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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is uniquely

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Speaker 1: blessed with intellectual curiosity, air udition, and an insightful wit.

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Speaker 1: He's also been called one of the greatest thinkers and

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Speaker 1: wordsmiths of our age, and is rumored to read up

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Speaker 1: to four books a day. He's also a true New

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Speaker 1: Yorkers New Yorker, the brilliant Adam Gopnick. Gopnik has been

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Speaker 1: a writer at The New Yorker for over three decades,

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Speaker 1: first as an art critic and then as their Paris correspondent.

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Speaker 1: He's written fiction, non fiction, humor, memoir, and criticism for

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Speaker 1: the famed magazine, covering everything from sports to spirituality with

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Speaker 1: equal aplom He's the international best selling author of ten

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Speaker 1: books and an accomplished lecture and storyteller. He has appeared

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Speaker 1: regularly on the Moth Radio Hour the CBC and created

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Speaker 1: a series of one man shows, including The Gates, an

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Speaker 1: Evening of Stories with Adam Gopnik. For someone with such

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Speaker 1: a prolific and varied body of work, I was curious

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Speaker 1: to learn about his writing process. I'm right in the

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Speaker 1: kind of the back room. We think of it as

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Speaker 1: the engine room of the Titanic, right where Daddy has

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Speaker 1: stripped to the waist shoveling coal into the furnace while

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Speaker 1: to keep the boat going for another day. We hit

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Speaker 1: the iceberg long ago, and we're listening, but we're gonna

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Speaker 1: keep moving forward. And I always have my door open.

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Speaker 1: The kids always know seven days a week, six hours

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Speaker 1: a day too, Yes, and they were always aware. Someone

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Speaker 1: teach you that, to someone lends you that. Yeah, Actually

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Speaker 1: someone did teach me that. I had a great teacher

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Speaker 1: and inspiring teacher who I wrote an essay about called

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Speaker 1: Last of the metro Zoids, when he died tragically and

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Speaker 1: stupidly young of cancers. Name was Kirk Varnetot, and he

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Speaker 1: ended his life as the director of Painting and Sculpture

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Speaker 1: at the Museum of Modern Art. But he had been

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Speaker 1: my professor in graduate school, and he was someone of

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Speaker 1: impeccable talent, the greatest lecture I've ever heard, an inspired curator.

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Speaker 1: But he had a work effort like no one I've

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Speaker 1: ever known, which he had derived, as he would tell

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Speaker 1: you himself and did tell you often, from playing football

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Speaker 1: and coaching football. That had been his passion In college,

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Speaker 1: played defensive line, though he was wildly undersized then and

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Speaker 1: going out to Stanford, and couldn't decide whether to continue

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Speaker 1: coaching for Bill Walsh, who was at Stanford then here,

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Speaker 1: or to become an art historian. And he said to

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Speaker 1: me a memorable line, He said, the thing about being

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Speaker 1: a football coach is you have to be smart enough

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Speaker 1: to do it well and dumb enough to think it matters.

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Speaker 1: My father was a football coach, was he really? My

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Speaker 1: father coach high school where he played at SU and

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Speaker 1: then he went to They caught high school football where

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Speaker 1: we grew up, and my memories of that mentality. There

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Speaker 1: was a sign above the entrance to the coach office

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Speaker 1: as you walked out the door, and the sign said

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Speaker 1: if you score, you may win. If they never score,

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Speaker 1: you will never lose. And the boulder letters said defense

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Speaker 1: wins championships. Well, that was very much. Though Kirk was

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Speaker 1: the most sophisticated of intellectuals, he was at heart a

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Speaker 1: football coach. And when I arrived in graduate school in

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Speaker 1: New York in nineteen eighty, I was something of a

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Speaker 1: wise guy. I grew up in an academic family, but

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Speaker 1: in a very contentious, smart when the argument at the

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Speaker 1: dinner table kind of family, what'd your dad do? My

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Speaker 1: dad was a professor? No, no, when when you when

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Speaker 1: you left Philadelphia? How old were you when you went

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Speaker 1: to Levin? When we left Philadelphia? And then I and

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Speaker 1: then grew spent the next nine years in Montreal, really

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Speaker 1: kind of grew up in exactly. And my mother to

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Speaker 1: my mother was a professor too, And actually I should

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Speaker 1: add them in many ways a more distinguished scientist and

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Speaker 1: scholar than my dad was. My dad spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of time as a dean, was extremely good at it.

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Speaker 1: My mom is famous in her field for having discovered

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Speaker 1: the first identifiable chromosome linked to grammar, linked to language,

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Speaker 1: which is called if I used to know my heart

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Speaker 1: show f XP you forgotten? Yes, exactly twops. Anyway, So

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Speaker 1: I came I came of age very much in that

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Speaker 1: kind of Jewish intellectual family, with elements of the Glass

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Speaker 1: family of Salinger and of the Corleone family of Mary

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Speaker 1: Open leaving at eleven, I wonder, I mean, I always

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Speaker 1: identified that period as a huge transition childhood. It's very

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Speaker 1: sent you to say that it was hugely tough, hugely tough,

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Speaker 1: because I had just sort of begun for the first

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Speaker 1: time to have a circle of friends. And we smoked.

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Speaker 1: We couldn't get marijuana, we smoked marigold cigarettes and all that.

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Speaker 1: It was hugely tough moving to a strange city, and

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Speaker 1: it took me quite a while to adjust. As in Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: where I spent my childhood, really I had actually been

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Speaker 1: a kid actor, and I had been the kind of

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Speaker 1: the Jackie Coogan of Andre Gregory's avant garde theater. You

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Speaker 1: know Andrew Gregory, it's still to this day a very

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Speaker 1: dear friend, my oldest friend in the world. And he

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Speaker 1: had an avant garde theater in Philadelphia. Oh do you

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Speaker 1: really yes? Yeah, Well that was that that family. And

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Speaker 1: so I had played countless parts for Andre and as

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Speaker 1: I say, we're still intimate friends. And so I had

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Speaker 1: a very uh incandescent and some always a blessed child.

