Leonard Cohen’s Now You See It, Now You Don’t Unified Heart Ring Trick

Initial Reports From The Field

Last week, within a few hours, Heck Of A Guy received independent reports from two field agents, Mandy MacLeod and Henry Tengelse, about the Now You See It – Now You Don’t Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Ring phenomenon.

Mandy’s Message and Photos:

Very interesting to see Leonard Cohen come on stage in Lisbon clearly wearing one of the Unified Heart rings that are for sale on the merchandise stalls. Even more interesting (to me) to see he ditched it after a couple of songs.

click on images to enlarge

Leonard Cohen Wearing Ring (Oct 7, 2012 Lisbon Concert)

Leonard Cohen Without Ring (Oct 7, 2012 Lisbon Concert)

Henry’s Message:

If you look at the pictures and videos from Paris Leonard is wearing a ring (the UHTC ring I  believe) during the first and second song in the first set. But then the ring suddenly disappears. I haven’t caught the moment when the ring actually disappears. And I don’t know the reason WHY it disappears. I noticed it during both the second and third Paris concert, but it has probably happened before

Laboratory Analysis

The agents’ reports were forwarded to the Heck Of A Guy CSI (Cohen Surveillance & Innuendo) Labs for analysis. The findings follow:

Behavioral assessments showed that the first portion of the set lists for the 2012  Leonard Cohen concerts since the Sept 11, 2012 Dublin show have been stable, consisting of these songs:

1. Dance Me To The End Of Love
2. The Future
3. Bird On A Wire
4. Everybody Knows
5. Who By Fire

A survey of the Lisbon concerts videos by Juanluiscc demonstrated that indeed the signet ring could be spotted on Cohen’s left hand from the first of the concert  through the end of Everybody Knows.

Screen capture at 4:39 of Everybody Knows – Lisbon Oct 7, 2012

The ring could not be found, however, in the video of the next song, Who By Fire, despite adequate views of the left hand.

Screen capture at 4:20 of Who By Fire – Lisbon Oct 7, 2012

Further investigations demonstrated this was a consistent finding. For example, this screen capture from an albertnoonan video of Everybody Knows at the Sept 30, 2012 Paris concert clearly shows Cohen wearing the ring …

… while this albertnoonan video of I’m Your Man from the same Sept 30, 2012 Paris concert just as clearly shows Cohen’s left hand free of a ring.

This video by Niglo45 of Who By Fire at the Sept 28, 2012 Paris concert also shows the ring absent from the left hand.

Further spot checks of videos of songs following Who By Fire, including available vidoes of the final songs of the pertinent concerts indicated the ring was not replaced once it was removed until the next show.

In the matter of the onset of the ring’s appearance during this sequence of concerts,  this albertnoonan video of Bird On A Wire and Everybody Knows offers convincing evidence that the ring was not worn during the Sept 11, 2012 Dublin show.

Unfortunately,  clear videos of any of the first four songs in the set list (the songs in which, by the Lab’s hypothesis, Cohen would be displaying the ring if he had begun wearing it) for the September 12, 14 & 15, 2012 Dublin concerts could not be found.

A video of Everybody Knows by gbarboni from the September 22. 2012 Bucharest concert, however, does show the ring.

And, CSI personnel believe that same ring is seen on this video by carnilol of Everybody Knows from the September 19, 2012 Istanbul concert.

The ring may be easier to see if one follows Cohen’s left hand on the final portion of  the video itself.

http://youtu.be/AEsBvHdI2Rg?t=4m38s

Conclusions

The observations of the field agents are confirmed.  Mr Cohen began wearing a gold Unified Heart ring on the middle finger of his left hand no later than the September 19, 2012 Istanbul concert and no earlier than the September 12, 2012 Dublin concert. In concerts in which the ring was present, he established a pattern of  wearing it from the outset of the show through the first four songs (i.e., from Dance Me To The End Of Love through the end of Everybody Knows). Then, sometime between the  end of Everybody Knows and the completion of the solo by Javier Mas that begins Who By Fire, the ring disappears from his hand, only to reappear at the start of the next concert.

Next

The possible explanations and implications of these findings will follow.