims and religious tourists from across India and abroad,"Kovind said.

The president said that "our democracy has been deeply influenced by Buddhist ideals and symbols", according to a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"The national emblem is taken from the Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath, which also has the Dharmachakra engraved on it. Behind the chair of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the sutra 'Dharma Chakra Pravartanaya' is inscribed,"he said.

Kovind said, the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, Babasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar had said that many processes of ancient Buddhist associations have been adopted in the country's parliamentary democracy.

The president said that according to Lord Buddha there is no greater joy than peace.

In the teachings of Lord Buddha, emphasis has been given to inner peace, he said, adding that the purpose of remembering these teachings on this occasion is that all people should inculcate the right meaning of the teachings and remove all the evils and inequalities to make a world full of peace and compassion.

The Ministry of Culture in association with the International Buddhist Confederation is celebrating the Ashadha Purnima Divas, as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, it added.

Read more from the original source:

National emblem atop Parliament should be seen from same angle as original Sarnath version is viewed: Sculptor - The New Indian Express

Editors Note: John Branston has been thinking about Mississippi for a long while. What follows is his meditative exploration through what he calls, mostly fondly, the best worst state ever. You are encountering his musings in the form of a cover story, but these could just as easily fill a book. (The best stories defy categorization.) The moments that he shares here take place on the road, but you wouldnt call this a travel story. John allows the unprettier parts to take up space, but neither is this another think-piece about the ills of Mississippi. Its more like sitting in Johns passenger seat and listening as one of our best storytellers meanders through a state hes been in conversation with for more than half his life. This is part three of a four-part series. Enjoy the ride.

You would think Highway 61 is the only road in Mississippi, the way people write and sing and carry on about it. Highway 49 dont get no respect. Mile for mile, 49 can hold its own against any road in the South for famous people and places: from Helena (Mark Twains Life on the Mississippi) to Clarksdale (Morgan Freeman) to Drew (Archie Manning) to Parchman Prison (O Brother Where Art Thou?) to Indianola (B.B. King) to Yazoo City (man of letters Willie Morris, man of clean jokes Jerry Clower, alliterative man of motivation Zig Ziglar) to Jackson (Eudora Welty) to Hattiesburg (University of Southern Mississippi) to Wiggins (pitcher Dizzy Dean) to Gulfport.

En route to Memphis from a news assignment in the Delta, my photographer partner and I passed a sign for Alligator, and I insisted we turn off to have a look. There was a general store, a vacant building with a giant alligator painted on its side, and a vast expanse of flat nothingness behind it. As we slowed down, a little girl crossed in front of us and stopped, right in the mouth of the gator. In only a little more time than it takes to say Ghost Town, we turned and headed back to Memphis.

Cleveland is the Oxford of the Delta. College town (Delta State), arts and crafts, coffee shops, gift shops, tea shops, no casinos. A hearty serving of comfort food with a scented candle and a spiced muffin on the side. In a word, cute. An easy and mildly adventurous day trip from Memphis, Jackson, Oxford, or Greenville (its unfortunate neighbor 36 miles southwest). It is just far enough from Interstate 55 to be in the Delta and not be overrun by chain restaurants and fuel plazas, but not so far as to be too far for the day tourist. And nearby McCartys Pottery and Peters Pottery make it the peer of Shearwater Pottery in Ocean Springs, which is also catnip for magazines such as Southern Living in search of perky feature stories about secret getaways.

Unsurprisingly, the notorious Parchman Prison, aka the Mississippi State Penitentiary, is generally not visitor-friendly, which makes it even more fascinating to curious folk. This is how the WPA Guide cheerfully described Parchman in 1937:

The farm is a typical Delta plantation consisting of 15,497 acres planted in cotton, corn, and truck, with cotton the leading crop. The prisoners, separated into small groups, live in camps. The present number of prisoners is 1,989. The prison is self-supporting and operates at a profit when the price of cotton is good.

