Album of the Month: THANKS FOR THE DANCE by Leonard Cohen

My reaction to an album like this is always two-fold. First, there is righteous indignation: how could they? Then, however, comes the point where you realise how fortunate you are: to get this spare ticket, to be taken for another ride that was not even supposed to happen. 

Thanks For The Dance was pieced together and produced by Cohen's son, Adam, and you can imagine the reverence towards the material left behind by the late poet. The familiar elements are all in place, of course, from subtle orchestration to female vocals to the Spanish lute, but you do feel that the special care was given not to allow these elements to overshadow the poetry and the voice. Which is timeless poetry and which is very much the same voice that could be heard on Leonard Cohen's last album: gruff, soothing and strangely unfading. 

Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that almost none of these nine songs ended up like overworked sketches. Some are no more than brief poems (like "The Goal") set to piano and sombre atmosphere, but even those sound complete. As for the immortal Cohen classics, they include the opening "Happens To The Heart" (as good a song as he had ever written), the astonishing "It's Torn" and the sheer drama of "Puppets" which first appeared on that long-forgotten Philip Glass collaboration from 2007. 

At twenty-nine brief minutes, Thanks For The Dance does not feel like Leonard Cohen's final album. But it is what it is: a postscriptum, a cocktail in a bar following a big party. And you love the bar and you love the cocktail and you are desperately trying to hang on to the taste.


RECOMMENDED THIS MONTH:

No Treasure But Hope by Tindersticks
Kiwanuka by Michael Kiwanuka
From Out Of Nowhere by Jeff Lynne's ELO
Undivided Five by A Winged Victory for the Sullen
Thanks For The Dance by Leonard Cohen

My Cultural Lowlights: TAXI DRIVERS

Taxi drivers. I have been seeing quite a lot of them lately, and it has not been a perfect record by any stretch. Music-wise, it has been a struggle.

It was years ago when I first realised that taxi drivers have the worst taste in music. In fact, it used to be a childhood phobia of mine, that when I grow up and drive my own car, this was how I would end up: changing gears, following traffic lights, listening to crap. The car does this to you, I imagined: it distorts your senses and it makes you like them, the taxi drivers. The ones who I only saw on occasion and who rarely got away from their bullshit radio stations, 90s power ballads and Metallica compilations. If that sounds like a cliché to you, I envy your innocence.      

Childhood phobias never truly disappear, they just get assimilated into common everyday experiences. And these days, as I get into a car and hear that annoying hook of Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" (far from the worst option, mind you), I somehow imagine that this driver sitting at the wheel used to be a Ramones fan before he got into this car business. Or else, when I hear that fucking song by Ed Sheeran (again, hardly the worst case scenario), I imagine that my taxi driver had dumped Kate Bush for that. I cannot think of any rational explanation for imagining all of those things, but it does keep me distracted for a minute or two. 

And then these tough 'rock' types. Those whose radios never stop playing "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Another Brick In The Wall p.2". Those insufferable types who turn the volume louder when "Walk This Way" starts playing. Those who derive any meaning from the word 'rock'. They are the worst.

Honestly, at this point I am ready to believe that being a taxi driver and retaining good taste are two incompatible things. As Martin Amis once put it, 'poets don't drive cars'.

Which is not to say that miracles do not happen. The other day, the guy driving me home played something different. It was neither random nor pretentious. In fact, I had to put away my laptop and my writing and just sit back and listen all the way to my house. It was a compilation he must have put together himself, a carefully crafted set of songs that create the sense of fast driving, this sense of being on a speedy highway in the middle of the night. It was not unlike the soundtrack to that Nicolas Refn's film called Drive, and, for once, it was magical. It made me realise, right there and then, that this complex thing called 'taste', it is all about imagination.  

My Cultural Highlights: THE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF EZRA MAAS

There was an interesting episode at the start of the academic year when a colleague of mine, a man I had very rarely talked to previously, approached the desk I was sitting at, noticed the book that was lying face up and pronounced its title in full voice. The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas. This was a surprise, coming as it did from such a quiet and detached man of some considerable age. Seconds later, he looked at me and wondered: "Ezra Maas... never heard that name before. Who is this Ezra Maas?" At that point, I had almost finished the book, and the words would echo in my mind for quite a while: who, indeed?

"This book is dangerous". 

The novel starts with a cheap thrill, an obvious hook that could at some point collapse upon the author like some dead leviathan. It does not. I believe this could be a dangerous book, although a lot will depend on how much faith you will put into the proceedings. Quite a lot, I would argue. The closest analogy I can think of is Mark Danielewski's seminal House of Leaves, and not just because of the constant narrative mindfuck but also in the sense that this is a book of an obsession so engrossing it will inevitably affect the reader. I remember someone asking me about my impressions of the novel while I was halfway through, and I must have looked like a man possessed - praising this book like it was some modern-day masterpiece.

