Talk Easy’s 2023 Mixtape

As we say goodbye to 2023, a collection of passages from some of our favorite episodes of the year. Featuring journalist and podcast host Sam Sanders on the stories of the summer (4:10), director and actor Natasha Lyonne on being a child actor in New York City (18:42), the Stanley Kubrick film that propelled Tom Hanks into performing (28:55), critic Hilton Als on the late Joan Didion (41:45), novelist Zadie Smith on the politics of writing (52:15), and to close, a tribute to the late Norman Lear (1:15:00).

For questions, comments, or to join our mailing list, reach me at [e-mail].

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, this is talk easy.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm student Forgo, so welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Today.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
As we close out twenty twenty three, we look back
on the year that was before we head into twenty
twenty four. I wanted to revisit some of my favorite
passages from the past twelve months. Not an easy year,
but these are all subjects that stayed with me that
I kept coming back to, either for the jokes or

(01:13):
the wisdom, or sometimes if we were lucky, a bit
of both. This was, objectively, as I said last week,
a pretty difficult year, especially in Hollywood, as the industry
faced a pretty historic double labor strike between the actors
and writers and the studios. As such, there was about

(01:36):
three four months there where we stood in solidarity with
the unions and didn't air any episodes with the kinds
of people that typically come on this program, and so
in that time the strike forced a lot of us
who make podcasts to either a go on hiatus, B

(01:56):
release a series of reruns, or c get really really
creative on the booking front. Thankfully, we have an incredible
team here and we mostly option see and as such
we landed on this next guest, Sam Sanders, formerly at MPR.

(02:19):
Sanders is the co host of Vibe Check and really
one of my favorite culture critics working today. When Sanders
and I sat down, it was in the middle of
the strike, and he did his damnedest to make sense
of some of the biggest stories from the summer. Let's
take a listen. These past few months have been a lot.

(02:41):
It's been a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
It's been a lot, a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's been maybe too much, although some of the stuff
that has felt like too much has been an excellent
exercise in indulgence. When I think of the three biggest
pop stories of this year right now, it's Beyonce going
on tour, It's Taylor Swift going on tour, and it's
Barbie taking over the world, and all three of those
things were just like supersized as pop culture moments. And

(03:07):
I feel like it's too much, but also we needed it.
We have been in lockdown for years, and so part
of why you see people losing their minds at Beyonce shows,
at Taylor shows, it's because we didn't have that for
a few years. We're so happy to have it again.
I even't think of the movies in general. There was
a lot of talk when the pandemic was shutting theaters down?
Will it ever come back? Will we ever do it?

(03:30):
And then Top Gun Maverick comes out and everyone's like,
is this a fluke or are we back? And seeing
Barbie succeed so soundly, it's like, yes, movies are back.
So to all of this, I'm like, pop culture is back.
I had a couple of those on my list. Why
don't we just jump in, let's do it. Now that
a whole lot of people have seen Barbie and Oppenheimer. Yeah,
and now that the Barbenheimer phenomenon has settled just a

(03:52):
little bit, it's calmed down just a little bit. Yeah,
where are you at on these two films, respectively? Why
don't we start with Oppenheimer? I go to Christopher Nolan
films for amazing and spectacular visual effects.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
It sounds like you're running for office. Uh huh this moviegoer.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
And I was very surprised that this Christopher Nolan film
felt like it had an Aaron Zorcan script. There was
so much dialogue which was delivered brilliantly and beautiful by
the actors in the film, But I wanted some more
of the Christopher Nolan special effects Wizardry. I just don't

(04:32):
go to Christopher Nolan for dialogue.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Are you a Nolan guy?

Speaker 4 (04:35):
No?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
But the ones that I have enjoyed from him, I
liked the effects.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
What are your favorites?

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh gosh, I actually saw a Tenant during Pandemic and
I was like, oh wow, interesting. I still don't understand.
No one does, but not Inception? Was it Inception? Inception
is which Batman movie was him?

Speaker 1 (04:51):
It was all three of them.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yes, those are great, those are great, but yeah, it's like,
when I think of what I loved about all those movies,
it wasn't the dialogue that said they do the work.
You know, it is a technical feat. Kudos to him.
I think my thoughts on Barbie are gosh, super super
super super fun. As soon as you get in any

(05:13):
way analytical about that script in that plot pass a
one on one level, you're like.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
What do you mean?

