Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is talk easy, I'm saying, Fergo, So welcome
Speaker 1: to the show today. I am joined by writer Hilton Ales.
Speaker 1: He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: for his work at The New Yorker, where he's been
Speaker 1: on staff since nineteen ninety four. In his three decades
Speaker 1: at the magazine, he's written seminal profiles of Tony Morrison,
Speaker 1: Maggie Nelson, and the late Andre Leon Tally. Since twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: he's been the magazine's lead theater critic. When he's not
Speaker 1: writing for The New Yorker, he's writing for himself. He's
Speaker 1: authored a handful of books, including The Women, White Girls,
Speaker 1: and his latest, My pin Up, an exploration of desire, sexuality, race,
Speaker 1: and Prince. He does all that in less than fifty
Speaker 1: pages in this new novella, and it's fairly characteristic of
Speaker 1: Hilton's work, which is marked by a kind of expansiveness.
Speaker 1: In twining memoir with literary criticism, Hilton has taken these
Speaker 1: qualities usually reserved for the page, and recently brought them
Speaker 1: to the Hammer Museum, where he's organized a new exhibition
Speaker 1: titled Joan Didion, What She means as a stirring portrait
Speaker 1: of the late author, featuring more than two hundred works
Speaker 1: of painting, photography, sculpture, video, and footage from a number
Speaker 1: of films for which Didion authored screenplays. If you're in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, the exhibition is open for one more week
Speaker 1: at the Hammer Museum. After that, the show will move
Speaker 1: to the Perez Art Museum in Miami on July thirteenth.
Speaker 1: To learn more, be sure to visit Hammer dot Ucla
Speaker 1: dot edu. That's Hammer dot UCLA dot e d U.
Speaker 1: For today, Hilton and I of course unpack these new
Speaker 1: projects around Didion and Prince, but we also discuss his
Speaker 1: upbringing in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he grew up with his
Speaker 1: mother in the early seventies and quickly found writing. In fact,
Speaker 1: this episode is really the makings of Hilton Owls and
Speaker 1: all the people that have shaped and formed the writer
Speaker 1: we know today. I hope you enjoy this talk as
Speaker 1: much as we did. Do you want to? Are you
Speaker 1: too low? No? I'm fine? Are you sure? I feel
Speaker 1: higher than you? And I don't like that. It's okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm happy you are. If you're happy, I'm happy. Good. Um,
Speaker 1: let's jump in Hilton. It's a pleasure to have you here. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be here. And this is a long
Speaker 1: time in coming. We've been planning since COVID, right, it's
Speaker 1: almost three years in the making. I know it better
Speaker 1: be good. I think it's going to be pretty good.
Speaker 1: I said it was a pleasure to have you here,
Speaker 1: but I actually heard from my producers that this is
Speaker 1: actually not your first time here. You came here yesterday, yes,
Speaker 1: a day before the taping. Yes, were you just like
Speaker 1: excited to see me? What was going on? Well? I
Speaker 1: was beside myself on that level. But what happens generally
Speaker 1: is if I'm afraid of missing something that I've committed to,
Speaker 1: I will show up a day early or an hour
Speaker 1: late because I think the time is different, or I
Speaker 1: won't be there. It's sort of like a dream, actually,
Speaker 1: you know, in those dreams where you can't catch up.
Speaker 1: And so I arrived yesterday and you're adorable person. I
Speaker 1: called her and we called him a producer. Producer. I
Speaker 1: called her and she said, it's tomorrow. She said that.
Speaker 1: You said, oh my god, this always happens. Yes, what
Speaker 1: had happened was that in the car I was going
Speaker 1: to a gallery, and then I realized suddenly that I
Speaker 1: had to be with you, and it turned out not
Speaker 1: to be true. So I went to the gallery and
Speaker 1: had my evening. So I'm happy to be here. You
Speaker 1: know you took the circuitous path, yes, but it was
Speaker 1: the righteous one. And with that I think we can
Speaker 1: properly begin. Okay, why don't we start with this new
Speaker 1: two part memoir, My Pin Up a Pin to Prince,
Speaker 1: which partly details your time with Prince on tour. Yes,
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and four. When it comes to
Speaker 1: writing profiles, you've often looked at the words of photographer
Speaker 1: Diane Arbus for instruction. Yes, who said I work from awkwardness.
Speaker 1: By that, I mean I don't like to arrange things.
Speaker 1: If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it,
Speaker 1: I arrange myself. Yes. Isn't that brilliant? It's just like
Speaker 1: everything she did. Yeah, how did you go about arranging
Speaker 1: yourself in front of someone like Prince? You have to
Speaker 1: allow whatever is happening to happen. So years ago, the
Speaker 1: jazz great Cecil Taylor was doing a recording in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: One of the musicians came with his child and the
Speaker 1: child was running around and making a little noise, and
Speaker 1: the musician was upset, and Cecil said, don't stop him.
Speaker 1: It's what's happening. And I think that what arbis meant
Speaker 1: is you walk into this situation not as a self
Speaker 1: but as a person who was going to give yourself
Speaker 1: over to the situation and to the subject. And so
Speaker 1: by giving myself over to the subject, that means that
Speaker 1: I listened constructively. I had a brilliant mother who was
Speaker 1: a constructive listener. So you walk into the situation listening
Speaker 1: and watching, and you don't interrupt the emotional panorama of
Speaker 1: what's happening. You don't interrupt it with the eye. You
Speaker 1: sort of take on the story that the person is
Speaker 1: telling you, and so you morph with the storyteller. You
Speaker 1: are listening and you are engaged on a level where
Speaker 1: your eye disappears and you become part of their consciousness.
