November 19, 2009

The Street Preacher outside Leonard Cohen's Last Show

There was a man on a pedestal with a megaphone outside the HP Pavilion, the indoor hockey arena for the San Jose Sharks, where Leonard Cohen played the final show of his lengthy come-back tour. (He is 75 years old, & was forced to hit the road again after fourteen years when his manager squandered millions.) The preacher started quoting Leonard Cohen, from the song "Closing Time":

...and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime...
And then tried to qualify the statement by saying Cohen wasn't seeing the whole picture clearly, & started quoting the New Testament. You can accuse Leonard Cohen of many things--, but saying he lacks a biblical depth, especially to a crowd of fans en route to his final show, is not going to gain many converts.

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