A Visit With Leonard Cohen: Poetry, Britney Spears and More With a Master

I met Leonard Cohen in 2001. He was staying at the Mayflower, a modest, somewhat faded hotel on Central Park West, just up the street from the Trump International. As I recall, his label had originally put him up in a much fancier place, but he hadn't liked the vibe and switched without telling them. He'd recently spent several years at a Zen monastery in Los Angeles and had an otherworldly stillness about him. I felt more fidgety than usual. I remember his lighter and cigarette frozen in the ai