Bless Me Now With Your Fierce Tears XI

People here can express their condolences and thoughts for Cohen and his familly (biological and chosen) at la Grande bibliothèque today and tomorrow. http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/leonard-cohen-montrealers-can...

Note that people who can't make it or who live elsewhere can sign the online register here:

http://protocole.gouv.qc.ca/registre

By the way, he's buried at the family plot at the cemetery founded by their historic synagogue, on Mont-Royal.

Some lovely photos of Cohen's Montréal, from Westmount to the old harbour and sailors' church, to the little Parc du Portugal and rue Vallières just east of the Main, with his old and dear friend, the sculptor Armand Vaillancourt - a force of nature, five years older than Cohen and still fighting fit.

http://www.ledevoir.com/culture/actualites-culturelles/484556/une-presti...

This afternoon, despite the chill, I cycled down to Parc du Portugal to visit the memorial. Not surprisingly, I met several friends and acquaintances. I even ran into the sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, a very old friend of Cohen's (Suzanne Verdal of the song Suzanne was his wife, this must have been 50 years ago). Vaillancourt, whom I do know slightly from groups such as Les Artistes pour la paix, is a force of nature: 5 years older than Cohen was and still going strong. He had just finished and dedicated a very large-scale sculpture, La Force ouvrière, in honour of the late left-wing union leader Michel Chartrand (whom I also knew). There was also an Israeli friend who had moved here, fed up with what Israeli society had become, and some other progressive Israeli emigrants, chatting in Hebrew as well as French and English. The mourners also included Portuguese neighbours who congregate in the park, and a couple of semi-itinerants well known in the area.

Flowers, including a large bouquet of white lilies from le Gouvernement du Québec and offerings from florist creations to the tough remnants of peoples' gardens, Chinese tea in tins along with plates and bags of oranges, song lyrics, drawings etc. People could paint squares like the cobblestones of Parc du Portugal to be hung on a nearby wall, but I really didn't feel like kneeling on cobblestones and undoing all all the good my day's cycling had done for arthritic joints. "Take this waltz" was echoing from a speaker. Some visitors had left full bottles of beer and at least one of red wine, and a mostly empty bottle of Scotch.

I do wish that Leonard and Joni Mitchell had had a kid...just because she'd have rebelled by becoming an office manager.

I took my sister and brother-in-law to see his show in Portland on the last tour.  It was amazing and I know now how very lucky we were to experience that.

And while some raised issues about Dylan getting the Nobel instead of Leonard, I think it was incredibly gracious of ol' Bob to spend much of the last few months paying tribute to Leonard in various interviews.  

(self-delete.  dupe post.)

A post from Outremont writer Mary Soderstrom, with a lovely photo of the gates to Shaar Hashomayim cemetery:

http://marysoderstrom.blogspot.ca/2016/11/saturday-photo-after-very-dark...

Yes, that was her mistake, not mine. She wrote the correct name but got the photo wrong, I guess (I couldn't see the name on my monitor). Are those two cemeteries next to one another? Yes, of course I knew Shaar Hashomayim was Ashkenazi, like Cohen's ancestors.

Here are other interviews, with Christiane Charette, a Radio-Canada host,  the sculptor Armand Vaillancourt (Suzanne's companion way back when) and Martha Wainright

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/medium_large/2016-2017/chronique.as...

http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2016/11/11/cet-homme-la-sest-donne-a-lhumanit... Armand Vaillancourt is 87 years old (!) and has just completed and dedicated a monumental sculpture in honour of the leftwing union leader Michel Chartrand, La Force ouvrière.

(self-delete.  dupe post)

Leon Russell, age 74.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/arts/music/leon-russell-hit-maker-and-...

Elton John found him, late in life, barely eking out a living touring small towns in the South and Midwest.  Recorded a duet album with Russell called "The  Union".

A musical and instrumental voice that was always there, now stilled.

I liked her on that show.

Unfortunately, I'd never heard Gwen Ifill when she was alive. Dommage.

An interview with Cantor Gideon Zelermyer, of the Shaar Hashomayim congregation, on Leonard Cohen and making the "Darker" album: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/leonard-cohen-remembered-his-r...

He has a splendid voice.

There is a downloadable album of the Cantor and choir, for those of you who enjoy liturgical music: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/cantorgideonzelermyerthe Funny, I really do, and I'm not remotely religious, in any faith.

People are still singing and lighting candles at little Parc du Portugal. I was riding my bicycle yesterday down to that area (the nearby charity shop Le Chaînon, which supports a refuge for women in crisis - drat, I still didn't find a winter coat, and may wind up buying new from the after-Christmas sales) and two young men from France in a car stopped to ask me for directions to "la maison de Leonard Cohen". I explained them (one-way streets, so they had to go to St-Urbain and then turn on Marie-Anne). I guess I look like a boho of a certain age who'd know that...

