Tom Robbins
This essay by Tom Robbins was originally published in Esquire in June 1987, and was later included in Robbins' collection of short writings, Wild Ducks Flying Backward. He doesn't specifically refer to Crimes of the Heart, but that was the most recently released Keaton film when the essay was first published.
"A female circus clown was appearing at a shopping mall recently when a small child in the audience suddenly climbed onto her lap and gazed at her painted face with rapturous recognition. The child's mother began to weep. 'My little boy is autistic,' she explained. 'This is the first time he has ever let another human touch him.'
"That incident reminded me of the actress Diane Keaton, and not because she sometimes looks as if P. T. Barnum dresses her. In her state of goofy grace, you see, Keaton possess a kind of reality denied to ordinary beings. A kachina, a wondernik, a jill-o'-lantern, she is such an incandescent link to otherness that we introverts emerge blinking from our hiding holes and beg to have those strange hands touch us.
"If she's some kind of phospohrescent flake, some kooky angel circling the ethers in deep left field; whether she won the eccentricity competition in the Miss California pageant or was actually in Istanbul at the time, none of that matters to those of us who love her. Give us half a chance and we'd lick hot fudge from her fingers, spank her with a ballet slipper, read aloud to her the sacred moon poems of Kalahari bushmen. What's more, we like the way she dresses.
"Fantasies of compatibility aside, however, the fact is, is sex appeal was two grains of rice, Diane Keaton could feed the Chinese army. (No? When was the last time you watched Looking for Mr. Goodbar?)
"Her allure is partly due to the manner in which she combines a saucy bohemian brilliance with an almost disabling vulnerability, partly due to the hormonal aura of baby fat (tender and juicy) that surrounds her even when she is mature and svelte. Mainly, though, it's because of her smile--a smile that could paint Liberace's ceiling, butter a blind man's waffles, and slush the accumulated frosts of Finland Station.
"The bonus of this beauteous and beatific bozo is that the older she gets, the sexier she gets. By the time she's fifty, she may have to wear a squid mask for self-protection."
Tom Robbins
Esquire, June 1987
Wild Ducks Flying Backward, the short writings of Tom Robbins, 2005
posted June 27, 2008
"A female circus clown was appearing at a shopping mall recently when a small child in the audience suddenly climbed onto her lap and gazed at her painted face with rapturous recognition. The child's mother began to weep. 'My little boy is autistic,' she explained. 'This is the first time he has ever let another human touch him.'
"That incident reminded me of the actress Diane Keaton, and not because she sometimes looks as if P. T. Barnum dresses her. In her state of goofy grace, you see, Keaton possess a kind of reality denied to ordinary beings. A kachina, a wondernik, a jill-o'-lantern, she is such an incandescent link to otherness that we introverts emerge blinking from our hiding holes and beg to have those strange hands touch us.
"If she's some kind of phospohrescent flake, some kooky angel circling the ethers in deep left field; whether she won the eccentricity competition in the Miss California pageant or was actually in Istanbul at the time, none of that matters to those of us who love her. Give us half a chance and we'd lick hot fudge from her fingers, spank her with a ballet slipper, read aloud to her the sacred moon poems of Kalahari bushmen. What's more, we like the way she dresses.
"Fantasies of compatibility aside, however, the fact is, is sex appeal was two grains of rice, Diane Keaton could feed the Chinese army. (No? When was the last time you watched Looking for Mr. Goodbar?)
"Her allure is partly due to the manner in which she combines a saucy bohemian brilliance with an almost disabling vulnerability, partly due to the hormonal aura of baby fat (tender and juicy) that surrounds her even when she is mature and svelte. Mainly, though, it's because of her smile--a smile that could paint Liberace's ceiling, butter a blind man's waffles, and slush the accumulated frosts of Finland Station.
"The bonus of this beauteous and beatific bozo is that the older she gets, the sexier she gets. By the time she's fifty, she may have to wear a squid mask for self-protection."
Tom Robbins
Esquire, June 1987
Wild Ducks Flying Backward, the short writings of Tom Robbins, 2005
posted June 27, 2008
posted by Intersections28 - David Gibson at
4:45 PM
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