Speaker 2 (05:19):
So many movies are built on this idea of a
hero's journey.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Joseph Campbell.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, there's someone who experiences something that disrupts their world.
Then they have to go on a quest to reset
their world, and the process they lose some things, they gain,
some things, they learn, some things but what I found
with Barbie was that the film couldn't figure out if
Barbie or Ken should have had the hero's journey, when
in fact, America Ferrera's character should have had the hero's journey.

(05:49):
She is the mother of the young teen who sets
off the Barbie drama. And no spoilers here, but if
you've seen this film or not, what America Ferrera's character
does sets off the action in the film, and towards
the end of the film, she has a monologue that
crystallizes the emotional mistakes of the whole endeavor, yet we
know the least about her and she gets the least

(06:10):
amount of plot.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
What did you think of that monologue?

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I thought it was delivered beautifully. Sam Sanders pauses before answering.
When I first heard it, I was like yes, And
then as soon as I began so, I saw it
twice first weekend because I wanted to have thoughts about it,
And as soon as I talked to my friends, whose
opinions I respect and like to hear, we all were
just kind of like, it's a little one on one.

(06:36):
There was a version of feminism in Barbie that did
not at all acknowledge how feminism can needs to be
different when it intersects with sexuality, when it intersects with race.
This was a very queer coded movie in which no
one's actually publicly queer.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 2 (06:56):
All the marketing for Barbie felt gay as fuck, and
I loved it. And then I get into the movie
and the Allen characters I guess supposed to be gay
and hard enough. Barbie Doctor is a trans woman, but
it's never spoken of, and they all about Alan b gay.

(07:18):
Kate McKinnon is almost the sphinx or oracle that sends
Barbie on this quest queer coded character let her be gay? Two,
I don't know. I was telling friends on one of
my shows five Check. I was like, I would have
loved this Barbie film even more if Barbie's whole quest
was just figuring out that she's a lesbian and and

(07:39):
and Ken is actually gay and in love with simoulu Ken.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Do feel dupe?

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Then I don't feel duped. I feel like Greta did
the damn thing. You just feel that there's a disconnect
between the marketing and then the actual materials in the film.
I also feel like you cannot make a blockbuster that's
too gay.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Why is that?

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Name one?

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Next question, name.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
One name, name a blockbuster that's just like super fucking gay.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Top gun.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
I'm leading away the lappings allowed touche, but no, I
think that that movie one had to answer to so
many stakeholders. You gotta make Mattel happy while also kind
of mocking Barbie. You have to make a blockbuster because
everyone's been waiting for this film for years and it
needs to be feminist. So like, giving all those constraints,

(08:32):
she did a wonderful job. I think what I want
to see next is an indie take on Barbie that
is entirely intersectional and directed by and starring mikay Leicole.
Let's do that?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Sign me up?

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, wherever I can invest stocks? Yeah, Yeah, that's it.
I love Barbie. It's a fun ride, but no blockbuster
can fully address intersectionality. And and I get that.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
Hi Barbie, Hi Can Hi Bobby, Hi Barbie.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Hi Barbie.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I can, I can, I can?

Speaker 4 (09:08):
I can?

Speaker 1 (09:09):
I got suppose ice.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Free cool Hip Barbie, Hi Barby, Hi Barbie, Hi Barby,
Hi Barbie, Hi Barbie, Hi Barbie Barbie A Hi Barby,
Hi Barby, Hi war.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Hi Harvey Hi Barby, Hi Barby.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Hi Barbie.

Speaker 6 (09:26):
Oh hi Alan.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
There are no multiples of Allen.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
He's just Allum.

Speaker 6 (09:30):
Yeah, I'm confused about that.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
I want to talk about two stories this summer that
I think represent the worst of Twitter, oh and the
best of Twitter.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Let's start with the bad. Earlier in August, President Trump
was booked in Georgia, where he faces thirteen criminal charges
in the state's election interference case. He now faces ninety
one criminal charges across four jurisdictions. But this is the
first time we received a mug shot of the former president.

