DrHGuy’s Cyber-Bookmarks: 9 September 2007
A sporadically promulgated annotated listing of arguably worthwhile, recently published online reading, new or revised websites of potential utility or ostensible interest, and other internet-accessible experiences that, were it not for the casually collected, cavalierly collated, & capriciously collocated components comprising these posts, could easily be overlooked - which would be, in some cases, a shame
Don’t Call Us, …
No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov by David Oshinsky
The New York Times Book Review (7 September 2007)
A celebration of the rejection letters from Knopf that, as the author puts it, “missed the mark,” this column is essential reading for artists subjected to the capricious judgments of editors, agents, gallery owners, curators, critics, etc. and a reminder to the rest of us that rejection may have less to do with an accurate assessment of our own worth than with the faulty judgment of the individual offering the evaluation.
How about a rejection letter that includes the phrases, “very dull” and “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions” - like the one sent from Knopf in response to the submission of “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank. Of course, that manuscript would also be rejected by 15 other publishers before Doubleday bought the rights to one of the best-selling books in history.
A similar fate met the first submissions from Vladimir Nabokov, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mordecai Richler, Bashevis Singer, and Sylvia Plath, among others.
This essay on missed opportunities by those who claimed to know better can be found at
~ No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov ~
How To Shop The Internet Mall
Online Purchasing And Researching Tips is an expert’s list of cautions and tips for purchasing online.
From my own experience, I would especially emphasize these points from this piece:
1. The wisdom of researching (a) the product being purchased (I’ve had success, for example, finding cheaper alternatives, such as discontinued lines, to expensive electronic equipment) and (b) any online retailers not familiar to the buyer. The easiest means of checking out sellers is to punch the name into Google and search through the results for customer responses. If nothing negative turns up on that first search, run a second with the retailers name and “reviews” or “customer” to find useful information.
2. The necessity of checking shipping and delivery charges before committing to the purchase
3. The usefulness of the sale and coupon aggregation sites. In addition to those listed, I’ve had good luck with the following:
This advice about buying from internet sellers can be found at ~ Online Purchasing And Researching Tips ~
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It’s Been a Mithridates Kind Of Day
Today
Trust me on this one - to rectify the aching monotony and futility of a day such as today and to soothe and fortify one who has (barely) survived such a day requires a Housman poem.
Since my school days, reading “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff,” has reliably convinced me that Housman and I are, in some respects, precisely aligned - which I have always found (and continue to find) deeply comforting.
The poem’s sardonic and self-effacing style seems to aggressively ridicule the highfalutin seriousness of classic poetry - precisely the sort of literature that was Housman’s chief scholarly focus - with plain language and homely metaphors.1 After a shift in point of view, however, those insults finally become the very agents which embolden and strengthen the poet against future attacks.
And I feel better already.
Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff
by A.E. Housman
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.”
Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
‘Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour
The better for the embittered hour;
It will do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that sprang to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
–I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates,2 he died old.
From A Shropshire Lad
Footnotes
- The earthy, rustic metaphors include but are hardly limited to the sublime “But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, / It gives a chap the belly-ache” and the almost equally wonderful “The cow, the old cow, she is dead; /It sleeps well, the horned head: / We poor lads, ’tis our turn now / To hear such tunes as killed the cow.” ~back~
- Housman’s Mithradates refers to King Mithradates VI of Pontus who ruled in Asia Minor from 120 to 63 BC. According to Pliny the Elder, Mithradates was a powerful leader who was victorious against several military campaigns, including one led by Pompey, sent by imperial Rome to to destroy him and his kingdom. One reason for the longevity enjoyed by Mithradates - and the key to Housman reference in the last line of the poem - was his immunity to poison that resulted from his practice of consuming small doses of these toxins every day. ~back~
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Anthony Lane on A.E. Housman
Anthony Lane and The New Yorker
Anthony Lane,1 a film critic for The New Yorker whose credentials as a serious thinker were rendered suspect in the eyes of some simply by virtue of his being hired by Tina Brown during her tenure as that periodical’s Editor, has confirmed the validity of that indictment in those same circles by his convincing portrayal of a man who enjoys his work, even when that work is reviewing the latest Adam Sandler vehicle. If, however, Lane’s failure to steep his work in a mournfulness that transforms essays into jeremiads on the failings of modern cinema is a limitation, it is also, on occasion, a delight.
This is one of those occasions.
The February 19, 2001 issue of The New Yorker included Anthony Lane’s “Lost Horizon - The sad and savage wit of A. E. Housman,” which I found insightful enough to compel me, when I couldn’t find a copy online, to scan the piece and save it as a PDF for future use.
