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Post by teddybear on Sept 5, 2012 16:47:49 GMT -5
I can feel the zen  |
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Post by winter on Sept 5, 2012 17:54:06 GMT -5
I too find literal, linear interpretations of Adam's music tiresome. I know from my own writing, even with modest success, that you channel your experiences and emotions into your work, you don't just recreate them. Map has some beautiful symbolism and poetic license. When Adam responded to that tweet about what the story behind Map was, I thought perhaps he was responding to the second part of the tweet 'is it our assignment to find out?' - by suggesting an 'assignment' for fans: to approach the lyrics in a creative, individual way. Like in his music videos -- while I'm sure a little of the creative element is driven by the public sensitivity of showing a boyfriend, a lot of music videos don't feature the love interest just the singer and his car or mansion  --- I think it's more that Adam really loves taking an idea we've seen a million times and twist it, make into something fresh, surprising  . He likes to get people thinking. (I agree with others that I love to hear Adam say words, esp good words  . If some cable network would give him a show (just maybe 13 episodes a season so no serious time away from his musical career) just interviewing one artist, writer, musician, etc. for 30mins - I think people would be wowed.) In that vein, I loved the vid of 'Take This Waltz' as well. It's one of those songs that catches me off guard with its rich lyrics and imagery. Mika's post was a fan vid - I couldn't find it at first. Most of you fellow Cohen fans (Montreal!!) already know this but the lyrics are his translation of work by Garcia Lorca (a gay man who wrote powerful poetry and lived a fascinating, too short life). Cohen has commented many times on Lorca's language as the inspiration to his teen self. This is one: "I turned to the cover of the book, it was written by a Spanish poet by the name of Federico Garcia Lorca, and for the first time I understood that there was another world and I wanted to be in it." |
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Post by winter on Sept 5, 2012 18:36:04 GMT -5
Regarding Adam's request for fans to make videos lip syncing and performing to 'Trespassing', some of the college kids where I used to live were into parkour - along with some dancing and lip syncing that could make a cute fan contribution and would go with 'Trespassing' theme (in a literal way ). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour |
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nikki
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Post by nikki on Sept 6, 2012 5:24:55 GMT -5
Beautiful, and all of the other contributions have been so lovely to read. Thank you Junie for posting the picture. A final Whitman tribute: I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.I can feel the zen If only it were that simple. Has anyone here had the pleasure and agony of this type of meditation? I found it so hugely confronting on so many levels. Being asked to sit perfectly still. How simple is that? And I couldn't do it. Being asked to stop my thoughts for one second. And I couldn't do it. Being asked to simply observe my thinking for periods of time was truly shocking. I was shocked to the core about what was running through my mind, that I barely took notice of. Probably about eighty percent of it was negative, in other words, based on fears of some kind. If someone had said to my face what I so casually said to myself, I would have been outraged. And that was just the start ..... I have a huge respect for Adam for the conscious choices he makes about how he will and will not think about things. |
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Post by melliemom on Sept 6, 2012 8:49:41 GMT -5
Juniemoon ,
I'm so sorry about your loss.We had a rabbit named Milford,from Conn. My daughter loved Milford so
much & she was inconsolable,when he was stolen from his outside hutch.
What a lesson that was.
It is so painful to lose a pet ,been through it many times and still haven't gotten over the loss of one
of our dogs.
Sending you hugs of sympathy
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2012 9:36:25 GMT -5
Thank you for your compassion melliemom. I was reading a very good article about pet loss yesterday and it said, "Only caring, responsible pet owners go through this agony." Pet owners that don't care simply shrug and walk away. When you care deeply for your pets, you feel very responsible for their welfare and happiness. To love an animal is truly to embrace the ethereal and the ephemeral. winter, the parkour stuff looks perfect for Trespassing. I'm sure there are some talented Adam fans out there who could make that work. I wouldn't have the first idea how to make a video. I'm just glad something cool finally happened. I LOVE Trespassing and just hope and pray it's the huge hit Adam so deserves.  nikki, I so identified with what you wrote about meditation! One of my resolutions this year was to work on my mindfulness and I have made some progress in fits and starts. One of the things I did was try breathing and I realized that defensive thoughts and constant arguments were deeply entrenched in my mind. What I really need is a rest from them -- being alone with them is a huge effort. About 10 minutes was all I could manage and it was exhausting. Noting tension and breathing into different parts of my body was more successful, surprisingly peaceful. Zen isn't for sissies, that's for sure. OK, sugaree, I can't resist. nikki has drawn me into Walt Whitman, and what a beautiful person! He really could be a role model for Adam. He loved everyone. And he embraced democracy, he loved its fundamental faith in mankind. And this is what he wrote about political conventions. File under "the more things change, the more they stay the ever-lovin' same": The members who composed it were, seven-eighths of them, the meanest kind of bawling and blowing office-holders, office-seekers, pimps, malignants, conspirators, murderers, fancy-men, custom-house clerks, contractors, kept-editors, spaniels well-train’d to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail-riflers, slave-catchers, pushers of slavery, creatures of the President, creatures of would-be Presidents, spies, bribers, compromisers, lobbyers, sponges, ruin’d sports, expell’d gamblers, policy-backers, monte-dealers, duellists, carriers of conceal’d weapons, deaf men, pimpled men, scarr’d inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people’s money and harlots’ money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combings and born freedom-sellers of the earth.
