A MEDITATION ON MUSIC COMPOSITION

Richard Powers, Orfeo: A Novel (New York: Norton, 2014) (See Jim Holt,"The Music Gene," NYT Book Review, Sunday1/12/2014.).

CONSERVATION OF EVERYTHING, INCLUDING HEIGHT . . . COMPASSION? FORGIVENESS?

Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories (New York: Knopf, 2012) (From "Camp Sundown": "Every summer, the old people grow smaller as the children grow big. Josh has decided that there is only so much height in the world and the inches must change hands." Id. at 131, 143.).

CONSCIOUSNESS' PRISON

E. L. Doctorow, Andrew's Brain: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2014) (See Terrence Rafferty, "The Mind's Jailer," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 1/12/2014.).

LOVE CAN MAKE US ETERNAL

Julie Maroh, Blue Is the Warmest Color, translated from the French by Ivanka Hahnenberger (Vancouver, BC, Canada: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013) ("Love catches fire, it trespasses, it breaks, we break, it comes back to life. Love may not be eternal but, it can make us eternal..." Id. at 155.).

AN AMERICAN AFRICAN'S MEDITATION ON RACE (AND BLACKNESS) IN AMERICA

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 2013) ("In America , racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here's the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven't lynched somebody then you can't be called a racist. If you're not a bloodsucking monster, then you can't be called a racist. Somebody has to be able to say that racists are not monsters. They are people with loving families, regular folks who pay taxes. Somebody needs to get the job of deciding who is racist and who isn't. Or maybe it's time to just scrap the word 'Racisits.' Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for suffers of this syndrome: mild, medium, and acute." Id. at 316. [A]cademics were not intellectuals; they were not curious, they built their stolid tents of specialized knowledge and stayed securely in them." Id. at 325.).

OUR SUFFERING HAS LITTLE OR NO MEANING

Robert Stone, Death of the Black-Haired Girl (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) (" 'History . . . history is poisoned by claims on underlying truth. . . .' 'Because people always want their suffering to mean something.' " Id. at 281.).

BUDDHIST TANTRIC

F. D. Lessing & Alex Wayman, trans., Introduction to the Buddhist Tantric System, 2d. ed. (Buddhist Tradition Series) (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 1978, 2008).