Donnerstag, 28. Juni 2007
Fobias and Phame
Because we have been unwell, our lives have been a bit dreary and housebound lately and I’ve been wondering what in the hell I have to talk about, as I haven’t done anything interesting. Reading my friends entries though, I have been thinking about two phenomena.The first is phobia, thanks to quetzalcoatl. I told him about a young woman who became hysterical at the sight of a feather. It’s the apparent irrationality of phobias that is so fascinating. My phobias are arachnophobia and acrophobia.I used to be so afraid of spiders that a little money-spider on a fence would make me break out in a cold sweat. This fear was much reduced when I remembered what triggered it: having a large back spider held up to my face by two big boys when I was about four. (Incidentally, arachnophobia is not so irrational in Sydney, we have the world’s deadliest spider (Atrax robustus) here. It’s not seen all that often around here fortunately. Recently an effective anti-venene was developed. My other fear is heights. Sometimes I’ve just had to bite the bullet and plough ahead despite my fears, having had no real choice but to proceed. Thus I’ve driven over high, narrow passes in the Hindu-Kush and the Swiss Alps, but I can’t say I found it very enjoyable.I think I’ve recently realised what sparked my fear of heights. One stimulus was watching firework rockets take off when I was only about three. They made me feel as if they were going to pull me up into the sky with them. The other was that my grandmother, a la Wacko Jacko, used to hold me out over the second-floor balcony to show me to passers-by. Maybe now that phobia will lessen too.The other thing I’ve been thinking about is celebrity and modern society’s obsession with it. This started me thinking of my brushes with fame. For a true brush with fame you have to have spoken to, or been near enough to touch the famous one. My brushes have been with:Vivien Leigh - she visited an amateur performance I was in and was EXTREMELY gracious.Deborah Kerr - You’d never believe it.Princess Anne - I was seated behind her at the opera after buying late rush tickets. I was very scruffily dressed, she had very expensive skin. It wouldn’t happen today.Bernadette Peters- I spoke to her and Sondheim at the stage-door after “Into the Woods”.Stephen SondheimAnna Russell - Late in life she toured outback NSW in a show called “The Last Gasp of Anna Russell with Resuscitations by Colin Croft”. I spent much of one week-end with her. She was one of the funniest people I ever came across and she could turn her face inside-out, or pin you to a wall with a raised eyebrow,So instead of a rather po-faced, serious conversation on celebrity, let’s play “My Brushes With Fame”
Abonnieren
Kommentare zum Post (Atom)
25 Kommentare:
I share acrophobia with you.As to being a brushee with fame, hmm, over the last few years, I have posed with Jack Radcliffe (does that count?), I've been involved in a legal matter/meetings with Jane Campion, but how famous do you want the brushers?
does dinner with phillip noyce, terry hayes, tom burlinson, sam neill and nicole kidman count? let me tell you right now, nicole is the dreamiest most gorgeous divine doll!going to the movies with sam neill ? (and his wife of course. we saw um...."tampopo" sam and noriko were frequently in our home. when i was a teen i had the biggest crush on sam. then when i met him i thought oh he could be an accountant. but he is lovely and charming and noriko is a trip...head to toe chanel darling) talking about outrageous sydney property prices with toni collette (as if she couldn't afford them, she was interested in a beachfront apartment at bondi)how about an all night bar hop with boz scaggs? (geeze that was long ago, all he talked about all night was how much he was missing his dog!)giving hugo weaving a lift home? ahaha!!! my car wouldn't start and he had to push it whilst i did a clutch start. (i have to admit, if i hadn't had a boyfriend at the time i would have been there in a second, he was beauteous. that was long ago too)there must be some others somewhere in my closet......(well of course there is "twinkle eyes pearls of wisdom man" who is often in the headlines but i may not reveal his name :-P)oh, i once dated tom carroll. he was twice world surfing champion. beautiful beefcake. sweet too. but i hear these days he cheats on his wife who is the loveliest and prettiest girl from the local highschool. shame on him!!ahahahahaha!!! bill, that was funny remembering those things. xxx
Jack and Jane will do very nicely thank you. I loved "An Angel at My Table" but loathed" The Piano" despite Holly Hunter's good performance. Ian also had a brush with Jack but alas, didn't have his camera with him.I can't stand heights unless ther's a wall to at least chest-height between me and the drop. I feel like my insides are about to drop on the floor.
