"Words are only words but we turn them into gifts... then we seem confused as their meaning slowly shifts"

Steppenwolf revisited

As readers of this blog will know, I recently rediscovered one of my favorite books: Narziss and Goldmund by Herman Hesse.

After fitting in a few other writers in the meantime, I just decided to revisit another Hesse masterpiece: Steppenwolf.

All I can say is what a difference thirty years makes. I knew the book was great when I read it in my twenties but only now does it truly come alive in all it's amazing strength. It was first published in 1927 and was triggered by Hesse's internal struggles as he turned 50. So it makes perfect sense that it would impact me more now than then.

It is remarkable. Here's just a taste:

But the worst of it is that it is just this contentment that I cannot endure. After a short time it fills me with irrepressible loathing and nausea. Then, in desperation, I have to escape into other regions, if possible on the road to pleasure, or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain. When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols, to provide rebellious schoolboys with the longed-for ticket to Hamburg, to seduce a little girl, or to stand one or two representatives of the established order on their heads. For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

I said I was done with politics but...

OK, so I said I was through commenting on the political scene. But congrats to Obama on his decisive victory in South Carolina. Hopefully, after the highly questionable tactics that were used against him, more people will understand that when he speaks of moving away from Washington-politics-as-usual that includes the Clintons.
Bill managed in the space of a few days to not only make me like his wife less but to question his integrity more. He should never have been impeached but that doesn't mean he should be back in the White House. For once the mud they tried to sling didn't stick. I hope it continues that way.

The next album? Maybe.

Amsterdam Light © Dave Tutin

I have enough songs for the next album. If I get off my ass and record it, it will be called HARVESTING LIGHT. That title has to do with my belief that we are essentially born into darkness and whether or not we make it out depends on how well we harvest light as we go through life.

This would be the title track:

HARVESTING LIGHT (revised 1/29/08)

Darkness all around
And it isn’t even night
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
It’s so hard to see
So hard to pick the fight
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
Looking for the moments when the light comes breaking through
Sometimes it’s from another heart sometimes it comes from you
You keep it in a safe place that’s all that you can do
Harvesting light
Harvesting light

So much love and comfort
Hiding in plain sight
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
I hear voices talking
Who is wrong or right
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
Looking for the moments when the eyes are open wide
And even in the darkness gather all we need inside
The tiny spark of living learned from those who died
Harvesting light
Harvesting light

Living without distance
No width or depth or height
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
Illumination rises
Above just black or white
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
Looking for the moments when the darkness briefly clears
Washed away like used up days by salty diamond tears
When the light of reason briefly shines upon our humdrum fears
Harvesting light
Harvesting light

We think we see an answer
But it isn’t quite
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
Still we hold it closely
Still we hold it tight
Harvesting light
Harvesting light
Looking for the moments when it makes a kind of sense
When the fog of history’s traded for the simple present tense
When the Holy and the godless give up all defense
Harvesting light
Harvesting light

© 2008 Dave Tutin

"I can't forget, I can't forget...but I don't remember what" - Leonard Cohen

"You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realise that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all ... Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing ... (I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life, as it did my mother's...)" - Luis Buñuel

As I now watch my mother struggling with short-term memory loss the power of these words really hits home. The good news, if it can be called that, is that she is soon to be 81.

When Alzheimer's Disease strikes earlier in life the results are even more devastating. And that's the subject of Away From Her a powerful, brilliant movie starring Julie Christie as a woman who finds herself "fading away" while still in her early sixties. It's a must-see in my opinion even though it's one of those movies that to say you enjoyed it would be the wrong choice of word.

Sadly, this English-Canadian production is the type of film that would probably not get made inside the Hollywood system. And if it did, would have Tom Hanks in the male lead and be played as much more of a tearjerker.

Look out for one priceless piece of acting from Olympia Dukakis. Not only does this movie accept that people in their sixties still enjoy great sex but Olympia captures the overwhelming satisfaction it brings to a woman who hasn't experienced it in a while with just a facial expression!

Now I love breasts as much as the next guy...

...actually, depending on who the next guy is, I probably love them more.

But how desperate and ridiculous is it to sit in your room at your computer doing searches based on that single word: Breasts?

Well, it seems that's what many guys do. All around the world.

I know because some time ago I 'borrowed' a photograph of a naked girl for one of my posts. I even edited it to suggest her nakedness rather than reveal it. What I forgot to do was to rename the jpg file. The original file was called simply 'Breasts' and so that name was perpetuated when I added the edited shot to my blog.

