Ivan Richmond's Website

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Welcome to my website. I'm Ivan Richmond, author of Silence and Noise: Growing up Zen in America. I was raised Zen Buddhist and grew up at Green Gulch Farm in Muir Beach, CA. I graduated in 1996 from Reed College with a BA in Classics.

In the wake of the May 21st, 2011 apocalypse scare, I've done some Bible study on what the Gospels say about when the world will end.

My Interests

Spirituality - multiple forms
Cooking - I like to do really creative stuff -- my friends say I'm good.
Writing - both fiction and non
Mask making - not great yet, but having fun
Dance - took one ballroom class. People say I'm good, but I don't know.
History - I try to keep up and am an avid reader of academic works on cultural history. Sometimes I try my hand at some somewhat laughable armchair academia too. My latest historical interest: Neoplatonism and mysticism in the Greco-Roman ancient world

My Latest Interest

Alternative forms of entertainment. In December, I went to the Great Dickens Christmas Faire in Daly City, CA. The Nineteenth Century details were spectacular. I ended it by taking a lady friend, whom I had invited there, to the tea parlour. We had tea and shared a rum cake, just like the ones that people gave the lion and the unicorn just before they drummed them out of town in Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass. It was a lot more enjoyable than the movies and for comparible prices.

Alas, a relationship with the lady does not seem to have lived past that one date and I'm still looking, but I won't forget sharing rum cake and tea with her.