In 2010, Susan Boyle was to perform a cover of Lou Reed's Perfect Day on America's Got Talent. Just hours before her performance she received word that Lou Reed refused to give permission for her to cover the song. As there was no time to rehearse a new song, her appearance was summarily canceled. Within days, Lou Reed himself released a statement that he had had nothing to do with the decision. Further, within weeks, Reed not only gave permission for Boyle to include the song on her album The Gift, but stepped forward to produce the video himself. Lawyers.
To my mind, each of these describes the same world: de Chirico, Brancusi, Gaudi, the 1973 Czech film Fantastic Planet, Borges' “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” Satie ’ s Trois Gymnopédies, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Gulliver's Travels , Cirque du Soleil , Brian Quinette’s Invisible Library, both the Codex Seraphianus and the Voynich Manuscript, the library at Alexandria, the game of chess and the numbered (but not the titled) chapters of Calvino's If, on a Winter's Night, a Traveler . And Barcelona.
Comments
Post a Comment