Re: 32 Films

[Karl Berry <karl@cs.umb.edu>]

    In one scene we see him playing "air piano" 

One of the English suites, I think, while the technicians look on, right?
Mary Jo commented on that scene similarly some years ago :).

What I found interesting was that in one of the documentaries (On the
Record, I think), there is what is obviously the basis for the scene in
32SF -- technicians (who even look the same, in fact I think one of them
was also in 32SF) messing around in the control room while Gould
listened in the studio (it's good to be reminded Gould was not nearly so
deified in life as he has been after his death).  He didn't do much
cavorting in real life, it's true, but on the other hand, he wasn't
somberly listening in his perfectionist mode, either.  So even that
scene can be defended to some extent, although I agree it's quite
overkill.

    a lot of emphasis on maintaining control.  

Yes, I agree with all that you write here.  But I have an additional
explanation besides the psychological obsession with control and so on
-- in his later years, he became a victim of his own myth.  I mean, he
felt compelled to live up to this image of himself that he had created.
In earlier years and with random strangers who happened into the CBC
studios at 3am, he wasn't nearly so compulsive as in the TV appearances
and so on, I gather.  I think the books rehash these parts of his life
to the point where it's hard to remember he was, after all, a human
being who probably longed for all the things we all long for -- love,
meaningful work, ... And was doing his best to get them.

Forgive me my own psychological analyses :).