Today the thirty-first Liminalist podcast, “I Know Who You Are” with Ann Diamond, airs; making this I believe the longest sustained run of podcasting I have done so far.
Fittingly, it’s also the longest podcast conversation I’ve ever aired (about five hours in total, split into four parts over two posts). I think it’s the most substantial I’ve ever done in other ways too. Talking to Ann Diamond about her involvement in Ewen Cameron’s MKUltra-linked mind control program in Montreal in the 1950s brought something that I had always felt to be somewhat in the realm of rumor, all the way into tangible reality. As a result, this interaction brought me substantially closer to my own hidden past/psychological trauma. Listening back I think it will have a similar effect for others too. Be warned: It’s a worldview-changer.
I was careful to approach this subject matter both as delicately and diligently as I could, aware of how much the MKUltra meme has been taken up by marginal media outlets and become a staple of alternate perceptions narratives, as propounded by the likes of Alex Jones and David Icke. This sort of broad-brush, mass-appeal treatment hasn’t necessary entailed distorting the facts, but I think it has inarguably re-contextualized the material and turned it into a form of paranoid entertainment.
I’ve taken a lot of care to make The Liminalist a podcast that’s unaffiliated with any particular fringe audience, but that participates in the larger cultural debate, so introducing hardcore conspiracy material into this space (and in a way that’s more grounded in facts than anything I got into on Stormy Weather, which was mostly speculative) is a step which, in retrospect, I seem to have unconsciously laid the groundwork for with the previous thirty episodes.
As a companion piece to this week’s podcast, I’ve put together some recent comments I made at the Rigorous Intuition forum, while discussing Leonard Cohen, Red Ice Radio, Hunter S. Thompson and other topics. To be honest, I am overworked right now, so this is the best I can do for a blog post; but since most readers won’t have followed my activities at RI, it should be fresh enough.
It also relates to the overarching subject of Leonard Cohen and the psychological warfare program which both he and Ann Diamond appear to have been inducted into, as well as the larger social engineering agendas which the program appears to have been part of. As most of you know, this is a can of glow-worms I have been poking around in for several years now (or thirty, if you want to really analyze it). Talking to Ann is a bit like crossing a threshold and moving from speculation about, to direct interface with.
*
The cultural (& counter-cultural) figures we identify with shape our identity to the extent that it is almost unthinkable that they might be other than they seem. There are almost no tools in the current culture to describe or understand this because our thinking has been shaped by the very forces we are trying to think about. I literally wrote a book about it. (Seen & Not Seen, worth a look if you are curious about how one person, me, went about deprogramming himself; and don’t be fooled into thinking you weren’t inducted into the program. We all were.)
At this point, there seem to be only two possibilities: either anyone you care to name as a cultural influence is part of a massive, decades-long organized crime/pedophile ring that employs “art” and “spirituality” as an unrecognized (probably ancient) form of technology for social engineering; or, there’s a massive disinformation program to make us think so and reject all our cultural heroes as compromised to the point of being utterly unfit for consumption.
Based on the evidence, I am leaning towards the first reading.
Over the past decade or so I’ve had to wrestle to hold onto the belief that somehow my impression of whether someone was a decent-slash-authentic human being or not was a reliable gauge for what sort of depraved criminal activities they might be up to behind the scenes. I have pretty much lost the battle, and the belief along with it.
Human predators depend on instilling others with trust and maintaining a front of decency, likability, honesty, and normalcy. The recurring line of reasoning, by which we present “gut feelings” or personal affinity for this or that public figure as part of their defense, may not be evidence of anything besides the naiveté of the argument being made. (This is an echo of my own naiveté, or what I now see as that.)
There’s an even deeper layer of doubt about the idea that we can gauge a person’s criminal capacities by their public persona. At a certain level of involvement, a person’s entire moral compass may get reversed. Leonard Cohen may or may not have been affiliated with the Sabbatean followers of Sabbatai Zvi, but the Sabbateans apparently do believe that committing evil acts is a way to hasten the arrival of the messiah, and that greater good can come out of committing evil acts. Anyone who believes this is already through the looking glass and into a very different paradigm than most of us are using to try and get a “read” on them or their behaviors.
All the growing evidence of counter-cultural icons being part of An Agenda (once we get over the shock and potential disillusionment) is an invitation to look more closely at our own set of values and criteria for discerning good from evil. To a large extent (for me anyway), these criteria are pretty much the aesthetic criteria of what is “great,” “good,” and “mediocre.” Art trumps morality every time.
But does that mean artful fiction gets to trump the facts?