Although maybe it is. For no matter how much of a sceptic you may be, or how many facts you will find out about Daniel James, you will still give in to the temptation and end up searching for anything that Google has on the true identity of Ezra Maas. The elusive visionary genius that he was (and is?). And there is something that you will find, too, and God help you if you choose to go a little bit deeper. 

Because, you see, that is exactly what happens to the author of this biography. Daniel James is commissioned to write the definitive account of Ezra Maas's life (on the off chance that you do not know who Ezra Maas is, there is a Guardian article printed at the beginning of the book containing this: "Ezra Maas was a reclusive genius, an outlier and iconoclast even among the avant-garde. Today, his name has all but disappeared from the public consciousness, but in the art world, and especially to his followers, he is regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century".) Which is quite an ask considering that Maas has been missing for years, and the notoriously secretive Maas Foundation is not going to be forthcoming with any help. Quite on the contrary...

This insane, labyrinthian novel will get into your head in no time, and the endless footnotes and crossed out bits will annoy and fascinate you in equal measure. Because this novel is not so much a novel as an experience, and you owe it to yourself to have one. I would go even further, and say that if you are not obsessed with the plot and its main character, then the whole thing is wasted on you. Which is tragic, because art which does not create obsession is not real art. 

travelling notes (cxii)

There is an overwhelming sense of awkwardness flooding my whole body when I hear this strong American accent in which Van Gogh is explained to a group of tourists in Hawaiian shirts. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is about to explode inside my head with a million colours of an Impressionist painting. It takes a while to realise that it is my problem and my problem only, because the things which are said do make perfect sense in that unintentionally profound American way. 

Скетчи про Минск. "Осенний салон".

Я не могу этого объяснить ни себе, ни кому-нибудь другому, но в любом городе, где я бываю, я должен сходить в музей современного искусства. Это сомнительно как минимум оттого, что я не люблю современное искусство. Оно раздражает меня. Хуже того, оно оставляет меня равнодушным. Всякий раз, покупая билет, я спрашиваю себя, зачем это делаю. Зачем смотрю на красный прямоугольник под названием "Синий квадрат № 472". Зачем подхожу к экрану телевизора, на котором мужчина в костюме клоуна отплясывает чечетку рядом с неподвижно лежащим телом. Зачем сижу полчаса в дублинской галерее и наблюдаю за тем, как ваза в фруктами постепенно окрашивается в белый цвет. Я не знаю. Это какая-то мания. И всякий раз я делаю это вновь.  

В Минске это происходит раз в год, когда начинается "Осенний салон". Я люблю эту выставку. Мне нравится, что помимо Манхэттенского фестиваля, а также кинофестиваля в ноябре (на который в этом году стоило сходить хотя бы ради польского фильма Corpus Christi), есть кое-что еще, что создает ощущение цикличности города. Так, я знаю, что это обязательно случится: в один из первых дней октября я куплю билеты на выставку современного искусства, и начнется полуслепое блуждание между картин и скульптур, среди которых пять заденут что-то внутри. Пять из пятисот. Один процент. Я привык думать, что это неплохо. 

Мне нравится "Осенний салон". Мне нравится вчитываться в имена художников, что выставляют здесь свои работы. Нравится видеть цены, в которых нет ни слова правды. Я люблю видеть реакцию людей, которым нравится то, что вызывает у меня улыбку, и которые смеются над тем, что нравится мне. Люблю то, что через какое-то время (и обычно на втором этаже) я перестаю понимать, что хорошо, а что плохо, и готов вписать в этот листок бумаги, что раздают у входа, любой абсурд. Но не делаю этого, и в конце концов все проясняется, и я определяюсь с выбором. Тот пейзаж, классический, и чем-то похожий на Тоскану в конце августа. Скульптура огромного серебряного яйца с трещиной посередине и абстрактным названием типа "В конце марта на восходе солнца". Картина с зашифрованным смыслом, подсмотренным у Рене Магритта. Огромная корова, которая стоит в центре яркого зеленого сада. И все-таки нужно выбрать три... Я люблю этот процесс выбора, который неизменно заставляет обойти выставку во второй или даже в третий раз.   

Я никогда не слежу за тем, что происходит дальше. Я не знаю, кто побеждает, и на каком месте оказывается мой фаворит. Откровенно говоря, мне все равно. За долгие годы походов в музеи современного искусства я понял, что главное не это. Что главного здесь вообще нет и не может быть. Все это живо только в тот момент, когда мы проходим мимо этих безумных инсталляций, а потом все это умирает на страницах газет и интернет-сайтов, которые об этом пишут. Умирает даже в воспоминаниях. Весь смысл выставки в том, что за синим квадратом № 472 последует синий квадрат №473, и что через год мне захочется побывать тут снова и понять, насколько он лучше предыдущего, память о котом исчезнет вместе с листком бумаги, который я выброшу в прозрачную урну для голосования. Это бесконечный круг, бессмысленный, но необходимый. Тот, без которого не будет существовать ни нас, ни этого города.