Celebrity encounters and other tales

I loved Alan Cumming’s autobiography, Not My Father’s Son. It was raw and honest and heartbreaking. He tries to show some of that same emotion in You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams, but this one just did not do it for me.

Cumming apparently really enjoys photography, and even has a traveling show. He’s a very talented man, no doubt — his acting, his singing, his general wonderfulness. But his photography seems very amateurish. I say this with absolutely no ability to take artistic photographs on my own, so take my criticism with a grain of salt. But this whole book, which is billed as 45 novellas accompanied by his photos, reminded me of sitting through someone else’s slideshow of photographs (I kept thinking of Rory & Lorelai’s trip to Harvard), rather than an art collection. Some of the stories, particularly about celebrity encounters and his beloved dog, were very enjoyable. But his style of photograph leans towards the blurry, with the subjects falling out of the frame, and I got tired of it pretty quickly.

The Oprah encounter, which inspired the title, was definitely worth reading, though.