(10:05):
You first started covering Trump on the NPR Politics podcast
back in twenty fifteen. Yeah. I know you have moved
away from politics. I know you even moved away from Washington,
d C. But what did you make of seeing this photo?
Did you think this day would come? My general theory
on Donald Trump, and I was on the trail with

(10:28):
him during that campaign season, like following that man around
for a while. I'm sorry, you know, I survived once
he won, I think pretty quickly, especially after the Russia stuff,
which you know kind of went nowhere. I said to myself,
he may or may not win reelection. He may or
may not be caught up on charges, but he will
never see the inside of a prison. I just don't
think it's going to happen, and I feel like this

(10:51):
mugshot lets people believe that he might. I still don't
see how this man goes to prison. I don't see it.
I mean, I think if any case is going to
do it, it's the Georgia case because it's state charges
and not federal charges. So if you were to win reelection,
he could pardon himself of any federal crimes, but he
can't do it for state crimes, right, So this is
the case that could stick the most. I think a
lot of people who work in politics and who think

(11:14):
about these things are pretty worried about the unrest that
might be unleashed should he go into a prison. Sarah
Palin said recently that if he were to go to prison,
we could be entering a civil war. It's like when
the toddler says, if you don't give me a donut,
I'll throw a tantrum in this store. So I feel like,
are we giving the right a donut? But also I
don't want a tantrum in this store. I don't want

(11:37):
another insurrection. He listed himself at six and fifteen. See
that cute girl, cute a lie or a zembic. Imagine
Trump on ozembic. I think if he's two fifteen, it's
gotta be he's not too fifteen.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
I do.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
It's like, you know, I wonder how much I should
think about these like image moments, like a mug out.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Of Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Is it a big deal? Is it not a big deal?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
I know I saw it today and I was like, WHOA.
But I don't know. At this point, I don't know
what about Donald Trump needs to get a rise out
of me. It's been years of this man just being
a fool, you know what I'm saying. Of course, I
have lost a barometer on any of this stuff, but
I still think I'll never go to jailer prison. Well,
I'm glad you mentioned the charges, because Trump's arraignment came

(12:22):
a day after he skipped the Republican debate, choosing instead
to sit down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
That was posted on X, which I'm almost certain is
my least favorite sentence I've ever said on this show X.
That's what it said in the time I know, but yeah,
that was a hard sentence for me. I'm sorry about that.

(12:42):
But let's play a clip that essentially amounts to a
Trump allegiance the TV for each of the Republican the BA.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
It's on a screen. I want to take a listen.

Speaker 7 (12:52):
You all signed a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.
If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law,
would you still support him as your party's choice. Please
raise your hand if you would, just hold on, so

(13:17):
just be clear.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Governor Christie, you were kind of late to the game there.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
But nor know I'm doing this.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Look, look, I'm doing this.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
I know you didn't. No, what's the new book?

Speaker 4 (13:27):
What Look, here's the here's the bottom line. Someone's got
to stop normalizing this conduct. Okay, now and now, whether
or not, whether or not you believe that the criminal
charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the

(13:51):
office of President of the United States.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Okay, Chris Christy. The bar is on the floor. The
bar's on the floor. Sorry, go ahead. For those who
haven't seen the video of that clip, four instantly raise
their hands in support of Trump. DeSantis and Pence wavered
for a moment, then looked around, then raised their hands.
Christy made some kind of weird gesture with his pointer

(14:17):
finger that was kind of a hand raised, kind of
a nothing, and Asa Hutchinson technically kept his hand down.
But if anyone watched the debate, it's hard to know
what he did because he has a very ghostly like
presence on stage. When you watch that, what are you
thinking about, especially as we are entering this election cycle
come fall. It's performance art. Chris Christy acting like he

(14:42):
can in any way take a moral stand against Donald
Trump after working for Donald Trump and helping him get elected.
It's just performance art. I think all of these politicians
want nothing more than to win at any cost or
be a VP pick at any cost, and what they
say about Trump and what they reveal about their thoughts

(15:05):
on Trump will only be what they think will help
them win. None of them and we'll say what they
really think about that man. And that is a problem
with that party right now, because there's a conversation the RNC,
the Republican Party there in the party have on a
microphone and in front of a screen, and there's a
conversation they have when the MIC's are off and the
cameras are off, and it's been that way since that

(15:26):
man won his first primary. And you've seen that switch.
I've got off the records with these people when I
was following Trump and like as soon as I turned
the mic off, then it really came out. As a
politics reporter at MPR in twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen,
you saw that switch happen, Yes, And there were a
few who like, I'll never forget One night I caught
Lindsey Graham at one of the early debates, I want

