Are you real?

Bragg: "I believe you play roulette, don't you? Why is that?"

Bacon: "Well, they say it's the silliest game you can play."

Reasonably long article on people's memories of Francis Bacon 16 yrs after his death in the Observer. A mention of a South Bank Show interview / profile, part one of six below, with parts occasionally being removed and then replaced, but worth the time if you have an interest. A vivid defense of figurative art with the work to back it up. The interviewer, Melvyn Bragg, tries to pull him into depths, but Bacon kicks ass and holds onto nothing but the moment, while getting drunk and saying it all. Really straight, no pretense, no complications. Amusing moment when Bragg expresses surprise shock that Bacon feels that humans are - shock - animals. Lately I've begun to think this is the only thing worth learning, so simple and yet it overturns everything we're supposed to accept about our special place in things. What a joke.


At one point he asks Bragg, "Are you real?"

But it must be said that I hate drunks, and nearly all that drink has made me do. But I keep drinking because I like to be in some control of my chemistry, and it cuts the caffeine and adrenalin at the end of the day.