Videos « Gayle’s Weblog

Videos

I read Phoebe Damrosch’s book, Service Included about her experiences working at New York City’s famous restaurant, Per Se and loved it. I was invited to dinner there with a publisher when I was in the City and think that though I will probably not have that experience again in this lifetime, it was truly the best meal I’ve ever eaten and the wait staff was extraordinary. In this video, Phoebe talks about her job there, her admiration for Thomas Keller, Per Se’s owner and founder, her training and her ultimate journey to write her memoir. She is very pregnant in this little film and I’m guessing now has a new baby and is not longer waiting tables in fancy restaurants.

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I just watched an amazing documentary on Leonard Cohen, called Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. It was moving and wonderful and musical and reminded me of what great poetry can do for the soul. I watched it from start to finish and then had to watch it again. You’ll see some great musicians singing Leonard’s songs and talking about the influence he had on their lives–the Wainwright family, Antony Hegarty, U2, Beth Orton and many others. I rented it from Netflix. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an indie video store in the Valley so we could support a local retailer?

In one segment of the film, Cohen reads from the preface of his book, Beautiful Losers that was translated into Chinese in 2000. It was so moving that I looked for it on Google, found it, and here it is for you to enjoy even if you don’t watch the film.

A NOTE TO THE READER

[Foreword in the
Chinese edition
of "Beautiful Losers]

Dear Reader,

Thank you for coming to this book. It is an honor, and a surprise, to have the frenzied thoughts of my youth expressed in Chinese characters. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of the translator and the publishers in bringing this curious work to your attention. I hope you will find it useful or amusing.

When I was young, my friends and I read and admired the old Chinese poets. Our ideas of love and friendship, of wine and distance, of poetry itself, were much affected by those ancient songs. Much later, during the years when I practiced as a Zen monk under the guidance of my teacher Kyozan Joshu Roshi, the thrilling sermons of Lin Chi (Rinzai) were studied every day. So you can understand, Dear Reader, how privileged I feel to be able to graze, even for a moment, and with such meager credentials, on the outskirts of your tradition.

This is a difficult book, even in English, if it is taken too seriously. May I suggest that you skip over the parts you don’t like? Dip into it here and there. Perhaps there will be a passage, or even a page, that resonates with your curiosity. After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover. In any case, I thank you for your interest in this odd collection of jazz riffs, pop-art jokes, religious kitsch and muffled prayer — an interest which indicates, to my thinking, a rather reckless, though very touching, generosity on your part.

Beautiful Losers was written outside, on a table set among the rocks, weeds and daisies, behind my house on Hydra, an island in the Aegean Sea. I lived there many years ago. It was a blazing hot summer. I never covered my head. What you have in your hands is more of a sunstroke than a book.

Dear Reader, please forgive me if I have wasted your time.

Los Angeles, February 27, 2000

Leonard Cohen

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How it feels to have a stroke

http://www.ted.com Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.