I WISH I WAS A MOLE IN THE GROUND
by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, vocal and banjo
Recorded in Ashland, Kentucky, April 1928

Paul Muldoon site; Litquake

A big thank-you to Anthony for starting the blog. Here's my first contribution, the URL for the homepage of Paul Muldoon, one of my favorites:

http://www.paulmuldoon.net/

Also, if anyone's in the city this evening, the Litquake festival is hosting a "Litcrawl" in the Mission:

http://www.litquake.org/the-festival/lit-crawl/

for details.

cheers,

Ben

"The first rebellious act...refusing to sleep"

Above is an excerpt from the film Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965). The film, directed by Roslyn Schwartz and Josef Reeve and produced by the Canadian Film Board, follows Mr. Cohen around his hometown of Montreal in 1964 while he is visiting "to renew his neurotic affiliations" from his current residence on the Greek island of Hydra.

I agree, as one reviewer pointed-out, the film does sometimes boarder on the pretentious. But I find it fascinating not least as a portrait of Mr. Cohen the famous Canadian novelist and poet but also as the man who would become the world famous singer songwriter.

In the last of the 5 YouTube clips for this feature, starting at 2:56, there is a scene where the filmmakers have invited Mr. Cohen to view the film. We see some of the film footage interspersed with Mr. Cohen observing and commenting. He says, "it's a very privileged thing to see yourself sleeping." In the footage, after he gets-up from his bed, they even film him taking a bath. At this point the film viewing Mr. Cohen comments, "Here in 1964 a man has invited a group of strangers to observe him cleaning his body." Then we see him in the bath inscribing on his wall "CAVEAT EMPTOR" and the film viewing Mr. Cohen says I wrote that "to let the man watching me know that this is not entirely devoid of the con." He also says, "I look much more like a man than I thought...I'm of a different style than I thought I was..."