cohen's shish kebab
DESCRIPTION
After finishing my writing and reading on August 2, 2006, it was a little after 2 a.m. I went downstairs and turned on the TV to rest my eyes and brain before going to bed. I was surprised to see Leonard Cohen in an interview on one of the Australian TV stations.(1) The interview inspired me that same afternoon to read about Cohen on the internet. The material here comes from several interview sites.(2) “I feel tremendously relieved,” said Cohen in 2005 at the age of 70, “that I’m not worried about my happiness. There are things of course that make me happy…..But what I am so happy about is that the background of distress and discomfort I had had in my life has at last evaporated. It’s not that I don’t feel distressed or sad about things that I see and know and what happens to people around me. It’s not that the emotions don’t come, it’s just that the background is clear. Before…it was very dark. I could pierce the darkness. Before…..there was a kind of mist, a kind of distress over everything, but that has lifted at last. –Ron Price with thanks to 1Leonard Cohen, Interview with Leonard Cohen, August 2nd 2006, 2:00-3:00 A.M. TV; and “An Interview in 2005,” Kari Hesthamar, Los Angeles, 2005.TRANSCRIPT
COHEN’S SHISH KEBAB
After finishing my writing and reading last night it was a little after 2 a.m. I went downstairs and turned on the TV to rest my eyes and brain before going to bed. I was surprised to see Leonard Cohen in an interview on one of the Australian TV stations.1 The interview inspired me that same afternoon to read about Cohen on the internet. The material here comes from several interview sites.2 “I feel tremendously relieved,” said Cohen in 2005 at the age of 70, “that I’m not worried about my happiness. There are things of course that make me happy…..But what I am so happy about is that the background of distress and discomfort I had had in my life has at last evaporated. It’s not that I don’t feel distressed or sad about things that I see and know and what happens to people around me. It’s not that the emotions don’t come, it’s just that the background is clear. Before…it was very dark. I could pierce the darkness. Before…..there was a kind of mist, a kind of distress over everything, but that has lifted at last. –Ron Price with thanks to 1Leonard Cohen, Interview with Leonard Cohen, August 2nd 2006, 2:00-3:00 A.M. TV; and “An Interview in 2005,” Kari Hesthamar, Los Angeles, 2005.
You’ve been writing poetryas long as my life’s been associated with the permeationof that light, with that mostwonderful and thrilling motionwith the very inception of theKingdom of God on earth when the manifest Standard began waving in the centre of the great continent wherewe were born and raised.
It’s been a heavy trip for you,Leonard, and I’m so pleasedyour distress and discomfort has evaporated at last—me too,Leonard, me too: at last a lifting,an ease,a tranquillity never known,forgiveness and an early peachwith all labour put away---well,not quite all, eh Leonard, eh?---the heart still cooks, sizzling like,
how did you put it—shish kebab?
Ron PriceAugust 2nd 2006