By whom..?

I have to more securely protect this blog.

joe hill

Come in anytime after 6pm to 11pm for a fundraiser for APHEDA at the Ostani Lounge Bar and Restaurant, Hotel Realm, National Circuit, Barton for vino y tapas.

Build support for APHEDA Union Aid Abroad projects in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

This is the first of our several exciting functions in 2010. RSVP, contact Kristie at apheda.canberra@gmail.com

Regards David Perkins, Convenor,
Canberra & Region union Aid Abroad/APHEDA Activist Group (M) 0437 997 611

http://www.apheda.org.au/

“It is no longer possible to protect workers’ rights in one country, while in neighbouring countries with whom we trade, workers face exploitation and sweatshop conditions.

The fight for workers’ rights in one country has to be a fight for workers’ rights in every country.

I urge you to sign up as a regular donor to Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA, as a part of the Make Life Fair Everywhere campaign.Ӊ۬

Sharan Burrow, ACTU President.

Vietnam lived up our to our expectations and stories we heard.

I like to start with cities. So for those who have not been to Vietnam, this introduction is as a tourist, inner-city Ho Chi Minh City; the sea-side Hoi An; near the ancient Citadel in central Hue and in the Old Quarter north Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi.

2010 is Hanoi’s 1000th birthday

Not long ago these cities were quiet with bicycles. Now it’s thousands of beeping scooters slowly surging around.

We soon learnt with a little courage to directly walk across into crowded motorbikes knowing they are going to give way, as opposed to cars that don’t. We navigated through noisy street-sellers, hawkers and stalls and scooters.

Halong Bay

At another time it’s quiet and relaxing on misty winter Halong Bay – shrouded in dragon mysteries.

With the GFC even Halong tourists are down. It’s winter, a little drizzly, clouds. Our one night on board a modern style ancient Junk had us gliding through the winter mists. With the sun lifting, walking into ancient limestone caves, kayaking and drinks at sunset before mooring for the night on your place – with only the glow and sounds of tourist boats nearby.

One of the 1900 bays spotted with limestone pinnacles and islands, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is worth voting for. More needs to be done to keep the bay in good shape with the tourist millions rising. Where the dragon descended into the sea is worth visiting.

I was able to meditate in the mists – doing Tai Chi. I saw campaign T-shirts Save the Lemurs www.catbarlangur.org.vn. Halong Bay was nearly without connection…but those phones…’they’ know your are there!

My partner was returning from an international education conference in London.

You are never really away from emails these days even on annual leave. Communication was good in our 5 hotels. We watched the Melbourne Grand Slam on the way and arrived back Sunday night to see Federa triumph, again.

Leave time goes quickly. Back to Canberra for 2010. We were exhausted after a noisy flight home from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and into Melbourne, with audio music not working with screaming Vietnamese children.

The Year of the Tiger

Ho Chi Minh City

I had flown to Ho Chi Minh City for a few days staying inner market area and joining in the square and park early-morning exercises.

You are met with the distinctive smells, bustling roads, thousands of sellers and the delightful food. I was soon plunging into the street side eateries on the market edge and at the noodle restaurant where President Bill Clinton eat. The Vietnamese had opened up to the international capitalist system.

I record political observations whilst visiting war museums and the Independence Palace.

The War Remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City dramatically snapshots the American war, in displays and images with photos and graphic illustrations of the US barbarism. You can see a few of the photos of the American torture of Vietnamese. US armaments are on show. Photos of the bombed out consequences.

You have a re-learning of how millions of Vietnamese were killed.

In one spot are photos of the effects of Agent Orange. Amongst the few photos of American horrors, it is reasonable to see photos of beaming heroic faces of young Vietnamese women and men supporting each other in their fight for independence.

I was pleased to see on display Australians amongst the many internationally protesting with the strong anti-war movement in the late 60s and early 70’s.

I bought ‘War Moments’ (2001) photos of Giap’s final war of resistance campaign 1970-72. This was by the army’s official photographer Tinh. These and other famous photos captured these most interesting times and are of the highest quality, ‘an artist-fighter’ in Giap’s words.

