Idiot Wind · 4 January 2002

I remember why Leonard Cohen came up in the first place.

In Bruce Mau’s slick apologia for design ego, a line in point 30 had always rung particularly empty, in addition to being annoying:

The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’

A trip to one of the exhaustive Cohen shrines on the web gives up the actual lyric, from “Everybody Knows”, a cold eulogy for free love:

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past

Not only is it a misquote, it’s an utter mangle. Imagine Tom Peters:

Managers are SEXY! Corporate right-sizing, sez Bob Dylan, is a SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE!

*   *   *