I wish my name had been Marianne.
And that I’d been around twenty years old in 1967. And I’d said “Ok, the bridge or someplace later”… I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me. Did you ever go clear?
I’ve always liked Jewish boys… and girls.
It is you, my love, you who are the stranger.
What is it like to grow old in public? Tell me your stories. Tell me about les temps perdue. Does music work like the Madelaine? Do you inhabit a younger self when hearing songs you heard once before? Le voyageur raconta son histoire?
I forget to pray for the angels, then the angels forget to pray for us.
We met when we were almost young deep in the green lilac park. You held on to me like I was a crucifix, as we went kneeling…
One day we’ll all be dead. What is it like to grow old or older?
Can we experience joy… again? Can there be new moments of joy? Or is it on video replay - a moment recalled on Rage one Saturday morning? When is closing time?
[Make sure, before you answer the questions, you watch the first and the last video in particular… they’re in chronological order from 1967 to 2006… Thirty-nine years.]
So long Marianne.
-After Proust.
Yes.
I’ve been listening to Teh Master since 1970 (and he was indeed one dishy puppy then, oh my) — these days if you played me the sound of him breathing in, I could probably put the right name to it. Thanks for posting these — they are glorious.
I like the restrained sarcasm of ” did you ever go clear?” meaning “did you ever rid yourself of all your psychological crap using the Scientologists’ multimeter?” I think I can hear in there a bit of triumphalism now that his wife is back and there is now no real resentment knowing that even if he( his “enemy”) did go “clear” it really did not permanently damage his relationship with his wife.
Sorry, but I am so not getting Leonard Cohen. Who is Madeleine? Why Marianne and not Kim, which is a perfectly lovely name? What’s the go with green candles?
The sixties is just a period that has been well marketted by hippies to the younger generation. We should ignore it! They have pretty much destroyed western civilisation since they grew up.
Yes, thanks Kim. 39 years of wonderful music and poetry.
His work can make you believe that anything is possible…
Incognito mate,
You should have seen the place before hippies.Pretty boring but we had beatniks and bodgies and widgies and as well the RSL clubs were running our public morality.Speaking of Western civilisation,there was an emphasis on correct spelling as well which does not seem to be the go these days.
I think Leonard Cohen was a bit after the 60s anyway.
Confused: “Sorry, but I am so not getting Leonard Cohen.”
Ah, the diversity of humanity never ceases to amaze…
LC is a treasure. Thanks, Kim!
” Who is Madeleine?”
A Proustism. You were evidently not tortured in High School by having to read A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Lucky person.
Every time I dunk a timtam, it all comes back…
Dany le Roux: well said, regarding the pre-Hippian Period.
But LC is far from entirely post-60’s! According to his Wikipedia entry, his first book of poetry was published in 1956 and his first LP (Songs of…) was released in 1967.
Zen Koan, my most artist favourite ever. With all those clips, my weekend is made. Thanks Kim.
For moment I thought this was a “rest in peace Leonard” thread… you scared me Kim!
Incognito, here you go:
“… one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines’, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell.
… I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses …
I place in position before my mind’s eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and begins to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed. …
Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being?”
(From A la recherche du temps perdu, as per AndyC)
Sorry, that was for Confused, not Incognito. If Incognito has bought the myth about teh evil hippies then I’m not at all sure how s/he is going to feel about Proust, apart from anything else.
Which sixties hippies took over from Tricky Dick Nixon!? Incognito.. havent you ever been edumucated!? You would put a bull off humping!? But you seem to know what a bull ring is!? Now try the bullshit test,next time you look across a paddock!? San Francisco,and shooting stuff into your hips,probably means no chance at who drives the wheels of progress. And he has never heard of one,Timothy Leary and his C.I.A. connections with the experimental use of LSD. Poor old Leonard Cohen,often quite depressed cops this from Incognito..why not Elvis Presley a soldier and Republican!? Save me, I heard Burl Ives on radio ,and saw him on TV in the sixties. And what was Burl Ives,in relationship to hippies!? Well he rode a donkey!?
