WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.420 align:middle line:90% 00:00:07.420 --> 00:00:09.460 align:middle line:90% Those were children's stories. 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:10.522 align:middle line:90% No, I'm just-- 00:00:10.522 --> 00:00:11.582 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:11.582 --> 00:00:13.540 align:middle line:84% You know, actually, the old fairy tales weren't 00:00:13.540 --> 00:00:15.160 align:middle line:90% for children at all, of course. 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:18.520 align:middle line:84% I mean, they were very bawdy stories, B-A-W-D-Y, 00:00:18.520 --> 00:00:21.250 align:middle line:84% but also B-O-D-Y. I mean, the oldest version of Little Red 00:00:21.250 --> 00:00:23.800 align:middle line:84% Riding Hood has Little Red Riding Hood doing a striptease 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:25.900 align:middle line:84% for the wolf, get in bed with him, 00:00:25.900 --> 00:00:29.150 align:middle line:84% and then escape only by realizing he's about to eat 00:00:29.150 --> 00:00:29.650 align:middle line:90% her. 00:00:29.650 --> 00:00:32.353 align:middle line:84% And she says she has to pee and wants to do it in the woods. 00:00:32.353 --> 00:00:33.520 align:middle line:90% And that's how she gets out. 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:34.600 align:middle line:90% She runs home naked. 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:36.280 align:middle line:84% That's the old Little Red Riding Hood. 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:38.890 align:middle line:84% People, folklorists think of it as the oldest one. 00:00:38.890 --> 00:00:41.290 align:middle line:84% I don't-- actually, that was one of the questions 00:00:41.290 --> 00:00:42.280 align:middle line:90% in the Wildcat, right? 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:43.980 align:middle line:84% Was like, well, my question that I got-- 00:00:43.980 --> 00:00:45.980 align:middle line:84% and they sort of blended our questions together. 00:00:45.980 --> 00:00:46.870 align:middle line:84% But the question I got was, what's 00:00:46.870 --> 00:00:48.888 align:middle line:84% the difference between writing fairy tales 00:00:48.888 --> 00:00:49.930 align:middle line:90% and writing for children? 00:00:49.930 --> 00:00:51.347 align:middle line:84% It was actually the same question. 00:00:51.347 --> 00:00:53.800 align:middle line:84% And I just-- I love Maurice Sendak's great quote 00:00:53.800 --> 00:00:54.440 align:middle line:90% about that. 00:00:54.440 --> 00:00:57.880 align:middle line:84% He wrote Where the Wild Things Are, Dear Mili, all 00:00:57.880 --> 00:00:59.020 align:middle line:90% of these amazing books. 00:00:59.020 --> 00:01:02.060 align:middle line:84% And when he was asked, you know, why do you write for children? 00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:04.450 align:middle line:84% He just-- he said, in his typically disdainful way-- he's 00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:06.117 align:middle line:84% great, I love his personality-- but he's 00:01:06.117 --> 00:01:07.690 align:middle line:84% like, I don't write for children. 00:01:07.690 --> 00:01:09.520 align:middle line:90% I write. 00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:11.650 align:middle line:90% And I kind of get that. 00:01:11.650 --> 00:01:14.020 align:middle line:84% I mean, I just sit down and write. 00:01:14.020 --> 00:01:15.970 align:middle line:90% And my picture books-- 00:01:15.970 --> 00:01:17.470 align:middle line:90% I love my picture book editor. 00:01:17.470 --> 00:01:24.100 align:middle line:84% And I guess those stories have maybe slightly happier endings. 00:01:24.100 --> 00:01:26.570 align:middle line:84% But some reviewers call them creepy. 00:01:26.570 --> 00:01:30.850 align:middle line:84% So, you know, I feel like they can be whatever to any reader. 00:01:30.850 --> 00:01:32.710 align:middle line:84% But I do get rather dismayed when, 00:01:32.710 --> 00:01:36.730 align:middle line:84% because fairy tales are on the title of that book, 00:01:36.730 --> 00:01:38.830 align:middle line:84% I find it sometimes in the picture book section 00:01:38.830 --> 00:01:40.120 align:middle line:90% at libraries or bookstores. 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:43.360 align:middle line:84% And I always, like, quickly move it. 00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:46.120 align:middle line:84% Because some things, children shouldn't hear. 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:48.610 align:middle line:84% And that's a line straight from old fairy tales, too. 00:01:48.610 --> 00:01:51.250 align:middle line:90% So I don't adjust what I do. 00:01:51.250 --> 00:01:53.890 align:middle line:84% I think that's also much the reader, the lens 00:01:53.890 --> 00:01:55.180 align:middle line:90% that you bring to the work. 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:56.230 align:middle line:90% Yeah, so-- 00:01:56.230 --> 00:02:01.870 align:middle line:90% 00:02:01.870 --> 00:02:04.240 align:middle line:90% Anyone else? 00:02:04.240 --> 00:02:06.810 align:middle line:90% Oh, OK. 00:02:06.810 --> 00:02:07.740 align:middle line:90% This one's for Ander. 00:02:07.740 --> 00:02:09.365 align:middle line:84% And I'm wondering if you could say more 00:02:09.365 --> 00:02:12.210 align:middle line:84% about the process of writing poems 00:02:12.210 --> 00:02:14.940 align:middle line:84% that ended up as 750-word essays, 00:02:14.940 --> 00:02:19.410 align:middle line:90% or how that happened over time? 00:02:19.410 --> 00:02:21.330 align:middle line:84% Well, a big part of that had to do 00:02:21.330 --> 00:02:23.800 align:middle line:84% with just trying to find a constraint to get 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:26.070 align:middle line:90% me to keep them from expanding. 