For the past several weeks I've been listening to Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson's Ten New Songs CD at least once a day. In the last six years since it came out I've probably played this two or three-hundred times, and it still floors me. Becoming an ordained buddhist monk doesn't seem to have hurt his songwriting at all. There's a depth there that still feeds my obsession. The whole album feels like a prayer.
For the innermost decision That we cannot but obey For what's left of our religion I lift my voice and pray: May the lights in The Land of Plenty Shine on the truth some day.
I prowled YouTube looking for something that does Leonard justice, and couldn't do better that this live performance of "Everybody Knows," which seems to have run on Spanish television sometime in the late 90s.
Sunday Mike and I made a Leonard Cohen CD for his mom, at her request. Said listen to "Everybody Knows". Is this a 12th monkey or something? Maybe everyone's just gettin' hip.
“Being is becoming,” and if we’re not “becoming,” we’re probably not doing much “being” either. This blog was started in a half-assed attempt at self-excavation. I have at least two unusual personality traits. The first is that I’m abnormally comfortable with ambiguity. I can happily muck about in the gray areas for years on end. This is probably why I love Seattle. The other is that I have a completely unrealistic belief in my own agency, which I tend to act upon. This blog has changed my life in more ways than I ever imagined. As my job as ED of a activist newspaper sold by homeless people, my vision for organizing, my thinking as a teacher, my history as a working-poor loser turned middle-class “advocate,” and my life as a parent swirled about me, this blog has been a path toward the center. We live in dangerous times, and the seductions to an easy, half-lived life of anesthetized materialism are all around. I have come to understand that my work is to be a revolutionary, both out in the world and within myself, turning over what is old, rotten, stale, and repressive, and building for a future where we can all find happiness and have the things we truly need.
For the past several weeks I've been listening to Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson's Ten New Songs CD at least once a day. In the last six years since it came out I've probably played this two or three-hundred times, and it still floors me. Becoming an ordained buddhist monk doesn't seem to have hurt his songwriting at all. There's a depth there that still feeds my obsession. The whole album feels like a prayer.
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2 comments:
I love "Everybody Knows" also.
Sunday Mike and I made a Leonard Cohen CD for his mom, at her request. Said listen to "Everybody Knows". Is this a 12th monkey or something? Maybe everyone's just gettin' hip.
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