More Leonard Cohen than you can shake a stick at.
That last one chokes you up something bad.
I had the same first thought as Cliff! That’ll teach me to read too quickly.
Can I recommend Antony singing ‘If It Be Your Will’?
tremendously satisfying new len interview in the July issue of The Word.
several reflections on the glory of “halleluhah” by various performers. but most fun of all as always, reading len’s replies back in his master’s own voice.
timely reading as winter well and truly bites.
The “Closing Time” clip was seriously cool, with just the right touch of self deprecation. Loved the edit on the “oh-oh” moment which finishes with a tightly sqeezed cigarette dunked in a full shot-glass; a lasso manoeuvre worthy of Dietrich herself.
Insofar as his music is concerned, I’m a fan up until “Recent songs”…. a lot of his stuff after that sounds rather tacky and not to my taste… I think he took the 80’s aesthetic too seriously… he should have kept his classical guitar and by-passed the whole synth/drum machine era. “The Future” sounds more dated than “Songs of Leonard Cohen”. “Hallelujah”, for example, is a song that only reveals itself in the artists that cover it, in myself.
His early music was simple, acoustic and gave his words centre stage, which is as it should be for a poet of Cohen’s calibre.
“in myself” should read “in my opinion”.
Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin were so exotic to me - when I was 12 there were Uni students living across the road who would play them loud, lolling about on their verandah, smoking and laughing. I found them all fascinating and they would laugh at me for spying and cadging invitations to watch their telly.
Nice videos, and thread.
I saw Leonard Cohen play live in Brisbane on my seventeenth birthday in 1985, and hearing his music often transports me back. Contra Cliff, I quite like his late 70s and 80s work.
The video with the saxophonist really is fab.
Yes, Laura, you can - and I got the scareds that this was a mourning thread too.
Say whatever you like about the sixties, the eighties gave Antony Hegarty Boy George to listen to and the world is a better place because of it.
I was not making a general dig at 80’s music per se… I’m a bit of a New Order/Depeche Mode fan myself… it’s just that growing up listening to Songs of LC, Songs from a Room and Songs of Love and Hate prejudiced me against his later style, particularly 10 New Songs, which being a 21st century release, leaves old Leonard with no excuse except perhaps his age and the fact that his target market wasn’t exactly young folks like myself. There is also the fact that his earlier stuff is very easy for me to play and sing on my classical guitar. I would also have to say that I don’t particularly go for his later vocal style (though he was never a good singer, I think that in his earlier days he had a good style that was certainly an improvement on Dylan, at least). I am thankful, however, that it didn’t deteriorate as badly as Roger Waters’ did in his solo career (Amused to Death could’ve been a hit if it had 1980 Roger Waters singing on it… and Dave Gilmour to offer occasional respite from his venom).
That being said, I don’t listen to Cohen for the music. Criticizing him for his music is missing the point. As the man himself once said “I’m no musicologist but, when everyone was saying I only knew three chords I actually knew five”.
But Cliff, 10 New Songs has ‘Alexandra Leaving’, one of his greatest songs, synth and all.
Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,
They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;
And radiant beyond your widest measure
They fall among the voices and the wine.
Well worth a listen is Blue Alert by Anjani Thomas, words by Cohen and her beautiful voice and piano. You can see her on the edge of the last video.
Oh I’m not taking a dig at the songs… just the overall feel of the music. I love “The Land of Plenty”, personally. I’m actually not too keen on the backup singing either… that was one of my problems with Waters as well.
Each to their own though… I just think the music could have been recorded better.
Zoe, that’s so very true, not that I have much against the 80s myself.
Discovering Antony (via the LC movie that clip is from) was quite the antithesis of the madeleine for me: at this late age I don’t expect to be overwhelmed by something so beautiful and marvellous that is also entirely new, to me at least.
