Cool.
No More Hugging Your Awesome Uber Driver
Uber Introduces New Rules For The Road
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Uber riders can rate their drivers on a five-star scale, but the assessment works the other way, too.
And now, the ride-hailing app has released new rules of the road, including five infractions that could get you banned.
Most of Uber’s guidelines are common-sense: be on time, buckle up, don’t leave trash behind.
‘Lay Off The Hamburgers’: North Carolina Santa Accused Of Fat-Shaming Young Boy
It’s when your good judgement goes out the window — sometimes when Uber comes in handiest — that you can get in trouble.
Damaging drivers’ or other passengers’ property will do it, including throwing up in the car after too much booze.
War In Space
Russia, USA and China are prepping for all-out SPACE WAR
SUPERPOWERS are preparing to dominate in a devastating space war, which could destroy life on Earth as we know it, experts have warned.
By Alex Hickson
DANGER: The blast trail of China’s heavy-lift rocket Long March-5 as it launches from Wenchang / GETTY
As countries seek to maintain control in outer-space, competition between nations will give rise to apocalyptic cosmic attacks, according to security officials.
Nightmare scenarios might leave vast swathes of the planet in the dark as intergalactic weapons knock out satellites and launch cyber attacks.
General John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command, told CNN: “As humans go out there, there has always been conflict. Conflict in the Wild West as we move in the West … conflict twice in Europe for its horrible world wars.
“So, every time humans actually physically move into that, there’s conflict, and in that case, we’ll have to be prepared for that.”
Nations in conflict might start to make plans to knock out an enemy’s space infrastructure such as satellites or space shuttles.
Attacks on satellites could have devastating consequences such as blacking out televisions, mobile networks and even the internet.
Everything from GPS, stock markets, bank transactions, traffic lights and railway switchboards could freeze causing utter chaos.
Daddy Hunter
Fear And Loathing In Fatherhood: Everything You Need To Know About Parenting in 7 Hunter S. Thompson Quotes
Hunter S. Thompson was a lot of things. Gun lover. Bucket hat wearer. A man who did enough cocaine to kill an entire species. You know him as The Godfather of Gonzo journalism, the man who inspired an entire generation of writers. One thing he wasn’t? Father of the year. Far from it. Thompson, father of 1, pretty much violated all contemporary ideas of safe and responsible parenting. Instead, he promoted a hedonistic, hell-raising existence that was based more on LSD and long-barrel shotguns than child-psychology books.
Or so it would seem. In his memoir, Juan Thompson, Hunter’s son, insists that his old man had another side, that of the patient, doting dad and grandfather. Either way, Hunter was full of wisdom. So buy the ticket, take the ride, and enjoy some his choicest words.
On Not Safe, And Not Sorry
“My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me.”
On Showing Signs Of Greatness
“Weird behavior is natural in smart children, like curiosity is to a kitten.”
Rocket Men
Rocket men: why tech’s biggest billionaires want their place in space
Forget gilded mansions and super yachts. Among the tech elite, space exploration is now the ultimate status symbol
by Dan Tynan in San Francisco
Richard Branson with a Virgin Galactic space aircraft at the company’s Mojave desert headquarters. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
The explosion could be felt 30 miles away. At 9.07am on 1 September, a SpaceX rocket containing 75,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene ignited into a fireball that could be seen from orbit, billowing black smoke into the gray sky around its Cape Canaveral launch pad.
On board was a $200m, 12,000lb communications satellite – part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org project to deliver broadband access to sub-Saharan Africa.
Zuckerberg wrote, with a note of bitterness, on his Facebook page that he was “deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite”. SpaceX founder Elon Musk told CNN it was the “most difficult and complex failure” the 14-year-old company had ever experienced.
It was also the second dramatic explosion in nine months for SpaceX, following a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” of a booster rocket as it attempted to land after a successful mission to the International Space Station.
Later that day, Nasa’s official Twitter account responded: “Today’s @SpaceX incident – while not a Nasa launch – reminds us that spaceflight is challenging.”
Yet despite those challenges, a small band of billionaire technocrats have spent the past few years investing hundreds of millions of dollars into space ventures. Forget gilded mansions and super yachts; among the tech elite, space exploration is the ultimate status symbol.