At the risk of painting this picture with too broad a brush, it was easy enough for me to accept Jimmy Savile as a human predator capable of bizarre extremes of harmful behavior. Considerably harder for me to believe Leonard Cohen could be cut from similar (though by no means the same) cloth. Why? Because I could give two farts in a paper bag for Savile’s body of work, but I have loved, and been massively influenced by, Cohen’s music. It’s really as simple as that .
This week’s podcast is an invitation to the unthinkable. An invitation to consider for a moment that the cultural icons and artifacts which we value have been responsible for creating the criteria by which we value them. In other words, we have been conned.
This invitation is one that, as Jonathan Lethem said, is an invitation thousands are ready to decline at any given moment. It is an invitation to go against our gut and keep following the evidence, regardless of what our gut is telling us.
Maybe, in a way, Jimmy Savile was the “fall guy”? Shocking as the truth about him was, it didn’t really pull the rug out from under our sense of what a sociopath looks or acts like, or how well-disguised they might be. Savile really did act like a creep most of the time, and it’s easy for people to see it now and say, “I always thought he was up to no good!” Much harder to imagine anyone saying the same about Leonard Cohen. The man is practically a saint!
St. Len is also the biggest fish to fall into my crucial-fiction-busting net so far. I only hope he is not big enough to tip the boat over.
There’s more to say about this, but for now I will let the field commander of Zion (and pied piper of Montreal) speak for himself. What follows are selected “confessions,” disclosures, and admissions from Cohen’s poetic oeuvre.
From Flowers for Hitler:
I Had It for a Moment
I had it for a moment
I knew why I must thank you
I saw powerful governing men in black suits
I saw them undressed
in the arms of young mistresses
the men more naked than the naked women
the men crying quietly
No that is not it
. . .
It was tied up with the newspapers
I saw secret arrangements in high offices
I saw men who loved their worldliness
even though they had looked through
big electric telescopes
they still thought their worldliness was serious
not just a hobby a taste a harmless affectation
they thought the cosmos listened
I was suddenly fearful
one of their obscure regulations
could separate us
I was ready to beg for mercy
Now I’m getting into humiliation
I’ve lost why I began this
. . .
Disguises
. . .
Goodbye sex fiends of Beaver Pond
who dreamed of being jacked-off
by electric milking machines.
You had no Canada Council.
You had to open little boys
with a penknife.
I loved your statement to the press
“I didn’t think he’d mind.”
Goodbye articulate monsters
Abbot and Costello have met Frankenstein.
I am sorry that the conspirators must go
the ones who scared me by showing me
a list of all the members of my family.
I loved the way they reserved judgment
about Genghis Khan.
. . .
From Selected Poems 1956-1968:
The Reason I Write
. . .
when I’m with you
I want to be the kind of hero
I wanted to be
When I was seven years old
A perfect man
Who kills
From The Energy of Slaves:
Threat
This is a threat
Do you know what a threat is
I have no private life
You will commit suicide
or become like me
I am punished
I am punished when I do not work on this poem
or when I try to invent something
I am one of the slaves
You are employees
That is why I hate your work
Welcome to this book of slaves
which I wrote during your exile
Aquarian Age
You lucky son-of-a-bitch
while I had to contend
with all the flabby liars
of the Aquarian Age
On hearing that Irving Layton was kissed by Allen Ginsberg
at a Toronto poetry reading
On hearing that Irving Layton was kissed
by Allen Ginsberg at a Toronto poetry
reading
Not to alarm you Irving
but I have it
from a friend of
the deceased Irish poet
that soon after
he received
the blessings of
Allen Ginsberg
Patrick Kavanagh died
The Killers
The killers that run
the other countries
are trying to get us
to overthrow the killers
that run our own
I for one
prefer the rule
of our native killers
I am convinced
the foreign killer
will kill more of us
than the old familiar killer does
Frankly I don’t believe
anyone out there
really wants us to solve
our social problems
I base this all on how I feel
about the man next door
I just hope he doesn’t
get any uglier
Therefore I am a patriot
I don’t like to see
a burning flag
because it excites
the killers on either side
to unfortunate excess
which goes on gaily
quite unchecked
until everyone is dead
Dear Mailer
Dear Mailer
don’t ever fuck with me
or come up to me
and punch my gut
on behalf of one of your theories
I am armed and mad
Should I suffer
the smallest humiliation
at your hand
I will k–l you
and your entire family
You Went to Work
You went to work at the U.N.
