The Beautiful Loosers

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:43 am

Hi all,

I think it's also worth noting that the library is a wonderful resource for Leonard material. Some of us tend to forget about the old library. But, here at least, they have a very good collection.

Linda.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:22 am

Thanks to margaret, abebooks & my new Visa, I completed my Leonard Cohen library in past few months. During last Winter/Spring I completed my quest for Leonard's early books of poetry. Now I have only Leonard Cohen & His Works: Poetry, and Leonard Cohen: Annotated Bibliography coming. I miss still Take This Waltz and some other, less important books. I have found even Michael Ondaatje's Leonard Cohen, Hutcheon's Leonard Cohen & His Works: Fiction, and Patricia Morley's Leonard Cohen & Hugh MacLennan: Immoral Moralists. Now they're on desktop, beside Jim's books, Nadel, Dorman&Rawlins, David Sheppard, Maurice Ratcliff, two Serbian translations, one Croatian, recent Bosnian translation of Stranger Music and new Slovenian translation of Stranger Music

The best achievement was to get Michael Gnarowski's Leonard Cohen: Artist and His Critics.

Now I have to read all of that

Plus precious Leonard's early poetry books...

The books were cheap, I must say, but I payed shippings more than the books, as all were ordered by various Canadian bookstores.

Only expensive book is Ondaatje's which is, by the way, the worst about Cohen ever written. It's very small, pocket book, and I payed for it more than Hutcheon's, Morley's and Gnarowski together! And I still took the cheapest copy, damaged and taped - others' are priced from 100 $ up to 1,000$

annaedith · Post by **annaedith** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:48 pm

another book i still found in montreal was "god is alive - magic is afoot" which just has the sequence from beautiful losers with artistical pictures. some pages are nice, others aren't. it was cheap as it seemed they've stopped printing it. i bought several ones as i think it's a very nice book to give to friends (only the right ones, though) to get them interested in cohen.
it might be a good idea to make another artistic book with more of his great words, maybe in big size and for taking the pics out and using them as posters. my walls would be full of them. some of the things he wrote would be great on tshirts as well, but never saw anything like this.

Tri-me · Post by **Tri-me** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:00 pm

I recently learnt that in Canada the Canadian Library buys two copies of acquired books. Apparently, you can order in any book they have.

Dylan · Post by **Dylan** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:17 pm

annaedith wrote:another book i still found in montreal was "god is alive - magic is afoot" which just has the sequence from beautiful losers with artistical pictures. some pages are nice, others aren't. it was cheap as it seemed they've stopped printing it. i bought several ones as i think it's a very nice book to give to friends (only the right ones, though) to get them interested in cohen.
it might be a good idea to make another artistic book with more of his great words, maybe in big size and for taking the pics out and using them as posters. my walls would be full of them. some of the things he wrote would be great on tshirts as well, but never saw anything like this.

I have a copy of that book. I stumbled across it a while back. I'd heard Buffy Sainte Marie's fantastic version of the song and bought it for that reason.

Thanks for all the great advice everybody. After pay day, I'll be busily searching.

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:39 pm

Hi Tri-me,

I've not heard that before. By the Canadian Library, do you mean our version of the Library of Congress? I heard that our literary archives are disintegrating because of water leakage, time and inadequate care. If they 'purchase' two of every book, how could we order an 'out of print' edition? Two books isn't really enough to go around.

I'll try and find something on the net. That could be an excellent resource.

Linda.

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:42 pm

Tom,

So you found a copy of Linda Hutcheon's book? I'm glad for you! Hmm. I wonder where you unearthed that? I remember looking for a copy of that myself some time ago and only found a library copy.

Linda.

Great book collection you have now as well! One day you will be the definitive Cohen historian.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:56 am

Linda, it was used store from Nova Scotia, Halifax I think. Or I confused them, as each oof the books arrived from another city somewhere in Canada

AnnaEdith, I never bought God Is Alive, as paintings didn't seem something special from online pics... Maybe I am wrong?

I have great book of Matisse's painting with lyrics of Dance Me To The End Of Love, do you know about it? I got it from NYC, I think it's still available. It's adorable.

annaedith · Post by **annaedith** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 1:10 pm

tom, you're right, the pics in god is alive aren't really great, but at least nice to look at. haven't yet bought the book with the matisse paintings, but it should be a god book!
but there's still the perfect pic/book to be made, i'd say. it is difficult to capture all this great images that pass by when reading lc.
by the way, i know thet the german library demands also two copies of every book published in germany. they had problems sometimes when artists made sort of a book with only some handmade copies! they keep them in an archive, but i suppose it's not for public access.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 1:31 pm

Speaking about national library, Croatian demand is ten copies of every book published in Croatia... Because of that, many privately printed or rare books are available only there, as they never got into commercial circulation. - But you can go there and read all of them in reading room! That must be the case in Germany and elsewhere also.

I agree about art-poetry books, AnnaEdith. There are dozen of them with LC's lyrics I think (listed in Bibliography section - you're probably familiar with books by Jürgen Jänsch?). Maybe some of those is hidden treasure...
But alas, I didn't get inspired to buy any of them by their covers...

Some of Elizabeth Laishley's paintings are on Jarkko's site, I think.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 1:38 pm

But from all of our artists in Inspiration section, and those books, I like Allan Brack mostly - he should do a book with Leonard's poems!

Picture entitled "We rise to play a greater part":

http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/allan.html

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:00 pm

Hi All,

What a great page! Such beautiful artwork. I actually saw the Matisse version - Dance Me to the End of Love when I first came to the site - it was at Amazon, I think. But, at the time, I didn't know it was going to be so hard to uncover these items! I thought there were simply the Cohen books we've all heard of.

I went to a town not far from here, and asked about Cohen books, the proprietor had seen one at another book store just a day or two previously, so he phoned down for me, and it was gone. There are more Cohen fans up here in the wilderness than I thought.

We Rise to Play a Greater part is lovely. If I see these things on site, or online somewhere, I like to use them as wallpaper or screen savers.

Great stuff!

Linda.

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:06 pm

Me again,

Some time ago (again, when I was even 'newer), Elizabeth Laishley sent me copies of her work and links to her site, a copy of the card LC sent her, all very beautiful. See seemed a very nice woman. I would have bought some (she has postcards than can be framed and grouped - and they're not that expensive), however, I was looking for something a bit different.

Well, I'm looking at my watch, and the little hand is on the 'H' in Cohen and the big hand is on the 'N' in Leonard, so I best be going.

See you,
Linda.

margaret · Post by **margaret** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:18 pm

I bought Elizabeth Laishley's book of her artwork direct from her at the New York event last summer

linda_lakeside · Post by **linda_lakeside** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:52 pm

Hello Margaret,

Elizabeth Laishley is a very good painter, isn't she? Her work on Leonard's work (

) is really quite beautiful. I may buy something, I don't know, but there is some terrific artwork connected with Leonard's work that I've never heard of! Tom is so very good at discovering these items as well. As you seem to be, Margaret.

. One of these days I'l catch up with you all, and the journey is quite a lot of fun.

Linda.