Vietnam Vets are still in the local news returning ‘to see the grim legacy of war’ Vietnam News January 24 2010. Project Renew helps victims and where landmines are still littering the landscape. www.landmines.org.vn Vets recounted the past war. They appreciated the Vietnamese reception.

I met up with my partner in upgraded rooms in the romantic 1930’s Majestic Hotel on the waterfront in Ho Chi Minh City. We eat at up market Temple restaurant.

It is different now – from the times of Saigon intrigue and romance. Michael Cain in the movie ‘Quiet American ‘ the love story, and where the covert to overt CIA is coming into Vietnam.

The Chu Chi tunnel.

This guided tour for tourists is one special relic of Cu Chi District Party committee.

The VC and Giap successfully used the tunnel complex in the war, from Saigon to the Cambodian border. Snaking at different levels in networks over 200 kms, in three depths.

Here is a glimpse of their living, moving armaments and soldiers and fighting and hospitals. TV and film records some of the life from 1960 to 1975. They were constantly bombed.

I was not keen on the dark when I went down a tunnel for a few moments. I had a shot with an AK 45 and a brief introduction to fighting. It was not just guerrilla warfare, but with weaker but conventional means and a combination; how peasants are trained to bring down some B52s.

Hoi An and Hue.

We flew to Da Nang and stayed at the see-side village of ancient Hoi An for special noodles, the tailoring of clothes and a suit for me, with winter drizzle. Tourist life was on the agenda. But I had a 24-hour bug in bed watching tennis.

We drove up the coast to China beach a US army base now a multi-national hotel resort base. We visited their Marble Mountain and their carvings of their Buddhist and Vietnam culture, seeing pagodas and Buddas. We wound up the coastal country to Hue, the ancient capital.

Not far away I imagined the little village of Ky La where 12 year old Le Ly saw the US helicopters land and then was recruited as a spy by both the VC and government troops and her growing up in the war, fighting and surviving and returning home from the US.

Her lucid and touching war story is beautifully told in “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. A Vietnamese Women’s Journey from War to Peace” by Le Ly Hayslip (Plume, 1990).

The boat trip down Hue’s Song Huong River was relaxing. Then onto the Tombs and Majestic Palaces and Pagodas of Hue.

You can see how the ruling rich of empires past, the kings and emperors and courtiers ruled in their splendour – now on display. Some decaying citadels remain despite American bombing.

I could understand why this regime had to go. Thousands of construction workers were driven to death through work and starvation and the rest taxed. I witnessed the strength of Kung Fu cracking of bricks with hands and feet – based on the ancient guard training. Kung Fu exercises are taught in schools.

You see how the Vietnamese struggled against these ancient regimes and then against the colonial French from the 1880’s to 1945 -54. Again the recapturing of Hue against the Americans in the 1970s. We fly Hue into Hanoi.

Hanoi

We pay respects at the ‘Womens Museum’ to women soldiers and ancient scholars at The Temple of Literature.

We learn of the long struggle at the Museum of Vietnamese Revolution.

We note Hanoi’s greenness, and public recycle bins.

Then we pay our respects to ‘Uncle Ho’ with a quick glimpse. Tourists complained they could not loiter or take photos in the mausoleum.

I appreciated the Ho Chi Minh museum. http://www. I saw stylish displays seeing how interesting Ho was, his earlier life overseas and then back to Indo-China; against the French; and being photographed; and as President. The legitimacy of his victorious Communist leadership and the history of the struggles is interesting.

I had an argument with a tourist who said it was just propaganda. Yes, but from their view. It is a valid historical recording and political story telling for Ho’s fight for peace. Ho was the politician. Giap the military man.

Giap

General Giap’s answers the question ‘how did you win?’ This is with Vietnamese military history and philosophy. Over thousands of years battles were studied where “to win great victories with small forces” and “to oppose a numerically greater force with a smaller one”.

The Vietnamese have a long history of the struggle against the slavery under the yoke of Kings and Western and French colonialism from 1880s to 1954. And US imperialism. I was keen to re-learn about the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people against all invaders, China or who-ever and for reunification.

