Peter Clothier is an internationally-known novelist, art critic, and blogger. A student of Theravada Buddhism, Peter hopes to use his online platforms to integrate compassion, non-attachment, and political engagement into our contemporary discourse, even as he gradually integrates those same qualities into his own life.

In addition to his Huffington Post blog, you can find Peter's work on his daily blog, The Buddha Diaries and his monthly podcast, The Art of Outrage.

Blog Entries by Peter Clothier

The "Mosque"

Posted September 1, 2010 | 07:03 AM (EST)


A new friend and reader of my blog, The Buddha Diaries, challenged me -- whether consciously or not--to offer my own thoughts on the brouhaha around that "mosque" planned for a location two blocks for the site of the World Trade Center. My friend...

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Driftless: A Book Review

Posted August 20, 2010 | 03:46 PM (EST)


I don't suppose I would have come across this book, had it not been for my son, who sent it to me as a birthday gift. It's called Driftless (the name derives from a peculiar geological area in southwestern Wisconsin which, eons ago, was spared the "drift" of the receding...

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Quilts

4 Comments | Posted July 29, 2010 | 04:25 PM (EST)


Those who are kind enough to follow my musings in these pages will know that I have a special place in my heart for those creative souls who shun the spotlight, care nothing about the art world's mainstream and are untouched by the lure of commerce. They do...
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King Killers: The Art of Personal and Political Assassination

10 Comments | Posted July 26, 2010 | 06:45 PM (EST)


In the men's work in which I engaged for many years, we called them "king-killers." These are men--or women, why not?--so consumed by greed or envy, ambition, insecurity or fear of weakness, that they are driven to bring down the one whom they have chosen, or the one who stands...

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ACE Gallery: Three Artists

1 Comments | Posted July 13, 2010 | 03:00 PM (EST)


Hand it to Ace Gallery for not compromising on scale! If you want to be wowed by the sheer bloody visual WALLOP of art, there's no better place to go.
Of course, bigger does not always mean better. I actually kind of like small, but I admire the...
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The Oil Spill: Projections

Posted June 18, 2010 | 12:27 PM (EST)


I don't know about you, but I find that when I make some harsh judgment about another person, I find it useful to remind myself that my judgment usually has more to say about me than about its recipient. If I look at my friend, for example, and judge him...

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Shacking Up

Posted June 17, 2010 | 02:28 PM (EST)


For a number of years now, the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, California, has been working to carve a special niche for itself with the kind of pop culture at which the high art world likes to turn up its nose. Beach art, automotive art, comic...
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Elections: The Success of Women

Posted June 11, 2010 | 10:47 AM (EST)


I wish I felt more inclined to celebrate what all the pundits were noting yesterday: the success of women in Tuesday's political primaries. And I would be celebrating, heartily, if I felt that this success were a harbinger of greater feminine energy in our political life. To judge, at least...

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The Culture of Excess

Posted May 7, 2010 | 10:57 AM (EST)


It's no coincidence, surely, given my current activities around the web, that this book should have come into my hands. It's called The Culture of Excess, by the clinical psychologist J. R. Slosar. His subtitle is "How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success." Readers of The...

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Mark Chamberlain: Tribute to an Artist

Posted March 8, 2010 | 05:14 PM (EST)


There was a great crowd, last night, at the Soka University Art Gallery for the opening of Laguna Beach-based artist Mark Chamberlain's "Reflections of an Armchair Arteologist"--a retrospective that covers several decades of his work. It's a fine celebration of a long...
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Wrecks: A Theater Review

Posted March 3, 2010 | 12:48 PM (EST)


It's a rare pleasure to have a fully satisfying theater experience, and worth celebrating when it happens. Last night, Ellie and I went to see Ed Harris in Wrecks in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse--a short, 80-minute, one-person performance written and directed by Neil LaBute,...

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Greatness: Is it Achievable for Any President?

Posted February 17, 2010 | 02:40 PM (EST)


I've been thinking about greatness. My eye was caught by a headline in Saturday's NY Times Arts section, "Their Goal: To Regain Oscar's Old Luster." And I wondered if that would ever be really possible again. Is it just me, or are even the movie stars smaller than they used...

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Gwynn Murrill: Animals

Posted February 17, 2010 | 12:19 PM (EST)


I have been a big fan of Gwynn Murrill's work for many years, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to catch up with it in a current show at Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna Beach. I first wrote about it back in the 1970s, when...
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The Ticking is the Bomb

Posted February 10, 2010 | 01:47 PM (EST)



I obviously did not want to read this book. It first arrived in the mail, as an advance review copy, several months ago, and I...

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Buddhism: A Review

Posted January 26, 2010 | 06:47 PM (EST)


This might be a good time for those who have not already done so to consider Buddhism. I am no proselytizer of religion, but there is a great deal to be learned from the teachings.

If, as I do, you look around in dismay at the hierarchies that seem to...

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Breathing in the Buddha

Posted December 23, 2009 | 01:14 PM (EST)


2009-12-22-breathingbuddha.jpg

Here's a fine new publication by the documentary photographer Alan Brigish. Breathing in the Buddha is "a photographic exploration of Buddhist life in Indochina," and it documents a journey that takes Brigish through thee major cities in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and...

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Survival Of The Selfless?

Posted December 14, 2009 | 11:25 AM (EST)


I'm reading two books--both advance copies--which are providing some insight into our current situation. The first, The Compassionate Instinct, edited by Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh and Jeremy Adam Smith, is subtitled "The Science of Human Goodness."

The collection of essays by various scientists includes not only a great deal...

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LA Art Rounds

Posted November 23, 2009 | 01:18 PM (EST)


We're in town for the weekend, and will be spending the better part of it checking in on the art galleries to see a number of shows we have been postponing. Yesterday, Friday, we started out at the furthest point from our house,...

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The Novice: A Book Review

Posted November 4, 2009 | 02:20 PM (EST)


The Novice: Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit, & What I Learned, by Stephen Schettini, Greenleaf Book Group Press

If "The Novice" were fiction, it would be called a Bildungsroman--a novel of education. It's not...

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The Form of the Book

Posted October 22, 2009 | 05:07 PM (EST)


I'm rediscovering the pleasure of holding a nicely-made book in my hands. Most books these days, even the hardcover ones, have a mass-produced feel to them. No matter how well designed they are, how good the "look" of them, the paper feels toothless and the pages are hard to turn,...

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