“Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.” Stephen King

True Detective Season 2 Main Titles from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

Last year, I became obsessed by Nic Pizzolatto's TRUE DETECTIVE, and exposure to this remarkable TV Miniseries still affects my thinking, and my world-view. It reintroduced me to my early reading of Howard Philips [HP]H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Chambers, Gothic stuff - the Existentialist and Philosopher/Writers including Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius, but especially Albert Camus, Sartre, Freddy Nietzsche and many, many others.

The exposure to TRUE DETECTIVE, was wonderful, as I am now a different person, in terms of the way I interpret the context of my existence, and those I share my time and thinking with. So my re-interpretation of those works from my youth, is different today, very different - but perhaps another key aspect of TRUE DETECTIVE, were the new writers and philosophers I encountered, such as Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, Joe Pulver and many others, and discovered the Antinatalists such as Emil Coran, Arthur Schopenhauer et al, and so my thinking was hijacked.

So Season 2 of TRUE DETECTIVE uncoiled itself last week, and again, it has dominated my thinking. After a second viewing of episode one, the excitement and anticipation of episode two is like an itch I can't stop scratching, as a huge slug of my cognition, my daily thinking is devoted to exploring this TV show, its themes, its core and poke the escalating cynicism we have toward reality.

This may make me sound mentally ill, but I really don't care.

Many with less patience, or are less aware of the perceived belief of having 'skin' in the game [we call life], have been perplexed by the opening episode. Not me, as I see the strands of Pizzolatto's narrative is revealing - like an angry river, leading to a bay, which on its journey is allowing us to observe the absurdity of this existence, though the parallax of another man's imagination - and a team assembled around him, to craft into physical reality from the fevered, and existential dreams of his consciousness, a shape we can see, in our own reality. A shape that when it emerges is as disturbing as it is curiously uplifting.

Imagine my surprise, when the show aired last week, that the title track, crafted to the surreal titles, is NEVERMIND by LEONARD COHEN.

So Season 2 of TRUE DETECTIVE has me returning to my love of Leonard Cohen, and in so doing, I have been re-evaluating his body of work; and I have to admit that his last album, POPULAR PROBLEMS [from which T Bone Burnett selected NEVERMIND for the titles], is utterly, utterly, total genius, thought-provoking, fuel for our cognitive process, beautiful, insightful, I could go on, but I won't, as I love it so much.

Though much of the songs on POPULAR PROBLEMS are dark, very dark, when dissected, however, they are remarkably insightful, and one in particular resonates in my mind like a Church Bell summoning the faithful for worship; It's called "DID I LOVE YOU", and it plays in my mind, in a perpetual loop - like the swirl of a roller-coaster from which I sit strapped.

'DID I LOVE YOU' also makes me smile, as the very first gift I sent Muriel Keogh, [from Saudi Arabia, where I was stationed], was Jennifer Warnes' FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT : The songs of Leonard Cohen'. I chose the Warnes tribute album, as I thought her interpretation of Cohen's words would be more accessible to this woman, the one, I fell in love with - only to discover, that she too was a fan of the Laconic Canadian, poet. One of the things Muriel and I share.

So for the next few weeks, I will be distracted by TRUE DETECTIVE, for which I am thankful, as it allows me to manage some of the problems ahead of me. I have found, one key method to reduce anxiety, and manage the existential panic that lies at the core of being a thinking human being, is to keep the mind and its cognitive apparatus fully occupied, distracted, if you will; otherwise madness beckons

Andy Dufresne: "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
STEPHEN KING - RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
FRANK DARABONT 'THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

Because Stephen King was correct when he said “Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”, because we need to manage our thinking-cognition to survive this reality - and I am thankful to Nic Pizzolatto and his team for TRUE DETECTIVE, as its density is such, it is all encompassing, to many of us - as we're headed deep into TRUE DETECTIVE territory. This means that the insane logic that drives the engine of my thinking, and therefore my existence will be firing on all cylinders.

So I will leave you with a remarkable song, a gift from Leonard Cohen, with words that provoke thought, thus providing comfort and distraction from the shapes that emerge from the surrounding fog that some term the 'cloud of probability' that envelopes [and perplexes] us, and what others call - our lives, our reality; trapped in this rock in a corner of time and space.