And as for Australians? What had the Vietnamese ever done against Australians? Zero. Defence Minister Fraser used crude lies about so-called threats from the north.

General Giap’s successful war against the French is on display. Other sections are photos of the American war.

In 1994 I read an account of Giap by Peter Macdonald, some of which I find is not accurate. As we had at the time believed, he incorrectly described Giap as the author of the famous TET 1968 offensive, changing US public opinion. In Giap’s memoirs it is more nuanced, he was tactically opposed at the time to the TET uprising and was in favour of more step-by-step.

I read Giap’s final stages of the war starting in 1972. Plans for evacuating Hanoi had been made. Anti-aircraft guns were required with Nixon’s bombing up until the settlement. But how with the TV world the downing of B52’s in the defence of Hanoi was news. The Vietnamese suing for peace obviously played this up big on the world stage. And step-by-step up to 1975 Giap went forward. ”People’s War People’s Army” by General Giap.

I read “Last Night I Dreamed of peace The Diary of dang Thuy Tram.” (2007 Harmony Books) – a heart-rendering true diary just published of a young female doctor sent from Hanoi to doctor and struggle and dies but her words don’t.

Even if it is the revolutionary line of the Vietnamese Communist party, it is their culture.

They were learning from military campaigns and had victories.

In the end, it was a Vietnamese People’s war with a People’s army that worked, the Ho Chi Minh strategy.

Aren’t they entitled to present this to Westerners and to the generation growing up today?

Giap is alive and well at 98 years old. He is back in the political contest. He added his voice to the community opposition and environmental criticisms to the bauxite mining developments.

Giap as well as criticising the environmental impact raised the national interest argument. A key player is the giant Chinese developer and the national interest had to be raised. The Chinese bring their labour.

Debate inside the policy rooms apparently gives some recognition of Giap’s points. The environmental issues and the nationalist issues will not go away. With more of such economic developments, the political debate continues – not unlike other countries’ debating Chinese capitalism coming into mining sectors.

APHEDA

I met briefly APHEDA Vietnam, continuing through new periods.

Regional Manager Phillip Hazelton is leading the projects, Deborah Nicholls from Adelaide is ‘training the trainers’, and Hoang Thi Lee Hang the Vietnam Program Manager..and others.

This is an impressive intervention, with a good history. It means work and credibility amongst NGOs and for socially responsible investing. Specific projects are on AIDS and female and child trafficking; as well training and OHS issues. http://www.apheda.org.au/

“It is no longer possible to protect workers’ rights in one country, while in neighbouring countries with whom we trade, workers face exploitation and sweatshop conditions. The fight for workers’ rights in one country has to be a fight for workers’ rights in every country. I urge you to sign up as a regular donor to Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA, as a part of the Make Life Fair Everywhere campaign.” 
Sharan Burrow, ACTU President.

Shopping meant dodging nearly all of the mad throng of retailers on the inner streets.

Deborah Nicholls recommended and we did so the Craft Link, two shops on Van Mieu Ha Noi. NGOs internationally assisted, to give retail opportunities to poor and marginalised groups. Good for raffles back in Australia and supporting street people and minority groups in remote areas.

VGCL Vietnam General Confederation of Labour.

I had an introduction to Vietnamese unions, the VGCL from the Deputy Director of the international department, Chau Nhat Binh.
http://www.congdoanvn.org.vn/english/default.asp

He was well briefed on Australia’s unions and the Rudd government. I interviewed him on their current challenges.

As readers of this blog know I research strikes and the right to strike.

Waves of strikes in the private sector have occurred in recent years in Vietnam, such as against oppressive Taiwanese owners.

The government’s response, I did note, was an acceptance of the grievances. ‘Wild-cat’ strikes were by desperate workers against employers flouting legal obligations to their employees. The Party officials and the VGL see clearly these companies are in direct violation of the Labour law. They support workers winning. Public discontent such as marches on Party offices can be quietened.

