Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

Glance at the TV, recognize the grey haired gentleman on SVU as Michael Siberry, having seen him in The Woman in Black in the West End more than thirty years ago!

 "Whereof one cannot speak,  thereof one must be silent." 

 Wittgenstein was a big fan of Carmen Miranda.

 So glad it was the French rather than the Germans who first celebrated Hollywood crime movies of the Forties and Fifties for their elegance, style, and storytelling. Otherwise, we'd be holding Film Schwarz festivals.

 Was it the camera of Arthur Edeson? The vision of Michael Curtiz? The written words of the Epsteins or the speaking of them by Claude Rains? Was it Bogart's gaze? Or did light actually shine from Ingrid Bergman's face?

Watching The Quiller Memorandum, with George Seagal and Alec Guinness.  Hey! It's Slugworth!

  1995. To capitalize on the success of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Vintage brought out "Tell Me the Truth about Love: 10 Poems by W.H. Auden" It included Auden's 'Funeral Blues,' which had been read so beautifully by John Hannah in the movie. A small pamphlet really, it featured a photo of Hugh Grant on the cover. I was working at Hatchard's in London at the time. There was a display of the book next to the cash register. The customer I was waiting on, incapable of looking at anything in any way other than 'down on,' scoffed. "Well that's disgusting! Putting  a Hollywood star on the cover to sell the sublime poetry of Auden!" She paid for her highbrow and unsullied choices and left. As it happened, the next person in line, was Valerie Eliot, the widow of T.S. She picked up a copy, ran her finger over the picture of Grant and said "Oh, I don't think Wystan would have minded at all!"

 I wish I had had the opportunity to play Ishmael in Moby Dick Rehearsed.

Of COURSE it was reading Kafka's Metamorphosis that inspired Gabriel Garcia Marquez' creation of Magical Realism!

A friend of mine once got on an empty subway car in Lower Manhattan.  Very early morning. At the next stop, another passenger got on. He sat directly opposite my friend. My friend kept his head down. As the car started moving, he looked up. The new passenger was not keeping his head down. Strong eye contact. Smiling. Willem Dafoe.

 Matthew Cowles (Billy Clyde Tuggle) and the great Christine Baranski!