Have a great weekend, TRUE DETECTIVE - Monday, and for that I am thankful

……………………Nevermind, Nevermind, I live the life, I left behind…………………………

Various Positions

In the building excitement to finally see Leonard Cohen live after decades of listening to his music and reading his poetry, I find my thoughts swirl toward the insights the quiet Canadian provides those who look deeply into his poetry. My obsessive personality irritates many people, and I always retort, imagine living with it 24/7? I spent several hours yesterday listening to one song in particular, a song that I consider I finally understand - 'Heart with no Companion'.

Cohen may well be the poet of the melancholic, tackling many aspects of life and reality – but if you look closely to his lyrics you will find both an existential air as well as some wickedly dark humour. The first piece of music I sent Muriel, the woman who became my wife, was the Jennifer Warnes ‘Famous Blue Raincoat : The Songs of Leonard Cohen’ album [on tape] from when I worked in Saudi Arabia in the 1980’s.

I spent several hours last night listening to live versions of his track “Heart with no Companion”, from his CD ‘Songs from the Road’ as well as various gonzo-filmed clips at YouTube. Though dating from 1984’s ‘Various Positions’ Album / CD, the live version[s] are enlightening. Using contrast, we have a very upbeat, tempo tune sung cheerfully but featuring some dark insights into the tragedies that life can provide, but the narrator explains that it will all work out fine in the end. Not one to understate tragedy, Cohen’s narrator greets the listener from surviving his own despair, which was so awful that it shattered him and so he can reach out to everyone and tell them that is survivable. 

He warns of unrequited love, loneliness, unfulfilled aspirations that can lead to ‘the days of shame that will follow, and wild distress’. 

Never one to hold back [Cohen doesn't indicate that it will be bad, but uses the term wild distress]; the up-tempo rhythm allows these troubling insights to cheerfully seep into your consciousness. Reminiscent of Bobby Darren’s upbeat tune ‘Mack The Knife’ hiding the sinister tale of a serial killer, or Olivia Newton-John’s reworking of ‘Banks of the Ohio’ another dark tale masked by a cheerfully upbeat tune.

Like much of Cohen’s work, there are existential insights into our plight, as well as a calming, almost soothing edge to the melancholia, even when the apocalyptic visions he details in The Future as sung in a cheerful and amusing manner. When he confronts his topics, including the awareness of our own doom, what we term Mortality Salience and Terror Management, he does so with insight, as well as wink with his golden voice. Remember he is after all an ordained Zen-Buddhist Monk. 

So with 'Heart with no Companion', Cohen warns that trouble is coming and it is terrifying, and related to human nature - but take heart as he will see you on the other side; because you will survive, but you will need to hold firm as it will result in nights of wild distress.

Heart With No Companion by Leonard Cohen

I greet you from the other side
Of sorrow and despair
With a love so vast and shattered
It will reach you everywhere

And I sing this for the captain
Whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion
Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion
For the soul without a king
For the prima ballerina
Who cannot dance to anything

Through the days of shame that are coming
Through the nights of wild distress
Tho' your promise count for nothing
You must keep it nonetheless

You must keep it for the captain
Whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion
Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion ...

I greet you from the other side ...

From Various Positions released December 11, 1984

Melancholia was seldom so wonderfully [and cheerfully] presented by anyone, apart from Mr. Leonard Cohen.

I have seen the future, baby: it is murder

Call me Cassandra, but everyday, the drip, drip, drip of bad economic news is worrying me; especially what is happening within publishing and literacy. I understand the need to make fiscal cuts to reduce the borrowings in the UK, but cuts of > 25% and more in UK library budgets are worrying. As a child, our family lived on a very tight budget and the library was a refuge for me, a place of escape and a place to help a developing mind understand the world.

It seems that many writers feel the same.

From Library Journal [US] annual report

"I'm a writer because of libraries," asserted best-selling author Dennis Lehane. "Libraries say to working-class and poor kids that they matter, that they can read the same books as the children of the hedge fund managers."