Such strikes over the non-payment of the annual TET bonus (our annual leave loading) were again breaking out when I was there.

The 2005-8 strike wave was spurred on by chasing high rises in inflation, with no wage increase.

After the GFC, increasing factory closures see protests over lost entitlements as the Taiwanese employers flee the country.

The Vietnamese IR system is examining details for changes to Labour law. The unions seek greater powers to intervene in disputes by non-unionists and in the private sector. Compliance to the basic minimum labour norms and ILO obligations is required. Socially Responsible Investment includes adherence to labour standards.

Our Labor government has such ‘wild-cat’ strikes made illegal, strikers threatened and unions fined. A more positive response such as supporting the strikers’ grievances with an end to the stoppage is preferable.

NILP National Institute of Labour Protection

While in Hanoi last week, Dr Hai introduced me to Vietnam’s National Institute of Labour Protection. He is in charge of one health department, and external relations.

NILP’s scope covers the field of health and safety in the working environment as well as environmental protection, such as lead pollution.

Under the VGCL, the NILP is able to research, design, test and manufacture OHS technology. They promote an integrated structure. NILP meets with overseas OHS specialists and Australian OHS activists. They are aware of Australia’s good OHS laws and the role of unions.

The OHS issues are very similar with focus on Vietnam’s industries, textile and garment, construction, manufacturing and in 2010 food processing, mining, and sea-faring. Chemicals, silicosis, hearing are common health problems.

Overseas capital has surged in the past 25 years into Vietnam for greater exploitation and profits. Many private sector companies flout OHS regulations. This means continuing deaths and injuries at work.

The unions and government have to play a greater role in compliance for workers’ OHS rights.

Dr Hai gave as an example the APHEDA project on asbestos (PowerPoint- slide 25). Dr Hai will also be the Director of the Asbestos Resource Centre when it gets off the ground.

I said there were lessons from the experiences of Australia’s victims, OHS specialists and unions and the ACTU and labor councils campaigning on the dangers of asbestos –including me for 25 years. Matt Peacock’s expose of James Hardie in ‘Killer Company’ gave me more information. I left the promotion of Humphrey McQueen’s ‘Framework of Flesh’ (in International Union Rights Vol 16 Issue 5 2009, p24, ICTUR).

As well as research, NILP wants to increase OHS training for managers, union leaders and workers.

As well some attempt at public education is needed. It will be interesting see what happens in Labour protection.

Socialist road?

And is Vietnam still on the socialist road since 1986 and Doi Moi, Renovation, opening to capitalism.

At least it is a different political discussion – on building socialism in a market economy. Wouldn’t that be a good debate for Rudd/Gillard to pose!

First impressions visually, the cities don’t appear to be the overwhelming impact of capitalism and ads that you see in the major Chinese cities.

Vietnam is still poor and rural with majority of workers labouring and still many years for industrialisation. State guidance from the VCP in the opening up to capitalist world market continues.

I read reports of VCP in the world organisations such as the World Economic Forum. Pressures are still to conform to the Washington consensus. As well, socially responsible foreign companies are pressured to invest adhering to human rights and labour standards are developing.

More capitalism is one trajectory in the VCP. Certainly as urged by the corporates in the Vietnam Economic Times. When so (?) I hope the cars replacing the motorbikes are smaller and not polluting!

Vietnam has the people pressures for human needs of this generation to be met.

Vietnam’s economic growth will still be with greater state intervention and is/will not be unlike other East Asian capitalist-alliance growth success stories – with strong states. A planning alliance with capital is being grown.

A danger is already the corruption issue, raising its (political) head.

Tipping to crony capitalism and with rising inequality and new middle-classes may be likely.

However, again a specific Vietnamese culture may see a combined nation-building model that is now politically likely, as capitalism is sorely dented with the crisis.

With development, industrialisation and employment and raising living standards, the challenges are great and will take a long time. The equality standards are solely to be tested.

Freedoms are restricted by political repression. I read reports of recent gaoling for anti-government views posted on blogs. This includes e.g. from Human Rights Watch union activists jailed.

