"All of us were obsessed. By what? Ourselves, I suppose."
I keep reading and re-reading all the Edward Gorey interviews I can find, as there are so many excellent nuggets of wisdom and great quotes buried in them. Take the excerpt below as a terrific example. I recognize that nothing new or breathtakingly insightful is being said here, but that's not the point. For me it's how Mr. Gorey said it:
"Oh dear, there are so many things we're brought up to believe that it takes you an awfully long time to realize they aren't you. 'Why don't you travel? Why don't you get a master's degree in...something? Why don't you try doing this, that, or the other?' Well, you're probably not doing it because it's not right. Why worry about it? God knows, there's enough to worry about without worrying about worrying about things.
You know, Ted Shawn, the choreographer, he used to say, 'When in doubt, twirl.' Oh I do think that's such a great line."
Stephen Schiff - "Edward Gory and the Tao of Nonsense," The New Yorker, November 9, 1992, collected in Ascending Peculiarity
I think one of the things I like best is that he spoke like he wrote. The second bit, about Ted Shawn, doesn't really necessarily have much of anything to do with what came before it in this excerpt, or previous text that I've omitted. Yet somehow it doesn't matter. That second bit still works and adds lyricism to the prosaic down home-ish advice that preceded it.
"Oh dear, there are so many things we're brought up to believe that it takes you an awfully long time to realize they aren't you. 'Why don't you travel? Why don't you get a master's degree in...something? Why don't you try doing this, that, or the other?' Well, you're probably not doing it because it's not right. Why worry about it? God knows, there's enough to worry about without worrying about worrying about things.
You know, Ted Shawn, the choreographer, he used to say, 'When in doubt, twirl.' Oh I do think that's such a great line."
Stephen Schiff - "Edward Gory and the Tao of Nonsense," The New Yorker, November 9, 1992, collected in Ascending Peculiarity
I think one of the things I like best is that he spoke like he wrote. The second bit, about Ted Shawn, doesn't really necessarily have much of anything to do with what came before it in this excerpt, or previous text that I've omitted. Yet somehow it doesn't matter. That second bit still works and adds lyricism to the prosaic down home-ish advice that preceded it.