Allan Showalter
I’m a heavy duty reader, sporadic scribbler, perpetual cynic, successful shrink, hard-core dilettante, and devotedly irreverent Leonard Cohen fan. I am, in Andy Warhol’s felicitous phrase, “deeply superficial.” A nonpracticing agnostic, I aspire to transcend my current misanthropic state to evolve into a genteel curmudgeon. I currently live with my wife, Penny Showalter aka The Duchess, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
AllanShowalter.com
In the beginning (i.e., 2006) was 1HeckOfAGuy.com…
1HeckOfAGuy.com was a hodgepodge of essays, poetry, music, oddities, jokes, photos, videos, visual puns, and, of course, much, much more. Then, I went on a Leonard Cohen jag to the point that new content was 95% Cohen-centered. In 2015, things began to slide, slide in all directions. Finally, 1HeckOfAGuy.com and its sibling site, DrHGuy.com had to be dismantled and are now inaccessible.
From this tragedy, Cohencentric.com emerged March 6, 2015 to become, by far, the most popular Leonard Cohen site, publishing over 7,700 posts chock-full of information, photos, videos, animations, audio recordings, and humor, accumulating in its three years online over five million hits before it went dark on Nov 3, 2018. There was no formal relationship between Cohencentric.com and Leonard Cohen (or Leonard Cohen’s management or his record label). Up until his death on Nov 7, 2016, Leonard frequently visited Cohencentric.com (as well as its predecessors) and contributed photos, information, and comments. He seemed to enjoy the posts, although it would be easy to mistake his graciousness for approbation. In any case, the opinions expressed, as the broadcast disclaimer goes, are my own and cannot be attributed to Mr. Cohen unless so specified. I met Leonard Cohen face to face on a handful of occasions because of this blog, and he answered more queries I posed to him than I had a right to expect. At his request, I also served for a time as a contributing editor on the official Leonard Cohen Facebook Page.
AllanShowalter.com, my current site, is a return to the original hodgepodge of topics, along with selected Cohencentric posts featuring Leonard Cohen.
That great waterfall photo used in the AllanShowalter.com header was taken by Neil Ellis.
Search, Subscriptions, Sidebars, & Such
On the home page, clicking on the “+” in the upper right corner slides open a sidebar.
The best place, however, to run a site search, sign up for email notifications of new posts, find the categories and archives, review the most recent posts, etc. is at the bottom of every AllanShowalter.com page.
Contact Info