DRY Revived
THE ENTIRE PRINT RUN (1979-82) OF NYC PUNK MAGAZINE ‘DRY’ IS NOW ONLINE!
by Christopher Bickel
Wendy O Williams of the Plasmatics in ‘Dry’ magazine
Ryan Richardson is one of the United States’ foremost collectors, archivists, and dealers of punk rock records and ephemera, as well as being the Internet saint who created free online archives of Star, Rock Scene, and Slash magazines. He also runs Fanzinefaves.com, a repository of various early punk zines as well as the exhaustive punk info blog Break My Face.
We’ve written about Richardson’s punk altruism before here at Dangerous Minds. The last time was back in June when he uploaded the entire print run of excellent early San Francisco punk magazine Damage over at his site CirculationZero.com.
Richardson has done his Good Samaritan work once again, this time with the upload of the complete print run of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s NYC punk magazine Dry to Circulation Zero.
According to Richardson, Dry was conceived by art school students and titled as a reaction against Wet, “The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing.”
Dry is manic in its cut-n-paste layout and panicked in its reviews and reports. Eclectic coverage of punk, No Wave and eventually hardcore in the later installments.
Fourteen issues were published, all of which are available as a single pdf download HERE.
Moon Village Coming
‘Moon village’ plans winning worldwide support
Futuristic plans for a “moon village” proposed by the European Space Agency (Esa) are winning support from around the world.
The idea is to set up a permanent human outpost on the moon that will be a base for science, business, mining and even tourism.
Esa director general Jan Woerner said the moon village was discussed by member state ministers meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland to decide space funding.
At a press conference after the two-day meeting he said: “We are now having a list of actors worldwide who would like to participate in this moon village concept.
“There are ideas of companies – not only ideas, projects of companies – to go to the moon, and they want to be part of this community.
Inventor of General Tso’s Chicken Gone
Inventor of General Tso’s Chicken dies in Taipei at age 98
The inventor of General Tso’s Chicken and founder of famous Taiwanese Hunan-style restaurant chain Peng’s Garden died in Taipei on Wednesday
By Keoni Everington
General Tso’s Chicken(By Wikimedia Commons)<
Chef Peng Chang-kuei (彭長貴), the founder of the famous Hunan-style restaurant chain Peng’s Garden Hunan Restaurant (彭園湘菜館) and inventor of the world famous Chinese dish General Tso’s Chicken, died on Nov. 30 at the age of 98 from Pneumonia.
A native of Changsha, Hunan Province, Peng began training at the age of 13 under the tutelage of the famous Hunan chef Cao Jing-chen (曹藎臣), who was the family chef of Tan Yan-kai (譚延闓), the prime minister of the Nationalist government from 1926 to 1928. After WWII, he was put in charge of running Nationalist government banquets, and in 1949 he fled to Taiwan after the Kuomintang’s forces were defeated by the communists in the Chinese Civil War.
According to an interview with the China Times, Peng says that his most famous dish was created in 1952 during a four-day visit by U.S. Seventh Fleet commander Admiral Arthur W. Radford. After three days, he had served the guests most of his repertoire of dishes, so to try and mix things up a bit, he decided to chop some chicken into big chunks, fry it to a golden hue and then added a different combination of sauce and seasoning to create a new dish.
The admiral was so impressed with the dish that he asked Peng what it was called, he thought quickly on his feet and said “General Tso’s Chicken” (左宗棠雞).
The Farmer’s Daughter
How A Seedy Motel Called The Farmer’s Daughter Became A Boutique Hotel
“Flying Bacon” by Jessie Azzarin (Photo via Farmer’s Daughter Hotel)
The farmer’s daughter, in fiction, is an attractive, pure-hearted young woman who grew up on a bucolic farm. She’s Daisy Duke. She’s Dolores Abernathy of Westworld. She’s Mary Ann, stranded on an uncharted desert isle. Technically, she’s even The Walking Dead‘s Maggie Greene. She appears in songs, she’s a central character in crass tavern jokes, and she turns up in many an adult film. But in Los Angeles, Farmer’s Daughter is also a hotel.Peter and Ellen Picataggio bought the Farmer’s Daughter Hotel on Fairfax Avenue in 1997. At that time, Ellen said it already bore its peculiar name, but it was something of a “no-tell motel.” It’d been there since the ’60s, had its halcyon days through the ’70s, and fell into disarray thereafter. For a short period of time, it was a Best Western, but not when the Picataggios got their hands on it. Ellen described the owner they got the property from as “absentee.”