I'm not going to reveal just how many of my recent visitors arrived here by searching for images of "Breasts." All I can tell you is I've just deleted the pic so that my visitor stats might reflect reality.

Although you could say that all those men (or women) looking for breasts on the Internet reflects reality too.

Next time I use a pic like that I must remember to rename the file. I'm curious to see how many people Pablo Picasso brings here. At least it's given Leonard something to look at!

The best news I've heard in ages:

Leonard Cohen: Tour 2008. Leonard will be touring with his band in Canada and US in May and in Europe in the summer. More details will be announced in February

The pic is by my good friend Platon, who kindly took the shot of me that's on the inside of Raised In Vain. And over there on the right of this blog.

A political blog worth reading

I'm done writing about politics. I've made my decision and I'll cast my vote. But when I see displays of fake emotion like Mrs Clinton's coffee shop performance actually change people's minds...I get angry. And anger never got anyone anywhere, so I'll seethe in private.

But a really good friend of mine - Jeff - has decided to start a third blog! He already has one that's primarily about his musical thoughts and adventures and one about investing. Now, in a wonderfully named blog - Stumped - he gives us his thoughts on the world of politics. In particular the 2008 Presidential race. He says he tries hard to make it more than a series of rants. And he succeeds. I probably wouldn't! So, while I get back to matters musical, enjoy Jeff's take on The Whacky World Of Washington:

Check it out: Stumped.

An open letter to Barack Obama

Dear Barack,

I am a writer. And I plan to vote for you.

So why this letter? It has to do with the same reason I chose two lines from one of my songs as the title of this blog: “Words are only words but we turn them into gifts. Then we seem confused as their meaning slowly shifts.”

I was deeply saddened to hear Hillary Clinton suggest that your campaign was based only on words. As if that were a negative. What else can a campaign be based on? How can we get to know our candidates if not through their words?

To be criticized for being articulate seems doubly cruel after eight years of a President who struggles to put a sentence together.

I assume it is okay now to call you articulate? I remember even that description causing problems some time ago.

I love words. I love their power and their ability to provoke every human emotion. I love communication and while I would never put anyone down for lacking a way with words it’s certainly not a failing to have one. It’s a gift.

But with it comes the responsibility to use that gift wisely.

I hope to enjoy many more of your spirited, moving, human speeches. It never seems like you are reading or working from memory but speaking from the heart.

I also hope, however, that as time passes and the political dirty tricks increase, as they will, that the meaning of your words is never lost. It can happen so easily. Your words will be turned against you and I hope you are ready for that with more, different, calm and equally self-confident answers. I hope in this sound-bite-driven world your own sound-bites continue to be wrapped in substance not the empty air to which we’ve become accustomed.

Finally, I hope that when you are President you remember that the words themselves are not the gifts America wants from you. As wonderful and emotional as words can be, what matters most is when the promises those words constructed become reality. Perhaps this is what Mrs. Clinton meant but it’s not what she said.

Some of us have been confused for the entire two terms of this President. Some came late to the realization that America was confused. You have already started to lift that fog of confusion. With words. And I truly hope that I never hear anyone say about you, “But he didn’t do what he said…”

Great, uplifting words are a joy to hear again. When the words we need to hear become the actions we need to see, America can continue becoming the country it set out to be.

I wish you well.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Tutin

Live as it happens...

One of the gifts I received this year was the book Peter Jennings: A Reporter's Life.

It is an interesting read. Peter Jennings was a special man in many ways. But the most powerful effect the book has had on me is to make me think about the concept of "news" in general. And how it's changed.

I'm only a third of the way through the book but already it has hit me that Jennings' idea of news is...or was when he was first covering the Middle East in the 60s...so different from what passes for news today.

What it made me realize is this. Today, news is about "being there." We want to experience what is happening. Back before the Internet, cell phones, fax machines, back when foreign correspondents spent days or weeks or even months gathering the details of a 'story' it was more about understanding the events.

Jennings was even accused of being anti-Semitic just because he was one of the first reporters to want to give equal coverage to the Palestinian side of the story. He wanted people to understand the conflict not just witness it.

Today, as I said in my last post, there is almost too much communication. With all this information competing for our attention the only way to win is to be more immediate, more instant, more shocking. And anything more than a few hours old is simply that - old. Not news.

But all conflicts have reasons. Complex, cultural, historical, relevant reasons. And solutions need to take into account those reasons and to recognize that even if information can now be instant, answers seldom are.

It's one more reason why I think Mr Obama leads the pack of Presidential hopefuls. He seems to me like a man who thinks, rather than just thinking he's always right.

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Footnote: Tonight, Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic caucuses. Step one.