Speaker 1: So inside Prince's dressing room, I thought you're going to say,
Speaker 1: inside Prince, that was a dream. But anyway, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think we've all had that, yes, yes, But
Speaker 1: once you're inside, what was the story he was trying
Speaker 1: to tell you? I think that one of the things
Speaker 1: that was so incredible for me to observe was how
Speaker 1: much he desired Blackmail approval, so that when Maco came
Speaker 1: in or when Larry Johnson, me other people, I could
Speaker 1: tell that he really wanted our approval. And it was
Speaker 1: so touching to me because you never expect someone who
Speaker 1: is mega famous or megawatt personalities, etc. To really need
Speaker 1: other people. And it was such an incredibly moving instance
Speaker 1: of how much he did need other people, that he
Speaker 1: was looking collectively or individually for sort of father figure,
Speaker 1: I think, And that was really what was completely astonishing.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating is the kind of baggage you brought to
Speaker 1: that dressing room, because by two thousand and four, it
Speaker 1: seems like your relationship to him and his work had
Speaker 1: changed by the passage of time. Yes, I had sort
Speaker 1: of stuck with him, but I was less enthrow called
Speaker 1: by the sort of Purple Rain era stuff, and I
Speaker 1: was becoming interested again in the things that he was
Speaker 1: putting out as a producer, like Black Album. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's six sort of beauty and injury of any kind
Speaker 1: of pop person, which is that they go in and
Speaker 1: out of favor according to where your life is. It's
Speaker 1: a kind of weird martyrdom right that they exist and
Speaker 1: don't exist with you. I guess the distinction I'm trying
Speaker 1: to make or I'm fascinated by, is in thinking about
Speaker 1: that Arbist quote, your ability to observe him fully while
Speaker 1: kind of leaving that baggage at the door. Were you
Speaker 1: able to do that? Absolutely? Because he was so sweet.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that was so moving
Speaker 1: about his person I think was his defenselessness, but also
Speaker 1: his being a kind of how would I put it?
Speaker 1: He knew where his feet were in the ground, and
Speaker 1: that's the same time he was I think, available to
Speaker 1: people if they came to him, and he intuited that
Speaker 1: he could trust you. It was a delight to be
Speaker 1: with him. We're talking about the way you observe people.
Speaker 1: But I love this line that you have around the
Speaker 1: late Joan Didion in which you said, in order to
Speaker 1: understand the difference in others, you first have to understand
Speaker 1: it within yourself. Yes, And I wondered if you first
Speaker 1: understood that difference inside yourself around nineteen sixty eight. By then,
Speaker 1: you're eight years old in Brownsville, Brooklyn, with the family.
Speaker 1: As you write of West Indian women, who raised their
Speaker 1: children and what social workers used to call socio isolation,
Speaker 1: and within that isolation, you began at age eight to
Speaker 1: write in doing so, was that your earliest instance of
Speaker 1: understanding that difference within yourself? Oh, that's such an interesting question. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that when something is natural to you, it
Speaker 1: doesn't occur to you that it's a different thing. It's
Speaker 1: natural to you. So and also, I was very fortunate
Speaker 1: in that I had a mother who was very interested
Speaker 1: in what I was doing. She loved art and artists,
Speaker 1: and I would show her my work, I would show
Speaker 1: her my story. She was my first editor. Didn't she
Speaker 1: write her comments at the top of the page. She
Speaker 1: would say excellent, love mommy, or very good mommy. Very
Speaker 1: generous editor. Yes, but as time went on she would
Speaker 1: make a sort of trenchant editorial suggestions. But you know,
Speaker 1: it takes one person right to give you that enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and also to make you feel that it's not separate
Speaker 1: from your primary person, which is what she was. I
Speaker 1: just never felt judged by her, even as I sort
Speaker 1: of tested the boundaries of what was acceptable with my father,
Speaker 1: how would you do that? Costume parties where he was
Speaker 1: not approving of a particular costume or things that she
Speaker 1: would make me to wear to school that were very
Speaker 1: non gender. What were these costumes? I went once to
Speaker 1: the bearded lady, I went once as Pearl Bailey, Like
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the expression of my gay self
Speaker 1: was not something that she even really remarked upon. She
Speaker 1: just kind of did it, and I love her to
Speaker 1: bits for it. Still that there was no language and
Speaker 1: there was permission. These are moments that I will cherish
Speaker 1: to the grave because they make you, They make you
Speaker 1: understand that you're doing something that's acceptable to someone you love.
Speaker 1: You know, did you find it acceptable to yourself? Did
Speaker 1: you have any complications around that later? I think when
Speaker 1: you start to feel sexual, you don't know how to
Speaker 1: do that because you're in a very very very tiny
Speaker 1: minority at that or self admitted minority. So that was
Speaker 1: when it sort of started to change and become more
Speaker 1: difficult and complex. For sure, you said that you were
Speaker 1: pushing them of your father's patience or something another I
Speaker 1: think I think it would be fairer to say that
Speaker 1: I was pushing the limits of his capability, of his imagination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that he wasn't really capable of love really on that level.
Speaker 1: How do you mean? My father had a I would say,
Speaker 1: a real edible relationship to his sons, me and my brother,
Speaker 1: and he would rather not have other boys exist around him.
Speaker 1: He claimed a lot of attention, and I think he
Speaker 1: was exceedingly uncomfortable around other men, including his sons first
Speaker 1: and foremost. And so they're on the most wanting Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: we want in the fifty States. And I didn't grew
Speaker 1: up really with a lot of taboos, but the ones
Speaker 1: that I had were pretty specific and large. It was
Speaker 1: around this time, maybe just a year before, where in
Speaker 1: September of nineteen sixty seven, the neighborhood that you're in
Speaker 1: catches wind of fourteen year old black teenager named Richard
Speaker 1: Ross who had been killed by detective named John Ratley.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, with the just painful, infuriating
Speaker 1: footage that has come out this past week, yes, which
Speaker 1: I refused to look at again, I just couldn't look
Speaker 1: at it once more. Do you want to describe it
Speaker 1: to me or do you want to let me? No?