Looking at old photos supplied by the Picataggios reveals the kind of unremarkable, bland, yet oddly endearing decor of any mediocre American motel. The off-white bathroom with the hair dryer attached to the wall, the small closet stacked with unused phonebooks, the green carpeting you rarely see outside of motels and dated transit hubs, and the plain bed, dressed in pink and green patterned comforters, positioned beneath uninspired paintings of ambiguous landscapes. These pedestrian rooms served as the accommodation for many a CBS studio guest, including those who went to sleep dreaming of spinning The Big Wheel and winning a lump sum from Bob Barker. The sign was a big, yellow roadside eye-catcher, with a smaller marquee below that read, “Our Rooms Are Tops” on one side and “Extra Nice Rooms” on the other.
“Gotta love the cheap art on the wall,” Peter said of the old rooms. “I think I might have kept a piece somewhere just for fun and memories. Never forget where you came from.”
The original yellow sign, too, is now a part of the hotel’s office.
Inventor of Big Mac Gone
from FORTUNE
The Inventor of the Big Mac Has Died
Michael Delligatti, the man who brought you the Big Mac, has died. He was 98.
Delligatti, more affectionately known as “Jim,” was one of McDonald’s first franchisees. He first created the Big Mac in 1967 at his Uniontown, Penn. restaurant, Business Insider reports.
Almost 50 years later, it’s the same recipe served in chains today: two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions—on a sesame seed bun (for those of you old enough to remember the jingle). McDonald’s has been experimenting with the Big Mac’s size lately, offering both smaller and bigger versions of the sandwich.
AC/DC Live 1978
The Little Man In The Boat Has Really Long Legs
The Little Man In The Boat: How History Hates The Clitoris
by PONTA
What’s up, labia flaps. Today we’re talking about how everyone hates the clitoris and its surrounding sex organs. Or more specifically how all throughout history the sexuality of clit-owning people and their sex organs have been ignored because apparently those things scare people.
The clitoris (“clit,” “love button,” “bean,” “little man in the boat,” etc.) is that super fun little thing by the vaginal opening that has 8,000 sensory nerve endings. Wow wow wee wow, that’s a lot of feels.
If you have a vulva (the external genital organs—not to be confused with the vagina, which is the slippery inside tunnel-bit) then you should grab a mirror and check yourself out! Find your clit, poke around and find your urethral opening. You should know what your bits look like! And be proud of them!
Alien Invasion – Florida
FLORIDA FIREBALL: Massive fireball blazing through the skies sparks fears of an alien invasion
The super-bright meteor prompts calls from terrified locals to police
BY JON LOCKETT
A police squad car films the fireball as it flies overhead
A DAZZLING fireball spotted by hundreds of people as it streaked across the Florida skies sparked fears aliens could be landing.The super-bright meteor, which was filmed on phones and dashcams, prompted calls from terrified locals to police.
The American Meteorological Society and police received dozens of reports of a bright light in the sky at around 11 pm from Key West to the Florida Panhandle.
Some were from panicked locals fearing a UFO invasion with some taking to Twitter to admit they were terrified.
The shocking flash was captured on the dashboard cameras of several cruisers belonged to the North Point Police Department in west Florida.
Freddie Mercury Unmasked
Freddie Mercury: 10 Things You Didn’t Know Queen Singer Did
From sneaking Lady Di into a gay club to concealing his final resting place, read lesser-known tales of vocal legend’s life
“Lover of life, singer of songs.” The simple epitaph, penned by Queen bandmate Brian May, goes a long way in describing the complex figure known across the globe as Freddie Mercury. “To me that summed it up, because he lived life to the fullest,” remembered May in a BBC documentary. “He was a generous man, a kind man, an impatient man, sometimes. But utterly dedicated to what he felt was important, which was making music.”
