Sylvie Simmons Book Reading and Signing Event "I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen" at Book Soup, West Hollywood on September 24, 2012

September 27, 2012

Sylvie Simmons and Arlene

Book Soup is a modest sized neighbourhood type book store on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood, the kind that is sadly disappearing. So it was with great anticipation I went to the Sylvie Simmons book event. Great surroundings and I was not disappointed.

First thing upon arriving, I bought the book which was well displayed of course for the book event. I messaged Sylvie ahead of time to ask permission for a photograph and she kindly agreed.

I arrived early to snag one of the few stack chairs available and got one in the first row.  A lovely lady took  the chair next to me. She was gracious, friendly and interesting and introduced herself. It was Aviva Layton, long time partner of Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen's literary mentor.  Aviva was proud that her photo is included in Sylvie's book and offered to show me where it was. If you have the US edition, the photo is on the fourth page of photos, left side bottom.  The caption reads: "Aviva Layton. Irving Layton, Anne Sherman and Leonard in the Laurentians, Quebec. Leonard Cohen Personal Collection."

Aviva Layton

I would estimate between 30 and 40 people turned out for this book event and the bookstore handled this number comfortably. There were only 12 stack chairs (see the photo above) and the rest of the patrons stood in two book aisles.

Sylvie Simmons put on a super book reading, told terrific anecdotes (see video clip below), answered questions and then rewarded us with two wonderful Leonard Cohen songs with her ukelele, Sisters of Mercy and Famous Blue Raincoat.  Sylvie likes to include local artists wherever she goes for her book events. At the Book Soup, it was Rob Laufer. You will see in the videos below, what a good match they are.

And after all of these treats, Sylvie graciously stood at the back and signed books.

Thank you Sylvie, for all your efforts and a most wonderful book event.

Sylvie Simmons reading book excerpts with anecdotes



Sylvie Simmons & Rob Laufer - Sisters of Mercy  (at 3.30 a cellphone goes off. Both Rob and Sylvie smile and carry on)



Sylvie Simmons & Rob Laufer - Famous Blue Raincoat


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Sylvie Simmons will be doing a book event in late October in Austin and will attend the Leonard Cohen opening concert in Austin on October 31.

See also my earlier post: Sylvie Simmons Reads Poignant Excerpt From Her Leonard Cohen Bio about So Long, Marianne at Madison Event

Los Angeles Jewish Journal Book Review Leonard Cohen Bio, "I'm Your Man" by Sylvie Simmons

September 19, 2012

Author Sylvie Simmons. Photo by Alissa Anderson

(From the Los Angles Jewish Journal)

September 19, 2012

A troubadour’s journey

By Jonathan Kirsch

Among the most-played songs in my iTunes library are four immortal (and often-covered) compositions by Leonard Cohen: “Sisters of Mercy,” “Bird on a Wire,” “Hallelujah” and, of course, “Suzanne.” Significantly, “Hallejujah” is a meditation on the “sweet singer of Israel,” King David, although Cohen himself is, famously, a Buddhist monk and, not so famously, a former student of Scientology with a “Senior Dianetic, Grade IV Release” to show for it.

Before he achieved his current stature as a celebrated songwriter and an éminence grise of (North) American popular culture, however, Cohen more closely resembled a character out of a Mordecai Richler novel. Young Leonard was born in the wealthy Jewish neighborhood of Westmount in Montreal, the son of a man who made his fortune in haberdashery and insurance, and he served as president of the Menorah Club at Westmount High School, but he reinvented himself as a faintly Byronic figure with poetry that he fully intended to win prizes and readers.

The whole story of Cohen’s life and work is told in “I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen” by Sylvie Simmons (Ecco: $27.99), a rock journalist and biographer (“Neil Young: Reflections in Broken Glass”). It is a sweeping and yet penetrating book that gives us the elusive Cohen in full light and intimate detail.

Simmons brings her flair for the arresting phrase to her work. “By inclination he is a private man, rather shy,” she writes, “but if probing is required he’ll put his feet in the stirrups with dignity and humor.” And she succeeds in capturing the alchemy by which Cohen turned his adolescent angst into gold: “The Big Bang of Leonard, the moment when poetry, music, sex and spiritual longing collided and fused in him for the first time, happened in 1950, between his fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays,” she explains, “when he happened upon ‘The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca.’ ” Young Leonard never looked back.

By 1954, Cohen had published his first poem. Two years later, his first book of poems, “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” was in print in an edition of 400 copies. He was praised in the Canadian press, but he aspired to the Big Apple: “Leonard had gone to New York to be a writer — a serious writer, but also a popular one,” Simmons writes. But he soon ended up back in Canada, where he was reduced to working as a camp counselor. Only when he managed to make his way to England, then Israel and finally Greece did he fully grasp the role that would make him famous — the tortured but muse-inspired artist whose life (including his sex life) is a restless search for meaning.

“[W]hat served Leonard best was his survival instinct,” Simmons writes. “Leonard was a lover, but when it comes to survival he was also a fighter.”

His breakout book was a poetry collection titled “The Spice-Box of Earth,” another explicitly Jewish reference, but “the poems dance back and forth across the border between the holy and the worldly, the elevated and the carnal.” He was now writing novels and, although not yet 30, a memoir titled “The Favorite Game.” Cohen understood how to call attention to himself, as when he delivered an intentionally inflammatory but also self-revelatory talk at the Montreal Jewish Public Library.