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Speaker 1: And so that transition was extremely, extremely difficult for me.

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Speaker 1: And you went undergrad to McGill. I went undergrad to McGill.

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Speaker 1: I've got many friends because mcgils such a great school.

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Speaker 1: I have many friends whose children have gone there. And

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Speaker 1: my neighbor in my first home and I m Aganson

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Speaker 1: was skip Sheldon Huntington's Sheldon who was on the medical

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Speaker 1: staff there or the hospital staff. That he was a

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Speaker 1: medical doctor who also I think his family him or

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Speaker 1: his mother's family were heirs to the merc drug and

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Speaker 1: he was my guy. And I'm McGill such a great

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Speaker 1: school when you were there growing up. Was it a

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Speaker 1: feder company you were going to go to McGill, Yes,

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Speaker 1: there was no, There was no question. It was the

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Speaker 1: It was the family tavern. Really, not only I tell

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Speaker 1: my kids. In fact, they ended up because I got

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Speaker 1: a discount because my both my parents were professors, and

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Speaker 1: then I did well and I got various fellowships and

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Speaker 1: ended up paying me to go to college, so which

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Speaker 1: was in this day as unusual. My friend Malcolm Bladwell,

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Speaker 1: who's also a Canadian of the same generation, points out

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Speaker 1: accurately that that's the Canadian model, that you go to

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Speaker 1: the nearest good school to your home. And the whole

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Speaker 1: insane American rigmarole which we have gone through is I'm

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Speaker 1: sure you have gone through and will go through of

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Speaker 1: college visits and the insane competitive overdrive that takes places

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Speaker 1: essentially unknown in Canada. My nieces and nephews live in

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Speaker 1: Edmonton and they went to the University of Alberta, which

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Speaker 1: is a terrific school and is nearby. But yeah, I

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Speaker 1: went to McGill and art history. I did art history.

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Speaker 1: I did our history because I was torn between doing

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Speaker 1: psychology and art history. My older sister, with whom i'm

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Speaker 1: extremely close intellectually did psychology and it's the psychologist to

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Speaker 1: this day. But I have four sisters. I should add,

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Speaker 1: you're one of how many six? I'm one of six,

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Speaker 1: so it's positive science, right, one of six I had.

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Speaker 1: This is a whole other subject, but we I had

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Speaker 1: an extraordinary childhood, which I hope to write about it

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Speaker 1: in my next book after this one. But I had

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Speaker 1: seen an incredibly pretty girl going into the art history

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Speaker 1: department and I thought, that looks interesting. We're interested in psychology,

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Speaker 1: which tended to study what is she studying? And I've

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Speaker 1: found out and I followed her in and forty two

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Speaker 1: years later we're still married, so that worked out all right.

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Speaker 1: But it was also nice because I was talking. I

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Speaker 1: was you know how it is when you know that age,

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Speaker 1: you're agonized about everything. Everything is in agony. And I

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Speaker 1: said to my psychology advice, but what should I do

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Speaker 1: Should I do art history of psychology? It seemed hugely

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Speaker 1: important at the time. And he said, is this a

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Speaker 1: difficult decision? And I said yes, And he said, then

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Speaker 1: it's unimportant. He said, all difficult decisions in life are

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Speaker 1: unimportant because if they're difficult, that means there's a lot

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Speaker 1: to be said on both sides, so you can't really

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Speaker 1: take a wrong turn. My wife has a degree in

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Speaker 1: art history from n y U. And when I said

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Speaker 1: to her at one point, why that in a menu

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Speaker 1: of things you might have said, I said, why that?

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Speaker 1: And she goes cool. It's because it's the history of

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Speaker 1: the world of humanity, history of humanity and the history,

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Speaker 1: and it has this magical element, and that is that

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Speaker 1: you look at ill fixed pictures, at things that don't move,

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Speaker 1: that don't dramatize, that don't have you know, attached them,

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Speaker 1: and suddenly they seemed to sum up a period and epoch,

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Speaker 1: a mood of meaning you understand the Italian Renaissance better

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Speaker 1: by looking at Leonardo than you do by reading six

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Speaker 1: volumes on the period. So I loved it and still do.

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Speaker 1: I came to New York with, as I've written about

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Speaker 1: in my book, at the Stranger's Gate. We got on

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Speaker 1: a bus leaving Montreal like kids out of a nineteen

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Speaker 1: forties musical, and came to New York. The building where

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Speaker 1: we are right now we're writing, was where Martha had

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Speaker 1: her first job. She was a film editor at that time,

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Speaker 1: studying to be a film editor. Was was actually a

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Speaker 1: film editor. She was with eventually too, the Masals, but

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Speaker 1: she had trained with her parents were founding filmmakers for

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Speaker 1: the National Film Board of Canada. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: that means anything in American now, but it was the

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Speaker 1: great documentary are familiar and this was her first job,

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Speaker 1: and it is a sign of how different New York

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Speaker 1: is now. And then that this building on Ninth Aven

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Speaker 1: and was so isolated that I would come, I would

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Speaker 1: take her down on the subway in the morning and

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Speaker 1: pick her up again at night because they routinely found

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Speaker 1: dead bodies in the dumpster. And there was truly on

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Speaker 1: this block where now there's ah. You have your choice

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Speaker 1: between a great French, great restaurant of the south of

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Speaker 1: France and a fine bistro from Alsace. There was nothing.