and you became a spy
for a South American government
because you cared for nothing
and you spoke Spanish
That was several years after we made love
in the honey air of autumn Montreal:
Athens was beautiful in the old days
the drug-stores were free
We knew ten great cities by heart
Death to the Powers
who have destroyed the style of travel
Let them stutter their bland secrets
Any System
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
We warned you before
and nothing that you built has stood
Hear it as you lean over your blueprint
Hear it as you roll up your sleeve
Hear it once again
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
You have your drugs
You have your guns
You have your Pyramids your Pentagons
With all your grass and bullets
you cannot hunt us any more
All that we disclose of ourselves forever
is this warning
Nothing that you built has stood
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
One of these days
One of these days
You will be the object
of the contempt of slaves
Then you will not talk so easily
about our freedom and our love
Then you will refrain
from offering us your solutions
You have many things on your mind
We think only of revenge
This is War
There is no one
to show these poems to
Do not call a friend to witness
what you must do alone
These are my ashes
I do not intend to save you any work
by keeping silent
You are not yet as strong as I am
You believe me
but I do not believe you
This is war
You are here to be destroyed
Stay
. . .
What embrace
satisfies the child
who will not kill?
I am not listening to anybody’s podcasts at all. I prefer to read figuring I have enuf input to satisfy my need for analysis of issues. I scrolled rapidly thru this Auticulture post catching I think a gist of it. Concluding that there are icons amongst us, folks of high profile or relative high note who evidence wicked ‘neath their public, otherwise expressions. I settled on Leonard Cohen whose poetry/poetry I’ve never really read. I was not shocked at alleged elements of his nature revealed consequent likely more than just nuances. Revealing submission to the otherside of happy and glory in his hit tune Hallelujah. Which I know by heart and have amongst my repertoire of songs to ruin with my new interest in singing, first chance I get. While deep feeling the loveliness, the extraordinary beautiful melody and prayer allusion, I have always been bothered by Cohen’s ‘hail to heaven’ above, yet perhaps as virtual satire, and seemingly Anti-Christ lyrics: One example,”Your faith was strong but you needed proof/You saw her bathing on the roof/Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you/SHE TIED YOU TO A KITCHEN CHAIR/SHE BROKE YOUR THRONE, SHE CUT YOUR HAIR/AND FROM YOUR LIPS SHE DREW THE HALLELUJAH”. Lovely eh.
Kind of funny almost, to me anyway, that particular picture, ‘tied to her kitchen chair and the hair of Sampson cut,’ heh. And especially open to interpretation. But anyway, what’s going on here? The interlacing of God to Woman with human frailty, interposition of spirit to sex, or something. Woman as Mother of . . . love and disappointment? The disappointment both, all high order entities bring to Earth. Life (the Mother especially, opposed to Father perhaps) as very, very deceiving as to positives expected. Cohen interfacing God and Woman, conflating even, or presuming, confusing perhaps, what is IT, a which is which? Attractive literary device to me, counterpoint, raising on high to dethrone in the next breath, uplifting, then deflating, using love and glory as what? “A cold and broken Hallelujuh”?
Antithetical lyrics in a song apparently USING praise to the Lord precisely but as impotent, alien in this instance at least to the ‘fact’ of the story plot in the song Cohen invents. Denying GRACE as if IT was a deceiving ‘entity’ a great deceiver. Grace meaning as I am employing it, the dictionary meaning: “A simple elegance or refinement of movement”. Or a “divinely given talent or blessing.” That’s applicable also. Not that I am denying ‘grace’ equity with or symbiosis with God, just that, I like to take out God as a solid here, as perhaps Cohen has done, but perhaps not. Due a real, genuine disppointment in God not living up to HIMSELF. My belief is that HE is NOT but the energy of first source, FORCE is disembodiment is the ‘what’ I pray to: The Great Beyond. But that’s another story.
Cohen points up a matter of fact deception, Mother love, Woman’s love, given or not, to be relied on or not, or that there is a “God above” at all in any way, shape, or form, may be all incorporated as ‘Hallelujah’ message intent. Cohen employing an anthem, hymn to the Lord to announce it’s antithesis. What better way to get the message of disappointment across. Sing loud unto the Heavens but expect disappointment, sadness in return, if not a regret for ever thinking there was ever much to praise be and glory to God, to life and belief in your fellows.
Undercurrent to Cohen it might well seem is alleged a pathology, evidenced in his poetry revealed in Jason’s post, an apparent obsession with evil within and without his landscape of interest and close to his heart and mind. After all this is poetry, a seed from personal essence that blossoms into a word expression of a soul: “There was a time you let me know/What’s really going on below/But now you never show it to me, do you?/I remember when I moved in you/The holy dove was moving too/And every breath we drew was Hallelujah”. Oh, my. Then there is final analysis: “Maybe there is a God above/And All I ever learned from love/Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you/And it’s not a cry you can hear at night/It’s not a pilgrim who’s seen the light/It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujuh Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah” Leonard Cohen. Mama Mia. Oh Mine Papa. Oh My God.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiVE1vK6DI
What’s your point Bill? That you like this song?