Damn… look at me. I’ve pooped a Cohen praise thread even though I’d usually be the last guy to criticize him.
My selection:
1. Everybody Knows
2. The Guests
3. Last Year’s Man
4. Stories of the Street
5. Sisters of Mercy
I’m sorry, but if Leonard Cohen is a “poet” (a *poet*!), then Ernie Bushmiller is Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Cohen is a poet the same way that Jonathan Livingston Seagull is profound, and since they share an era, it’s a pretty good fit.
His one moment of greatness came when Robert Altman used a few of his songs in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and they do work in that movie perfectly; it’s only when you try and listen to them independently, that you realize just how much the songs lean on the movie for their power, and not the reverse. I tried that first link (which is a performance of an LC song that appears in the film, and which I like very much when it’s used there), and I just couldn’t stop laughing. Does “Windmills of Your Mind” ring any bells?
Give me Baby Stewie reciting the “Rocket Man” lyrics in a tux (which you can see on Youtube) any day. LC is a bore and a counterfeit. Even Gordon Lightfoot (snicker) writes a better ballad.
All I can say to the Leonard Cohen fans of the world is, “Buy real art.”
Always in the market for some real art. You holdin’, j_p_z?
Cliff, you didn’t poop the thread mate.
The chorus of Anthem means a lot to me. Really wise words.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
You gotta read the novels before you judge, j_p_z.
yes, the novels, especially “The Favourite Game” are real art.
Oh, so now it’s the novels, is it. I just wish the guy would make up his mind.
“I’m a poet.”
“No you’re not, your poems suck!”
“Oh, did I say poet? I meant a singer-songwriter.”
“But you can’t sing, and your songs are vacuous and retarded.”
“Well, I…really meant to say, I’m a novelist.”
“Hey, look! They still have the old “Lidsville” show on Nickelodeon! I love Sid and Marty Kroft!”
“Wait, come back! I’m a novelist!”
“(SINGS) Lidsville is the kook-kook-kookiest…”
Although I do have to say, Leonard Cohen did write at least one song that I thought was genuinely haunting and dark and even kind of profound. The middle section is the part that goes,
“It leads you straight
Right through the gate
That opens on the botomless pool.
Keep off the path, beware the gate;
Watch out for signs
That say “hidden driveways.”
Don’t let the chlorine
In your eyes
Blind you to
The awful surprise
That waits for you at
The bottom of the bottomless blue
Blue pool…
You’re out of control
The rivers that roll
You fell into the water
And down to Idaho;
Get out of the state,
Get out of the state you’re in.
Better beware…”
Oh wait, sorry, that was the B-52s. Yoiks, even *they’re* more hypnotic than ol’ Lenny…
You know, JPZ, if any of us were touchy or anything like that, those of us who are LC fans and have declared ourselves as such (or not), might be a tad taken aback to see ourselves dissed so utterly as philistine idiots, and by a usually polite chap at that.
I can only assume this uncharacteristic outburst is something to do with the obligation some Americans feel to trash everything that comes out of Canada, n’est-ce pas?
Nobody here that I can see was making claims for LC as High Culture until you introduced the StrawLeonard. He wrote novels that were rather better than a lot of what I read every week to review, and his poems were about the same as quite a lot of other stuff that was coming out at the time except more imaginative, like the songs. His songs themselves are hypnotic and riveting and make grown men cry, and as for women — well, yes, LC does arouse envy in many blokes for obvious reasons.
When you say he ‘can’t sing’, you can’t mean that he is either out of key, out of time, unmusical or unemotive, because he is none of those things, so what do you mean, exactly?
And where is Jason Soon, well-known mad keen LC fan? One needs a blog-warrior at times like this.
Just for the record to those that responded to my comment, I was actually referencing to what Kim had written earlier about wanting to be 20 in 1967., not to Leonard Cohen.
