Deciding to grow up with Leonard Cohen

Today Leonard Cohen celebrates his 80. birthday. I have to thank my sister for introducing him to me and the man himself for making me an adult.

I can remember clearly that rainy September evening in my Berlin apartment where I was aimlessly playing God of War on Playstation and listening to "The Songs of Love and Hate" on the side. A struck of luck meant I had the mental energy to concentrate on the lyrics of "Dress Rehearsal Rag" during one of those loading screens.



It is a violent attack on the vanity of a young man (or a woman). There I was, wasting my time on a silly game, and the life outside was flowing continuously, not caring about me. I had to do something.

After a trip to Amsterdam, I took the decision to give a thrust to my PhD. But this rush also had its toll on me, I was very very anxious about where to start and how to go ahead. Fortunately, Cohen came to my help again. In the 2006 Berlinale I had the luck to attend the premiere of "I'm Your Man", which introduced me to his Zen Buddhist side. I learned to wait for light to go through my cracks before I could shine on anything.



Finally, during a year long hiatus in our relation with my wife, I couldn't have preserved my persistence on our relationship without the song "If It Be Your Will":



If you are familiar with Leonard Cohen, I hope you do celebrate his birthday by getting to know his music beyond "Dance Me To The End Of Love", which is a fine piece of music, but one that does not offer a full glimpse of the size of the Leondard Cohen universe.

Here are my previous posts about The Man:

http://actoker.blogspot.com.tr/search/label/leonard%20cohen

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