Hugh Laurie by Emma Thompson

Interview, part 3. Hugh Laurie = Dr. House. Emma Thompson = brilliant British actress - aside from the Harry Potter movies and Nanny McPhee, she's done Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually, Stranger Than Fiction, and just out now, Brideshead Revisited. Plus a bunch of older things and period pieces. She wrote the screenplays for Nanny MacPhee and Sense and Sensibility as well as acted in them, too. She and Hugh Laurie are old friends - went to Cambridge and were active in the drama program there. It's funny - I think she may have said more than Hugh Laurie in interviewing him. Hehe.

ET: When we've talked about the U.S. in the past, one of the things that has certainly drawn our fire has been the tendency toward sentimentality.
HL: Yes.
ET: Yet it doesn't seem to haunt "House." Have you come across it? Because it is definitely there, don't you feel, in the U.S.?
HL: I do feel it there. But then, one of the interesting things about doing "House" is that an audience of Americans who might, as we suppose, turn toward the sentimental, have actually embraced someone so starkly and brutally cynical. Although, of course, the show is actually conceived by Canadians.
ET: But see, I think underneath that American sentimentality, there definitely is a much, much more realistic attitude to people.
HL: Yes.
ET: I do. I think, funnily enough, there is, as it were, an opposite reaction in England in the sense that we all look cynical and sort of reserved, and in fact, I don't think that we are. I think we're softer, in a sense.
HL: I think there is much in what you say. We have had some various peculiar fevers of sentimentality.
...
ET: Now, do you think you would describe yourself as a misanthropist or a misanthrope?
HL: No. I don't think so. I have misanthropic days--or half-days. I can get into a sort of muttering, curmudgeonly state. But no, I don't think I am overall. Believe it or not, perhaps I don't show it much, or well, but I think I like people.

I think it's interesting how the general mood and tone of people reflects their cultural values and ultimately, their culture. In America, what do we have? Commercialism. But we also have this odd sort of unrealistic sentimentality that they mention, and this nostalgia, almost, for times when that sentimentality was more real than it is now. Now it's sort of affected, or a way to escape the coldness that is now reality. It's romance, versus reality. Whereas, according to these two, it's the other way around in Britain - coldness and reservedness on the surface, but really they have lots of warmth and sentimentality and this old-world, romantic, quality. At least, that's what it seems they're getting at. I suppose if you think about it, the Brontes had those great, epic romances, and the novels that came before that - the Gothic romances, like Ann Radcliffe's novels, must be somewhat sentimental, and I'm sure there's others. Then stuff after that too. Funny how things change and how sentimentality comes in waves and all that.

(I suddenly just lost all desire to write anything, and now am off to sleep. Hehe. Still to come: Marc Jacobs, and remembering Andy Warhol...)

Scarlett Johansson by Stephen Mooallem

Interview, part 2. Scarlett Johansson is a fantastic young actress, even if her private life is a bit sketchy, and she's just recorded a bunch of Tom Waits songs. She also happens to have starred in 3 out of Woody Allen's past 4 films: Match Point, Scoop, and just out now, Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The interviewer is Stephen Mooallem, exec editor at Interview.

SM: So, you know, Tom Waits and Woody Allen are very different kinds of artists, but there are some similarities there. I mean, one is all whiskey and cigarettes and beatnik melancholy, and the other is about sort of nebbish, modernist neurosis . . . but still there's an existential-pain sort of thing happening in both of their work. Do you think you are attracted to that kind of material on some level?
SJ: Well, existential questioning and suffering--that's what makes art interesting, right? I mean, it's all about trying to figure out what the hell we're doing on this crazy spinning ball of water and sand. . . . I don't know . . . I think that anything that I do relates to that sort of cerebral questioning. Discomfort. As well as satisfaction. And, you know, I think both artists are sort of appreciative of small, satisfying things as well. . . . That sort of slice of life, in a way. You probably can't decipher an answer out of that. [laughs]
SM: No, I can.
SJ: You know, that's what I think attracts me to both of them--and every artist that I've worked with, in a way. Even if it's Frank Miller, whose mind is wandering everywhere. He knows what it's like to have your first cigarette of the day, and that's, like, what he can appreciate. Those little moments, he makes a big deal out of, even if it's in a noirish, bloody massacre.

Scarlett Johansson's body of work in film is fairly consistent and pretty impressive, especially for a 24-year-old. One of her first more notable movies was Ghost World, in 2001, with Thora Birch, who next did American Beauty, and Steve Buscemi. She did Lost in Translation with Bill Murray in 2003, which gained a lot of notice, then Girl With a Pearl Earring, A Love Song for Bobby Long, and In Good Company (one of my favorites), and The Prestige right after that. Then, she's done the three Woody Allen movies, and probably more soon. Yeah, she did Eight Legged Freaks, and The Other Boleyn Girl, and The Island and The Black Dahlia, none of which were supposed to be very good. But for the most part, she's got pretty discerning taste in roles, and she kind of does her own thing. Ghost World is a cult favorite, and just a great movie. As an actress, she commands respect, as far as I'm concerned, and that questioning nature that she comes out in her interview definitely surfaces in her work.

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Now playing: The Fratellis - Whistle for the Choir

Chris Noth by Ron Galotti

Sooo. Interview magazine is my latest obsession. Well, not obsession...preoccupation? I just read, finally, the June/July one celebrating Andy Warhol's 80th birthday (aside from, ya know, the fact that he's dead) and it was great. It had a lot I want to jot down notes about so I'm going to break it up. There was this short interview of Chris Noth (Mr. Big on Sex and the City) by the guy who inspired his SatC character, Ron Galotti. He's a former magazine publisher that once had a relationship with Candace Bushnell, the creator of SatC and the real-life Carrie Bradshaw. They had a lot to say on New York City, and I liked it.