It was, in fact, after re-reading that article this past weekend in what has become, quite unintentionally, an annual event that I performed a quick search which found the good folks at The New Yorker now offer it for viewing on their web site.
So view it already.
Oh, you want reasons to read it, eh?
OK, here’s a quick look at the material Lane has packed into a document of just over 6 pages (when transformed into my PDF copy).
A Glimpse Of Lost Horizon
“Lost Horizon,” published on the occasion of the then impending Broadway opening of Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love,” has as its focus the same subject as Stoppard’s play - A.E. Housman, whom Lane describes as “poet, clerk, classical scholar, and gourmet, with a palate so fearless that he once dined on hedgehogs.”2
Lane goes on to address Housman’s ongoing popularity, especially in England during World War I, with explanations that are perceptive and penetrating albeit incomplete, his deserved ascendancy in the hegemony of literary scholarship, and his brutal, jubilantly devastating critiques of fools who dared publish work in his area of expertise (e.g., Of one editor, Housman wrote, “Mr. Owen’s innovations, so far as I can see, have only one merit, which certainly, in view of their character, is a merit of some magnitude: they are few.”).
On a more literary line, Lane convincingly challenges Edmund Wilson’s famous criticism that “Housman has managed to grow old without in a sense ever knowing maturity.”3
Lane enticingly introduces facts about Housman that may not qualify as arcane but are certainly not routinely taught to undergraduates - at least not to undergraduates attending state-funded colleges in southwest Missouri. For example, who knew Housman was “a devotee of American humor” or that he proudly informed his colleagues that Clarence Darrow, who visited Housman in 1927, “often used my poems to rescue his clients from the electric chair?” 4 Lane also discloses that there was a sweetness to Housman’s father until his wife’s death triggered a siege of alcoholism, that friends of Oscar Wilde would memorize Housman’s verses to recite to the imprisoned Wilde who was denied reading material, and that in 1897, Housman began spending his vacations gleefully traveling throughout the Continent by car and plane.
Lost Horizon not only limns Housman’s obsessive love for Moses Jackson5 that serves as the foundation of Stoppard’s play but goes on to deal with speculations about other liaisons to which Housman may have been a party.
And, how about Lane’s fantasy, casually dropped between a set of parentheses,
It’s wonderful stuff.
The article can be found at Lost Horizon - The sad and savage wit of A. E. Housman.
Bonus: More From Anthony Lane
In support of the publication of an assortment of Nobody’s Perfect, a collection of Anthony Lane’s New Yorker writings, Random House placed four long lively and entertaining excerpts from the book online. The index article is Anthony Lane with links to two of his movie reviews, Batman & Robin and Pearl Harbor, his thoughts on cookbooks (my favorite), and his notions about Legos.
Footnotes
- Anthony Lane is pictured on the reader’s right in the composite graphic atop this post. That’s Housman on the far left. The monocle-embracing chap in the middle is the representative of The New Yorker and is officially known as Eustace Tilley. ~back~
- In retrospect, I should have ended my post here. I suspect readers not lured into reading Lane’s article by a line depicting A.E. Housman as “poet, clerk, classical scholar, and gourmet, with a palate so fearless that he once dined on hedgehogs” are invulnerable to any charms of entertaining scholarship that I am able to portray in a post. ~back~
- No, I’m not going to provide Lane’s argument here. For one thing, I’m likely to do Lane and the reader a disservice by offering an inadequate representation of his perspective. For another, the point of my note is to entice viewers to read Lane’s article. ~back~
- A specific case of this sort was Darrow’s defense of Leopold and Loeb. ~back~
- Moses Jackson was a college classmate, who was one year older than Housman and was much admired as a student and an athlete. He never knew of Housman’s feelings for him ~back~
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JK Rowling Ties Up ALL The Loose Ends In Finale
The Incredible Yet Obvious Harry Potter Conclusion
BBC: Are you going to have a lot of loose ends to tie up in [Book] 7?
J.K. Rowling: … I’m aiming to tie it all up neatly in a nice big knot… that’s it , good night.1
Footnotes
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The Mystery Architect Of Metropolitan Home’s Grand Prize House
[Click on graphic to view larger image]
The 2002 Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House of the Year
The above photo illustrates “The Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House of the Year” article from the January 2002 issue of that magazine.
Viewers who have read the recent Heck of a Guy posts, Heck of a House: A Manor In The Jacobsenian Manner and More About Jacobsen, will not be surprised to learn that I originally purchased this issue of the magazine from the newsstand because the pictured Grand Prize House of the Year was so distinctly characteristic of the style of Hugh Jacobsen1 that I was intuitively certain that it was designed by or, like my own home, directly influenced by that architect.
