Thursday, August 07, 2014

Quote of the day

"In his legendary solo performance piece The Furtive Nudist, the late shaman-clown and zen-ventriloquist Ken Campbell claimed he was able to move around the world entirely undressed and entirely unnoticed, because the last thing anyone was expecting to see was a naked man, and therefore passers-by just screened the image out of the collective consciousness. Likewise, as I move among the ancient standing stones of the Wiltshire village of Avebury early on a Tuesday morning in June in the company of local resident Julian Cope, who is dressed as a cross between an '80s peace convoy anarchist and a WWII Nazi flying ace, what's remarkable is not how much attention he draws, but how little."

Stewart Lee meets Julian Cope for The Quietus, to talk about the latter's debut novel 131. Published by Faber, no less, it sounds mind-bogglingly mental and apparently owes a debt to D H Lawrence - that's my interest piqued, then...

Lee's also been talking to the Guardian about Fist Of Fun, as part of the paper's coverage of the Edinburgh Festival. Interesting to hear how much he hated the second series - I never noticed much of a difference in quality.

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