Malene Arpe on Leonard Cohen, and how to save him
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 6:12 pm
From this morning's Toronto Star.
You end the evening listening to LC and awake with the morning sunshine reading about him. Great start to Sunday.
A Picture and A Thousand Words
Malene Arpe on Leonard Cohen, and how to save him
MALENE ARPE
Leonard Cohen is in money trouble. Something dire about a financial advisor who perhaps absconded with his retirement savings while he was pondering the meaning of life in a monastery. He might not be destitute in a needing-public-housing-kind-of-way, but it's not looking good for the 70-year-old poet.
At a time when he should be spending his days sitting leisurely, elegantly, dignified in cafés with prettily peeling wallpaper, drinking tiny little espressos brought to him by old-fashioned waiters wearing jackets, composing autumnal poems, imparting words of wisdom to younger, hungrier men wondering how to become the next him, he has to worry about where his next suit is going to come from.
If ever anything was not right, this is it.
A man that once looked like Leonard Cohen did, who could sit on a bench like he does in this picture and not look like a parody, and who did so much good for so many women's love lives, deserves so much better. A man like Leonard Cohen should not have to worry about the mortgage, the water bill, the irritating minutiae of dreary daily life, which should be left to the rest of us, those of us who are not national-treasure poets with voices that make your underwear descend all of its own volition. Imagine Leonard Cohen looking through a Dominion or Loblaws flyer or worrying about whether he can pay to have the floorboards in his basement replaced. Ugly and impossible thoughts.
So perhaps it's time to consider giving back a dollar or two to someone whose voice, poetry, looks and languid poses have helped ease the doldrums for multitudes of Canadian women.
Is there a straight woman in this land (and abroad for that matter, and probably some lesbians, too) who hasn't at some point looked across the breakfast table, the bed, the La-Z-Boy with the TV Guide/remote-control caddy, the tool shed, the cheap golf bag, the unsightly family car, the supermarket aisle, the Thanksgiving dinner where the turkey is dry and the cranberry sauce isn't made from scratch, the laundry basket, and closed her eyes really hard for just a moment and wished, wished, wished that the man she saw there was Leonard Cohen?
Imagined that the hands she felt were Leonard Cohen's, which would surely never be clumsy, that the voice (especially the voice) she heard reciting the lists of the things the family needed at the store was Leonard Cohen's. That if Leonard Cohen were there, he would indeed take the trouble from her eyes. That if her idea of the man that is Leonard Cohen were to just ring her doorbell once and take her to exotic places and write poems about her that only she knew were about her, and which made the world wonder whom they were about, then her life could be poetry, too.
And then gone back to life with the man and the lot and the laundry she was dealt. Refreshed. Glad for a tantalizing daydream.
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Perhaps it's time to consider giving back a dollar or two to someone whose voice, poetry, looks and languid poses have helped ease the doldrums for multitudes of Canadian women
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the news broke that Leonard Cohen had been ripped off (and maybe by a woman. How could she? Bad, sister, bad) something curious happens when you bring the subject up.
Men will shake their heads and say something like "Yeah, too bad. He's a good writer, isn't he? I thought about becoming a poet once, but then I..."
Women, young and old alike, get a strange look in their eyes, a look of mixed emotions. As if they were thinking of gruesome puppy-mill abuse and perfect dates with perfect food and perfect sex at the same time. The women also shake their heads, but in a way indicating perfect sadness, and make a poignant sound I like to call the sound-of-a-woman-who-wants-to-keep-Leonard-Cohen-safe-in-the-hope-he-might-still-have-it-in-him-to-ravish-her-once-he's-well-again sound. I know they're all thinking of their imaginary Leonard Cohen encounter.
Mine happened when I was young and stupid and in Jerusalem because I thought some guy was tremendously interesting. And maybe I was beginning to realize that he was in fact quite the opposite. I had been listening to Leonard Cohen a lot and probably imagined I knew what he was singing about, and for just a few minutes I also thought I knew exactly what it would be like to walk in Jerusalem with Leonard Cohen.
I'd happily send him a couple of bucks for that long-ago moment, but I don't have his address; and, besides, a $5 bill in an envelope is so undignified. I'd like to send my contribution to a registered charity ("Sisters of Mercy," natch), where all the money goes toward keeping Leonard Cohen living in the manner to which he's entitled without worrying that my contribution goes astray like his retirement funds.
So I'm asking if perhaps some skilled woman, who is just now busy raising money for monkey sanctuaries or books for prisoners or bicycles for the poor or another worthy cause and who knows all there is to know about the mechanics of raising money for worthy causes, could take a minute and remember when Leonard Cohen gave her a minute of a perfect dream, and proceed to set up an account or a trust or whatever it takes.
I know that there's a woman out there who has the skills needed to help the rest of us help out an old man. I'm not good with money and tax refunds or anything involving numbers of any kind, or I would start a campaign myself.
But since it was my idea, I think it only fair that I be the one to present him with the cheque.
marpe@thestar.ca
You end the evening listening to LC and awake with the morning sunshine reading about him. Great start to Sunday.
