Dear dear Oz defector to Britain broadcaster/writer/know-it-all Clive James just died. He hadn't been well for sometime. I wish the fucker had done yoga and watched his diet (well he listened and did) and meditated more! But we only live once. And he lived more than once. And he knew it. Modesty wasn't always Clive's greatest achievement to mankind. Yet, anyone would be hard put to second-guess him, make a fool out of him, or even get close to his brilliant intellect. How many languages did he know? Russian for sure. French. If there was an alien life force, Mr. James would welcome. With sensible skepticism.
Mr Clive was a bit like a latter day Salvador Dali. He soaked up the limelight to saturation. Yet still was he one of (if not the most brilliant man in the room). Always was. Was Dali. He milked the media as if been born on a farm.
An instantaneous reaction to this sad, sad news. Just as I was beginning to be happy you old fucker! You still command the wand of life even in death:)
Mr. Clive James will be forever remembered and sorely missed as a commentator on our human foibles, fancies and failures.
This a song I know that Mr. James held great affection for [terrible syntax I'm sure he'd berate me of as well as my expletives above]. If you have ever read his writings of living you will know why. The truth of unreliable mémoires….
Here’s my contribution to the ‘wake’ :)
GRAMSCI MONUMENT, NYC-2013-Thomas Hirschorn (photo ©Andrew Lucre) screengrab from https://planetlucre.smugmug.com/Art/GRAMSCI-MONUMENT-NYC-2013/i-JKNvkx6
And now I learn that my mentor and dare I say one of my very few ‘believers’ Sir Jonathan Miller has also died. Is this true?! I was just about to write him a letter! I need to process this…..I’m not joking….really…reallly…is this some cruel joke by a higher power……..!!!
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RE: Jonathan Miller's 'passing' as stated at my original posting: [this is written instantly without proof and possibly subject to change, though I doubt that.]
4.30pm Nov 29, 2019: It could do with a couple of re-writes admittedly, but then, who's to care but me! I only have myself as an answer. I know mine own website. And I knew 'the guy'. Most of you never did, nor took that much interest in his work. A few post-scripts here but -Mr Jonathan Miller never said anything intentionally to piss off anyone. Nor offend. He spoke from the hip. The bare bones of things. What else would ever be the point. His words were never weapons of attack simply despair at sycophancy and lack of curiosity. I always wondered how Mr. Miller and Mr. Nietzsche would get alone over coffee let alone dinner. A date of intellectual disaster or of transcendence? There's a challenge to ya Wallace Shawn! Or even Liev Schreiber as Mr. N. , then again maybe Willem Dafoe or even Baryshnikov - well it’s my movie I’ll cast who the hell I want~! Though, who in the world would one cast as Dr Jonathan Miller?!!! A crazy idea entered my mind- Jim Carrey? Crazy Andrew idea:)
Remembering so many things: the great mezzo Susan Graham as Dorabella (Mozart's opera Così fan tutee) looking the most svelte and gorgeous I'd ever seen, on stage in Giorgio Armani attire (Jonathan Miller knew everyone) at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
Another idea that never came to fruition: Mr. Miller wanted to stage Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi with teenagers (the original Jarry idea came from students ridiculing their physics teacher). ….
Can't remember Jonathan's quote something like famous opera singers jetting in seaweed still clinging and trailing them:) Anything Jonathan Miller did had to exude the vitality of a human body. Nothing was ever to do with clever/brilliance/the paycheck/the all expenses paid holiday exotic gig. One can disagree with the vision of a productions, but never for being 'half-baked' or visually impaired.
original posting below….
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There is a lot to be said for being off grid and not hearing the 'news of the world'. I always wondered what it would be like for some off grid 'folk' who heard a week later about 9/11. Or a month. Just a thought.
I am totally shocked by the death of Dr Jonathan Miller. I wasn't joking when I said I was about to write a belated letter thanking him of his support! I always thought he'd live to 105. He was the most observant person of everything (let alone health) who I have ever met!
I am in shock. I met the Faber & Faber publisher, an 'obscene' decades ago at a PR launch, who mentioned in passing that they had just published Miller's book Subsequent Performances, and due to my outburst of enthusiasm, kindly sent a copy. Well- I was someone to know. Then. Maybe.:{ WellL: that book was a revelation.
The now beleaguered Kevin Spacey was a baby to Jonathan Miller's Jack Lemmon in his production of Long Day's Journey into Night on the West End. Jonathan never made mistakes. I have some somewhat malicious stories that came my way over the years but in my opinion, Mr Jonathan Miller was somewhat if not almost a God.
It was a strange twist of fate that I should be cast as an actor by a director in a Shakespeare production at London's Old Vic. Mr Jonathan Miller was artistic director at that time of the Old Vic. We had never met. Dates get unreliable unless one interrogates them. Long story short: I had wanted to direct/produce a certain play (I'm being short 'cause maybe someone will want to buy my memoires- still not sure if they are worth reading in all honesty). So, crazy guy thus am, had no time to direct, acting on stage everynight, stuck to my guns and produced said play.
Anyways, the director (who did a great job) is now world famous and what am I now relegated to, talking to squirrels. Not that I mind so much. Jonathan Miler not only attended my opening night of that production but brought with him another great somewhat more avant garde director Richard Jones (working at the Old Vic). How good does it get. Well. thereby hangs a tale.
….
I ended up assisting (my chutzpah..) Jonathan on his Bach's St Matthew Passion (and the BBC television)……maybe I should stop here….
Jonathan wanted to strip Bach's masterpiece of all its cobwebs whereby the audience lulled in the recitatives only opening their ears for the famous arias: a wondrous work of storytelling that should be told in its entirety not just sampled.
I am devastated that he has just died. He hated snobbery. He had his, well, blindspots ney opinions. I didn't fuck up- the regs (they say systemic but humans create the puss) are always fucked against one. Anyway, I was supposed to take/direct a rehearsal of the Bach St Matthew outside Barcelona whilst he did a TV interview. The puss got me.
I soldiered forth to Spain. Jonathan was like: shit happens, you're here now. No problem. The blindspots (as if I could ever criticize Mr Jonathan Miler). He hated Gaudi’s architecture but loved the ducks (or were they geese in Barcelona’s Cathedral). But Jonathan loved Giorgio Morandi. And when I learnt he was welding metal into sculptures in his time off from directing at the Sante Fe Opera, I was like. …… I am just in awe ….
What Jonathan really really wanted was to be a surgeon or molecular whatever who changed the world of medicine. Have you seen his The Body in Question series for the BBC? ! Well, he changed my life and brought so so much joy to so so many others through his insights of human pomposity.
Andrew!
[this is written instantly without proof and possibly subject to change, though I doubt that.]
Could there possibly be any musical link to end all this? The tears. Maybe. Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns was written overnight, if not, may never have been born. Similarly this aria from Samuel Barber’s opera Vanessa-the singer had chutzpah enough to ask the composer-maybe there should be a song here….Frozen comes to mind..
.
Change is what hurts worst; change alone can kill.
Change kills us, finally-not these earthly things.
Finally one hates all the immutability,
…..
Florida Revisited (Elizabeth Bishop)
“Everyone told me my dreams were lies because I said out loud the things I should have kept secret. But all I wanted was to make it true: to wish, and to wish and to wish and to make it true.”- Angel Deverall