00:02:26.070 --> 00:02:27.932 align:middle line:84% I think, I don't know how to write an essay. 00:02:27.932 --> 00:02:29.640 align:middle line:84% I didn't know how to write a short essay. 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:32.038 align:middle line:84% So all I know is to write an essay, 00:02:32.038 --> 00:02:34.330 align:middle line:84% and then kind of let it go as long as it's going to go. 00:02:34.330 --> 00:02:36.280 align:middle line:84% But if you limit it to 750 words, 00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:39.153 align:middle line:84% you can't do what you normally do with an essay, 00:02:39.153 --> 00:02:41.070 align:middle line:84% or what I normally do, I guess, with an essay, 00:02:41.070 --> 00:02:44.070 align:middle line:84% which is just keep researching and adding. 00:02:44.070 --> 00:02:46.080 align:middle line:84% Like, you can make it a little bit narrative. 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:49.710 align:middle line:84% But honestly, what I found is I needed another engine. 00:02:49.710 --> 00:02:53.430 align:middle line:84% And so I thought the better strategy would be to rely on-- 00:02:53.430 --> 00:02:56.250 align:middle line:84% I mean, as I've done in some of my longer essays also-- 00:02:56.250 --> 00:02:59.760 align:middle line:90% tools from the poetry cookbook. 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:01.830 align:middle line:84% And so having that sense of constraint, 00:03:01.830 --> 00:03:05.370 align:middle line:84% me writing them as lineated poems in the first draft, 00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:08.700 align:middle line:90% keeps them from spiraling away. 00:03:08.700 --> 00:03:10.412 align:middle line:90% Not that it inhibits discovery. 00:03:10.412 --> 00:03:11.370 align:middle line:90% Because I don't think-- 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:13.013 align:middle line:90% I mean, that's constraint. 00:03:13.013 --> 00:03:14.680 align:middle line:84% Actually, it sort of inspires discovery. 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:16.260 align:middle line:84% And that's the benefit of constraint. 00:03:16.260 --> 00:03:18.660 align:middle line:84% But then having said that, I wanted 00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:20.070 align:middle line:90% to loosen it up afterwards. 00:03:20.070 --> 00:03:22.830 align:middle line:84% Because I don't think of them as poems. 00:03:22.830 --> 00:03:25.020 align:middle line:84% I mean, I don't think they work as poems. 00:03:25.020 --> 00:03:26.940 align:middle line:84% And some of them are actually very prose-y. 00:03:26.940 --> 00:03:29.250 align:middle line:90% But they do-- they rely on-- 00:03:29.250 --> 00:03:32.340 align:middle line:84% you can hear some of the rhyme, some of the way in which I 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:33.870 align:middle line:90% kind of get kind of-- 00:03:33.870 --> 00:03:36.070 align:middle line:84% I sort of swerve from one thing to another, 00:03:36.070 --> 00:03:41.430 align:middle line:84% which is, I think, a very poetry-oriented strategy. 00:03:41.430 --> 00:03:43.110 align:middle line:90% And they have to-- 00:03:43.110 --> 00:03:46.050 align:middle line:84% I remember one of my poetry professors, 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.502 align:middle line:84% after I just graduated from college, 00:03:48.502 --> 00:03:50.460 align:middle line:84% she was telling this as a way of-- telling this 00:03:50.460 --> 00:03:53.550 align:middle line:84% to me as a way of telling me why my poems sucked. 00:03:53.550 --> 00:03:54.690 align:middle line:90% And she was very kind. 00:03:54.690 --> 00:03:59.490 align:middle line:84% But they did, they did kind of suck, I think, in retrospect. 00:03:59.490 --> 00:04:02.520 align:middle line:84% I mean, there needs to be a kind of transformation that happens 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:05.157 align:middle line:90% in the writing of the thing. 00:04:05.157 --> 00:04:06.990 align:middle line:84% I mean, that isn't sort of unique to poetry. 00:04:06.990 --> 00:04:08.530 align:middle line:90% But I sort of thought of that. 00:04:08.530 --> 00:04:12.120 align:middle line:84% It's like, no, if I just do what my plan was in the first place, 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.480 align:middle line:90% then QED, awesome thing-- 00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:18.209 align:middle line:90% appraise, please. 00:04:18.209 --> 00:04:19.342 align:middle line:90% But that's not the case. 00:04:19.342 --> 00:04:21.300 align:middle line:84% So what I found is I would have to kind of keep 00:04:21.300 --> 00:04:23.700 align:middle line:84% moving, and sort of shifting, and bringing things 00:04:23.700 --> 00:04:25.590 align:middle line:84% into alignment with these in a way 00:04:25.590 --> 00:04:29.250 align:middle line:84% that it makes a kind of logic, and it's propulsive, 00:04:29.250 --> 00:04:32.908 align:middle line:84% I hope, in different ways kind of throughout the collection. 00:04:32.908 --> 00:04:34.950 align:middle line:84% And so there's a little system on the micro level 00:04:34.950 --> 00:04:35.880 align:middle line:90% with these essays. 00:04:35.880 --> 00:04:39.150 align:middle line:84% And then there's a whole bunch of like macro-level systems. 00:04:39.150 --> 00:04:41.580 align:middle line:84% And we never talked about this, Katie, I don't think. 