{"id":26219,"date":"2023-01-10T09:45:26","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T07:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.leonardcohen.de\/?p=26219"},"modified":"2023-01-10T09:52:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T07:52:53","slug":"kw-02-2023-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/?p=26219","title":{"rendered":"KW-02-2023: Robert Kory: Remarks at Leonard Cohen\u2019s Memorial, Sunday December 11, 2016 : – Kleine Trauerrede von Leonard Cohen`s EX-Manager bei der Trauerfeierlichkeiten in Los Angeles vier Wochen nach Leonard Cohen`s Tod am 7.11.2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Kory \u2013 Remarks at Leonard Cohen\u2019s Memorial, Sunday December 11, 2016 :<\/span><\/strong>
What can I say about my dear friend and client Leonard Cohen? Anything seems inadequate<\/span><\/em>
other than thanking him for the extraordinary opportunity to serve. I began working for Leonard<\/span><\/em>
in 2004, on a dark legal and financial rescue mission. But for the unqualified brilliance of my<\/span><\/em>
then associate and now law partner, Michelle Rice, we might well have failed.<\/span><\/em>
But we succeeded, and our role evolved to that of personal manager, while continuing legal and<\/span><\/em>
financial duties. My relationship depended in large measure on our shared spiritual affinity, but<\/span><\/em>
we almost never discussed it, lest we frighten the muses. My job was to focus on the practical.<\/span><\/em>
Through work for Leonard, I have come to know all of you in some way, and most of you<\/span><\/em>
personally. Some of you have known him through personal and\/or professional relationships for<\/span><\/em>
decades; others of you met him through the recent, grand renaissance of his performing and<\/span><\/em>
recording career.<\/span><\/em>
Leonard would want me to do two things today — to express his gratitude for all you have given<\/span><\/em>
him and to ask each of you to forgive his limitations. He passed away abruptly, and had he<\/span><\/em>
known he was almost out of time, he surely would have extended the show to thank you himself,<\/span><\/em>
as he did every night on tour, despite my protestations about union overtime after 11:30PM!<\/span><\/em>
Leonard needed to be alone to create his art. He also needed people as evidenced by his<\/span><\/em>
overwhelming generosity and graciousness. One of my most important roles was assisting him<\/span><\/em>
in finding a precarious balance between these two conflicting needs. The most significant result<\/span><\/em>
was a tour in which he luxuriated in solitude, even while traveling with the \u201cfamily\u201d of band and<\/span><\/em>
crew, even during the 387 performances to sold-out audiences in arenas worldwide.<\/span><\/em>
He was surprised but nourished by such solitude on tour. And so, he directed me to start<\/span><\/em>
declining requests to meet off tour as well, even requests from close friends, colleagues and<\/span><\/em>
family. But for this solitude, we might not have his last three magnificent studio albums.<\/span><\/em>
But Leonard also often shared with me his deep regret that his time alone meant that he could not<\/span><\/em>
see those whom he loved or colleagues who were so important to his work. So, he also tasked<\/span><\/em>
me with asking others to \u201cplease forgive his limitations.\u201d That task became particularly acute<\/span><\/em>
during the last four months of his life when he was trying to finish a book, a solitary endeavor.<\/span><\/em>
So that is the context in which I shall try to fulfill what I feel Leonard would want me to say.<\/span><\/em>
For those of you whom he knew intimately, he would want you to be secure in the knowledge of<\/span><\/em>
his profound and lasting love, even though in some cases it \u201cmight have all gone wrong,\u201d even<\/span><\/em>
though \u201clove is not a victory march\u201d, even though it is often only a \u201cbroken Hallelujah.\u201d<\/span><\/em>
For those whom he knew mostly through a professional relationship, he would want you to be<\/span><\/em>
secure in the knowledge of his deep appreciation of all your efforts to assist in his renaissance<\/span><\/em>
over the past eight years.<\/span> You helped the world to recognize where he resides in the tower of<\/span><\/em>
song — an unrivaled worldwide star — and you have helped assure that generations to come will<\/span><\/em>
\u201ccontinue to hear from him… long after he has gone.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Kory \u2013 Remarks at Leonard Cohen\u2019s Memorial, Sunday December 11, 2016 :What can I say about my dear friend and client Leonard Cohen? Anything seems inadequateother than thanking him for the extraordinary opportunity to serve. I began working for Leonardin 2004, on a dark legal and financial rescue mission. But for the unqualified brilliance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26219"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26228,"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26219\/revisions\/26228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leonardcohen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}