8 August 2001

WHAT'S HE LIKE?

You may or may not know that the editing and curating of this website takes place much farther from London than anyone wishes. If you've read other editorials you've heard of my habit of composing pages while riding the MARC train between Washington and Baltimore. All's still well with that. Folks still ask about my tiny laptop (a Sony Picturebook C1X, around the size of a VHS cassette), about the battery life, about the work I'm doing every day.

But still, your average American isn't acquainted with Tom Phillips. If pressed, they might faintly recall reading about a David Hockney somewhere, or a Lucien Freud who wasn't a psychiatrist. But more often than not, the name Tom Phillips doesn't ring any big bells with people who don't follow modern art.

Is it all bad? Well, I'd prefer an America where copies of A HUMUMENT were as familiar to libraries and homes as the latest Dave Barry or Sue Grafton. Heck, I'd even settle for a (former) Poet Laureate who, before embarking on his own translation of THE INFERNO, had bothered to read Tom's.

But sometimes, very briefly, I enjoy the anonymity. I enjoy being part of a person's discovery of Tom's work. And besides, there's little mystery about website, or a person who maintains a website, about Sean Connery or Dusty Springfield. Your mind will likely be made up before you visit (or don't visit) the site.

Oh, but that pleasant anonymity gives way to button-bursting pride when someone KNOWS Tom's work. They wonder how I got the job. How I met him. Or, as I was asked by Paul Duguid, "What's he like?"

Paul is co-author of the excellent book, 'The Social Life of Information', a wine scholar, and a Liverpudlian who now dwells in the climes of Berkeley and environs. He visited while in DC for a conference, and didn't realize until halfway through our first Guinness that I had a TP connection.

"What's he like?"

Passers-by, if they'd been able to hear him over the din of the happy hour crowd in the Capitol Lounge, might have wondered who was being discussed. Cal Ripken? P. Diddy (née Puff Daddy, aka Sean Puffy Combs)? Alan Greenspan?

Paul, thanks for asking. I hope I didn't go on too long in my reply. I won't transcribe it here; to do so would only highlight the transparency of my biases (though that's never stopped Brian Sewell). Suffice to say that Tom is magnificent, and I cherish my friendship with him as profoundly as I cherish his work.

Tom's portraits of Dame Iris Murdoch are among my favorites, as they are for many. Peggy Coughlan, retired children's literature librarian at the Library of Congress, told me she makes a special trip to the National Portrait Gallery whenever she's in London to see Tom's pictures of Iris.

His words on his experience of painting her are lovely. They've been on the site for a while, but somehow we've neglected to put them in the center spotlight until this month. They say nearly as much about Tom as they do about Miss M.

Don't forget to have a look at Tom's essay, "On Libraries", also featured this month. It has one of the best opening lines in non-fiction.

All best wishes,
JOHN NICK PULL, editor.

And a brief post script for our readers in Britain: please check out the Sunday Magazine of the upcoming 2 September London Times. It premieres a new weekly column by Abigail Grotke, a dear friend whose insight and assistance were crucial in the early days of tomphillips.co.uk.

Her column, based on her website, answers contemporary questions about romance by referring to her collection of mating and dating guides from the 1820's through the 1970's. When asked about her collection scope she says, "When they start making sense I stop buying them."

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