Writing about people.
excerpt
Robinson’s film career began as an actor. Formally trained in a London drama school, by his third year the beautiful young Robinson garnered a leading role in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968). According to Robinson, Zeffirelli cornered him and even stuck his tongue down his throat. This theme would appear in Withnail & I, a tale of two struggling actors and Robinson’s most autobiographical work.
Robinson acted in a few notable films, most notably as the male lead in Truffaut’s The Story of Adele H. (1975). By 1977, Robinson, disillusioned with acting, turned toward writing. He said acting was mostly waiting around for phone calls. And even with leading parts and decent theatre work, the income stream was lacking.
Withnail & I takes place in 1969 London, end of a decade and end of a wayward line for one of the struggling actors within the story—the one known as “I.” The “I” character, listed as Marwood in the script, is based on Robinson himself. At the end of the film, Marwood lands a plum acting role, and he must leave Withnail behind to continue suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Earlier in the film, Monty, a fellow thespian and Withnail’s uncle, expresses the disappointment an actor feels when he realizes “he will never play the Dane.” The film ends with Withnail quoting Hamlet. Monty’s character is an amalgam, but his desire to take the young Marwood sexually, “even if it must be thievery,” is from Robinson’s experience working for Zeffirelli.
Welcome to WebVisions ‘08.
I don’t know Alexis Madrigal, but I want to. He’s that kind of person—someone you want to hang out with.
Alex is brilliant, but he’s also humble. Take these examples from his bio, which he wrote: Alexis Madrigal is a newsman . . . Alexis Madrigal is a writer and consumerist . . . Alexis Madrigal is a World Interlocutor.
I say Alex Madrigal is altogether something more. A force for change, perhaps. He’s creating some powerful content, doing plenty of research, and there is this: Alex Madrigal wants to save the planet.
Can tech save the planet? According to Alexis Madrigal, it can certainly help. Accepting the reality that, no matter how much they love the planet, most people act in their own best interests—in spite of environmental consequences.
Alexis imagines solutions for sustainability that go beyond “turn down the heat and put on a sweater” and work to streamline our lifestyles so that we’re living as efficiently as possible.
A product of Ridgefield, Washington, (population 3,000) and Harvard’s English department where he trained as an analyst, Alex is interested in technology’s impacts on humans as consumers and citizens. How are purchasing and perception changing within the global ecology? Most fundamentally: how are today’s humans different from the people of the past?
Aside from his “newsman” gig at Wired.com, his work also appears in Dwell,Earth2Tech, and Arcade. He recently appeared at SXSW Interactive and we’re ecstatic that he’s here with us today.
Please welcome Writer, Newsman, Consumerist, World Interlocutor and Green-Tech Aficionado, Alexis Madrigal.