00:04:41.580 --> 00:04:44.290 align:middle line:84% It's like an abecedarian that's going on. 00:04:44.290 --> 00:04:46.110 align:middle line:84% And then there's all this other stuff. 00:04:46.110 --> 00:04:51.360 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of math that's in there, perhaps overly. 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:55.380 align:middle line:84% But that's one of the pleasures of working on a collection, 00:04:55.380 --> 00:04:58.380 align:middle line:84% it's like trying to find ways of pinning it, 00:04:58.380 --> 00:05:01.410 align:middle line:84% and getting it to make new connections in the nexus-- 00:05:01.410 --> 00:05:02.742 align:middle line:90% nexuses? 00:05:02.742 --> 00:05:03.450 align:middle line:90% Probably nexuses. 00:05:03.450 --> 00:05:11.120 align:middle line:90% 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:13.930 align:middle line:90% I hope this is for Kate. 00:05:13.930 --> 00:05:14.500 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:19.190 align:middle line:90% 00:05:19.190 --> 00:05:21.200 align:middle line:90% Actually, it's for both of you. 00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:21.700 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:05:21.700 --> 00:05:22.200 align:middle line:90% Oh, yeah. 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:22.730 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:22.730 --> 00:05:23.660 align:middle line:90% That's perfectly good. 00:05:23.660 --> 00:05:24.243 align:middle line:90% Come on, Kate. 00:05:24.243 --> 00:05:25.650 align:middle line:90% You have to come up at least. 00:05:25.650 --> 00:05:28.012 align:middle line:84% I'm just wondering-- and you both 00:05:28.012 --> 00:05:29.220 align:middle line:90% talked about it a little bit. 00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:29.360 align:middle line:90% Speak at the same time. 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:30.920 align:middle line:84% But it seems to me like both of you 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:34.160 align:middle line:90% are preoccupied with things-- 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:37.460 align:middle line:84% old things, relics, remnants, perhaps 00:05:37.460 --> 00:05:40.850 align:middle line:90% lost things, material things. 00:05:40.850 --> 00:05:42.380 align:middle line:90% And I'm wondering where-- 00:05:42.380 --> 00:05:44.690 align:middle line:84% in the process of that, you seem like you take them, 00:05:44.690 --> 00:05:46.670 align:middle line:84% you're drawn to them, and you have a need 00:05:46.670 --> 00:05:48.390 align:middle line:90% to transform them in a way. 00:05:48.390 --> 00:05:51.710 align:middle line:84% And I'm wondering where that impetus comes from? 00:05:51.710 --> 00:05:55.910 align:middle line:84% And then when you're done, how does it feel? 00:05:55.910 --> 00:05:57.782 align:middle line:90% That's a pretty killer question. 00:05:57.782 --> 00:05:59.240 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's a great observation. 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:01.227 align:middle line:90% I think that's an accurate-- 00:06:01.227 --> 00:06:02.810 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's hard not to think about-- 00:06:02.810 --> 00:06:04.880 align:middle line:90% I don't if you think about-- 00:06:04.880 --> 00:06:06.500 align:middle line:84% the work you do with fairy tales is 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:11.070 align:middle line:84% a kind of library browse, which it inevitably is. 00:06:11.070 --> 00:06:12.840 align:middle line:90% Having said that, it's also-- 00:06:12.840 --> 00:06:15.200 align:middle line:84% if you write fiction or write anything, 00:06:15.200 --> 00:06:19.160 align:middle line:84% you are-- it's not like we're coming up with anything new. 00:06:19.160 --> 00:06:21.410 align:middle line:84% You hope you find something new, maybe in combination. 00:06:21.410 --> 00:06:23.720 align:middle line:84% But it's all sort of configurations of stuff 00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:25.500 align:middle line:90% that we've seen before. 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:27.407 align:middle line:84% That's one of the really kind of-- 00:06:27.407 --> 00:06:29.240 align:middle line:84% I wrote this whole book about library books, 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:33.020 align:middle line:84% right, and browsing the library, as if I'm the first person 00:06:33.020 --> 00:06:34.880 align:middle line:90% to do that or think about it. 00:06:34.880 --> 00:06:38.960 align:middle line:84% And I was giving a reading in Maryland. 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:41.900 align:middle line:84% And I found, in one of the libraries there, there was-- 00:06:41.900 --> 00:06:44.900 align:middle line:84% John Barth has this great essay called Browsing 00:06:44.900 --> 00:06:46.580 align:middle line:90% about library browsing. 00:06:46.580 --> 00:06:50.030 align:middle line:90% I'm like, oh, yeah. 00:06:50.030 --> 00:06:52.250 align:middle line:90% Yeah, that, what he said. 00:06:52.250 --> 00:06:54.645 align:middle line:84% And if you consider yourself-- even consider yourself 00:06:54.645 --> 00:06:56.270 align:middle line:84% an experimental writer, whatever you're 00:06:56.270 --> 00:06:58.340 align:middle line:84% doing, cool stuff on the page, and you're like, 00:06:58.340 --> 00:07:02.510 align:middle line:84% oh, Tristram Shandy kind of did a lot of stuff 00:07:02.510 --> 00:07:03.650 align:middle line:90% like that already. 00:07:03.650 --> 00:07:05.750 align:middle line:90% So it's a kind of-- 00:07:05.750 --> 00:07:10.520 align:middle line:84% I guess from my perspective, it's-- 00:07:10.520 --> 00:07:13.670 align:middle line:84% I don't want to say it's like a ritual humiliation, exactly. 