High cotton and free labor (convict leasing) by campers in stripes and chains made the profits very good indeed, as I learned from Delta lawmakers when I covered the Mississippi legislature for UPI in 1980-82. On a tour for state legislators and media, we were as closely guarded as inmates. I do not recall seeing a single prisoner but do remember Delta lawmaker Ed Jackson casually bench-pressing 300 pounds in the gym, so I stayed near him just in case.

Visitors day was the fifth Sunday of months with more than four Sundays, and kin came to Parchman on a train called the Midnight Special (Let the Midnight Special shine its light on me), made famous by blues singer Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) who was imprisoned at Angola prison in Louisiana.

Angola is about ten miles south of the Mississippi line and worth a trip. The annual prison rodeo in April and October is a first-rate show, combining real cowboys and cowgirls and prisoners playing convict poker and gutsy games of chicken with angry bulls and bucking broncos. Years before Jackass, Johnny Knoxville, and YouTube, Angola warden Burl Cain realized the entertainment value of a maximum-security prison, and the 10,000-seat rodeo arena is often packed. By no means is it a slice of actual prison life. The arena is set apart from the lock-ups and has the atmosphere of a state fair. Cain is now Mississippi Department of Corrections commissioner and is trying to reform Parchman.

A one-way ticket from Memphis to Jackson on the southbound City of New Orleans costs $43. There are no security checkpoints, no pat-downs, no take-off-your-shoes. You can bring booze and food on board plus all the baggage you want, hole up in a comfy seat, and get pleasantly buzzed. Granted, the trip takes five or six hours. The Amtrak marketing team does the best it can to highlight Southern specialties along the way, but truthfully there is not much to look at besides green trees, brown fields where cotton and soybeans sprout, and muddy streams. In Greenwood, a sign on one of the many abandoned buildings maybe a warning, maybe advice reads, Dont Bother. Yazoo City and Flora are not much better.

My wife is from Mississippi. In the museum memorabilia, I had the uneasy feeling we might come across the name of some old family acquaintance. We lived in Jackson from 1979 to 1982 while she was a nurse and I was working for UPI. Some of the old heroes and villains were still around then, and I had a cup of coffee with James Merediths nemesis, former Governor Ross Barnett, and watched Ronald Reagan speak at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980 with the notorious deputy Cecil Price. The years, I wrote then, had softened them. They werent so bad. How little I knew.

The Civil Rights Museum is next to the Museum of Mississippi History. There is a notable lack of signs, iconic symbols, or banners outside. The most iconic thing is the word Mississippi. One building is black, the other white. Together they are billed simply as Two Mississippi Museums which connotes segregation and separate-but-equal, rather than assimilation and progress. (If you count the nearby Old Capitol Museum, which preceded the other two, there are actually three museums.)

The museum opened in 2017. The enshrinement and monetizing of civil rights history in Mississippi took off some 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Montgomery, Alabama, has five civil rights shrines. Selma has two. Memphis has the National Civil Rights Museum. Atlanta has the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and The King Center, founded in 1968.

Civil rights history sells. Mississippi violence, which is a subset of Bad Old Days in the South violence, sells. Authors, reporters, pundits, documentarians, and movie producers know this and churn out fresh takes on the Fifties, Sixties, lynching, and segregation every year if not every month. Some of it rehashes old work or marks an anniversary so much easier than diving into the complexities of resegregation, school choice, and violence going on today. Some of it adds details, characters, and dialogue based on actual events in other words, made up.

Well, it draws an audience, draws clicks and views, and maybe even draws readers and it serves the first mandate of column writing: Fill the space. One of the main journalistic practitioners is the estimable New York Times. Some years ago, I had breakfast with one of my heroes, David Halberstam. He praised some local work I had done and suggested I write a book about how Southern newspapers covered civil rights back in the day. The moral compass, he suggested, would be the Nashville Tennessean. The bad kid, stuck in the proverbial corner, was my employer from 1982 to 1990, The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, which treated me fairly and well. I declined. Someone else wrote the book and won a prize.

