Matti Friedman, WHO BY FIRE: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

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[1:29]Maddie Friedman is the author of Who By Fire, Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.

[1:34]Maddie is an award-winning journalist and author, born in Toronto and based in Jerusalem.

[1:39]He's a frequent contributor to the New York Times opinion page.

[1:42]Friedman's last book, Spies of No Country, Secret Lives, at the birth of Israel, won the 2019 Natan Prize and the Canadian Jewish Book Award for History.

[1:52]Pumpkin Flowers, a soldier's story of a forgotten war, was chosen in 2016 as a New York Times notable book and one of Amazon's 10 best books of the year.

[2:01]His first book, The Aleppo Codex, won the 2014 Sammy Roar Prize and the ALAs Sophie Brody Medal.

[2:08]Welcome, Maddie. Thank you so much for coming on Moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss Who By Fire, Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.

[2:16]It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

[2:18]I'm excited to talk to you for so many reasons. One, because I've gotten to know Cindy Spiegel from Spiegel and Grau pretty well.

[2:24]And I really adore her and think she's awesome. So I'm very excited to hear about your journey with another entrepreneurial venture in the publishing world.

[2:33]And also because as I just mentioned, I actually listened to this book, which I found fascinating and you've gotten me through several workouts. So thank you for that.

[2:42]And I didn't know this whole history as most people didn't. So why don't you start by telling listeners a little bit about your particular fascination with this topic and how it became a book?

[2:54]Sure. It's hard for me to imagine working out to Leonard Cohen. That just seems kind of like a bit of a downer. I'm not sure if it really get your, you know, your heart rate up when I listen to Leonard Cohen. I kind of want to sit back and ponder, you know, fate. So I don't have to get it.

[3:07]Was it good in the, I did not say I did not run very fast.

[3:14]I was kind of dragging myself, but I would have been dragging myself anyway. So, you know, it fit fit the, my, my feelings about working out. So there you go.

[3:22]Okay, good. Good. The book I grew up with Leonard Cohen just because that was my parents music and we still played in the car all the time and I'm Canadian. I'm from Toronto. So,

[3:32]Mr. Canadian, you grew up listening to Leonard Cohen and, and I did and that he was kind of the soundtrack of Canadian childhood and I don't even remember listening to him on purpose until I was an adult. He was just kind of always on in the background.

[3:44]Songs like Suzanne and so long Marianne and Sisters of Mercy and famous blue raincoat and those are all just classics that are always on.

[3:54]But the idea for the book really came in 2009 by that time I'd been a journalist in Israel for a long time. I moved here when I was 17 from Toronto and in 2009 Leonard Cohen showed up for a concert as part of that great kind of resurrection tour that he did as an elderly guy who was in his 70s and he'd been in a Zen Buddhist monastery for a while. He kind of disappeared and then

[4:14]discovered that a former manager had stolen all of his money. So he had to go back out on the road initially it was just a way to make a buck and he kind of goes back out on the road and discovers that he is massively famous and beloved and people are thronging arenas all over the world to hear his music.

[4:32]And I was here at the time and I just couldn't understand why Israelis were just losing their minds over Leonard Cohen and people were willing to pay anything to get tickets and the phone lines crashed when the tickets went on sale and 50,000 people came to see Leonard Cohen in a country that's basically the size of New York City in terms of population.

[4:54]It was a big deal here and I didn't really understand why. I understood the connection between Canadians and Leonard Cohen and I know that he has a very fervent audience in the United States and across Europe, but I couldn't really understand what it was about him in Israel and then I read an article about this moment in 1973 that all Israelis seem to know about even though the details weren't exactly clear.

[5:16]And the moment was a strange concert tour that he'd given in the middle of the Yom Kippur war where he seemed according to this article it seemed to have shown up at the very tip of the Sinai front facing the Egyptian army in this war that was maybe the darkest moment in Israel's history from the moment that it was founded and and he played a concert tour and that moment just seemed.

[5:38]You know, right to be unpacked I told myself at the time that someone needed to write a book about it and eventually took some time, but eventually it was me.

[5:47]I think all these things where we're like somebody needs to write a book about that everybody should write those ideas down and just go write the books.

[5:55]People who aren't writers I don't think that think that all the time, you know, some much read book about this this would be a great book.

[6:01]But it's interesting because you describe how hard it was at first to even find any information about this that he wasn't forthcoming about this period of time in his life and then you got access I guess to some really interesting documents and you thought at first they were fictitious right he was trying to write a novel about this but then in the manuscript but then you really like it must have been based on this time period.

