Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Me, Me, Me...and Clive
Modesty has its limits, so I cannot resist drawing your attention to this essay by Clive James on my interview with Monica Bellucci. Stick around while you're there. Clive has a great site.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Clive James is indeed a colossus. I originally came across him through his interest in Grand Prix racing. It was Clive who described Murray Walker as sounding, even in his calmest moments, like a man with his trousers on fire. In an Obsever article from 1984, he memorably pointed out that "the cars all look like a bobsleigh being humped by a lawnmower." Clive was also the first person I ever heard use the phrase "information superhighway", in the early 1990s, before the world-wide-web rose to prominence.
ReplyDeleteAnd a nice article on his Bryan-ship. Although he does use the word 'veteran' to describe you, Bryan, on two separate occasions.
"Passion is not a big film...and it’s unlikely to be blockbuster."
ReplyDeleteAs they say in Hollywood, nobody knows anything.
Ah, Gordon, you have a tiny knife in me these days.
ReplyDeleteNow I feel guilty. And you've never been less than generous Bryan.
ReplyDeleteYou sly old dog, Bryan.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Kevin Maher in Saturday's Times demonstrates how NOT to conduct an interview with an impossibly beautiful actress.
No, no, no, Gordon, I like a slight edge to things. My friend Grabber, a commenter and distinguished man in the literary game, and I share an entirely abusive friendship.
ReplyDeleteGod, how right you are, Brit.
ReplyDeleteHeh - yes, that might be a very English thing. Possibly. I have an old school friend with whom I share an entirely abusive relationship. We won't see each other for a few years, and then upon meeting will greet each other with something like "Oh it's you, is it, you ugly f****ng t***?"
ReplyDeleteAmericans will say it's because we have too much embarrassment about emotions and whatnot, but I argue that they don't have enough.
See, that's what I was thinking. Like two lion cubs pawing at each other. Villeneuve and Arnoux, banging wheels in the final laps at Dijon in 1979, then getting out at the end of the race with big smiles on their faces.
ReplyDeleteModesty aside, for all your fans Bryan, here is a link to the live aidio of RSA session today where you are on the top billing!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rsa.org.uk/audio/
Denied Entry: Can we build a more progressive consensus on immigration?
06 March 2007 18.00
Speakers: Brian Appleyard, Mick Fealty, Peter Kellner, Ewan McIntosh, Mark O’Neill, George Osborne, Matthew Taylor
Listen Live
Though looking at the much-hyped R Davies Joycean piece, I find it as tedious as the Joyce it parodies.
ReplyDeleteRebel, that all's crap on the RSA site. I'm talking about new technology and politics, definitely no immigration about which I have no views of interest. Unless they have tricked me....
ReplyDeleteGood God man they used your baby picture! How old is Monica? :)
ReplyDeleteBut the face now seems truer to the man somehow.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
And back off Balee.
Thanks for noticing Sand Storm. At least Wife in the Sarf gets me, though she does appear to be on the verge of a transatlantic cat fight.
ReplyDeleteYes, Bryan, you are adorable, but I'm not prepared to fight the southern wife over your divine cleft chin! However, if I could have a fantasy dinner party, it would include you, Clive James, and Bill Nighy. I'd just sit and listen....
ReplyDeleteJames wrote what is perhaps the best essay I've yet read on Tom Stoppard. It came out so long ago, though, that I had to ask Frank Wilson if James were still alive. I dunno why we don't see more of his stuff on this side of the Atlantic -- at least, *I* don't. P'raps I'm not reading the right periodicals.
I must commend you and C.J., though, Bryan: You are both incredibly funny *and* deeply knowledgeable about literature, art, culture. American intellectuals too often suffer from earnestness (read, no sense of humor) and it makes reading their critiques of culture dull, dull, dull. The average person does not read books or go to see plays to be edified (not consciously) -- we want to be entertained. You guys *get* that.
Thanks for making me laugh even as you edify me....