Leonard Cohen's Close Friend and Mentor-Irving Layton Centenary Celebration March 12, 2012

Irving Layton enjoying Leonard Cohen’s   

 “new song” The Windows 1979 (screenshot)

March 7, 2012

This March 12, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of Canada's greatest poets, Irving Layton.

When Irving Layton died January 4, 2006 at the age of 93,  Leonard Cohen  eulogized  him as “our greatest poet and our greatest champion of poetry".

Leonard Cohen once said of Layton, "I taught him how to dress, he taught me how to live forever".

In the following video, Max Layton, eldest son of Irving Layton, talks about the centenary celebrations across Canada and reads one of his father's poems.

Max emphasized how unique this centenary celebration is in the history of Canada (and as a proud Canadian, I love this quote),  

Canadians will gather across the country in all major cities and every province to honour the life and work of a Canadian poet, not a hockey player.

Max Layton's Irving Layton Centenary Hub on Facebook provides details about the schedule and content of the centenary celebrations. click here

Also see: the Irving Layton official webste which has a link to a listing of scheduled events click here

Max Layton recently posted this about the centenary event in Toronto: 

Great news!
Despite his busy schedule promoting his new CD, Leonard Cohen is making a video to honour the Irving Layton centenary.(Toronto Harbourfront, 3/14/12) 

Here are two of my favourite video clips with Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen, which I find so endearing.  I just love watching how they interact.

Leonard Cohen - The Window, with live footage (1979)  (uploaded by messalina79)

 

Leonard Cohen sings the Chiquita Banana Song to Irving Layton (uploaded by dcdsigmb)

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Thank you to Leslie PY Wener, a fellow Canadian, for alerting me about the Irving Layton centenary celebration.

Screenshot at the top and "Windows" video clip from Harry Rasky's 1980 CBC documentary "The Song of Leonard Cohen"

For further info, contact Max Layton.  Email: max@maxlayton.com

I understand that the Montreal and Toronto event videos will eventually be online at  www.irvinglayton.com.