Saturday, August 17, 2024

Pietro Calvi’s Othello and Memories of Leonard Cohen

 



 

Just before sunrise, when I was walking my dog in a narrow street, I came face to face with Pietro Calvi’s Othello. It was a bit surreal, and I blamed the vision to the weak coffee I had brewed.

But it was real. There it was, outside the house, on the concrete, Othello’s bust that made Calvi famous in 1870. It was homage by Calvi to the African American actor Ira Aldridge, the first Black actor to play Othello in England in 1825.

 

There were ten versions of the marble and bronze bust and I had seen one of them in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Now, I was facing a plaster duplica, left on the ground, in Prescott, Arizona. It was beautifully done though, although the desert weather had taken its toll. But Desdemona’s handkerchief was there, so was the single tear on Othello’s face.

 

I took a quick picture and I move on. My dog did not seem to appreciate Shakespeare interfering with his morning walk.

 

A mile or so in to the walk, somehow, I thought of Leonard Cohen. Perhaps it was the tortured soul of Othello; or the influence L. Cohen’s poetry has had on my youth. It was a fond memory, and I did not mind letting my dog extend his morning promenade longer than usual.

 

… It was 1976 and I was a college student in Montreal. We were francophone then, but L. Cohen was already a rebel troubadour for my generation. I recall going to one of his concerts in Vancouver, even though we did not understand all his words – but we did associate with his persona and outlook.

 

The last time I saw L. Cohen was in 2009, at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia Maryland. He was an old man now, and it was one of his last concerts. Now his voice had given way to all the wisdom his life had allowed him to keep.

For me, it was like turning the last page of a book, knowing the ending, but still hoping for a surprise.

 

When I came back home and fed my dog, I brewed a stronger pot of coffee and let my experience and feelings of the morning walk find their war in and into words.

 

Here is what came out – not surprisingly Cohenesque lines within that single tear on Othello’s face:

 

  

Life is designed to overthrow you

 

While you write to clear your mind

 

About what can be

 

On blank paper that once was a proud tree

 

 

And it wasn't an offering

 

But was offered, anyhow

 

And your words

 

Looked like a wooden bowl

 

Tasting of honey

 

And your song sounded like a newborn

 

Learning from you

 

About you

 

Knowing he will become you

 

One day

 

After his first heartbreak 

 

 

Life is designed to overthrow you

 

Even when you're at the foothills

 

Of where sunsets burn the clouds

 

To shade names

 

And bathe sad brown eyes

 

In offering

 

 

August 17, 2024

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024

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