Banker & Tradesman doesn’t cover sports. But we would have hired Larry Cohen as our sports editor. We don’t write about education policy. But when Larry Cohen wrote about it, we learned something.
Laurence D. Cohen died suddenly last week. He was 64, and is survived by his wife, Janice, and sister, Barbara.
Cohen was recently elected president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He informed us of the news in an email with the subject line “Cohen is King,” and went on to crow that his election was “the next step down the path to being named sports editor of B&T.”
Larry Cohen penned a weekly column for us dubbed “The Artful Strategist,” in which his alter ego, “Cohen the Columnist,” engaged in all manner of ridiculous, macho posturing. But what was truly artful were not his boasts or hilarious metaphors, recollections and anecdotes, but the way in which he used them to knock us out of our comfort zones.
Over the years, we were often asked why we kept running pieces from a columnist who seemed so determined to bite the hand that fed him. Just who was this sarcastic, bombastic Cohen the Columnist, demanding his ration of rum from our publishers in their own pages?
It’s true, not everyone liked Cohen the Columnist – despite, as he would gladly tell you, his being possessed of killer good looks, sophisticated humor and daunting intelligence. Not everyone “got” Cohen the Columnist. And almost everyone must have disagreed with him at some point or another.
But still, we always found room for Cohen the Columnist.
Disagreeing with Cohen the Columnist; being left scratching your head after reading through one of his pieces (or all of them); or feeling compelled to punch the man for his seeming arrogance – those were Larry Cohen’s desired outcomes.
Newspapers hold many lofty goals and ideals. Among these is an overriding duty to spur discussion whenever possible, to inform public debate and push reasonable people of different minds to find common ground on common issues.
There was nobody better at that than Cohen the Columnist, through Larry Cohen. And he got us going with wit, sarcasm and intelligence so refined, we sometimes didn’t even realize he’d gotten us talking at all.
Cohen the Columnist got us thinking about urban planning by imploring bank branches to apply for liquor licenses – the better to compete with the more trendy and desirable bars and nightclubs favored by a new generation of planners obsessed with the “24-hour city.”
In the same column in which he suggested our readership rose after adding his picture to the paper, and speculating as to why (“Were the new readers all women? Am I just another pretty face? … Could it just be more guys who know a man’s man when they see and read one?”), Cohen the Columnist also subtly lectured us on the folly of blindly using dubious crime statistics as the lone basis for supporting – or not supporting – certain public policies.
In recommending that schools and school districts consider campaign-style negative ads targeted at one another, Cohen the Columnist brought our attention to an education system bereft of any kind of competition – competition which is otherwise the hallmark of our society.
Cohen the Columnist was accused, at varying times, of outright misogyny and thinly veiled racism, among other things. But to confuse the contrivances of Cohen the Columnist with the aims of Larry Cohen is a mistake. Larry Cohen used Cohen the Columnist to make us think, plain and simple.
And for that, he will be sorely missed.
