SLOW LOOKING

(No offers to unriddle yesterday's dream for me.  Not yet anyway...)

I'm excited.  I was over at a small hilltop house in the Echo Park area yesterday to record the audio download to be included with my new book, "Slow Looking."  The book, as you may recall, is about the "One Hour/One Painting" experience, and it was Emily's idea to include the audio as a good way to invite readers to actually experience the process.  It's an hour-long audio which includes a version of my usual introduction, a meditation/contemplation session, and a brief coda.  Since it's impossible to have everyone looking at the same painting, I devised a way to have a shared object of contemplation by asking participants to set up their own "still life" to work with: a wine glass filled with water, a wine or soft drink bottle, an apple, and a book.  I think it works quite well, and will be interested to see how it turns out.

The book is now almost ready to go.  I have done the proof-reading (several times!) and it reads well, I think.  The cover looks great, with an image of the painting which I used as a first experiment, quite a number of years ago.  It now remains only for my excellent designer, Amy Inouye at Future Studio Design, to add the download codes and send it off to CreateSpace.  By next week, I hope, I should have a hard copy in hand to check through and approve... and then begins the hard work of getting word out to people who'd be interested in learning about "One Hour/One Painting."  As I see it, there's a substantial potential audience of museum docent groups and college art appreciation classes, as well as those who love art and would like to learn about a more rewarding way of spending time with it.

As for The Buddha Diaries readers, I will of course be letting you know when the book becomes available and asking our help in putting out the word.