1. Author J. G. Ballard has died.

If the New York Times Book Review can't sell ads -- and, at 24 pages again, it's obvious that they can't -- they may as well give short shrift to standard industry product and write some kickass reviews of books we're really interested in.

I stopped paying attention to run-of-the-mill Beat Generation product years ago, but every once in a while something truly original breaks through. Below are three excellent new Beat-related works that recently crossed my path.

Father's car pulled up soon after, his unmissable dye job emerging first into the night. I then watched him walk over to the other side of the car, and open the door -- ever the perfect gentleman -- for his girl, Li Hong. I couldn't believe my eyes, seeing my own father open the car door for a whore, and help her out, his every action gleaming with a lustrous, classical polish. Dad, I know you're nervous. I can tell, but you make me so proud. You're amazing, you really are.

Today's New York Times Book Review jumps into the contemporary Chinese fiction scene, featuring Jonathan Spence on Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan, Liesl Schillinger on Serve the People by Yan Lianke, Pankaj Mishra on Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, Francine Prose on The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi and, finally, an intriguing endpaper by Aventurina King on a ridiculously famous and fashionable 24-year-old novelist named Guo Jingming who revels in apolitical pop culture an

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, born as Mahesh Prasad Varma in Jabalpur, India more than 90 years ago, has died of natural causes in his home in Vlodrop, in the Netherlands. This unique individual built an astonishingly popular and enduring worldwide organization out of a simple Hindu practice: meditation.

"I feel that I am equal to each grass blade and pebble and believe it is possible to be happy though human and grow up. Paul Reps

Paul Reps was born in Cedar City, Iowa on September 15, 1895. A man that always felt there were too many words used to describe anything he was a master of minimalist haiku, Zen Buddhism, and swift sumi-e brush painting. Reps can truly be called the father of Buddhism and haiku in America. He never was caught up in tradition, breaking all that are now considered the haiku rules and, although he respected his teachers, he forged new paths. Always, in his wide travels, Paul was accompanied by his humor, wit and independent spirit. As Paul would say, If not fun, leave undone.

In his book Dast-e-tah-e-sang Ahmad Faiz of India writes:

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?

-Han Shan (Cold Mountain)

Our universe is an intensely vast entity and it may be hard to find anywhere else, our kind of life.We may be the carriers of a unique kind of consciousness but which we are reluctant to explore fully. The field of our consciousness can be as vast as the universe.