I observed that the global warming debate is prominent. The Vietnamese are to be in real trouble with global warming. The Mekong flooding and cities under water.

On return seeing my copy of the Monthly Review, ‘Why Ecological Revolution’ by John Bellamy Foster was given in Hanoi December 2009.

‘A principle of world justice is the wealthy countries owe an enormous ecological debt to poorer counties, due to the robbing by the imperial powers of the global commons.’

Like the lies in Iraq, I remember then US war elite lied to their people and the world. As a 20 year old in 1968, studying politics and history at University including Vietnam, I was one of many who soon actively campaigned against the war. Like many Australian youths, I had been conscripted, but did not go because of my opposition and deferment due to university study (and poor eyesight).

But studying the French revolution, the Russian revolution, Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese, I with many others was drawing conclusions about the necessity of opposition to the capitalist regime and support for nationalist and socialist and liberation struggles. We were active in the left anti-war position.

So years later, I felt vindicated for organising rallies chanting ‘Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, the NLF are going to win!’.

I am glad we prevailed in assisting the Vietnamese.

Delicious food

As photos show, we loved the food – it was delightful. For us down-market soups or up market ‘The Green Mango’ in the Old Quarter Hanoi, near the famous Minh’s Jazz club; The Qhan An Ngon in Hanoi; in Hue The Tropical Garden; the noodles in Hoi An; The Temple restaurant up market in Ho Chi Minh City, the fish and the noodle bars were our favourites, and Vietnam beer. We got good wines, and we had some Penfolds for the holiday – a bargain from London and very nice.

Next time we will stay longer and travel in the regions. And crossover to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia are warranted.

Canberra’s National Gallery is worth seeing at any time. I spend more time there as I have been learning to draw and paint at lessons at the ANU School of Art as an external student and enjoying it although it is hard. Studies include visits to the Gallery for learning.

Go onto the NGA website. Particularly spend some time on-line going through the Kenneth Tyler collection.

http://www.nga.gov.au/

In the Gallery you will see Ned Kelly newly located.

As a member i could not help members’ opening last friday. At 6pm with wonderful weather and meeting an old couple she in her wheelchair and after an hour of champagne, wine or beer and a few nibbles and an introduction by the Curator, I was one amongst the early art enthusiasts. And it needs a few visits.

We are surrounded by post-impressionism now, reproductions, on post-cards, fridge-magnets and in design everywhere. And the icons.

So how wonderful it is to soak in the colours of the original icons. Here are a few.

As a child at home was a print of Vincent van Gough’s Bedroom with its awkward shapes and here the colours are stronger and with its sense of loneliness.

Vincent’s very famous Starry Night painting in 1888 with the ideas drawing you up into the freshness of the stars and the yellow dance of light reflected at night. See it from various angles and up close for its subtleties and harmonies. Van Gogh’s intense, richly coloured surfaces communicate emotionally through the artist’s expressive manipulation of paint.

A Vincent face. Van Gough copies are verywhere, so many adopt now this colourful style, so the originals are a must, so radiant. (Although I have seen Vincent van Gough’s in Amsterdam).

Equally wonderful is the icon in the ad – Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian Women –
110 years later this depicted colonialsm now has global warming posing threats to these women.

I liked Gaugin’s Seascape with cow.

The point is, I said to the couple in the wheelchair barrelling along, is that these artists did it first. We can all copy these now and do: but to see and understand what and why is part of the exploration and what post-impressionism contributes to our visual culture.

Wonder at Paul Cezanne’s iconic master-pieces of still life Kitchen Table and Still life with onions.

I particularly liked one of Cezanne’s late work in 1904 Rocks.

One of my favourite colourists is Pierre Bonnard, and these are most interesting. Having seen is Marthe his wife in his paintings over the years, we can see an early work of her in an erotic poseWoman dozing on a bed. She is again in The man and the woman with its strong structure. Bonnard’s compositions are worth studying.

Right at the end of the exhibition is Bonnard’s huge decorative panels for a rich baron.

A gem is his Itimacy.