[6:24]And then you got and then you actually included a lot of the information which was amazing. So tell me about that and how you even got hooked up with that.

[6:34]Right, so the audiobook the parts that are written by Leonard Cohen are actually read by an actor who sounds a lot like the unlearned Cohen so it's an interesting book to hear in that regard.

[6:44]My first act when I started to research the book was trying to put together the Israeli side because I understood that this book was going to have two halves there's going to be Leonard Cohen side.

[6:53]The other side of the Israeli soldiers who saw Leonard Cohen in the desert at the worst moment of their lives. So I set out to find Israeli soldiers who'd seen him and hear about these concerts and I tried to find video of the concerts there's no video.

[7:06]I tried to find audio of the concerts there's almost no audio it's really kind of subterranean history it has he put together with.

[7:13]So I had a bunch of views with people who are now in their 70s and photos and private photo albums and that's really what I spent a couple years doing.

[7:20]The other side of the story was Leonard Cohen how do I find out what Leonard Cohen was thinking what was doing here why did he come.

[7:27]How did he experience it he made almost no public comments about it after which is also interesting in itself and.

[7:33]The book Leonard Cohen was actually alive, because I started thinking about this book in 2009 and it took a few years to get it going but.

[7:40]But I was thinking about it and Leonard Cohen was alive and giving interviews and in the fall of 2016 I figured out that my Canadian publisher McClellan and Stuart is also Leonard Cohen's publisher.

[7:52]And I said okay and I sent an email to my editor saying can I interview let her go and about this and he said, sure, you know I don't see why not.

[8:01]And I said, like really is that really possible and he said yeah just put a summary of your book idea in an email and I'm going to get it to Leonard Cohen's people and and we'll make it happen and.

[8:11]I was thrilled I just didn't think that would was possible that I could go meet Leonard Cohen and I already had this imaginary scenario where I'm sitting with him in his living room in Montreal.

[8:20]And so as we discussed the Omki poor war.

[8:23]By that time Leonard Cohen had lived in Los Angeles for decades he didn't really live in Montreal but this is a completely imaginary scenario in my mind.

[8:30]This can be the historical novel that you write next that's exactly.

[8:34]So then I sent this email and went to bed really excited about the possibility that within a few weeks I might be meeting Leonard Cohen.

[8:41]I woke up the next morning with an email from my editor Doug pepper and the subject line of the email was holy shit and the email was just a link to the obituary.

[8:53]Because Leonard Cohen had died.

[8:55]Basically, as I sent the email so that of course eliminated any chance that I was going to be able to interview Leonard Cohen but then.

[9:03]So there are two artists at confluence of events I discovered this manuscript that Leonard Cohen had written a turn out that immediately upon returning from the Omki poor war in the fall of 1973 he sat down with the typewriter.

[9:15]On this Greek island where he lived at the time called Sheidra and he cranked out this 45 page manuscript which is weird and raw and obscene and unedited and unsiltered.

[9:26]out his very contradictory and very kind of upsetting memories of what had just happened and then ultimately didn't publish it so it sat in a box and I was lucky enough to find it at a library in Hamilton on tear.

[9:39]The library of McMaster University, which is just a couple hours outside Toronto and thanks to an intrepid library and who dove into the stacks and pulled out this manuscript scanned it and sent it to me.

[9:50]The window on to Leonard Cohen's mind and we get to hear in the book the man himself telling part of telling part of the story and his own very distinctive voice.

[10:00]Well, the way that you, the way that he introduces it really leaving the island and traveling paints such a vivid picture of what it was like in the days when the war started, how everyone, I think you compared it to, I don't know, some sort of like emergency alarm where everyone around the world, like put down what they were doing and they were like, we've got to get to Israel, we have to help.

[10:23]I doctors were just like hearing the news and running to the airport, the airports were zoo, like unrecognizable and everybody, you know, everyone, everybody who came, he said needed or he wrote and was only, you were only allowed on the planes if you could help in some way if you could be in a tank or you could help or fight or whatever and even civilians were not even allowed in at that point.

[10:45]But the moment just felt so like the way that he wrote about it and then that it was in the audio book felt just like, you know, like this mad rush right, like that the whole world was mobilized. Anyway, tell me tell me more about that.

