Gosh, one has to be so careful doesn't one. It's just possible that in
spite of all the caveats hung around it, my *personal* list of
not-to-be-missed readers (responding to Pete's perfectly legit. request),
could get taken as being "the wonderful readers of the world" (Doug's
phrase, introducing an unwanted and inappropriate definate article for the
first time). It isn't. OK? I'm still looking forward to other folks'
personal lists, which will, for sure, differ from mine. It's not an
election. Didn't think I had to explain that.
Doug then produces his own list-which-isn't-really-a-list. I've heard many
of the people he mentions, some only in recording, some live. There are
some names there I can't think how I'd've heard, and I quite deliberately
noted the exclusion of people I hadn't heard from my list. Great stuff
there, obviously - but my list, within its terms, stands. I'll spell out
my personal preferences if called on to do so, but I'd rather hoped that
by this time we could take such things lightly, and pass on. Most of the
harmful effects of lists which Doug refers to come from taking them too
much to heart, as not-cross-but-amused Doug seems to be doing.
"Overwhelmingly British in tonality" - not surprisingly, since the
readings I've organised and attended over the last thirty years have been
in Britain. It's a weakness I freely admit, and had I claimed any global
status for my list of readers it would have been a fatal flaw. But I
didn't. Doug's non-list is "overwhelmingly US" in about the same
proportion.
"Only friends need apply" - this is a bit snide really, like I only boost
my pals (a thing I was last accused of in Durham, some years ago, when I
mooted Oliver and Notley for a reading, before I'd met either of them).
It's true that I know the folks on my LOR to a greater or lesser extent,
have heard them read on several occasions, and over the years have even
published many of them. I've become more friendly with many of them over
the years for the simple reason that I like their work. There's a rapport
of some kind there. Unnatural? I don't think so.
As a general point of course, gang, be very suspicious if anyone tries to
offer you a list perporting to contain universal global truths. Just Say
No.
RC
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