Singapore
Hi Glyn,
I think its somewhere in India, Bombay? I'm not sure, Leonard talkes about that in some interviews in September 2001. He found there his bottlegs:-),it's main market place in the town, so he took it like metaphor for whole life, where he must be back:-)
T.
I think its somewhere in India, Bombay? I'm not sure, Leonard talkes about that in some interviews in September 2001. He found there his bottlegs:-),it's main market place in the town, so he took it like metaphor for whole life, where he must be back:-)
T.
Leonard Cohen Newswire / bookoflonging.com (retired) / leonardcohencroatia.com (retired)
Actually I suppose I could look it up on the search engine!!!hi glyn,
i'm sorry i didn't come across this sooner. here's what i found:
On Mount Baldy, he found the regime he was looking for. Waking every morning at 2:30, he spent hours meditating, chanting, cooking, making beds, washing dishes, shoveling snow and acting as personal secretary to Sasaki Roshi, the portly Zen monk to whom he has been devoted since the late 1970s. Then, in 1999, he came down from the mountain armed with a sheaf of poems and lyrics and set to work on a new record with his friend and sometime co-composer and backup singer, Sharon Robinson. The result is a record in Cohen's most introspective mode, even as it celebrates his return to the fray. In "Boogie Street," probably the album's most immediately captivating song, Cohen's re-engagement with the world is made explicit:
A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it's time to go
I tidied up the kitchenette;
I tuned the old banjo.
I'm wanted at the traffic-jam.
They're saving me a seat.
I'm what I am, and what I am,
Is back on Boogie Street.
Boogie Street, the actual physical thoroughfare in Singapore, is given over to business by day and prostitution by night. But in the song, Cohen says, it symbolizes "ordinary human struggle and life, the place of work and desire. It's where we're meant to be, it's what we're born into. There are moments when the burden of the self is lifted, but those are only temporary situations. As I say in the song, 'You kiss my lips and then it's done/I'm back on Boogie Street.' Whatever the experience is -- the god, the woman, the insight, the epiphany, the penetration -- those are temporary events. Or as my old teacher says, 'You can't live in Paradise -- no toilets or restaurants.'"
---Brendan Bernhard
i'm sorry i didn't come across this sooner. here's what i found:
On Mount Baldy, he found the regime he was looking for. Waking every morning at 2:30, he spent hours meditating, chanting, cooking, making beds, washing dishes, shoveling snow and acting as personal secretary to Sasaki Roshi, the portly Zen monk to whom he has been devoted since the late 1970s. Then, in 1999, he came down from the mountain armed with a sheaf of poems and lyrics and set to work on a new record with his friend and sometime co-composer and backup singer, Sharon Robinson. The result is a record in Cohen's most introspective mode, even as it celebrates his return to the fray. In "Boogie Street," probably the album's most immediately captivating song, Cohen's re-engagement with the world is made explicit:
A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it's time to go
I tidied up the kitchenette;
I tuned the old banjo.
I'm wanted at the traffic-jam.
They're saving me a seat.
I'm what I am, and what I am,
Is back on Boogie Street.
Boogie Street, the actual physical thoroughfare in Singapore, is given over to business by day and prostitution by night. But in the song, Cohen says, it symbolizes "ordinary human struggle and life, the place of work and desire. It's where we're meant to be, it's what we're born into. There are moments when the burden of the self is lifted, but those are only temporary situations. As I say in the song, 'You kiss my lips and then it's done/I'm back on Boogie Street.' Whatever the experience is -- the god, the woman, the insight, the epiphany, the penetration -- those are temporary events. Or as my old teacher says, 'You can't live in Paradise -- no toilets or restaurants.'"
---Brendan Bernhard
So, it is Singapore:-) But this talk about how he found his bootlegs still stays:-)
t.
t.