A Picture and A Thousand Words
Malene Arpe on Leonard Cohen, and how to save him
MALENE ARPE
Leonard Cohen is in money trouble. Something dire about a financial advisor who perhaps absconded with his retirement savings while he was pondering the meaning of life in a monastery. He might not be destitute in a needing-public-housing-kind-of-way, but it's not looking good for the 70-year-old poet.
At a time when he should be spending his days sitting leisurely, elegantly, dignified in cafés with prettily peeling wallpaper, drinking tiny little espressos brought to him by old-fashioned waiters wearing jackets, composing autumnal poems, imparting words of wisdom to younger, hungrier men wondering how to become the next him, he has to worry about where his next suit is going to come from.
If ever anything was not right, this is it.
A man that once looked like Leonard Cohen did, who could sit on a bench like he does in this picture and not look like a parody, and who did so much good for so many women's love lives, deserves so much better. A man like Leonard Cohen should not have to worry about the mortgage, the water bill, the irritating minutiae of dreary daily life, which should be left to the rest of us, those of us who are not national-treasure poets with voices that make your underwear descend all of its own volition. Imagine Leonard Cohen looking through a Dominion or Loblaws flyer or worrying about whether he can pay to have the floorboards in his basement replaced. Ugly and impossible thoughts.
So perhaps it's time to consider giving back a dollar or two to someone whose voice, poetry, looks and languid poses have helped ease the doldrums for multitudes of Canadian women.
Is there a straight woman in this land (and abroad for that matter, and probably some lesbians, too) who hasn't at some point looked across the breakfast table, the bed, the La-Z-Boy with the TV Guide/remote-control caddy, the tool shed, the cheap golf bag, the unsightly family car, the supermarket aisle, the Thanksgiving dinner where the turkey is dry and the cranberry sauce isn't made from scratch, the laundry basket, and closed her eyes really hard for just a moment and wished, wished, wished that the man she saw there was Leonard Cohen?
Imagined that the hands she felt were Leonard Cohen's, which would surely never be clumsy, that the voice (especially the voice) she heard reciting the lists of the things the family needed at the store was Leonard Cohen's. That if Leonard Cohen were there, he would indeed take the trouble from her eyes. That if her idea of the man that is Leonard Cohen were to just ring her doorbell once and take her to exotic places and write poems about her that only she knew were about her, and which made the world wonder whom they were about, then her life could be poetry, too.
And then gone back to life with the man and the lot and the laundry she was dealt. Refreshed. Glad for a tantalizing daydream.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps it's time to consider giving back a dollar or two to someone whose voice, poetry, looks and languid poses have helped ease the doldrums for multitudes of Canadian women
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the news broke that Leonard Cohen had been ripped off (and maybe by a woman. How could she? Bad, sister, bad) something curious happens when you bring the subject up.
Men will shake their heads and say something like "Yeah, too bad. He's a good writer, isn't he? I thought about becoming a poet once, but then I..."
Women, young and old alike, get a strange look in their eyes, a look of mixed emotions. As if they were thinking of gruesome puppy-mill abuse and perfect dates with perfect food and perfect sex at the same time. The women also shake their heads, but in a way indicating perfect sadness, and make a poignant sound I like to call the sound-of-a-woman-who-wants-to-keep-Leonard-Cohen-safe-in-the-hope-he-might-still-have-it-in-him-to-ravish-her-once-he's-well-again sound. I know they're all thinking of their imaginary Leonard Cohen encounter.
Mine happened when I was young and stupid and in Jerusalem because I thought some guy was tremendously interesting. And maybe I was beginning to realize that he was in fact quite the opposite. I had been listening to Leonard Cohen a lot and probably imagined I knew what he was singing about, and for just a few minutes I also thought I knew exactly what it would be like to walk in Jerusalem with Leonard Cohen.
I'd happily send him a couple of bucks for that long-ago moment, but I don't have his address; and, besides, a $5 bill in an envelope is so undignified. I'd like to send my contribution to a registered charity ("Sisters of Mercy," natch), where all the money goes toward keeping Leonard Cohen living in the manner to which he's entitled without worrying that my contribution goes astray like his retirement funds.
So I'm asking if perhaps some skilled woman, who is just now busy raising money for monkey sanctuaries or books for prisoners or bicycles for the poor or another worthy cause and who knows all there is to know about the mechanics of raising money for worthy causes, could take a minute and remember when Leonard Cohen gave her a minute of a perfect dream, and proceed to set up an account or a trust or whatever it takes.
I know that there's a woman out there who has the skills needed to help the rest of us help out an old man. I'm not good with money and tax refunds or anything involving numbers of any kind, or I would start a campaign myself.
But since it was my idea, I think it only fair that I be the one to present him with the cheque.
marpe@thestar.ca
being guilty of lust myself 
but after that article I would be afraid of this women. 
She needs a visit from Serge Trudeau-Hurst, the lover super hero Siiiirus 