The Pristine White Barn That Inspired The Grand Prize House
As it turned out, the article contained no reference to Jacobsen. Instead, the inspiration for the design was described as an epiphany:
After a year’s focused research into different architectural styles, the couple [the owners] stumbled upon a solution serendipitously, during a country drive. “We spotted a pristine white barn alone in a field,” recalls Tony. “It had no shrubs, no adornments, no distractions. That was it.”
Hmmmm. Ol’ Tony sees a barn and creates an original home design.
Remarkable.
Even more remarkable, the owners were able to spend a year preforming “focused research on different architectural styles,” yet somehow keep their final concept pure, uncontaminated by the work of at least one architect who designed a batch of houses that look a lot like theirs.
To build our home, Heck of a House, in the same style, Julie, Builder-Buddy,2 and I had to steal adapt Jacobsen’s concepts. I feel so dirty.
The Plot Thickens
To recapitulate, the six page article in this well-known magazine proclaiming this place the “Grand Prize House of the Year” presented it as an original design (inspired by a pristine barn) by the owners, Anne and Tony Vanderwarker, and a Virginia architect, Jeff Dreyfus, although, even to a amateur like me, the resemblance to Jacobsen’s work was unmistakable and immediately recognizable with a single glance at the photo of the house.
Still, my autodidactic architectural studies have admittedly been sparse, spotty, and sporadic. To assure that my suspicions weren’t the result of exposure to too many conspiracy theories, I emailed the article to the normally calm, cool, and controlled Builder-Buddy, who became apoplectic, sending the publishers a message studded with terms such as “absolute travesty,” “thinly veiled copy,” and “stealing his [Jacobsen's] design.”
The essence of the magazine’s reply consisted of the statement, “We erred in not crediting Mr. Jacobsen, which happened when a paragraph of text was mistakenly omitted from the story and no one noticed,” and a promise to print an apology. They also noted that Builder-Buddy’s “absolute travesty” note was “not the first” they received.
While it was. as I noted at the time, difficult to see how “after a year’s focused research into different architectural styles, the couple [the owners] stumbled upon a solution serendipitously” fits with “a paragraph of text [crediting Jacobsen] was mistakenly omitted from the story and no one noticed,” the magazine had ‘fessed up, and my interest diminished below the threshold that would have prompted me to expend a few bucks for the purchase of the next month’s issue of Metropolitan Home just to check the promised apology.
But Wait, There’s More
This episode came to mind as the topic of a Jacobsen-related post after I wrote the earlier blog entries referencing the architect. Because I could find little on the Internet directly from Metropolitan Home dealing with this matter,3 I extended my search and consequently discovered this pertinent article by Patricia Rogers, originally published in The Washington Post (February 10, 2002) and reprinted in The Milwaukee Journal:
Magazine Errs In Citing Source Of Home’s DesignA Virginia home infused with the purist vision of Washington architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen is prominently featured in Metropolitan Home this month. And prominently missing is any mention of Jacobsen. The house, the 2002 grand prize winner of Met Home’s annual house design contest for homeowners, grew from plans by Jacobsen originally published in 1998 as part of Life magazine’s Dream House series. Virginia architect Jeff Dreyfus, who gets the credit in the magazine for the design, along with homeowners Anne and Tony Vanderwarker, says his clients ordered the plans from Life but asked his firm to modify them. “It’s obviously that (Life) house, but we customized it. We moved rooms around, added a garage with an artist’s studio above and researched a lot of new materials.” Despite significant modifications, the house, with its signature Jacobsen-style pavilions, dormers and towering chimney, still bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Life house. A philosophical Jacobsen says all 85 houses built so far from the plans have been altered significantly. Nevertheless, “having them say ‘influenced by’ or ’school of Hugh Newell Jacobsen’ would have been nice.” Met Home Editor Donna Warner says she recognized a Jacobsen influence, but the Life connection “never dawned on any of us. Though the architect of record made many changes, we should have said it looked derivative. It was a terrible oversight on our part — a sad mistake.” The magazine will publish a correction noting Jacobsen’s contribution.
Yep, a paragraph of text was mistakenly omitted from the story and no one noticed in the email message to the complainers in northern Illinois became [The editor] recognized a Jacobsen influence, but the Life connection “never dawned on any of us. … It was a terrible oversight on our part — a sad mistake” when the Washington Post interviewed the Metropolitan Home Editor. I suppose that hypothetically one can use the rhetorical equivalent of non-Euclidean geometry to reconcile those statements, but it looks suspiciously as though the proofreader’s error has been revealed to be an editorial mistake.