(15:46):
to say, in Vegas, and he let it. He kind
of let Trump have it on my microphone and that
made it into the story the next day. But within
two months he was like kissing Trump's butt, knowing that
when you see video like this, you can't look at
it as an indicator of how they'll actually behave. You
have to look at it as an indicator of how

(16:08):
much they'll hide. That's what it is. That was Sam Sanders.
He's the host of Vibe Check from Stitcher. You can
find the rest of that episode and his program wherever
you are listening to this right now. Next up, she's
an actor, a director, and the star of Poker Face,
for which she just received an Emmy nomination. Of course,

(16:29):
I'm talking about the one and only Natasha Leon. There's
so much in this episode that I wanted to pull
bits from, But what you're about to hear is an
early section of the conversation where she talks about how
confusing her time was as a child actor and how
she had to find her way back to acting on

(16:51):
her own terms later as an adult. This is Natasha Leon,
so growing up in Great Nec. I'm gonna be honest,
I never heard of Great Neck until yesterday. Great but I.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Think one of your first yes, sorry, yes, we've done
the show.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
There your one of your first performances you gave. As
I understand, it was for the passengers on the Long
Island Railroad. Your mother's behest. You would do a dramatic
reading of stock tips from the Wall Street Journal. I'm curious,
what did that sound like?

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Gosh, I wish I could still do it for you.
This is like you want my old Shirley Temple material.
I feel I would need I would need a paper,
you know what I mean, Because you got to read
off the names of the listings, and then you got
to tell you know, what's up, what's down? It's a
trick I can no longer do. I did it for years.
I remember, like between the ages of four and ten,

(17:57):
this was like my major urigalar sort of spoon bending
magic trick is I would delight audiences of adults by
reading them stocks.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Did that part trick? Did it make sense to you
at the time? Were you just like, this is just
part of who I am.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
I mean, I guess, yeah, you know. So I'm born
in the city. I feel like that's important because I
lie about it often. You know, another I say, I'm
from Manhattan, but I genuinely am, I swear to God.
And they had this dilapidated mansion in Kings Point and
Great Neck and Long Island.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
But your parents told you Herman Melville used.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
To live in.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
They said, yes, Herman Melville. And then the New Yorker
told me, go fuck yourself, it's not Herman Melville's house.
I said, well, why would you describe childhood who cares
like I didn't know. It was a fucking mess. And
I didn't know they were pathological.

Speaker 8 (18:45):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
This is like discovering Santa isn't real.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, I was like, yeah, And I was like who
else was claiming Hermon Melville's Calm Down movie?

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Dick, Like, why couldn't they just let you have it?

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Why couldn't they let me have it? But unsubscribed, unsubscribe,
that's the New Yorker anyway?

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Is that the tagline? Unsubscribe? That's the New Yorker.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
No, We're just like, we debunk your childhood the New York.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
York since nineteen oh seven.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
You thought your life was a mess, way here to
confirm it, bitch.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
You know it was just as bad as you say.
We talked to many people.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
We talked to many people. We found out it was worse.
You know, you had three things you thought that you
could hang on. They tried to tell me. At some point,
they were like, we couldn't find your you know. So
NYU skipped me my senior year, and I was going
to be in there film and philosophy program. I wanted
to be a director. I wanted to read a bunch
of fucking Neetzsche or whatever and then go write sort

(19:40):
of Bergmann but funny movies about it. I'd already worked
with Whatddy allen to talk about him a lot today,
because not enough people do right now.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
And uh, and you put Ts Eliott in that essay
right to get in.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
I did, Wow, you've done your research, the hollow men,
the hollow men. And so I guest says, sure, come
here early. And the point is is that I never
paid the tuition. You know, I never actually went. I
just audited classes for multiple semesters. And the New Yorker
tried to tell me that I didn't and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
this is Keith Perman Melville. But I swear to god,

(20:13):
I've been in that building like multiple times. I've taken
cinema studies one to one, and that's why I decided
to leave. So what are you guys doing here? That
was a real back and forth. I was like, I'm
not in the thing because I never went to the school.
So now I'm determined to get you know, one of
those honorary doctorates to teach the New York or a lesson.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
That will teach them that'll show that way. Here is
a confirmed fact. Your first official role comes in Nora
Ephron's Heartburn in nineteen eighty five. I know it was
a brief appearance, but you played a child asleep on
some guy's lap at a wedding, and I'm just wondering, like,
how much of yourself did you bring to that character?