[11:01]Right, so it's this incredible moment. I mean, I guess we have to remember that Israel in 1973 is seen very differently than it is now. So it's not.

[11:08]I mean, it's a country that's barely 25 years old. It's barely 3 million people are still very much in the post Holocaust world where people really remember what just happened and Israel has a lot of sympathy and feel concerned that, you know, that the country could be in danger in kind of mortal danger.

[11:25]And in those days, it was kind of like the bat signal. So when I was a crisis, I knew it was something better than remember.

[11:34]And then for some people, it was, you know, like where do I sign up kind of like the volunteers I'm different, but in some ways like the volunteers have gone off to Ukraine, but

[11:42]I was particularly for Jewish people in the diaspora, like my dad, my dad, you know, members just being galvanized by by the crisis and people really worried. So there's a lot of pressure on on airplanes going to Israel people are kind of sleeping hundreds of people are sleeping on the carpets that he throw

[11:59]trying to get back to Israel mainly Israeli men trying to rejoin their reserve units. And also, you know, and I gave them the book examples of American Jews or Jews from South Africa.

[12:09]And some people who weren't Jews, but just wanted to help who heard the news on Yom Kippur, which is this very solemn day when many Jewish people are in synagogue, but the news got around.

[12:18]And some of these doctors took their operating instruments got on an airplane and went off to to help some of them landed at the airport until they can were immediately taken to the front, the first week or two of the war.

[12:29]We're really desperate. The army almost loses the war and ultimately 2,600 Israelis are killed in the war in a country that is again just barely 3 million people.

[12:38]It's a major catastrophe in Israel. The Trump of the war in some ways has never really dissipated it kind of still goes on to this day. But that moment of the outbreak of war really kind of really galvanized people.

[12:50]And one of the people was Leonard Cohen who is kind of, he feels like he's at the end of his career. He's kind of played out. He's announced that he's retiring.

[12:58]He's in an unhappy relationship. He's a new father. His first son Adam is one year old and he's 39 years old. So he's feeling he's kind of on the cusp of a midlife crisis or maybe deep in a midlife crisis and of course in those days a rock star didn't make it to 39.

[13:15]So the, you know, the cool thing to do is die at 27, which is what Jamie Hendricks had done in Jim Morrison and Janice Chaplin and 39 was really old. So Leonard Cohen was kind of over the hill and he felt like he was done.

[13:27]And then this war breaks out and surprising everyone, including himself, he walks out of this little kind of fisherman's cottage where he was living on he dry and he walks down to the docks at he draw and he gets on a ferry to Athens and then he boards an airplane into this total catastrophe and ends up.

[13:43]And barking on what I think is one of the great and it's a great moment in Jewish history for sure, but it's also one of the strangest moments in the history of rock and roll.

[13:50]Very true. Oh my gosh. Can you give like the one to two sentence summary for people listening who don't know what the Yum Kippur war was or even the importance of Yum Kippur and the Jewish faith, which you also.

[14:03]Even that like even hearing the prayers of like there I am like walking in Central Park like here I felt like I was in in temple like listening anyway.

[14:11]Could you just give like the two minute background for people who might not know what we're talking about.

[14:16]Sure. So Yum Kippur is the most solemn day of the Jewish calendar and it's called the day of a tournament. It's the day when you're supposed to at home for the sins of the past year and look ahead to the coming year.

[14:25]I understand in the Jewish tradition that it's on Yum Kippur that our fates are sealed for the coming year and the and you fast from the evening before to the to sundown on the day of Yum Kippur.

[14:38]And the fast day ends with a prayer called the locking, which is when according to the tradition, the gates of heaven are locked and then you know you better get your

[14:46]time by that time, because God is sitting, you know, and according to some of the prayers of people are God is, you know, deciding your fate and expecting you to look into your own heart and you know get yourself in order ahead of the coming year.

[14:59]So that's that's why people are in Israel. It's a day when everything shuts down. There's no there are no cars on the roads. There's no radio. There are no flights.

[15:07]There's no television. It's a day where the country goes completely quiet and most people are fasting and many people are in synagogue and at 2pm on Yum Kippur, a war breaks out out of nowhere is really not expecting it at all.

[15:20]The Egyptians carry out a surprise attack across the Suez canal in the south and the Syrians carry out a surprise attack onto the Golden Heights in the north.

[15:28]The top of two fronts caught completely off guard. The borders are barely defended because the army had really been caught with its pants down and hundreds of soldiers were defending the borders are killing the first day.

