from Thursday Nov 5
Late this afternoon I watched/listened to the wonderful live on-air studio interview from Democracy Now!—The War & Peace Report, conducted by journalist hosts Amy Goodman & Nermeen Shaikh with the amazing Viggo Mortensen. Just lovely, heartening stuff. Serendipitously, I’d just had a conversation earlier in the afternoon covering some of the same topical details with a musician/theatre acquaintance I hadn’t seen for several months. We’d talked of artists and art as activists and activism, what some have coined “artivists” and “artivism”. And then almost immediately afterward I went online and there was the interview with Viggo addressing some of the same topics.
Lovely Viggo!—what can’t that guy do? Accomplished actor, musician, poet, painter, essayist, photographer, publisher/editor/anthologist, multilinguist (English, Danish, Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, and Catalan!). And activist. After college and before turning to acting, Viggo worked driving trucks across Europe & selling flowers on the street. Became friends with the late Howard Zinn. Was married to Exene Cervenka! (who seems recently to have gone somewhat loony, poor thing). For past several years now, Viggo has been partnered with a Spanish actress & has adopted her kids. He writes about his respect for, and personal bonding with horses, and has purchased some of the horses who starred with him in films so he can continue his daily bond with them. He also bought another horse-star to give as a companion to the stunt-woman who had ridden & bonded with the horse in one of his films. That makes me so happy. Such a generous, thoughtful thing to do.
skybluemindblog 