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Thank you?

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Was it deep method acting or was it challenging?

Speaker 3 (20:56):
You know who knew that? Only thirty years later I'd
be off off Broadway in a black box doing a
play called tigersby Still and also method acting, sleeping on
stage when it said she sleeps.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
It was a precursor, it was.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
And that's the nature of quantum consciousness, you know what
I mean, who are we in which moment?

Speaker 2 (21:17):
I barely know who I am in this moment, So
it's a challenge. When you did that role, did any
part of that process make sense to you? Did it
excite you to like be on set? Was it something
you thought, well, this seems like kind of fun, I
could do this.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
The child acting thing is so weird because, well, in
the first place, I guess the good news is I
was never a child star. I was like a working
child actor. Wh's weird is, of course, having spoken a lot,
and you know, being friends with people like mcauay culkin.
Let's say we all have a similar experience of my
parents put me in this thing. Sure, I was somewhat

(21:55):
charismatic and naturally inclined towards it. But then the weirdness
of the fact that I'm so highly attuned as a
small adult accidentally does have a sort of b side
that's inevitable. Not to speak to him, to speak for myself.
For me in adulthood, I really had to come back
to it on purpose. That was necessary because I was,

(22:18):
for lack of a better term, you know, a natural.
I'd never taken an acting lesson or anything like that.
And back in my time, you know, a kid had
to know tap and so on. Kidding, but I was
into that kind of thing, you know what I mean.
Like I like the idea of being a song and
dance man and like a street egin, and I liked
the concept, but the truth of like the inevitable again

(22:39):
speaking for myself only, of having a fucked up family
dynamic while that's happening while you're trying to make money,
and there are weird things, you know, like for sure
my family spent the cash. For sure, I'd be like
embarrassed by behavior at work. So like actually doing let's
say Peeb's Playhouse would be so fun by the error
around it would make me feel sort of weird or embarrassed,

(23:01):
you know, of like having a parent there, or just
weird things like walking around like Times Square, you know,
auditioning and like the eighties by yourself.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Weird, hoping your dad will pick you up.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, and why don't you ask me the questions and
I'll try to answer one at a time, because it's
wonderful that you know all this stuff and that I
know you. And I'm down for the ride because I'm
a one shrink short of a party at the moment.
So I'll take the free.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
That's what I'm here for.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
You have this quote about your parents, who did seem
like the driving forces in your early career. You said,
even if they were ready to have children, it is
kind of a wacky idea to put your child in
business at six years old. I had to become coherent
and a businesswoman at six. By ten, I was a
jaded professional. By sixteen, my youth was over and my

(23:52):
goose cooked. I don't think they knew better. It was
a decision of my parents built on hopeful ignorance. What
is that hopeful ignorance?

Speaker 1 (24:01):
What does that look like?

Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean, I think another way of I mean now
I'm so well, I'm the six six sick, depraved person.
But you know I'm also well, I guess.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Against my will, I'll be prefacing that in the intro.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Or at least, you know, very high functioning. I'll thanks
so much. And I'm also a tech a veil if
anyone has a job. Okay, I was wondering why I
gotta get the good stuff out there? Anyway, A book
like you know, the Gifted Child of Narcissistic Parents is

(24:37):
really what that means, this sort of hopeful ignorance, meaning
even if you have a kid at home who's saying, oh,
I want to do blank blank blank. You know, you
see it all the time with sort of nepo babies.
I guess that the healthy ones the parents were like, great,
but you need to sort of finish school, and we'll
give you sort of a lot of the tools that
when you you still feel this way at eighteen, you

(25:00):
can do it. Meaning we'll encourage you in the arts
and all these ways, but also we want to make
sure that you're well rounded enough to make that decision
if you still feel that way at eighteen. You know,
for example, who knows, maybe I would have said I
what I really want to be as a playwright, or
you know, what I really want to be as a musician,
or I don't know. I don't even know that I
ever said this is what I want to do, so
much as they were like, well, we're going to take

(25:22):
advantage of the fact that you got this mop top
curly hair, and you like reading the paper out loud
to people, and we're going to make some money off this, basically,
and it will realize a dream that we have by
proxy of you being a somebody, because to us, the
value system is a thing that you, as a teenager,