Speaker 1: I don't, Okay, good, No, I don't want to Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly that that's a human response. Yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's necessary, But in watching it, I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but think of this passage that you wrote around
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty seven incident, that perhaps you would be
Speaker 1: open to reading. Sure. This is from Homecoming, which was
Speaker 1: originally published in The New Yorker back in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: March's Protests and the like, where we knew a prelude
Speaker 1: to the racially motivated violence that had already cropped up
Speaker 1: in nearby New York and other places such as Detroit.
Speaker 1: For sure, Brownswell would get more messed up if the
Speaker 1: cops were involved. That was how demonstrations became riots. I
Speaker 1: remember that night, or was it late afternoon, our mother
Speaker 1: walking us swiftly into the house and shutting all the
Speaker 1: doors and windows inside. It was lights out, the air
Speaker 1: was closed. We could hear our hearts beating peeking from
Speaker 1: behind one of the living room curtains. I watched as
Speaker 1: the protesters started flinging bottles and stones at the cops,
Speaker 1: and our real world turned into a movie, a horror
Speaker 1: film in which everything we'd built together home hope, the
Speaker 1: illusion of citizenship was torn to the ground. Black people,
Speaker 1: mostly men, were roaming the streets periodically smashing car windows,
Speaker 1: or overturning ashcans and torching rubbish. They were claiming what
Speaker 1: they felt to be a kind of freedom as refugees.
Speaker 1: We knew that none of it belonged to us, not
Speaker 1: that shop, not that newly built a pigeon coup, even
Speaker 1: as we knew that it did belong to us emotionally speaking,
Speaker 1: it was all part of our community. Still, why not
Speaker 1: trash a universe that has trashed you. I haven't read
Speaker 1: that in a long time. It's pretty good. I think
Speaker 1: you should stick with it. Thank you, Thank you. You
Speaker 1: know hearing you read that piece. What's most disconcerting is
Speaker 1: that you're describing events from fifty six years ago, and yet,
Speaker 1: give or take a few nouns, you could be writing
Speaker 1: about Tyrie Nichols in twenty twenty three. Which is not
Speaker 1: to say that these stories are the same, because these
Speaker 1: lives out of Ross and Nichols must be considered one
Speaker 1: by one, But after processing each individually, the pattern, the
Speaker 1: circularity of history. It's unnerving. And also I was sitting
Speaker 1: here trying to think of a word that would be okay.
Speaker 1: Circularity for sure, and also repetition, right, political and historical
Speaker 1: repetition that keeps being the same thing, even though each
Speaker 1: instance of horror is each instance of horror cumulatively, it
Speaker 1: feels like a very long time, and the response to
Speaker 1: it seems to follow and locks up again and again,
Speaker 1: that we can't break the circle. Yeah, exactly. I remember
Speaker 1: around the time of the Black Lives Matter movement, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden on TV there would be like black films,
Speaker 1: and somebody's going to make some money off of it. Always,
Speaker 1: you know, dissension pays on some level. In that same piece,
Speaker 1: you wrote, we all hurt, but some of us want
Speaker 1: to continue to be paid. Yeah. Three years later, do
Speaker 1: you feel we've changed it all as a culture? Do
Speaker 1: we feel we're making the same mistake again? I think
Speaker 1: it's a person by person basis. You know, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to meet you. That gives me hope. I can't say
Speaker 1: collectively what we are anymore. You used to be able to.
Speaker 1: I used to be able to generalize more freely and say,
Speaker 1: you know, the human or the humane impulse or the
Speaker 1: humane aspect of something. And I don't feel that I
Speaker 1: can say that with any great degree of certainty anymore.
Speaker 1: I would probably reserve it for a much more person
Speaker 1: by person basis. It's interesting you say that because the
Speaker 1: part of that passage you read, the thing that really
Speaker 1: struck with me, and beyond the larger cultural implications, is
Speaker 1: what is at the center of it, which is discussing community,
Speaker 1: which your family had been searching for since leaving Barbados
Speaker 1: for America. But as the man of the house, albeit
Speaker 1: as a young boy at that time, you often wrestled
Speaker 1: with this desire to protect, to protect my mother and
Speaker 1: my little brother and my sister. They were every thing
Speaker 1: to me. And so I still have that impulse very
Speaker 1: strongly that when I perceived that someone is whom I
Speaker 1: love is an underdog or going to be harmed in
Speaker 1: some way, it's a visceral response to vulnerability. Your mother,
Speaker 1: for context, was a member of the National Council of
Speaker 1: Negro Women and had attended the March on Washington. Yes,
Speaker 1: he said that she always maintained hope. And here's a quote.
Speaker 1: Ma always had hope, but she knew that it helped
Speaker 1: change the world, her black world. But I had no
Speaker 1: clear examples growing up of what might make a difference
Speaker 1: in mine, guns, death, poetry, would any of it dismantle
Speaker 1: the economic discrepancies? For instance, that defined our de facto
Speaker 1: underclass that kept us scavenging for a lifeline, even if
Speaker 1: it was just a pair of sneakers snatched through a
Speaker 1: pain of broken glass. And I wondered if if writing
Speaker 1: and then reading was that lifeline for you. Absolutely, My
Speaker 1: mother was a reader. She would make our dinner and
Speaker 1: lock herself in the bathroom and read and eat her
Speaker 1: dinner until you know it's time for them to go
Speaker 1: to sleep. I was inspired by her example. But my
Speaker 1: father was also a reader. You know, as Elizabeth Hardwick says,
Speaker 1: it's really readings companionable. It's cheap, it could go in
Speaker 1: your pocket. You know. It was always something that I
Speaker 1: really loved to do in terms of what was available
Speaker 1: to me. You know, you find the things that are
Speaker 1: nourishing and consistent. When you're a kid, you just really
Speaker 1: want something to be consistent, and reading, in my imagination,
Speaker 1: were fantastic companions. Well, I think it's only fitting them
Speaker 1: that we go to a piece that was nourishing for you.