Jay Pee Zee, I’m also a Cohen skeptic. When bootleg LPs were smuggled over the Iron Curtain or into the Third World as items of musical liberation, it wasn’t Cohen who did the hard yards of changing the world through rock ‘n’ roll. Let’s give a round of applause to the Bee Gees.
A more serious question than Kim’s motorcycle-maintenance-zen ones, though only marginally: can nobody born before 1955 seem to understand the rules of English punctuation? Philip travers, I’m rhetoricising at you.
It’s simple. Discrete, gramatically complete statements are separated into sentences. After commas or full stops come spaces. Paragraphs contain, ideally, one idea. Polite blog comments abide by the Lefty Elitist Three Paragraph Rule.
I’m currently marking 1st year exam papers, and I’m hearing you.
I am a bit curious, however, by the whole “Cohen is no good because he didn’t help liberate the eastern bloc” argument.
Excellent snark da Gama and j_p_zee.
Fiasco da Flabbergasted: “can nobody born before 1955 seem to understand the rules of English punctuation? Philip travers, I’m rhetoricising at you.”
Philip travers as Travis Bickle: “You rhetoricising tah me !?”
I should preemptively criticize myself for this line before Fiasco does… given that he is on grammar patrol.
Even seeing this thread on LP has made me want to listen to LC.
If people aren’t familiar with his very recent work on the album Dear Heather, they should be!
Duly familiarise yourself!
Dr. Cat, I’d be the first to admit that we all have our guilty pleasures. Some people can’t resist Sonny and Cher; for others, it’s John Denver, or Don Martin sound effects. I’ve always preferred the Jumble to the crossword puzzle, I loved the “He-Man and She-Ra” cartoons, and I think “Blondie” is funny, too. (And let’s have another three cheers for the Bee Gees!) But it’s only fair to own up that it’s a guilty pleasure. By all means, let’s all sing Neil Diamond in the shower, but when people start quoting Neil Diamond with a straight face, then I’m afraid I reserve the right to giggle.
The interesting thing about Leonard Cohen, I believe (and the reason I feel obliged to have a poke at him — although it certainly helps that he’s a Canadian!), is that he belongs to a sub-genus of artisty-types who purvey ingeniously-camouflaged kitsch to an educated class who flatter themselves into thinking that they’re above kitsch. Boy, have I got news. I’m not calling anybody a ‘philistine idiot’ (or at least I wasn’t trying to), I’m just saying, Hey, come on.
I don’t see how impugning my manners ought to win the day. If Wimpy has been hypnotized by the Sea Hag, and he’s on the verge of sleep-walking off the edge of a flying construction girder, but then Popeye snaps him out of it by dousing him with a bucket of water (as has happened many times, I assure you), then I don’t think Popeye is guilty of bad manners.
Leonard Cohen writes lines that belong on the intellectual’s equivalent of a refrigerator magnet, or a poster with a cute kitten on it (though I suppose in LC’s case, they would be brooding, inconsolable kittens). The funny part to me is that so many intellectuals think that only dim people own refrigerator magnets.
I’m sorry, I’m probably starting to sound mean, but it’s just so much fun! But I’d better leave it alone now. Tell you what, I’ll make it up to you, as a peace offering. Come on over to my house some time, and we’ll sit around and get hammered, and listen to my Uriah Heep records. That song “The Wizard” makes me cry every time.
Please be mindful of the HORRIBLE memories you’re recalling to mind, j_p_z!
In the Proustian spirit of the post.
I didn’t need to be reminded of my mother’s discovery of John Denver when I was 13.
Or that my sister and I were FORCED to go and see Hot Chocolate play live at Festival Hall.
Mark, the cure for Adult-Inflicted Childhood John Denver Trauma Syndrome, or AICJDS, (which I also suffered from as a lad), is to get this record “Minneapolis Does Denver,” available on Amazon, where a bunch of Minneapolis punk bands do covers of John Denver songs in order to make them sound actually good. It’s re-living the trauma, true, but the punk-rock part eases the pain. And once you hear a lesbian a-capella version of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” it will all start to feel better, I assure you.
