"If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game"

I blogged this very song in 2016, from a fellow Montrealer, one of the greatest that lived. Because of similar circumstances. That's all I will say about it for now. Because it beats doomscrolling.

Posthumous Cohen

As you probably know already, there is a new song of Leonard Cohen that has just been released, posthumously. Well, more like a poem turned into music. I think I actually read it. Anyway, it is called The Goal and I share it below. I have not much more to say, except that apart from the melancholy, it feels like the action is set in Montreal. Don't ask me why, I always picture Montreal when I listen to Cohen.

Leonard Cohen's poetry

Here is the treasure I found today in our local bookshop and tonight's reading suggestion. Because it's Quebec's National Day tomorrow and Leonard Cohen was a fellow Montrealer (I think I can say this even though we're not of the same generation). I had seen his Book of Longing before, decided that today was the right time to buy it and start reading it. His poetry without music still has music. In fact, his words are music in and of themselves.

You Want It Darker

Well, what a crappy week it has been. I learned today that Leonard Cohen passed away. A great singer that was also a true poet, which is now a rarity among singers and an almost extinct breed. Incidentally, he was also a fellow Montrealer. At 82, his death may not be tragic, it is nevertheless extremely sad. In his honour, I am sharing today You Want It Darker, the song form his ultimate album. More than a artistic testament, the song had an uncannily prophetic ring. Today more than ever, I think that Leonard Cohen was the last Jewish prophet.

The graveyard, the ruins, the abyss

"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone-to a time when trust exists and what is done cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink-greetings!"

1984, George Orwell

I have been wanting to write this post for ages, I have been thinking about it over and over again, looking for the right words. Where to start? I think I know where to finish, but there is a lot to tell. Oh well, let's try.

It is a beautiful day today, just like it was eight years ago when I woke up. I have blogged about the events of 9/11 last year. Recently, I reread it, trying to find the right words again. Revisiting my first post on the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I discovered that I did not talked much about my experience of it, but mainly about what happened before and after. it is true that I lived 9/11 the way most people on the planet lived it: as a far away witness, looking at it from a safe distance, through the TV cameras. The emotional impact was still tremendous. As I said in the first post, the 21st century, and indeed the new millennium, was started on September 11, 2001. Our time changed, because our perception of time, of history, of our place in history, changed.

I remember watching the news almost non-stop that day, I remember the most trivial things, like I ate chocolate cake as a dessert that evening, I know who I talked to in the bar that night, I think I can remember the taste of the beer. I also remember meeting my neighbour on my way to the bar. She was and is still a devout Christian, of the evangelical type. She was like me outraged by what happened. But underneath the anger I could perceive Christian fatalism and maybe even masochism. She mentioned that 9/11 had been prophesied in the Bible, I did not contradict her (I had made such "prophecies" myself, regarding the jihad and an Islamist attack, so that would make me just as good as any Jewish prophet I guess). She said, and I remember this vividly: "Guillaume, we have to admit that there is something fundamentally evil with man". I concurred, thinking she was referring to the Islamists, but she proved she was thinking of more people, carrying on: "I mean, no wonder, when one see all those girls wearing barely anything in cégeps, being all flirtatious and promiscuous, that our society is shockingly immoral, and that God is most likely offended." I could not believe that. I did not grow angry, although that could have been a Hell of a reason to be. As I like and respect my neighbour, I simply stated that our "decadent" Western society was fine, I was perfectly happy with it and that I don't think it was a time for compromises. What had happened was inexcusable. Al Qaeda terrorists and their mad devotion were responsible for the death of innocent people, not our way of life or our secularism.

I quoted George Orwell at the beginning of this post for a reason and it is not a gratuitious one. I do not believe one minute that Bush is Big Brother, actually unlike many of the Bush haters I don't think he could have been much of a dictator: he lacks the intelligence. I do, however, believe that his God, the God of the religious right who supported him is a sort of Big Brother, just like the God of Bin Laden and the Muslim fundamentalists. When the disgusting Jerry Falwell claimed that God had let the enemies of America attack it because of the way gays, feminists and other "liberals" were living their life, he was in essence picturing himself as a Christian mullah. It was probably the most tragic thing about 9/11: freedom was attacked in the most obvious way, but the people who were supposed to defend freedom did not do much. Freedom was attacked, but they failed to defend it. After the madmen threw planes in the Twin Towers because they were against sex, homosexuality, abortion, alcohol, pork, atheism, some bigots who had nothing against eating pork chops went after them, disregarding in the meantime Western values. There was Guantanamo and Iraq, of course, but also the borderline esoteric practice of Christianity of Bush and co being promoted in the US and indeed the West, while here in England, the US' closest ally, the sharia law is being applied and we can see women wearing the completely covering Islamic veil even in suburbia. Oh yes, and I have a friend in Afghanistan, going after the Talibans but in the meantime protecting a corrupted, impotent regime.