Speaker 1: An example of that lifeline, which you read as a
Speaker 1: young man, comes in the form of a one act
Speaker 1: play from nineteen seventy six called a Movie Star Has
Speaker 1: to Be in black and white, Oh Yes. Written by
Speaker 1: the Great Adrian Kennedy. This is a play that Adrian
Speaker 1: Kennedy wrote and it starred Gloria Foster, the great Gloria Foster.
Speaker 1: You'll remember her as the I've never seen the movies,
Speaker 1: but the Matrix, the first Matrix things the ladies making
Speaker 1: cookies and smoking. You haven't seen the Matrix, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not missing that much. Okay, I'll try.
Speaker 1: I like the lady who's I like the lady who's
Speaker 1: in it too, Carrie's Moss. Yes, she's beautiful. I like that.
Speaker 1: I'll try to watch the Matrix, okay, like it's a
Speaker 1: new dish or something. And in any case, she wrote
Speaker 1: this piece and it was performed at the Public Theater
Speaker 1: with her and a wonderful woman. Both of them were
Speaker 1: dead now, but Robbie McCauley was a great dancer, actress
Speaker 1: and Adrian Kennedy's work is about the convergence of fantasy
Speaker 1: and reality, the fantasy of movie stars, movie life, movie romance,
Speaker 1: and the reality of blackness, particularly for female characters, and
Speaker 1: often in her early plays, there's a lot to be
Speaker 1: said about where is that reality and that fantasy meet
Speaker 1: for her characters So this is a wonderful, deeply brilliant
Speaker 1: play that I had adopted actually for the screen once,
Speaker 1: and it's called The Movie Store Has to Star in
Speaker 1: black and white. Betty Davis is one of the primary characters,
Speaker 1: and she's played by a black woman. Betty Davis to
Speaker 1: Palm June nineteen fifty five. When I have the baby,
Speaker 1: I wonder, will I turn into a river of blood
Speaker 1: and die. My mother almost died when I was born.
Speaker 1: I've always felt sad that I couldn't have been an
Speaker 1: angel of mercy to my father and mother and saved
Speaker 1: them from their torment. I used to hope when I
Speaker 1: was a little girl that one day I would rise
Speaker 1: above them, an angel with glowing wings and cover them
Speaker 1: with peace. But I failed. When I came among them.
Speaker 1: It seems to me I did not bring them peace,
Speaker 1: but made them more disconsolate. The classes they bore always
Speaker 1: made me sad that one reality I wanted never came
Speaker 1: true to be their angel of mercy to unite them.
Speaker 1: I keep remembering the time my mother threatened to kill
Speaker 1: my father with the shotgun. I keep remembering my father's
Speaker 1: going away to marry a girl who talked to Willow trees.
Speaker 1: It's Adrian really speaking through this character about her family,
Speaker 1: and it's the projection of her soul and sensibility through
Speaker 1: Betty Davis. That is so remarkable, aside from the writing
Speaker 1: which itself which is very beautiful. Now hearing you read
Speaker 1: that just now, I couldn't help but think of where
Speaker 1: you saw yourself in that passage, especially the line I've
Speaker 1: always felt sad that I couldn't have been an angel
Speaker 1: of mercy to my father and mother and save them
Speaker 1: from their Horman. That's a very good question, doctor Freud.
Speaker 1: I think that it would be a wish that I
Speaker 1: had from my mother that I would want to make
Speaker 1: her life better for her. I think it's a driving
Speaker 1: force in my life. And I think that the other
Speaker 1: thing that I identify within the piece what I just read,
Speaker 1: is the poetry of it. And how do you make
Speaker 1: language move and lyrical and speak, Doctor Freud says, the
Speaker 1: sessions up. We're good. Oh good, doctor, it's fifteen minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. As that teenager in the late seventies hanging
Speaker 1: out with the alt crowd in downtown Manhattan, and then
Speaker 1: as a young man at Columbia University, how instructive was
Speaker 1: both the writing of Adrian Kennedy and then, perhaps more specifically,
Speaker 1: her ability to take artifacts from the culture like Betty
Speaker 1: Davis and make it her own. Well. I didn't know
Speaker 1: her work until I was working the Village Voice and
Speaker 1: there was a galley of her memoir people who led
Speaker 1: to my plays, and I remember picking it up and
Speaker 1: just sitting there and reading it straight through. Structurally, it
Speaker 1: was such a liberating book for me because she used
Speaker 1: photographs and she used memory in a proper way, which
Speaker 1: was that it wasn't necessarily linear, and it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that she could be certain of, but was certain about
Speaker 1: the feeling of something. So that's how I started reading her,
Speaker 1: And then I found a book of her plays that
Speaker 1: came out around the same time, and I was just
Speaker 1: blown away by the intimacy and emotionally everything that she
Speaker 1: wrote made sense to me, the power she had to
Speaker 1: not let the world validate her first. Were you inspired
Speaker 1: by that? Absolutely? I'm very inspired by that. Free voices
Speaker 1: they not only bolster you, but they give you the
Speaker 1: encouragement that's required to be yourself too, in ways that
Speaker 1: you know, we're not necessarily familiar before liberating. Ultimately, this
Speaker 1: seems time to this sort of ongoing conversation about seeing yourself.
