A Leonard Cohen Minute

Bug Studies by Leonard Cohen

Ian Pearson interviewing Leonard Cohen

As we were talking, there was a scrabbling noise on the bricks beside our feet. We watched as two yellow jackets grappled with each other on the ground. “You’d better avert your hearing aid,” Cohen joked, but we both watched the violent coupling with fascination.

“Are they fighting or are they mating?” I asked pop’s foremost scribe of sexuality.

Cohen paused, glanced at the wasps, looked back at me, and asked, “Are you married?”

From “Growing Old Disgracefully” by Ian Pearson, Saturday Night, March, 1993.

(Source: webheights.net)

The Undomesticated Leonard Cohen

I’ve been very reluctant to domesticate myself. I found it very hard, and I don’t know if it’s a man’s real nature. I think once we move into a household, we enter a female universe, and I’ve had great reluctance to do that. There are people who simply must protect themselves from the implications of that domestic merging. 

Leonard Cohen as told to Brian Cullman in “Sincerely, L. Cohen,” Details for Men, January, 1993.

(Source: webheights.net)

Leonard Cohen Responds to Fans’ Questions…Part 8

Does there have to be democracy in sexual fantasies? I love tying up my lover, but I don’t want him to tie me up. 
C.H. (Middlebury, VT)

You are already tied up. 

Why do people marry? 
M.D. (Hudson, OH)

I don’t know. Ask the man who owns one. 

Leonard Cohen responding to fans’ questions in “The Determinator,” Details, July 1993. 

(Source: webheights.net)

Leonard Cohen Responds to Fans’ Questions…Part 6

Are there any examples of good or healthy sexual relationships in the Bible? 
P.R. (Cleveland, OH)

The patriarchs and their wives stand as shining examples of possible human marriages. The love of Jesus for Mary Magdalene continues to inspire me. 

Is loneliness necessarily a sad thing? 
M.C. (Atlanta, GA)

Yes, it is designed to be that way. 

Leonard Cohen responding to fans’ questions in “The Determinator,” Details, July 1993. 

(Source: webheights.net)

Leonard Cohen on Marriage

“I think marriage is the hottest furnace of the spirit today,” Leonard Cohen said on the phone from Mexico. “Much more difficult than solitude, much more challenging for people who want to work on themselves. It’s a situation in which there are no alibis, excruciating most of the time…but it’s only in this situation that any kind of work can be done. Naturally I feel ambiguous about it.” 

Leonard Cohen in an interview with Paul Williams in “Leonard Cohen: The Romantic in a Ragpicker’s Trade,” Crawdaddy magazine, March 1975.

(Source: webheights.net)