00:07:13.670 --> 00:07:18.110 align:middle line:84% But it's a kind of exercise in humility and in understanding 00:07:18.110 --> 00:07:20.570 align:middle line:84% that the things that we do are made up of other things that 00:07:20.570 --> 00:07:24.620 align:middle line:84% already exist and have gone in or out of people's lenses 00:07:24.620 --> 00:07:28.160 align:middle line:84% for 10 years, or for 100 years, or for 1,000 years, 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:30.410 align:middle line:84% or just for a year, or just, like, whatever, 00:07:30.410 --> 00:07:34.010 align:middle line:84% since like 1997, like when the Wayback Machine brings us back 00:07:34.010 --> 00:07:36.080 align:middle line:84% to this sense that we had of what the web was, 00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:39.380 align:middle line:84% right, I mean in 1997, which is completely different than what 00:07:39.380 --> 00:07:40.410 align:middle line:90% we have now. 00:07:40.410 --> 00:07:43.160 align:middle line:84% So I guess my feeling as a writer is, like, 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:44.600 align:middle line:90% do you want to-- 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:46.332 align:middle line:84% you're not spinning it out of nothing. 00:07:46.332 --> 00:07:47.540 align:middle line:90% Nothing comes out of nothing. 00:07:47.540 --> 00:07:50.270 align:middle line:84% But you do want to make something interesting, 00:07:50.270 --> 00:07:52.730 align:middle line:84% and maybe explosive or beautiful. 00:07:52.730 --> 00:07:55.717 align:middle line:84% And most explosive things are also beautiful in some way. 00:07:55.717 --> 00:07:57.800 align:middle line:84% And so that's, I guess, what I kind of hope to do. 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.422 align:middle line:90% 00:08:00.422 --> 00:08:02.130 align:middle line:84% That's a great-- that's a great question. 00:08:02.130 --> 00:08:05.650 align:middle line:84% And it's a good answer and hard to follow. 00:08:05.650 --> 00:08:07.686 align:middle line:90% Thank you, as always. 00:08:07.686 --> 00:08:10.780 align:middle line:90% 00:08:10.780 --> 00:08:15.060 align:middle line:84% So fairy tales are old things, right? 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:18.030 align:middle line:84% But they were always contemporary to someone. 00:08:18.030 --> 00:08:21.135 align:middle line:84% So even the 1812 first edition of the Brothers Grimm 00:08:21.135 --> 00:08:23.010 align:middle line:84% was sort of scandalous when it was published, 00:08:23.010 --> 00:08:25.320 align:middle line:84% or the Perrault in the 17th century, 00:08:25.320 --> 00:08:28.328 align:middle line:84% or going to Arabian Nights-- they were always 00:08:28.328 --> 00:08:29.370 align:middle line:90% contemporary to somebody. 00:08:29.370 --> 00:08:31.260 align:middle line:90% And so what I love so much is-- 00:08:31.260 --> 00:08:33.659 align:middle line:84% it just happens to be my obsession or something 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:37.568 align:middle line:84% about the form of the fairy tale book, book marchen. 00:08:37.568 --> 00:08:39.360 align:middle line:84% I mean, there's tales that are specifically 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:41.350 align:middle line:84% contained inside books and there are versions. 00:08:41.350 --> 00:08:43.590 align:middle line:84% So you're sort of on this huge scavenger hunt. 00:08:43.590 --> 00:08:45.840 align:middle line:84% So when I start to write a new story, 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:49.490 align:middle line:84% I basically do the kind of hunting that you 00:08:49.490 --> 00:08:50.490 align:middle line:90% did in libraries, maybe. 00:08:50.490 --> 00:08:53.260 align:middle line:84% Like, I read 100 versions from around the world in translation 00:08:53.260 --> 00:08:53.760 align:middle line:90% to English. 00:08:53.760 --> 00:08:55.680 align:middle line:90% And then I pick one to go from. 00:08:55.680 --> 00:08:59.100 align:middle line:84% But it's a sort of endless collecting 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:04.530 align:middle line:84% that maybe partially attracts me to this form of story and book. 00:09:04.530 --> 00:09:08.628 align:middle line:84% And then it's also the idea that there is no original. 00:09:08.628 --> 00:09:10.920 align:middle line:84% People will say, well, what's the original this, what's 00:09:10.920 --> 00:09:11.700 align:middle line:90% the original that? 00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:14.010 align:middle line:84% And all you can do is point to a version 00:09:14.010 --> 00:09:17.190 align:middle line:84% that people have sort of excavated at a time 00:09:17.190 --> 00:09:18.743 align:middle line:90% or printed at a certain time. 00:09:18.743 --> 00:09:20.160 align:middle line:84% But what you find around the world 00:09:20.160 --> 00:09:21.990 align:middle line:84% is that the nouns, which are some 00:09:21.990 --> 00:09:26.440 align:middle line:84% of the things in the stories, repeat across cultures, 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:29.310 align:middle line:84% across centuries, and that these things-- 00:09:29.310 --> 00:09:35.180 align:middle line:84% like if you say girl, woods, wolf, what story are we in? 00:09:35.180 --> 00:09:37.270 align:middle line:90% Predator? 00:09:37.270 --> 00:09:40.960 align:middle line:84% Well, Predator is a great fairy tale, by the way. 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:44.740 align:middle line:84% It is a great fairy tale movie, actually, don't you think? 