[15:37]The borders are overrun and it does look for a while as if the Israeli army is not going to be able to win the war in for Israel.

[15:42]This is kind of an existential moment. You know Israel's existence is fragile.

[15:47]The World War II is a very fresh memory. You know, it's 1973. So these events were not, you know, it happened less than 30 years before many of the people in Israel were alive for the Second World War and for the Holocaust.

[16:00]So it's a moment pregnant with religious meaning because of the day of Atonement and it's a moment of really kind of existential fear for Israelis.

[16:09]And that's the way the war is remembered to this day as kind of a mix of the holy day on Kippur and the war on Kippur and the tragedy and it's all kind of mixed up and Leonard Cohen who's an outsider just walks right into that big mess and somehow makes himself kind of a permanent part of the way this country remembers that war.

[16:29]Wow. Can I ask a really stupid question. Are there any movies about the M. Kippur war to like make it more mainstream in the way that other films have done for other wars?

[16:43]Because I can't think of Lenin. Yeah. That's a great question. I don't think that a mainstream or Western movie has been made about about that war. I mean, there's a biopic that's coming out soon about gold a meteor who was the Prime Minister during that war.

[17:00]And he's still seen in Israel as an ambiguous figure because she's seen to have mishandled that war. But I don't think it's not sure what place the war plays in that movie. There's an Israeli movie called Kippur by a director named a musky tie.

[17:13]I don't know if any mainstream Western. I would not forget anyone that's, you know, I'll remember when we're. No, for something that it was such a cultural moment and really like a huge before and after it would be more.

[17:31]I feel like he would reach more people and people would understand if there was some sort of, you know, movie star explaining what happened. But you know, okay, anyway, diversion, but we'll work on that movie later. We'll get we'll come back to that.

[17:42]If you make one, let me know. Okay. Yeah. I'll invite you to the screening. You can even bring the hairdresser who helped your wife.

[17:49]Okay. I was hoping for, I was hoping for a starring role. I guess. Oh wow. Let's see how it gets. We'll see who we get. We'll see what parts are left. Yeah. So and Leonard Cohen, by the way, was not even particularly religious. You had a whole section about how he sort of viewed Judaism as something like like coming out of a wax museum or something like he was sort of, and I probably got that quote wrong to because I didn't write it down, but, but it was something like frozen in time for him and that he.

[18:20]Dabbled in it, but was sort of waiting for some sign like he was like, all right, I'm tolerating this, but this it's not like he was super religious and was like raring to go. It was almost like a conscientious defectors or joining in to a war or something like a very in Congress set of events. So anyway.

[18:40]I mean, he grows up in this very serious Jewish community and Montreal called Shara Shamain. That's the name of a synagogue and he is from a very important family and the community is a grandfather, been the president of the community and so it is great grandfather. So he was from a very kind of established Jewish community.

[18:56]Soaked in the Jewish tradition, his maternal grandfather is an important rabbi, he was an expert in Hebrew grammar, who comes from the Thawania, and he just grows up immersed in the language of the Bible and then this kind of.

[19:08]Well, I would say like wealthy and established Jewish community and he rejects it and he walks out on it and he says it's stale and that they've lost you. There's a very interesting and angry speech that he makes to the community in 1964.

[19:21]It's part for his Bohemian life elsewhere and he tells them that they they've lost talk about what it means to be Jewish. They've lost the ability to speak to God.

[19:29]They've lost the ability to you know, hear what God is trying to tell them and they're just interested in, you know, social events and it's all about synagogue do's and you know, who's wearing what and they're only interested in themselves and they're not interested in the divine message that is at the heart of Judaism.

[19:44]He puts it in, you know, much more elegant words that I'm doing here, but it's kind of an angry rejection of what of how he saw Diaspora Judaism, I think, and he and he walks out and he ends up in the village, you know, playing with Joan Baez and Nico and Judy Collins and Dylan.

[20:00]Then he ends up on this Greek island,

[20:01]living a completely different life.

[20:03]It's very removed from this very state Jewish community

[20:06]in Montreal, where his families in the government business

[20:08]and it's all very middle class and kind of proper.

[20:12]And he's obviously doing something completely different.

[20:14]It's the 60s and acid and women.

[20:16]And you didn't really like follow the course

[20:18]that had been intended for him by his father and uncles.

[20:22]But it's always there inside him and his work

[20:26]is very hard to understand without understanding

[20:27]the Jewish tradition.

