Tough week.

For one thing, we lost another one of the greats: Leonard Cohen, master of erotic melancholia. As it happens, over the last week I’d been listening to Leonard’s latest (and I guess last) album, You Want It Darker, and the 90s LC tribute album I’m Your Man — the former because I just got it, and the latter because I was forced by water damage to replace some favorite CDs.

Like Bowie, Leonard pulled off the neat trick of releasing a new album just before departing this plane. It’s quite a satisfying piece of work, especially the title track, which in classic Cohen fashion manages to be dark, funny, spiritual, and sexy all at the same time:

Meanwhile, there was that election thing…. Now that the initial shock has worn off, I’ve been trying and trying to reframe it in some context that makes sense and/or offers hope. And every time I think I’m getting close there’s some new horror…like, Oh God, Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior — quite literally the worst choice imaginable.

But last night it occurred to me what this election really was: a high-stakes national episode of “Let’s Make a Deal.” There were about 50 million people who were unhappy enough with the way things are to trade it all for what’s behind Door #2.

I don’t think they’re going to be happy with what they get.

(Oh, and also: in the course of Googling “Let’s Make a Deal,” I learned that a short-lived 2003 version of the show had been hosted by…Billy Bush, of Trump pussy-grabbing interview fame. Truly, everything is connected.)