WEBVTT - Anthony Doerr 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.640 We have a sun named Henry as well, also enjoys 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.520 the hot pocket now and then I tried to make them. 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:08.959 I tried to make them because I was like, Okay, 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:10.879 if you're gonna like a hot pocket, it's not that 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.040 far off like a CalCon so that's been feeding Italians 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.439 from time immemorial, So perhaps we should just have a 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.919 girl making a hot bookt And Henry was like, what 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:20.959 is the Italian word for kelson and men again? And 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:22.960 I was like sock And he was like, yeah, mom, 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:29.880 you made a sock to taste like a sock. Nice. Hello, 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.559 I'm Mini driver. Welcome to Many Questions Season two. I've 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:39.159 always loved Cruce's question. It was originally a nineteenth century 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.440 Harlag game where players would ask each other thirty five 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.960 questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.800 just the scientific method really. In asking different people the 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.240 same set of questions, you can make observations about which 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.240 truths appeared to be universal. I love this discipline, and 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.120 it made me wonder, what if these questions were just 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.200 the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.039 if I ask these questions as conversation starters with thought 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.160 leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.280 adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.119 that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story. 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.560 They are when and where were you happiest? What is 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.000 the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.800 or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.880 most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.640 you the most? What would be your last meal? And 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.319 can you tell me something in your life that's grown 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.759 out of a personal disaster. And I've gathered a group 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.319 of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.040 humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.280 may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions. 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.880 We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:00.240 their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:05.360 fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the author 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.520 Anthony Door, whose book All the Light We Cannot See 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.800 One the Pulitzer Prize. This, it turns out, is not 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.600 surprising at all if you have ever read a single 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.320 word he has written. His more recent novel claud Cuckoo 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.760 Land is genuinely one of my favorite books ever, and 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.760 the level of lyricism present in his writing is there 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.760 when he speaks to I wrote down so many things 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.440 he said all the way through the interview, you know, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.000 as though the whole thing wasn't being recorded and I 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.880 had to take notes. I hope you enjoyed this conversation 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.600 as much as I did. I'm very interested. Do you 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.760 mean to start up with since my mother died? But 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.680 since my mother died, I think about the things that 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.519 I didn't realize until after she'd gone, that went into 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.480 the basic architecture, the stuff that was impassing, rather than 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.079 the big moments. And it was weird. It was like 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.320 it was like having the foundation of something revealed when 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.240 I'd really just been looking at the building the whole time, 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.200 this beautiful building, because she was this amazing person. It's 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.960 been like this weird posthumous gift to feel all these 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.080 other things. So now when I do something and my 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.400 son rolls his eyes and like things that I'm super 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.800 embarrassing and that we've spent five hours making a sock, 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.040 I do go. Now you know what he's going to 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.520 remember this because we listened to New Order while we 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.200 made this cow zone and we chatted about some something 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.040 that's so interesting, because that's kind of the lesson for 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.000 like beginning writers want to write about the big architecture, 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.000 you know, they want to write about love for what 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.560 it feels to be confused. But the only way to 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.040 deliver that to another person is through detail, through like 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.760 these moment by moment details of life. That's how memories 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.200 get built, you know, is New Order and making a 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.920 cow zone exactly. And you know what, I had this 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.360 teacher who I dedicated my book to my English teachers. 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.440 My three teachers were so huge in my life as 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.600 a whole, but Alistair one of them. On a Monday morning, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.840 a piece of a four paper would be posted on 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.880 the notice board in my school from the age of 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.840 ten onwards, and there would be a list in his 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.120 really beautiful, strange italic handwriting, and it would be like 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.840 drinking a cup of tea, tying my shoelaces, getting out 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.760 of bed, and you had to write two sides of 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:22.680 a four describing this extraordinarily mundane thing. And he was like, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.640 this is just like exercise. He was like, this is 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.680 the same as you're running around playing fields, playing hockey, basketball, 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.720 whatever it is. So many years later, when I was 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:33.719 still working my way through the anthology of what he 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.400 told me to read in my Life, he said it 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.800 was about getting you to pay attention to not just 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.120 having to do this thing. The thing was not the thing, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.520 but to your life, to all those things that it 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.080 would trigger that whenever you noticed something, it would trigger 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.320 the memory of your interest in the fact that you've 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.919 had that muscle built in from an early age to 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.280 appreciate it and to be able to kind of develop 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.919 ideas from it. Yeah, detail is how you communicate with people. 