[20:28]I mean, Leonard Cohen's poetry is just full of biblical language

[20:32]and biblical illusions.

[20:33]And he always has this very deep affinity for the Jewish people

[20:38]for the Jewish world and for Israel.

[20:39]And that's one part of what he's doing in Israel in 1973.

[20:42]He's on this island when he hears on the radio

[20:44]that a war is broken out and he just needs to be there.

[20:47]And it's unclear exactly what he intended to do.

[20:50]Once he got to Israel, he didn't intend to play for soldiers.

[20:52]That's quite clear.

[20:53]That happens afterwards almost by mistake.

[20:55]He just needs to be in the country

[20:58]to help somehow at this moment of crisis.

[21:01]He has a deep Jewish affinity, even if he has a kind

[21:03]of skepticism about Jewish communities

[21:05]and skepticism about the state of Israel,

[21:08]by the way, like he doesn't, as you know,

[21:09]from the book, he doesn't leave Israel waving the Israeli flag

[21:12]and singing the national anthem.

[21:13]He has very ambiguous feelings about all of it.

[21:15]But deep down, he has a tribal affinity.

[21:19]And the story of this war is in many ways,

[21:21]a story of Leonard Cohen struggling with his tribal affinity

[21:25]versus his understanding that he's a universal poet

[21:28]who can't be part of one tribe and has to address

[21:30]the soul of humanity.

[21:32]And he really seems to struggle with those questions

[21:34]as the war progresses and as he writes songs

[21:36]in the war and inspired by the war after work.

[21:38]Wow. So let's go back to you for a second.

[21:41]You're a father of four in Tel Aviv.

[21:43]And you've somehow ended up with a book coming out

[21:47]from a small New York city publisher.

[21:49]How did this happen?

[21:51]How did you link up with them?

[21:52]Just go on.

[21:54]So I have to say that I'm in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv.

[21:57]Oh, I'm sorry.

[21:58]I am sorry.

[22:00]Sorry.

[22:00]I realize it's a very important distinction

[22:02]because people from Tel Aviv are much cooler

[22:04]than people from Tel Aviv's love.

[22:05]So you know what?

[22:06]I don't know why I said that.

[22:07]I apologize.

[22:07]No, I'm sorry.

[22:09]It's literally half hour drive from each other.

[22:11]So it's like Brooklyn and Manhattan.

[22:14]OK.

[22:15]As a Jerusalem, I were very proud of being here,

[22:17]even though I am in Manhattan too.

[22:18]So I get it.

[22:19]Yes.

[22:20]Anyway.

[22:21]We recognize that the people in Tel Aviv are cooler then.

[22:23]Then I grew up in Canada.

[22:25]I moved here when I was 17, attending to be here for a year.

[22:29]That was 27 years ago.

[22:30]And since then, I worked in agriculture

[22:32]and I spent three years in the military.

[22:34]But you have to do it after high school

[22:36]and then study Islamic studies and became a journalist

[22:39]and spent most of my time as a daily journalist.

[22:40]Working for the AP, the U.S. News Agency.

[22:42]And then a decade ago set off on my own

[22:45]to do independent journalism and write books.

[22:47]And I've written four, one is called the Aleppo Codex.

[22:49]And it's about a kind of a dirty story

[22:52]about the most important copy of the Bible.

[22:54]It's all nonfiction.

[22:55]The second book is called Pumpkin Flowers

[22:57]and it's a military memoir about a weird war

[22:59]that I blundered into as a Canadian teenager coming

[23:01]to Israel in the 90s.

[23:03]The third one is called Spies of No Country,

[23:05]which is about Israel's first spies,

[23:06]but also about Israel's complicated ethnic identity

[23:10]and kind of Israel's cover story

[23:12]and the way it differs from its actual identity,

[23:15]which is something I'm interested in.

[23:16]And this is the last one, who by fire.

[23:18]And this is the first book I published

[23:20]with Spiggle and Ground, which is new.

[23:22]I mean, everyone involved in Spiggle and Ground

[23:24]is a veteran publishing world,

[23:26]but as an independent publisher,

[23:28]it's new and it's really exciting

[23:29]to be part of what they're doing.

[23:31]It's a great operation and have a great list.

[23:33]So I was really lucky to get in with them.

[23:35]And of course, their hardcore Leonard Cohen fans

[23:38]and that was part of the drawing.