00:09:44.740 --> 00:09:47.980 align:middle line:84% Yeah, you take these things and you kind of 00:09:47.980 --> 00:09:51.205 align:middle line:84% put them together in a different way, like one of those-- 00:09:51.205 --> 00:09:53.830 align:middle line:84% I don't know if you guys had any of those books where you could 00:09:53.830 --> 00:09:56.500 align:middle line:84% turn the pages and you can make different creatures out 00:09:56.500 --> 00:09:59.110 align:middle line:84% of different pages, like the top, middle, bottom, 00:09:59.110 --> 00:10:02.083 align:middle line:84% or these topsy-turvy dolls, where you pull the skirt up, 00:10:02.083 --> 00:10:04.250 align:middle line:84% and on one side is one thing and on the other side-- 00:10:04.250 --> 00:10:06.880 align:middle line:84% So it's just these stories that are kind of pieced together 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:07.960 align:middle line:90% Humpty Dumpty style. 00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:09.280 align:middle line:90% And they're always wrong. 00:10:09.280 --> 00:10:11.320 align:middle line:84% There's never going to be a right version. 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:15.050 align:middle line:84% And I guess that's part of what I 00:10:15.050 --> 00:10:18.500 align:middle line:84% would think, in response to your really eloquent question. 00:10:18.500 --> 00:10:20.465 align:middle line:84% But they also have-- because they're so old 00:10:20.465 --> 00:10:22.340 align:middle line:84% but they were always new, and because they're 00:10:22.340 --> 00:10:25.640 align:middle line:84% always changing, being transformed, 00:10:25.640 --> 00:10:29.492 align:middle line:84% they're sort of vintage and futuristic at the same time. 00:10:29.492 --> 00:10:30.950 align:middle line:84% And I think that's what people call 00:10:30.950 --> 00:10:32.467 align:middle line:90% like "timelessness" about them. 00:10:32.467 --> 00:10:33.800 align:middle line:90% But I don't think it's timeless. 00:10:33.800 --> 00:10:35.900 align:middle line:84% I think it's actually more-- like, 00:10:35.900 --> 00:10:38.340 align:middle line:84% there's something more time-warping about it. 00:10:38.340 --> 00:10:42.050 align:middle line:84% So that interests me, how these things travel across time 00:10:42.050 --> 00:10:44.870 align:middle line:84% and cultures in mysterious ways that we really 00:10:44.870 --> 00:10:45.680 align:middle line:90% don't understand. 00:10:45.680 --> 00:10:48.950 align:middle line:84% I mean, neurologists study fairy tales as often as 00:10:48.950 --> 00:10:49.970 align:middle line:90% anthropologists. 00:10:49.970 --> 00:10:51.860 align:middle line:84% So I'm really curious about all that, 00:10:51.860 --> 00:10:55.520 align:middle line:84% the things excavated through that. 00:10:55.520 --> 00:10:58.400 align:middle line:84% I'd also just add something, just briefly, that I mean, all 00:10:58.400 --> 00:10:59.720 align:middle line:90% you need is for probably-- 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:02.300 align:middle line:84% I don't know what it is, maybe 30 years to pass. 00:11:02.300 --> 00:11:05.930 align:middle line:84% And then a lot of things seem relevant again. 00:11:05.930 --> 00:11:09.980 align:middle line:84% There's this great book by Bob Brown called The Readies that 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:12.260 align:middle line:90% came out in, I think, 1927. 00:11:12.260 --> 00:11:16.003 align:middle line:84% And someone online has a great version of it. 00:11:16.003 --> 00:11:17.420 align:middle line:84% And it's his book, where he's sort 00:11:17.420 --> 00:11:22.820 align:middle line:84% of imagining the future in which we are reading things-- 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:24.800 align:middle line:84% in which we can-- you know, books are outdated. 00:11:24.800 --> 00:11:27.230 align:middle line:84% And what we need is some kind of electronic machine 00:11:27.230 --> 00:11:30.620 align:middle line:84% that we can read books on at, like, super speed. 00:11:30.620 --> 00:11:32.810 align:middle line:84% And it's a really interesting book to read. 00:11:32.810 --> 00:11:35.877 align:middle line:84% I mean, you know, 1927, but it's not that far 00:11:35.877 --> 00:11:38.210 align:middle line:84% from some of the things that people have said or thought 00:11:38.210 --> 00:11:39.830 align:middle line:90% about books recently. 00:11:39.830 --> 00:11:42.050 align:middle line:84% So you have these things that sort of just kind of 00:11:42.050 --> 00:11:44.570 align:middle line:84% keep reoccurring or showing up from some time ago. 00:11:44.570 --> 00:11:48.080 align:middle line:84% And your job is to find them and bring them back into the light. 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:55.630 align:middle line:90% 00:11:55.630 --> 00:12:00.307 align:middle line:84% Along with the excavating of the history and sort of-- there's 00:12:00.307 --> 00:12:02.140 align:middle line:84% a kind of parallel between both of your work 00:12:02.140 --> 00:12:04.990 align:middle line:84% and the adolescent, and Atari, and the childhood, 00:12:04.990 --> 00:12:06.730 align:middle line:84% and all those kinds of parallels I 00:12:06.730 --> 00:12:08.720 align:middle line:90% think that we can sort of see. 