Alan Lessik

  • I rediscovered this article I wrote in 1996 and sadly enough, its last paragraph is true again.  “No person shall be unfairly discriminated against, directly or indirectly, and without derogating from the generality of this provision, on one or more of the following grounds in particular: race, gender, sex, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation,

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  • This was one of the last pieces that Dave Robb wrote before his death in November 2016. He was a fantastic editor. A Conversation with Alan Lessik Interview by Dave Robb. On a foggy summer morning in San Francisco, Dave Robb sat down with Alan Lessik over a plate of homemade waffles. Lessik’s debut novel,

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  • Living in the New Year

    We believe in forward progress, that all will incrementally get better in life. It’s a very American belief. We see a straight line ahead moving upwards and cling to this notion. One more time this is an illusion of perfection. That there is only one direction. And when it appears that life does not conform

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  • Babalú Ayé and Apollo

    Babalú Ayé and Apollo the gods of disease and its cure in The Troubleseeker.

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  • The Lovers–Hadrian and Antinous

    A true story. The Roman Emperor Hadrian took a young lover named Antinous. While such relationships were common in Rome and Greece, the seriousness of their love was unusual for the time. The Senate whispered loudly of the unseemliness of the affair while Hadrian traveled extensively with Antinous around the empire. When they were in

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  • Narrated by the ancient Roman Emperor and demigod Hadriano, The Troubleseeker  weaves Cuban-Santería traditions with classical Greek mythology to depict the hero Antinio and his quest  for freedom, identity, and love. Santería is the religion and the set of beliefs that the slaves from Yorubaland in present day Nigeria brought with them as they were

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  • Back to Comparisons

    The question of zen is what now? Not what’s next as in I’m bored now what do I do, but what occurs next in our perceptions of life around us. What now is the recognition that in any moment, however one subdivides that into seconds or milliseconds, until we die there is something next. It

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  • Impermanence update. IPhone on the bottom of Halong Bay. Causes and conditions update. Kayak with a small leak causes wet conditions in my shorts; wet shorts cause me to take out my iPhone and camera from wet pockets and places it under my life jacket. Wet conditions also temporarily (as though everything could not be

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  • To cross a street in Hanoi, one must simultaneously heighten one’s perception while lowering one’s reactivity. One must be aware of the flow as well as the spaces within. If there is a human experience of the quantum physics conundrum of the duality of light existing as individual particles while a constant unified wave flow,

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  • Impermanence, that was the word that kept coming to me yesterday and today roaming the temples of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and a host of smaller temples (already impermanent to my memory.) Angkor Thom, meaning Great City, had a population of over one million in the 1200s, making it the largest city in the world

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