(25:43):
will decide is a very sick, warped value system. So
by the time I'm sixteen, what I mean by all
that my goose is cooked or whatever when we talk
about the hollow men is by then I now had
a working experience of what it meant to be in
an industry that valued things that were no longer aligned

(26:04):
with my sense of meaning or purpose. I think that
my parents' vision for it was one that was strictly
about making it and fame. So for me, I spent
about a decade aggressively trying to fail or sort of
like dim my light as best I could to annihilate
that completely and then rebuilding. That was very much about

(26:27):
what would my version of this look like.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
That was Natasha Leone.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Her new show, poker Face, is currently available to stream
on Peacock. Our next guest has been referred to as
America's Sweetheart, the most normal actor in Hollywood, which sounds
kind of like an oxymoron, and in twenty eighteen, as
part of a poll from Reader's Digest, the most trusted
person in America. Of course, it's mister Tom Hanks. Here

(26:58):
he is talking about life before he became the Tom Hanks,
when he was just a preteen kid starting to fall in.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Love with the movies.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
You know, we're trying to pinpoint the beginning of your
love of storytelling, but I want to try to identify
the beginning of your desire to be an artist, which
I think happens at around thirteen years old. You're lying
in bed, trying to fall asleep the night before you
go to see two thousand and one Space Odyssey in

(27:38):
the theater. That was it.

Speaker 6 (27:40):
I viewed it all as a very romantic quest, the
idea of sailing across space and space suits and helmets.
I was not enthralled in the adventure of it as
much as I was sort of like in the beauty
of it. And I had actually seen this book prior
to seeing the movie itself. Is called The Making of
two thousand and one a Space Odyssey, which I couldn't
understand because I hadn't seen the movie yet, but it

(28:02):
had photographs in it of the making of the movie,
and knowing that I was going to see and I
understand in ninety I'm going to say this was sixty seven.
I guess sixty seven, sixty eight.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
The movie came out in sixty eight.

Speaker 6 (28:15):
Okay, so this is in the fall of nineteen sixty eight.
We went down to the cinerama domes. It was a
big deal and had lobby displays and what have you.
And it was the first time I was in a
theater where I noticed that the sound system was the
most advanced I had ever heard. It wasn't just coming
from the screen, it was coming from all around us.
And there was actually an overture. So I walked into

(28:38):
the theater and it still lit up, but Leghetti's Overture
is playing, and when it began, I was used to
movies as they had always been John Wayne movies and
Kirk Douglas movies and movies that you saw in Charlton Heston.
You know, movies had dialogue, and they had bad guys
and protagonists, and you never really there was very little

(28:58):
irony or mystery. Everything was spelled out for you. And
hear this movie unspooled and there isn't a word of
spoken dialogue until about twenty seven minutes into it when
a lady says, here's your level, sir. And prior to that,
we saw the entire history of humankind played out via
Stanley Kubrick's vision. Now that was I'm thirteen, and I

(29:22):
see finally an understand that cinema is this combination of
light and image and performance and procedure and behavior. And
I was able to figure out that what we were
looking at was man learning how to use a tool
in order to beat his way into getting what he wants.

(29:45):
And then from that comes the greatest time cut in
the history of cinema, in which a bone is thrown
up in the air and when it comes down your
thirty thousand years into the future and man has conquered
space and is flying to the moon like it's relatively routine.
And I can't say that I understood any of that
movie when I saw it, but I knew that it

(30:06):
was great, and I knew that it had blown the
back of my head off as far as consciousness wise.
But I reveled in every small, tiny detail of it
so much so that I went back the next week
by myself in order to see it again. And I've
been looking at it ever since. Because there is a

(30:27):
story about as big as you're ever going to get.
That it that that is that is still nothing more
than odd dialogue. I mean, there's no narrator that says
and it was at that moment that Moonwatcher real life.
There's nothing like that in there. The only the only
uh supers are you know, beyond the infinite. That's there's

(30:48):
there's nothing in there that makes it easy for you
to comprehend what's going on outside.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
After you saw the movie, you said, once I started
asking this question, how do I find the vocabulary for
what's rattling around inside my head?

