Sonny Rollins Interview in Vanity Fair

[medjuck]

The magazine calls it The Proust questionaire and it's one page long. It's on the very last page so you can read it in a store without buying and lugging around all 8 pounds of fashion ads.

Edited August 13, 2007 by medjuck

[MartyJazz]

The magazine calls it The Proust questionaire and it's one page long. It's on the very last page so you can read it in a store without buying and lugging around all 8 pounds of fashion ads.

Good tip! I hate that magazine. You have to flip 100 pages just to get to the FIRST page of the table of contents. Then flip a few score more to get to the rest of ToC.

[Tom Storer]

Here's the original Proust questionnaire (found here):

* Your most marked characteristic?

A craving to be loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired

* The quality you most like in a man?

Feminine charm

* The quality you most like in a woman?

A man's virtues, and frankness in friendship

* What do you most value in your friends?

Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having

* What is your principle defect?

Lack of understanding; weakness of will

* What is your favorite occupation?

Loving

* What is your dream of happiness?

Not, I fear, a very elevated one. I really haven't the courage to say what it is, and if I did I should probably destroy it by the mere fact of putting it into words.

* What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?

Never to have known my mother or my grandmother

* What would you like to be?

Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be

* In what country would you like to live?

One where certain things that I want would be realized - and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated. [Proust's underlining]

* What is your favorite color?

Beauty lies not in colors but in their harmony

* What is your favorite flower?

Hers - but apart from that, all

* What is your favorite bird?

The swallow

* Who are your favorite prose writers?

At the moment, Anatole France and Pierre Loti

* Who are your favorite poets?

Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny

* Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Hamlet

* Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Phedre (crossed out) Berenice

* Who are your favorite composers?

Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann

* Who are your favorite painters?

Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt

* Who are your heroes in real life?

Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux (professors)

* Who are your favorite heroines of history?

Cleopatra

* What are your favorite names?

I only have one at a time

* What is it you most dislike?

My own worst qualities

* What historical figures do you most despise?

I am not sufficiently educated to say

* What event in military history do you most admire?

My own enlistment as a volunteer!

* What reform do you most admire?

(no response)

* What natural gift would you most like to possess?

Will power and irresistible charm

* How would you like to die?

A better man than I am, and much beloved

* What is your present state of mind?

Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions

* To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Those that I understand

* What is your motto?

I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.

Proust answered these questions when he was 20. Later in life a newspaper asked him this hypothetical question:

An American scientist announces that the world will end, or at least that such a huge part of the continent will be destroyed, and in such a sudden way, that death will be the certain fate of hundreds of millions of people. If this prediction were confirmed, what do you think would be its effects on people between the time when they acquired the aforementioned certainty and the moment of cataclysm? Finally, as far as you're concerned, what would you do in this last hour?

He answered:

I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it — our life — hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly. But let all this threaten to become impossible forever, how beautiful it would become again! Ah, if only the cataclysm doesn’t happen this time, we won’t miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India. The cataclysm doesn’t happen, we don’t do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire. And yet we shouldn’t have needed the cataclysm to love life today. It would have been enough to think that we are human, and that death may come this evening.

[JSngry]

Are Sonny's answers more...guy-like?

[Tom Storer]

Are Sonny's answers more...guy-like?

Although I haven't read them, I'd say it's just about certain that they are.

That said, Marcel is my hero.

[medjuck]

I've tried to find this on-line so as to post it. So far to no avail (sp?). Now that I have teh questoins I'll type in the answers when I get a chance.

[medjuck]

* What is your dream of happiness?

Perfect happiness is something which doesn't exist in this life. The goal is never to be too happy or too sad.

*What is your greatest fear.

Not getting close enough to my aspirations.

*Which living person do you most admire?

I'm afraid I don't admire people that much. Maybe my plumber.

* What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Not always being resolute enough.

* What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Slovenly personal traits.

*What is your greatest extravagance?

Overindulgence in good food.

*What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Probably thriftiness.

*On what occasion do you lie?

When I'm absolutely forced to by one of life's stupid entanglements.

*Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Probably "You dig?"

*What is your greatest regret?

Not saying some things to departed associates.

*What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Of course my late wife, Lucille.

*Which talent would you most like to have?

The one I have.

* What is your present state of mind?

Peaceful but active.

*What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Listening to my inner consciousness and summoning the strength and determination to acat on it.

*If you could come back, as what would it be?

A more evolved, intelligent being.

*What is your most treasured possession?

When I lost so many prized possessions on 9/11, I learned a lesson: possessions are not "where it's at."

*What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being in the belly of the beast in a straitjacket.

*Where would like to live?

Wherever I can be left alone.

* What is your favorite occupation?

Music, or whteer conbtributes to the edificatino of of others.

* The quality you most like in a man?

Listening more than talking.

*What do you most value in our friends?

Loyalty.

*Who are your heroes in real life?

Anyone whose life is lived giving more than taking.

* What is your motto?

"Do unto others," and secondly, one I made up watching TV: "Images and lies, and bad for your eyes."

The intro says this month (they mean September) he turns 77 and plays his first concert at Carnegie Hall.

Edited August 16, 2007 by medjuck

[brownie]

*What is your greatest extravagance?

Overindulgence in god food.

Medjuck, does this read right?

... or should we read 'good food'?

[medjuck]

God question. I've changed it.

[brownie]

Oh my god!

Merci

Now I'm familiar with that extravagance!

[Ken Dryden]

I just interviewed Sonny Rollins for an article in Hot House's September issue. It should be posted at www.hothousejazz.com

a few days into next month.