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.279 If you had said I had this teacher our stair 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.760 he was meaningful to me, that would kind of bounce 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.320 off me. But if you describe his handwriting and you 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.599 describe this list on his door and the details of 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.160 what he was asking you to do, described telling your shoelaces, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.760 it means something to me. That's how you communicate a motion. 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.400 It's ironically it's like you're reaching for the stars. But 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.599 the way to do it is like the tiny little 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.719 pieces of broken glass on the ground, and that we 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.200 keep retrieving memory, Like I've just moved back to the 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.800 town that I'm from. I don't like how it feels 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:29.880 because I don't feel like I can make new memories here. 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.320 I'm so in the trough of what went before and 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.760 I'm fascinated by At the same time, it's feeling incredibly sad. 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.600 It feels palpable. I keep asking everybody, how do you 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.640 create new memories in a totally familiar environment. That's super interesting. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.160 It makes me think about Germans and like the seventies 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.880 trying to deal with like the weight of the memory 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.359 of all the stuff that had happened, and you're just 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.800 trying to listen to music and be eighteen years old, 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.919 and there's always this impulse to renew. I mean, I 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.520 think that's what's so beautifu. Those grass always ends up 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.400 growing over the battlefields and it's so important to remember 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.320 that blood was spilled there, but at the same time 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.480 allow space for young people to move around. So our 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.120 twin boys just went off to college. Oh wow, Yeah, 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.680 I worry so much about you know, this world, Like 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.039 I keep saying, like a little world's warming up, oh, 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.960 and like it's gonna get worse. You know, he doesn't 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:23.640 need that, he needs to be able to go make 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.880 new memories and discover the world anew and go to 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.120 a party as if it was like the first time 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.000 anybody ever went to a party? Did you go to 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.680 any good parties? And what you're busy going? Can you 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.359 believe the ice caps? Not? What about that Kappa Kappa 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:42.680 gamma that's totally it? Yeah, And then his mom's like, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:47.080 ask him about COVID. She's like the cherry on top, 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.520 that's really funny. Well, God, I'd better get on because 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.200 I could really just ask you about a thousand questions 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.520 that have nothing to do with these seven questions, but 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:58.719 I will glean all the answers that I would like 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.240 to ask you. If these having questions allow a ski, 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.960 will you tell me where and when you were happiest? 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.840 Of course I thought about it. I'm gonna choose a 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:17.280 general when, but a specific where I love to ski. 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.280 I live in Idaho, in the mountains in the United States, 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.800 one of the last places middle class families can still ski, 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.040 and you know afford it. We raised our boy skiing 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.720 on this mountain called Brundage Mountain, about two hours north 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.280 of here, where you know, they just put a keg 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.840 of beer in the snow and like grill Hamburgers and 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.640 you could still get a seasons pass for about two bucks. 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.800 Oh my god. There's something about joy for me that's 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.400 always connected to the ephemeral, and for me, it's fresh 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.280 snow is like this great reminder of it, when the 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.280 whole world's like made new again by a big dump 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.400 of fresh white snow. To be there with my boys, 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.440 like moving downhill, there's some joy and speed are linked 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.040 in my head too for some reason. But skiing through 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.840 fresh snow like your joints filled twenty years younger, because 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.840 you can just land without pain and moving and hearing 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.160 them like whooping. You can hear like the joy of 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.480 other people. And you know what's gonna go away. It's 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:13.360 going to get tracked up, but I'll get too warm. 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.800 The moment of freshnow is unpredictable. You just have to 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.720 be lucky enough to be there when it comes, and 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.800 then to feel yourself dancing. It's really a kind of 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.800 dance moving down through that all of your troubles kind 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.680 of vanished and evaporate, and you're just present in the 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.880 now and you're creating like you're dancing. Is especially if 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.120 there are trees you're dancing down through them, so you're 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.400 kind of improvising and making music in your head. It's 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.080 really sharing that with somebody is so special. Oh my god, 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.920 for how you describe that. It is so akin to 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.120 the ocean. I mean, I know that snow is visited 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.640 upon us and the oceans are always there, But that's feeling. