"A BOOK AT BEDTIME" - TENNESSEE WLLIAMS NOTEBOOKS
Well...! It has been a quiet - a looooong quiet - patch since my last post, and no recent screenings of U & ME & TENNESSEE - sorry to report ...
*But* -
A lovely thing happened a little over a month ago. I got a call from Sarah Langan, a Radio producer at the BBC, asking if I'd like to read some extracts from TENNEESSEE WILLIAMS's Journals for BBC Radio 4's "A Book At Bedtime" show...
( " *WOULD* I ?!!" ) -
I was even at that moment standing in a wonderful bookshop in Charing Cross Road in London, just about to buy a copy of........TENNESSEE WILLIAMS's NOTEBOOKS !
Cosmic, or what ? ! !
And as Fate would have it, standing nearby eavesdropping on my phone conversation with Sarah Langan was my old friend MIKE CARLSON ( his blog is: IRRESISTIBLE TARGETS and it's - irresistible! ) As I hung up Mike sauntered over to me, drawling out:
"I have always depended upon the kindness of researchers!"
The selections from Tenn's Journals are a lot of fun, especially his astute summation of André Gide, gleaned from that writer's own notebooks which Tennessee was reading during the try-outs for A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE in New Haven, Connecticut:
"Miss Gide seems to have been an old auntie all her life !
...I don't have the impression, from her journal, that
she liked anyone really very deeply except Miss Gide,
whom she pretends to deprecate but whom I think she
regards as a girl of destiny pretty nearly all the way through...
(She declares, at one point, that she spends 5 hours a day
practicing Bach and Chopin - That girl's ass and fingers must
have been something prodigious! To sleep she drinks a
"libation of orange water". Girl ! " )
Ah Tenn ! How wonderfully wicked - and perceptive - you were !
You can hear these selections on the BBC website at the "A BOOK AT BEDTIME" home page - for seven days from today, the 12th of February, 2010 - I hope you enjoy them !
Labels: A Book At Bedtime, André Gide, BBC Radio 4, Mike Carlson, Tennessee Williams, U ME Tennessee
posted by Paul Birchard at 4:13 PM
3 Comments:
Lovely read Paul. Enjoyed it. Reminded me of the time you read the opening of Catcher in the Rye while we were out for lunch at George Square! That remains one of my fave books! Miss the times! :) Do write in sometime, haven't heard from you in a while. Love, Upasna
Upasna Maharani ! Thank you for your kind words! Another *cosmic* thing that occurred a couple of weeks ago, is that I got a call from the BBC here in Glasgow about 4:30 p.m., asking me to come in immediately and read.......THE OPENING PAGE OF *THE CATHER IN THE RYE* Once there, I mused and considered and realised that Mr. Salinger must have just departed, and indeed this was the case...I hope all is well for you in Dehli - I've just been in touch with Tapas Guha (Google him) - a terrific illustrator based there in Dehli - he and his creative partner have revived the "Feluda" stories of Satyajit Ray in the form of graphic novels, like Tin Tin - you may have seen them there...E-mail me!
Wow!very cosmic indeed :)
Will send in an email to your myway account separately.
Post a Comment
<< Home