Ocean Vuong last night at The Emmanuel Centre in London with Andrew Wille and K and others - Andrew gave me the tip off and gathered us, he has seen him many times before but this was my first, akin to seeing Nick Cave, knowing from the moment he began that we were in the presence of greatness. An eloquence and an accuracy of thought and word. A deep and broad learning. He spoke for an hour almost without pause, Jack Edwards guiding with questions when needed but they weren’t really needed at all. I wondered if back stage OV knew what he was going to speak about, how he prepares and arrived at the thought that his life is preparation for these present moments, that he involves himself in what fascinates him and when the time comes to speak he just opens his mouth. It had none of the feel of practiced book publicity interview, the same stories, the same questions, a sense that at any given event on the tour the output would be roughly the same. No. It had the feel, like seeing Nick Cave, that this moment was unique, that these thoughts he expressed in that moment were of that moment however much he might have considered them before. He was present. His homework - that of living and studying and being involved in what fascinated him irrespective of outcome or who was watching - was evident. And though it isn’t by the by at all, Jack Edwards was fabulous too.
Took a cab back to west London, the heat still making everyone’s footsteps slow, and found myself in the pimped up seats of London’s singing cabbie - the full red leather, Union Jack, cushions and champagne bucket rich interior of the man who pissed off Tom Jones on The Voice. He told me the story in a tone so muted I had to lean forward in my seat, but the gist was this: he got to the televised last few rounds. He sang but they didn’t choose him. Swinging around in his chair, Tom Jones was deep in explanation, you’re great, but what would I do with you? when our singing cabbie felt the rush of just wishing to get off stage and interrupted our national treasure by tapping his watch and asking him to get on with it, I’ve got a fare to meet - as a joke, he said, but King Jones did no find it funny. A limp handshake followed, a leaning forward to whisper in his ear, You shouldn’t have done that, son, and the piece was never aired. It was ended. I asked him how he felt about it now.
Dinner at my favourite local, they are getting to know me, this single woman who eats alone, who doesn’t read or look at her phone but just watches. It is ripe with conversations, scenes to store in my mind. Last night’s gem, a woman and a man, my age or perhaps a little older, she very beautiful with dark pepper hair scraped back, tanned and sculpted profile by an artist who knows about graceful age. He, larger in his seat than her, white grey shock above thick black rimmed glasses of the kind favoured by architects, or as it turned out energy workers who think it’s their god given right to describe other people’s energy fields as rare, which he did when her son turned up and kissed her repeatedly smack on the lips. You’re exactly as I imagined you, this the man to the son, and so it was apparent that although he’d know the woman for a many years, he’d never met her child.
He told them about Egypt, the retreats he runs, the coming of the End Times and yes, I even heard Atlantis thrown in there while she interjected with the occasional wow, flattered in that way I’ve seen myself behave around this kind of b******t. Christ did he go on, so pleased with his own voice, his own opinion, his own thoughts. So the opposite of Ocean Vuong.
Eleanor
