Letter to Leo

 A letter to Leo

Preview

 

    

Anyone who has looked at a blank page or screen after losing the product of inspired work knows the misery of trying again to reconstruct the blood, sweat and tears once held in the vanished pages. It is said T.H. Lawrence left a 250,000-word manuscript in a train station and never got over it. To truly recover, an artist must perform one of the most difficult tasks of creation. Such is the case of “Letter to Leo” being released by singer Perla Batalla who has chosen an eclectic and thoroughly beautiful handful of Leonard Cohen compositions as her heart-felt thanking of a dear friend and artistic inspiration. This is no rehash of the great songs of Cohen, who gets wiser and better the older any listener gets. La Batalla could have re-recorded the song list from “Songs of Leonard Cohen” and made it sound great, but she chose to dig way deeper. Perla Batalla stood on stage next to Cohen, rode airplanes and taxi cabs with him. She knew his heart and she never stopped loving his music and the man. After his frustrating, death Perla’s grief felt unfinished even after performing numerous tributes and making an  excellent album of her favorite Leonard Cohen songs, Her version of “Bird on the Wire” is so good even Cohen would admit she improved the classic song. Still, she had more to say and began work on a second record that was being  completed in Spain when the scourge of Covid enveloped the planet. There was no worse time for musicians than those dead years of 2020 to 2022 because the love of  music is wonderful, but audiences give the artists strength to get better.

    When singers and music lovers came out from under Perla returned to Europe to get back to producing the album and found the entire thing gone into the ether. No hard drives, no album, waves of inspiration and love put into lyrics vanished. The blood runs cold just to think about the moment of sick epiphany. If this were simply a project to make money any artist would have cried a lot and  limped home, but Perla still had something to say to Leonard Cohen and she refused to quit. Money was found because the lady had made friends and stayed loyal to family for decades and the project began again. The work is dedicated to the great record producer Hal Wilner, which is appropriate since the production here is simply transcendent. Of course, the musicians are superb and are drawn from all genres and Perla Batalla’s voice has never been better. Yet,  they are put on a magical platform. Technically the sound is clean, and the lead vocals are never crowded or cluttered. What elevates this work is the amazing variety of sound which goes from down to earth folksy to orchestral majesty.

The opening  “Awakened” is sweetened by strings and  is lush and lovely. “A Thousand Kisses Deep” is flamenco flavored that works within the self-deprecating lyrics “you win a while and then it’s done your little winning streak / and summoned now to deal with your invincible defeat” “Democracy” is poignant for today’s puzzling threats to the same. The mixture of gospel and a rap hybrid works perfectly. The backup of Patrick Page will give you goosebumps on goosebumps. “Sisters of Mercy” just shimmers with the clean piano of Luis Cartes Ivern and the mother-daughter combination vocal keeping the classic quality of this great song. “Everybody Knows” is just a song they should play in classrooms instead of removing books. Here it is elegiac and true to Cohen’s original intention. “Aint No Cure for Love” is the surprise of the album, percolating and upbeat it could be Lesley Gore singing but it is a sunny Perla Batalla. This song is typical of the true studio crafting of this once in a lifetime collection with texture and depth. “The Partisan” is brilliantly set up with an oud solo by Dimitris Mahlis  preparing the listener for dark and foreboding tale of resistance to evil. The oud interweaves with Batalla’s urgent vocal that turns to the original French in the last stanzas. This song from Cohen’s second album reverberates all the way forward from 1969.

“You Want It Darker” is from the later part of the Cohen legacy that becomes more interesting the older I get. The sound here is darker too with slide guitars and a thick bass. If this truly was Maestro Cohen’s last song, he had lost nothing to old age. “The L in Your Name” is just a pure love song from Perla to Leo. I cannot imagine following this song and when the concerts begin, I would assume it would close shows. There will be tears from Sheila. “Take This Waltz” is yet another turn toward a different sound within the album. Mixing Steve Bernstein’s trumpet with Spanish guitar and flamenco clapping La Batalla’s formidable pipes and angelic backups make this a poem set to music. Last “A Singer Must Die” is an art song in the milieu of Kurt Weill. It seems to me it is about taking that chance and telling the truth of a story which Leonard Cohen did in hundreds of wonderful songs. Perla Batalla reminds us all that this truth has no end.