Does Nicole count as famous? Now you're being disingenuous.You share one of your brushees with Ian but his experience was not so pleasant, so I'll have to let him volunteer that story if he feels like it. Boz Scaggs? Even at the peak of his fame I thought him the most boring musician imaginable.But, I LOVE Toni Collette, you lucky thing
I have a photo of Jack et moi, I can't seem to post photos to LJ, but I could email it to you.Re heights, I could have several pots of tea and a really long chat to you about that. I blame my paternal grandmother for it. Got to run now, more later.
I've had the odd brush with celebrity, but most of them were completely inconsequential. I like to look at it this way: some celebrities have been lucky enough to have had a brush with me!Sam Neill came to an exhibition opening of mine once. He was so obviously not impressed. The feeling, I'm happy to say, was mutual - I didn't like him, either. His brother Michael was a lecturer at the English Department at Auckland University so I probably had more to do with him, a long time ago.
Weird Al Yankovic -- he used to want to date a friend of mine, very shy in person if you can believe itRoland Messnier -- I don't know if he really counts, he has been the White House pastry chef since Nixon. Quite an interesting guy, I took a 9-month course on being a professional pastry chef with him which was both grueling and fascinating.Several more I've met at some convention or other, by standing in really long lines to get autographs. My problem is that I am generally oblivious to famous people, as I have a horrible memory for names and faces. Smile and nod, that's how I get by.As for phobias, I'm a bit of a claustrophobe. I think it comes from a spelunking incident where I was told a passage was one way, so I started crawling, and it just got smaller and smaller until there was rock all around and I had to turn my head to the side to get anywhere and I just lost it. The guy behind me had to speak slowly and calmly to get me to back out. Woof.
I have acrophobia. I try to fight it, because it didn't develop until I was 25 and know it's all in my head. But it is punishing. The last time I stood on a high balcony was at danthered's apartment. For the next several days, whenever I was trying to get to sleep I would have dreams of falling.I have not brushed with any celebrities of the screen. The two biggest authors I have met in person (at book readings and signings) are two of my favourites: Timothy Findley and Annie Dillard. For such a serious writer, Dillard is a gas in person, an intellectual Blonde. She seems very kind, too.When I was about 15 my parents took me to see a performance by the National Ballet of Canada. This in itself was not unusual for us, but after the performance my aunt and uncle, who were arts patrons, took us into a reception with the dancers. I remember prima ballerina Veronica Tennant standing alone and talking to me for five minutes or so. To this day I can't figure out why she took so much interest in me, why other people left us alone, or what we talked about. I liked her, but at the time was too naive to realize it was an unusual encounter.
Your Anna Russell weekend sounds fab! I've often wondered what she was like. I have a LJ entry of my very brief encounters with celebs here. I also gave gallery directions to Edward Gorey who was wearing an oversized mink coat and looked as though he'd just walked out of one of his own drawings. In retrospect I link the start of my 2 phobias to events where I felt completely helpless and so frightened I couldn't move.*Snakes: watched my mom almost drown and take dad with her when she thought she saw a snake in the water when I was 5 or 6.*Heights: When I was about 10 I saw a toddler crawl beyond the steel railing and remain at the very edge of the observation platform at Niagara Falls.
I met Andy Warhol. Which is very cool, because I am a huge fan.Unfortunately, I can't remember a thing that he said to me (he would probably have approved of that.)
Oh drat. I was so hoping you'd have some complex and intellectually astute recollections of Mr Warhol. But you're right, this one is much more in keeping with the subject!
Bryn Terfel put his arm around me once! A friend took a photo and I look completely flabbergasted, which I was. We were having a lovely chat about the operatic possibilities offered by the Mabinogi when he spotted my friend setting up the shot and effortlessly moved in for a pose. All I could say for like two weeks was "Bryn Terfel...sigh...he's so DREAmy!"For a while, my college campus was popular for location shots, but my brushes with Billy Crystal and Jeremy Piven hardly merit mention by comparison--except to note how short these guys are. Mel Gibson short!