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.140 align:middle line:84% But to me, it also seems like there's 00:12:11.140 --> 00:12:14.410 align:middle line:84% a kind of counter-history that both of you guys 00:12:14.410 --> 00:12:17.830 align:middle line:84% are interested in, like not taking the fairy 00:12:17.830 --> 00:12:21.250 align:middle line:84% tale at its surface, and not taking even 00:12:21.250 --> 00:12:23.920 align:middle line:84% something as seemingly as silly as Predator 00:12:23.920 --> 00:12:27.010 align:middle line:84% at its surface in terms of-- especially 00:12:27.010 --> 00:12:29.960 align:middle line:84% with the violent and the sexual in the fairy tales, 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:31.960 align:middle line:84% and the way that you're interested in those kind 00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:33.430 align:middle line:84% of counter-histories, and something 00:12:33.430 --> 00:12:37.240 align:middle line:84% that's kind of anti-Disney kind of version of the fairy tale. 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:40.820 align:middle line:84% And also, even something with, like, queer-- 00:12:40.820 --> 00:12:45.340 align:middle line:84% like homophobia and misogyny of the kinds of library, 00:12:45.340 --> 00:12:48.220 align:middle line:84% kinds of things that you're finding there 00:12:48.220 --> 00:12:49.840 align:middle line:90% that you're interested in. 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:52.660 align:middle line:84% It's kind of reproducing but also kind of speaking against, 00:12:52.660 --> 00:12:53.402 align:middle line:90% you know? 00:12:53.402 --> 00:12:55.360 align:middle line:84% And I wonder if you guys could talk about that. 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:57.160 align:middle line:84% Because there's a kind of counter-history that you guys 00:12:57.160 --> 00:12:58.180 align:middle line:90% are both interested in. 00:12:58.180 --> 00:13:00.910 align:middle line:84% It seems to me it's not just finding something 00:13:00.910 --> 00:13:03.250 align:middle line:84% and valuing it because it's old, but kind 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:06.730 align:middle line:84% of battling with these other versions of it, 00:13:06.730 --> 00:13:10.750 align:middle line:84% in a certain way, and remaking them in some way. 00:13:10.750 --> 00:13:13.420 align:middle line:84% I wonder how that kind of alterity, 00:13:13.420 --> 00:13:19.690 align:middle line:84% or that negativity, or those kinds of whitewashed aspects 00:13:19.690 --> 00:13:23.440 align:middle line:84% of those histories that you guys are kind of encountering 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:25.270 align:middle line:84% and remaking, like how that works for you 00:13:25.270 --> 00:13:28.300 align:middle line:84% and why those things kind of percolate or sort of stick out 00:13:28.300 --> 00:13:31.970 align:middle line:84% for you as notes of entry points or wanting to sort of like 00:13:31.970 --> 00:13:32.470 align:middle line:90% speak to? 00:13:32.470 --> 00:13:37.740 align:middle line:90% 00:13:37.740 --> 00:13:39.910 align:middle line:84% I mean, just I'll speak really briefly about that. 00:13:39.910 --> 00:13:40.920 align:middle line:90% Thanks for that comment. 00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:41.760 align:middle line:90% I think that is-- 00:13:41.760 --> 00:13:44.505 align:middle line:84% I think we do share that, actually, quite a bit. 00:13:44.505 --> 00:13:45.300 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:13:45.300 --> 00:13:48.627 align:middle line:84% And video games are-- so many video gamers are really 00:13:48.627 --> 00:13:49.710 align:middle line:90% interested in fairy tales. 00:13:49.710 --> 00:13:51.975 align:middle line:90% Some of their syntax, I think. 00:13:51.975 --> 00:13:52.590 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:13:52.590 --> 00:13:54.510 align:middle line:84% I mean, fairy tales-- you can't really 00:13:54.510 --> 00:13:57.480 align:middle line:84% say there's such a thing even as fairy tales. 00:13:57.480 --> 00:13:59.910 align:middle line:84% So it's not like there's this one history of fairy tales 00:13:59.910 --> 00:14:02.550 align:middle line:84% and then there's like the real history of fairy tales. 00:14:02.550 --> 00:14:04.810 align:middle line:84% But because fairy tales are so adaptive-- 00:14:04.810 --> 00:14:07.410 align:middle line:84% I mean, in World War II Germany, they 00:14:07.410 --> 00:14:13.230 align:middle line:84% were used to propagate a lot of anti-Semitic stereotypes. 00:14:13.230 --> 00:14:15.780 align:middle line:84% There were comic strips based on fairy tales. 00:14:15.780 --> 00:14:19.110 align:middle line:84% And I'm really interested in the way fairy tales can have been 00:14:19.110 --> 00:14:22.230 align:middle line:84% historically both sanitized and then 00:14:22.230 --> 00:14:26.460 align:middle line:84% degraded, used by those who want to abuse power, 00:14:26.460 --> 00:14:30.030 align:middle line:84% and then sometimes used by those who seek to liberate. 00:14:30.030 --> 00:14:35.910 align:middle line:84% And what a fine, tricky balance the human equilibrium 00:14:35.910 --> 00:14:38.010 align:middle line:90% never will be, basically. 00:14:38.010 --> 00:14:40.920 align:middle line:84% And I'm really interested in how fairy tales kind of absorb 00:14:40.920 --> 00:14:43.230 align:middle line:90% extremes. 00:14:43.230 --> 00:14:47.190 align:middle line:84% But in another way, I'm also interested in how fairy tales 00:14:47.190 --> 00:14:48.930 align:middle line:90% so often are outsider stories. 00:14:48.930 --> 00:14:55.800 align:middle line:84% There are characters who are marginalized, abused, punished, 00:14:55.800 --> 00:15:03.910 align:middle line:84% and not always discovered, saved or even, let alone, 00:15:03.910 --> 00:15:05.950 align:middle line:90% fed, and treated well. 00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:07.450 align:middle line:84% So I'm really interested in the sort 00:15:07.450 --> 00:15:09.200 align:middle line:90% of radical means of survival. 