Speaking of....

 

I have been the featured speaker for these events and organizations

Libros Schmibros at the Hammer Museum shared with J. Michael Walker

Professional Journalists Association

Los Angeles Festival of Books on a panel 

Los Angeles Archives Bazaar

Los Angeles Public Library Best Friends

Los Feliz Arts and Architecture lectures 4 times

Los Angeles Geographers Association

Los Angeles City College

California Library Association 

Google at Santa Monica

California Map Society twice

Los Angeles Corral of  Westerners

Western Association of Map Librarians

Board of Library Commissioners

Los Angeles Library Foundation- the Committee

Waverly School 4th graders

Crossroads School 7th graders

Los Angeles Natural History Museum

Mt. Washington  Homeowners Alliance

Glassell Park Improvement Association twice

Whittier Genealogical Society

Torrance Genealogical Society

Bruckman Award at the Los Angeles Athletic Club

Southern California Genealogical Society twice

Urban Rancho at  Sycamore Grove

Los Angeles Breakfast Club

Hollywood Heritege Museum

Fullerton Public Library

Aloud at Central Library

The Chapparal Club

Little Landers Society 

Eagle Rock Historical Society

Los Angeles Public Library Docents 

protein acids ticking

 

"Young as I am, I can hear in myself the protein acids ticking; I awake at odd hours and in the shuddering darkness and silence feel my death rushing toward me like an express train. The older we get and the fewer mornings left to us, the more deeply dawn stabs us awake."- "the lifeguard by John Updike

 

The Land of Nod

Lisa Sewell

The night after she returned from the hospital  the uneven rumbly liquid breathing of one soon   to go under kept me at the surface of thoughts  I couldn’t escape. Clonazepam, Lorazepam,  not even Ambien could pull or sink me. And in the morning,  sure enough, we couldn’t coax or shake her awake   except for a few seconds when someone or thing   wrenched her eyes open and let her answer no  to every question in a scornful voice we’d never heard before  before pulling her down to that rocky undertow.  Through the morning and afternoon every breath,  a grunt, a rattling that soaked the bedclothes and pillows in sweat.  Then at 3 pm, she returned—recognizing her two daughters  speaking her own name and the name of the president.  The hospice nurse put a line through the word “Comatose”  scrawled at the top of her chart and for the next few hours  a light or absence seemed to emanate from her almost  emptied irises. No sentences. No speech as the white   nimbus of hair, thick and lively around her head  nodded yes to sitting up and getting dressed—  to sweet potatoes and Jeopardy! as though part of her   remained in that rheumy underwater place  that took her breath away and wiped out the syntax   of explanation and inquiry, leaving only  no I won’t and certainly not and don’t ever wake me up again.

A ticket

 

"It makes you appreciate each clear-headed day we are given but reminds me that all the E-tickets are gone and it is just the Main street trolley ride left. No more will we gaze from the prow of the Mark Twain stern-wheeler and wonder about love and adventure...It is 11:45 and Disneyland closes at midnight...Yet, we rode all the rides, smoked hash on the skyway to Tomorrowland and staggered for balance in America the Beautiful. We used up tickets E, D,C,B and cling to the soiled A, the last laughs. It is just the parking lot and real world waiting."

- Glen Creason unpublished manuscript

 

Old Age

Maxwell Bodenheim

In me is a little painted square Bordered by old shops, with gaudy awnings. And before the shops sit smoking, open-bloused old men, Drinking sunlight. The old men are my thoughts: And I come to them each evening, in a creaking cart, And quietly unload supplies. We fill slim pipes and chat, And inhale scents from pale flowers in the center of the square . . . Strong men, tinkling women, and dripping, squealing children Stroll past us, or into the shops. They greet the shopkeepers, and touch their hats or foreheads to me . . . Some evening I shall not return to my people.