“Jews were ‘afraid to be lonely’ and sought security in finance, neglecting their scholars and sages, their artists and prophets,” the author writes. “ ‘Jews must survive in their loneliness as witnesses,’ he told them. ‘Jews are witnesses to monotheism and that is what they must continue to declare.’ ”

Simmons interviewed Cohen for her book, but she also sought out those who knew him in one way or another throughout his life, including Suzanne Verdal, the woman who inspired the poem and song titled “Suzanne,” and who now works as a masseuse in Santa Monica. “I sensed a deep, philosophical side to Leonard that he seemed to see in me as well,” the original Suzanne recalls, “and he got a kick out of it that I was a sort of fledging in a way, just emerging as a young artist.”

The famous song, as it turns out, provides a good example of what Simmons does best in her biography. Cohen asserts that he convinced Judy Collins to record “Suzanne” — a breakthrough moment in his songwriting career — by “playing [the song] to her over the phone from his mother’s house in Montreal.” Simmons, however, sought out Collins herself and checked out Cohen’s version. “ ‘B---s---,’ says Collins.” The fact is that Cohen performed three of his songs in person for Collins, and “Collins recorded the songs as she heard them.”

Recently, I caught a screening of the 1965 documentary titled “Ladies and Gentlemen … Mr. Leonard Cohen,” which — as Simmons rightly puts it — “depicts Leonard doing an assortment of cool-looking things in various cool-looking Montreal locations to a soundtrack of cool jazz.” He was not yet the maker of metaphysical love songs that he would soon become, but the talent, drive and sheer charisma that turned him into an icon were already on display.

So it is with Simmons’ rich, compelling and provocative book, which is a star-studded but also frank account of how the music industry really works and, at the same time, a discerning portrait of one especially important musician. Along the way, she describes how an ambitious and gifted young man rescues himself from a career in the family shmata business and remakes himself into an artist and a celebrity — two very different identities, both of which Leonard Cohen has managed to embody without going entirely to pieces.

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I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen
Sylvie Simmons
ISBN: 9780061994982
Ecco
$27.99

"‍Leonard ‍Cohen‍’‍s complexities and contradictions are brought to life in a definitive new biography" (LA Times Book Review)

September 12, 2012

I didn't get around to reading my morning paper yesterday until late evening. Imagine my surprise and delight to find Leonard Cohen's photo prominently featured in the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times.

The LA Times is a class newspaper but I also find it is very snooty i.e., it rarely mentions Leonard Cohen, a resident of LA for gosh sakes, never mind featuring him.

Although the book review is derived from the publisher's usual press release, the assignment of an eminent reviewer, August Brown to present the feature, made this book review extra special for me.

The newspaper book review is reproduced below.

BOOK REVIEWS

His music, and more

‍Leonard ‍Cohen‍’‍s complexities and contradictions are brought to life in a definitive new biography.

“I’m Your Man: The Life of ‍Leonard ‍Cohen”

 Sylvie Simmons

 Ecco: $27.99,

 publication date Sept.18

______________________________________

  

 One challenge of assessing ‍Leonard ‍Cohen‍’‍s musical legacy is that there’s so much non-musical stuff to unpack. From his vast body of literary work to his religious triangulation — Jewish by birth, artistically obsessed with Christian imagery and later ordained as a Buddhist ‍monk‍—‍Cohen‍’‍smusicisjust one facet of a creative and inner life in which each element could warrant its own book treatment.

  

Sylvie Simmons’ “I’m Your Man” tries to synthesize all these stories into a new gold standard of ‍Cohen bios. She’s given similar treatments to Serge Gainsbourg and Neil Young, but this might be her densest source material yet. In it, she goes deep into his Montreal upbringing, his writing process and the slow burn of his musical prowess and rise to fame.

  

But “I’m Your Man” also gives considerable credence to ‍Cohen‍’‍s creative writing as a major part of his life’s catalog. And though it’s easy to scoff at rock stars’ post-fame religious conversions — see Bob Dylan’s late-career Christianity — Simmons’ book takes ‍Cohen‍’‍s contradictory interests in Jewish tradition, Buddhist dispassion and Christian myth as part of a larger creative and philosophical architecture that seeps into every corner of his varied works.

  — AUGUST BROWN 

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LC Biographer Sylvie Simmons & FRIEND Maarten Massa

 at the Leonard Cohen Madison Event 2012

(photo: Ken Kurzweill)

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See also my earlier post, "Sylvie Simmons Reads Poignant Excerpt From Her Leonard Cohen Bio about So Long, Marianne at Madison Event"  click here

Sylvie Simmons Reads Poignant Excerpt From Her Leonard Cohen Bio about So Long, Marianne at Madison Event

August 8, 2012

At the Leonard Cohen 2012 Madison Event August 3-5, Ken Kurzweil captured many outstanding videos at the concerts.

Ken's beautiful video above with Sylvie Simmons reading an excerpt from her new Leonard Cohen bio will break your heart.

It seems Goodbye, Marianne was originally titled Come On, Marianne.

According to quotes from Sylvie's interviews with both Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, the implication of the two titles mirrored the delicate state of their relationship.  Marianne's interpretation was heartbreaking.

Come on, Marianne meant, "Let's see if we can keep this boat afloat". It took Leonard Cohen a year to write this song and by then, the final title became, So Long, Marianne, a song of farewell.

Following this poignant reading, Sylvie Simmons on ukelele and Heidi Clare on violin performed a terrific cover of the song with the title as we know it, So Long, Marianne.

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On a lighter note, Sylvie and Heidi also performed a hilarously funny song in tribute to Leonard Cohen. The lyrics were written by, as Sylvie called him, Dr Heck aka Allan Showalter of 1heckofaguy and the video was captured by Maarten Massa.

To watch The Ballad of Len-A Musical tribute To Leonard Cohen set to the tune of  "The Beverly Hillbillies" theme song, click here

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• Ken Kurzweil's Madison Event 2012 channel is here
• Sylvie Simmons' biography, "I'm Your Man:The Life of Leonard Cohen" will be released in hardcover on September 18/12