Amy Tan on Art

Amy Tan writes in her book Saving Fish From Drowning: But then I discovered art. I saw for the first time nature and pure feelings expressed in a form I could understand. A painting was a translation of the language of my heart. My emotions were all there - but in a painting, a sculpture. I went to a museum after museum, into the labyrinths of rooms and that of my own soul. And there they were - my feelings, and all of them natural, spontaneous, truthful and free. My heart cavorted within shapes and shadows and splashes, in patterns, repetitions, and abruptly ending lines. My soul shivered in tiny feathered strokes, one eyelash at a time.

I love this expression, and I relate to it as someone who loves art and someone who loves to create art.

Despair: Hermann Hesse Today

I was looking through one of my first journals today and found where I wrote an excerpt from Demian, by Hermann Hesse. ... "I nodded but was unable to make any comment. He began to bore me and I was startled that his evident need and despair made no deeper impression on me. My only feeling was: I can't help you." Hesse wrote this book in 1919 [under pen name Emil Sinclair] and I read it in the late 1960's... of course I read Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund and others. Hesse was born in 1877 and published many works in the first half of the 20th century.

When I looked to see what Wikipedia says about Hesse, I found this interesting slice of how other artists related to his works, so I am including them in this blog today.

Herman Hesse in popular culture
The 1960/70s rock band Steppenwolf named themselves after Hesse's novel, partly due to lead singer John Kay's German origins.
The Volvos singer Heynes Arms wrote a song entitled "I Think I'm Herman Hesse". Like Hesse, Arms had German parentage and was born on July 2.
A portion of Herman Hesse's quote, "In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a savior is crucified," excerpted from his work Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth was included in the eighth episode of NBC's television drama, The Black Donnellys entitled "In Each One a Savior".
The British progressive rock band Yes was also influenced by the works of Hermann Hesse, especially on their 1972 album, Close to the Edge, considered by most critics and fans to be their masterpiece.
Providence, Rhode Island based slam poet Buddy Wakefield titled the first track of his 2006 album (Run On Anything), "Healing Herman Hesse".
Washington DC based electronic duo Thievery Corporation has a song on their album Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi (1997) titled "The Glass Bead Game".
The UK Indie-Rock band James makes reference to Hermann Hesse with their lyrics in the song "Crash" on the album Millionaires: "Cut the Hermann free from the Hesse".
A song by the English rock band Blur, "Strange News from Another Star", from their 1997 album Blur, takes its name from the title of Hesse's 1919 anthology of short stories, Strange News from Another Star.
The New York band Suncrown recorded the song Helen, which contains the lyric "I am Goldmouth lost deep in the forest", referring to the character from Narcissus and Goldmund.
The American performance artist Laurie Anderson mentions Herman Hesse and his grave in her spoken piece "Maria Teresa Teresa Maria" on the live album The Ugly One With The Jewels. In it she mentions the disparity between his gravestone and that of his wife, Nina.

Soulful poetry, sounds from Adam Duritz

I have always loved Counting Crows, and this song is soulful - you need to get this song!

GOOD TIME from the album HARD CANDY

by Adam Duritz

The gentleman caller in the blue suede shoes
He don't know what to do

He just wants to look good for you

So he rushes in to tell you what he did today

But he can't think of what to sayI think you listen anyway

He wants to have a good time just like everybody

He doesn't want to fall apart

You watch him as he stutters over what to say

It's just a little game you play

It's no easier for you some days

You wish you could tell him it'll be okay

But you feel a little shy these days

Cause everybody goes away

You just want to have a good time

Just like everybody else

You don't want to fall apart this time
I can look into your eyes and see the mess we're in

Well darling, if it's shit came out

Then I suppose that it's shit went in

Even though I couldn't say I've been the places that you've been

You know he made my heart real strong

Even if he made my head real thinI want to have a good time

Just like everybody

And I don't want to fall apart

I just want have a good time

Just like everybody else

And I don't want to fall apart this time

So would you please invite me in

I really love the red haired girls

I'm just another boy from texas

Come on and take a spin

I got a brand new set of wings

Words & Music by Adam F. Duritz Songwriter/Composer DURITZ ADAM FREDRIC PublishersEMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC JONES FALLS MUSIC

Learn from the East; The Dalai Lama

For Americans to understand Eastern thought, we have to tear away what our society and government agenda has taught. Our culture in the US is so different from the East, and based on centuries of behaviors taken from Europe and played out here. His Holiness The Dalai Lama can teach us much, and I have taken a few words from his web site.

"Under present conditions, there is definitely a growing need for human understanding and a sense of universal responsibility. In order to achieve such ideas, we must generate a good and kind heart, for without this, we can achieve neither universal happiness nor lasting world peace. We cannot create peace on paper. While advocating universal responsibility and universal brotherhood and sisterhood, the facts are that humanity is organized in separate entities in the form of national societies.

"Thus, in a realistic sense, I feel it is these societies that must act as the building-blocks for world peace. Attempts have been made in the past to create societies more just and equal. Institutions have been established with noble charters to combat anti-social forces. Unfortunately, such ideas have been cheated by selfishness.

"More than ever before, we witness today how ethics and noble principles are obscured by the shadow of self-interest, particularly in the political sphere. There is a school of thought that warns us to refrain from politics altogether, as politics has become synonymous with amorality. Politics devoid of ethics does not further human welfare, and life without morality reduces humans to the level of beasts.

"However, politics is not axiomatically 'dirty'. Rather, the instruments of our political culture have distorted the high ideals and noble concepts meant to further human welfare. Naturally, spiritual people express their concern about religious leaders 'messing' with politics, since they fear the contamination of religion by dirty politics."

Summer Days - Lexington 1961

On a lazy summer morning recently, I was lying in bed looking out of the second-floor window. Because there are windows at three sides and dozens of trees nearby, I always feel like I am in a treehouse. With the early morning light and some breeze, the leaves were waving and reflecting multiple colors of green. This experience, like other days I am lazing around, makes me float back to my childhood.

I moved from Cleveland to Lexington, Kentucky when I was 11 years old, during fifth grade. That summer, like any summer of my childhood actually, I spent it exploring every nook and cranny of the neighborhood, like an anthropologist collecting evidence of time before. We lived in a new neighborhood, with new houses, but it was bordered on two sides by Lex's old farms that still had barns and horses and plenty to figure out. I would climb over the fence and fearlessly walk up to horses that were much larger, ones that were grazing on the bluegreen grass in the field.

I really wanted a horse, but we were not going to get one, so I pretended these were mine. I had a brush and I spent time brushing their manes and petting their faces. Even though I was 11, evidently I could make something up and believe it, because I eventually had a horse of my own - called Golden Fire - and she had a golden mane and tail and was sleek and proud. I loved this horse until we moved to a new house two years later and I had to leave her behind.

During this summer with the horses, I also found an old treehouse in one of the fields. You had to angle up an old, scraggly oak to get to the platform, but it had walls and a big door and windows, and I claimed it. It must of been someone's in yesteryear, but now I was enjoying it like an adventurer who had conquered and stayed.

The lazy days of summer are only an instant away if you free yourself to enjoy them.