Leonard Cohen Newswire / bookoflonging.com (retired) / leonardcohencroatia.com (retired)
Tom, what are you on about how he found his bootlegs, been at the funny stuff!!!hi again,
what tom's 'on about' is as follows:
There is an actual Boogie Street in the world. It's in Singapore. I don't know if it's still there. I was coming home from a tour of Australia many years ago and during the day Boogie Street is a scene of intense commercial activity. In fact, there's a lot of little stalls where bootleg records are sold. This was at a time when it was hard to find my records in the Western world. And they weren't displayed. But I asked the man if they had any Leonard Cohen, and he went into the tent where he kept his inventory, and he brought an entire box of all my cassettes for a dollar apiece. There was that kind of bazaar feeling. And at night, it was a scene of intense and alarming sexual exchange. Prostitution, and . . . everything seemed to be available. I don't even know if it was prostitution. It just seemed to be mutual availability.Boogie Street to me was that street of work and desire, the ordinary life and also the place we live in most of the time that is relieved by the embrace of your children, or the kiss of your beloved, or the peak experience in which you yourself are dissolved, and there is no one to experience it so you feel the refreshment when you come back from those moments. As my old teacher said: "Paradise is a good place to visit, but you can't live there because there are no toilets or restaurants." So we all hope for those heavenly moments, which we get in those embraces and those sudden perceptions of beauty and sensations of pleasure, but we're immediately returned to Boogie Street.
---from 2001 tnterview to magazine "Mc Lean's"
what tom's 'on about' is as follows:
There is an actual Boogie Street in the world. It's in Singapore. I don't know if it's still there. I was coming home from a tour of Australia many years ago and during the day Boogie Street is a scene of intense commercial activity. In fact, there's a lot of little stalls where bootleg records are sold. This was at a time when it was hard to find my records in the Western world. And they weren't displayed. But I asked the man if they had any Leonard Cohen, and he went into the tent where he kept his inventory, and he brought an entire box of all my cassettes for a dollar apiece. There was that kind of bazaar feeling. And at night, it was a scene of intense and alarming sexual exchange. Prostitution, and . . . everything seemed to be available. I don't even know if it was prostitution. It just seemed to be mutual availability.Boogie Street to me was that street of work and desire, the ordinary life and also the place we live in most of the time that is relieved by the embrace of your children, or the kiss of your beloved, or the peak experience in which you yourself are dissolved, and there is no one to experience it so you feel the refreshment when you come back from those moments. As my old teacher said: "Paradise is a good place to visit, but you can't live there because there are no toilets or restaurants." So we all hope for those heavenly moments, which we get in those embraces and those sudden perceptions of beauty and sensations of pleasure, but we're immediately returned to Boogie Street.
---from 2001 tnterview to magazine "Mc Lean's"
There is a short story "Boogie Street" by Fanny Adams at
http://dargelos.populli.net/stories/boogie.htm
http://dargelos.populli.net/stories/boogie.htm
...and at http://www.custard.net.au/raoulmclay/lyrics.html
you may find these lyrics written by the Aussie author.
BOOGIE STREET
Written by Raoul McLay
Copyright 1999
1.
I've had enough of this dirty old town
I'm going where the sun won't set
No more of this old life
Gonna have me a time I won't forget
I've gotta get out of here
For me there's nothing left
This place is full of weirdos
And I only want the best
Chorus:
I'm going down to Boogie Street
The sun always shines on Boogie Street
Gonna play my guitar on Boogie Street
'Cause everybody wears a smile
2.
I have achieved what I wanted
When nothing else would do
Now I must get moving
There's no time to feel blue
I can't stand still no more
I gotta move forward
Life is an adventure so take a chance
And do what you ain't never done before
Chorus
Middle 8:
It's time to change my scene
And go where I ain't never been
I don't need to be shown the way
'Cause I'm leaving and I'm leaving today
3.
I've worked hard to change my life
The bad times are over, the good times must begin
I'm gonna go and meet my destiny
There's a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm going in
Start the engine
Jump in the car
It's time to go
And it's time to go far
Chorus
you may find these lyrics written by the Aussie author.
BOOGIE STREET
Written by Raoul McLay
Copyright 1999
1.
I've had enough of this dirty old town
I'm going where the sun won't set
No more of this old life
Gonna have me a time I won't forget
I've gotta get out of here
For me there's nothing left
This place is full of weirdos
And I only want the best
Chorus:
I'm going down to Boogie Street
The sun always shines on Boogie Street
Gonna play my guitar on Boogie Street
'Cause everybody wears a smile
2.
