With a flourish
Today it is the turn of the following grandees to celebrate their birthdays:
Gary Oldman
J.S. Bach
Matthew Broderick
oh...then there's me...
Strange though, quite how one's favourite people appear to choose you at times, rather than being the other way round. Bach, well, I am sure I do not have to do much arguing to convince anybody that he is worthy of admiration. I spent my teenage years doing battle with his fugues and loving every minute. Performing the motet 'Komm Jesu Komm' to an audience when I was 18 (lead tenor player, 1st choir) is one of those moments in history that still makes my breath hitch and my tears well up. It was better than the best sex I have ever had, or will ever have.
Matthew Broderick? When I was a postgraduate at St Andrews they used to screen a classic or vintage film every (I think) Wednesday night, at some ridiculously late hour. In fact, if memory serves, I was usually only just home from the cinema as 'Sailing By' played on Radio Four, so that makes it 00.48 or something - just before the World Service kicks in. Anyway, the night they screened 'Ferris Bueller' was quite unique. The queue for tickets went for something like four blocks. The theatre got so full that the tickets ran out, and so they kindly overlooked the fire regulations and let the extra worshippers sit on the floor in the aisles. Everyone sang 'Twist & Shout' and couldn't care less if they were reading for PhDs in Russian Communist Art. Nobody, not any other film, ever got a ticket queue of 4 blocks. Only Broderick. And I loved him even more for 'Torch Song Trilogy'. Well, as a teenager, beggars couldn't be choosers. It was a gay film, AND it was on the telly. I think I can find it in my heart to forgive him for marrying Miss Gulch.
Gary Oldman. Oooooh, Gary. I thank you. Joe Orton thanks you. The bloody world ought to thank you. And you play piano like a goddamned fiend. Need I say more? Yes, I think so...blue Dracula specs...
As for me? Bow down ye mighty...not ;)