Speaker 1: Sure in the work, would you seem to reject some
Speaker 1: of that notion that you need to explicitly see yourself exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't think it has to be you all the time.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the wonderful parts of being
Speaker 1: involved with languages that it's liberating and that you can
Speaker 1: be anything that you want to be. That you're describing,
Speaker 1: you're testing the limits of your own thinking all the time,
Speaker 1: and that's very important. I guess I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: this point down because, like Kennedy, you did not wait
Speaker 1: for the world to validate. You found metaphors in work
Speaker 1: that you love to describe yourself to you, and then
Speaker 1: you use what you read to move the conversation forward
Speaker 1: and talk about your own experience. Yes. And one source
Speaker 1: of inspiration, both back then and now is in the
Speaker 1: work of the late Joan Didion. Well, Yes, and I
Speaker 1: thought we could talk about her in this new exhibition
Speaker 1: you curated at the Hammer Museum called What She Means Now.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and six, you interviewed Diddion for
Speaker 1: the Paris Review, in which she explains that and I quote.
Speaker 1: Although a novel takes place in the larger world, there's
Speaker 1: always some drive in it that is entirely personal, even
Speaker 1: if you don't know it while you're doing it. Now
Speaker 1: that this exhibition is for everyone to see, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: what was that drive for you, as you said about
Speaker 1: creating what she means. Oh, that's a wonderful question, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the real sort of salient
Speaker 1: points for me to make the show was the show
Speaker 1: a life evolving, and that the life was so much
Speaker 1: about the development of a character. Right. So, there's this
Speaker 1: very smart person from Sacramento who goes to college and
Speaker 1: she starts to write or feel that it's all been
Speaker 1: said before, but she's continuing. And then she goes to
Speaker 1: New York and she's working for Vogue, and she's having
Speaker 1: a pretty bourgeois She's doing everything that's expected of her.
Speaker 1: And then she stops doing everything that's expected her as
Speaker 1: she becomes a more serious writer and then moves back
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles during a time of great social upheaval.
Speaker 1: And I think it was that moment in her life
Speaker 1: that she became Joan Didion, because she allowed for the
Speaker 1: fracture to be part of the story. She was no
Speaker 1: longer holding it together and writing the perfectly constructed novel
Speaker 1: like run River, her first book. She understood that her
Speaker 1: voice and her feelings and her thought and her ethos
Speaker 1: was really kind of in sync with the times that
Speaker 1: she was living in. And I think she had such
Speaker 1: an incredible facility to not only chart the times that
Speaker 1: she was involved with, but to understand that her body
Speaker 1: was not separate from this fracture. Her thinking. Everything that
Speaker 1: she had been raised to think and presuppose as a
Speaker 1: kind of bourgeois girl, had to be jettison in order
Speaker 1: for her to be alive in the moment of her life.
Speaker 1: In this life, Diddian, more than just about any writer
Speaker 1: from the twentieth century, is returned to again and again,
Speaker 1: certainly one of the most. I wondered, why do you
Speaker 1: think that is because of the honesty of the voice.
Speaker 1: I think that when you, as she would say, putting
Speaker 1: cards on the table, I'm just paraphrasing, but you know
Speaker 1: you're risking the humiliation of seeing your name in print,
Speaker 1: is what she wrote. But I would say it's a
Speaker 1: humiliation of seeing yourself and when you risk that, it
Speaker 1: takes your chances right You're not the kind of person
Speaker 1: who's going to keep your cards close to the chest.
Speaker 1: It's an act of freedom as much as anything else.
Speaker 1: Is to tell people who you are. They can't tell
Speaker 1: you you've told them. It's a form of control too.
Speaker 1: But I think she was very interested in how what
Speaker 1: did this vulnerability mean, what did this life mean without
Speaker 1: that self exposure. She was someone that came of age
Speaker 1: as a Goldwater Republican, and I think you have to
Speaker 1: know that that definition is very different now than what
Speaker 1: it was then. It was Republicans meant, you know, limited
Speaker 1: government interference in the life of citizens. That's really what
Speaker 1: it meant. And yes there was conservativism, but there was
Speaker 1: also that aspect of it, and the Republicans have carried
Speaker 1: that tradition proudly exactly. Maybe my theory then is, as
Speaker 1: someone who came from this Republican household in Sacramento, she
Speaker 1: had these very firm ideas and understandings of the world
Speaker 1: that were passed down to her yes by her parents. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then life does what it does, yes, and she
Speaker 1: has this kind of lifelong, ongoing public reckoning with herself
Speaker 1: and the world around her. Yes, And perhaps in those
Speaker 1: increasingly fractured times, people ran to it. I think they
Speaker 1: also found the necessity of her voice, right. I think
Speaker 1: that what she was brilliant at was articulating destabilization. How
Speaker 1: you become one thing based on assume notions of the past,
Speaker 1: and this destabilization is a remarkable thing to live through.
Speaker 1: How do we live through it with language? Or how
Speaker 1: do we make language to talk about this experience. It's
Speaker 1: impossible to pick a single passage. I know she's so
Speaker 1: great that captures all her abilities and interests. But I
Speaker 1: know this one piece, which comes at the beginning of
Speaker 1: her novel, A Book of common Prayer, means a whole lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. Happy to read it Chapter one. I will
Speaker 1: be her witness That would translate sete sue testigo and
Speaker 1: will not appear in your Traveler's phrasebook because it is
Speaker 1: not a useful phrase for the prudent traveler. Here's what happened.
Speaker 1: She left one man, she left a second man, She
Speaker 1: traveled again with the first. She let him die alone.
Speaker 1: She lost one child to quote unquote history, and another
Speaker 1: two quote unquote complications. I offer in each instance the
Speaker 1: evaluation of others. She imagined herself capable of shedding that
Speaker 1: baggage and came to Bocca Glande a tourist, una terrista,
Speaker 1: so she said. In fact, she came here less as
Speaker 1: a tourist than a sojourner. But she did not make
Speaker 1: that distinction. She made not have enough distinctions. She dreamed
Speaker 1: her life. She died hopeful. In summary, you know the story.