“Hallelujah” is the most often covered song in the history of pop music. There’s been a book written about it. It’s the jewel in Cohen’s crown. The golden thread that holds the emperor’s clothes together.
I’m not sure anyone reading needs reminding how it goes . . .
Point? I could ask that of you Jason. I guess I was making my point bringing in all of these Leonard Cohen delights, what he means to me, what I think of him, this is all supposed to be relative to your point, which was? He knows evil? Course not. Bottom line I figure Cohen is as important to you in your way as he is to me in my way and that he is a good jumping off point here for me to make this point, that you relate to him. Big deal, but of course. But your essay is about you, your concerns, about issues outlined. And your words and use of these profile figures to you, allows you to get to your point of the moment that you are pondering, which is? Ah, and I see, you are kidding me about my point being, do I like Cohen. Heh.
I’ll try to make this short: Leonard Cohen was one of a number of profiles you used regarded as icons who could not be perhaps altogether trusted looking behind character and motives for their acclaimed positive service to folks, which is after all, their works. Emerged from their own character and expression of it. If you weren’t conveying that at all tell me. I gotta know. You would not disagree that folka are influenced by their spirits, and accepted, as good spirits, are spirits to pay attention to, but now wait just a darn minute! Along with you and your looking for truth, searching are these examples and just who articulates this ‘high spirit’ (my words) thru their expressions, their lofty works, but as I say, wait, underneath lurks evil. Tell me I am wrong about this, I will listen.
“Hallelujah” as you say is a seminal work, my label. (I could make the point what a perfect word to apply to pervasive ever lasting work) Univesal gospel unto itself according to replay after replay. Merited proof according the awards, books writen like it was thesis material. To me to be reminded of such a hit as Hallelujah is not a bad thing, to repeat his lyrics, repeat a work that lingers forever in the heart and head, ready to be triggered alive again. Hallelujah! I am wondering, did you play it, this live Cohen version? He is old and doing his Hallelujah tune live. This video is a living illustration of a sort, cariacterized line by lines in his face,Leonard Cohen. Singing one of several signature songs himself! Many, many years from his studio work and Hellulugh album. Interpreting his song live! A tune for what he is, it is. A prayer. His calling out to . . . whatever what is faith if and when you have it? He doesn’t or he does have it. It seem to me like his faith is weak . . . yet . . . . To express soul is such a temple of offering coming from say, this common man, wow. Uncommon of course, he is Leonard Cohen. Able to speak to the spirit of many of us. A very gifted man. Poet. Troubadour. Yes,I think Hallelujah can be posted here and there and it will take a long time before it gets so old it will be put away for a while before brought back out again for some of us annoited to become entralled again.
Here’s what your idea said to me, look beneath these icons and what do we find. People doing their thing out of personalities exposing. weaknesses of character. There is more to your piece, more seraching, answers for the future to bring when some terms are to be met perhaps, but I am after all selective here. Sticking with Cohen as representative pretty much of your concerns, Jason. Your searching. Incessant seraching for something . . .
Of course, their, artists work is central to their character. Take most any creator of classical work and you already know the most important thing, that is the soul manifested in the work. As your work Jason beneath the lines is you pretty much. Same for me of course. (Say it isn’t so) Anway I promised this to be short. I failed. My point that Cohen is confused about faith and what a thing to say eh, Composing such a thing as Hallelujah. Wow. And how that relates to your essay. You. Well, from Cohen, I’ll stay with him, what emerged was love, God, disappointment, and likely an unconscious allowance of evil that is perhaps confusion into creation of this epic, Hallelujah that sings, and sings to us, Ever never ending. The search. Faith.
The ambivelence, the measure of the man, his God, shows rather an ugly in the sense the d’vl is visceral in Cohen’s work. But we benefit from the artist. Cohen likely half-way unconsciously exposes in his HALLELUJAH story.song is his take on mystery. Yes, evil is around and core to most anything that make an adult classic. Elemental that sin is, along with this and that that makes up a life, is to prove it if not energize by comparison, what really drives the action, Love it is in my book. However disfigured we folks want to rehape and make of it for whatever reasons and purposes. On reflection, not that I ever thought differently, no wonder Cohen made such an impact with Hallelujan.. He was working on all cylinders for sure. So, what am I doing Jason here? Have done. More review of Cohen than intended. He was to serve to make my point directly. Another man of doubt searching for a faith perhaps. Do I like Leonard Cohen? But what an ambivilant, faithless man, eh?