Look for Portrait of Vuillard in browns/blacks. I liked his View of Le Cannet with original colouring. Bourgeois Bonnard may have been but is most stimulating.

In no particularly order I spotted:
The Talisman-on colour harmonies;
Henri Rousseau’s War- a woman in white on a dark horse;
one of Monet’s lovely bridges over his waterlilly pond and his iconic London Parliament sun through the fog;
Georges Seurat’s young women;
Paul Signac’s colour and light on boats;
and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Woman with a black boa and I will be going back for more of the 112.
There are only a handful of Post-Impressionist works in Australia—including Georges Seurat’s study for Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp 1885 at the National Gallery of Australia—so the opportunity to create an exhibition from a single collection of such outstanding quality is rare indeed.

Post-Impressionism announces a break from Impressionism, the revolutionary movement which occurred in France in the second half of the 19th century. By the mid 1880s, artists were experimenting with even more radical ideas.

In the end comparatively in the famous art museums of the world the art was not really that much, not that many, should have been more, they should tour throughout Australia, stay longer than April but for Canberra and Australia and our National Art Gallery this show is very good. Thousands of Australians will visit.

http://www.nfsa.gov.au/

Films on labour history. I saw this weekend at ARC John Huges film on Film Work the film unit of the Waterside Workers Federation. (The MUA film unit is alive again under the Your Rights at Work campaign and going today).
Then a first release in Canberra of his new film Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia, the new Australian documentary film – and work of Australian film history. John Huges introduced this most interesting film.The film completes a trilogy (alongside Film Work (1981) and The Archive Project (2006)) in which Hughes takes an alternative look at the cinema culture. Documentary thinker, maker and historian John Hughes returns with his latest in a series of alternative Australian cinema histories. Following The Archive Project Hughes uses NFSA collection footage to examine the post-WW2 radical film culture of Sydney and the influence of globetrotting Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens. Brought to Australia to work for the Dutch East Indies government-in-exile, Ivens’ disaffection and radical filmmaking aesthetic led instead to the first classic of Australia’s independent cinema, and to our first cinema new wave that emerged in post-war Australia. The film Indonesia Calling is an important political statement of support for Indonesian independence against the Dutch colonialists. The use of ASIO spy information against the film-makings is fascinating as is the militant action of waterside workers and seamen to suppport Indonesian freedom fighters of that time. Look out for this new film.

http://www.apheda.org.au/

capitalist crisis severe

Leonard Cohen, Photo by Alek Argirov,

Sunday 1st february 2009, drove from Canberra to Bowral for a memorable evening at the Centtenial vineyards first Paul Kelly, then Leonard Cohen. Still the same in his 70′s, kneeling here and growling his classic lyrics and keeping his songs alive and the music was wonderful.

From www.leonardcohen.com

For four decades, Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time, a figure whose body of work achieves greater depths of mystery and meaning as time goes on. His songs have set a virtually unmatched standard in their seriousness and range. Sex, spirituality, religion, power – he has relentlessly examined the largest issues in human lives, always with a full appreciation of how elusive answers can be to the vexing questions he raises. But those questions, and the journey he has traveled in seeking to address them, are the ever-shifting substance of his work, as well as the reasons why his songs never lose their overwhelming emotional force.

His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), announced him as an undeniable major talent. It includes such songs as “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “So Long, Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Good,” all now longstanding classics. If Cohen had never recorded another album, his daunting reputation would have been assured by this one alone.

However, the two extraordinary albums that followed, Songs From a Room (1969), which includes his classic song, “Bird on the Wire,” and Songs of Love and Hate (1971), provided whatever proof anyone may have required that that the greatness of his debut was not a fluke. (All three albums are reissued in April, 2007.)

Part of the reason why Cohen’s early work revealed such a high degree of achievement is that he was an accomplished literary figure before he ever began to record. His collections of poetry, including Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956) and Flowers for Hitler (1964), and his novels, including Beautiful Losers (1966), had already brought him considerable recognition in his native Canada. His dual careers in music and literature have continued feeding each other over the decades – his songs revealing a literary quality rare in the world of popular music, and his poetry and prose informed by a rich musicality.

