leonardcohenforum.com

Dear Forum friends

Come one, come all! Please accept my invitation to attend our event.

You can view the formal invite plus program through the following link:

http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/toowoomba2006.doc

Also, be warned that I'll remind you face to face if you're attending the Berlin event!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

Good luck with this years event, Andrew. Have you warned prospective participants that Toowoomba has voted against drinking piss?


Aussie town can't stomach recycled sewage water

SUNDAY , 30 JULY 2006

SYDNEY: A drought-hit Australian town could not swallow the idea of drinking recycled sewage water and rejected the water-saving option in a referendum.

Toowoomba, 140 km west of the Queensland state capital Brisbane, would have become the nation's first town to supplement drinking water with recycled waste water, a practice used in Israel, Singapore, the US and parts of Europe
--------------------------------------
From... http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0,14 ... 12,00.html

Cheers,
Paul

Paul, it's interesting that this news has spread around the place - I for one was happy to give this recycling a go, but in the end the yuck factor won out!

Maybe for our Cohen event we will now have to ask visitors to bring their own bottled water! Then we might be tempted to break into a (half) familiar song like:

Now you can drink it or you can nurse it,
it don't matter how you worship
as long as you've got it ready
down on your knees.

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

Hi Andrew,
I hope that the drinking water is fresh and the wine chilled for next week's event in Toowoomba.
Email me when you get back from your Berlin+ tour and we can make arrangements for next week.

Any Australians seeing this post - I highly recommend the hospitality at the annual Toowoomba event.

I have the alfa all rearing to go for the 800km drive!

cheers

Richard

Hi Richard,

I just got back from my trip today, so I'm somewhat physically exhausted, but still on quite an emotional high - I can't quite believe I'm back, though.

I'm really pleased you can make it this year!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

Hi Andrew, it's nice to see you back! You'll be OK, I went out of my post-Berlin high only last week:-)

Hi Tom - thanks for those kind words of support.

What I need to do now is to have a Toowoomba event high, with just a slight sag in the middle - if you and the rest of our Berlin friends all come down for our event, I would suggest that it would be guaranteed!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

Andrew,

good luck with your gathering this coming weekend.

Has the possibility of the International Cohen event being staged in Australia ever been seriously considered?

Yes ~ Good Luck with your Event, Andrew . Will your son be able to attend?

I look forward to reading your report and seeing the photos .

~ Lizzy

Thanks Margaret - as to your question, I don't think that Oz would be the easiest or cheapest of places to get to! There is also not really much of an association from the LC perspective. The most relevance I could suggest is, that George Johnston & Charmaine Clift were Bohemian Aussie writers who lived on Hydra at the time Leonard arrived and who also apparently took him under their wings initially, allowing him to stay with them and then providing him with furniture etc, for his house (though I stand to be corrected on this info). The only other rationale I could think of, is that this is the country where LC is least popular/known!

Elizabeth, thanks for your support - unfortunately my son will still be in France (coincidentally in the same town/city as the delightful Julien, who performed for us in Berlin at both the open mic and the late night sessions)!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

Andrew (Darby) wrote: The only other rationale I could think of, is that this is the country where LC is least popular/known!

Surely not Andrew,
I know of at least 5 or 6 fans in Newcastle

Although if we could arrange to have the man himself present at an event in Australia, I'm sure those numbers would swell

Cheers (and see you on Thursday evening)

Hi Andrew - old mate - I wish you big success for the Toowoomba event this year. By the way - are the performances unplugged or with micro support ? By the other way - in discussions about the place for the international gatherings often the question of the Leonard Cohen reference turns up. I suggest that we skip that part because it is not really of interest anymore. As Jarkko has stated before, it is way more important to have someone in charge with the passion to give it a go.

I remember before the Berlin event I had to give an interview to a Canadian radio station. The interview was recorded and aired sometime later. After the indroduction to the topic by the moderators the first question to me was "Why is it always in a different city ?". I mean, I was prepared to a lot of questions, especially why Leonard does not show up, but they really got me with such a stupid question and I didn't know what to say. I stayed silent for two minutes, you could here a pin drop, no one spoke and then I said: "I need to have a shower first, can you call back in 15 minutes". They agreed and when they called again they asked me if Leonard would show up at our event and after that every thing was ok to me and I had fun with my own answers.

Toowoomba should be a station on the international tour one day.

Very innovative, Henning .

~ Lizzy

Henning, thanks for your kind well wishes and words of encouragement for a "down under" event! I agree with your position regarding the Cohen references - they might be a bit of a distraction from the main requirement of having people to drive the organisation of the event.

One thing that I can't deny is that I quite like going everywhere else in the world for these events, but I'm sure many of you folk from the northern hemisphere would like to come "down under" for an event, so I shouldn't be too selfish about this. One slight problem would be that if an event was held here at around the same time of the year it would be the opposite season to you (ie. winter) and I'm not sure folk would want that.

Nevertheless, winter in Australia is a funny thing, as it can vary from quite cold (minimums down to -10 Celsius overnight) to really quite warm (minimums of up to 20+ Celsius overnight), depending upon where you are! Here in Toowoomba it usually doesn't fall below 0 Celsius - however, I'm not sure about Toowoomba as a location. The larger cities have more going for them overall. Even Richard's city of Newcastle would be good, as it is largish and on the coast, with plenty of nice places to visit/enjoy (including being within striking distance of Sydney). Ania's city of Melbourne would also be brilliant , though a little bit more on the wintry side of the equation!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)