The Favourite Games Of Leonard Cohen, Part II

In commemoration of the 30th Olympiad, today’s post continues the non-exhaustive, idiosyncratic look at the athletic feats of Leonard Cohen begun yesterday in I love to speak with Leonard, He’s a sportsman …

International Equestrian Events

Above photo contributed by Dominique BOILE

Above photo by James Burke from Life magazine archive

Thumb Wrestling

Baseball

What did you like to do in the vacation camp?

I thought I liked everything, everything… But I was particularly interested by friendships, conversations, and later on, by girls. I accepted our daily activities as a given to which there was no reason to resist. Undoubtedly I was bored by this or that activity, to have to sit down to eat etc…but I accepted it, there was no alternative. Inside that framework I found things that interested me. I definitely loved baseball and all water sports.¹

Gymnastics – Floor Exercises

Emily Bindiger, backup singer for Leonard Cohen, reported

 He [Cohen]  stood on his head to get motorists’ attention when our tour bus broke down in Europe.²

Above photo #1 taken by Peter Mazel (October 1, 1974). Photos #1 & #2 contributed by Dominique BOILE.

Gymnastics – On Apparatus

Above photo by Lourdes Barbal. Contributed by Dominique BOILE.

Running

At altitude – On Mount Baldy

http://youtu.be/i99pRMB02bg?t=1m8s

Onstage Sprinting

Hop, Skip, and Jump

Vigo 2009

Marathon – Skipping  Offstage AND Running Back Onstage

O2 in London on November 18, 2008

Urban Games

Photo by Joseph S. Carenza III

Marksmanship

Leonard Cohen’s history includes several personally significant guns;³ the Winchester rifle displayed above is discussed in this excerpt from Leonard Cohen, The Lord Byron of Rock-and-Roll by Karen Schoemer (New York Times, November 29, 1992) found at Speaking Cohen:

After New York, Mr. Cohen lived for a year on a 1,500-acre homestead in Franklin, Tenn., rented for $75 a month. “Ah, that was a very pleasant period of my life,” he says wistfully. “… I had one of those centennial rifles that Remington put out, I think, in ’67.” He pauses. “When was this country founded? ’76?” He seems somewhat dismayed that mathematics could interfere with a colorful detail of his story. “Anyway, I had some kind of centennial rifle. I would amuse myself by shooting icicles on the far side of the creek.”⁴

 And more poetically,
From “Hallelujah:”

Well, maybe there is a God above,
But all that I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.

From “Love Calls You By Your Name:”

Shouldering your loneliness
like a gun that you will not learn to aim,

From “Why Did You Give My Name To The Police?” (Flowers For Hitler and Selected Poems 1956-1968)

You too must find the moment hopeless
in the Tennyson Hotel.
I know your stomach.
The brass bed bearing your suitcase
rumbles away like an automatic
promenading target in a shooting gallery

From “Bullets” (Flowers for Hitler and Selected Poems 1956-1968)

Listen all you bullets
that never hit:
a lot of throats are growing
in open collars
like frozen milk bottles
on a 5 a.m. street
throats that are waiting
for bite scars
but will settle
for bullet holes

Ballroom Dancing

And, What Good Is Sports Excellence Without The Endorsements

For the full story on Leonard Cohen’s proposed cologne, see  Leonard Cohen & The Sweet Smell Of Indifference

_____________________

1. Leonard Cohen, quoted in Comme Un Guerrier by Christian Fevret (Throat Culture magazine, 1992). Found at Speaking Cohen [↩]
2. See If You Need Someone To Crack You Up, Leonard Cohen Is Your Man [↩]
3. See The Guns Of Leonard Cohen and Bang Bang – A 2nd Shot At Leonard Cohen & Guns [↩]
4. While the Bicentennial of the United States, the date of which Mr Cohen was attempting to plug into his formula to calculate when he purchased the rifle, was, one supposes, a nice enough event, it was not the occasion the Winchester Repeating Arms Company chose to celebrate with the manufacture of their Centennial Rifle. Chuck Hawks explains:

   1966 was the Winchester Repeating Arms Company’s 100th year of operation. To commemorate this occasion, Winchester produced a run of fancy Model 94 rifles. These were based on post 1964 Model 94′s actions with a gold plated receiver and forend cap, brass “rifle” (curved) buttplate, saddle ring, and a heavy octagon barrel with a full length magazine that was nicely polished and deeply blued. The straight hand stock was select walnut. All were in caliber .30-30 Winchester. There were rifle (26″) and carbine (20″) barrel lengths, and sets of rifle and carbine with consecutive serial numbers were also offered. The point to all of the gold and brass was to make the 1966 Centennial reminiscent of the brass framed Winchester 1866 “Yellow Boy” rifle that was Winchester’s first product. [↩]