Born Farrokh Bulsara in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, Freddie’s oversized talent was matched only by his flamboyance and exuberance. These qualities merged to create masterpieces of the group’s songbook, and some of the greatest live performances on record. In life, his four-octave voice – since studied by scientists in an attempt to unlock the secrets of its intricacies and awesomeness – raised the bar for what a rock singer could be. In death, he gave voice to the millions suffering from AIDS.
In honor of the 25th anniversary of his passing, here are some lesser-known elements of Mercury’s incredible legacy.
Giant Robot Panda
Ancient UFO Found
Experts believe mysterious aluminium object dating back 250,000 years ‘could be part of ancient UFO’
Metallic aluminium was not produced by mankind until around 200 years ago – but this appears manufactured making the object a baffling find
The aluminium piece looks as if it was a handmade object (Photo: CEN)
A piece of aluminium that looks as if it was handmade is being hailed as 250,000-year-old proof that aliens once visited Earth.
Metallic aluminium was not really produced by mankind until around 200 years ago, so the discovery of the large chunk that could be up to 250,000 years old is being held as a sensational find.
The details of the discovery were never made public at the time because it was pulled out of the earth in communist Romania in 1973.
Builders working on the shores of the Mures River not far from the central Romanian town of Aiud found three objects 10 metres (33 feet) under the ground.
Consensus
from The Christian Science Monitor
Why more than 100 scientists are backing an asteroid-deflection mission
Scientists have have voiced their support for a 2020 mission to do a test deflection of an asteroid to prepare for the possibility of a future collision with Earth.
NASA/AP
How do you stop an asteroid headed directly at Earth?
That’s the question that scientists have been asking for decades now. For most of human history, the only answer to such a question would be a shrug. But as asteroid detection continues to improve, scientists say they might be able to have enough time between spotting an incoming meteor and its impact to actually keep it from hitting our planet.
While scientists believe that asteroids like the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs are rare, smaller asteroids can still cause massive damage all over the world. In order to prevent these destructive collisions, more than 100 scientists published a letter in support of a joint NASA/ESA mission, set to launch in 2020, to study and ultimately deflect an asteroid. The mission would enable humanity to learn more about the threat posed by near-Earth objects and would mark the first time an asteroid has been deflected away from Earth in a dry run for planetary defense against near-Earth objects on a more destructive course.
“Of the near-Earth objects (NEOs) so far discovered, there are more than 1700 asteroids currently considered hazardous. Unlike other natural disasters, this is one we know how to predict and potentially prevent with early discovery,” reads the letter. “As such, it is crucial to our knowledge and understanding of asteroids to determine whether a kinetic impactor is able to deflect the orbit of such a small body, in case Earth is threatened.”
When Discussing Racism Could Be Funny
Sharon Jones Gone
A Queen Among Kings
Sharon Jones’ Soul Was Surpassed Only By Her Spirit
by OLIVER WANG
The first time I ever saw Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings perform was circa 2002 at the Elbo Room, a tiny venue in San Francisco’s Mission District. If you’ve ever been there, you know the Elbo Room doesn’t need many bodies to pack the floor, and with the Dap-Kings crowding the diminutive stage, the full intensity of their act filled the space from practically the first note. I was already familiar with the group through its early records, but hadn’t fully appreciated how much power Jones could pack into her stout, 5-foot frame as she sang, sweated, stamped, strutted, slayed.
Jones, who passed away last week after a long, public battle with pancreatic cancer, enjoyed one of the great second acts of American pop music history, one whose countless retellings never seems to diminish its wonder. She was born in Augusta, Ga., in the mid-1950s, which made her just a little too young to have made a go at a soul career in the heyday of the 1960s and early ’70s. The closest she got was at age 17, singing backup on tour with Long Island R&B girl group The Magic Touch. Fast forward 20 years and Jones was working as a corrections officer out of Rikers Island prison while moonlighting as a wedding singer on the weekends.
Tennis Is For Girls
Enigmatic Fast Radio Bursts
Mystery cosmic radio blasts come with side of gamma rays
By
NASA
BLASTS of radio waves from space may deliver a much bigger wallop than expected. For the first time, we have seen one of these enigmatic fast radio bursts occurring together with a spurt of gamma rays, meaning their joint source may be a billion times more energetic than we thought.
