Ah, yes, it's Canada's Byron's 70th birthday today, he not only the subject of Doctor J's one-time Master's thesis but also the Not-So-Good Doctor's forefather in poetical and habitual rakishness. And there's news too, according to The Star:Age has not sapped Cohen's creative powers. [Ed: what a horribly clichéd sentence. Ugh.] On Oct. 26, his latest album Dear Heather will be out from Sony, presumably not named for the owner of Indigo Books & Music.....Cool, even if The Book of Longing has been in the works for as long as I can remember..... (Actually, it's been 20 years since Cohen's last book of new material, The Book of Mercy. See also celebratory pieces here and here. And then there's this piece by Robert Fulford who rightly observes a key matter of context: "Canada has known Cohen so long that we've lost our sense of his wondrous oddness." Well, Leonard, you old rotter: happy birthday. May there be many more.
Next year McClelland & Stewart will publish The Book Of Longing, his first book since his collected poems and lyrics Stranger Music appeared in 1993.
"It contains new and unpublished poems, some written a long time ago, and his drawings," says Ellen Seligman, his editor at M&S. "I have not yet received the manuscript."
(Asides: To My Canadian Readers: Notice that he's the only poet in Canada who'd be treated this way? Interesting. Take that Margaret Atwood. To My American Readers: It's probably impossible for you to imagine the peculiar position Leonard now has in Canadian culture, but let's simply say he's probably the closest Canada has ever had to a literary celebrity. The only thing odder than understanding this, however, is trying to explain it, although, for some peculiar reason, Scandinavians and Slavs tend to get it instinctively. Go figure. But if you're not in the know, here's a "starter kit" from the Belfast Telegraph that's wholly unsatisfactory but will have to do for you for now.)See also, by the way, "70 Things About Leonard Cohen At 70" from the Guardian.
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