The best friends are different from you unless you buy into the line that people are more alike than different and they like you even though they are not like you. Betty Jane Long, a state representative from Meridian for nearly three decades, was like that. She was a trailblazing legislator and lawyer, an opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment who earned equal rights, and the working owner of Longs Bake Shop in Meridian.

In 1981 I was a newcomer to Mississippi and covering the state legislature for UPI. The legislature was meeting in the auditorium of Central High School that year because the Capitol was undergoing renovation, so there was a lot of newness in every sense of the word. The Meridian Star was a UPI client. The Lady from Lauderdale County took pity on the earnest but naive Yankee in press row. We became friends, and I would stop at her bakery for slices of apple pie and caramel cake that she would not let me pay for whenever I passed through town.

Like other Southern capitals, Jackson has tried to make its history more inclusive by renaming some roads and landmarks while leaving others alone. Medgar Evers Boulevard, for instance, was formerly Delta Drive. In the heart of the city, it intersects Woodrow Wilson Ave., named for the Southern president who segregated the federal government and enabled the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. A statue of the notorious race-baiting white supremacist governor Theodore Bilbo was moved from the Capitol rotunda to a less conspicuous conference room.

The lessons of talking to strangers on their own turf stuck, and I also got to know shrewd politicians and orators. William Winter, of course, was the most famous. As a humble scribe in Jackson in 1980-1982, I thought he got great publicity for a governor who had no Black people and no women in prominent positions in his inner circle. It was as if the Sixties and affirmative action had not happened.

He was nothing if not forthright. Yes, he told me in an interview, he had made $85,000 a year off the bootleg whiskey tax when he was state tax collector in the Fifties (Mickey Mantle made $60,000 in 1957, the year after he won the triple crown) before he abolished it. Yes, he did run for governor as a segregationist in 1967. Yes, he ran as a sharp-shooting, tough-talking Army veteran and defeated a woman named Evelyn for the Democratic nomination in 1979 and, yes, he followed the clownish Cliff Finch as governor in 1980. I included all this background in a profile for UPI and my editor snorted that it was old news. It was time to leave UPI.

Winters practical liberalism was not the youthful idealism of Ann Arbor or Madison. It was more complicated, more dangerous, and he was a leader, not a follower. The adoring writers in the Mississippi and national press could not get enough of him. The passage of a statewide kindergarten bill during his tenure helped the Jackson Clarion Ledger win a Pulitzer. But a generation later Mississippi still ranked last in Education Weeks state rankings.

Like other Southern capitals, Jackson has tried to make its history more inclusive by renaming some roads and landmarks while leaving others alone. Medgar Evers Boulevard, for instance, was formerly Delta Drive. In the heart of the city, it intersects Woodrow Wilson Ave., named for the Southern president who segregated the federal government and enabled the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. A statue of the notorious race-baiting white supremacist governor Theodore Bilbo was moved from the Capitol rotunda to a less conspicuous conference room.

In Madison County, north of Jackson, the Ross Barnett Reservoir honors another segregationist governor who kicked off the riots at Ole Miss in 1962. The Rez as it is often called was built mainly for the benefit of Jackson in the event its population reaches 500,000 (the population in 2020 was 166,000). It was approved by referendum. The honorary name was added at a time when Roll with Ross was a segregationist war cry and Black people in Mississippi were struggling for the right to vote.

In some official documents the name has been shortened to the Barnett Reservoir. So be it. Jackson and Mississippi have bigger things to worry about.

On an oddball freelance job, I was assigned to visit folk artists in Mississippi. At her home in Kosciusko, L.V. Hull dug into the clutter and came up with a colorful dinner plate inscribed, Do Not Try To Understand Me in broken letters to show her visitor from Memphis. It cost me $10 and was almost thrown away but I held on to it instead. I got a bargain. Many years later I was in the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson and saw the L.V. Hull painted television set at the center of the display room for the permanent collection.

In a passage that reveals more about the writer than the subject, this is how the WPA Guide of 1937 described Negro Folkways: The Mississippi folk Negro neither lays up monetary treasure nor invests in things of tangible value. He spends money for medical and legal advice, a virtue that undoubtedly would bring him praise but for the fact that he has never been known to take anyones advice about anything.

