Biographer Mark Dery pays tribute to Edward Gorey on his birthday

Originally published at: Biographer Mark Dery pays tribute to Edward Gorey on his birthday | Boing Boing

2 Likes

“Born to be Posthumous” is a fantastic name for a biography of Edward Gorey; very well chosen.

4 Likes

That was a captivating interview. As with many of Cavett’s shows, it is hard to believe that something so civilised and so respectful of both guest and audience was given airtime on the medium of TV.

4 Likes

wow, such a great interview. now i have to find footage of his stage Dracula – i bet that was amazing. he’s just a quirky as i would expect… i was wishing Dick Cavett would’ve brought up his macabre sense of humor, which is what i’ve always loved about his work, and also maybe the Addams family cartoons, since they were contemporary to his work, but also very different.

1 Like

We have rescheduled this post for Feb 22nd, Gorey’s actual bday. Mark D jumped the gun based on someone else’s incorrect bday post.

4 Likes

If you’re in the area (Cape Cod), do check out the Gorey museum, it’s very nice.

2 Likes

Ask me anything, BB devotees, especially the Goreyphiles in your cohort. I’ll try to check in throughout the day.

5 Likes

I’d just like to thank you for your work promoting his legacy.

3 Likes

Thx for the memories.

3 Likes

getting the Gorey introduction to the the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes programs was a double dose of TV dynamite. loved those shows.

also had a Gorey pop-up book as a child. great stuff.

1 Like

Gorey was a movie fan. Did he have a favorite director?

2 Likes

Gun to head, he probably would’ve said his favorite director was the French master of silent cinema. Louis Feuillade, best known for his serial, Fantomas, about the archvillain of a thousand disguises and cited by the Surrealists as a Surrealist avant la lettre, and for his series Les Vampires, which has nothing to do with vampires in the Bram Stoker sense and everything to do with an anarchic anti-bourgeois gang of the same name devoted to Dadaistic crimes that wreak havoc on the bovine, complacent bourgeoisie. (And you wonder why the Surrealists loved Feuillade!) He also swooned over the Wes Andersonian color schemes in _The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. And of course he loved schlocky horror, the schlockier the better. Letterboxed has a great list of movies he mentioned approvingly, titled “Edward Gorey’s Favorite Films” (BB won’t let me post the URL, for some odd reason). Oh, and: he was a great fan of The Archers (Powell and Pressburger). I Know Where I’m Going! inspired his one overseas journey (to the movie’s tempest-tossed, darkly romantic setting, the Hebrides).

4 Likes

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.