And yep, the folks taking the credit for the 2002 Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House of the Year were not only inspired by a pristine barn but also had the benefit of the considerably more detailed plans4 for the 1998 Life Dream House designed by Hugh Jacobsen, a residence which was apparently so obscure that the editorial staff of Metropolitan Home didn’t notice the resemblance.
[Top: 1998 Life Dream House; Middle: 2002 Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House;
Bottom: Suggested variations on 1998 Life Dream House]
The Moral Of The Story
Well, there must be at least one. Check your sources? Acknowledge the contribution of others - or at least don’t borrow uncredited ideas from a well known architect with an incredibly distinctive style? Don’t shift a few lines around on store-bought house plans and call it your own creation? Don’t whine when you’re caught? …
How about
Footnotes
- Hugh Jacobsen is an outstanding architect whose residential work I much admire. I heartily recommend that those unfamiliar with him check out his web site, Hugh Newell Jacobsen , Architect and my own post about his influence on the design of my own home. ~back~
- ”Builder-Buddy,” I have belatedly discovered, is a fairly frequently used appellation; consequently, I should make clear that unless otherwise noted, the use of “Builder-Buddy” in this blog exclusively refers to my home builder and buddy, who is not, to my knowledge, associated with other “Builder-Buddy” named entities, including but not limited to corporate divisions, accounting software, construction tools, and icons ~back~
- The illustration and quotes from Metropolitan Home used in this post are from my own files. ~back~
- The plans for the Life Dream House were, as architect Jeff Dreyfus points out in his own defense, adapted: “It’s obviously that (Life) house, but we customized it. We moved rooms around, added a garage with an artist’s studio above and researched a lot of new materials.” Does this sound to anyone else like an college freshman defending a plagiarized essay by claiming he re-arranged the order of the paragraphs? ~back~
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DrHGuy’s Cyber-Bookmarks: 07 July 2007
A sporadically promulgated annotated listing of arguably worthwhile, recently published online reading, new or revised websites of potential utility or ostensible interest, and other internet-accessible experiences that, were it not for the casually collected, cavalierly collated, & capriciously collocated components comprising these posts, could easily be overlooked - which would be, in some cases, a shame
Short Stories Online
Classic Short Stories is the home of a large number of short stories that are indeed classics - and, more to the point, that are now in the public domain.
The stories range from Hawthorne’s The Ambitious Guest to James Joyce’s Araby to Irwin Shaw’s The Girls in Their Summer Dresses, with other entries from Edith Wharton, Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, and even Ring Lardner.
My personal favorite of the batch is Mark Twain’s A Burlesque Biography, the penultimate paragraph of which has always struck me as the epitome of biographical prose:
Snarkier Than DrHGuy
Yes, it’s true. I am humbled by these masters of snark. While I nurture ambitions of playing in their league someday, that’s a bit like the Little Leaguer who makes the second string All-Regional Southwest Missouri All Star Team hoping to lead the Cubs to a World Series.
1. What Would Tyler Durden Do?
The blurb says it all:
Here’s a taste from today’s entry, which also includes a video clip of the trailer referenced:
If you’ve seen “Transformers” by now, you’ve also seen a teaser trailer for the most secretive project in Hollywood, a movie called “Cloverfield”, directed by JJ Abrahms and written by “Lost” writer Drew Goddard. The movie looks like a mix of Godzilla and Godzilla if he interrupted a party that someone was filming, but it’s hard to say for sure because almost nothing is known about the movie. It’s not even officially named Cloverfield yet, and the website is completely useless except for revealing the movies release date. It’s also good if you want to stand naked and have awestruck girls staring up in astonished disbelief, but that gets boring after an hour or so.
2. The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
The current subtitle of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs provides a sense of the blog’s tone, “Dude, I invented the friggin iPhone. Have you heard of it?”
The premise is that the blog reveals Steve Jobs’ take on current tech-related news (e.g., the iPhone iPhenomenon). It enhances the humor if the reader is familiar with who’s who and what’s what in Silicon Valley, but it’s pretty darn funny to anyone who appreciates sarcasm and wit.
This sample, Look at me! Look at me! Not the phone! Look at me!, was published 06 July 2007:
Robert Scoble1 emerges triumphant from his hero’s journey into the depths of an Apple retail store. “I did it! I bought a phone! Look! A phone! I gave them a credit card and got it, just like that!” Note the overjoyed expression on the retail dope next to him. He’s setting a new record for looking bored while clapping. No doubt by this point this guy and all his colleagues were just so sick of Scoble they couldn’t wait to see him leave. Can you imagine? Scoble sitting there for three days doing an in-person version of twitter, telling everyone everything he’s doing at every minute? “Right now I’m live blogging and now I’m podcasting and now I’m vlogging and now I’m writing another blog item …” Good grief. Best part, from what I’m told, was when Scoble finally bought his phone and handed over his credit card and the clerk looked at it for a second and Scoble said, “Um, yeah. I’m that Robert Scoble.” Clerk, for the record, had no idea what Scoble was talking about.
