Leonard Cohen is 77.
There are few artists in the realm of popular music who can truly be called poets, in the classical, arts-and-letters sense of the word. Among them are Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell and Phil Ochs. Leonard Cohen heads this elite class. In fact, Cohen was already an established poet and novelist before he turned his attention to songwriting. His academic training in poetry and literature, and his pursuit of them as livelihood for much of the Fifties and Sixties, gave him an extraordinary advantage over his pop peers when it came to setting language to music. Along with other folk-steeped musical literati, Cohen raised the songwriting bar.
. . .In his notes for The Essential Leonard Cohen, writer Pico Iyer noted, “The changeless is what he’s been about since the beginning…Some of the other great pilgrims of song pass through philosophies and selves as if through the stations of the cross. With Cohen, one feels he knew who he was and where he was going from the beginning, and only digs deeper, deeper, deeper.”
Cohen’s artistic outlook might best be expressed in his own words with this lyric from “Anthem”: On Anthem (1992), he wrote: “There is a crack, a crack in everything/ That’s how the light gets in.” He remarked, “That’s the closest thing I could describe to a credo. That idea is one of the fundamental positions behind a lot of the songs.”
“I’ve also studied deeply in the philosophies and the religions but cheerfulness kept breaking through. But I want to tell you something that I think will not easily be contradicted. There ain’t no cure for love.” — Leonard Cohen
Larry Hagman, who dreamt of Jeannie before moving to Dallas, is 80 today.
Bill Murray is 61. Nominated for an Oscar for Lost in Translation, NewMexiKen still thinks Murray’s best effort was as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.
Cheryl Hines is 46.
Faith Hill is 44.
Owen and Andrew Wilson’s brother Luke is 40 today.
September 21st is an important date in fantasy literature. Stephen King is 64 today. He was born on H.G. Wells’ birthday (1866-1946) and on the 10th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit (1937).
Chuck Jones (Charles Martin Jones) was born on September 21st in 1912. Jones animated and directed more than 300 Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. He won three Oscars for direction and a lifetime achievement statue as well.
“Fog and smog should not be confused and are easily separated by color. Fog is about the color of the insides of an old split wet summer cottage mattress; smog is the color and consistency of a wet potato chip soaked in a motorman’s glove.” — Chuck Jones
Henry Lewis Stimson was born on September 21st in 1867. He served in five presidential administrations and had been appointed U.S. Attorney by another, Theodore Roosevelt. Most of his service was after he was 60.
As President Truman’s senior adviser on military use of atomic energy, Henry L. Stimson made the deciding recommendation to drop the first atomic bomb, one of the most significant events in the history of mankind.
In addition to this great responsibility, Mr. Stimson assumed heavy burdens as President Hoover’s Secretary of State (1929-1933) and again as Secretary of War in the cabinets of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Truman (1940-1945). His unusually long period of public life which established him as an elder statesman in the American scene included an earlier period (1911-1913) as President Taft’s Secretary of War, then a relatively minor post.
When he was in his late seventies Mr. Stimson was the civilian administrative head of a victorious army of more than 10,000,000, the largest ever raised by the United States.
415 years ago today (1596) Spain named Juan de Oñate governor of the colony of Nuevo México. 227 years ago today (1784) the nation’s first daily newspaper, the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, began publication. The Library of Congress has a little more about each.
Sandra Day O’Connor was approved by the Senate as the first woman Justice of the Supreme Court, 30 years ago today.
The Angel Moroni began visiting Joseph Smith 178 years ago today.