5240/18160
I don’t believe it but I’ve actually read a whole book to completion. I think I might have managed to do that at Christmas too (though can’t remember now what it was), but it’s been hard to find the time or energy since you know who crawled into the house demanding food and trainers. The book was Homeward Bound by Peter Ames Carlin, a biography of Paul Simon.It was interesting to read about his and be reminded of his hits, although the biography suffers from having no direct access to the man himself. And there’s a weird bit in the final chapter where the author talks about going to see him being interviewed and him locking eyes with Simon beforehand. The author thinks that Simon recognised him, was aware of what he was doing and was trying to stare him out, but I think it’s just as likely that Simon was distractedly staring into the middle distance and this guy was reading what he wanted into all of this. Which is the basic problem with any biography. A lot of supposition and guess work.
But Carlin has done pretty well at bringing together all the interviews and evidence of the rocky relationship between Simon and Garfunkel and the various controversies that Simon has found himself in. His theories are believable enough and obviously an autobiography or an authorised biography have their own problems with balance. Simon (and indeed Garfunkel) are fascinating men, both with strong egos and talents. Who carried who? Who needed who more?
I mean it’s easy to side with Simon, given he was the writer and has a bit more of a sense of humour beneath his pretension. But the ups and downs of this relationship are fascinating. And yet if they really hated each other so much, would they have kept getting back together? Maybe. But an overheard shouting match doesn’t prove anything. We’ve all had those with everyone we care about.
Even so, I’d recommend the book to any Simon fans and it’s sent me scuttling back to Simon. This week I have hired the film of One Track Pony and re-bought the album, which is much better than I remembered it being. “
That’s Why God Made The Movies†is now one of my favourite Simon songs. Disturbing and beautiful in equal measure and infuriatingly catchy. Stewart Lee used to get upset with me singing one line from Simon’s “Papa Hobo†over and over again, so he will be glad (for many reasons - the Art Garfunkel that he clearly is) that he isn’t touring with me now. As I keep singing, “When I was born, my mother died,†over and over again.
Elsewhere in the arts it has been questioned whether it is appropriate to joke about a dead baby (if so, then I am fucked), but this jaunty and surreal lyric about a mother’s death in childbirth is as intriguing as it is darkly amusing. As I discuss in my show people tend to not mind when a subject is discussed “seriously†or more artistically. But comedy must also confront dark subjects. Happy Now? was all about the fear of losing my baby, which is not something I find funny in itself, but there is humour in the lengths my brain will go to to make me imagine this horror. It sounds like Gervais’ joke is about his fear that he’d be a terrible parent. I can understand why someone who had actually lost a child might not enjoy either of our shows, but if a comedian stopped himself making jokes for fear that someone in the audience might have had personal experience of them then he or she would be unable to joke about anything. I think it’s worth every comedian asking themselves whether their edgy joke is worth the potential upset it might cause, but if you have a comedian who confronts the nasty things in life you can’t sit through the jokes about the stuff that doesn’t touch on your experience and then only get upset when one does.
On this one I side with Gervais and also with Paul Simon, because this discombobulating start to an upbeat, but deeply sad song is what makes it so striking and haunting and beautiful. It makes you feel, even if you’re not quite sure what you’re feeling and that’s what art is about. And pop music and comedy are art (in the right hands at least).
My own gig in Winchester started a bit slowly, with both the audience and possibly myself seeming a little tentative, but the second half especially seemed to catch. I joked about playing the library, rather than the theatre next door and this was a harder room to play - high ceilinged, the whole audience in view. But managed to pull it out of the bag.
