Why the hyphen?

Tchocolatl · Post by **Tchocolatl** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:43 pm

I was applying "the Bacon-Smith theory" at large, Elizabeth

Have a nice day

Kush · Post by **Kush** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:12 am

Thanks for the confirmation Anne. In cybero veritas

Anne.A.L · Post by **Anne.A.L** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 7:02 am

Tchocolatl, I think I've annoyed you. I'm sorry. My tone was all wrong. I do not know the answers to my questions. I don't have any orthodox friends that I could ask. I speak Hebrew but I'm not Jewish (long story). My questions are in earnest.

As for my habits, nothing could make me happier than to have them shaken, broken, melted by someone as smart and knowledgeable as you are. You've made my day on more than one occasion and I'm really grateful to you for that. I don't use emoticons but if I did I would put in at least five of the smiley one. Please don't misinterpret the directness of my tone. Half of the time I'm balancing a two-year-old on my knees while writing here.

Kush - you're welcome.

Lizzytysh - thank you. I'll look for the source of Cohen's comment.

Good night everyone!

Joe Way · Post by **Joe Way** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 7:59 am

I've been re-reading "Book of Mercy."

This quote somehow seems appropriate:

"This is the way we summon one another, but it is not the way we call upon the Name. We stand in rags, we beg for tears to dissolve the immovable landmarks of hatred. How beautiful our heritage, to have this way of speaking to eternity, how bountiful this solitude, surrounded, filled, and mastered by the Name, from which all things arise in splendour, depending one upon the other."

Joe

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 11:29 am

You say I took the Name in vain;
I don’t even know the name.
But if I did, well, really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word;
it doesn’t matter which you heard,
the holy, or the broken Hallelujah!

tom.d.stiller · Post by **tom.d.stiller** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:48 pm

Unfortunately I don't know Hebrew, nor am I intimately acquainted with Judaic tradition, but I found this article quite helpful:
Judaism 101

I cannot vow - of course not - to the correctness of the details given.

Cheers
Tom

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:51 pm

This is a very excellent and reverent explanation and please note that there is not one hyphen used, not a Goddamn one, the name "God" is spelled out in full. Wonder why that is.......

tom.d.stiller · Post by **tom.d.stiller** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:57 pm

lightning wrote:This is a very excellent and reverent explanation and please note that there is not one hyphen used, not a Goddamn one, the name "God" is spelled out in full. Wonder why that is.......

Sorry to take you back to earth, ligthning...

Normally, we avoid writing the Name by substituting letters or syllables, for example, writing "G-d" instead of "God." In addition, the number 15, which would ordinarily be written in Hebrew as Yod-Heh (10-5), is normally written as Tet-Vav (9-6), because Yod-Heh is a Name.

And the other pages of the site do write "G-d" instead of God.

Tom

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 5:07 pm

The age of computers was not built on numerology or gematria. Maybe the Rabbi who wrote Judaism 101 was not a Cohen fan, but preferred to learn religion from Bob Dylan who wrote "God said the Abraham kill me a son." Maybe in Judaism 102 they spell it "G-d." And take thorazine or haldol, kosher brands only ,of course).

tom.d.stiller · Post by **tom.d.stiller** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 5:54 pm

As I already said, Leonard Cohen didn't always use the hyphenated version. I don't know exactly, when he changed his spelling, but maybe Tom Sakic knows.

I am not a God, but I tend to insist on the two dots in my screen name. On the other hand it is not "The screen Name". But if you want to use my name in vain, try "T-m"

Anne.A.L · Post by **Anne.A.L** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 7:25 pm

As I already said, Leonard Cohen didn't always use the hyphenated version. I don't know exactly, when he changed his spelling, but maybe Tom Sakic knows.

Well, Tom, do you know? Obviously LC feels strongly about this. In Stranger Music he went back and changed all instances of "God" to "G-d", even when the original piece had the full spelling (as in the BL passage "God is alive. Magic is afoot.") In his songs I can't find a single use of the word before The Future, except in the Story of Isaac but it's "a god" so it doesn't count. After that it's printed as G-d on the CD leaflets. (Though not on this website).

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:31 pm

Maybe we can meditate on the meaning of God without the "o". Nothing? Zero? Non-being? The Story of O?

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 8:50 am

Maybe I missed something here

, but I took Anne's question as an honest observation of something that looked unusual, I never got the impression that she was criticising - merely wondering.

As far G-d, I, myself use it when in reference to Leonard's work mostly. I use it on this site only. So I guess you could say I use it in deference to Leonard and his work. Now, I'm starting to use ~ it looks nicer and it feels better.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:24 am

I'll go with Anne, that obviously happened in the later years, I'd say after the Book of Mercy and particularly in the 1990s.
Interesting observation, Anne - he really did change God into G-d in Stranger Music? Now, that does menas something.
I consider this a little; there's obvious difference I guess between young age and the old age, and I think we can credit this as main reason for the hyphen. The young Leonard of the Favourite Game and the "blasphemous" Beatiful Losers surely doesn't think as the old Leonard of Ten New Songs.

So, Anne, your thesis has 100 pages? Maybe you should consider the book

In any case, to take something off topic, I sometimes think how with the internet I do miss some possibilities of the print. I was thinking how we should, after all, organise the real fanclub again, and print the booklet with the interviews with Anjani, Sharon, and some better articles like Pico Iyer, L.W. (yes, I finally got who LW is

I'm so slow sometimes), Brian Johnson's letter, or let's say, the complete lyrics and notes for Dear Heather. How much would that booklet (smaller book:) cost? I know the printing of 500 copies of small format magazine with 150 pages is about 1400 Euros in Croatai - with sponsors and donations we could go I believe much cheaper. Then in such edition we could print Anne's thesis also

On the other side - if the whole book are now available online, why not to publish all 100 pages then on site? If that's to big for Jarkko's Analysis and you make only a selection for him, I'd publish the complete version on my site. We can do it like the book, in pdf format (as scans), as totally independent section (without our links on the left side)...

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:39 pm

Oh Tom,

You are going to go far!