the last interview on the last day

accompanied dr k into town yesterday, she to see before sunset, closing her festival experience with it. she'd seen before sunrise on friday when she left work. when we'd gone down to tanners hatch for spski's birthday Ia had told us how much he rated those films, so there was a link for dr k back to that weekend too.

i went to see the last interview with edward said.

i'd tried a month or so back and it had been sold out for the week, this is @ the ica, this time it was on from friday to tuesday, i caught the last day.

a very simple film, just two men sat on a sofa, fading to black every now and again to structure it. it starts with a quote from roland barthes which is quoted in beginnings, about how the only interview worth doing with a writer is one in which the writer talks about what he cannot write.

there was so much in that film, words spoken by this articulate man, it was a little overwhelming.

he began by talking about his illness, he'd had leukemia for the last ten years of his life. how the illness weakened him, how he'd stopped playing the piano for the last 8 months, how he couldn't read as easily as he once could. heart breaking, echoes of my dad, although he hasn't ever got that sick, similar ages, cancer, also echoes of my mum later on, talking about his childhood in palestine and then egypt, my mum was in egypt as a young girl around about the time said left cairo for america.

as a child in cairo his mum used to take him to the opera, he developed a dislike of verdi, and a love of rossini. he spoke about a performance of the barber of seville in cairo, the great singer.. ? most famous for singing tosca? sang the barber. this kind of knowledge, and that era of great performers, something my elderly people used to talk about, somehow related to jet li, in this digital age the only one who still has that level of skill and mastery of his body... verdi's aida, seen as some kind of pinnacle by others, hated by him, echoes of vertigo here, sebald in verona? his companion bemoaning the modern opera audience, not realising they are part of the occasion, images of carriages pausing to allow young men to step up to young ladies...

said says he very occasionally saw a tarzan film as a child, which he loved, and he identified with the white man in it. he quoted fanon as saying that when he saw tarzan in algeria he identified with the white man, when he saw it in france he identified with the black men.

at one point said talks about a line by gerard manley hopkins which he quotes as:

all things counter, original, spare,

that has been important to him his whole life. the whole poem called pied beauty

i work on what is very difficult:

music
palestine / israel
the role of the intellectual

a game he developed as a young man, the difference between filiation & affiliation. the first being your duty to your family and your past, the second being those contacts you make outside of that....

the great thing about music and literature is that... and here i wish i had his ability to articulate,.. sometimes you come across subjects or areas which are like vista's, they spread out in front of you, (like cavafy he said).

late style, two options, to grow old and become reconciled, mellow with the approach of death, or to seek out and reveal the contradictions, find more complexity, intransigence.... i hope he finished that book...

the film closed with his particular vision (utopian) of palestine / israel, a country where two people's coexist, equally. he had been a supporter of partition, but it was clear from india/pakistan, ireland, cyrprus, that this was not the way to go...

what a film, what a blessed man.

i spoke to my mum and dad afterwards (filiation), planned to meet dad on friday, i'm seeing my sister tonight, pictures,

last night after the film i lay around in the park just by the ica, in the sun, asking the sky to give me the strength and the eloquence of that man...

later i went down to brixton to see D (not fiat) whose off to new york today for three weeks. E there, we missed our chance to snuggle up with six feet under and that's probably that for this current spell of us. genesis of another song if i want it. lovely, lovely, lovely to see D.

& today i'm doing music, both L & S cancelled, K could never do it today, H still coming round i guess? even if noone comes i'll still play...

x