The Greatest Invention of the Century

Until Sunday I had never lived with an iPod. Until Sunday no one had ever asked me what was on my playlist. Then because I have had to do a lot of waiting lately, I insisted that I get an iPod, a Nano, to be exact, frankly, a green Nano, which my daughter helped me program on Sunday afternoon.

In addition to meditations by the gifted teacher Mary Swanson, which are guided and keep me busy rather than empty my mind, my iPod has a lot of Sting, Joni Mitchell, Keith Jarrett, Badi Assad, Eric Clapton Unplugged, Bruce Stringsteen Live, Anoushka, the Four Seasons by Vivaldi with Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, and Itzhak Perlman, and Leonard Cohen Live in London.

I am ordinarily a book on tape person, a person mostly of words, but now, I am in love with my iPod. The music fills me with such joy, that in addition to listening to the lyrics once again, the tonal quality allows me to hear every note.

I'm obsessed with Leonard Cohen's latest works, which are mostly Buddhist prayers. One piece talks about how no offering is perfect, how cracks are what let in the light. Each rendition of an old song is musically so new that I can hear it all over again, as if I never had listened to it over and over and over again forty years ago. I highly recommend the Live in London CD. His voice is gravel, destroyed, but the spiritual maturity, and the musical accompaniment bring new dimensions to these songs of love and alienation, from years ago, and songs of devotion now.