Speaker 9 (31:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (31:04):
That the thing about being an actor is you're speaking
with somebody else vocabulary, but it goes through the sieve
of your own consciousness. I gravitated to acting because I
could get up in front of people like it was
nothing at all. Other people can't do that, you know.
I realized that that was a difference, and the vocabulary

(31:25):
of communicating ideas by way of the first of course,
the words of a playwright. Well, it's one thing to
learn the dialogue, but it's something totally different to understand
what the heck you're saying at the same time, what
it is that you're trying to communicate. In some ways,
all you need to do is trust the language. But
something else happens That I learned about seven years later

(31:48):
when I was twenty and found myself doing Shakespeare. Dan Sullivan,
who at the time was directing us at the Great
Lake Shakespeare Festival, got mad at all of the professional
actors in the room because they were hungover from a
party the night before, and he said, look, you guys
have to show up on time, and you have to
know the text and you have to have an idea.

(32:10):
I understood showing up on time, because we get yelled
at if we were not up on time. That's true.
I didn't have a lot of lines to learn because
it was pretty much carrying a spear and only had
really one scene as an actor. But nonetheless you had
to know that guy. But the thing that he said
about and have an idea that was new. I thought,
we're told what to do, we're told when to move,

(32:30):
we're told what.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
No, no, no.

Speaker 6 (32:31):
He was actually saying, you have to come in with
something grander than is what is just written down on
the page. And I didn't even know how to do
that for another fifteen years or so, but I understood
that that was the difference between doing it professionally and
doing it for the parks Department. You had to you
had to do something more than just read the play

(32:53):
and learn the lines. You had to study some aspects
of human need and human behavior and the particulars I'm
going to tell you right now. I played Fabian in
Twelfth Night, and Fabian, I believe, is the worst role
ever written in Shakespeare. And he is in one scene
in which he and somebody else sits in a tree

(33:14):
and laughs as Malvolio reads a fake letter, and Fabian
has this line. The worst line in Shakespeare is this line.
Sauder will cry out on it, though it be as
rank as a fox. Sam Fragoso, do you have any
idea what that means? Sauder will cry out on it,
there would be at rank as a fox.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Sam Fragoso doesn't.

Speaker 6 (33:34):
I'm not sure what it means either, but I was
instructed to say it as though it was the funniest
retort you could possibly imagine saying, and we had to
laugh our asses off after wed s the story that
you have to come up with the idea that you
have to have in your pocket, has to be able
to make sense out of saying a line that bad.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
So that's you at twenty years old. I want to
understand about the ideas and questions rattling and signed your
head looking for a vocabulary, a vocabulary of.

Speaker 6 (34:05):
What it was, the vocabulary of of playing it by ear,
If that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
I think I not loneliness.

Speaker 6 (34:17):
Well, I filled up loneliness by being that guy who
happily walked into the room I did. I mean, but
there's a combination between being why are you lonely? Are
you lonely because no one has paid attention to you?
I can't say that was the case.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
I think I was.

Speaker 6 (34:32):
My loneliness came about because of confusion, because no one
ever really explained to me where we were going or
why outside of a couple of teachers and the parents
of friends of mine. I'm not sure anybody ever put
a shoulder or hand on my shoulder and said, you
know what, this has nothing to do with you, and
you're going to be okay, and all I have to
do is trust your instincts. I just figured out that

(34:53):
I had to trust my instincts. I knew people that
would rationalize away any possible move or anything that I
can't do that because I have a job, or I
can't take this gig because of that. I was a
bit of a blank canvas when it came down to
people coming up to me, particularly at the Great Lake
Shakespeare Festival, in which people were telling me based on

(35:16):
their observation of me, they said, Okay, if you want
to be an actor, here's what you need to do.
I never addressed the first part of their advice, which is,
do I want to be an actor? Is it even
possible to be an actor? Who's an actor in this world?
Well they were, and they were telling me you are too,

(35:36):
and so here's what you need to do. You need
to go to New York City. Going to New York
City is only things that Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds
did in motion pictures. I didn't go to New York City.
I was from Oakland, for goodness sake. Maybe I'll get
drafted or something like that. But so the vocabulary is
looking forward to was I think, the vocabulary of options

(35:57):
beyond the ones that were immediately around me, I realizing that,
oh I can do that. The vocabulary of saying, well,
let's see what's going to.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Happen after the break? More from maybe hold on, Tom,
I want to take it.