[23:39]And there's something about Cohen that really speaks to

[23:44]maybe not everyone, but it speaks very strongly

[23:47]to some people.

[23:48]And I hope that this book helps people access Leonard Cohen.

[23:52]I give people a certain number of people learn about Leonard

[23:55]Cohen and learn to or fall in love with these music

[23:58]as a result of this book.

[24:00]I will feel that my work is done.

[24:03]Amazing.

[24:04]Are you doing a lot of outreach to congregations?

[24:07]And like how are you marketing this book?

[24:09]Are you trying to, I don't know, fascinated by marketing?

[24:12]Yeah, I wish I was better at marketing than I am.

[24:15]I'm more of a reporter than someone who really knows

[24:18]how to sell, but yes, we've done some great events.

[24:20]We had one in New York, actually at Temple of Manual,

[24:23]the Striker Center, where it was a musical event

[24:27]where I did the talking and a cantor named Gideon Zellermeyer

[24:31]performed.

[24:32]And Gideon Zellermeyer is well known for several reasons,

[24:36]but among Leonard Cohen fans, he's known for his collaboration

[24:39]with Leonard Cohen on what was essentially Leonard Cohen's

[24:42]last song called You Wanted Darker.

[24:45]And he features Gideon's voice.

[24:46]Gideon is the cancer at Sharshamai,

[24:48]and that Leonard Cohen's childhood synagogues.

[24:50]So that collaboration is also very kind of heavy with meaning.

[24:54]And it's a great, great song.

[24:55]So we did that musical event.

[24:56]I did an event in LA with an up and coming musician,

[24:59]folk musician named Gigi.

[25:01]And she did Leonard Cohen.

[25:02]I think she kind of discovered Leonard Cohen

[25:04]because of this event, 22, if I'm not mistaken.

[25:06]I know it's kind of a discovery for her.

[25:08]I've spoken in a few synagogues.

[25:09]I've been doing a lot on Zoom, of course,

[25:10]this being 2022 in the world, not quite back online yet.

[25:15]And I was in my hometown of Toronto.

[25:17]So yes, obviously, there's a lot of interest in this

[25:19]that comes from Jewish communities just

[25:20]because we thought interested in Israel

[25:23]and everyone knows Leonard Cohen.

[25:24]There's a lot of built-in interest in Canada

[25:26]where Leonard Cohen is just a massive cultural hero.

[25:29]Canadians are very kind of proud of anyone

[25:32]who is of global significance.

[25:34]You came from Canada and Leonard Cohen,

[25:36]caught there aren't that many.

[25:37]Although, I mean, really young, I guess,

[25:40]is Canadian and Joni Mitchell.

[25:41]I mean, there are a few, but Leonard Cohen really

[25:43]looms very large.

[25:44]And of course, he's painted on, as a huge mural of him

[25:47]on the side of a massive building,

[25:49]dominating the skyline of Montreal.

[25:50]So he's really big in Canada.

[25:52]So yeah, there's been a ton of interest in the book.

[25:54]And it's been really amazing to get feedback

[25:58]from people who take the story very personally,

[26:01]particularly in Israel, people who remember the war,

[26:04]but emails from people who saw Cohen in the war,

[26:06]or people who really remember those days.

[26:08]So it's been a pretty wild ride over the past couple months.

[26:12]It's been really interesting to see the book make its way

[26:14]in the world.

[26:14]I love, by the way, how you compare Canada.

[26:17]Canada's relationship to the U.S.,

[26:19]similar to Israel's relationship with the Middle East,

[26:22]and how there was this sort of solidarity

[26:24]between Canadians and Israeli, because of that.

[26:27]And Canadians and Jews are both kind of,

[26:29]I mean, Leonard Cohen says that they're both these small groups

[26:32]on the periphery of the empire,

[26:34]and always defining themselves, like vis-à-vis the empire.

[26:37]So Canadians are just the small group of people,

[26:41]just at the north of the United States,

[26:42]very preoccupied with the United States,

[26:44]where not being the United States,

[26:46]and kind of very, very, I guess,

[26:49]tribal about anything that can be claimed

[26:51]as Canadian-like Leonard Cohen, or, you know,

[26:54]certain American comedians or Canadian,

[26:56]I mean, Canadians can basically list every famous Canadian,

[27:01]to the most random, Jason Priestley, you know,

[27:03]I've got Canadians just know that he's Canadian,

[27:06]and it's the same thing with Jews,

[27:07]the small group of people that this kind of,

[27:10]you know, would be outside sense of our own importance,

[27:13]and we know who's Jewish, and who isn't,

[27:15]and Leonard Cohen liked that.

