From the Commonplace Book . . . .

A sparsely furnished garret, the Bohemian Quarter, nightfall. Shadows conjoin and separate in the flickering light provided by a candle in a Dubonnet bottle, as the arguments of whores and sailors drift upwards from the street below. Monique, naked save for a Gauloise, looks up from her translation of “Les Chemins de la Liberté” to address the frowning poet hunched over his typewriter. “I’m bored with Sartre,” she pouts at him. “Make love to me, and then I’ll betray you.” Tiny briquettes of ash tumble from his cigarette as he mutters: “I’m writing another song about you. What’s your name again?”

David Cavanaugh, www.uncut.co.uk, 3/30/07

(re. Leonard Cohen)

Listened to "Passing Through" today. Another reminder that the great Canadian poet and songwriter is no longer with us. Saw a picture the other day of a younger Cohen with a large crowd of Israeli soldiers, including Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon, in the Sinai, apparently taken the day after the Yom Kippur War ended. He was living in Cyprus when the war broke out, and was able to grab a flight into Tel Aviv, with no plan other than an inchoate desire to be with his fellow Jews in their hour of need. Recognized by an Israeli musician, he was invited on the spot to go to the Sinai to entertain the troops. Somebody found a guitar for him. He played and sang for the troops with artillery echoing in the distance. Leonard Cohen was never a soldier, not by any stretch of the imagination, but in a time of crisis he went toward the sound of guns, in a manner of speaking.

It must have been about a year later that I heard him sing at the Cellar Door in Georgetown. Before singing "Lover, Lover, Lover" he said, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "This song came out of my heroic war experiences in the Sinai." Truer than he knew. A great musical artist, and a man to admire.