Material world: Mr and Mrs Morley
Pop nuptialists ACT-ress Claudia Brücken and ZTT clever clogs Paul Morley are hardly Bob and Paula, but they lift the curtain a little to allow us a peep into their exquisite region of taste. And not a carriage lamp or Athena poster in sight. P-mod bliss eh?
Favourite Interview
Brücken: So what do we have to do then?
Morley: Favourite favourites, apparently.
Brücken: Like — what do we do with ourselves?
Morley: Yeah, but not for real. Skim the surfaces, sort of. Let’s keep it light.
Brücken: S owe ignore the bedroom.
Morley: No one must ever know!
Brücken: So go on, ask me a question. That’s what you’r egood at.
Morley: OK, who is your favourite couple?
Brücken: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe.
Morley: I wonder why?
TV
Song Trinitron Profeel
Currently
MORLEY: Currently, Coleridges The Fashion Conspiracy — Simon Garfield at Time Out should write a companion book about popular music. My favourite writer about pop at the moment, although obviously I have many favourites, is Marcus Berkmann in the Mail and The Spectator. My favourite TV programme this week has been the BAFTA awards — Aspel was brilliant and so many mad people collected together… I can also hardly wait for the new look Listener.
BRÜCKEN: I am reading Linda W Wagner-Martin’s Sylvia Plath biography. So many girl interviewers tell me different versions of Plath’s life that I thought I should find out for myself. My favourite TV programme this week has been the film of I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can, which was all about having a really bad temper. I don’t read The Listener.
Voices
MORLEY: Kevin Coyne, Nick Drake, Siouxsie, Davey Henderson, TS Eliot, Alistair Cooke.
BRÜCKEN: Johnny Rotten, Bette Midler, Tim Buckley, David Sylvian, Jim Kerr, die Callas, Joni Mitchell, George Melly.
Lives
MORLEY: Kenneth Tynan, Malcolm Lowry, Jean Genet, Marc Boland, Michael Aspel, Frank Zappa, late Cher, Lenny Bruce, Rodney Marsh, Gertrude Stein.
Noses
BRÜCKEN: early Cher, Edith Sitwell, Patti Smith
Anecdote
MORLEY: The one abot Barbra Streisand and Maureen Lipman.
Time Of Day
BRÜCKEN: The moment someone agrees with something I say.
Least favourite TV critic
MORLEY: All of them, except for Janet Street-Porter.
Favourite fight in the last two weeks
MORLEY: Russell Harty v Vivienne Westwood
TV
Sony Trinitron 20".
Interviewers
MORLEY: Brian Hayes, Mavis Nicholson, John Wilde, Studs Terkel, Magenta, Brian Walden, John Mortimer.
BATHROOM
MORLEY: Acoustic toothbrush, Signal toothpaste, Wrights Cold Tar soap.
BRÜCKEN: Nutribel & Ablutia Mousse (Lancome), daycream Optimum Balance (Riz), Regeneratice Nuit, Base Ultrafine, Lotion retraichissante, les soins vitalisante (Roc), Opium Bath Powder, Soft Body Viel, Body Cream (Yves Saint Laurent), Poison (Dior), Coco (Chanel), Electric Toothbrush.
TV
Sony 2" screen.
Words
MORLEY: The Savage God by AJ Alvarez. Salvador, The White Album, Miami by Joan Didion. The World Of Sex by Henry Miller. The Gaze Of Orpeus, The Writing Of The Disaster by Maurice Blanchot. Th Dynamics Of Creation by Anthony Storr. On Disobedience by Erich Fromm. The Dyers Hand by WH Auden. Guide To Modern World Literature by Martin Seymour Smith. The Best Of The Realist by Paul Krassner. On Showbiz by Jimmy Tarbuck. Literature and Evil. Eroticism by Georges Bataille. Notes and Counternotes by Eugene Ionesco. Tolstoy or Dostoevski by George Steiner. How To Write by Gertrude Stein. Automatic Vaudeville by John Lahr etc etc etc etc etc.
BRÜCKEN: Illuminations by Rimbaud. Dorothy Parker. Henry Miller. The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. Der Meister und Magarita by Bulgakov. Karl Krauss. Iain R Webb, the fashion editor at the London Standard. Gunter Grass.
Painters
BRÜCKEN: Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst-Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix, Bruce McLean, George Grosz, Frida Kahlo.
Favourite Interview
MORLEY: Steven Martin, People I would like to interview before I die include the late Cher, Gerry Adams and Brian Clough.
Least favourite interview question
BRÜCKEN: What’s that song about then?
Miscellaneous
MORLEY: Jonathan Ross, Captain Beefheart, LBC, Ian Penman, The Spectator, Jimmy Saville is 61.
Favourite Record Labels
Factory, Ze, Fetish, Strange Fruit, ECM, 4AD, Mute.
Worst Moment
MORLEY: Beyond Belief by Emlyn Williams.
TV
Bang & Olufson 20" in white
KITCHEN
BRÜCKEN: If we’re not talking about the bedroom, we’re not going to talk about the Kitchen.
MORLEY: But there’s a television!
TV
Sony black 14" portable.