I have achieved what I wanted
When nothing else would do
Now I must get moving
There's no time to feel blue
I can't stand still no more
I gotta move forward
Life is an adventure so take a chance
And do what you ain't never done before
Chorus
Middle 8:
It's time to change my scene
And go where I ain't never been
I don't need to be shown the way
'Cause I'm leaving and I'm leaving today
3.
I've worked hard to change my life
The bad times are over, the good times must begin
I'm gonna go and meet my destiny
There's a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm going in
Start the engine
Jump in the car
It's time to go
And it's time to go far
Chorus
...and finally here is a review of the film Bugis Street (Boogie Street) - The Movie
taken from http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/ ... p?MI=39832
Singapore fling
A mind-boggling look at the residents of Bugis Street -- the natives pronounce it "Boogie Street" -- where the lights are red, the nights are hot and there's a whole lot more to the ladies than meets the eye. Naïve country teen Lien (Hiep Thi Le) comes to Singapore in the mid-'60s to work as a maid at the Sin Sin Hotel, whose glamorous residents do a steady trade in American sailors and local thrill-seekers. Lien makes her unworldly peace with working in a brothel, but gets quite a shock when she realizes that not only are all the Sin Sin's foxy ladies prostitutes, they're also all men. But the resilient Lien gets over it, and goes on to find true friendship with the Sin Sin "girls," and is drawn into their hothouse world of dramatic makeup, alluring clothes, loyal customers and fickle boyfriends. This bizarre melodrama, in which most of the roles are played by real-life transvestites and transsexuals and the all-Asian cast performs entirely in English (with the result that it's absolutely impossible to judge performance), is absolutely fascinating, though by no stretch of the imagination can it be called a good film. Directed by Hong Kong independent filmmaker Yonfan (Yang Man-shih) and starring Vietnamese-born Hiep Thi Le (star of Oliver Stone's HEAVEN AND EARTH), the film's pleasures are mostly incidental: Drago's Audrey Hepburn-as-vampire drag, the stupendously vulgar behavior of Lola's faithless boyfriend Meng (Michael Lam), a mock-cinema verite interlude in which one of the more heavily accented Sin Sin girls describes her sex-change operation while fondling a small pair of sewing scissors. Bugis Street is, by the way, a real place, but no it longer hosts the sort of goings-on depicted in this film. — Maitland McDonagh
taken from http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/ ... p?MI=39832
Singapore fling
A mind-boggling look at the residents of Bugis Street -- the natives pronounce it "Boogie Street" -- where the lights are red, the nights are hot and there's a whole lot more to the ladies than meets the eye. Naïve country teen Lien (Hiep Thi Le) comes to Singapore in the mid-'60s to work as a maid at the Sin Sin Hotel, whose glamorous residents do a steady trade in American sailors and local thrill-seekers. Lien makes her unworldly peace with working in a brothel, but gets quite a shock when she realizes that not only are all the Sin Sin's foxy ladies prostitutes, they're also all men. But the resilient Lien gets over it, and goes on to find true friendship with the Sin Sin "girls," and is drawn into their hothouse world of dramatic makeup, alluring clothes, loyal customers and fickle boyfriends. This bizarre melodrama, in which most of the roles are played by real-life transvestites and transsexuals and the all-Asian cast performs entirely in English (with the result that it's absolutely impossible to judge performance), is absolutely fascinating, though by no stretch of the imagination can it be called a good film. Directed by Hong Kong independent filmmaker Yonfan (Yang Man-shih) and starring Vietnamese-born Hiep Thi Le (star of Oliver Stone's HEAVEN AND EARTH), the film's pleasures are mostly incidental: Drago's Audrey Hepburn-as-vampire drag, the stupendously vulgar behavior of Lola's faithless boyfriend Meng (Michael Lam), a mock-cinema verite interlude in which one of the more heavily accented Sin Sin girls describes her sex-change operation while fondling a small pair of sewing scissors. Bugis Street is, by the way, a real place, but no it longer hosts the sort of goings-on depicted in this film. — Maitland McDonagh
Fascinating what can come out of a relatively simple comment that a friend made to me about Boogie Street when walking our dogs on Teignmouth beach. He has very little idea about who Mr. Cohen is and hasn't even got a cd player. Though he is precisely the same age as Leonard. Thanks again for all your responses.
glyn
