It struck me that I had heard this memory before, or, eerily, that I was somehow remembering the memory myself, firsthand.
I have a grim memory myself of arriving at the Bordeaux home of my French pen-pal aged 11, in a neat red dress my mother had made me, and Dominique's grandmother pronouncing tartly: "Elle n'a pas honte" - roughly translated, "She's a shameless hussy".
As I was watching that interview, I toyed with the idea of rehearsing memories myself.
I had always prided myself on being a "good guy," and have a memory of myself as one of those bosses who was almost too friendly with the staff, blurring the efficient company beauracratic lines.
His newest book, "Memories of Myself," is no different, with Mr. Lyons describing it as a product of political calculus.
In Memories of Myself, which Lyon describes as "a perfect complement to The Seventh Dog", he included an early series of portraits he shot in the late 1960s, when he made a kind of artistic pilgrimage to James Agee's hometown, Knoxville, Tennessee.
His newest book, "Memories of Myself," published this month by Phaidon Press, seems on its face to be the kind of comfortable, coffee-table retrospective that a revered 67-year-old artist receives at this point in his life.
As The Seventh Dog attests (the title is a reference to a recently acquired collie called Trip), he is a consummate book artist who merges personal snapshots and collages with single images from his documentary career in a style that is instantly recognisable from previous equally beautiful books such as Knave of Hearts and Memories of Myself.
"I basically said, 'If you do the China book, you can do the retrospective.' " (Phaidon, which does not comment on its negotiations with authors, would say only that it plans to publish two books by Mr. Lyon, in addition to "Memories of Myself," calling him a "great photographer").
I suddenly had this flash memory of myself, as a child, when I used to watch the PBS show "Upstairs, Downstairs" with my cats.
Over the years, I have put a lot of distance between this memory and myself but it is deeply seeded in some obscure niche in my brain.