RG: I miss on occasion, being smart, which New York provides--you know, that sensibility. But with the exclusion of that, I would say nothing else.
CN: Well, yeah. New York is pretty much commercialized to the point of no return...I came here as an actor in '78. It's a city for me to work in. But the excitement of New York was the varied and diverse eccentrics who were able to live there, and the different neighborhoods and the different kinds of places that they created. That's all been washed out...It's very suburban. The art scene really left, except in patches. It's all about a sort of a corporate sensibility, and it's squeezed out room for any other kind of sensibility--money talks, bullshit walks, I guess...I mean, I think we all have those stories of struggling in New York. But the fact of the matter is, we were able to do that. The city provided a cushion, so to speak, where we could struggle.
RG: Oh, no. None of us can do that anymore. Too expensive.
CN: What does that mean when you say that, though? That means that only certain kinds of people can be in the city. People pooh-pooh the idea that everything changes. But if you get so rarefied that you can't live in the city unless you're making a quarter-million dollars a year, then what does that mean?
RG: I don't think a quarter of a million is going to cut it!
CN: Hell. Shit.
...
RG: When I was a kid, we hitchhiked all over.
CN: Oh, Jesus Christ. I'd hitchhike to the Berkshires, across the country. It was a way of life... So when you say, "Well, you can't hitchhike anymore," what does that mean? It means it's a fearful environment where no one can trust to pick up a stranger, or a stranger can't trust to get in a car. I remember girls used to hitchhike. There's a great chapter [in On the Road] of Kerouac hitching south and west, and hopping trains, and experiencing life in America, and opening himself up to finding answers. That search I find lacking. That openness. Right now, we've got ourselves stuck in one thing, which is to make money as fast as we can--because it's hard to live in this world without it. Let's face it.

It's funny, because I was reading an article in Newsweek the other day by a recent college grad who lives with three or four other girls in the city, and she says it's completely feasible - you just have to realize that 1) you can't have that glamorous, high lifestyle that people kind of associate with living in New York, and 2) 80% of your paycheck is going to go to your rent. But, it's not impossible. I like that these guys, though, point out that it's not as easy as it once was, and even though it's possible, it's not the same. They make it seem like there's no room for that exploration, for residing in the city while searching and creating and experiencing. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to think they're right.

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Now playing: Aimee Mann - Save Me

La di da. Can't sleep.

I found something I wrote last fall, and added a couple paragraphs. Not quite sure if I like the addition or not, though. I'm thinking not, but whatever. It is what it is.

Above all else, he possessed an irresistible charm that endeared him to everyone. Chatting with him was never strained, overly-polite small talk; he had an intimate way of drawing you into conversation and speaking to you as a familiar companion, and was capable of making anyone feel like the most important person in his world and all others. He listened in an engaging fashion – you could not doubt he was captivated by every word that tumbled from your lips, even if he wasn’t. He laughed at all the right moments, with that precise mixture of genuine amusement and friendly warmth that can take years to perfect if not inherent. He was a classic tease, in an innocent and easy manner that could offend no one and attract any one, and every little exchange belonged solely to you and him, filling you with that deep, secret pleasure that comes of sharing an inside joke that lies beyond the grasp of everyone else.

Greeting you always with a warm, bright smile that lit up his eyes, you never could believe he wasn’t truly pleased to see you. For the three minutes you spent talking, his attention was yours only: you belonged to him, and he to you. Around him, you felt inspired and cheered; he instilled in you the reassuring notion that you were accepted – by both him and yourself. He loved easily, and was easy to love – or at least, it was easy for you to believe so.

After all, this is what everyone wants most: for love to be easy. For him, it seemed, love flowed like wine from a tap. He had the charisma of a politician, but the frank sincerity of a brother or old friend, and his easy nature somehow highlighted the good in everyone he encountered. In his presence, men stood a little straighter and spoke more graciously, and women laughed with more warmth and smiled more generously. His own smile could melt snow on the coldest day, and everything seemed to glow when he walked into a room. Everyone felt his presence, though none could quite identify it – part of its beauty is that it was indefinable, incapable of being labeled.

Yet, this irresistibleness held him apart from all others. Though it drew others nearer to him, it pulled him farther away. His gift of charm and grace was also his curse. He prompted sincerity, generosity, and goodness in others, but he knew this was not the way the world worked. There was no disillusionment clouding his view of the world: despite how they acted in his presence, he knew that the people among whom he walked were different when his back was turned. In his presence, their sincerity was real, but the moment he walked away, it rang false and fell away, and the people became their own selves once more. And so it was – he was alone.

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Now playing: Pride & Prejudice - Dawn

Some quotes.

Sooze: That’s my worst fear. Making a sound and no one hears it.
– Eric Bogosian, subUrbia

Jeff: I know that I don’t know. I know that much. I know that things are fucked up beyond belief and I know I have nothing original to say about any of it. I don’t have an answer, I don’t have a “message.”
- Eric Bogosian, subUrbia

"Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

"And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart."

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

In a perfect world...

I would marry my work and my work would be absorbing art.

Because really, nothing feels better than spending a day photographing and coming up with some beauties.

Or staying up all night writing and producing something halfway worthwhile.

Or watching a movie and appreciating it as both art and entertainment.

Or seeing a wonderfully scripted, designed, directed, and acted stage production.

Or wandering around a museum and drinking in paintings and sculptures and whatnot.

Or walking around a city admiring the architecture.

Or sitting in a bookstore or library exploring the shelves.

Who needs people when you have art. Psh.

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Now playing: Billy Joel - Summer, Highland Falls

If there is a God...

...He's gotta be a masochist.

I'm just sayin'.