Well OK but you don’t seem willing, or able, to look at the implications which I am presenting here, at all; and of course if you won’t listen to the podcast then you don’t really know what they are, besides my summation as to my own feelings: the podcast, BTW, isn’t about me at all, it is about Ann Diamond, Leonard Cohen, and the systematic sexual torture of children by which, possibly, a man-career-oeuvre such “Leonard Cohen” is created/contrived, as a form of technology by which to trick even the wise old elders such as yourself into believing that this is Soul and this is the sound of a Soul’s Prayer, etc, etc.
That is cultural engineering and it has a spiritual as well as political goals.
If you see what I mean. Just maybe.
But you would need to listen to the podcast.
And no, i didn’t watch the video because I have taken all the Cohen Kool-aid I can for right now, & because, what’s the point, even if I feel it in my gut to be soul-art, I now no longer trust that feeling, having discovered what I have about the men behind the man and the schemes that made him who he is today. You see?
Art can be a cloak and a shield for the soul as well as an expression of it. Think Picture of Dorian Gray, hey?
I suppose we both are talking past each other, aren’t really paying attention to each other, at least the details which I know I figure are very important to hearing what I am really saying. But, of course, why bother when we already know what will follow. Figuring we already know what the other is about. That’s too bad, and maybe will always be the case due our natures and way of perceiving things. One thing, I likely made a mistake opening up by saying I don’t listen to podcasts. Right off then you would think, particularly since I make points perhaps antogonistic to your intent and meanings, “well, how can Bill talk intelligencly about what I am saying when he doesn’t listen to the podcast?” Point is well taken, but as I say, in this paragraph at the opening, “Figuring we already know the other is about”.
I think, in my round-about way, that I am making, made my point. That, again let’s stay with Cohen, that this–and in retrospect, the allowance that new rereading, moreover correspondence gives opportunity to think about what we are about–your essay point of “cultural engineering” is a force not critical to me. It is not a focus to say the least. And any evil direct in Cohen (I found his poetry especially appalling in a bummer, downer, negative, manner, eliciting a dark, irretrievable, unredeeming landscape. I will go back and reread what you posted of it) while it, evil, may be actual, and from that would allegedly inspire him to overt evil actions, and that that ‘feeling’ coming from a core of him (making him a confused ambivalent man in my view) in my estimation is one reason why his “Hallelujah” covers lots of ground, giving his work that something that makes a work universal, is not as important as your thesis idea. But as I say, I am not especially interested in that. Cultural engineering. Cohen as it turns out is more so, interesting, surprising to me actually. And that this embodiment of heaven and earth spectrum his work displays, the diverse elements making us up, express in ways our insatiable curiosity about the mystery, are all necessary to have incorporate for a work to be full bodied, everlasting. That is my focus it seems. As opposed to “Cultural Engineering”. But an evil of character producing works that reach the ‘spirit’ of man, that can ruin a person’s former appreciation for all ‘good’ works emanating from such a person, while enterprizing as well as easy to appreciate, identify with as a concern, is not as I say a focus, and that perhaps is annoying to you who seem to very much to relate and or identify with. This conditionad thus situation, this presence of evil, and how that can be overwhelmingly disturbing, from artists particularly
I know that your podcast will elaborate on your central premise as I understand it, without listening. It will be entertaining, informative. Intelligent voices heard live. That “cultural engineering” is prevalent, out there, and folks we admire are either consciously or unconsciouly promoting it. I guess what bothers me about that/this is, what I refer to as the conspiracy idea, is maybe, that while I would the find the podcast it informative, an added dimension, extension of biography about Cohen, I am not that concerned about it’s broad effect on folks, me in particular. Or the deceit about Cohen regarding that being a critical distortion to the measure of his ‘spirtual’ work. What this Cohen zone has done to me, is reaffirm, add character bio to a man I suspected was a misogynist, not so much perhaps toward women but toward humanity, and God, and faith in mankind. And yet . . . as an artist he draws from this ‘soul’ such remarkable, ‘uplifting’ song.
Of course you don’t have to be interested in what I am interested in but if you are going to comment about it or engage in dialogue, then, obviously you do. The focus on Cohen is primarily as an example of cultural engineering. So to want to remove that element is removing the context of the subject and then what we have is, IMO, the same old faulty narrative about the artist expressing soul, etc.
For example, if what Ann & I discuss is accurate, and LC’s talent, charisma, personality, and creative output is all the result of an MKUltra program, then your earlier comment:
Take most any creator of classical work and you already know the most important thing, that is the soul manifested in the work. As your work Jason beneath the lines is you pretty much. Same for me of course. (Say it isn’t so)
….simply isn’t correct. It misses the boat entirely. And comparing you or I & our output to Cohen’s doesn’t “fly.”
