Off to See His Holiness

As I mentioned previously, the Dalai Lama is coming to Stanford later this week (Friday and Saturday). Tickets sold out long before I even heard His Holiness was visiting, but I turned to Craigslist and struck gold! So now it looks like I will be attending the morning meditation session AND the Saturday seminar on Craving and Suffering (with boxed lunch). And because it's the Dalai Lama, people are not charging more than they paid for the original tickets, so that's pretty amazing. The Dalai Lama just visited Rutgers University in New Jersey and drew the "largest crowd for a non-athletic event in Rutgers University history" according to the San Jose Mercury News (click title above for link).

In literary news, I just missed a reading by Mary Gaitskill here in the Bay Area, and now I really reget it. There's a good article in the New York Times about her (cut & paste URL):

www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/fashion/sundaystyles/30Gaitskill.html

**By the way, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!! Do yourself a favor and go read a story by Edgar Allan Poe in honor of this esteemed scary holiday. One of my favorites has always been "The Cask of Amontillado" so here's a URL to the story:

http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/cask_amo.html

Link