Re: franny & zooey fun

    Yesterday off-list, Daniel sent me a marvellous excerpt
    from Tolkien as a side-bar to my obsession with icebergs.
    And now Michael, prompted by Bessie's medicine cupboard
    & living room, invites us to offer our own lists.
    Which is it to be? The curlicued, porticoed, pillared, puffed,
    painted & powdered Pavilion - or the silent, gleaming hill of ice?

    It just so happens that a couple of days ago, I sent another post
    about icebergs - this time to Heming-L. Since none of those bastards
    responded to it & hating to throw out good food, I thought I'd
    give you chaps a chance.
    __________________________

    A droll variant of the 'iceberg'.

    Over a couple of recent evenings, BBC television has
    offered a marvellous, extended study of the personality
    & work of the Italian film & opera director, Luchino Visconti.
    A despotic charmer of unimaginable wealth & even more
    unimaginably noble birth, he was, I suspect, very much
    the kind of bloke with whom Hemingway would have liked
    to claim an intimate understanding. (Though Colonel Cantwell
    might have had a little difficulty with Visconti's predeliction
    for beautiful young men.)

    And he was another extremely single minded & obsessional
    artist. I'd already read it somewhere but was reminded by
    the programme of the way Visconti demanded a perfection
    of detail that some might have thought crazy.

    Claudia Cardinale recalled that when she went to the grand ball
    in 'The Leopard', Visconti insisted her reticule contain the phial
    of perfume, embroidered scraps, hairpins, etc, etc, appropriate
    to a rich bourgeois girl of the period - indeed actual examples
    from the period - even though THERE WAS NEVER ANY
    INTENTION THESE WOULD BE SEEN BY THE CAMERA.
    Similarly, when Dirk Bogarde arrived at the old vaporetto station
    in 'Death in Venice', his cases had to contain the (now antique)
    silver backed hairbrushes, jars of pomade, hand stitched shirts,
    leather-backed books & so on - such as Aschenbach might have
    carried with him on his last hols in 1904 (or whenever.)
    Again, THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO BE SEEN.
    But Visconti wanted him to know they were there.

    And, as the Master has taught us, in that same magical way we,
    sitting here in the tenth row, know they are too.
    ___________________________________

    Every so often I become persona non grata on Heming-L.
    This time, I think, it has to do with a running row I used to
    conduct with one of the other geriatrics - a widely loved &
    repected academic whose opaque musings I could never resist
    having a go at. Then, a month ago, he up & died. I have a nasty
    feeling they blame me.
    (Let's hope all past & present Directors of Creative Writing
    on THIS list remain in hearty good health.)

    Scottie B.
    
   

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Received on Tue Aug 19 03:26:51 2003