Re: Houdini stuff

[opencad@PrimeNet.Com (Mark Mazur)]

chris williams (chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu) wrote:



:     No, Kate was mistaken. She apparently read very little about the
: life of Houdini. True to form, the song is closer in the details to
: the Hollywood film starring Tony Curtis than to the real events of
: Houdini's life and art. This is in no way intended to disparage Kate's
: song, which concentrates on the *emotional*, rather than the
: biographical aspects of Eric and Bess's relationship. 

Don't be too hard on ol' Kate.  In an interview around the time of the 
release of The Sensual World, she says that the inspiration for many of 
her songs are films, books and stories.  This is almost certainly the 
case with this song.  In fact the song is a fantastic condensation of the 
most powerful themes of the film.  Unfortunately, most of those were 
fictional.  Not also that the cause of Houdini's death was not drowning 
in the water chamber as the song and the film recount, but as far as I 
remember, due to intestinal hemmoraging (sp?).

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Mark Mazur                                __  __     ____  ___       ___ ____
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