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:11.200 align:middle line:84% And I think that in a certain way, that's always 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:14.350 align:middle line:84% going to be a story of resistance 00:15:14.350 --> 00:15:16.840 align:middle line:84% as long as, unfortunately, there are humans on this Earth, 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:17.530 align:middle line:90% right? 00:15:17.530 --> 00:15:25.170 align:middle line:84% So that's part of that counter culture impulse that I have. 00:15:25.170 --> 00:15:26.400 align:middle line:90% And I'm a kid of the 70s. 00:15:26.400 --> 00:15:29.550 align:middle line:84% So I grew up with punk, and underground comic book 00:15:29.550 --> 00:15:30.910 align:middle line:90% movements, and all that. 00:15:30.910 --> 00:15:33.600 align:middle line:84% So I think it was just in the politics of the times. 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:36.570 align:middle line:84% I think that really was sort of a gathering force for me, 00:15:36.570 --> 00:15:40.600 align:middle line:84% why I was drawn to these stories in part. 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.670 align:middle line:84% I think resistance is a useful way to think about it. 00:15:43.670 --> 00:15:46.540 align:middle line:84% I mean, I guess what I look for when I'm-- 00:15:46.540 --> 00:15:48.400 align:middle line:84% one of the things I really look for when 00:15:48.400 --> 00:15:51.892 align:middle line:84% I'm sort of-- when I'm looking for stuff to respond to, 00:15:51.892 --> 00:15:54.350 align:middle line:84% is I'm looking for things that really rub me the wrong way. 00:15:54.350 --> 00:15:58.137 align:middle line:84% And one of those is people that write in books. 00:15:58.137 --> 00:15:59.720 align:middle line:84% I mean, not writing in your own books, 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:01.820 align:middle line:84% but writing in library books, and putting it back 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:03.820 align:middle line:84% in a library book for someone else to encounter. 00:16:03.820 --> 00:16:05.650 align:middle line:90% I mean, sometimes it can be-- 00:16:05.650 --> 00:16:08.260 align:middle line:84% there's a way of doing that artfully and interestingly. 00:16:08.260 --> 00:16:10.990 align:middle line:84% There's a couple-- there's this British artist who 00:16:10.990 --> 00:16:14.890 align:middle line:84% did a good amount of sort of collage work 00:16:14.890 --> 00:16:16.450 align:middle line:84% as a provocation, which was actually 00:16:16.450 --> 00:16:17.770 align:middle line:90% really kind of interesting. 00:16:17.770 --> 00:16:20.980 align:middle line:84% But one of the things about the act 00:16:20.980 --> 00:16:23.260 align:middle line:84% of writing in an actual book is, I mean, 00:16:23.260 --> 00:16:24.730 align:middle line:90% you're asserting authority. 00:16:24.730 --> 00:16:26.530 align:middle line:84% Like, you are literally marginalized. 00:16:26.530 --> 00:16:30.850 align:middle line:84% You have the margins, which you can write back in. 00:16:30.850 --> 00:16:35.540 align:middle line:84% And so in a way, it's a kind of empowerment 00:16:35.540 --> 00:16:37.030 align:middle line:90% to write back to something. 00:16:37.030 --> 00:16:40.150 align:middle line:84% There's this one book called-- it's Mortimer Jerome Adler's 00:16:40.150 --> 00:16:42.880 align:middle line:90% How to Read a Book, 1945. 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:44.620 align:middle line:84% He's trying to explain to the people 00:16:44.620 --> 00:16:48.880 align:middle line:84% how you're supposed to read a book, which maybe could still 00:16:48.880 --> 00:16:49.630 align:middle line:90% be a useful thing. 00:16:49.630 --> 00:16:52.210 align:middle line:84% And I was looking at the U of A library copies. 00:16:52.210 --> 00:16:54.640 align:middle line:84% And there's this one line, like any book, 00:16:54.640 --> 00:16:56.830 align:middle line:84% I think the reader will admit is a work of art. 00:16:56.830 --> 00:16:58.390 align:middle line:84% And then in the library copy, someone 00:16:58.390 --> 00:17:01.845 align:middle line:84% had written in the margin, "not this one." 00:17:01.845 --> 00:17:03.220 align:middle line:84% Which you kind of have to admire. 00:17:03.220 --> 00:17:04.720 align:middle line:84% I mean, a little bit of, like, burn. 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:07.630 align:middle line:90% 00:17:07.630 --> 00:17:09.970 align:middle line:84% But at the same time, I mean, it's a library book, man. 00:17:09.970 --> 00:17:11.345 align:middle line:84% I mean, really, you're just going 00:17:11.345 --> 00:17:13.960 align:middle line:84% to take cheap shots of this guy from 1945 writing 00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:16.089 align:middle line:90% to the kids about books? 00:17:16.089 --> 00:17:18.400 align:middle line:84% But I mean, that sense-- so it's like I 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:20.380 align:middle line:84% had a real like angry response to this 00:17:20.380 --> 00:17:22.810 align:middle line:84% and a kind of appreciative one at the same time. 00:17:22.810 --> 00:17:24.819 align:middle line:84% But, like, trying to push on those moments 00:17:24.819 --> 00:17:26.440 align:middle line:90% where they're sort of resistant. 