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Speaker 1: There was absolutely nothing. So when you leave and you

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Speaker 1: come to New York, what motivated that decision. Why did

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Speaker 1: you want to come to go to graduate school at

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Speaker 1: n y U and not remain in Canada, go somewhere

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Speaker 1: else because it was a period of your life for

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Speaker 1: your fairly peripateticus. Yes, absolutely, but because we had fallen

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Speaker 1: in love with New York and it was I had

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Speaker 1: fallen crazy New York. Oh no, No, she was Icelandic

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Speaker 1: girl from Montreal. She was. It couldn't have been more

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Speaker 1: Canadian in background and temperament is to this day. But

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Speaker 1: we had been to New York and we had fallen

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Speaker 1: crazy in love with it the way you do, or

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Speaker 1: people have done historically. And then even then, even in

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Speaker 1: the seventies, and and my you know, my folks thought

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Speaker 1: we were a little bit crazy because there was the

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Speaker 1: Tali into the seventies in New York was still taxi

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Speaker 1: driving New York, you know, with steam coming out of

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Speaker 1: the manholes and psychos driving the cabs. But we had

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Speaker 1: fallen crazy in love with it, and I as I

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Speaker 1: am to this day, it's not. That's an emotion that's

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Speaker 1: never changed for me. And it seemed like a time

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Speaker 1: of possibility. And when you're twenty years old, you don't

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Speaker 1: it's hard to keep anybody away from anything. My father

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Speaker 1: came with me when we got on the bus going

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Speaker 1: down to Manhattan, and he said to me, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's like, you know d'artagnan's father and the three musketeers

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Speaker 1: seize him off from Gascony, if you remember, and says,

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Speaker 1: when you get to Paris, fight duels with everyone you meet,

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Speaker 1: which he then does and becomes a musketeer. My father

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Speaker 1: said to me when I was getting on the bus,

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Speaker 1: he said, when you get to New York, remember never

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Speaker 1: underestimate the other person's insecurity. And those turned out to

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Speaker 1: be the wisest words anyone has ever given me. And

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Speaker 1: every mistake I've made subsequently was because I underestimated someone

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Speaker 1: else's insecurity. And every time I've had an empathetic insight

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Speaker 1: way of putting, was kind of a Karawackian figure like

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Speaker 1: You're reading books, consult he said. Remember one thing, he said,

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Speaker 1: even if you really are one in a million, there's

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Speaker 1: seven other people like you in this city. So you

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Speaker 1: can form a little club with that. Then you can

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Speaker 1: hang out with your mind. People absolutely make a you

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Speaker 1: make a cohort instantly. In New York and my dad,

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Speaker 1: because there was so much that was decrepit and there

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Speaker 1: was so much that was despairing, there were these wonderful

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Speaker 1: little islands of light and poetry and music. When we

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Speaker 1: here the G eight jazz pianist Ellis Larkins play at

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Speaker 1: the Carnegie Tavern, which was this little bar right behind

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Speaker 1: weren't even we didn't even know enough to drink in

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Speaker 1: those days. For the price of a perier, you could

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Speaker 1: be in this cool dark room where this genius was,

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Speaker 1: this artatum level pianist was playing for free, reflectively, with

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Speaker 1: melancholy elegance night after night. That was part of the

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Speaker 1: magic of New York in that period before Uber and

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Speaker 1: so forth, mid to late eighties. I would get into

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Speaker 1: would say to the driver, how's the driving business. That

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Speaker 1: would strike a conversation with them. And the one guy

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Speaker 1: that I think he was Russian, he said that, he said,

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Speaker 1: New York is not the same in the more. He says,

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Speaker 1: all the artists are gone, he said, because of the

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Speaker 1: rent is so high. He said, all the artists are

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Speaker 1: leaving the city. He said. Now it's only these bankers

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Speaker 1: who get up in the morning and go running along

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Speaker 1: the reservoir, then go downtown and try to kill each other,

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Speaker 1: you know. And I remember there was I felt much

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Speaker 1: more romantic about New York. And then I think that's

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Speaker 1: rat infested loft in Soho at a time when Soho

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Speaker 1: along Brent Street, scowling as he envisioned another monstrous wall

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Speaker 1: of cortense steel or uh. Donald Judd, the great minimalist,

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Speaker 1: was still occupying his house, which is now a little museum,

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Speaker 1: So you had a sense of those very specific energies

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Speaker 1: were literally manacled together for a year as a conceptual

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Speaker 1: art exercise, and you would see them going up and

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Speaker 1: down West Broadway in a state of total bliss and equanimity.

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Speaker 1: And so we were lucky enough to see that last frontier.

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Speaker 1: And it's true that one of the tragedies of New

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Speaker 1: York in my lifetime is is that those frontiers of

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Speaker 1: bohemia that had persisted since the Civil War really have vanished.

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Speaker 1: And yet when I say that, I recognized the limitations

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Speaker 1: of my own vision, because for my kids didn't experience

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Speaker 1: it that way. They experienced bed Sty, and they experienced Williamsburg,

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Speaker 1: and they experienced Brooklyn. You know, it was one of

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Speaker 1: the great transformations of our time. You know, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you've read because it's a favorite book of all of

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Speaker 1: us who love the theater, Moss Hearts, Act One, which

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Speaker 1: is a story about the subway. Basically, it's about getting

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Speaker 1: on the Subway in Brooklyn and being brought into the

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Speaker 1: wonders of Manhattan, and generations of imaginative New York pilgrims

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Speaker 1: made that trip from the Bronx of Brooklyn into town.

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Speaker 1: And then suddenly it was like the suction on a vacuum.

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Speaker 1: It suddenly turned the other way around right, and everyone

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Speaker 1: was departing Manhattan for Brooklyn and the Bronx. Remember my son,

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Speaker 1: Luke said to me at one point, very seriously, he said, Dad,

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Speaker 1: he said, you know, I know you like this neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: the Upper East Side, which you know I had mortgaged

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Speaker 1: every atom of carbon in my body in order to

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Speaker 1: provide for them as an abode. He said, but you know,

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Speaker 1: the food is so much better than Williamsburg. He said,

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Speaker 1: I really wanted to come out with me for my generation.

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Speaker 1: I I joke, I said, oh my god, Brooklyn was

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Speaker 1: where you would go to buy like serious hardcore drugs

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Speaker 1: or a gun. But there's two things when I look

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Speaker 1: at your your facts and so forth in your CD

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Speaker 1: that stand out to me that I'm always kind of

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Speaker 1: fascinated by. One is expatriotism. And you go live in

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Speaker 1: Paris for five years now? Was that the only long

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Speaker 1: term stay you had outside the United State. That was

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Speaker 1: the one and only. That was the one and only.