One of the most revered figures of the singer-songwriter movement of the late Sixties and early Seventies, Cohen soon developed a desire to move beyond the folk trappings of that genre. By temperament and approach, he had always been closer to the European art song – he once termed his work the “European blues.” Add to that a fondness for country music; an ear for R&B-styled female background vocals; a sly appreciation for cabaret jazz, and a regard for rhythm not often encountered in singer-songwriters, and the extent of Cohen’s musical palette becomes clear. Each of Cohen’s albums reflects not simply the issues that are on his mind as a writer, but the sonic landscape he wishes to explore as well. The through-lines in his work, of course, his voice and lyrics, as distinctive as any in the world of music.

Cohen’s 1974 album, New Skin for the Old Ceremony, which includes “Chelsea Hotel #2,” a candid memoir of his early years in New York City, found him making bolder use of orchestration, a contrast to the more stripped-down sound he hard earlier preferred. Death of a Ladies’ Man, his 1977 collaboration with Phil Spector, constitutes his most extreme experiment. Spector’s Wagnerian Wall of Sound proved an uncomfortable setting for Cohen’s typically elliptical and almost painfully intimate lyrics (terms that, admittedly, would not apply to “Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On,” on which Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg provide backing vocals). Over the years, Cohen has bitterly complained about Spector’s high-handed – and gun-wielding – ways, while occasionally expressing a kind of grudging affection for the album’s uncharacteristic excesses.

Recent Songs (1979) and Various Positions (1984) returned Cohen to more recognizable sonic terrain, though the latter album, in a perhaps misguided nod to the trend at the time of its release, prominently incorporated synthesizers. Though not initially released in the U.S., Various Positions includes “Hallelujah,” which has since become one of Cohen’s best-known, best-loved and most frequently covered songs. (Versions by Jeff Buckley and John Cale are especially notable.)

As the Eighties and their garishness began to wane, Cohen’s star began to rise once again. The listeners that had grown up with him had reached an age at which they wanted to re-examine the music of their past, and a new generation of artists and fans discovered him, attracted by the dignity, ambition and sheer quality of his songs.

Cohen rose to the opportunity this audience represented by releasing two consecutive albums, I’m Your Man (1988) and The Future (1992), that not only rank among the finest of his career, but that perfectly capture the texture of particularly complicated times. Cohen had long documented the high rate of casualties in the love wars, so the profound anxieties generated by the AIDS crisis were no news to him. Songs like “Ain’t No Cure for Love,” the wryly titled “I’m Your Man” and, most explicitly, “Everybody Knows” (“Everybody knows that the Plague is coming/Everybody knows that it’s moving fast/Everybody knows that the naked man and woman – just a shining artifact of the past”) depict Cohen surveying the contemporary erotic battleground and reporting on it with characteristic perspective, insight and wisdom.

Similarly, in the title track of The Future, Cohen ironically describes himself as “the little Jew who wrote the Bible,” and his immersion in Jewish culture, obsession with Christian imagery, and deep commitment to Buddhist detachment rendered him an ideal commentator on the approaching millennium and the apocalyptic fears it generated. Along with the album’s title track, “Waiting for the Miracle,” “Closing Time,” “Anthem” and “Democracy” limned a cultural landscape rippling with dread, but yearning for hope. “There is a crack in everything,” Cohen sings in “Anthem,” “That’s how the light gets in.” Our human imperfections, he seems to be saying, are finally what will bring us whatever transcendence we can attain.

Since that time, Cohen has released Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004), as well as Blue Alert (2006), a collaboration on which Cohen produced and co-wrote songs with his former background singer Anjani Thomas, who provides the vocals. All three albums have only solidified his place in the pantheon of contemporary songwriters. At 72, Cohen continues to produce compelling work, while enjoying the honors that deservedly come to artists who have achieved his legendary status. Documentaries, awards, tribute albums and the ongoing march of artists eager to record his songs all acknowledge the peerless contribution Cohen has made to what one of his titles aptly calls “The Tower of Song.”