Imagine my surprise (and feeling of deja-vu) when I opened the New York Post this Sunday and I saw more Mindgame related business in the "In My Library" column, this time with Keith Carradine. They must have done this interview at the same time as the Ken one. Cool picks with Kazantzakis and Vonnegut. Russell is of course mentioned...
In My Library: Keith Carradine
Never mind what he sang in "Nashville": Figuring out Keith Carradine's literary tastes is anything but "easy."
"I have very catholic tastes - they go all over the place," he tells The Post's Barbara Hoffman. "I have in my possession right now a copy of 'Psychodrama, Surplus Reality and the Art of Healing,' because I'm doing this play I like to call a 'psychodrama about psychodrama.' Since [director] Ken Russell got involved, I now refer to it as a 'psycho-comedy.' "
That play is "Mindgame," and Carradine is so busy that he had to wait for "Pal Joey" to play a Wednesday matinee so he could see his daughter, Martha Plimpton, in it.
In between all that, finally, he finds time to read - here's what's on his bookshelf:
Einstein: His Life and the Universe by Walter Isaacson
You can't really write about Einstein without writing about the theory of relativity, and Isaacson's done it in a way that's comprehensible to the non-nuclear physicist. And he's quite thorough in his depiction of the man. Here you have one of the great minds of the 20th century, and the personal life and traits to go along with it.
The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch
It's a wonderful distillation of our individual and national character. Whether we're conscious of it or not, we've all adopted personas, partly of our own design . . . As I was reading it, I hoped it would help me do a little self-analysis and represent a more honest character to the world. It certainly was enlightening!
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
My brother David's then-girlfriend, Barbara Hershey, gave Marty Scorsese the book and Marty decided right then to make a film of it. The movie had its detractors, but I quite liked it. [The book] had a profound effect on me.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
I'm a huge Vonnegut fan - I get it! I get his sense of humor, his skewed way of looking at things. There was a phrase, "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," that went into me like a bullet, and I've lived by it ever since. Shortly after, an old friend said, "Hey, Keith, wanna go to China?" And I took my now ex-wife and Martha and her mother along and had a remarkable experience.