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Speaker 1: I mean we've gone, you know, likes, we visited London,

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Speaker 1: and we've been kind of you know, regular habituaies of

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Speaker 1: Paris since, but that was the only extended time was

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Speaker 1: you know, what was it like for you to, like,

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming what was the Paris idea? Your idea someone

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Speaker 1: sent you because of you were you were, you were

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Speaker 1: commissioned because you were going to write these journals if

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Speaker 1: you will know you keep journals. It was our idea.

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Speaker 1: Martha and I had fallen in love with Paris and

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Speaker 1: with the idea of Paris. I guess we're sort of

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Speaker 1: constantly just loyal love is fall in love with New

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Speaker 1: York and fall in love with Paris and go on,

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Speaker 1: and we're not cheating on New York Paris exactly exactly.

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Speaker 1: It was our that was our lover. New York. New

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Speaker 1: York is our our spouse, and Paris our mistress. Someone

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Speaker 1: wrote a book with that title. By the way, Paris

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Speaker 1: was our mistress. But in any case, we had fallen

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Speaker 1: in love with it. And when our son Luke was

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Speaker 1: born in knew that if we didn't go now, then

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Speaker 1: we would be entrapped, if not entombed by New York

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Speaker 1: necessities preschool exactly. And so we decided to do it.

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Speaker 1: And I threw my cap over the wall. You know

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Speaker 1: a beautiful story of Frank O'Connor's, you know, when they

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Speaker 1: growing up as a poor Irish kitten cork and whenever

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Speaker 1: they came to a wall that was too high to scale,

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Speaker 1: all the little Irish ways threw their caps over the wall.

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Speaker 1: Because once your cap was on the other side of

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Speaker 1: the wall, you had no choice but defined a way over.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't go home without your cap. And I've always

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Speaker 1: thought that's a lovely image of the key moments we

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Speaker 1: have in life. So threw my cap over the wall,

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Speaker 1: said to the wonderful Tina Brown, who was then the

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Speaker 1: editor of The New Yorker, Listen, I really really want

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Speaker 1: to go to Paris. And bless her, she said, all right,

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Speaker 1: go go to Paris. Right to us from right for

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Speaker 1: us from Paris, And so we off, off we went.

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Speaker 1: And it was I don't think I had this fully

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Speaker 1: formed as a thought, but it was some kind of intuition.

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Speaker 1: I knew Paris would be a more interesting place to

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Speaker 1: write about than London exactly because it threatened to become

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Speaker 1: a bit of a backwater. You know, it was a

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Speaker 1: time I loved the nineties. I thought the nineties were great.

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Speaker 1: They were as good as the nine nineties, were as

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Speaker 1: good as the eighteen nineties, and lots of ways. But

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Speaker 1: there was this encircling girdle of American life, in American influence,

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Speaker 1: which you felt very strongly in London. In those days

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Speaker 1: it was kind of triumphant Anglo Saxism, and France and

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Speaker 1: Paris were the last place to resist that, so you

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Speaker 1: were actually witnessing the alternative, like the little Gaulish village

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Speaker 1: in the Asteris comics. This was the last place that

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Speaker 1: was going on. So I knew would be a more

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Speaker 1: interesting place to write about, because losers, so to speak,

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Speaker 1: are always more interesting to write about than winners. And

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Speaker 1: and we settled in and those were five amazing years.

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Speaker 1: They were also, you know, there's a moment I think

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Speaker 1: in every from nine till two thousand and one really

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Speaker 1: came home to nine eleven. Also, I think in every

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Speaker 1: writer's life, and this may be true of every artist's life,

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Speaker 1: I think it is true of every artist's life there's

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Speaker 1: a moment when you sort of know you've hit it,

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Speaker 1: when you find your voice, you find your stance, and

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Speaker 1: you sort of know, even if you don't like me,

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Speaker 1: you have to admit that this is good. And I

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Speaker 1: felt that way writing in Paris for the first time.

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Speaker 1: I've been writing for a decade for The New Yorker already,

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Speaker 1: but I sort of knew when I wrote my first piece,

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Speaker 1: I said, Oh, this voice is mine. This voice is appealing.

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Speaker 1: There's something about the way I can write here with

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Speaker 1: a certain kind of ride attachment, but also with a

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Speaker 1: certain kind of lyrical enthusiasm. I felt, I knew that

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Speaker 1: it was working. And there's just there's no feeling as

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Speaker 1: good in a writer's life as that moment when you

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Speaker 1: when you know inside there's literally a kind of physical vibration,

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Speaker 1: a hum when you sit down to your typewriter or

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Speaker 1: computer when you feel that. And I felt that so

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Speaker 1: strongly in Paris, author Adam Gopnik. If you're enjoying insights

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Speaker 1: into the inner workings of The New Yorker, listen to

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Speaker 1: my conversation with an author formerly at the helm of

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Speaker 1: the publication, Editor in Chief Extraordinaire, Tina brown Well I

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Speaker 1: think I'm a compulsive reporter. Actually, I mean I have

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Speaker 1: what I think of as observation greed. Right most of

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Speaker 1: the time, I'm propelled to go out, not because I

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Speaker 1: actually want to go out, but I think I got

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Speaker 1: to see that, you know, I need to see that. Curious.

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Speaker 1: I'm really curious, and I have a great desire to

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Speaker 1: report on the action. Here the rest of my conversation

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Speaker 1: with Tina Brown in our archives at Here's the Thing

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Speaker 1: dot org. After the Break, Adam got Nick shares the

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Speaker 1: secret to a perfect marriage. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're

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Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing writer Adam got Nick. This

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Speaker 1: family spent five years living in France. In his time there,

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Speaker 1: he composed the Paris Journal for the New Yorker magazine,

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Speaker 1: as well as a collection of essays the New York

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Speaker 1: Times best selling Paris to the Moon. I was curious

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Speaker 1: why he decided to leave the City of Lights after

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Speaker 1: what seemed to be such a charmed and eventful time there.