No! I just want to forget!
Some memories cry out to be repressed.
For evah…
Think you had it bad, lad? Oh, we DREAMED of having to listen to *just* John Denver. Not only was I afflicted with JD as a child, but also with Neil Diamond, Peter Paul and Mary, and that country-music guy who spoke-sang the “Teddy Bear” song. I still wake up at night with cold sweats.
Fortunately, I did not grow up to be a serial killer because my parents also liked Verdi, Johnny Cash, the good parts of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, and Rogers and Hammerstein. Whew, that was a close call! And once, for my birthday, I got that insane movie-soundtrack version of “Tommy,” with the kick-ass Elton John version of “Pinball Wizard,” and Eric Clapton and Tina Turner going utterly berserk.
I think I’ll go donate some money to charity right about now.
Whoops, moderated! If anybody cares to fish out my last remark, maybe I’ll write some new, dirty lyrics to “I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight”…
I’ve fished out your comment, j_p_z, but only on condition that you go and read and comment on my latest music post:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/06/24/gig-plugs/
Seriously, like to know what you’d think!
Because I am now going to listen to my Rickie Lee Jones
tapeCD.Chuck. E. is in love, you know…
Oh dear, JPZ, you are clearly beyond reason here. You’ll be a Joni-hater too, then? k.d. lang? Neil Young? Issa the artist formerly known as Jane Siberry? Alice Munro? Margaret Atwood?
I too have a soft spot for the Bee Gees, even though I see the justice and the humour in the description I once read of their music: ‘Meaningless Lyrics in Very High Voices’. Sure — but also freakish sibling voice balance and great harmonies. (NB the Leonard Cohen equivalents that also did the rounds: ‘Music to Slash Your Wrists By’ and *ancient vinyl reference alert* ’45’s played at 33′.)
Also, no knocking Peter, Paul and Mary. That woman had a fabulous dark brown voice.
Mark — oh, oh — Rickie Lee Jones, oh my. What a gal. And, by association, and speaking more on-topic of gravel-voiced visionaries: Tom Waits, anyone (as channelled by Crystal Gayle)?
Old boyfriends
Lost in the pocket of your overcoat
Like burned out light bulbs on a ferris wheel
Old boyfriends
You remember the kinds of cars they drove
Parking in an orange grove
He fell in love, you see,
with someone that I used to be
Though I very seldom think of him,
nevertheless
sometimes a mannequin’s blue summer dress
can make the window like a dream
Ah, but now those dreams belong to someone else
Now they talk in their sleep
In a drawer where I keep all my …
… old boyfriends.
Remember when you were burning for them?
Why do you keep turning them into
old boyfriends?
They look you up when they’re in town
To see if they can still burn you down.
He fell in love, you see,
with someone that I used to be
Though I very seldom think of him,
nevertheless
sometimes a mannequin’s blue summer dress
can make the window like a dream
Ah, but now those dreams belong to someone else
Now they talk in their sleep
In a drawer where I keep all my …
…old boyfriends
Turn up every time it rains,
fall out of the pages in a magazine
Old boyfriends
Girls fill up the bars every spring
Dark places for remembering
old boyfriends,
all my old boyfriends
Old boyfriends
I think, as with your recommendation of The Audreys, Pavlov’s Cat, I can safely say we are on the same page musically (FWIW!). I’ve just popped Rickie Lee out of the cd drive on my computer and was just about to head out to the lounge where my cds are stored and grab Tom Waits’ Blue Valentine to pop into the puter for continuing musical goodness!