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.600 That is what surfing is like. For me. Everything feels young. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:57.800 It's only the next day when you feel your knees 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.280 and my shoulders in my back and the thing in 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.560 that moment, that's it. And the waves aren't always predictive, 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.200 but me you're waiting to see what way will common. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.880 Sometimes they aren't there and sometimes they're too big, and 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.800 so it's very very similar. Yeah, and you're using gravity 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.559 the forces of nature to move you through an environment 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.920 something so deeply human. It connects us to our ancestors. Yeah, 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.880 it really does. It really does that. Moving through nature, 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:27.600 particularly like the mountains, feel particularly sort of atavistic because 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.800 there's it's so much to do with survival, Like I 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.400 don't know, the part of my brain is always on 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.560 a mountain or high up or on a glacier like 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.520 super super super, more turned on than it is anywhere else, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.559 even in the ocean where I know that there are 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.560 great white sharks. They swim right by me to go 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.640 up to the seal colony and eat their breakfast. It's 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:45.960 not switched on in the same way as it is 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.280 in the mountains. It's funny, but there is always a 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.040 thread of injury. There's always there's something that makes you 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.920 feel a little more alive. I'm not chasing like down 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.840 crazy cool wars or something, but a little bit of 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.800 threat of danger does help keep you kind of present 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.960 and in a mind like mine that's always like what 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.360 do I have to do next Friday? Or why can't 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.200 I solve this problem in the book I'm working on 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.520 right now, to just be present is something I'm chasing, 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.280 and it's always so leading, you know. I just want 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.520 to grab on that and remember, like, my boys are 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:17.800 going to get bigger, you know, they won't always ski 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.080 with me. I'm going to get older, sort of have 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.200 those moments when you get to be with them and 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.720 to try to appreciate them for what they are before 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.560 they're gone. Yes, my son barely looked over I mean 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.800 he did, but he did barely look over his shoulder 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.280 when he went off on this camping trip. His first 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.000 week back at school, and I was like, I carry 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.240 him around in my pocket if I could, Like I 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.439 would be in the back of his class, being like 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.240 this an agent ron great, Like I'd be you want 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.200 to sit together at what should we have the lunch? 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.760 Like I would be his worst night matter if I 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.400 possibly could. But I called his name out, and I 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.520 must have There must have been something. You know how 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.200 when you hear someone shout and you can tell that 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.719 they're in vain, you know it's not a shriek of 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.079 Joe way, You really know that they've trodden on the 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.720 thumb tack or stuff. That time, I must have said 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.280 his name with something in it, because he turned around 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.679 so quickly, and I sort of like cheshire cat grinned 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:15.000 at him, and he was like, mom, it's gonna be okay. Yeah, 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:20.000 And then I asked him if I was damaging him. Well, yeah, 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:21.960 we just we have twin boys. Will just drop them 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.440 off at college, so it's like the same thing. God, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.280 that must have been really hard. Your whole job is 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.440 to get them to live on their own, and yet 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.360 you're trying to make your deepest emotional connection of your 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.200 life really over and over with them and then you're 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.240 expected to kind of say okay and let them go. Yeah, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.400 let them go. I know it's way more evolved than 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.880 humans actually are, which makes me feel like we used 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.280 to be so evolved, because clearly we used to do it, 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:51.880 We've been doing it for this long, but like it 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.520 doesn't hasn't gotten any easier, Like how come everything else 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.280 is supposed to evolve and there are these things that 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.320 just do not. It never becomes easier, or you can't 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.920 intellectual qualify. Maybe we didn't evolve to send our kids 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.679 three thousand miles away at the university. There's a lot 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.680 of things that are kind of artificial demands that modern 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:10.800 life puts on us that maybe our ancestors didn't have 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:12.720 to deal with. I think, you know, we would be 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.160 around our elders a lot more, we would be around 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.439 our grown kids. And the way we segment kids in schools, 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.959 