I also never used the word evil; that seems to be your fixation.
Maybe I am missing your own point. Is is that anything that could be proven about Cohen’s involvement in criminal activities and actions you would consider “evil,” while writing these “uplifting” songs, would not in any way change your feeling about the songs or the “soul” behind them? Or is it simply that you’d rather not know so you can carry on enjoying the songs?
William Morrison, you should really read Ann Diamond’s ‘The Man Next Door’ and find out just how dark the circumstances of the creation of that particular song (allegedly) are!
I’m very glad to be able to listen to this having read Ann’s books as well as your recent ‘crucial fiction’ series about Streiber, Jason. For now (I’ve just finished part one), I’ll just note two reasons why Ann’s suspicion of “thousands of victims” is not as farfetched as some would no doubt assume… One: google ‘Duplessis orphans’ — Two: Canada recently endured a ‘Truth And Reconciliation Report’ on the history of mandatory residential schools for Native children (I.e., mass kidnapping of children considered semisubhuman by the authorities). The most shocking fact to emerge, for me, was that fully 25% of the children who died in Federal/Catholic custody have no listed cause of death. As someone suggested, there may be a lot of empty graves on those properties… Perhaps the missing CODs should read: MKULTRA…
Pardon me, it is in fact almost HALF of all residential school deaths where “the cause is not identified” … http://aptn.ca/news/2015/06/02/number-indian-residential-school-student-deaths-may-never-known-trc/
The ambient benefit-of-the-doubt, default generous misinterpretation as cover is clearly a major theme. McLuhan said “Only puny secrets require protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.” I imagine that after the transgressive thrill has worn off of the repetoire of heinous acts (which are not even taboos among their actual peer group), breaking the real taboo of omerta and dangling a confession in public would be what it took to rekindle the thrill…
But it really is important that these contexts only make his poetry better, with more intense question marks. Who is “us” in Any System?? Who is he threatening??
Looking forward to Parts 3&4… I think I’ll start reading Seen & Not Seen in the meantime…
That’s a great McLuhan quote, thanks.
My reading was that “us” in that poem referred to the Jews.
It seemed to me like the default generous interpretation would be that “us” was either ‘the people’ or ‘the young’, or else ‘the artists’, and I think that last one translates pretty well to the new contexts, although it would be more appropriate to say ‘the talent’, the frontmen, the charismatic fishers of minds… It still reads well as a threat directed from the bottom up…
Yeah.
But the reading that fits with all the other evidence would seem to be a very different one. LC’s primary allegiance appears to have been to “his people.”
How long, O Lord? Will you forget
me forever?
How long will you hide your face
from me?
How long must I bear pain in my
soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day
long?
How long shall my enemy be
over me? – Psalm 13:1-2
Do you suppose Leonard Cohen would identify?
I know Jasun this might seem like beating a dead horse and that I would be more effective reaching your interests by joining in on the discussions specific to the podcast, the voices profiled to emphasize your focus centered CULTURAL ENGINEERING but I will really try to be short. I take that back, that is highly unlikely. Impossible I suppose. But I will try to answer specific to the points you raised.
Far as engaging in conversation with you about subject I am not interested in being necessary to do that, engage with alacrity, keeness: I think I can be interested but not interested. Additionally, it is valid to do so, as example. I comment, take on politicians say, whose points of politic are well understood from longtime observations, yet I tackle them, make opinion, not so ignorant of the politician’s focus, without reading their diatribes founded on the same ol, same ole politic. Not that I am suggesting this attitude directly relates to your podcast, it does not; it is what I said, I don’t listen to podcasts.
Now, In the sense that the elaboration on a particular subject does not earn my interest any farther than I am interested in the fact that it may well exist, well then, that is the way of that, due my nature. Or that focus here is the collaboration of minds to conspire material to a realization and way of seeing, perceiving human nature, opposing what is ordinarily perceived by the public, and that underneath is deviousness, a formation actually of a group think organization for platform to get the thoughts energized, well, I believe that even if what I just stated is offbeat, or divergent from your emphasis in essay, that I am still not far off from directly addrssing your topic. Presumptuous eh. Don’t anwser that.
That your topic is one I would not seek out to get more information on it, is the reason thus I hit on it without penetrating into it, sure. I use it, CULTURAL ENGINEERING, this subject focus, I confess, to get off surface concerns, deeper than one might think though, but that pop into my mind. And as it turns out inspiring me to further explore Cohen, who is a center part in your collection of high spirit artistic folks who are the subversives in this matter of cultural engineering, proving or suggesting the attitudes you profile, highlight, are promoted by these intelligences.
