Online Scripture Predicts Next Coming Of Cohen
On January 13, 2008 at 5:55 PM, Jarkko,1 the Administrator of leonardcohenforum.com, posted this announcement, entitled Leonard Cohen: TOUR 2008, at that site:
Leonard Cohen will be touring with his band in
Canada and US in May and in Europe in the summer.
More details will be announced in February.
Sometime Later, …
Curiously, most newspapers and other media sources seem to have noticed the post - and the 10 pages of discussion - only yesterday, many publishing the item as breaking news.
Some articles, such as the one on Pollstar, are even a tad tentative:
[my emphasis]
Those familiar with Jarkko Arjatsalo’s history with the leonardcohenfiles.com (which he started in 1995) and the leonardcohenforum.com are aware of his dedication, his reputation for reliability and accuracy,2 and his close, mutually respectful relationship with Leonard Cohen.3
As far as I can determine, a disclaimer that states, in effect, “if the announcement of a Leonard Cohen Tour posted on leonardcohenfiles.com by Jarkko is legit” is equivalent to and as superfluous as hedging, “if an announcement of a Leonard Cohen Tour made by Leonard Cohen is legit.”
Speaking of Leonard Cohen announcing an upcoming tour, …
Heck of a Guy readers may recall this excerpt from a July 16, 2007 entry on this blog with the subtly worded title, Leonard Cohen BBC Interview: “I’d like to go out [on tour] again”
In a 13 July 2007 interview on the BBC program, Front Row, Leonard Cohen discusses, among other issues, his interest in a concert tour, prompted in part by the fiscal crisis caused by the theft of his funds by his former manager:
into it and actually starting to make arrangements.”
_____________________
OK, it’s only a hunch, but based on my psychiatric training, my close reading of the declarations published thus far, my study of the CohenKabala, and my tingling spidey sense, I’m going out on a limb to affirm that I detect signs possibly consistent with Leonard Cohen planning to go on tour this year. Maybe. I think.
Footnotes
- I was admittedly tempted to continue the prophesy-scripture motif with a “Jarkko The Baptist” reference, but that seemed pushing it a bit too far. Anyway, I recall that Jarkko is Lutheran and “Jarkko The Lutheran” is a stretch as an allusion. Consider yourselves lucky - this time.↩
- I can speak from personal experience to Jarkko’s obsession with accuracy. A post I wrote about Leonard Cohen’s song, Elvis’s Rolls Royce, purported that “I also managed to unearth an extraordinarily rare photo of Elvis, Leonard, & the Rolls.” a claim which was footnoted with “Photos just don’t get much rarer than non-existent.” When the text was reproduced on leonardcohenfiles.com, Jarkko added a note clarifying that the photo had been altered (which it indeed was - nonexistent photos being hard to come by otherwise). While I was taken aback at the time by what I thought was overkill, having since seen other examples of Jarkko’s fastidious regard for verifiable data, I am, in retrospect, surprised only that he didn’t also specify that the activity described by the song itself, Cohen chauffeuring Elvis in his Rolls Royce from London to New York City, was also fiction.↩
- Leonard Cohen has, for example, released significant quantities of previously unpublished poems, drawings, and computer graphics to Jarkko for publication on leonardcohenfiles.com. See http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/canfin.html↩
- Photo and caption from leonardcohenfiles.com↩
