“No, not a film fanatic.

All he did, Brian said, was watch movies, causing no harm to anyone.

Fanatics assassinated heads of government.

Fanatics who were also heads of government invaded Iraq.

There was an aesthetic safety gap, Brian normally found, between film and reality. It was stimulating, there-fore, to see how The Atomic Cafe broke with chilling glee the rules, a documentary formed entirely of clips from American cinema newsreels, television, army indoctrination films and civil defence videos. Brian was literally horrified by footage of the Alamagordo nuclear test site, swiftly followed by the clip from an interview with the US pilot describing the moment when he pressed the release button on the plutonium-explosion H-bomb above Nagasaki.” Brian by Jeremy Cooper

The Brunswick Bookshop: Where It All Began

I bought Brian at the Brunswick Bookshop, a modest place in London. There it was—this slim blue book that promised to carry me through the city differently. Predictably, perhaps. Comfortingly so.

Brian‘s life is full of chosen predictability: he walks the same lunch spot, the same streets, the same shadows. I liked that. I needed it, even.

From St. Pancras to Camden: Walking with Brian

We started at St Pancras Station and walked through Camden, letting the city unfold in layers—past lives and quiet dramas playing out under the rumble of buses and pigeons.

Brian doesn’t rush. Reading him feels like following someone who lingers—by the Tube station, the lamppost, a café window. Someone who observes without imposing meaning.

A Café Interruption

We stopped for coffee somewhere between Russell Square and the Brunswick Centre. It was an ordinary café until it wasn’t.

Two young women were behind the counter. One wore a hijab—confident, composed, in charge. Mid-conversation, she walked to the door and locked it. A quiet gesture. A warning.

Then came the crash.

The door cracked. A hooded man stood on the other side—silent, tense.

“Did you call 999?” I asked.

She nodded. Calm. We stayed. Finished our coffee. Somehow, it felt like the safest choice.

When the door opened again, the moment had passed, but its tension lingered. I walked out wondering if we had made eye contact—me and the man. I still don’t know. But the memory remains.

Brian’s Film World

Brian would understand. In Sans Soleil, a film he reveres, memory isn’t fixed. It floats. Shifts. Becomes something else over time.

And then there was the other documentary: “It was stimulating…to see how The Atomic Café broke with chilling rules.” The documentary was formed entirely of Cold War propaganda clips. It horrified him with images of the Alamogordo nuclear test and a pilot calmly describing the H-bomb over Nagasaki.

Other films and directors Brian engages with:

• Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
• Tokyo Story by Yasujirō Ozu
• Piravi (Shaji N. Karun)
• Werner Herzog, Mike Leigh, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Ingmar Bergman
• Federico Fellini, Agnès Varda, Yılmaz Güney
• A filmed interview with Tilda Swinton

His world is cinematic, but grounded—he watches not to escape, but to see more clearly.

Macbeth Socks and Theatrical Echoes

At another time in London, I visited the Globe Theatre, a careful reconstruction of the original. I bought a pair of Macbeth socks—a theatrical souvenir for the blurring of the lines between fiction and reality.

As a young English teacher in Pakistan, I took on multiple roles. I doubled as the school’s drama director. Additionally, I was the girls’ swimming instructor. For one performance, I chose a brutal scene from Macbeth: the murder of Lady Macduff and her son.

To this day, I’m not entirely sure why I chose that moment. It was the blood-soaked domestic horror. The child’s pleading and the woman’s futile flight also played a part. It was, in hindsight, a disturbing choice for a school performance. But I remember how captivated the students were, how earnestly they rehearsed terror and cruelty. Maybe that’s what drew me to it—the power of performance to contain something real.

I think of Brian’s reflection again:

“Fanatics assassinated heads of government.
Fanatics who were also heads of government invaded Iraq.
There was an aesthetic safety gap, Brian normally found, between film and reality.”

That gap is what I was unknowingly playing with. I used art as a safe container for violence. The violence was too vast or terrifying to grasp directly.

The performance came and went.

But now, with Brian in hand, I revisit that decision through a different lens. What we choose to represent—and what we leave out—says just as much about who we are as how we remember. Like Brian watching The Atomic Café, I was both drawn to the aesthetic and horrified by its implications.

And perhaps that’s what all good art does: it makes us look again.

Wasn’t that what Brian’s life reflected too?

Bombings and Sons in Transit

Brian also writes about the bombings in London. And I remember my moment of fear—my preteen sons returning from a visit to Pakistan. The family met them in Dubai, then London Heathrow, and finally, we waited for them at SFO.

Each stop was protected like a relay to arrival, and yet, the world was shifting.

Predictability and Disruption

Reading Brian is like walking with someone who doesn’t need to be remarkable to leave a mark.

I’m glad I got Brian. It’s a book I’ll walk with again.

And maybe next time, I won’t turn away so quickly from the knock at the door.

Create Cultural Memories through Literature and Art

Another book I’m eager to read is Erica Cardwell’s Wrong Is Not My Name. It is a meditative blend of memoir and art criticism. The book explores how Black visual artists help her process grief, memory, and identity after the loss of her mother. Like Brian, it’s introspective. It unfolds through quiet rituals of looking, reading, and reflecting. Cardwell communes with artists like Lorna Simpson and Kara Walker to reimagine herself and her writing. With poetic, stream-of-consciousness essays, the book offers a contemplative experience grounded in solitude, art, and personal transformation.