Eileen

 

(read at meal of consolation after the services at Mt. Sinai)

Eileen-

 

    I confess I was worried when I heard Eileen Sever was going to sub in History and Genealogy in those golden times before Covid. I remembered her from my time at the West LA branch in the 1980’s as a force of nature when she ran a tight ship at Palms-Rancho. She seemed to me like a know-it-all with confidence to burn. It was rumored she could stand up to Penny Carr who scorched the behinds of many a branch manager as Principal of the Western region.

     It took five minutes into my first desk in History and Genealogy with her that by God she was a know-it-all in the very best librarian sense of the word. It is not that she had the personnel manual memorized or that she knew what all those databases did, but she knew the best way to be a reference librarian. Despite a mind like a steel trap, she was humble and gentle to the mixed crowd of patrons down on LL4. She nodded silently at those who thought THEY knew all the answers and then dug into books, vertical files, photographs, maps, newspapers and even card files. She then spouted citations proving the legitimacy of her answers. Eileen Sever with decades of experience asked lots and lots of questions of we veterans of the department. She even delved into Burke’s Peerage or the dreaded Army Map Service maps. She almost always started a reference interview by saying “that sounds like an interesting question” even if it was far from it. She helped the Antler Man, the Sultan of Brunei and Dr. Baker like they were visiting scholars.  She was born to do this job and her enjoyment in the chase for answers was infectious.  You tended to want to join in and throw in a clipping or random paragraph from somewhere just to be part of the Eileen show.  It was easy to sit back and watch her weave her magic when you were ten feet away trying to stay on your toes. If something proved her wrong, she laughed and made it right.

     It is impossible to calculate how many patrons Eileen sent out into the world smarter and more appreciative of our great library system. She enjoyed the desk so much she had to be forced to take breaks. Yes…a civil servant who refused breaks! She just did not want to miss anything. After 42 years on reference desks, I put Eileen in a select few of the master librarians I had the pleasure to serve with. Even this old dog learned plenty from her dedication. I am speaking for all the lucky staff who shared my department with her. That includes librarians, library assistants, clerks, messenger clerks, security officers and custodial folks who she treated like her equals.

The best part of her service is that she loved doing it and indeed one of the last sentences I ever heard her say from her hospital bed was “I love questions.”

     Lastly answering questions was not everything wonderful about Eileen Sever. We never really saw her as the little old lady librarian. She knew where all the bodies were buried and had the best library gossip ever. Plus, it went back decades. Yet, she wasn’t mean about it, but you know librarians are strange people and she embraced that fact with love. She liked men and mentioned the rare handsome guys in the system. She handed out compliments in bushels but did not suffer fools or foolish patrons. When you saw the name Sever on the schedule you knew you were in for a good time. In times like this it is common that we speak about those who we are mourning in glowing terms but in this case these paltry words don’t quite make it. I think of the words of the Jewish poet

'Tis a Fearful Thing By Chaim Stern

‘Tis a fearful thing to love what death can touch…

  For your life has lived in me, 

your laugh once lifted me, 

your word was gift to me. 

To remember this brings painful joy. 

‘Tis a human thing, love, a holy thing, to love what death has touched.

Will You Remember Me

 "I waited until I knew you'd finally fallen asleep

Told myself you could still hear me somehow in your dreams
I whispered, "I love you, I'm sorry, I think you know"
You're always there with me everywhere I go
I cannot wait to come home"

     "Will You Remember Me"- Milk Carton Kids

 

I Dare You

Dorianne Laux

It’s autumn, and we’re getting rid of books, getting ready to retire, to move some place smaller, more manageable. We’re living in reverse, age-proofing the new house, nothing on the floors to trip over, no hindrances to the slowed mechanisms of our bodies, a small table for two. Our world is shrinking, our closets mostly empty, gone the tight skirts and dancing shoes, the bells and whistles. Now, when someone comes to visit and admires our complete works of Shakespeare, the hawk feather in the open dictionary, the iron angel on a shelf, we say take them. This is the most important time of all, the age of divestment, knowing what we leave behind is like the fragrance of blossoming trees that grows stronger after you’ve passed them, breathing them in for a moment before breathing them out. An ordinary Tuesday when one of you says I dare you, and the other one just laughs.