Dr. Cat — Yoiks, I don’t know where you got that from. As a matter of fact, I am a big-time appreciator of both Mr. Neil and La Joni (or Mitchell-Sama, if you’d prefer that honorific)… in fact I would prescribe, as almost the perfect cure for L. Cohen’s pompous bozo-dom, the marvellously disciplined and perceptive lyrics (and highly expressive singing) from Joni Mitchell’s “Edith and the Kingpin” — a classic, textbook example of refinement and careful perception in musical storytelling.
Small town, big man;
Fresh lipstick glistening.
or,
His eyes hold Edith,
His left hand holds his right–
What does that heart desire,
That he grips it so tight?
There’s a real writer for you. (Note the privilege of the left hand over the right in the symbolism, which breaks two separate ways, viz., it’s not just a good rhyme: man, she’s good!) That song is better than just about anything in say, Raymond Carver. Her “In France They Kiss on Main Street” in addition to being a tiny masterpiece in its own right, also deserves credit for sort of inventing the early Springsteen.
But I’m sorry, Margaret Atwood is a nitwit.
Neil did his canuck homeboys right with “Powderfinger,” “Thrasher,” and “Pocahontas” among numerous others, but he’s pretty much an honorary American, so I’m not sure how it signifies. And rilly, there’s nothing at all “beyond reason” in finding Canadians ridiculous, if you only knew.
But on the other hand, the great Joe Flaherty is a credit to his race.
You think you had it bad, j_p_z? I was a young teen in the era of Hanson, S Club 7, Blink 182, Backstreet Boys, Aqua, and must I go on? “Rocky mountain high” and “Hot August Night” would have been sweet, sweet relief in comparison. I was born in 1984 and my favourite bands are Pink Floyd and the Beatles!
Not to mention Leonard Cohen! You think his lyrics are rotten? Try listening to some of the stuff my generation calls poetry!
“And once, for my birthday, I got that insane movie-soundtrack version of “Tommy,â€? with the kick-ass Elton John version of “Pinball Wizard,â€? and Eric Clapton and Tina Turner going utterly berserk.”
You like Tommy? You got a little more digging to do JPZ, but your credibility’s grave is almost ready.
JPZ, I don’t think you can just say ‘Leonard Cohen is Teh Bad’ like that. I think there’s a rule that you have to argue your case.
Indeed.
Agreed, up to a point.
Oh, please.
Oh, please.
Mark, I fear there is at least one place where we come to a parting of the ways — I agree that Beth Orton is cute, but *whispers* I don’t like her singing much — though of course that is only my personal opinion.
*Ducks flying bricks*
Yes, PC I have really tried to like Beth Orton, even to the extent of buying her latest CD. She was great on stage at the LC concert in Sydney, but I find her voice annoying and her songs rather bland. Still, listening to Beth Orton would be sonic bliss compared to having to endure Tommy.
And The Hissing of Summer Lawns would have to be one of the greatest albums ever.
Hey, Tommy is good.
See how I did that without needing to add “but xyz is rubbish….”?
Laura - you gearing up for a tilt at Anna for the Goddess of Reason gig or what?
Heh.
From the homicidal bitchin’ that goes down in every kitchen,
It’s good to see a Leonard Cohen post!
“I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.â€?
FDB, pfft, of course not, though I’m highly flattered by the comparison.
Since you’re here - why is my potted coriander slowly turning bronze around the edges of the leaves?
“We never, *ever* do nothing ‘nice and easy.’ We always do it nice and ROUGH.”
–Ike and Tina Turner
Heh heh, this is actually starting to turn into a spot of fun.
Naturally enough, those of you who can’t or won’t dig “Tommy” are beneath response, almost as if you were clamoring against “Twelfth Night” or “Die Walkure” or “Street Hassle”.
Dr. Cat: “I don’t think you can just say ‘Leonard Cohen is Teh Bad’ like that. I think there’s a rule that you have to argue your case.”
See Cliff’s post at 23 June 07 11:29 pm, which does all my work for me, and much much more.
“Neil [is] pretty much an honorary American.” Oh, please.”
