COLUMNS
Talk Show #15 with Kevin Brockmeier, Sloane Crosley, Sophie Gee, Samantha Hunt, and Melissa Pritchard
/ Jaime Clarke
07.17.08
—What warning would you give this person about his/her own historical era?
Brockmeier: I would be tempted to tell James Agee that he was killing himself with drink and cigarettes and that, in just a few short years, he would suffer a massive heart attack in the back of a taxi and die before he could reach the hospital. My sense, though, is that everyone who knew and cared for him gave him this warning, or one very much like it, time and time again, so why would he listen to me? Instead, then, I would simply let him know how much I love his books, and afterwards I would keep my mouth shut.
Crosley: Hmmm... I would tell him to be wary of tiny emperors in big hats. Then maybe I’d explain how an indoor flush toilet works.
Gee: I don't think I could tell her anything about her historical era that she wouldn't already sense; that in spite of the confidence and excitement of the Enlightenment, she was living in precarious times. Perhaps I'd tell her that world revolution was coming, and the Europe that she had known as a noblewoman would be changed irrevocably by the French Revolution in fifty years' time. She would never see it, but massive social change was on the march. Maybe I'd tell her that the Enlightenment dream that mankind could perfect itself would turn out to be impossible. But it's hard to believe that someone of her experience wouldn't already sense that.
Hunt: Tesla lost years of work—inventions that never were—in a fire on March 13, 1895. I’d warn him about that. I’d also tell him, don’t worry, Prohibition won’t last. He always thought he’d live to be 125, 130 years old. He blamed Prohibition—the deprivation of his daily whiskey—for shaving years off his life.
Pritchard: Human beings understand even less than the cows and sheep wandering through your echoing, emptied, verdant spaces and broken walls, even less than the ghosts layering the air, even less than the crows skimming down from the surrounding beech and ash trees, flying through your arched, unglassed windows, that you have consciousness, that you LIVE, that you are God’s own elements, shaped, trembling and finite, into man’s piteous Dreams. I would also warn you that none will every truly know you, that it is only themselves they see, seek, have ever sought, in your construction, destruction, partial resurrection.
Jaime Clarke is the author of the novel WE’RE SO FAMOUS, editor of DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME: CONTEMPORARY WRITERS ON THE FILMS OF JOHN HUGHES, and co-founder of POST ROAD, a national literary magazine based out of New York and Boston.
Brockmeier: I would be tempted to tell James Agee that he was killing himself with drink and cigarettes and that, in just a few short years, he would suffer a massive heart attack in the back of a taxi and die before he could reach the hospital. My sense, though, is that everyone who knew and cared for him gave him this warning, or one very much like it, time and time again, so why would he listen to me? Instead, then, I would simply let him know how much I love his books, and afterwards I would keep my mouth shut.
Crosley: Hmmm... I would tell him to be wary of tiny emperors in big hats. Then maybe I’d explain how an indoor flush toilet works.
Gee: I don't think I could tell her anything about her historical era that she wouldn't already sense; that in spite of the confidence and excitement of the Enlightenment, she was living in precarious times. Perhaps I'd tell her that world revolution was coming, and the Europe that she had known as a noblewoman would be changed irrevocably by the French Revolution in fifty years' time. She would never see it, but massive social change was on the march. Maybe I'd tell her that the Enlightenment dream that mankind could perfect itself would turn out to be impossible. But it's hard to believe that someone of her experience wouldn't already sense that.
Hunt: Tesla lost years of work—inventions that never were—in a fire on March 13, 1895. I’d warn him about that. I’d also tell him, don’t worry, Prohibition won’t last. He always thought he’d live to be 125, 130 years old. He blamed Prohibition—the deprivation of his daily whiskey—for shaving years off his life.
Pritchard: Human beings understand even less than the cows and sheep wandering through your echoing, emptied, verdant spaces and broken walls, even less than the ghosts layering the air, even less than the crows skimming down from the surrounding beech and ash trees, flying through your arched, unglassed windows, that you have consciousness, that you LIVE, that you are God’s own elements, shaped, trembling and finite, into man’s piteous Dreams. I would also warn you that none will every truly know you, that it is only themselves they see, seek, have ever sought, in your construction, destruction, partial resurrection.
Jaime Clarke is the author of the novel WE’RE SO FAMOUS, editor of DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME: CONTEMPORARY WRITERS ON THE FILMS OF JOHN HUGHES, and co-founder of POST ROAD, a national literary magazine based out of New York and Boston.
