Leonard Cohen With "Inseparable Sombrero" Arrives At the Prince of Asturias Awards Ceremony, October 21, 2011

October 21, 2011

Leonard Cohen arrived at the Campoamor...greeted the audience with his inseparable hat ... (diario de aviso)

I started watching the live television feed from Spain about a half hour before the designated ceremony start time. I wanted to catch the arrival of the laureates and see them walk down the Blue Carpet.

I was tickled to hear "Leonard Cohen" and "sombrero" mentioned together often during the next few hours.

I do not know Spanish, but I am familiar with the word sombrero. Living in North America. I associate sombrero with a unique style of hat connected to Mexico.  Well in Spain, sombrero is just...hat.
 
I wanted to collect some of the quotes to paste here, by searching for "Leonard Cohen" and sombrero.  I had many hits which made me chuckle. Some were headlines and some were within a report.

Here are just a few:

Cohen se quita el sombrero ante los gaiteros asturianos

Cohen takes off his hat to the Asturian bagpipes  (El Mundo headline)

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El sombrero de Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen's hat   (Que headline) 

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Leonard Cohen, sombrero en la silla, ha elegido una historia personal que ha improvisado sin papeles: una narración de gratitud hacia un profesor desconocido, un joven guitarrista español que, a comienzos de los 60, le dio unas clases de guitarra en Montreal.

Leonard Cohen, hat on the chair, has chosen a personal story that has improvised without papers: a story of gratitude to an unknown teacher, a young Spanish guitarist who in the early 60's, gave him some guitar lessons in Montreal. (as. com)

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Pero ha sido Leonard Cohen quien ha cautivado al público, con su voz profunda y pausada, cuando se ha despojado por una vez de su inseparable sombrero negro para acercarse al micrófono -"no estoy acostumbrado sin una orquesta detrás"- y revelar una anécdota de principios de los años sesenta que marcó toda su carrera y le vinculó a España para siempre.

But it was Leonard Cohen who has captivated audiences with his deep voice and slow, when it has once again stripped of his black hat inseparable to approach the microphone - "I'm not used without a band behind" - and reveal a story of the early sixties that marked his entire career and forever linked to Spain (emol. com)

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Two comments posted on the Leonard Cohen Forum that made me smile

From today I love the word "sombrero". It's much cooler than "hat", or German "Hut", or Russian shlyapa

(Goldin/Roman)

From today: It was the sombrero, after all

(Majmunka/Eva)

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Oct 22, 2011 update: The official video with the arrival of all the laureates is now available. click here

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Google translation used for all Spanish quotes