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Pop Culture
Oct 11, 2023, 06:28AM

I Get All These Telegrams

A 2012 Lightspeed Magazine interview with novelist Anne Rice vs. a 1983 Interview Magazine interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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Jean-Michel Basquiat: A little gold frame. Then the “D” train.

Anne Rice: That’s in the public domain, it’s an old story.

Basquiat: (Laughs) Pretty much.

Rice: Oh yeah, very much so.

Basquiat: I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything under that gold paint.

•••

Rice: You know, there had to be a seductive side to the power, of feeling yourself gain strength, and your muscles get stronger and your limbs get longer and your whole body becomes invulnerable with a soft wonderful coat of hair.

Basquiat: I guess so. It was true at the time. And it gets really dark in the woods, you don’t know where you are.

Rice: I want to do that.

Basquiat: Like hunting, or something.

Rice: Dogs do, wolves do. I could do that in a sequel.

•••

Basquiat: Now I get all these telegrams. You never know what it could be. “You’re drafted.” “I have $2,000 for you.”

Rice: You know, these talks can go on for years.

Basquiat: Every once in a while, yeah. (Pauses) Usually I have to check up on these dealers and make sure they’re showing the right work.

Rice: They’re comatose, or clinically dead on an operating table, or in a morgue, and yet they’re traveling out of body and they see things that they can report later.

Basquiat: It’s more of a name-dropping thing.

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