Re: leonard cohen

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Dear Bob:  This was a wonderfully rich posting but w/ a number of confusing 
elements, at least for me:  1) The paragraph beginning "A Leonard Cohen 
conference" is completely unclear/mystifying to me--Can you rephrase?  What 
are your referring us to there?  Something published?  2) Is STORY WITH NO 
MORAL published as an English-language translation of the French book?   
(Maybe this is obvious?)  3) Is PROPHET OF THE HEART a bio of LC?  (Again 
obvious?)  Thanks when you can, and for this posting--rlc


>From: "robert wiener" <wiener (at) mindspring(dot)com>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: leonard cohen
>Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 09:47:38 -0400
>
>Some information from internet sites that may be of interest:
>
>....
>Cohen stayed in Greece on and off for seven years.  He wrote another
>collection of poetry, the controversial Flowers For Hitler (1964); and
>two highly acclaimed novels, The Favorite Game (1963), his portrait of
>the artist as a young Jew in Montreal, and beautiful Losers (1966),
>described on its dust jacket as a disagreeable religious epic of
>incomparable beauty."   Upon its publication, the Boston Globe
>trumpeted, "James Joyce is not dead. He is living in Montreal under
>the name of Cohen." To date, each book has sold more than 800,000
>copies worldwide. ...
>
>Various Positions (1984) was the full flowering of these
>religious concerns. Songs like "Hallelujah," "The Law," Heart With No
>Companion," and "If It Be Your Will" are contemporary psalms, born of
>an undoubtedly long and difficult spiritual odyssey, so difficult that
>its conclusion left Cohen literally "wiped out." ....
>http://www.leonardcohen.com/
>(has song clips)
>
>"Dance Me to the End of Love" is on More Best of (1997), Live (1994),
>and Various Position (1985).  Its text was also used for a book with
>illustrations by Matisse.
>
>By the way, "The Captain" from Various Positions has the following
>Holocaust reference:
>
>"Complain, complain, that's all you've done
>                Ever since we lost
>                If it's not the Crucifixion
>                Then it's the Holocaust."
>                "May Christ have mercy on your soul
>                For making such a joke
>                Amid these hearts that burn like coal
>                And the flesh that rose like smoke."
>
>There's also a Holocaust reference in "Death of a Ladies' Man".
>
>A Leonard Cohen conference included in a session On the Novel: a
>paper, Writing Around the Holocaust: Uncovering the Ethical Centre of
>Beautiful Losers, by Norman Ravvin.
>
>And from,
>LES INROCKUPTIBLES, FRANCE, MARCH 15, 1995:
>HISTOIRE SANS MORALE - COHEN ENTRE CIEL ET TERRE    Story With No
>Moral - Cohen Between Earth And Sky
>  by Gilles Tordjman                      Translated by Keith Campbell
>comes the following:
>Sidebar: Parasite of Heaven ("Le parasite du ciel")
>                            by Marc Weitzmann
>
>If one had to look for poetic affiliation for Cohen -- for his work is
>as far away from the Beat poets as it is from traditional rock
>lyrics -- it would undoubtedly be found partly in Ezra Pound and Walt
>Whitman, partly in Elizabethan poetry, and partly in a particularly
>Yiddish tradition that deserves closer study. One example: "I am with
>the snow/Fallen in the sea/I am with the hunters/Hungry and tired/And
>with the prey/tender and naked/..." "I am the sorcerer and I am the
>spell/I am the enigma that kills itself to solve its own mystery".
>These two poems, that could well have been written by the same person,
>are signed by Leonard Cohen and Moshe-Lieb Halpern respectively.
>Halpern was a Yiddish poet who died in New York in 1932.
>
>
>In what is perhaps a promotional blurb for PROPHET OF THE HEART, by
>Loranne S. Dorman & Clive L. Rawlins published in
>1990 by Omnibus Press, 383 pages. ISBN 0-7119-1821-X
>(hardback) and 0-7119-2774-X (paperback) was written, "He is a man of
>great spiritual and mystical bent, whose Judaism led him from a deep
>personal dissatisfaction created by the horrors of the Holocaust and
>proctracted through many of the sub-cultures of our age: drugs,
>alcohol, sensuality, eastern mysticism, dianetics, astrology and Zen
>Buddhism."
>
>You can find lots more for yourself, including over a dozen references
>to "Jewish" at
>http://nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/frame.html
>
>Bob
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Martin Grossman <tgg (at) slip(dot)net>
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Date: Wednesday, August 18, 1999 2:07 AM
>Subject: Re: leonard cohen
>
>
> >Leonard says in an interview somewhere that the song is about the
>Holocaust --
> >and the persistence of love even under such unbearable circumstances.
>I'm
> >paraphrasing rather badly, but this is the gist of it.
> >
> >Marty Grossman
> >
> >MaxwellSt (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
> >
> >> We have twice been asked to play his song, "Dance Me To The End of
>Love," as
> >> a bridal dance.  I believe that is because, although the content is
> >> non-specific, the melody is a Russian derivative with a Jewish
>nuance.  (Our
> >> Russian violinist thinks so, anyway).
> >>
> >> Lori
> >> Maxwell St.
> >>
> >
> >--
> >Julia Becker Grossman
> >841 Solano Avenue #2
> >Albany, CA 94706
> >
> >
> >----------------------
>jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+
> >