FRBs have proved baffling since their discovery in 2007. Each torrent of radio waves lasts no more than a few milliseconds and we have only spotted 17 of them so far.
Finding accompanying signals at other wavelengths may be the key to decoding their source. But to observe such a paired event, we would have to be watching the same area of the sky with a radio telescope and a telescope operating at different wavelengths when an FRB occurs there.
“We’ve been really unlucky so far: we’re almost always looking in the wrong places to be helpful,” says Emily Petroff at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.
Secrets of Blackstar
David Bowie’s Graphic Designer Says Blackstar Records Hold More Secrets
by Anna Gaca
CREDIT: Screenshot via DavidBowieVEVO on YouTube
In May, months after David Bowie released his final album ★ (Blackstar) and died unexpectedly, fans discovered a charming surprise: If you expose the record’s gatefold sleeve to light, it reveals an image of a galaxy. In an interview with BBC Radio 6 today, the record’s graphic designer, Jonathan Barnbrook, says that’s not all the records are hiding.
“There’s actually a few other things as well,” Barnbrook told host Mary Ann Hobbs. “Actually, there’s one big thing which people haven’t discovered yet on the album. Let’s just say, if people find it, they find it, and if they don’t, they don’t. And remember what Bowie said about not explaining everything.”
Of course, that doesn’t bring us any closer to discovering the secret, but at least we know to look. Personally, my guess is that Bowie might’ve built in some kind of stargazing aid. Listen to the relevant clip from Barnbrook’s interview here, and if you’ve found a big secret in your copy of ★, tell us at tips@spin.com.
$1 Million Worth of Hot Wheels
SO THAT’S WHAT A $1 MILLION HOT WHEELS COLLECTION LOOKS LIKE
Got a Pink VW Bus in the attic? Call your banker.
BY EVAN BLEIER
From Michael Jordan rookie cards to first-run issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we’ve all heard horror stories of parents tossing out valuable collectibles during impromptu attic cleanses.
For Bruce Pascal, a real-estate agent who started collecting Hot Wheels in 1968 when he was seven, that was never an issue. You see, his folks also collect car-related items — in fact, they’ve got about 10,000 of ‘em.
Their love of cars allowed Pascal’s own love of Mattel miniatures to flourish, and he now has a Hot Wheels collection that numbers more than 5,000 pieces and is valued at more than $1 million.
Slushee Discovered On Pluto
Underground ocean found on Pluto, likely slushy with ice
By Irene Klotz
NASA/Handout via REUTERS
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Scientists have found evidence that tiny, distant Pluto harbors a hidden ocean beneath the frozen surface of its heart-shaped central plain containing as much water as all of Earth’s seas.
The finding, reported on Wednesday in two research papers published in the journal Nature, adds Pluto to a growing list of worlds in the solar system beyond Earth believed to have underground oceans, some of which potentially could be habitats for life.
Pluto’s ocean, which is likely slushy with ice, lies 93 to 124 miles (150 to 200 km) beneath the dwarf planet’s icy surface and is about 62 miles (100 km) deep, planetary scientist Francis Nimmo of the University of California, Santa Cruz said in an interview.
With its ocean covered by so much ice, Pluto is not a prime candidate for life, added Massachusetts Institute of Technology planetary scientist Richard Binzel, another of the researchers. But Binzel added that “one is careful to never say the word impossible.”
Liquid water is considered one of the essential ingredients for life.
Monkey Tools
Monkeys create stone tools forcing scientists to rethink human evolution
By
Capuchin stone on stone percussion: an active hammerstone fragmenting during use CREDIT: M.HASLAM
The path of human evolution may need to be rewritten after archaeologists discovered that monkeys also produce ‘tool-like flakes’ that were thought to be uniquely man-made.In a discovery that calls into question decades of research, a band of wild bearded capuchin monkeys in Brazil were seen hammering rocks to extract minerals, causing large flakes to fly off.
Previously archaeologists believed the flakes were only made by humans through a process called ‘stone-knapping’ where a larger rock is hammered with another stone to produce sharp blade-like slivers which can be used for arrows, spears or knives.
