Finding Leonard Cohen

Recently I've come into contact with a number of people who've never heard of Leonard Cohen. I want to say, "Where have you been?" With a name like Cohen you might guess he was a composer of Broadway musicals. He is a composer and a lyricist, but of ballads and contemporary folk music. Much of his music, which he also performs, is deeply personal. Some of it is romantic; much of it is down right gut-wrenching.

It is easy to draw parallels between Cohen and Bob Dylan. Both are are of Jewish ancestry. Though born 7 years apart (1934 & 1941, respectively), they span the same era and began their careers in the troubled 60s. Both wrote ballads, folk, and protest songs.  Neither can really sing, but rather talk their way through the lyrics. Both are rather reclusive. For my money, Cohen is the better poet, perhaps even the greatest poet of the rock era --Dylan and Lennon notwithstanding. [NB: Cohen was born in Canada.]

Cohen is more well-known and respected in Europe, at least partially due to the fact that Columbia Records did not properly promote his work, e.g., declining to release his Various Positions album in the U.S., which BTW contains his most well-known song "Hallelujah." I discovered Cohen myself while listening to the radio --in Germany. I heard "Dance me to the end of love," also on Various Positions, and promptly called the radio station. Even if you've never heard of Leonard Cohen, you've no doubt heard his music performed by others. His music has been featured in several Hollywood movies, most notably Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971).

Want to discover Leonard? The best place to start is The Best of Leonard Cohen (1990), not exactly a greatest hits anthology; I can think of just one Cohen song that ever topped the charts, "Suzanne," and that was recorded by Judy Collins. "Hallelujah" is on the CD, but if you want my favorite, "Dance me to the end of love," you'll have to buy Various Positions.

Oxymoron

Imperfect perfection –or prefect imperfection if you prefer– would seem to be the ultimate oxymoron. However, I think it aptly describes much of what we appreciate as beauty. True beauty is never perfect.

I am reminded of the perfectification of art through the ages. [Not a typo; I just made that up.] Artists struggled for centuries in their desire to depict accurately our dynamic 3-D world on a static 2-D surface. In early art, figures in a crowd were stacked up upon each other, buildings were askew, objects in the distance were the same size as the ones in the foreground.

By the nineteenth century artists developed painting to such a degree that it became very nearly perfect at reflecting what we see –and it lost its appeal. For example, The Birth of Venus by Bouguereau is so good it could be a photograph. Though it is fetching, as art it falls flat. In a similar fashion the air brushed perfection of Playboy playmates make them look like Barbie dolls. [Wasn't one actually named Barbie? Hi Barbie!] As presented, these women seem to have lost their humanity. Pictures of real women with moles, freckles and imperfect teeth are much more likely to arouse the opposite sex –or the same sex if you're wired that way. [Not a typo: I meant wired, not weird!]

Any way, the achievement of perfection sent art in a whole new direction –and the camera took over our need for objective representation of the world. The impressionists and the expressionists in Europe and America began to dismantle centuries of technical development in pictorial art. They began to "paint the light" instead of objects and people. Consensual realty was distorted in the effort to paint what the artist felt or to give visual expression to a human emotion. Or just to depict a human in motion.

E voila! Art became beautiful again through its imperfectification. [Yeah, a typo.]

P.S.
Here's some homework for you: Which came first the Playboy playmate or the Barbie doll?

O Captain! my Captain!

I am deeply disappointed with my president. Below is the text from a letter I sent to him a few days ago. The poem is a parody of one written by Whitman in response to the death of Abraham Lincoln.


December 16, 2010

With apologies to Walt Whitman:

        O Captain! my Captain!
        Rise up and feel our pain.
        Why have you deserted us
        Time and time again?

        O Captain! my Captain!
        I fear that they have won.
        All our hopes and all our dreams,
        Our "fearful trip" undone.

        My Captain does not answer;
        He seems no longer to care.
        And we are left to face the storm
        In heartache and despair.

Dear Mr. President:

How have you so badly lost your way in just these two years. We gave you our money and our vote; you gave us watered down health care. We gave you our faith and our hope; you sent more troops to Afghanistan. We gave you our trust and our love; you gave tax cuts to millionaires.

Where is the President of our hopes and dreams? Where is the President who would lead us from the wilderness of ill health, the valley of financial oppression, and the battlefields of needless wars.

Enough of compromise! Just do it! Damn the filibusters! Full speed ahead! We didn't elect you to negotiate; we elected you to lead! Damn it, Man! Take back the wheel and steer our ship of state out of this political storm and into the tranquil waters of justice, equality, and peace.

No more compromise!
No more compromise!
No more compromise!

With waning respect,

John Floyd
--a citizen in Waxhaw, NC

It is what it is

Gottfried Leibniz (1646 - 1716) is credited with having developed the binary number system which is used for counting by creatures with only two fingers and by digital computers, which if they were real beings would have only two fingers. He was, obviously, a mathematician and a German, but was also a philosopher. Since his given name is made up of the German word for God (Gott) and the first part of the word for cemetery (Friedhof), you might think he was the philosopher who announced to the world that "God is dead!" But you'd be wrong. That was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), whose given name might mean "Death to the Rich!" Not a bad idea given the mess Wall Street's multimillionaires have gotten us into.

In addition to creating "two-bit" numbers, Leibniz also determined that we are living in "the best of all possible worlds." Starting with the premise that "God is great, God is good," he asked, "Why is there evil in the world?" When she cooked up the world, wouldn't a benevolent God have left evil out of the recipe? In the final analysis, Leibniz reasoned that evil must have a place in God's scheme for the world. With no evil to struggle with, mankind would have missed the opportunity to develop characteristics like courage, justice, and moral fortitude. And hey, we wouldn't have Halloween and all those fun movies and TV shows about vampires,  serial killers, and chainsaw massacres. Ergo, God has provided us with the "best of all possible worlds" from which she had to choose. It is what it is.

Which brings us back to Wall Street. Perhaps we, our country and our economy needed those evil subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and synthetic collateralized debt obligations to make us better citizens, empower the country, and strengthen our economy. Certainly for those who gave us these evils, theirs must be "the best of all possible worlds." What could be better than swimming in money?

As you may or probably not have guessed, I just finished All the Devils are Here by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera. The book is an expose of "the hidden history of the financial crisis," and all the devils are there between the pages, together with their photos. A kind of a guide book for prospective financial terrorists and assassins. We can only hope, since the Justice Department and the Congress don't seem to have the resolve to deal with these greedy white collar criminals. But then, I suppose they are loath to bite the hand that feeds them. Good dog, good dog!

I am the Wizard of Waxhaw!

I am the "Wizard of Waxhaw!" Well, I'm not really a wizard though I feel like one hiding behind this virtual curtain. When in my past life as a college professor I left the house heading for the classroom, I used to sing to my daughter, "I'm off to be the wizard..." So that's where the idea for the name of my blog came from –if you are interested.

Why blog? As a senior citizen retiree, I have the luxury of time on my hands and an itch to write. I write poetry as well as musings about life and the human condition. I like to play with ideas and I need a place to vent the frustration I often feel with U.S. politics and economics. Ergo, if you follow my blog, you're likely to be exposed to most anything.