DrHGuy’s Cyber-Bookmarks Non-Bookmark Bonus:
Two A.E. Housman Miscellanea Items
1. The surname of the English poet and classical scholar, A.E. Housman, is pronounced as though the first syllable ended with an “s” rather than a “z.” An easy way to remember this is that the first syllable of “Housman” actually does end with an “s.”
Or, as The American Heritage Dictionary (4th Edition) puts it: 
Those unsure of the sound of a hard “s” may signal a disembodied voice to produce the auditory waves corresponding to Mr. Housman’s name by clicking Hear “Housman” Pronounced
Secondary Bonus The surname of John Houseman, the director and actor who played Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr.2 in The Paper Chase, is pronounced as though the first syllable ended with a “z” (Houzeman).
2. The Housman poem read in the movie, Out of Africa, is “To an athlete dying young”
Footnotes
- For those unaware of Robert Scoble’s identity, check out his bio in Wikipedia. ~back~
- Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr. was the law professor who intoned “Mister Hart, here is a dime. Take it, call your mother, and tell her there is serious doubt about you ever becoming a lawyer.” Edward G. Robinson was the original choice to play the role but had to decline for health reasons ~back~
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Playlists By Authors
Book Notes At Largehearted Boy
An ongoing feature at Largehearted Boy, an always impressive pop music site, is Book Notes, in which “authors create and discuss a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published books.”
The first entry on the list is Tom Bissell’s God Lives in St. Petersburg and Other Stories, dated March 30, 2005. The total number of book notes appears, by my estimate to be approaching 100, each with a brief introduction, the playlist, and links to book reviews, the author’s web site, the book’s website at the publisher, … .
A wide range of authors and books are representative, some familiar, some unknown to me. The quality of the playlist obviously varies by author but many are thoughtful and provocative, describing links between the music and their writing that stimulate ideas and enrich the reader’s experience; only a few have the ring of a publicist’s touch.
And, there is the voyeuristic thrill of watching as a published author reveals something semi-intimate about his or her preferences, predilections, and peccadilloes.
Admit it - aren’t you a bit interested to see what made it on the playlist put together by Susie Bright, who edited Best American Erotica 2006, and some of the contributors to that volume?
Excerpts
As it turns out, this month, two Canadian authors have contributed playlists, both of which include songs by Leonard Cohen. I’ve excerpted the notes dealing with the Leonard Cohen selections to provide the reader a taste of the offerings at Book Notes”
Robert Wiersema: Before I Wake
Joan Of Arc: Leonard Cohen
Joan of Arc is the patron saint of Before I Wake (and is mentioned, fairly early on, in a conversation between Father Peter and Tim when they first meet in the story). The story of a girl who brought glory and happiness to her people, who then turned on her, burning her at the stake, resonates with me, and informs much of what happens to Sherry in the novel. Cohen’s treatment of the story is unusual, and fairly profound.
Hallelujah: Jeff Buckley1
I had to include this song for two very different reasons. First off, it nicely encapsulates a number of the book’s themes, particularly those of failure and redemption. There is an uplifting quality to the song that belies its lyrics, and a rich quietness which can only be described as holy. The second reason is more personal. Despite everything I’ve done, despite everything I bring to the table, I don’t think I’ll ever write anything as immediate, anything as moving, as this song. I don’t think there are any words to rival the sound of an acoustic guitar resonating in an empty room… Ah well. There’s nothing I can do except, as Bob Dylan once said, “keep on keepin’ on”. To quote Browning, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Anosh Irani: The Song of Kahunsha
Take This Waltz: Leonard Cohen
I was in a taxi in North Vancouver, on a dreary rainy night about eight years ago. Being a recent immigrant, my mind was an attic for the mundane: phone bills, health insurance, student loans, social insurance number. Through the speakers, a voice came on. It grabbed me like Death itself, but a life-giving death, a death unsure of its own function. When the song got over, I asked the Persian taxi driver who the singer was. “Leo-nard Co-hen,” came the answer. His words and music ripped apart my phone bills and made me care even less about health insurance. I was not expecting Cohen, but he came anyway, unannounced, and took charge with his haunting, inspiring work. 2
Footnotes