I think Walt needed one of those filters Adam has been looking for. LOL! And I promise that is the one and only thing I will post about elections! |
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Post by mszue on Sept 6, 2012 12:08:11 GMT -5
Walt Whitman's words are so angry and virulent that it set me off thinking about labels and their ability to create and foster a self-fulfilling prophesy. We humans are socially constructed and so what others think and say of us have natural and expected consequences. My concern is that if we all say and expect these characteristics are legitimate and truthful, we are both constructing that truth and preventing change.
Maslow's heirarchy of needs tells us that if our needs and wishes for self-actualization and self-esteem are not being met by our work, we will be forced to focus on 'belonging' to our tribe, and to added riches/safety and perks. I think if we want 'good people' to be our elected governors and protectors, we have to make the job one that carries most importantly, respect and love of both self and from others. If we give them too much money or power without the rest, this will become the important reward and we will attract the kind of people that do the job for that reward. And we will discourage those who do not care 'so much' about the money. Fame, for its own sake, is a kind or form of money...not respect. Whitman may have felt better after his rant but that does not make for better politicians....jmho.
I think the reason we need love to come from others is that as social animals, we see ourselves as others see us...other people are our mirror...if they revile us and show us disdain, we will either remove ourselves from the arena in which we garner that disdain, or will grow to 'deserve' that disdain. We know this as every child rearing/teaching text tells us that if you call a child bad long enough they indeed behave badly.
I seriously do not know the answer fully....as Whitman is absolutely right about many of our politicians [although I would like to think his percentages are somewhat off]. Power does corrupt, and so does money by itself. [In Canada, we do not overpay our politicians financially, but we allow them far too much political power...our PM has far more autonomy than your President and we are paying the price for that at the moment. We are actually being bullied by essentially one man...that cannot happen in your country...but you are locked into a completely ludicrous situation re the money tied up in elections]. We need somehow to change the political system so there is not so much money and/or power at stake, and more opportunities for self-esteem and self-actualization.
Well that is my rant for the day....I hope I did not shut anyone down.
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Alison
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Post by Alison on Sept 6, 2012 12:31:59 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2012 12:35:11 GMT -5
mszue, I guess I'm perverse, because Whitman's quote made me laugh. I've always enjoyed the MASH-like folly of it all. You might enjoy the essay "Superman at the Supermarket," by Norman Mailer. It's about the 1960 Democratic convention -- "one of the drearier squats of hell" as he calls it. You can find it here: www.esquire.com/features/superman-supermarket. Esquire has it in their feature about the six greatest stories they ever published. Whitman and Mailer's stories were published 100 years apart ... and fifty years have gone by since. As you say, we just don't do what it takes to attract the kind of people we say we want. ETA: Alison, I LOVE the dad in that story you posted! ETA again: For real. Nothing else about the election from me.  ETA again: Bringing in a treat to share: 
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mirages
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Post by mirages on Sept 6, 2012 22:15:25 GMT -5
Mszue, here is the first part of the Stephen Fry documentary on manic depression:
Winter, thank you for finding the fan vid of 'Take this Waltz' ... "on our bed where the moon has been sweating" was another possibility for a tagline under the lovely moon avi Mika gifted me. I want to bring you back a treat from another Canadian poet, Lorna Crozier, but don't have her book where I'm living right now. it's a poem called 'Everything Arrives at the Light' (that is, she writes, 'traveling at the speed of darkness, everything arrives at the light') ... I'm peeved I can't find it online, but I'll track it down on paper soon.
Junie, thanks for the treat! I've done some formal Zen sitting and you're right, it's HARD! But good, too, to just sit with what is ...but man, that monkey mind, clamoring and clambering all over! Following the breath is easier, but still hard ... But I love the way Buddhism embraces and even employs paradox ... Western traditions just can't cope with it and (she grasps at an Adam segue) that may be why Adam is so divisive here ... He's having none of 'either/or' and insists on 'both/and' whether we're talking gender or genre or whatever.
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--- 
. He likes to get people thinking.
. If some cable network would give him a show (just maybe 13 episodes a season so no serious time away from his musical career) just interviewing one artist, writer, musician, etc. for 30mins - I think people would be wowed.)