Speaker 1: Of course, the story had extenuating circumstances, whether crack sidewalks
Speaker 1: in paragrina, but only for the living. I think that's
Speaker 1: such a remarkable piece of writing, and it says so
Speaker 1: much about how life is for those who as who
Speaker 1: are reading the book that she's writing. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful piece. It's also a piece about self delusion
Speaker 1: and how this country produces dreamers. And incidentally, Diddian, both
Speaker 1: on the page and in your time with her, seemed
Speaker 1: to make a dreamer out of you. And yet the
Speaker 1: greater irony is that, as inspiring as she was, I
Speaker 1: imagine you had to, like all writers, unlearn her voice
Speaker 1: in order to find your own. Yes, I don't think
Speaker 1: I was technically influenced by her, but I was certainly
Speaker 1: influenced by her interest in writing about women in fiction. Well,
Speaker 1: she I mean a lot of people don't read her
Speaker 1: later stuff, which is unfortunate. But if you look at
Speaker 1: novels like Last The Last Thing He Wanted on Democracy,
Speaker 1: these are all kind of romances about women who don't fit,
Speaker 1: who are away or outside of the status quo, despite
Speaker 1: money or fame or whatever. And I think that one
Speaker 1: of the things that I love about her writing is
Speaker 1: this search for continuity, even though she knows it doesn't
Speaker 1: exist in particularly in the fiction and her essays. Of course,
Speaker 1: I loved finding out that James Baldwin was one of
Speaker 1: her favorite writers, and they do stand side by side
Speaker 1: on the bookcase for me because of not only their voices,
Speaker 1: which are extraordinary, but their ability to take the political
Speaker 1: and to make it not only just personal, but the narrative.
Speaker 1: After the break, more from writer Hilton Els. At what point,
Speaker 1: maybe it was becoming a staff writer at the Village
Speaker 1: Voice or a staff or at the New Yorker a
Speaker 1: ninety four, At what point did you feel like you
Speaker 1: found your voice? I think it was in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: and I was thirty and I wrote an essay that
Speaker 1: I read it was looked like a tiny conference, And
Speaker 1: I think that's when I could feel it in my bones,
Speaker 1: when I could feel it in my body that I
Speaker 1: was speaking from a very real play. And the piece
Speaker 1: is the last piece that's in my book White Girls.
Speaker 1: It was a piece about memory, and I wrote that
Speaker 1: when I was thirty, and that's the first piece I wrote,
Speaker 1: and I put it at the end of the book.
Speaker 1: I think we should probably rate from that. Sure. This
Speaker 1: is from an essay I wrote in nineteen ninety called
Speaker 1: it will Soon be Here. The wall surrounding memory misremembered
Speaker 1: is clean and wide and high, similar in effect to
Speaker 1: the wall one finds in certain airports in other countries,
Speaker 1: clean and wide and high, like that banking in or
Speaker 1: letting go. Those who want to remember clearly or doubt.
Speaker 1: Passengers coming or going in the field of memory are
Speaker 1: a tangle of arms and legs, hands, heart's hair, and
Speaker 1: minds that, if you do not stand too close or
Speaker 1: listen too carefully, speak a shared language remarkable in its
Speaker 1: oppressive loneliness, its denial, what a horrible memory, and so forth.
Speaker 1: Regardless of where many of us believe, we land in
Speaker 1: that field, encumbered by not too much baggage or entirely
Speaker 1: too much, we all come from the same place, which
Speaker 1: is a road rutted by experience, so banal nearly remarkable,
Speaker 1: that memory tricks us into remembrance of it again and again,
Speaker 1: as if experience alone we're not enough. What are we
Speaker 1: to do with such a life, one in which we
Speaker 1: are not left alone to events, love, shopping, and so forth,
Speaker 1: but to the holocaust of feeling that memory, misremembered or
Speaker 1: not imposes on us. You know, I keep coming back
Speaker 1: to the same feeling every time you read, which is
Speaker 1: to follow your work is really not fair, and I
Speaker 1: think I shouldn't have to talk for like five minutes
Speaker 1: after each reading. Well, you're very sweet, but we're in conversation.
Speaker 1: Is you're being very generous? Thank you, as opposed to
Speaker 1: what boring you know, laborious, not interested. We can't we
Speaker 1: can't do that. You're fantastic. On the subject of conversation,
Speaker 1: you seem to often be discussing the power of and
Speaker 1: the elusiveness of memory. You wrote in a commencement speech
Speaker 1: for Columbia, the artist's memory is a dangerous, necessary thing.
Speaker 1: Never disavow what you see and remember. It's your brilliant
Speaker 1: stock and trade, remembering and making something out of it.
Speaker 1: The older you get the more you write, what does
Speaker 1: that interplay of memory like, it becomes more and more
Speaker 1: handy in terms of telling stories, and your capability becomes
Speaker 1: stronger because your muscle becomes stronger in terms of control.
Speaker 1: And so I was talking about in that piece of
Speaker 1: kind of barrage of memory. But you become more selective
Speaker 1: in terms of what is useful to you as an artist.
Speaker 1: I think, And when I wrote that, I was sort
Speaker 1: of I remember it was like the end of a
Speaker 1: love affair, and it was I was very sad, and
Speaker 1: I was also trying really hard to understand what kind
Speaker 1: of writing I wanted to do or what kind of
Speaker 1: writing I was capable of. Really, so that piece grew
Speaker 1: out of that idea of capability of loving this thing
Speaker 1: so much writing I wanted to do the best I
Speaker 1: could buy it. You know that it was a an
Speaker 1: honor to be published, It was an honor to have
Speaker 1: an audience of any kind. It was and remains a
Speaker 1: deep mystery to me that I'm involved in and that
Speaker 1: I love. You know what do you mean by mystery?