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Speaker 1: That was our decision as well, Martha. We had just

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Speaker 1: had our new baby, Olivia, and which was sort of

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Speaker 1: the climactic, the culminating episode, and what I knew would

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Speaker 1: be the book that I had organized, and Martha said

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Speaker 1: to me, you know, in New York we have a

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Speaker 1: full life, but an unbeautiful existence, and in Paris we

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Speaker 1: have a beautiful existence, but not a full life. And

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Speaker 1: we had to make that choice. It's a choice I've

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Speaker 1: often regretted. Frankly, Alex and I still love Paris deeply

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Speaker 1: and have thought of it, but it Our son Luke

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Speaker 1: was about to start serious school, and he had been

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Speaker 1: to preschool, in kindergarten and first grade in Paris. And

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Speaker 1: I love France and I love French culture, but the

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Speaker 1: worst side of French culture is French education. It's brutal,

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Speaker 1: it's very effective, and you know, the kids emerge being

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Speaker 1: able to recite Ruscine and give you the square root

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Speaker 1: of sixty in a way kids in our schools, yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: You know, you don't necessarily, but it's a hard life.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're there from eight in the morning till

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Speaker 1: four and in the afternoon. A good thing about it

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Speaker 1: is that French kids tend to be sensitive in a

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Speaker 1: way that American kids are often spoiled, because they're aware

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Speaker 1: from a very early age that existence is unappeasable, authority

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Speaker 1: is unappeasable. We don't teach our kids that authority is

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Speaker 1: unappeasable until it smacks them on the side of the

429
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:41,240
Speaker 1: head when their nineteen or twenty and they start working

430
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:45,399
Speaker 1: or joined the army or whatever. I often think, Luke, my,

431
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 1: my wonderful son was a philosopher. Now, on his first

432
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:50,360
Speaker 1: day at school, went in New York. And I came

433
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:53,240
Speaker 1: home and said, how was it? And he said, Dad,

434
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 1: the teachers are too nice. And I said, what do

435
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 1: you mean, teachers? Everything you do they say is good.

436
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: He said, I drew a picture of myself. It wasn't good, Dad.

437
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 1: The nose was too big in the ears were wrong,

438
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:04,639
Speaker 1: and they said it's wonderful. We're going to put it

439
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: right up on the Picasso. Hello. Yes, And I said,

440
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:10,240
Speaker 1: what would they have said in Paris? Oh, in Paris

441
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:14,360
Speaker 1: they would say, no, it does it's nothing. It's it's

442
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: it's nothing. And he spotted instantly the profound insincerity of

443
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:23,920
Speaker 1: American education, the superficiality of the encouragement that we often

444
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:25,879
Speaker 1: give to kids. It's unearned, you know, he just as

445
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 1: you've done it, so it's good. I find that for me. Well,

446
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sixty four years old, and I got

447
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:34,120
Speaker 1: remarried and I have six children. The oldest is eight.

448
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:37,879
Speaker 1: I have I have six children, eight, six, five, three

449
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 1: about to before one and a half and one because

450
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 1: the sixth one is a surrogate and my wife is

451
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: pregnant again with our seven child. So, and I have

452
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,720
Speaker 1: an older daughter, SO who's twenty seven this year, she's

453
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 1: twenty seven. But my point is is that you know,

454
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:55,200
Speaker 1: in school with them now, the thing that we're navigating

455
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,120
Speaker 1: not in some overwhelming way or some you know, it's

456
00:22:58,119 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 1: it's sporadic. Is this me two time up thing where

457
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:04,360
Speaker 1: people's behavior which is like, you know, innocent boys will

458
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 1: be boys and people say off handed things as kids

459
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 1: just shock each other. Now it's like people are marched

460
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 1: down to an office and a report is filled out

461
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: and filed, and you know, it's like a zero tolerance,

462
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 1: zero tolerance for some acts of childhood. Y. Yeah, you know,

463
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: we didn't experience that directly because our kids kind of

464
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:25,160
Speaker 1: just missed it. Right we're in college, but by that time.

465
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 1: But I certainly, and it's the subject of the book

466
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: I'm working on I'm trying to finish for tomorrow, literally

467
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,640
Speaker 1: for tomorrow right now, is that American life is attuned

468
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: to achievement. Past the next test, get into the next grade,

469
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: get into the right college. And there's something very empty

470
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: about that hamster wheel of achievement that we put kids on.

471
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: And your kids are aware now they're how old and

472
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: there are there beyond college? Luke, No, they're both still

473
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 1: in University Lucas twenty six and he's getting his PhD

474
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 1: in philosophy at University of Texas at Austin. And Olivia

475
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: is uh twenty one, and she's five years younger to

476
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 1: the day, which tells you, I'm thinking the same birthday,

477
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: the same birthday, and and they and she's at Harvard,

478
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:06,879
Speaker 1: she's in her third year at Heart. She's switched. She

479
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 1: was in government originally. You know, they only have really

480
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: one subject at Harvard that they teach world domination, and

481
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 1: so she switched from the government side of world domination

482
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: to the history side of world domination. Now I'm told

483
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: by friends who know you and I know a bit

484
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 1: about you, they told me that you have the perfect marriage. Well,

485
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that's true. We have been married

486
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: for a very long time and have been through every

487
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: twist and turn that life can offer. From migration to

488
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: New York at the age of twenty on a bus,

489
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: to children, raising children, watching children leave home, which is

490
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: a big one. And through it all we've been remarkably

491
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: harmonious and happy. I give Martha all the credit in

492
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: the world for that. It's not I'm the difficult, jumpy,

493
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: moody one. And she's a woman of incredible equanimity and

494
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 1: insight and general steve spirit. And she's the caregiver to

495
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: the kids, to the dog, to me, and she's an

496
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: extraordinary woman. So I feel that that's, you know, the

497
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,880
Speaker 1: most profound blessing in my life. Certainly in your writing

498
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 1: career where you go from g Q onto the New

499
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: Yorker was writing? I mean, you're making these observations about

500
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: art to fantastic schools, and you go on to do

501
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: it at the graduate level. And is the soul of

502
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: the writer always there and you're writing during your college career,

503
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: or when do you you become the guy that gets

504
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: hired by the GQ magazine. I never wanted to be

505
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: anything else but a writer from the age of ten,

506
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 1: I can I can locate it to a particular moment.