Ahem. From Neil’s masterwork…
And late at night
When the people were gone
He used to pick up my guitar,
And sing a song
In a shaky voice
That was real as the day was long.
or again,
It’s too dark
To put the keys
In my ignition;
And the morning sun
Has yet to climb
My hood ornament.
But before too long, I might
See those flashing red lights;
Look out mama,
Cuz I’m comin’ home
Tonight.
How very Quebecois of him. Ya know, it almost dun’t matter what he himself thinks about it. I’ll accept your sword as a token of surrender… at the, um, Appomatox courthouse of course, not the one in north Ontario.
Write what ya know, Dr. Cat, write what ya know. (And FWIW, I didn’t even *begin* to address the nuances of the writerly genius of Madame J. Mitchell…)
But I’m sorry, Margaret Atwood is and remains a nitwit.
There’s a name for a remark like that.
Hah. I’ll fall on it first (the sword, not the courthouse).
Also, you have pre-empted me with North Ontario, the obvious riposte. JPZ, we culturally colonised anglophone nations can all ventriloquise an American sensibility. Given the English-speaking world’s saturation exposure to it over decades, it would be a disgrace if we could not.
Laura - sans greenhouse, this time of year’s pretty crap for coriander. No need to feel bad, except about having to buy it for $3 plus from the supermarket - without the frickin’ roots most of the time!
They don’t love full sun, and bolt like there’s no tomorrow in summer, but then they go and deal badly with frost too. Picking the right spot is hard even in spring when they’re at their best. Mate of mine had a solution where he sowed the whole yard then watched where they went best. From then on that was his coriander spot. My solution - plant lots, plant often, and enjoy the good times while they last. Tomorrow they’ll probably all drop dead!
Anyway, enough OT stuff out of me.
I’ll forgive you, PC. Just this once!
Well that was certainly fun.
So… where the fuck is Nabakov lately?
FDB: ” this time of year’s pretty crap for coriander.”
Yep, that about sums it up. “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets.”
Dr. Cat: “Hah. I’ll fall on it first (the sword, not the courthouse).”
Well, ya always gotta respect THAT.
“Though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
In thee high marks of honor have I seen.”
Dr. Cat (again): “we culturally colonised anglophone nations…”
Forgive me for sounding naive, but I really don’t think it has to be like that. Obviously, if it’s how you feel, I can hardly sit here and say Don’t. But I think the Anglosphere is much, much bigger and weirder than even the US with all its reach and weirdness, and that a top dog/underdog model isn’t the best way to look at things. I take a more holistic view of English-speaking culture, except of course when it’s funnier to play the chauvinist. But the issue PC raises is innerestin’, and could be a matter for an entire post of its own.
Anyway, this whole fracas was certainly very good for a chuckle. Now… I wonder what time it is?
And where the hell is Nabakov?
Oh, Kim, you’ve caused my will to weaken with your vids! I have no choice but to watch and listen through a pile of them. It’s going to take me ages now to get back to work.
This Jewish hippy violinist can’t help but feel devastated every time I listen to early LC (not a fan of his later work). Partly because of the music, partly the poetry, and partly the urgent wish that I could play guitar like that ;-(
Anyone in Sydney might be interested in coming to see FourPlay at the Basement on Thursday or Friday night - we’re doing a version of famous Blue Raincoat these days which I do my best to sing.
jpz betrays his ignorance …
In Australia, mate, they are issued by the government.
Honest.
“jpz betrays his ignorance …”
Well it certainly wouldn’t be the first time! And very likely won’t be the last!
Cohen draws you in makes you think about your life by expressing his own. That has to be art and poetic! Always enjoyed his ideas and work. Thanks for the reminder.
Perhaps a new government will issue Leonard Cohen fridge magnets?
The fridge magnet now has its own post:
http://pavlovblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/if-that-is-case-then-i-am-clearly.html