The flakes were thought to represent a turning point in human evolution because they demonstrated a level of planning, cognition and hand manipulation that could not be achieved by other animals.
But the new research suggests that flakes can be made without any such foresight. In fact they can simply be made by accident.
#ThisIsEndgame
Black Metal
Photos That Perfectly Capture the Brutality of Extreme Norwegian Music
By Oliver Lunn, Photos: Jonas Bendiksen
Aleksander Ilievski from Imagination and Empty. Norway, 2016. (Copyright: Jonas Bendiksen / Magnum Photos)
The most Norwegian thing ever is black metal. Just hearing someone say “Norway” conjures up the image of a man-troll screaming in a dark cave and the ear-bleeding sound of double-kick drumming at hyper-speed. Which is hardly surprising, given that black metal is Norway’s largest musical export.
When I hear “Norway” I think of bands like Mayhem, Burzum, and Darkthrone; of the 1993 murder of Mayhem guitarist Euronymous by Burzum’s Varg Vikernes; and of the series of church burnings in which some of the bands were caught up. It’s been over 20 years since all that happened, and now black metal is more mainstream than ever.
That enduring association – between Norway and black metal – is what interested Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen, a Norwegian himself. For his new series “Singing Norwegian Singers”, commissioned by Leica, Bendiksen rounded up a bunch of local black metal singers and photographed them screaming directly into his lens. The shots are uncomfortably close: nostrils flare; saliva glistens on their tongues, everything captured in the cold glow of the camera flash.
The hedonists. The provocateur. The phenom.
SEX, DRUGS, AND BESTSELLERS: THE LEGEND OF THE LITERARY BRAT PACK
Bret Easton Ellis, Gary Fisketjon, and Jay McInerney in June 1987 / Patrick McMullan
The hedonists. The provocateur. The phenom. The forgotten talent. In the decadent 1980s, the media shipped novelists Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Donna Tartt and Jill Eisenstadt into a loose-knit group known as the “literary brat pack.” One member would go on to win a Pulitzer; one would become better known for controversy than fiction; another would exemplify the excessive highs and very public lows of the decade; and another would slowly fade from view.
A generation of readers loved them. Critics largely despised them. And for a time, they were celebrated for their youth as much as their work. But they also helped change the course of American literature—and looked great doing it. “I think we made fiction fun again,” says McInerney.
Tugging The Salmon
Masturbation – Les expressions hilarantes des différents pays
Si en France on possède déjà de nombreuses expressions très imagées et subtiles pour désigner la masturbation masculine, je vous propose de découvrir quels sont les doux euphémismes utilisés dans les différents pays à travers le monde : Frapper le cyclope, cirer le salami ou serrer la main au président !
Tirailler le saumon
Leonard Cohen Gone
Singer-Songwriter Leonard Cohen Dies at 82
DAVID ROWLAND/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet and novelist who became a singular international presence as a singer-songwriter, has died. He was 82.
A statement on his official Facebook page read, “It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief.”
Only last month, Cohen released his final album, “You Want It Darker,” a deeply introspective work that focused thematically on mortality.
His elegantly penned songs, authored during a musical career that spanned six decades, won him comparison with such other songwriters of his era as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. His best-known song, “Hallelujah,” has been recorded more than 200 times. Cohen never recorded a chart single and didn’t place an album in the top 10 until he was in his 70s, but his ardent fans and musical peers viewed him as a musical craftsman with few equals.
As a songwriter, his themes encompassed love in all its manifestations, religion, faith and the tenuous state of the world. Like “Hallelujah,” many of his tunes — his breakthrough composition “Suzanne,” “Bird on the Wire,” “Tower of Song” — became much-covered keystones of the popular songbook. His longtime accompanist Jennifer Warnes recorded several of his best-known works on her 1987 Cohen recital “Famous Blue Raincoat.”
Like his art, his life evidenced a dynamic tension between sexuality and spirituality. He was a well-known womanizer whose many romantic partners included fellow Canadian musician Joni Mitchell and actress Rebecca De Mornay. Yet he would famously reject the world of the flesh: Torn by depression and doubt about his life and career, he withdrew to spend more than five years in a Buddhist monastery; he later studied at a Hindu ashram in Mumbai.