Monday, August 30, 2010

Leonard Cohen: young man in a cold city



In 1965 or so, before the world went crazy, Leonard Cohen was a poet, not a songwriter. He was actually famous as a poet, at least in the small sophisticated city (Montreal) where he grew up. Seeing this movie made my heart ache because Cohen is exactly who I wanted to be at that time -- I was finishing high school. He's witty, lyric & tender without being soft (I could never have pulled that off). And he has impregnable self-confidence without ever losing his sense of his own absurdity. No wonder the guy later ran away to a monastery for his middle years. Who could have retained any kind of humanhood as the genius rock star hero poet guru prophet lover the media (all of us) wanted to make him into, starting about 1967?

I loved this film. Listen to Cohen talk about hotel rooms and about the generous beauty of women.

Thanks to brother Tony for the tip. Go here for hundreds of other free Canadian documentaries & animations.

4 comments:

gilhodges said...

I've always treasured this Folkways poetry collection featuring a 22-year-old Cohen.

Tim Connor said...

Wonderful! Thank you.

naomi richman said...

great - makes me look forward to hearing him Monday night even more. I'll look for his little boy face in the current face of the monk who is no monk.
how do I subscribe to your blog?
check out psychotherapymusings@blogspot.com, my former blog.

Tim Connor said...

Naomi, I read & liked your blog some time ago. To subscribe to mine go to the home page, & choose Posts or Comments under Subscribe to the blog (upper right). Since you had your blog with google,suggest you click on the google icon. It should show you how to start a Google Reader if you don't already have one. Putting my blog on the Reader means you'll be informed of each new post.