The Delightful Back Story of Lisa Kline's Leonard Cohen Unified Heart Tattoo

February 7, 2013

Portland Nov 11,12, Lisa Kline (upper right and bottom) & Arlene (upper left)

On Nov 11,12, Lisa Kline and I were both in Portland for Leonard Cohen's concert at the Rose Garden.  In the morning,  I invited Lisa, a fellow Canuck, to my hotel room to watch the November 11th Remembrance Day memorial on my laptop. The ceremony in Ottawa was to be streamed live at 11 am on the CBC network

Lisa brought us coffee and when she removed her UHTC jacket, her UHTC tattoo was revealed.  She told me the story about it which I thought was delightful. So I asked her to please send me her story to post on the LC Scrapbook and she did.  Thank you, Lisa.  Here it is in her own words.

For years, I thought that I might like to get a tattoo, but the problem was deciding what image to have permanently inked into my skin. It had to be meaningful, and it had to be something that I would be happy with for the rest of my life. After I saw Leonard Cohen in concert during the 2008-2010 tour (which was a profound, life-enhancing experience), it occurred to me that a unified heart would make a perfect tattoo. Not only is it a beautiful symbol, but it is a great reminder of those sublime concerts. However, thinking about getting a tattoo and actually getting one are two different things, and for quite a while I never had the guts to do anything about it. How it finally became a reality is as follows:

In 2011, I went to Montreal with my good friend Rachel, a fellow Leonard Cohen enthusiast, who also shared my interest in the idea of a unified heart tattoo (but like me, she had never mustered the nerve to do anything about it!).One afternoon, we were walking along Blvd. St. Laurent (or “St. Lawrence Blvd,” as Anglophones may say), a few blocks from Leonard Cohen’s house. We came upon a tattoo parlour, and we both started laughing because we simultaneously remembered a delightful interview with Leonard Cohen from 1966. In the interview, Leonard jokes that he is thinking of changing his name (to “September Cohen”) and getting a tattoo. When the interviewer asks of the latter, “Where?”, Leonard smiles and says, “There’s this place on St. Lawrence Blvd.” After a brief moment of discussion and contemplation, Rachel and I realized that we simply could not pass up such a wonderful opportunity! A few hours later, we each proudly had a unified heart tattoo, and whenever anyone asks us “where” we got them, we can smile and say, “There’s this place on St. Lawrence Blvd…”

From the 1966 CBC interview (approx 4.50 depending on how many ads at the front)
Leonard Cohen: ... I thought that I would ... get a tattoo
Beryl Fox: Where?
Leonard Cohen: There’s this place on St. Lawrence Blvd.

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• Lisa Kline is LisaLCFan on the leonrd cohen forum
• Not all CBC archived videos are accessible outside of Canada.  So a big thank you to Lisa for finding the one above.
• Another video and full transcript of the CBC Beryl Fox interview can be found at Speaking Cohen Webheights here  
• For background about the poppies Lisa and I are wearing and Nov 11th Remembrance Day, see Leonard Cohen Commemorates November 11th Wearing The Emblematic Poppy  

Leonard Cohen Commemorates November 11th Wearing The Emblematic Poppy

November 11, 2012

Yesterday, when exiting the hotel in Seattle to  make my way to Portland for the next concert, I ran into Leonard Cohen with guitar on his back who was doing the same thing, albeit heading for a different vehicle.

I pointed to his poppy and recited the first two lines from the poem In Flanders Fields. Those two lines were all I could remember from my Toronto school days when we had to recite the poem every year to commemorate "Remembrance Day".

What happened next was thrilling.

But first, a little background,

Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This day, or alternative dates, are also recognized as special days for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries.

Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month," in accordance with the Armistice, signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning. ("At the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 a.m.) World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919.

The red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields". These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour an appropriate symbol for the blood spilled in the war.

In Flanders Fields
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields

So what happened after I recited only the first two lines of the poem?

Leonard Cohen recited the entire poem back to me.

That was thrilling to say the least.

I call November 11th Remembrance Day. He referred to it as Armistice Day and added that his father was in the military and fought in the war.

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• Yes I will admit, it took a lot of chutzpah on my part to recite a few lines of a poem to Leonard Cohen
• More about the poem and author here
• Thanks to Kelsey (KaimikK) for snapping the great photo.