As far as the faulty soul narrative, same ole, same ole, that soul expressed in a work is what you see is what you get sort of thing is not necessarily so: I thought I made this clear that it seems apparent to me that an artist cannot separate spirit and it’s soul from a work manifested. Perhaps you don’t exactly either, and your are talking nuance here. I am not sure how you see this, although on immediate reflection you do make it quite clear. That we can be deceived and that soul is not necessarily definitively displayed in an artist’s work. But I am not talking ‘high’ soul necessarily, simply soul. Which is the ‘guts’, as contradictory as that might seem to intangible unbloody, unfleshy soul, but which is the core of a beings spirit and fuels the ‘spirit’s’ everlasting action to the grave seems to me.
Cohen is not given credit here from me for being high soul, but rather, reveals ALL SOUL, and that that is his song. Regardless what was, is beneath it, underwrites it, purposes it. IT delivers a song of immense beauty in melody and lyric. Regadless the lyric may well, seems to to me, deliver an unfaith in the efficacy of the good, loving, major side (my faith) of the goodness in the human. It sort of seems Jasun are implying that underneath Cohen and his ilk is a designed, rather insidious source and force that deliberately infests with contradictory message apparent to feel and intent, a devil’s touch, if you will. That inhabits and manifests his song. That that kind of nasty energy comes before the music, inscribes it, motivates it, is its message and purpose. Whoa. I say, first comes the genius of facility to make music and the urge simply to do it without message at all (other than lyric is applied of course to the music, and that is message, yes. Which comes first, melody or lyric) But an insidious message first, before the choir of a prayful soul? A message to infect folks with a curse on the spirit, oh, that’s hard to take. To trick folks with beauty with an ugly message? Hard to take. Possible but . . .
But that brings up your point, would I accept this man’s song if he is really ‘evil’? ‘Evil’, my word for your laying out the negative manifests of artists with insidious character. Apparently I already have. But in the context of the point I have been trying to make here: If the work is beautiful it is beautiful. Whatever the motive. Do I look at an artist, any artist, different after knowing biography, sure. Screw ’em! But, I’ll say it again, if there is the magic, there is the magic, and it suspends belief if it is working like, “first you see it, and then you don’t”, sleight-of-hand, or somehing. The trick is so rehearsed and educated it blows you away. Thus if it is magic that transforms me, establishes me within the magic zone created by a jerk, I have no choice but to be mesmerized. I can understand an asshole made the magic but If my system has chosen to accept the magic as manifested, then that is the retainer, it sticks everlasting I guess. Will I be more critical, more likely not to want to hear or see or feel any more of the artist’s work, well, it it moves me, and that is sort of the point it seems to me, to be gut, heart and mind moved, more gut perhaps and heart, well then, yes, I am trapped in the art of it.
Would I rather not be told of the degradation of character behind an artist’s work? I don’t know about that absolutely but I think being a curious chap and most interested in biographies, what kind of person produced such glory, and that while disappointed, even very disappointed, as I read about uglinesses I would not turn off on the beauty of the art produced. But of course, prime consideration is isn’t it, am I intersted and taken in in the first place? And just why is that? That might be considerd the question eh. I like to think evaluation of art has much more to do with a natural inclination to be able to appreciate fine work AS IS, as opposed to a judgement rooted in a prejudice going in. That the work supercedes the character produced it.
No, I did not elaborate on your interest and focus Jasun, CULTURAL ENGINEERING. Delve into the implications of that. Add opinion, maybe a bit of research even, that would heighten the discussion, put more light on that subject. And, aside I did not even listen to the podcast which after all is your media method to explain your main point, CULTURAL ENGINEERING, I suppose central to our ‘problem’ mainly is that I made too much of my own interests outside of the main topic. Using Leonard Cohen as subject artist who is faulty yet delivers the magic. And that that is the prime thing with me here, not the implications of his alleged and purposeful lousiness.
Got you thinking tho, didn’t it? 😉
That it did. That it did. And by the way, it looks like consequent this exchange triggerd by your CULTURAL ENGINEERING that I will not be singing HALLELUJAH. And, I had it down, listening to a number of versions of it on Youtube. KD Lange has an impressive, exciting version she sung at an Olympics, alone in white, high on a cakebox to tens of thousands, all doing a wave of lights.
