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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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Posted: 29 Jul 2009 02:00 am |
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I am always interested in the stories of ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Sometimes they subside back into ordinariness. Sometimes, they stay extraordinary. Either way, such stories are fascinating.
Here are two such tales. I will add others as I run across them. Or, better, you can contribute some of your own.
Jaye Davidson was working as a florist * in London when he was hired for the part of the character Dil in Neil Jordan's movie The Crying Game in 1992. The moment in which the gorgeous female is revealed to be a transexual man has been described as one of the most shocking in cinema.
After The Crying Game Davidson announced that he no longer wished to have anything to do with the cinema, but Roland Emmerich wanted him for Stargate and said Daidson could name his own price. Davidson said "a million pounds, then", expecting Emmerich to laugh and walk away. But Emmerich paid the million pounds, and Davidson had to keep his word and do the film. Then he walked away, back to his florist shop, and that was the end of his film career.
* Some sources say Davidson was working "in the fashion industry" when he was plucked from obscurity by Neil Jordan. It hardly matters which is correct: he emerged from the wallpaper, and then went back there back again, whichever the pattern of wallpaper may have been.
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 29 Jul 2009 02:28 am |
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Jane Solomon was 20 and living in Chelsea when her novel Hotel 167 was published in 1993.
Here is how the book was reviewed in The independent (UK):
“Hotel 167 comes with editorial assurances that it is 'intensely autobiographical'. In fact the text is seeded with clues. Solomon's insertions of 'you see' break the cold analytical tone, address the reader directly, beseech understanding. Just as Maud has to transfer her pain to her arm before she can care for it, so Solomon has had to transfer it to Maud before she can write it down. The third-person narrative is a device, the confiding asides are a lure. And yet Solomon is ruthless with her alter ego. She undermines Maud, lays bare her manipulative game-playing but is unequivocal about the despair behind it: 'There was no help.' The novel's description of NHS care and authoritarian attitudes is depressingly convincing: 'She wished that she could say something, make her feelings known. At the same time, however, she felt that this attitude would be interpreted as presumptuous.' Maud, dealing with doctors, is a mouse trying to play games with a cat. The hospital passes her on from one doctor to another, from one form of medication to another. They don't listen to her. She can't speak to them. To Grumer, she offers an exotic-erotic narrative centred round an older couple, Yasmin and Alan, who - she says - have involved her in their relationship. Bewildered, salivating and appalled, he trails her to the cinema where the three made love while watching Last Tango in Paris, to the restaurant where they masturbated each other with oysters, to the graveyard where they smoked cannabis, and where Maud cuts herself in his presence. At last he tries to have sex with her, confirming what Maud expects: her thoughts, 'that had been her friends during her enforced solitariness', are of no value to him, need to be suppressed with pills or answered with sex. Hotel 167 describes its looking-glass world with remarkable artistry and unsparing black humour. Deliberately, it challenges its readership. Self-mutilation, like anorexia, is common among young women. Are we listening? Do we want to understand? And then comes the most disturbing question: does Solomon want us to understand?”
A reviewer on Amazon.com was more explicit. He regarded the book as explicit evidence of exploitation of a young patient by her psychotherapist:
"FIVE STARS!!! Jane was using a tape recorder obviously in her own interviews with psychiatrists and in their absence someone was taping them, as this book is beyond the years of a young author and is mature professional opinion. However, no matter which older human and electronic aides she used, she has shown all the sexual criteria of a young girl experimenting with men who are tempted by her promiscuity. Unfortunately, psychiatrists use mental young women in this way - even literary ones."
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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Posted: 29 Jul 2009 02:46 am |
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So far, so amazing. But the story of Jane Solomon doesn't end there. If you go to an obscure website * named Words by C Z Robertson you can find this exchange:
COLLIN: A few years ago I read a novel called Hotel 167 by a young writer named Jane Solomon. As far as I'm aware it was her first published novel. Since then I haven't heard anything about her, and internet searches have been fruitless. I must have been fourteen or fifteen when I read it, and it had quite an effect on me. From time to time I think about that book and wonder whether she's written anything since.
DAN SUMNER: I believe Jane Solomon was supposed to have a new book out sometime during 2001 but I have not seen anything so far.
COLLIN: That's interesting. Do you know any more about this? Title, publisher, where you heard about it?
JAMES G COLSTON: I am Jane Solomon's cousin in the United States (our mothers are sisters). While Jane has continued with her writing, I believe she has recently been putting more of her energies towards a passion of hers, the Tango. She and her boyfriend run a Tango club in London, and for the past couple of years have hosted an international Tango festival. I am told there is a website, maintained by Jane, but I can't seem to find it. It was during my search that I came across this site..! Jane, if you ever see this, I hope I'm more or less on the mark! Cheers, James
JERRY KELLY: I met Jane in London some years back, and she was kind enough to show me around her city a bit. I told her at the time that I was working on a book; she told me she was also writing a book. When she sent me a copy of Hotel 167 a couple years later, I was quite taken with it -- it is a dazzling novel, very well done indeed. Since then we've fallen out of touch, but I do hope she continues writing & publishing -- though I am sure she also does an amazing Tango. In any event, I wish her all the best.
ISABELLE: I knew Jane Solomon at university. Jane and I became friends as we realised that we had nothing in common with our peers. We would talk for hours about life, love and John Johnson !!. She was writing her Hotel 167 at the time and I am flattered that one of the fleeting characters of the book is loosely based on me. Jane if you read this, get in touch. I'd love to learn the Tango. Get in touch, por favor! Tu amiga que no te ha olvidado.
* Even more obscure than this one.
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 Last edited on 29 Jul 2009 03:18 am by David Harcourt
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 29 Jul 2009 02:59 am |
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And, it turns out, it's all true about the tango.
Jane Solomon went from being teenage author to tango fanatic, and never looked back.
That's Jane in the photograph below, which is an advertising poster for the 5th London International Tango Festival, which will be held from 13 to 15 November at the Porchester Hotel in Bayswater.
Jane and Takis Kalogroulis, the elderly foreign gentleman with Jane in the photograph, are no longer an item, it would seem, as Jane lives in Buenos Aires these days. I expect she steps lightly out of bed every morning and straight into a tango. Presumably she'll be back in town in November for the Festival, however.
Here is Takis's bio from the official website of Las Estrellas ("London's longest established Argentine Tango Dance Studio est. 1993"):
Takis Kalogroulis is the organiser of the London International Tango Festival and Managing Director of the Academia Nacional del Tango (UK) Ltd, and he started to dance Tango from the age of 20 as a young Greek seaman in the ports of Buenos Aires, Genoa, and Livorno in various places of questionable repute with ladies of a similar disposition. After he left the sea as a Sea Captain, he settled in London, and in 1993 he opened his own Tango School, Las Estrellas, teaching traditional Argentine Tango. He was one of the small group of founders of the Argentine Tango movement in London. In Las Estrellas he introduced the estilo apilado (close embrace) in 1994. Over the years he has taken masterclasses with Eduardo Arquimbau, Pepito Avellaneda, Nito & Elba Garcia, Mora Godoy, Hector Villalba, Lorena Ermocida and others. He also took masterclasses from his friend and legendary dancer Carlos Gavito when Carlos was teaching in Las Estrellas for several months in the past. Takis performed on the BBC, Channel 5, ITV and in the Dorchester, Claridges, the Sheraton and the Hilton hotels with his partner Jane. Now he concentrates only on teaching. Takis is a member of the UNESCO International Dance Council (CID).
For this she gave up the literary life. What it is to dream.
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