Speaker 1: Because I don't think you wake up thinking, oh I
Speaker 1: know how to write. I think you wake up saying
Speaker 1: I want to write, and I hope I can write.
Speaker 1: When you wake up to write, you have a richel
Speaker 1: or you did and it was too Williams, Wendy Williams.
Speaker 1: I love her, but she's not there anymore. So how
Speaker 1: do you write? I just get up and do it.
Speaker 1: I don't. I miss her deeply. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that I do is I still sort of clean,
Speaker 1: like I still sweep the floor and make the bed
Speaker 1: and all that stuff gets you prepared to sit down
Speaker 1: to it, but you're still kind of missing the special ingredient. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know, but it will come in another form. At
Speaker 1: some point. You'll find new inspiration. Yeah, yeah, but hopefully
Speaker 1: she'll come back. I'll be there to greet her if
Speaker 1: she comes. I would love for her to come back.
Speaker 1: This mysterious process of writing, as if it's been waiting
Speaker 1: for you to show up. Does it get easier? No? Never, never.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be interested if it got easier. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Because it's such a gift to wake up and not
Speaker 1: know what you're doing, but also that you love doing it,
Speaker 1: and that it will be completely different the next day,
Speaker 1: and that you'll feel differently. It's a it's a gift
Speaker 1: you know there's no physical or ethical pleasure and the
Speaker 1: difficulty of it, but there is immense spiritual pleasure and release.
Speaker 1: You said once I'm a guilty person. I just go
Speaker 1: around the world feeling guilty. But when I'm working on something,
Speaker 1: I can feel the energy shift in a piece of
Speaker 1: writing where I'm not in control of it anymore. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's the freedom, is that you're going to wake
Speaker 1: up and go to places that you couldn't anticipate. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're not writing, What are you guilty about? Our
Speaker 1: collective lack of humanity, our lack of care from one another,
Speaker 1: our lack of belief in one another as a species, Loneliness,
Speaker 1: people trying to connect in not connecting, violence, anger, isolation,
Speaker 1: the whole world of feelings to feel guilty about and
Speaker 1: not being able to make it better somehow you feel
Speaker 1: like you need to make it better or I would
Speaker 1: want to. I would like too. I think that's my
Speaker 1: accurate and you know think you have. I'm hoping, so
Speaker 1: I think i'd live in. When I meet someone like
Speaker 1: you and you give me hope, I run with it
Speaker 1: because it's it's hope. You know, it's a gift. Well,
Speaker 1: on the subject of hope. Before we leave, I have
Speaker 1: a couple of things for you. Sure, I quoted that
Speaker 1: commencement speech you gave back in twenty fourteen. I'm going
Speaker 1: to read the end of it now. Okay. You said,
Speaker 1: I never believe, not for one second, that art is
Speaker 1: created out of avoiding the world and its various realities.
Speaker 1: If you avoid that, you avoid life, which is your
Speaker 1: source material. You dishonor all your ghosts in the sunlight,
Speaker 1: including the person you were when I began this speech,
Speaker 1: the Columbia boys I knew and loved long ago, the
Speaker 1: politically oppressed poet who changed a face, and you dancing
Speaker 1: with my former self before we part, and you walk
Speaker 1: proudly into that sunlit hope, ghosts and all. And there's
Speaker 1: so much in that that I love to unpack, but
Speaker 1: I can't help but shake those last few words, walking
Speaker 1: proudly into your sunlit hope, ghosts and all. And at
Speaker 1: dawned on me. One of those ghosts, at least now,
Speaker 1: must be your mother. She passed away back in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. Mm. And I was thinking also of my
Speaker 1: best friend who died of AIDS in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: and I met him at Columbia. He's a primary person
Speaker 1: in that text. I think that was Kevin. Kevin, that's right.
Speaker 1: I think I'm referring more to him in that instance
Speaker 1: of the past is the past you can't return, But
Speaker 1: how do you not leave something behind as you move forward?
Speaker 1: I think it's part of who we are that we
Speaker 1: take it with us. And that hope you mentioned, which
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, that was so elusive to you
Speaker 1: as a child, Yes, that same hope that your mother
Speaker 1: seemed to be able to maintainsolutely. I mean, it would
Speaker 1: be disrespectful for me not to recognize hope when it's
Speaker 1: staring at me in the face, given what she gave me,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be just disrespectful. So then at
Speaker 1: the tender age of sixty two, yes, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm just beginning. Are you able to find hope on
Speaker 1: the page? Yes? Every day? Every day, because every day
Speaker 1: that's given to me. I mean, is the hope that
Speaker 1: I'll be able to tell the truth on the page.
Speaker 1: If you can do that, I'll get a boyfriend. Are
Speaker 1: you single? Yeah, you're single? Yeah? Okay, if you are interested.
Speaker 1: Hilton's email is his his only fans account, is well?
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to go there, but now I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: would Prince being part of your only fans account? Oh?
Speaker 1: When I think the best, it would be a dream.
Speaker 1: I mean we're making it an only fans joke. But yeah,
Speaker 1: is that something that's been on your mind of a partner? Yes,
Speaker 1: I would like to have that experience again. Above and beyond,
Speaker 1: it's someone that you can talk to and trust and
Speaker 1: laugh with. Really essential is humor, and you know that
Speaker 1: it's someone that you trust in an intimate way and
Speaker 1: whom you can laugh with in an intimate way. I
Speaker 1: missed that. Yes, well, I guess part and parcel with
Speaker 1: that is this question I have around what we leave
Speaker 1: behind and legacy, which you previously said we're horrified by
Speaker 1: it as a queer person, as a person of color,
Speaker 1: and because of my family. But has that changed for
Speaker 1: it you now? Do you think about legacy differently? Now?
