Leonard Cohen: his wit, warmth and wisdom

ON THE REAL-LIFE SUBJECT OF HIS SONG, SUZANNE
“I touched her perfect body with my mind. Mostly because she was married to a friend of mine and I couldn’t touch her with anything else!”

ON THE BREAK-UP OF THE SIXTIES FOLK MOVEMENT
“Everybody went for the money. Everybody. The thing died very quickly; the merchants took over. Nobody resisted. My purity is based on the fact that nobody offered me much money.”

ON HIS STATUS AS A POET
“I always thought of myself as a competent, minor poet. I know who I’m up against. Dante, Shakespeare, Isaiah, King David, Homer.”

ON DOUBLE DATING WITH IGGY POP
“I visited Iggy in the studio. Somebody showed us a clipping with a personal ad, a young woman looking for ‘a man with the mind of Leonard Cohen and the body of Iggy Pop’. We wrote a polite letter suggesting we meet sometime, both signed it and placed my telephone number under it. The girl answered. Unfortunately, her only interest was in leading profound conversations.”

ON BOB DYLAN
“Dylan and I were having coffee in Paris a few years ago. He was doing Hallelujah in concert and asked me how long it took to write. I said, ‘Oh, the best part of two years.’ He said, ‘Two years?’ Kinda shocked. And then we started talking about a song of his called I And I. I said, ‘How long did you take to write that?’ He said, ‘Oh, best part of 15 minutes.’ I almost fell off my chair. And the thing is I lied. Actually, it took me closer to five years. Of course he lied, too. It probably took him 10 minutes.”

ON MELANCHOLY
“If I had a recipe against melancholy I would sell it in bottles and would soon be an enormously rich man. But don´t worry, I am often melancholic but I do not suffer any more from it.”

ON RELIGIOUS FAITH
“I’m not very strong on faith. I’m much more interested in experience than belief. My experience indicates without doubt that there is the embrace of the absolute. You’ve had it. When you embrace a woman and kiss her lips you forget your name. That’s the experience of the absolute.”

ON THE FUTURE
“The future is already here, and it’s always been bleak. The whole place looks like a butcher’s shop. Probably always did.”

A cushion of lamb, some meltingly soft brownies, and these delightful companions, made father’s day a joy:

a belated happy fathers day dod!

Dick Francis, if i may be so bold, is a cretin. and can count the number of Japanese people he has met on the one finger. babies are carried in a variety of slings and what not. also prams. i can have a look around. dod has my address and i recon its easier for him to forward the mail to you then me having to type it out. im pressed for time as i have to crawl into bed soonest. indeed the room is mine alone. most refreshing area of space after al those dorms. will blog later

hmm, yes, indeed they are your flip-flops. I couldn’t find mine so I thought I’d give ninja style ones a go. They were so thin that they were not really that comfortable, so rest assured that i won’t be borrowing them again;-)

cheers for the photos! keep them coming.

are sharing your room(s), or can you call that space you own?

han and I went to see the new Indy film too, though in slightly less glamourous circumstances, at the picturedrome in Bognor! I enjoyed the film and thought it to be a bit silly (but then all indy films are), but good fun. I think I’d rank it slightly below temple of doom. 1,3,2,4