Brooski
09-05-2002, 02:51 PM
I was clearing out some old NYT Magazines from my desk and found one from January with this very revealing interview by Michael Crowley with Alan Keyes:
Q: So what are you talking about on your new TV show, "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense"?
Keyes: This isn't just about politics, it's about everything. The topics will be a wide range of things that interest me -- for instance, a show on the big success of Tolkien and "Harry Potter." I'm a fanatical fan of Tolkien. I'm one of those people who has read the book 10 times since I was 15.
Who's your favorite "Rings" character?
Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's companion. I think Sam represents a kind of simple decency that doesn't set out to do anything except to keep the promise of its own integrity. And that ends up turning him into a great hero who in his way is absolutely indispensable.
So if you had to be a hobbit, elf or dwarf, would you be a hobbit, then?
That's a tough choice. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be a dwarf, because I think the dwarfs represent the industrial side of things. The hobbits represent the hidden virtue that resides on a facade of comfortable consumerism. And the elves represent the kind of wistful aspiration, that unwillingness to surrender the ideal even as it fades into the past. I guess there's something about that that corresponds with my own life. So in the end I would be an elf.
Emphasis mine.
Q: So what are you talking about on your new TV show, "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense"?
Keyes: This isn't just about politics, it's about everything. The topics will be a wide range of things that interest me -- for instance, a show on the big success of Tolkien and "Harry Potter." I'm a fanatical fan of Tolkien. I'm one of those people who has read the book 10 times since I was 15.
Who's your favorite "Rings" character?
Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's companion. I think Sam represents a kind of simple decency that doesn't set out to do anything except to keep the promise of its own integrity. And that ends up turning him into a great hero who in his way is absolutely indispensable.
So if you had to be a hobbit, elf or dwarf, would you be a hobbit, then?
That's a tough choice. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be a dwarf, because I think the dwarfs represent the industrial side of things. The hobbits represent the hidden virtue that resides on a facade of comfortable consumerism. And the elves represent the kind of wistful aspiration, that unwillingness to surrender the ideal even as it fades into the past. I guess there's something about that that corresponds with my own life. So in the end I would be an elf.
Emphasis mine.