Comin in over the barn! My father-in-law, Bubba Huntington, hollered to alert me and my 11-year-old son Jack on the opening day of dove season in 1995. There were plenty of doves back then and we got a limit in a couple of hours. Bubbas rainbow barn on the east side of Interstate 55 near Hazlehurst was a landmark until it was destroyed by storms in 2009, the year he died. A piece of everyone in our family, pictured here on the day we buried him, died with him.

He had a tennis court gouged out of the red clay with a bulldozer and rolled with a Buick Electra. At the end of the day, tired from tennis and drinking beer, we would sit on the rocking chairs on the porch underneath the whirling ceiling fans and the metal signs and old plow parts mounted on the wall and replay it. The sun would go down behind the pond and the rainbow barn west of the court, and a cooling breeze would come up from the south and blow through the pecan trees before dinnertime. Life was pretty damn good. Bubba knew most all there was to know about trees, and he could build you a house, a gazebo, a church, or a courthouse. His work is all over Copiah County. We buried him down there, under a tree.

Jesse Brown, a sharecroppers son from Lux (now nothing but a sign off Highway 49) was the first Black naval aviator. He and other Mississippi airmen are honored at delightful out-of-the-way museums in Hattiesburg and the Stennis Airport in Kiln. Brown died a hero during the Korean War trying to save Marines trapped at Chosin Reservoir. Author Adam Makos tells his story in the book Devotion, which is being made into a movie scheduled for release this year. One of the producers told me it will attempt to change the narrative by focusing on his achievements and heroism.

People look at you funny when you take pictures in a truck-stop bathroom. It doesnt help if you tell them you are working on a book. Public bathrooms are a vital but rarely written about part of road trips a serious omission considering a good one can make your day and a bad one, without going into great detail, can ruin it. The best option is one of the state welcome stations, among the most palatial in the country although Mississippi is the nations poorest state. Super-sized truck stops like Pilot and Loves dont always have the cheapest gas like they used to. They seem to have followed Jeff Bezos strategy of rounding up customers first, then raising prices. But they have reliably clean bathrooms that are well worth a few extra bucks. Having seen the filthy, fetid, slippery floor, out-of-order competition during hundreds of drives from Memphis to south Mississippi, I would say they are worth several extra bucks. The $2 coffee is better, too. Pilots supremacy is being challenged by even bigger Buc-ees, coming to Mississippi in 2022.

Bears are part of Mississippi legend and lore, but its a little complicated. William Faulkner wrote the famous story The Bear about a bear hunt. Teddy Roosevelt came to the Delta for a bear hunt but supposedly declined to shoot one on account of its being tethered, hence the Teddy bear. The University of Mississippi banished its football mascot, Colonel Rebel, in 2003 and replaced him with an anthropomorphic bear in snappy garb fit for The Grove. The image was so goofy it was ditched after seven years and replaced by the perfectly logical Mississippi landshark. (For more about Ole Miss also a controversial antebellum name and local sensitivity to history and monuments, read Jim Dees book The Statue and the Fury.) The Louisiana black bear is found in south Mississippi, but the chainsaw-carved wooden bears at the entrance to Paul B. Johnson State Park near Hattiesburg are there because they look cute and outdoorsy and are not freighted with any controversial politics. Well, Johnson did beat a newspaper editor in a hotel lobby with his walking cane. You wouldnt think an editor would get out of line like that.

Editors Note: Part four, The Coast, will be published tomorrow.

Read more:
The Best Worst State Ever Part Three - Memphis Magazine

Smoothie lovers, rejoice! Daily Harvest offers up an abundance of absolutely delectable smoothie recipes that are packed with fresh fruits and veggies, so you can check off your micronutrient intake for the day. Of course, smoothies aren't the only items on the lineup. The brand also offer delicious harvest bowls, harvest bakes, flatbreads, soups, and even ice creams.

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The 9 Best Prepared Meal Delivery Services Of 2022 | mindbodygreen - mindbodygreen.com