for example, like all the twelve year old shipped together now, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.480 but the village is like kids of all different ages 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.440 would be helping each other. The three year olds would 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.840 be attended by the nine year olds, and the fifteen 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.320 year olds are helping the nine year olds. Sometimes I wonder, 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:32.600 you know, all this segmentation in the distance. You know, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.360 our kids got into so called good universities, but they're 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.240 far from home, and maybe that's a little artificial, I 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:42.720 know for people listening. Clokkleland is honestly one of my 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.160 favorite books I ever read, and the part that I 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.840 cried in the most was one of may is leaving home, 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.880 being forced to leave with his cattle, yeah, and knowing 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.280 that he will never see them again. This idea that 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.200 even if one returns. There was something particularly unbearable about 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.000 how going to I don't know how far Constantinople was 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.120 from where his woods were, probably only three hundred and 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.640 fifty miles, but you know, in those days, that's forever. 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.360 The whole book really is about returning and how you 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.640 can never step in the same river twice, and yet 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.600 that's part of life. Like letting your son go off camping. 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.360 You know he'll come back slightly changed and he'll still 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.240 need you for a few more years, but you have 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.040 to celebrate his growing independence even as he's pushing against 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.840 those boundaries that you're building around him. Our boys need 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.160 to go build new families, new tribes, and they're not 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.600 rejecting us. We're not losing them as much as kind 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:35.680 of sharing them with other people. As what I keep 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.199 trying to tell myself. Anyway, you're a little bit ahead 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:40.679 in terms of like the college thing, but Henry goes 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.280 to boarding schools. There is something of them like going 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.680 off and taking what you've given them out into the 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.360 world and saying, this is what we did. This was 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.880 the point was to build good, strong, kind, intellectually curious, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.800 independent people who can go out and be a nice 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.360 addition to whatever environment they find themselves in. Yeah, that's 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.120 so BEAUTIFU fleet put, that's a kindness. I mean, I 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.600 think we're successful if we build kind people for the 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.240 next generation. Yeah, I mean I will saw later obviously, 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:25.520 but I will remember these what relationship real or fictionalized? 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.040 De find love fear? This was your hardest of your questions. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.360 I've been reading a lot about Rachel Carson. Her most 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.800 famous book was called Silent Spring. It came out in 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.720 the sixties, and as she was dying of cancer, she 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.720 made a very persuasive and emotional and beautifully written to 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.240 argument that d d T this pesticide that humans were 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.120 spring everywhere, was going to lead to a silent spring. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.040 It thins that the shells of bird eggs, and so 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.840 it really makes bird reproduction complicated. You know, it's an insecticide. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.560 In World War Two, it arrived as like this magic 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.800 silver bullet that could eradicate, especially during war when everybody's 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.080 all close together, these diseases that you know, these awful 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.720 pandemics that were occurring, especially saying Naples, and they shower 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:11.880 a million people with D d T and all the 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.800 life sty and then there's no typhus anymore, so saving 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:19.920 tons of lives and also malaria. It's amazing mosquito eradicating pesticide, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.520 but if the collateral damage is immense. So anyway, Rachel 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:25.920 Carson was living at a time when I definitely wasn't 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.640 okay to be a lesbian or even just be interested 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.400 in sexuality in a different way. And she had a 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:33.960 relationship with a woman named Dorothy Freeman. And there's about 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.960 nine d letters that survived between them, and they had 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:41.520 this amazing romantic relationship that was always kind of fearful 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:43.760 of being found out Dorothy was married to a man. 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:45.920 And so I've just been reading through some of those 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.680 letters and trying to understand they're very different, and I 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.680 think what's so interesting about loves. We often think, what 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:53.560 do we have a comment, you know, like, hey, let's 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.920 go out on the scorpio. You're you like skateboarding. But 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.120 a differences, I think are what ultimately make relationship. It's 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.200 interesting the way you try to embrace what's different about 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.400 each other, and that's how you learned and evolved together. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:08.720 It's like, oh, man, he likes to go to bed 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.200 at ten and I like to go to bed at 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.320 eight thirty or whatever. I think those kinds of things 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.840 that really help push you to grow as a person 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.480 if you can embrace the differences of your beloved. So 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:22.120 called beloved, were they very different Dorothy and Rachel Carson. Yes, 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.120 Rachel kind of had a little ego, which is interesting 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.640 to learn. And you know, she became a famous writer 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.240 about ten years before Silent Springs, so she had to 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.240 deal with fame. Of course, she didn't have another person 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.680 in her life, so there's always that kind of strange 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.240 jealousy too, where Dorothy has this husband stand. But they 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.400 shared so much love for beauty and for the natural 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.800 world that they could, you know, be out just like 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.720 in their dresses in their nineteen fifties dresses tiebooling together, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.880 and they took such joy and sharing that, so sharing 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.040 the beauty of the world with each other, I think 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.280 was this thing they had in common. But then Dorothy 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.240 would go back to her so called heterosexual life and 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.080 all these worms that are pressed down upon these women 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.280 so that the time they could spend together is so intense. 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:09.240 There's something really beautiful. That's amazing. I love that. I 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.119 love that that's in a book, But it's not fiction. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:18.800 That's really cool. What quality do you like least about 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.200 yourself in patience? I take a long time to write 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.960 these books, like how long. My book before Cloud cook 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:27.639 Land was called All the Light We Can't See. It 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.040 took me ten years to write. I started it when 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.400 I was thirty and I finished it as forty. Took 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.960 me forever. You did win the fullest surprise for its 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.399 or maybe it was worth it. I guess that was 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.600 an epically beautiful book. The Shell Collector was my gateway book, 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.800 and then All the Light we Can't See and then 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.920 Cloud Cookie Learned, and then your memoir Thank you so much. 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.040 He's so sweet. But anyway, you know, at least Americans 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.400 were kind of taught to worship efficiency, like don't waste 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.879 a chapter. Don't like, oh if you would take a 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.680 research trip to France for this book. Every minute better 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.159 be productive or you're failing, like you know, especially leaving 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.480 my wife back at home with two kids, taking a 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.200 financial risk to go there. You just put so much 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.120 pressure on your stuff, Like I can't just go entering 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.240 cider and look out at the sea. I've got to 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.600 be working to the point where I think, you know, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.040 through my thirties, I was teaching myself if I'm stuck 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.119 in a line at the grocery store, you should be 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.120 back at your desk, like this is a waste of time, 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.359 Like you should at least be reading something, like you 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.480 should be researching while you're waiting three people deep to 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.440 buy this lettuce. And I'm trying, as I can get older, 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.240 to accept that sometimes you can't control life, like you 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:34.400 just get stuck in traffic or your flight is delayed, 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.600 and there are real pleasures in trying to find moments 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.439 of the day to just breathe. For example, I was 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.280 just on the flight and it was right on time. 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.120 Everything was going great, but it was like the third 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.720 flight is long flight back home from Europe has probably 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.679 happened to you, and the gate people aren't ready to 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.320 like dock the plane with the jetway and you know 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.400 your bladders full, and I'm like, I've timed my patients 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.439 just for this last thirty seconds so i could get 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.679 off the plane. I'm just telling myself, like, here's an 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.080 opportunity for you to just breathe, sit in the chair. 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:06.320 I'm totally failing at this, by the way, but I'm 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.000 trying to say, like, now you can exercise patients and 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.840 say you're alive. You have so many things to be 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.280 grateful for. You have a book in your bag, Just 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.679 pull the book back out. It's gonna be okay. But 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.600 I'm not that great at that. So in patience, I 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.560 wish I was more patient. What do you think would 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.160 happen if you were more patient? Maybe you would lose 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.320 like some kind of engine. I think that's okay, Like 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.480 the engine of like that makes you write books, or 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.120 that makes you go say yes to the film project 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.160 that's probably landing in your email box right now. Sometimes 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.359 saying yes to those things is so valuable because you 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.960 go to Fiji or whatever, You'll meet people and you'll 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.520 give you participant in this great team making this film. 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.280 But sometimes if you tone down the engine, maybe stillness 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.640 is something that we need to embrace a little more. 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.560 At least for me as I'm getting older, the pandemic 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.280 really helped teach me that I used to think, like 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.200 I've got to have a list of things I've got 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:57.879 to see before I die. Like you've never been to 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.439 the multi coast, Tony, like you ever read all of 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:06.280 Edith Wharton Tony to take Washington Square to goddamn a 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.240