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:28.089 align:middle line:90% And even with my defacer-- 00:17:28.089 --> 00:17:30.160 align:middle line:84% I think of him as my defacer now because I've 00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.560 align:middle line:84% just written so much about him and thought 00:17:32.560 --> 00:17:34.300 align:middle line:90% so much about this guy. 00:17:34.300 --> 00:17:36.730 align:middle line:84% There's like five defacer essays in the book. 00:17:36.730 --> 00:17:38.890 align:middle line:84% And I just kind of can't get them out of my head. 00:17:38.890 --> 00:17:41.530 align:middle line:84% Like, what a sad guy this guy is. 00:17:41.530 --> 00:17:43.803 align:middle line:84% But, I mean, he's writing in response to something. 00:17:43.803 --> 00:17:45.220 align:middle line:84% He's writing in response, I think, 00:17:45.220 --> 00:17:49.240 align:middle line:84% to his own sense of, I mean, sublimated homosexuality, 00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:49.740 align:middle line:90% obviously. 00:17:49.740 --> 00:17:51.532 align:middle line:84% It's like, you read this, it's really clear 00:17:51.532 --> 00:17:53.410 align:middle line:84% this guy's been in the closet his whole life, 00:17:53.410 --> 00:17:55.780 align:middle line:84% upset at all these people who finally came out, 00:17:55.780 --> 00:17:58.060 align:middle line:84% and who were able to do that once they had money, 00:17:58.060 --> 00:18:00.930 align:middle line:90% as he says over and over. 00:18:00.930 --> 00:18:03.610 align:middle line:84% And, I mean, which is really-- it's a sad story, also. 00:18:03.610 --> 00:18:05.920 align:middle line:84% But then he goes to the university library. 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:08.680 align:middle line:90% And it's a really political act. 00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:10.450 align:middle line:90% And so they discovered this-- 00:18:10.450 --> 00:18:12.580 align:middle line:84% I mean, these books within, I think, 00:18:12.580 --> 00:18:15.690 align:middle line:84% three months of when Gabrielle Giffords was shot. 00:18:15.690 --> 00:18:17.440 align:middle line:84% And so when we were having this discussion 00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:21.010 align:middle line:84% about civil conversation, like what is civil discourse? 00:18:21.010 --> 00:18:23.980 align:middle line:84% And when I was looking for-- is there coverage of this guy who 00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:25.300 align:middle line:90% has defaced all these books? 00:18:25.300 --> 00:18:27.580 align:middle line:84% And one of the only bits of coverage I could find 00:18:27.580 --> 00:18:29.920 align:middle line:84% was someone who had made some comment about, like, well 00:18:29.920 --> 00:18:30.980 align:middle line:90% they're both in Arizona. 00:18:30.980 --> 00:18:32.950 align:middle line:84% So obviously, like this guy is related 00:18:32.950 --> 00:18:36.340 align:middle line:84% to this sense of incivility that's going on 00:18:36.340 --> 00:18:38.530 align:middle line:90% in Southern Arizona, which I-- 00:18:38.530 --> 00:18:41.390 align:middle line:84% which is, I mean, I think a ridiculous statement to make. 00:18:41.390 --> 00:18:44.882 align:middle line:84% But at the same time, it's sort of hard to parse this, 00:18:44.882 --> 00:18:45.590 align:middle line:90% to parse him out. 00:18:45.590 --> 00:18:48.200 align:middle line:84% I would have loved to have actually found him. 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:50.300 align:middle line:84% If anyone knows, by the way, who this guy is, 00:18:50.300 --> 00:18:52.580 align:middle line:84% I would love to try to have a conversation with him. 00:18:52.580 --> 00:18:54.170 align:middle line:90% Because I'm really curious. 00:18:54.170 --> 00:18:55.370 align:middle line:90% And no one will tell me. 00:18:55.370 --> 00:18:57.680 align:middle line:84% And there's no police report that they released to me. 00:18:57.680 --> 00:18:59.930 align:middle line:84% So they wouldn't finally release that. 00:18:59.930 --> 00:19:03.250 align:middle line:84% But I think so a lot of it is trying to parse resistance, 00:19:03.250 --> 00:19:05.810 align:middle line:84% in some case like kind of enact my own sort of resistance 00:19:05.810 --> 00:19:08.660 align:middle line:84% to this desire of, I don't know-- 00:19:08.660 --> 00:19:11.870 align:middle line:84% I don't know, like the PDFing of everything, 00:19:11.870 --> 00:19:14.345 align:middle line:90% that it's not the same. 00:19:14.345 --> 00:19:15.470 align:middle line:90% And it's not going to last. 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:16.573 align:middle line:90% And it's not going to be-- 00:19:16.573 --> 00:19:17.240 align:middle line:90% it's convenient. 00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:18.228 align:middle line:90% But it's not-- 00:19:18.228 --> 00:19:18.770 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:19:18.770 --> 00:19:20.330 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's not a necessary good. 00:19:20.330 --> 00:19:22.100 align:middle line:90% The book is a technology too. 00:19:22.100 --> 00:19:23.930 align:middle line:84% The website is not the only technology 00:19:23.930 --> 00:19:25.760 align:middle line:90% that we like to think about. 00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:29.870 align:middle line:84% So I guess I'm probably just, like, an old angry person 00:19:29.870 --> 00:19:33.080 align:middle line:84% with my graying beard, and bashing my Kindle 00:19:33.080 --> 00:19:37.800 align:middle line:84% on YouTube, which I can do later. 00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:41.290 align:middle line:84% Well, that seems like as productive a place as any to-- 00:19:41.290 --> 00:19:44.640 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:47.000 align:middle line:90%