Speaker 1: I would think of it as I have more of
Speaker 1: a chance to have a legacy than before. For sure,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling very optimistic these days about my capabilities and
Speaker 1: still guilty about how we treat each other as humans.
Speaker 1: You know, like you have a chance at it seems,
Speaker 1: so it's not asking for a much no, no beautiful.
Speaker 1: I like how when I am posing a question and
Speaker 1: you are answering it and dipping and diving back into
Speaker 1: the path, that you close your eyes. Yes, it's just
Speaker 1: to hear what you're saying, to to really be with
Speaker 1: your question. Well, then, on the subject of posterity and
Speaker 1: those ghosts forcing your hand, whether it's Didion or Kennedy
Speaker 1: or Kevin or your mother. I thought we'd end with
Speaker 1: the piece that you want us, the listener, the reader
Speaker 1: to hold. I think to conclude, I'll be reading from
Speaker 1: Jane Rees's unfinished autobiography called Smile. Please, Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: you want to end with writing that's not you're on, Yes,
Speaker 1: because it evokes and says much more beautifully something that
Speaker 1: I feel about writing, and not the way that she
Speaker 1: felt about human beings. I don't necessarily agree here, but
Speaker 1: I do agree with her assessment about what writing means.
Speaker 1: So this is a mock imaginary trial at the end
Speaker 1: of her life. At the end of her life, and
Speaker 1: she's writing a dialogue talking about earning your death. Defense,
Speaker 1: It is untrue that you were cold and withdrawn. It
Speaker 1: is not true. Defense. Did you make great efforts to
Speaker 1: shall we say established contacts with other people, I mean friendships,
Speaker 1: love affairs and so on. Yes, not friendships very much.
Speaker 1: Did you succeed sometimes for a time, it didn't last. No,
Speaker 1: whose fault was that? I suppose you suppose silence better answer.
Speaker 1: I am tired. I learned everything too late. Everything was
Speaker 1: always one jump ahead of me. The phrase is not
Speaker 1: I do not know, but I have nothing to say.
Speaker 1: The trouble is I have plenty to say, not only that,
Speaker 1: but I am bound to say it. Bound I must
Speaker 1: why why why I must write? If I stopped writing,
Speaker 1: my life will have been an abject failure. It is
Speaker 1: that already to other people, but it could be an
Speaker 1: abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death.
Speaker 1: Earned death. Sometimes, not often, a phrase will sound in
Speaker 1: my ear clearly, as if spoken aloud by someone else.
Speaker 1: That was one phrase, You must earn death a reward. Yes,
Speaker 1: any other phrase, Yes, you will be helped. Wow, thank
Speaker 1: you for this opportunity to talk about these great people
Speaker 1: and who really made me to some degree. You know
Speaker 1: you really feel that passage I did. It's just such
Speaker 1: a it's just so crystal clear about possibility and the
Speaker 1: artists hope you know that life will allow you to
Speaker 1: finish your work, to end on your writing. I'll do
Speaker 1: it for you, you wrote, I can feel the energy
Speaker 1: shift in a piece of writing when I'm not in
Speaker 1: control of it anymore. You're controlling the form, but you're
Speaker 1: not controlling, for want of a better word, your subconsciousness.
Speaker 1: And those are the moments that you live for, because
Speaker 1: then the page has just happened. They've just been waiting
Speaker 1: for you to show up. And I so thank you
Speaker 1: for showing up today, and thank you for the opportunity. Actually,
Speaker 1: thank you for showing up both days. Healthing else, take care,
Speaker 1: be safe, h don't And that's our show. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy today's episode, be sure to give us five stars
Speaker 1: on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen. I want to give
Speaker 1: a special thanks today to Stephen Barclay, Tucker Smith New
Speaker 1: Directions Publishing, the Hammer Museum, and of course Hilton Owls.
Speaker 1: To learn more about his new book, My Pin Up
Speaker 1: or his new exhibition around Joan Didion at the Hammer Museum,
Speaker 1: be sure to visit our show notes at talk easypod
Speaker 1: dot com. If you enjoyed today's conversation, I'd recommend our
Speaker 1: episodes with Margot Jefferson, Hinde, Wiley, Ocean Wong, Marina Amramovich,
Speaker 1: Antoine Sargent, George Saunders, and Jennifer Egan. To hear those
Speaker 1: and more Pushkin Podcasts listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow
Speaker 1: us from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk easypod. If you
Speaker 1: want to support our show by purchasing one of our
Speaker 1: mugs they come in cream or Navy, or our vinyl
Speaker 1: record with the inimitable fran Lebowitz, you can do so
Speaker 1: at talk easypond dot com, slash shop. As always, a
Speaker 1: big thanks to our team. Talk Easy is produced by
Speaker 1: Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Jennis Bravo. Our associate
Speaker 1: producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by Clarice
Speaker 1: Gavara and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our assistant editor is
Speaker 1: Lindsay Ellis. Photographs today are by Emil Ravello, music by
Speaker 1: Dylan Peck, illustrations by Christia Chanoy, Video and graphics by
Speaker 1: Ian Chany, Derek Gabrazak, Ian Jones, Ethan Seneca and Laila Register.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Patrith Lee, Kaylin Ung and Paulina Suarez.
Speaker 1: I'd also like to thank our team at Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Snars, Karrie Brodie, David Glover,
Speaker 1: Heather Fane, Miilabelle, Eric Sandler, Nicolemarando, Morgan Ratner, Jorda McMillan,
Speaker 1: Isabella Navarrez, Maya Kanai, Carlie Megliori, Jason Gambrel, Malcolm Gladwell,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sanfordgo, so thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week
Speaker 1: with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so on.