Jeanette Winterson at Herald Scotland agrees –

The author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, speaking in Edinburgh at an event to celebrate the 25th birthday of the publication of her most famous book, said she is worried about future young readers, who, unlike her when she was growing up in Accrington, Lancashire, may not have access to literary classics such as Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

Winterson said that as a child her one escape from her oppressive home life was to go to her local library.

Yesterday she said she would “start at A and read Jane Austen and move to B and read the Brontes and go on from there”.

Winterson, 50, said she had been dismayed to visit her old library in Accrington to find it stocked with DVDs rather than books, and said that the less well off, less well-cared for children would not have the same experiences as she did. She said she also feared for libraries under the “Cameron cuts” in Government expenditure and the future of literature as it changes in the digital age.

I know I ‘bang the drum’ about the importance of reading, and how oppressive regimes use illiteracy to control populations – but in these days where the march of technology combined with the economic woes we face, form a perfect pincer-movement against literacy.

We need people of influence, who understand the importance of reading to speak out, like Jason Pinter pointed out in his recent article at The Huffington Post –

As Lev Grossman states in his TIME profile of Franzen, the quotes were taken somewhat out of context, and Franzen did in fact thank Oprah during his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards. Because after all, in our sound bite, knee-jerk culture it was easier to cherry pick the juicy quotes rather than try to understand that, at the time, Franzen was a relatively obscure writer coming to terms with suddenly being a literary post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. And so now Franzen appears on the cover of TIME, is profiled in Vogue, and has riled up the literary community in a way that would make you think he'd spent the last nine years GTL'ing on the Jersey Shore rather than penning his next novel.

So why the animosity? Why the jealousness? Why are people taking potshots at Franzen rather than celebrating the recognition of a writer who is being put out there, front and center, to represent the importance of the written word, to tell people that his profession is worthy of recognition alongside the most important issues of our time?

The sad truth is, with few exceptions, writers are not recognized by the mainstream population or media. My guess is one hundred people could identify Snooki over every one who could identify Toni Morrison. The celebration of being famous for being loud and sloppy has usurped being famous for the act of actually creating. For once, someone who has created something, who is one of us, who not only knows the value of a book but has devoted his life to them, is being presented to society at large as our representative. And some people scorn this, as though they would prefer writers as a whole to remain anonymous, who seem to believe there is some odd nobility in remaining chained to the same desk chair in which you write your books. Or they would rather feud over who deserves what and why until the whole literary culture is fragmented into tiny crumbs that can be ignored and swept under the carpet.

Read More from Jason Pinter Here

When the written word is only available in digital platforms, and our libraries closed, bricks and mortar bookstores closed, then the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” will become a chasm that no one can traverse.

Then it will be too late, but we’ll all be singing this song below – Unless you do something!

Talk about books to your friends, colleagues, contacts, be seen reading a book, always have a book on you, pass books to friends - Reading is important in making people think for themselves, not be 'directed' by forces beyond our control.



All together now –

The Future © Leonard Cohen

Give me back my broken night my mirrored room, my secret life

it's lonely here, there's no one left to torture

Give me absolute control over every living soul

And lie beside me, baby, that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex

Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture

Give me back the Berlin wall

give me Stalin and St Paul

I've seen the future, brother: it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

Won't be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold

and it has overturned the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind you never will,

you never did I'm the little jew who wrote the Bible

I've seen the nations rise and fall

I've heard their stories, heard them all

but love's the only engine of survival

Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear,

to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going any further

And now the wheels of heaven stop you feel the devil's riding crop

Get ready for the future: it is murder

Things are going to slide ...
There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code

Your private life will suddenly explode

There'll be phantoms

There'll be fires on the road and the white man dancing

You'll see a woman hanging upside down

her features covered by her fallen gown

and all the lousy little poets coming round

tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson and the white man dancin'

Give me back the Berlin wall

Give me Stalin and St Paul

Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima

Destroy another fetus now

We don't like children anyhow

I've seen the future, baby: it is murder

Things are going to slide ...

When they said REPENT REPENT

The Future © Leonard Cohen