Brian Duffy nails it in an interview with the Guardian–
With all this going on, why did he stick with photography? “I loved it,” he says. “But it was only enjoyable because it was mysterious. The revelation [about why a picture worked] came after – when I’d go, ‘Christ, that’s interesting!’” (The Guardian’s square brackets.)
Later, he burned all his stuff. Burning your stuff is always a comedy. I had The Committed Men in a green metal wastebin & the lighter fuel out when a–now long-vanished & for all I know dead–friend persuaded me to give it to her instead. “Do what you like with it, just remember I never want to see the fucker again,” I warned her. Two years later, around 1969, on the phone, “You know that manuscript I lent you… ?”
I once burned all the letters I’d ever received from a lover, who later became quite famous. I sometimes wonder, if I hadn’t burned them, whether I would have been the kind of person who would have sold them. I don’t think I am. But the imagining is an interesting place to go occasionally. Self-torment etc etc.
I have so few letters from lovers I have to keep them all & pretend they were from the same person. I can’t afford to just go burning them willy nilly. Come to think of it, it’s much the same with manuscripts.
If the letters are anything like the manuscripts, can I read them please! Less is more etc etc etc. (Most of the ones I received were so ghastly the only thing they were worthy of was a match. Any man who needs to write that much to a woman is clearly not worth his weight in ink. Or something.)
I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.
I’ve been thinking about your comment on the last post but one, about the lack of women visitors here. I’m as puzzled as you. I especially expected responses on this post–
http://tinyurl.com/yba4ecz
–but yours was the only one. Maybe older women are as uninteresting to most women as they are to most men ? Do you think ageism is that deep-seated ? Or is it maybe that my f/sf audience is more interested in fictional immortality than real people ? I thought Jo Cammack’s film was a cracker, anyway, terrifically human & sly, & at the time of my post it was still available on iPlayer. Not sure if you can see it anywhere now.
Jo Cammack’s film was brilliant – for many different reasons.
Perhaps you have less female readers than men? I suspect that is so.
Perhaps the women are busy reading their old love-letters that they haven’t got time for your blog. Whereas, I’ve burned all mine…
(should be a ‘so’ between the are and the busy…)
hey, we’re out here—by the way, Chip says hi to you. I had dinner with him & Dennis last night, and we got into a discussion on blogs–which of course he doesn’t read and I said–look at the cool people I talk to (or something like that) meaning you and Lara and other commenteers (like mountaineers)…so your ripples go though estrogenic as well as testosteronic brains.
Love letters? I still have one batch from the ’70s. I thought we had the same sense of humour. Then she suggested I see a psychiatrist. Things got a bit awkward after that. Eventually, she became “a professional person,” and started teaching in primary school.
I’m sure there’s some kind of happy ending there, if only we had time to look for it.
Hi Mia. Glad you’re still out there giving the Ambiente Hotel a bit of credibility as an equal opportunity venue. Say Hi to Chip for me next time you see him, also, Long time no see. “Commenteers”!
The stuff-burning in In Viriconium stays with me… something about the way the burning of belongings undercuts my packrattiness with a militant assertion of the ephemerality of all things is invigorating once it gets done being terrifying.
Hi Aaron. I was quite pleased with that bonfire scene at the time, for much the same reasons. I couldn’t have contemplated it then; but I’ve moved a lot closer to Audsley King’s position since, old diva that I am.
I expect a lot of us could relate to that bonfire scene. For a long time- teens through thirties, more or less- I was a journaler. Compelled etc. But then every so often I’d look through the last two or three years’ entries and be so embarrassed and/or disgusted with my take or behavior at the time that clearly this or that page would have to go. And this process would gain momentum culminating of course with the burning of everything to date, again. And starting over, etc. In my forties I seem to have finally moved on from this. Maybe because I’m writing other things which keep accumulating even though most are crap. In most other areas of effort though- most notably the drawings- I still love a good burn.
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