"People think the most important thing I do on the radio is talk ... but actually, the most important thing I do is listen..." —Michele Norris
You never read alone.
Any book you pick up to read has already been read by hundreds, if not thousands, of other readers. As you immerse yourself in the book, it's easy to think of reading as a solitary activity, and of course, you're wrong. All you have to do to find that out is to attend an event a local bookstore.
I was fortunate enough to be asked (and sort of finagle) my way into participating in Michele Norris' appearance at Bookshop Santa Cruz — was it just last Sunday? I arrived quite early and set up the sound gear, and then hovered for about an hour. Norris arrived precisely on time and it was immediately clear why she was able to get the sort of interviews that made her book so fine. She is so easy-going and intelligent that she puts those in her vicinity effortlessly at ease.
Santa Cruz is the perfect venue for a writer like Norris. We had a large, involved crowd who arrived early, and were ready to ... listen. That worked out to be a big theme of this show, as Michele Norris noted that it was her job to listen.
But of course, everyone was there to hear Michele Norris, and she obliged us with a wonderful reading from her book and a delightful conversation about the book. Since she was there not just to talk, but to listen, we ran short on our interview, and let the audience talk, and listen as well. Embedded in the audience Q&A portion are some great thoughts from this engaging performer. You can hear her talk — and the audience talk, as well — by following this link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation.
11-16-10:A 2010 Interview with Matt Taibbi
"I had a friend who worked for a Sovereign Wealth Fund in the Middle East..."
—Matt Taibbi
Matt Taibbi is an amazing guy — and not just because of his reportorial skills. To be sure, the accomplishments of 'Griftopia' are amazing. In a relatively short book, he manages to explain some very complex machinations with a laugh-out-loud sense of humor. (This assumes that you were not one of the many direct victims of the scams in the book; those readers may be moved to a lethal combination of fury and depression.) He also offers an amazingly politics-free vision of politics, obviously not an easy feat. But my take on the amazing factor comes from the fact that Matt Taibbi was able to be eloquent and intelligent and fresh.
From what I could decipher, Matt Taibbi had been, and this seems appropriate, popping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I spoke to him at KQED at 1:45 in the afternoon. He'd not at that point even managed to make it to his hotel. He'd gone directly from the airport to another radio station, where he's no doubt found himself in a conversation about the minutia of his book.
For this reader, even reading the book was to a certain extent emotionally trying. A clear-headed portrait of how the world is going straight to hell, 'Griftopia' must have been incredibly difficult to write — and more so to re-live, again and again. Yet once I sat down with Taibbi, he immediately found whatever spark it was that took him through the writing process and brought it life.
I was joined at this gig by Evan Karp of Litseen (http://litseen.com), who unobtrusively filmed the interview. I'll let readers know when the video goes up. But Taibbi was tireless and inspired when we spoke, as we unraveled the tentacles of the vampire squids and talked about the very peculiar life of Alan Greenspan. If only he could have been a rock star, perhaps our world might have been startlingly different.
Taibbi and I talked not just about the content of his book, but also how he crafted it on a prose level and on the larger reportorial level. It was just as gripping to hear him talk about de-complexifying the shenanigans that brought about pericalypse — the apocalypse that has already come to pass, unnoticed, in the general haste — as it was to hear him talk about the grotesque, almost Lovecraftian financial maneuvers that made the impossible possible and the illegal legal. You can take your own tour of 'Griftopia' by following this link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation.
11-15-10:A 2010 Interview with Laurie David
"It's important to take a moment, take a beat, and express gratitude."
—Laurie David
It was hard not to talk to Laurie David. She and I both arrived quite early for the interview at KQED. We traipsed upstairs, only to find the studio still in use. In a waiting area ensconced at the back of the studios, we found ourselves starting to talk about something which we might have thought was not in her book, 'The Family Dinner,' only to somehow wind back to stuff that was in the book. Then we'd both say, "OK. We'll talk about that later." It would only take a moment for us to start talking again, and quickly find ourselves going back to the table.
Laurie David is not surprisingly, a lot like her book. She's full of energy, enthusiasm, and honest, refreshing good cheer. She's also super-smart, and one heck of a lot of fun to talk to. She loves her book, and told me that she's tempted to sleep with it. Who can blame her? She's essentially taken her own family scrapbook and cookbook and had it gussied up into a gorgeous and outrageously useful book for raising kids, cooking dinner and generally keeping your family life on the right side of sanity.
Once we got in the studio, our conversation ranged the full gamut of the book, and happily beyond. I'm glad we did try to restrain our conversation beforehand, because once we got on-mic, it was almost impossible to keep from bubbling over. I suppose, in retrospect that one of the things that makes a book interesting to me is the passion that the author brings to the work. By that measure, 'The Family Dinner' is practically the center of the universe, and in fact both the book and subject sort of should be the center of our very human universes. David is almost like a kid with her grinning excitement and verve.
05-16-12: Commentary : Mark Sundeen Pays Out 'The Man Who Quit Money' : Over the Edges
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Mark Sundeen and Daniel Suelo : "What would happen if we actually practiced this stuff?"-Daniel Suelo
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