507
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: First of all, I was a crazy reader as a kid.

508
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: I love to read. I read The Therber Carnival literally

509
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: till the pages came off in my hands in bed

510
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: when I was six and seven. But at the age

511
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: of ten, I wanted to go see a spy movie,

512
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: very bad spy movie, a Man from Uncle movie. And

513
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: my parents had said, yes, you could go on Saturday,

514
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: then on Friday the way parents will as I'm sure

515
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: you do, as I have done. So oh, no, it's

516
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 1: not gonna work, because we have to do this. And

517
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: I was so hurt and indignant. I went back to

518
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: my room and I a ten page letter of protests,

519
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: which I slipped under their door, and my dad's sweet

520
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: good manity is and was came and said, oh, I

521
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: didn't realize you felt this strongly about You really have

522
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,440
Speaker 1: expressed yourself here. Of course you can go. And I said, oh,

523
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 1: that's interesting. You can put words down on paper in

524
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: ways to change the inner workings of someone else's mind.

525
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: And I felt an enormous power that was implicit and

526
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: inherent in that activity. Never wanted to me anything but

527
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: a writer. And though I did do art history, and

528
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: I was blessed, as I said at the at the

529
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 1: beginning of our conversation to have worked with a genuinely

530
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 1: inspired and great teacher. I never really wanted to do

531
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: art history. Art history was just an excuse. I mean,

532
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: I never wanted to do it professionally. It was an

533
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 1: excuse for getting to New York and being able to

534
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: tell my parents I was going to study, not to

535
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: walk the streets and try and sell my songs, which

536
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 1: was the reality of what we're going to get to

537
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: music in the world of magazines and that publishing world.

538
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: I grew up and you took about reading as a child.

539
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: I devoured everything from when I was ten to twelve

540
00:26:57,560 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: years old. I was reading The Godfather when I was ten,

541
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: yars or all or whatever. And and my point is

542
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: that g Q, you know, the Nick Poleeggie era New

543
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: York magazine, when Felker was running all the that bike

544
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: on era. I mean, I feel like magazines were very,

545
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: very different. Obviously then all magazines were the heart of

546
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 1: American culture in in that period, even when I mean

547
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: there had been since the nineteen twenties at least, and

548
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: they still were in the nineteen eighties. And you know,

549
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: Condemnast was a kind of temple. It was a strange

550
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: mysterious os run by the remote figure of signed new house.

551
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: With all of these glamorous magazines, everyone had a car.

552
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 1: So when I went to work, you know, I just

553
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 1: wanted a job. I really just wanted a job that

554
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 1: involved putting words on paper and seeing them in print.

555
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: I would have taken any job that there was, and

556
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to get a job as the

557
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: at first the fashion copy editor of GQ magazine. That

558
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: was my first grown up job, and that meant, you know,

559
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: fashion copy of the little blocks of type that appear

560
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,199
Speaker 1: next to close in fashion magazines, you know, where they

561
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: have little kind of illiterateti tags. They're called, you know,

562
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: summer shirts, and then there's a like ten line description

563
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,159
Speaker 1: of the of the summer shirts. And my job was

564
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 1: to edit and rewrite those things. And I thought I

565
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: was at the heart of show business. I thought it

566
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: was the greatest job anybody had ever given. And as

567
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: I tell in at the Stranger's Gate, I came up

568
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: with a two line and a literative tag to word,

569
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: a literative tag so potent it was simply Kiara scoro

570
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: chic for a group of glowing linen shirts. Kiara scorer

571
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: cheek that they promoted me on the strength of those

572
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 1: two to become the grooming editor. And then I was

573
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: responsible for all of the copy about lotions and moisturizers,

574
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: and they're in shampoo's except for fragrances, which was specially

575
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: because basically those magazines depend on Yes, there's another floor

576
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: and another thing and the thing I can't convey adequately.

577
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: I loved it. I loved every minute of it. I

578
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: never thought for a moment, why am I wasting my

579
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: talent splitting words and hairs and coming up nodly? Did

580
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: I give it a go? But I else it's and

581
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to recreate this time for our kids.

582
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: You know, Now you write something and you posted online

583
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: and a million people can see it. Right at that period,

584
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: it was sort of I said to my kids. It

585
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: was there were like two hundred computers and all of

586
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: New York, and you wanted to get your hands on

587
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: one of them, and it kind of didn't matter which

588
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: one you got your hands on. The village voice of

589
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: the Soho News obviously not to be disingenuous, The golden

590
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: machine was the New Yorker, and that's very much where

591
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to go and where I dreamt of going.

592
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: But I was just delighted to be in this business

593
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: of turning words on paper into words in print. It

594
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: just filled me with joy, and so I had to

595
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: I had terrific, a terrific couple of years doing that,

596
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: and my kids is still astounded because in a couple

597
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: of occasions I crept into a fashion story as a

598
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: haircut story once. That's how I met the wonderful photographer

599
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: Brigitte Lacombe. She came in it did my portrait, and

600
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: that wonderful French woman. It gets more French with every

601
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: succeeding year that she's in America, and she came into

602
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: my picture, and the kids, having a a glimpse of

603
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: that moment of improbable glamour, are still impressed. Martha actually,

604
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: who had modeled in Canada and was extraordinarily beautiful woman

605
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: still is, had a whole story about her and Mademoiselle,

606
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: and the kids still think that this is, you know,

607
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: just unreal. This is not your parents, This is the

608
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: two other people. What other magazines do you think are

609
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 1: holding their own in the world today. Oh, it's a

610
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: it's a good question. I read the New York Review

611
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: of Books which I think is still a thriving enterprise.

