Wednesday 1 June 2011

ORIENTEERING

It was Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado who had a little list "of society offenders... who never would be missed" and I recently discovered that I am on a not-so-little list – in the fairly celebrated company of (among others)...
Marc Almond
W H Auden
Dirk Bogarde
Benjamin Britten
Christian Dior
E M Forster
Edward Lear,
Maurice Sendak
Stephen Sondheim
Franco Zefferelli
both Francis Bacons
and Edward Albee (who once told me off in an interview for mispronouncing his name as Al-bee when it should be All-bee).


The list has been compiled by NNDB (Notable Names Database) which describes itself as...

"An intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead. Superficially, it seems much like a Who's Who where a noted person's curriculum vitae is available... But it mostly exists to document the connections between people, many of which are not always obvious. A person's otherwise inexplicable behavior is often understood by examining the crowd that person has been associating with."

My entry is HERE and as for that list (which may or may not explain my "otherwise inexplicable behavior") if I tell you that it also features Quentin Crisp, Frankie Howerd, Joe Orton, Rock Hudson, Truman Capote, John Gielgud, Elton John, Noel Coward, Boy George and Michelangelo you may begin to figure out what we all have in common.

Frankly, I think it's an inspiring list and one that a person should be proud to be on.

In case you are still in doubt: check it OUT! (And I do mean 'OUT'!)

7 comments:

scb said...

Very impressive list, indeed! I'm glad to know someone in such illustrious company. I spent quite a while clicking a link, and being led to another link, and so on and so on, and then having to wend my way back to continue with the list.

(And I'm going to be singing "As someday it may happen..." for the rest of the evening. Patter songs are not my specialty, but I'll do what I can.)

My word verification is dogrends as in "A dog rends a patter song better than I..."

Arts and Crafts said...

Gogol?, I didn't know.... and where is Paul Verlaine?... Michel Angelo? really?

Brian Sibley said...

SCB – Yes! I'm impressed, too!! ;) [By the way, I got your e-mail and many apologies for not replying yet – daily visits to the studio is leaving me very little time – but I will get back to you with some dates!]

Eudora – Not sure about some of the 'Late' members of the list: obviously they haven't had an opportunity to amend their entries!

Boll Weavil said...

Slightly scary ! It's the cyber equivalen t of the salt mines.

SharonM said...

Gosh, I didn't realise that all these people were magicians - or perhaps identified with a certain pessimistic donkey!

Arts and Crafts said...

Sharon: ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! :)

Brian Sibley said...

Good joke! But it raises an interesting question: where's the closet in which all the gay magicians kept?