Howard Hampton, author of Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses is this week's guest blogger over at Powells.com. His topic? Peter O'Toole:
And that in roundabout nutshell (one exactly large enough to hold the 14th Earl of Gurney and his effects) is what I love about pop culture: a potential for a distilled audacity that High Art Statements so often sublimate in intellectual anal retentiveness. Like so many figures from the 20th Century, O'Toole's Gurney liked to lounge on his own personal cross. Only he kept his right in the main hall, bigger than life and twice as unnatural. A distressed visitor wonders what that thing is supposed to be. "Watusi walking stick," crows O'Toole, turning the words over in his mouth. "Big people, the Watusi." Spoken like a giant in a world of Pygmies.
Read the whole essay at Powell's.com. Or check out the table of contents of Born in Flames at the main HUP site.
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