Like last year, I think it is in order to commemorate that day with The future by Leonard Cohen. It's a great song, pretty good clip too, although it was stupidly censored, as if the mentions of crack and anal sex could be a sign of moral decadence. I don't think so, but our weakness to defend Western civilisation and its ideals certainly shows that we do not find the secular values, the secular morals of Western civilisation very precious. We are besieged by Islamic fundamentalism but cursed by our own Christian puritanism. I just hope that what Cohen wrote will end up being a simple warning and not a prophecy, and that freedom and Western culture did not get buried in the graveyard of ash, concrete and steel that are the ruins of the World Trade Center. In the meantime, I am contemplating the past and it feels like an abyss that opened and that could swallow our hopes.

Singing at work

I guess I should ask a Muse to help me with this post, most likely Euterpe. So Euterpe, bring me inspiration.

I did not have such a good day at school, but I do not want to come back to it for the time being. Yesterday was much nicer, and I lived one of those little happy moments that makes me feel that all this is worth it. It doesn't take much really, to make a day good or bad. It was at lunchtime, where one of my colleagues, a veteran teacher, was encouraging some of the students, mainly girls, to sing. Many were shy at first, but they quickly gained confidence. Some had absolutely beautiful voices. I thought it was a sweet idea anyway. I told them I could sing opera, or used to, and two girls said "call it". So I had to sing a little bit of opera, Deh vienni alla finestra from Don Giovanni. Yes, Mozart again. I don't know if they liked the song, but they enjoyed seeing/hearing a teacher singing. Two girls sang Hallelujah, I told them that Leonard Cohen was from Montreal, they did not know he had written the song and did not believe me he was Quebecker, because the song was in English. Oh well, they still have a lot to learn. I decided to put the song here, I got the song in the head since yesterday.

Hallelujah

Anybody care for a religious song, since it's that time of the year? I am not refering to the Handel song from his oratorio (you know which one), but the immortal song from the immortal Leonard Cohen. There are at least two versions written by Cohen, but the original one is my favourite. The way Cohen mixes Biblical references with shall we say carnal themes is a stroke of genius. Many artists interpreted it, but none have the coarse voice of Cohen, which is perfect to simply state the words. This is poetry, it does not need an interpretation, just the words as they are, which have their own musicality. I got outraged when those wannabe stars at the X Factor sang Hallelujah. That was nothing short of blasphemy (Simon Cowell you filthy, worthless douchebag). As a mean of exorcism and hopefully a bit of epiphany in the meantime, I give you the original. This is pure, simple, bare beauty:

Democracy

Because it is that day, because we are all in hopes and fears, because things can get better or they can get worse and because I am speechless about how important this day is, I will let the poetry of Leonard Cohen do the talking. He is more eloquent than I can ever be, especially when the stakes are so high.



The song version here.

Closing Time, by Leonard Cohen

I thought I'd give you another feel-good Friday song, Closing Time by leonard Cohen, because anything is a good excuse for Leonard Cohen and because it's such a beautiful song, poetic and bittersweet. Now, I couldn't get the official videoclip here, but you can find it following the link below.

Here's Cohen performing the song in my beloved Montreal, the quality is so-so but it's still enjoyable:



The original videoclip here.

Leonard Cohen in Chicoutimi?

I wish I had been in Chicoutimi recently. Leonard Cohen was there! It seems the city gets interesting only when I am gone.

The Future according to Leonard Cohen

I thought I'd make an entry about a great great musician/singer/artist, from a great anglo and Jewish (now Buddhist, but still Jewish) Quebecker from Montréal: Leonard Cohen. I discovered him circa 1992, when The Future was released. I was blown away. I guess his coarse voice and pessimistic (and prophetic, I might add) lyrics just appealed to the teenager I was, but I still love it so much. So here it is, The Future, by Leonard Cohen, via youtube, I couldn't find the original video and this montage is unforgiveably cheesy, but you just need the music, the lyrics and the voice. Pure modern, and terribly contemporary, poetry.