Weird Al is appearing in Sydney at the moment. He deserves to be more celebrated than most of the rather unfunny crop of current yank comics. Stangely, I used to enjoy hiding from my family for extended periods in our cramped, dark linen cupboard. As a child , I was a bit weird myself.
I understand entirely how you feel about high balconies.I think I've seen Victoria Tennant on film.may I use your reference to ballet to tell an almost entirely irrelevant story?.....Well, I'll tell it anyway.Sir Robert Helpmann was in Sydney, having accompanied Nureyev on tour. It was raining, so he hailed a taxi. He was wearing a full-length mink and his fingernails were painted silver. When they pulled up at the theatre, he got out but forgot his umbrella. The taxi driver leaned out the window:"Hey, fairy, you forgot your wand", he cried. Sir Robert waved the brolly theatrically and:" DISAPPEAR!", he hissed.
Edward Gorey! Now I'm really impressed. For me, that beats the Queen or the Pope hands down.Snakes don't scare me at all, even though we've got ten of the world's most venomous, including the top two.They're just not as scary for me as those creepy spiders with all those scurrying legs. .My posts today would do nothing for tourism, with all this talk of deadly Australian wildlife.
Hmmm. I know a lot of American political figures, but I don't consider them celebrities. I grew up knowing singer Aimee Mann, who lived in my neighborhood. I went to college with and sat next to comedian Jon Stewart in two classes. But the only real brush of fame I had was with Tim Curry, who opened a wrought iron door and slammed me in the face with it. He was very gracious in his apology, as I lay writhing on the concrete.
HOORAY!!
Our favorite animator who you drove all the way to upstate New York, Barry Purvis!
Andy Warhol, wow! May one ask under what cicumstances?When he was last here he became entranced with a kitsch shop called "Copperart". He spent a fortune on horrid copper gifts for everyone and insisted that his entourage should repeatedly visit with him. I don't think he really had much to say in words, but then he didn't have to did he?
SWOON!
Smashed in the face by Frankenfurter? Now that's what I call a brush with fame.
Oh, Jon Stewart is on the dinner list! I do hope he wasn't a complete jerk ...I don't know that I've ever seen a movie star. I once saw a minor TV actor eating noodle soup at a restaurant in Chicago. That was notable only for how thoroughly unwashed he looked. I don't count literary readings as Meetings unless I've had actual conversations with the author, which narrows my brushes down to two: Mark Strand and Diane Ackerman. I already posted a long entry about Diane Ackerman. She is such a lovely, gracious, *alive* person. I admire her tremendously. Mark Strand I used to see so regularly that he would watch me warily out of the corner of his eye, ready to run away if I should approach. But I just hopped up and down and stared. He's dreeeeeemy. And such a poet!I wouldn't call it a phobia, but I haven't enjoyed heights since hanging lights in the theater in college and the ladder fell out from under me, leaving me hanging from the light grid 20 feet above the floor.
Sir Robert Helpman, "Are you gay?"
It was a book signing at the Art Gallery of Ontario. I bought his Philosophy from A to Z thing and he autographed it with a fairly elabortate Campbells soup can drawing. (I subsequently sold this for a fair bit of money, but that's another story.) Anyway, he chatted away while he was doing the drawing - about what I can't remember. But knowing his reputation, it wouldnt have been all that deep.Just remebered another celeb I've met - one from your part of the world too. Joan Sutherland - she of the large frame and similar sized voice - performed in Trauma several times when I was a super at the Canadian Opera Company. But she also happened to rent a house at the end of our street during her stay. She liked to work in their garden and I apprached her there once for an atograph. She was in the Merry Widow at the time, but signed it The Merry Gardener. Nice lady. Very down to earth. Not like her hubby.I was also in Norma and Anna Bolena with her, by the way.
Pas possible!
Kommentar veröffentlichen