Promise me
You will always be
Too awake to be famous
Too wired to be safe


David Malek, Blue Lozenge (Erik Roehmer), 2013

"Malek also makes canny use of quasi-subliminal iconographic motifs culled from various ancient and contemporary sources. Some of his paintings, which appear at first glance to be Op art–esque abstractions, use images directly from pop culture:... The works’ titles act as touchstones for interpretation: Blue Lozenge (Eric Roehmer) is an homage to the French filmmaker’s production company Les Films du losange (“Lozenge Films”) and straightforwardly appropriates its blue diamond-shaped logo..." -- Ian Wallace

* Nice Breeze performs with ARU and Teething Veils at Velvet Lounge Monday December 9, 2013.

* From a 1974 interview of Leonard Cohen:

J.S. - When you talk about people, do you see individual faces, or is it a concept of the masses?

L.C. - People are a complex of everyday heroes, at least that's what I feel. There are millions of faces and personalities, but all together they form a people. Then, within each group, there emerges a value system that makes some into leaders and others into followers, that makes some into celebrities, and others into unknown people. All of them are heroes, but each with a different destiny.
...
J.S. - With this tour, and with the bad treatment you have received from the English and American critics, how are you feeling about this international exposure?

L.C. - I don't consider myself a great singer. I just play the guitar and interpret my lyrics. I do what I do because I have a need to do it, to express what I know, and to show people what I do. It's true that this tour has had some rough moments, especially in the U.S. and England, but the unpleasant times have not come from the public, just from the critics, and I really don't pay attention to critics. Critics view things with a certain coldness, they focus on the sound, whether it's good or bad, whether one plays the guitar well, on whether there is a large audience, and sometimes they can't see real success, because they don't look into the soul of the audience nor into the soul of the singer. I've seen the people applauding from their hearts, and that is what is truly important for me. And that's the way it was today, here in Barcelona, so this tour, in my opinion, has gone well indeed. I am content, happy.
...
.S. - Nonetheless, "Lover, Lover, Lover" is dedicated to your "brothers" in the Arab-Israeli war, and besides, you were there, singing for them. This indicates you're taking a side, and in a way, fighting for it.

L.C. - Personal process is one thing, it's blood, it's the identification one feels with their roots and their origins. The militarism I practice as a person and a writer is another thing.

J.S. - But you worry about war, and for that reason it would be logical that you would be concerned about both sides.

L.C. - I don't want to talk about war.

J.S. - Do you feel commercialized when a million copies of your albums are sold?

L.C. - That isn't the problem, that feeling doesn't happen at the time a million albums are sold, it happens afterwards, when I accept the fact that my songs are being recorded and entered into the commercial games. I feel neither guilty nor happy, but I could add that the system uses me as much as I use it, so we would have to speak in terms of collaboration. What concerns me is reaching the people, so I have to submit to the rules of the game, because this system is the only means I have, to do what I have to do.

* "Power does not corrupt men. Fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power." -- George Bernard Shaw