Armand Vaillancourt was there again.

Have people been making pilgrimages to Notre Dame de Bon-Secours, the church Leonard referred to as "Our Lady Of The Harbour" in the song?

This passing probably deserves its own thread as a historic event. It is late at night here; probably someone will open an appropriate thread when it is morning in Canadian time zones.

He was great as the detective and would-be crime novelist "Ron Harris" on Barney Miller, back in the 70s.  That show had a lived-in humanity you don't see much on television now.

Sister Susan Moran.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?pid=183150614

Somehow we neglected to mention Alan Thicke.

I never really watched Growing Pains, but I always enjoyed Thicke of the Night.

Seems he died following an aortic dissection. :0

Well, it's true that something he loved precipitated his death, but he evidently died about three hours after the dissection began, so he probably died on a gurney, with an IV in his arm and some cardiac monitor wires stuck to his chest, and probably about when the pain was starting to subside and it was looking like just one of those things. 

(self-delete).

I read a piece somewhere that suggests that he had been diagnosed and was in or on his way to surgery, but then I've also read articles that say he died of a "heart attack", so who knows?  If I recall correctly, John Ritter died in surgery, but after having had a whole day wasted by a misdiagnosis, and a doctor dropping some pills on him and sending him home (leading to the development and publication of what are now called "Ritter Rules" for differentiating this from a heart attack or other more common heart stuffs.)

I also read something recently suggesting that the target wait time for emergency surgeries in Ontario is two hours, but it seems Thicke waited three (not in ON, and I don't know the whole story, but still).  I waited approximately seven.  Go figure.

I was just thinking how hard this must be on Thicke's 17yr old son. It would be so hard not to wonder if you had something to do with it.

Very sad news for Russians and music lovers everywhere. A plane carrying the Russian military's official choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble (the famous Red Army Choir in Soviet days) and dancers, musicians and journalists, has crashed into the Black Sea near Sochi:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/25/russian-military-plane-mis...

I put this sad story here, but it can be moved to international news if babblers and mods prefer...

The Duran: The tragic loss of the Alexandrov Choir

Adam Garrie wrote:

All but three members of Russia's most beloved vocal ensemble have died in the tragic plane crash.

Today’s news of the Tupolev-154 crash is personally devastating. Of the 92 souls on board, the vast majority were members of the Alexandrov Choir, colloquially known  as the Red Army Choir. The rest were civilian journalists and charity workers, including Elizaveta Glinka who has worked tirelessly to help the children of Donbass whilst the west lets them starve.

The Alexandrov Choir were en route to Syria to perform for the troops and civilians as they have done in every major conflict abroad since Alexander Alexandov formed the ensemble in 1926. The choir’s music helped comfort civilians and entertain soldiers during The Great Patriotic War. They provided the soundtrack for the most harrowing years in all of Russian history. Many of the most beloved songs composed during the war were by Alexander Alexandrov, including my personal favourite The Sacred War.

Perhaps most enduring was Alexandrov’s composition of the Soviet Anthem whose music is used as the current anthem of the Russian Federation. Few people in the world have not heard the basses, baritones and tenors of the choir. The signature sound was unlike anything in the world. The instrumentalists of the ensemble were equally talented playing a mixture of orchestral instruments, folk instruments and modern pop instruments....

Today’s loss is a colossal blow for Russian culture. The choir will continue, it will have to be re-built from the ground up, but the voices silenced in the plane crash will continue to haunt many.

May God rest the souls of all those lost in this terrible tragedy.

The Duran story has a link to a YouTube video of the choir.

It would be good if we could find some representative concerts, tributes etc. Thrilling voices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfvkmJ7AR0

What a brutal year.

lagatta4 wrote:

It would be good if we could find some representative concerts, tributes etc.

Try YouTube or Google with "АЛЕКСАНДРОВ хор". You'll find lots.

Today, December 26, is a National Day of Mourning in Russia for the victims of the Tu-154 passenger jet tragedy.

See "Russia mourns victims," etc.

RBTH wrote:

Russia is observing on Dec. 26 a nationwide day of mourning in remembrance of 92 people, who died in a passenger aircraft crash near the resort city of Sochi in the early hours of Dec. 25.

I know ikosmos, it doesn't feel good to hear people cheering about other people being slaughtered,

... or even imagining that people might be doing so.

It is the kind of sentiment that really has no place in public discourse.