612
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: I read specific people a lot, and that's one of

613
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: the things that for good or ill, that the digital

614
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 1: areas and it's disaggregated magazines a lot. So I read

615
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: John Chait in the in New York, for instance, not

616
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: that I don't read New York Magazine, but I read

617
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: that specifically. Or I read David Frum in The Atlantic,

618
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: and not to the exclusion of other Atlantic right, not

619
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: to the exclusion of other people. Yeah, it's you know,

620
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: it comes more naturally that you you're online and you're

621
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: you see that someone's tweeted something interesting. I try and

622
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: read our magazine and New Yorker, of course, but I

623
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: do think we've done a pretty good job of staying

624
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: I hate the word relevant. I hope we've done a

625
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: good job of staying irrelevant in the sense that I

626
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: that you when you open the magazine, I would hope

627
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 1: that you don't know what you're going to read about,

628
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: and that the basic gambit of The New Yorker has

629
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: always been well, it was not unlike when I was

630
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: in Paris. As you say, Paris, I'm not interested in Paris.

631
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: Why should I be interested in Paris. What's this guy? Oh,

632
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: this is kind of interesting, This is kind of funny. Okay,

633
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: I'll stick with this. No, we're in your wheelhouse. Do

634
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: you see a place or did you ever contemplate a

635
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: place for a film? Oh? I always kind of played

636
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 1: a place for film and that. And Martha, my wife,

637
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: is a filmmaker and all of that, and like every

638
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: she's still doing that totally. Yes, indeed, she's she's producing

639
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: and writing screenplays now gone on from editing. So it's

640
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: very much a presence in our house and has been

641
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: for forty some years. I've tried my hand a couple

642
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: of times at screenplace and never really, you know, never

643
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,719
Speaker 1: quite felt at home doing that. I've collaborated with her,

644
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: and I think we've done some nice things, but I've

645
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: never really I love movies, you know, in my life.

646
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: In fact, I will be honest with you, you know,

647
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: I would have been delighted and had my life taken

648
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: a slightly different turn, and that had been a bigger

649
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: part of it. I love I love him. I truly

650
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: love the theater, and so writing for the theater is

651
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: at the center of my my feelings and something I've

652
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: I've been able to do. But there was an, if

653
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: I can tell a funny story, that was a moment

654
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: because all you know, like every writer, your stuff gets

655
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: optioned for the movies and then bought for the movies,

656
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: and then the script has developed and so on. And

657
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: there was a moment in our history when I had

658
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: written a story called Bumping into Charlie Ravioli about my

659
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: daughter Olivia's imaginary friend, which had become a well known

660
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: and anthologized and the studio wanted to option it for

661
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: a movie. And then they looked into the contract and

662
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: discovered that Harvey Weinstein had bought outright Paris the Moon

663
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: for another movie, and he had bought the characters in

664
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: that book in perpetuity, and the leading characters. So since

665
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: the leading characters in that book where me and our

666
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: son Luke, we couldn't be in the movie of Charlie Ravioli.

667
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: So there was a moment, Man, how's this for a

668
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: twenty one century moment when half of our family was

669
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: owned by Mirramax and the other half were owned by

670
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: Sony Pictures, right, and they would have to negotiate like

671
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: the gopnic cinematic universe to have us all in in

672
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: one movie. But no, I've never I've never written a movie.

673
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: I was telling that my producers that in my lifetime

674
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: there were two names that would vex me because I

675
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: was around super sophisticated people who would pronounce their names differently.

676
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: They called him Richard Avden. Yes, Brits would call him

677
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: Richard Avedon, and I thought, that's not how I learned it.

678
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: And a woman I worked with, who was a very

679
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: famous and internationally famous model, pronounced the designs named Balanchanga

680
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: but described to me you being I guess adopted by Avedon.

681
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: Dick Avedon was with Kirk Varnett of the great influence

682
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: on my life, and when I think about everything that

683
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: I wear, eat, look at, was very much still under

684
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: his influence and spiritual agis. He was an extraordinary man,

685
00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: obviously a great photographer, but also a man, an incandescent

686
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 1: force in the world, a man of limitless energy and

687
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: and mischief and fun, but also a very serious artist.

688
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: And one of the things that he wanted to implant

689
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: in me, and as I say, he really adopted Martin

690
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: me as as kind of surrogad kids, was that it

691
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,280
Speaker 1: was possible to live a very rich and good and

692
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: pleasure enhanced life, pleasure, affirming life, and at the same

693
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 1: time be a serious artist author Adam Gopneck. If you're

694
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: enjoying this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Hear is

695
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts

696
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,720
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,

697
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: Adam Gopnick tells us the most audacious thing he's ever written.

698
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing from

699
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. From art criticism to children's literature to

700
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: food writing, no genre is off limits for Adam Gopnik. Recently,

701
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: he expanded his resume even further into musical theater as

702
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: a book writer and lyricist. When I first came to

703
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: New York, it was to be a songwriter. I had

704
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 1: a cassette of my songs, and I had written The

705
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: College Show, which was based on the life of Vladimir Tatlin,

706
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: the Russian constructivist architect. And I assumed I was three

707
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: weeks from Broadway, when are we gonna get our hands

708
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: on that on that musical? So I I actually have

709
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: promised our friends Marcy Hysler and seen a good rich

710
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:39,400
Speaker 1: that I would do one of the songs from the

711
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 1: show at one of their four Below evenings. So that

712
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,320
Speaker 1: was my ambition, and I wasn't able to push it forward.

713
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: I was going to be Stephen Sante, not not John Updyke,

714
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: could have become either one, but I've you know. But

715
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: my other ambition was to be an essayist from New

716
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: York Is. So that did work out. And then it

717
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: had always been very much part of my life, caring

718
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: passionately about the musical theater and writing songs for all

719
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 1: occasions and writing lyrics. And then um, the great American

720
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: composer David Shire approached me about writing a musical with him.

721
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 1: I didn't know it at the time, but he had

722
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 1: said to his wonderful wife, d d Con why don't

723
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:15,919
Speaker 1: guys like this everyone to write for the musical theater. Indeed,

724
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:17,879
Speaker 1: he had said to well, you don't know, maybe he does.