[27:17]He didn't think that tribal identities

[27:18]should be dismantled.

[27:19]He had this kind of argument in his head, at least,

[27:23]with John Lennon and the idea of imagine,

[27:26]which is that we should dismantle all boundaries,

[27:28]no religion, no nations, no people,

[27:31]no differences of language,

[27:32]and Leonard Cohen was very much, I think,

[27:34]enamored of those differences.

[27:36]I didn't think he should hate each other,

[27:37]or anything like that, but he thought

[27:39]it was important to have, you know, a place like Canada,

[27:42]or a group of people called Jews, or a city like Montreal,

[27:45]and he thought that kind of particularism was necessary

[27:49]in order to produce art.

[27:50]So I don't think he wanted to see the world lose its,

[27:54]you know, its uniqueness,

[27:55]and he didn't want us to move to this world

[27:57]where everything would be generic,

[27:58]and which might be where we're going, you know,

[28:01]it might be, we might be moving to a world

[28:03]where the internet makes everything flat,

[28:04]and we're all kind of talking about this thing,

[28:06]the same stuff in the same language.

[28:07]I hope not.

[28:08]Leonard Cohen, it's me too, and I think Leonard Cohen

[28:11]saw that as a kind of nightmare scenario.

[28:15]Okay, last question for you,

[28:16]what advice would you have for aspiring authors?

[28:20]I think my first point of advice would be never take

[28:24]any advice from me, because you'll just be gravely disappointed,

[28:28]and I just don't wanna be responsible for it,

[28:30]but I think it's important to maybe it relates

[28:32]to that last question, which is that many,

[28:35]because of the internet and because we're also involved

[28:37]in discussions and kind of we see online,

[28:40]I think there's a lot of people,

[28:42]not just fiction writers, but also journalists

[28:44]who are writing about what everyone else is writing about

[28:47]and thinking about what everyone else is thinking about,

[28:49]and the stronger the group thing tendency gets,

[28:52]because of social media, the harder it is

[28:53]to produce anything unique and really different,

[28:57]and that is what I would say,

[28:59]just preserve that space where you're into something

[29:02]that's really different.

[29:03]If you know a place in a really deep way,

[29:06]great, if you know another language,

[29:07]if you know another country, if you have a story

[29:10]that's really, really different and really unique,

[29:12]don't get drawn into the discussions

[29:15]that everyone else seems to be having on Twitter or Facebook,

[29:17]and just concentrate on that unique thing that you know,

[29:20]because as Leonard Cohen definitely thought art,

[29:24]that's worth anything is gonna come out of that unique,

[29:26]personal experience.

[29:28]It's gonna come out of difference.

[29:30]It's not gonna come out of some generic discussion

[29:32]that everyone seems to be having,

[29:34]and that's becoming increasingly hard

[29:35]as social media kind of irons out,

[29:37]all of our differences and draws us into the same discussions

[29:41]and kind of forces us into predictable patterns of thought.

[29:45]No interesting literature or art can be produced

[29:47]in those circumstances.

[29:48]So there is an element of resistance that's necessary.

[29:51]I think in order to write anything,

[29:52]we have to create a space in which we can think our own thoughts

[29:55]and kind of jealously preserve it,

[29:58]and then you might be able to write.

[30:00]It's something worthwhile.

[30:02]Calleluia, I love it.

[30:04]OK, Maddie, thank you so much.

[30:06]This was really interesting.

[30:07]The book was super interesting.

[30:09]I learned a lot.

[30:10]I have a new perspective on a lot of things.

[30:13]I was entertained and riveted, but I feel

[30:16]like I took this really interesting lecture course

[30:18]or something.

[30:20]It was great.

[30:20]I love it.

[30:21]I love to learn.

[30:22]So thank you so much.

[30:23]And it was a pleasure.

[30:24]Thank you again for having me.

[30:26]OK, take care.

[30:27]Bye-bye.

[30:28]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.

[30:30]Don't have time to read books.

[30:32]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans,

[30:35]and at Moms, don't have time to read books.

[30:37]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com

[30:40]and sign up for my virtual book club

[30:41]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.

[30:44]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.

[30:45]In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.

[30:48]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions

[30:50]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.