I was ready to go. Lyrics to all verses memorized over and over and over, rehearsed here in my quarters off and on for a long time. But as I said, I was always a bit taken aback, suspicous, wondered, puzzled, about the lyrics, what lurked there really. But I was figuring, liked what I took to be a a kind of ‘realistic’ look at a faith, some disappointment sure, not so abandoned, or altogether giving into unchallenged ‘faith’ without any sides to it, a little bit of questioning perhaps, nuances, while at the same time I was bothered by that very fact, but that well, here now is a very popular sort of modern ‘spiritual’. But in the course of this back and forth that we did Jasun, that answered concerns, my bit of bother about Hallelujah.
I do hate to give it up. I could do wonders to ruin this tune in my way, thoroughly enjoying singing it, not caring I am inadequate, just thrilling to the glory and ‘spirit’ of it. Hallelujah anon. Weird eh, what this worldwide hit song of Leonard Cohen has personally wrought. Here’s how I figure it: if I sing it I will not be true to my own faith. Not faith in Jesus Christ or Christianity, although “do unto others” is my trust, but more faith in my . . . well, that there is no “cold and broken Hallelujah”. Certainly not absolutely. Hallelujah means to me just that, a cry unto the heavens, The GREAT BEYOND as I call IT, and to who, what, and where and why and IS THAT which I marvel at quite often, sunrise, sunset, at the stars, and pray to on occasion. And I just won’t deny my spirit complete trust that when I sing out Hallelujah I am in unbroken ‘line’ connection to the Great Spirit which pervades. And by golly, I expect results!
I have learned half a dozen Cohen songs, including “Hallelujah.” Guess I get to give them all up.
No one can ever say I don’t take my own medicine.
I agree about there being no such thing as a cold & broken Hallelujah. It’s not the word, it’s what’s behind it.
Flies are Good. Luci’s fall Our chorus on Sun.
Oh, when will thee fly work for me. They do…
to the degree that I am Not doing flies’ work.
Something about grace, not works or something.
Lord of the flies is not a fly. Dreams of late
persons suiciding in fucked blood gushin ways.
I give thanx daily to the Cultural Engineering
machine. Thanks for the reprieve Cohen and co.
“Sunshine Days”
“tells the story of Oliver Martin, the “Mozart
of telepaths” who recreates the Brady Bunch house
in his nondescript bungalow.” – The Secret Sun
Disturbing to the core. Really hard to hear all that. Paradoxically looking forward to part 3 and 4.
William, you really didn’t have to add that you didn’t listen to the podcast, it couldn’t be more obvious. The point is not that LC is faulty, an asshole, degradation of character or any of the other terms you used. It’s not about character at all, it’s about ROLE. It’s not that he is/was a dark soul (which is of course as you say somewhat necessary to the creation of powerful art), it’s that he is/was an AGENT!!
The closest you come to a relevant point (that LC “reveals ALL SOUL” and this essential task functions as a kind of blanket excuse enabling your indifference to the details of the depths) only makes the material in this podcast more necessary… It could be argued that no one in our age could possibly be a truly powerful or relevant poet without being immersed and entangled in the MKULTRA milieu to the extent that LC apparently is.
You should really just listen to it. Or else preserve your podcastlessness and read ‘The Man Next Door’. It’s not just stunning content, she’s a very good writer. I promise you you won’t feel that you’ve wasted your time!!
And Jasun, I can’t disagree with you about who his “us” really is. The evidence does indeed demand it (although there may be a bit of wiggle room between ‘the Jews’ and a more general conspiracy… but then again maybe not).
And yet… [further thoughts should wait until I hear parts 3&4]
Cohen always struck me as a less funny version of the Jesuit Jake Thackray.
Glad his art or rôle never detained me overmuch.
I did enjoy Jake however.
One of Them
Words & Music: Jake Thackray
“Tell me if you’ve heard the one,
The one about the Jew boy.
This one is a gasser!
It’s just a bit of fun and they don’t really mind.
And if you are a Jew boy,
This will really slay you;
This will make you curl up.
If you are one of them you’re really not my kind.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o04T9dDA8mg
Climb. Stand where I stood. Do me, O holy spirit.
I’ll post here too so not to sully the new thread.
We wouldn’t want to take a trowel to our own ruins.
We might rediscover our lost penis, The Other penis.
Preconceived notion of A rising messiah much, Aeolus?
Incense and donations fuck is Tailor Swift so popular.
Haters gonna hate hate hate. Wisdom is a profane union.
Once you know the agenda it’s plain to see in so many pop songs. I think it’s ironic that so many Brides walk down the aisle to
A Thousand Years (Twilight Movie) or “Hallelujah” with it’s obvious “reversal” message. What’s the next rage- Hozier’s “Take Me To Church”? Let’s hope not- have you READ the lyrics?