725
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: And she approached me at a theatrical thing and said,

726
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: would you be interested in writing a show with my

727
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: husband David Shire? And I said, I can't imagine anything

728
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: in the world I would rather do. So David and

729
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: I got to work and we wrote a show together

730
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: called Our Table. We wrote more than sixties songs, I

731
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: mean complete finished piano vocal songs about a little restaurant

732
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: struggling to survive in New York, and Melissa Erico came

733
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: in to play the lead of the female lead in

734
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 1: a workshop and I was astounded by her gifts because

735
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: my stuff is literary and it involves a lot of

736
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: complicated puns and ambivalent emotions. She's super bright woman, and

737
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: she was It was like in a fairy tale. She

738
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: was the first musical theater performing edition. Very beautiful. I

739
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,919
Speaker 1: haven't an unbelievably voice like a Mozart flute, as someone

740
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: once said. She understood everything that I was writing and

741
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: could deliver all of those bitter sweet, ambivalent, complex emotions.

742
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 1: So we did a full production of it, which unfortunately

743
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: she couldn't be in out in New Haven. Like every

744
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: musical goes to try out and often die. And it's

745
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 1: still the thing. I'm proud of stuff. We have a

746
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:23,799
Speaker 1: very good live concert recording of it that we did

747
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:26,439
Speaker 1: at fifty four below with Melissa singing the lead along

748
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 1: with Andy Taylor and Constantine Marules. Is that available? Yes,

749
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,239
Speaker 1: it is on Spotify with a beautiful cover by Brigitte Lacom.

750
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: Actually Brigitte did us a wonderful cover image. You go

751
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: on Spotify our table Adam Copnick, Melissa Erico. So we

752
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: did that, and then Melissa and I enjoyed working together enormously,

753
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: So I started writing all kinds, especially material for David.

754
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,919
Speaker 1: And I wrote a song which I love called Cry

755
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: for Joy, this kind of a theme song for her

756
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: swing show. Wrote a lot of parodies, and then she's

757
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: just done a beautiful album of film noir inspired music,

758
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 1: but no music. Oh no. On the tray, I was

759
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: just about to say on the country, it's occupying an

760
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: ever larger part of my life. I have two new

761
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: shows underway with Andrew Lippap, who wrote The Adams Family

762
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: and The Wild Party, and David Shayer and I are

763
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: in the middle. Were about one acting to a new

764
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 1: show for Melissa called Troubadour right now, about the invention

765
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: of the love song at the court of Eleanor of

766
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: Aquitaine in the in the thirteenth century. As I say,

767
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: I love the theater nothing in life. There's a song

768
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: in our table called It's Never Reigning in Seattle, which,

769
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: of all the countless things I've done political books and

770
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: family memoirs and and so on, is a single thing

771
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: I probably proudest stuff because it's a song about the

772
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: necessity of lying to your children. In the situation in

773
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: the in the show is that the father that chef

774
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: has been telling his beloved daughter, who was very much

775
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: modeled on my Olivia for years, that they have an

776
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 1: offer in Seattle, but never moved to Seattle because it

777
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,399
Speaker 1: rains all the time in Seattle. You have to bring

778
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,399
Speaker 1: the customers out like sponges before you see them never

779
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: going to Seattle. Rains all the time. And finally they

780
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: have to go to Seattle because they lose the restaurant.

781
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: And then he's she says to him, you know, it

782
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:02,919
Speaker 1: rains all the time in Seattle, and then he sings

783
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 1: to this song it's never raining in Seattle. And for me,

784
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: that's what we do with our children, you know, we

785
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: have to There never been a song about how we

786
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: have to lie to our children sometimes to reassure them

787
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: of the of the salubriousness of the world. That's the

788
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,479
Speaker 1: thing I'm proud of. Stiff. What are you working on now?

789
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: I'm just I mean literally finishing four to send to

790
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 1: my publisher tomorrow, a book called tentatively the Real Work

791
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: on the mystery of mastery, and it's it's about the

792
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 1: business of of learning to master things, particularly in middle age.

793
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: You know, I learned to drive when I was in

794
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 1: my fifties, got my driver's license only my fifties. I

795
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: think I am the only New Yorker ever to get

796
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: to pass his driver's test on the same day as

797
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,880
Speaker 1: his son. Luke was twenty and I was fifth, and

798
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: we took our test on this on the same day.

799
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: I learned to draw in the last few years, learned

800
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: to write music and all of those things. So it's

801
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: all of these essays about learning to do things, but

802
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: it's not a collection of essays. It's a book about

803
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:00,839
Speaker 1: the ark of doing things. It ends, I think hope affectingly.

804
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: It includes a chapter that is the I won't even

805
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: try and describe. It is probably the most audacious thing

806
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: I've ever written in deeply embarrassing in some ways, but essential.

807
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: And then it ends with I've been taking boxing lessons

808
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: for the last year and because I just I'm fascinated

809
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: by mastery, something that's so alien to a little Jewish

810
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: intellectual like me as boxing, being able to enter into

811
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: it and learning the great perpetual lesson of all accomplishment,

812
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: which is that you break it down into small parts.

813
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 1: You learn the small parts, the little segments, and then

814
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: over time, miraculously the little segments become a seamless whole

815
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: and you find, oh my god, I'm actually throwing a

816
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: sequence of punches. So I'm simultaneously was taking boxing lessons

817
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: and I'm doing ballroom dancing with my daughter Olivia. And

818
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 1: so the last chapter is just about the ways in

819
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: which the steps of your feet in ballroom dancing and

820
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,399
Speaker 1: the jabs of your hand in boxing compliment each other.

821
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: And it's the you know, the perpetual cycle. The other

822
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:00,839
Speaker 1: thing that fascinates me, Alec is the way that when

823
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: you're being trained box, you're always made to be aware

824
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,720
Speaker 1: of the invisible opponent, the invisible enemy, right, because everything

825
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: you do is in response to this person who you

826
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 1: never actually see and you never do exactly And I

827
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: find that a very powerful metaphor for life generally. Right,

828
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: we construct ourselves in the eyes of an invisible other.

829
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Just delighted to be here, My

830
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:34,359
Speaker 1: thanks to writer Adam Gopnick. This episode was recorded at

831
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,

832
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 1: Zack McNeice and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.

833
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.

834
00:41:47,680 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is brought to you by my Heart Radio.

835
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: Who about the fun Time