Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.

Mike Daisey Update

The Boston Globe‘s Geoff Edgers has done some reporting on the Mike Daisey walkout mentioned here on Saturday. It seems that, contrary to Daisey’s claims, there was no religious affiliation with the group. As Edgers reports (in a message received from Principal John Johnson of Norco High School):

It is a choir made up of 15-to-17 year-old students who were in town singing at a festival. As for the chaperone who poured water on Daisey’s notes… Johnson flat out apologizes. “I agree with Mike Daisey,” says Johnson. “With everything that’s going on in the world today, to have somebody come up on stage and take the water and pour it on his script was very inappropriate. I want to make this very clear, I apologize for that happening.”

Now by Johnson’s own admission, we still only have third-hand information to go upon here. But Johnson claims that Daisey’s show was intended as a theatrical experience for these kids and that Daisey’s ample use of “fuck” was one of the motivating factors behind the walkout. But if this is the case, I find it highly implausible that these kids have lived such sheltered lives that they haven’t heard profanity.

As for the man who poured water onto Daisey’s script, he was apparently one of the adult chaperones.

(Thanks, Geoff, for the update.)

[UPDATE: Mike Daisey offers an explanation on his blog:

The group responsible for the incident is from a public high school, though they identified themselves to me as a Christian group as they fled the theater–it’s barely audible on the YouTube clip, as an adult tells me they are a Christian group, then flees for the door, refusing to engage with me. Then in the lobby of the theater and on the phone to the box office they identified themselves again and again as a Christian group–I don’t know what that says about the division of church and state in Norco, California. As a group, the people in charge freely identified themselves as a Christian group, until reporters call and they remember they are from a public high school.

He’s also talked with the man who destroyed his outline.]

Pequeño Roundup

“Anybody Who Knows Cockney Slang Will Know the Term!”

A 1972 documentary with Anthony Burgess, Malcolm McDowell, and critic William Everson (who appears to be reading off cue cards) on A Clockwork Orange. Highlights include McDowell discussing how “Singin’ in the Rain” came to be and a bored-looking Burgess barely tolerating Everson’s inane questions.

Incredibly, at the 24 minute mark, Everson actually asks Burgess to comment on the additional scenes that Kubrick wrote in to simplify the plot, which Everson reveals helped him to understand the film better and provided “Hitchcockian suspense.” To add insult to injury, Everson presses Burgess on whether or not he could write his novels “more cinematically.”

Here’s more from You’ve Had Your Time:

Before embarking with Malcolm on a publicity programme which, since Kubrick went on paring his nails in Borehamwood, seemed designed to glorify an invisible divinity, I went to a public showing of A Clockwork Orange to learn about audience response. The audience was all young people, and at first I was not allowed in, being too old, pop. The violence of the action moved them deeply, especially the blacks, who stood up to shout ‘Right on, man,’ but the theology passed over their coiffures. A very beautiful interview chaperon, easing me through a session with a French television team, prophesied rightly that the French would ‘intellectualise like mad over the thing’, but to the Americans the thing looked like an incentive to youthful violence. It was not long before a report came in about four boys, dressed in droog style copied from the film, gang-raping a nun in Pougheepsie. The couture was later denied — the boys had not yet seen the film — but the rape was a fact, and it was blamed upon Malcolm McDowell and myself. Kubrick went on paring his nails, even when it was announced that he was to be given two New York Critics’ awards. I had to collect those at Sardi’s restaurant and deliver of speech of thanks. Kubrick telephoned to say what I was to say. I said something rather different.