leonardcohenforum.com

thank you for writing, bev. have just arrived home from ellingsøya and catching up with the news before going to bed. am tired, but will probably not sleep. it's now approacing 01:00, am meeting my companion at 08:45, so have a few hours to try.

leonard said not to dwell either on what has passed away or is yet to be, although in many of his songs he does exactly that. this rough picture below was done recently with a ballpoint pen. it shows a lady who seemed to be sad, and with all that is currently going on in the world i don't think she is alone. i have many happier pictures that remain unpublished, but at the moment this seems sort of appropriate. wishing you, and everyone else here, the best weekend possible yesterday at a bus stop, a senior citizen in the aptly named village of olden. "i'd like to take you to the ceremony, that is if i remember the way"

steering a yacht through the norwegian fjords man starting off down to the pub

Photographic self portrait, 26 March 2022:

LisaLCFan wrote:Photographic self portrait, 26 March 2022

like this a lot. such a picture speaks more than words.
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she's an artist, she don't look back just some joseph looking for a manger "all your work it's right before your eyes"

"my natural thrust is to finish things that i’ve begun" "all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed, and i feel so close to everything that we lost" you win a while, and then it's done - your little winning streak

"i know you need your sleep now, i know your life's been hard"

Another photographic self-portrait.


P.S. I do read your picture titles, Geoffrey. They are a lot like you.

LisaLCFan wrote:
>Another photographic self-portrait.

thank you, brown-eyed girl. i note the blue aura, as sometimes seen during a total eclipse. eyes often speak more truthfully than the mouth.

>I do read your picture titles, Geoffrey. They are a lot like you.

whether good or bad, flattering to be told that somebody shows such interest
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leonard cohen wrote:
>so many people you just had to meet. quick one of billie "i've looked into the mirrors in numberless places . . ."

"i smile when i'm angry" "it's rare for anyone to value the opinions of a teenage girl" "The thing I liked about this award was that I'm sharing it with Chuck Berry. 'Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news' - I'd like to write a line like that!" (Leonard Cohen - 2012)

Geoffrey wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:33 pm [photo title] "only the unloved hate"...

I disagree with this statement, for it conflates two completely different issues that are not necessarily related. "Hate" is simply a very strong emotion in reaction to things (and/or people) that one finds to be repulsive, intolerable, unacceptable, etc.. -- it is a very intense and passionate form of dislike (loathing, abhorrence, detestation, etc...). A person's capacity to feel hate does not (or does not necessarily) have anything to do with how other people may or may not feel about them, but it does have everything to do with the passion and intensity of one's own emotions.

I would suggest that if a person can feel love with passion and intensity, then they can also feel hate with passion and intensity, but I am speaking purely from my own personal experience, for I love a lot of things, with great passion and intensity, but I also hate a lot of things with equal passion and intensity. Mind you, I love a lot more things than I hate, but still, hate is very much a part of my emotional being.

I always find it odd when people tell me that they do not hate anything, which usually occurs in response to my saying that I hate something: they react as if they feel that it is somehow wrong or unacceptable or even incomprehensible to "hate" something, for they seem genuinely surprised or otherwise taken aback from my saying so. I have never understood their reaction, and it makes me wonder if they actually love anything, and/or if they are even capable of the intensity of emotions that I feel. Maybe they simply don't care enough about anything to feel deep emotional reactions to it, positive or negative, love or hate -- that is, perhaps they are rather emotionally apathetic, such that nothing ever stirs them enough to feel an emotion as strong as hate (which, again, makes me wonder if they feel any emotions strongly, or at least, as strongly as I do).

But, that's just me -- YMMV.

On other subjects, I like the Beethoven/Ukraine flag/peace picture. Beethoven himself yearned for peace, equality, freedom, and universal brotherhood-sisterhood, which is the theme of the "Ode to Joy" chorus in his Ninth Symphony, including these wonderful lines:

"You millions, I embrace you. This kiss is for all the world!"

(from the German: "Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!")

I suspect that Beethoven hated a few things -- he strikes me as a guy who felt emotions passionately and intensely.

hello lisa. i appreciate your thought provoking message - thank you. however, am not sure i am sufficiently equipped to respond to such an intellectual dissertation on the definition of hate. to me it has always been just the opposite of love. you will remember prince charles' famous response when a journalist asked him if he was in love with diana ("that is open to interpretation"). life does tend to get a little complicated when one enters a forensic examination of a person's choice of words. you possess a sophisticated and analytical mind, while i am merely a simple fellow more comfortable with straightforward and undemanding small talk. therefore i am, unfortunately, an easy target for an academic to challenge. you are unusually good at deep thinking and subsequently writing it down.

so glad you liked the beethoven picture. am currently doing time-consuming research for a project - so less time for pictures. it makes a big difference to one's existence to sometimes manage to do something that another person deems worthy of praise. thank you again

Hey Geoffrey, you are quite welcome to ignore my "dissertations", which are usually nothing more than my ramblings about one thing or another that triggers my impulse to explain what I take to be a blatant fallacy.

Incidentally, even if hate is just the opposite of love, as you have believed it to be, the initial statement in question "only the unloved hate", would still be a false generalisation, for an unloved person could easily feel love as well as hate, regardless of what other people may or may not feel about them. I do not know from where/whom that statement originated, but it is absurd. I am afraid that when I come across these kinds of things, they appear to me as if they are accompanied by blaring sirens, flashing red lights, and blinding neon signs* proclaiming "THIS IS PATENTLY WRONG!!!", and I find it very difficult to resist pointing that out, even though I realise that it makes me sound exceedingly pedantic (which I probably am...).

*Below is the sort of image that appears in my mind when I come across statements that seem so obviously wrong to me, but rather than "OPEN", my sign would say "FALSE!!!!" or some such sentiment. Perhaps you can see why it is hard for me to ignore these things. And, please don't take it personally, for I am inclined to do this whenever somebody utters or writes remarks that violate logical principles.

it came from chaplin's 'the great dictator' speech.

on the surface i do accept love to be the opposite of hate, just as most people probably would. when participating in a psychologist's 'word association test' any response to love other than hate (or vice versa) would hint at abnormal mental associations. that does not need to be a negative thing, to an artist or writer it would be only positive - a distinct advantage. such a test merely hints at the way a subject's mind might work.

those tests do not interest me that much, and i would wager not you either. shrinks often do not agree with a colleague's diagnosis of a patient, which is why law courts prefer to have three of them instead of two, just as one needs three clocks to know the correct time. an intelligent person with a modicum of psychological insight can frequently fool others into wrongly assessing their personality, a tactic commonly used by manipulative individuals (such as sales people) to establish an exploitative relationship.

i will agree that an element of pedantry in your musings does sometimes seem to be apparent, but nothing that would warrant a suspicion of asperger syndrome. it may comfort you to hear that i too have been known to get 'hung up' on small details, and i am perfectly normal.

Geoffrey wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 7:30 pm ...i am perfectly normal.

Enough words for now -- I'm off! Cheers!

LisaLCFan wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 10:50 pm Enough words for now -- I'm off! Cheers!

all right, but that means i win