extract from “there’s a lull in my life” by cal winters (1947)

"you should have been nice to me" morrissey (1995)

“for me…..the hardest thing about the process of dying was losing my body. i had always relied on my body for rebellion. it was where my secret life occurred. that sounds strange, doesn’t it? you see, i had always been seen as someone who lived only inside their own mind. i would read furiously, i would sit and think for hours on end. so it was assumed that i had no body. my life was judged to be entirely cerebral. perhaps this was true at the start but later on i gained a body and everything about it seemed so much more valuable than my tired analytical thoughts. so, when my thoughts became the target of critique and resistance, like all public lives eventually do, i secretly began to see my body as my one hope for gaining some control over what was happening to me. at the beginning i enjoyed building up muscle and then letting it waste away. eventually, this frantic creation and destruction settled down and my secret life became much more even. i would walk for hours alone and turn off my mind as much as possible…..i would train myself to do that.

since dying, i have watched my closest friends and family members investigate my life. why? i think my death just seemed out of place. it was too dissimilar to the life they had seen me live. it’s too late now to tell them how i really spent my time and i truly, truly regret that.”

extract from an interview with liam pace (2001)

“i have spent my life looking for gods in heaven. now i understand that i should have been looking for architects in darlington.”

extract from an interview with phillipa jones (2009)

“for me, 2010 is the number of reasons why the beginning of a new decade doesn’t interest me in the slightest.”

extract from an interview with denzel bennett (1942)

“i have skills, you know. i have a wit like none you’ve known. i can turn a phrase…from brown to beige.”

metonymy

jacques derrida – fear of writing:

extract from an interview with carla underwood (1972)

carla:

“defiance is a wonderful thing. even when the pain is terrible, so much pride can be gained from admitting to yourself that you are right.”

extract from an interview with albert melvin (1968)

albert:

“….after him, everyone wanted to land themselves in jail. it became an unstoppable force. each one of us was trying to commit the most despicable crime we could imagine so that we could return to the prison where he was transformed from violent thug to the don of violent thuggery. at the time, i possessed a feeble criminal mind. so the most i could bear to do was steal the shoes of a boy down the street……still, that led me to the borstel in matlock and, from there, i think we all remember what happened [laughs with audience]…..”