Montreal: comments and feelings

[stfa]

Back in Montreal for the first time since Tower of Song. Finally going to see the Cohen exhibit since it wasn't open to the public before I left. I would appreciate any suggestions tips from those who have seen it already.

[199Dan]

Have fun and plan on spending many hours to take in the whole show.
I was luck to see the show while in Montreal. It took two visits to do it justice.
What a great display of Leonard's life and works.
Enjoy your visit !!

[mutti]

How wonderful you are going back! I will be going to Toronto for 5 days before the exhibition closes but won't be able to go to Montreal though its so close. I did spend 6 hours there but so wish I could go again.
I would head to some of the smaller rooms if there are no lineups first. The best for me was the 'big room' near the beginning with the 2 walls of huge videos but even if its busy its an easy one to watch as it starts from when you enter the room for one hour and keeps repeating itself. People come and go all the time so eventually you can sit down.
I would go to the Depression Room first and then the room next to it with the piano. Those were my 2 favorites. Sorry I don't know the official names of the exhibits. Knowing what the piano room is like now I would look through The Book of Longing at home and pick out some of my favourites and see if they are included. There is a little index book that shows you ahead of time which verse goes with which key. I didn't use this and just randomly picked a key and magically you hear Leonard reciting from The Book of Longing. Its wonderful!!! I hope there is a CD of this one day.
Another favorite to make sure you go in is the little room with Sharon Robinson singing a new song dedicated to Leonard. Its a heartbreaker for sure. You listen with headphones. Oh I would love to hear that again. There is so much more to experience but I would make sure to have the time for those things for sure. Enjoy!
Leslie

[stfa]

Thanks 199Dan and mutti - very good advice. I'm leaving Montreal tomorrow but I hope to go back for an hour or two! Your advice was right on - I got to the room with the poetry organ (and got to play it for a while) when it wasn't busy, but didn't find where the index was - didn't matter too much as whatever I or others did was very cool! The films were fantastic! and I will definitely go back to the Sharon Robinson song!!!! (only quibble is the Leonard's temple choir drowned out some of Sharon's song - even with the headphones on!). I took your sound advice and bypassed the first video room and went to the smaller rooms first. I wasn't able to do the virtual reality or the depression room but maybe tomorrow..The self-portrait display was great but I couldn't stay for all of it....I was also there for (some of) the artist Furey's live performance - striking, but I'm not sure I could watch the whole 90 minutes! ..All in all, what a fantastic exhibit, it closes April 9th - I encourage anyone that hasn't seen it to do so!!! But as I was warned, prepare to spend a lot of time - it is so wonderful and in-depth!!
Thanks and Best to all!
stfa
PS I asked if the exhibition was going to move on to anywhere else or return and got a semi-positive, if noncommittal answer - imho this exhibition should travel - it is so well done and so powerful! Hopefully we will see it down the road!

[Tchocolatl]

How inspiring the MAC's art works about this artist are! Because of this artist. Because he is. Inspiring. I wish the exposition will tour around the world. I call it the pharaon's tomb. One has to spend many time there to catch all (or the most possible ?) the glimpses of the shining of the diamonds in the mine. One visit is not enough.

Every fan having more or less the same magical (or religious, or spiritual or whatever (fabulous)) connection with the artist, and at the same time, a very specific and personal and intimate and immensely different experience(s), I shall not try to describe mine, here, which would be irrelevant, I do believe. And interesting just for me.

This being said.

I did try the organ. Of course. It said to me. Of course
It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

[vickiwoodyard]

I think I would be completely "undone" if I visited Montreal, the gravesite, special places, etc. It would be too much for this pilgrim. The question I often entertain is how he managed to make so many of us fall in love with him, that higher kind of love....

[Tchocolatl]

I think the MAC only is another kind of love. In itself.

As for your question, I found this, which is so beautifully said (and I hope, basically correct in the translation) that I did feel you may enjoy :

“…he sang hope and the beauty of the world by learning to dance over the abyss. In search of glitter and gleam, without ever pretending to abolish the darkness of every human life, Leonard Cohen brilliantly embodies a verse by the famous Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, who exerted a major influence on him: "This one who dances, walks on the water and inside a flame”

Source : https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/musiqu ... s-complexe

I, however, would have said : A whole lifetime seriously dedicated to his art. A lot of hard work. Besides the fact that he is a genious artist.