chaplin

Thursday, April 12, 2007

It's the way he re-tells 'em

Just been avoiding productive work by flicking John Carey's "Pure Pleasure" in which he commends Clive James's "Unreliable Memoirs" for its redeeming warmth. He recounts the tale of the time when young Clive was a bus conductor on one of Sydney's busiest routes. "In the commuter-crush he unknowingly closes the automatic doors on the neck of an elderly lady about to board. Her head and hat, decorated with wax fruit, are inside the bus. Her body, gamely trotting to keep up and carrying a shopping bag in each hand, remains outside." It's the adverb "gamely" that cracks me up every time.

5 comments:

  1. like the article, but after reading it and noticing the tenor of your blog articles, seems as if you are going through an 'angry' period. or maybe a period of clarity?

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  2. I'm really not with you.

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  3. I really don't mean to be rude, but a lot of what are writing at the moment is very angry. Even in this months Word - the Tarantino piece was against him, and when I saw what side you were on, it didn't surprise me. That said, it did seem like I overstepped the mark, and I do enjoy your writing (obviously as I keep coming back to your blog) and you might point out that we are in a Golden Age of Music, so my radar could well be completely off on this one.

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  4. Oh, don't worry about being rude. I didn't mean it that way. I was just curious. Curt medium, e-mail, isn't it?

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  5. It's not email that's curt, it's Blogging that's strange. Maybe we aren't hard-wried for it. I don't know you, but know some of your works, so think I might know you a bit, you have no idea who I am, but I think I have something to say to you. Is there any other form of human interaction with that set up, other than this one I'm engaged in now? Unless I (or another blogee) is very careful, we can fool ourselves into thinking we are having a chat over a drink, whereas it's nothing like that at all.

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