ELLEN PEARLMAN is one of the founders of The Brooklyn Rail and is affiliated with nine Utne Independent Press Awards. In today’s podcast interview, we ask Pearlman about her recent book, Nothing and Everything: The Influence of Buddhism on the American Avant Garde. Pearlman shares how the world—and life itself—became a legitimate artist’s tool in mid-century America, aligning with Zen Buddhism’s emphasis on “enlightenment at any moment” and living in the now. Simultaneously and independently, parallel movements were occurring in Japan, as artists there, too, strove to break down artistic boundaries.