Speaker 6 (36:15):
You're listening to talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. I'm Tom Hanks,
and we'll be right.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Back, coming back.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
I want to thank Tom Hanks for doing my job
for me and just taking us to an ad break.
Why we don't use that more often, I'm not sure.
But a couple more passages here before we end twenty
twenty three. This one comes from writer Hilton Now's. You've
likely read his work in The New Yorker, where he's
been a staff writer since nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
He won the.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Pulled Surprize for Criticism in twenty seventeen for his work
at the magazine, some of which has been collected in
books like White Girls and most recently, My Pin up.
His latest project, however, was not a book, but an
exhibition about the late Joan Didion, who, thankfully we spent
a large portion of our time together discussing in great detail.

(37:28):
Let's take a listen. One source of inspiration, both back
then and now is in the work of the late
Joan Didion. Oh yes, and I thought we could talk
about her in this new exhibition you curated at the
Hammer Museum called What She Means Now. Back in two
thousand and six, you interviewed Dideon for the Paris Review,
in which she explains that and I quote, although a

(37:50):
novel takes place in the larger world, there's always some
drive in it that is entirely personal, even if you
don't know it while you're doing it. Now that this
exhibition is for everyone to see, I'm curious what was
that drive for you, as you said, about creating What
She Means.

Speaker 9 (38:11):
Oh, that's a wonderful question, thank you. I think that
one of the real sort of salient points for me
to make the show was the show a life evolving,
and that the life was so much about the development
of a character.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Right.

Speaker 9 (38:28):
So there's this very smart person from Sacramento who goes
to college and she starts to write or feel that
it's all been said before, but she's continuing, this is
didim mm hmm. And then she goes to New York
and she's working for Vogue, and she's having a pretty
bourgeois She's doing everything that's expected of her. And then

(38:48):
she stops doing everything that's expected of her as she
becomes a more serious writer, and then moves back to
Los Angeles during a time of great social upheaval. And
I think it was that moment in her life that
she became Joan Didion, because she allowed for the fracture
to be part of the story. She was no longer

(39:09):
holding it together and writing the perfectly constructed novel like
run River, her first book. She understood that her voice
and her feelings and her thought and her ethos was
really kind of in sync with the times and that
she was living in. And I think she had such
an incredible facility to not only chart the times and

(39:32):
that she was involved with, but to understand that her
body was not separate from this fracture. Her thinking everything
that she had been raised to think and presuppose as
a kind of bourgeois girl, had to be jettison in
order for her to be alive in the moment of
her life.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
In this life, did Ion, more than just about any
writer from the twentieth century, is returned to again and again,
certainly one of the most. I wondered, why do you
think that is.

Speaker 9 (40:07):
Because of the honesty of the voice. I think that
when you, as she would say, putting cards on the table,
I'm just paraphrasing, but you know you're risking the humiliation
of seeing your name in print, is what she wrote.
But I would say it's a humiliation of seeing yourself
and when you risk that, it takes your chances right.

(40:28):
You're not the kind of person who's going to keep
your cards close to the chest. It's an act of
freedom as much as anything else is to tell people
who you are. They can't tell you you've told them.
It's a form of control too. But I think she
was very interested in how what did this vulnerability mean?
What did this life mean without that self exposure.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
She was someone that came of age as a gold
waterer Republican, and I.

Speaker 9 (40:57):
Think you have to know that that definition is very
different now than what it was then.

Speaker 6 (41:04):
Then.

Speaker 9 (41:04):
It was Republicans meant you know, limited government interference in
the life of citizens. That's really what it meant. And yes,
there was conservatism, but there was also that aspect.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Of it, and the Republicans have carried that tradition proudly exactly.
Maybe my theory then is, as someone who came from
this Republican household in Sacramento, she had these very firm
ideas and understandings of the world that were passed down
to her yes by her parents. Yes, and then life

(41:37):
does what it does. Yes, And she has this kind
of life long, ongoing public reckoning with herself and the
world around her. Yes, And perhaps in those increasingly fractured
times people ran to it.

Speaker 9 (41:50):
I think they also found the necessity of her voice, right.
I think that what she was brilliant at was articulating destabilization.
How you become one thing based on assume notions of
the past. And this destabilization is a remark thing to
live through. How do we live through it with language

(42:12):
or how do we make language to talk about this experience.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
It's impossible to pick a single passage. I know she's
so great that captures all her abilities and interests, but
I know this one piece which comes at the beginning
of her novel, A book of common prayer means a
whole lot too.

Speaker 9 (42:31):
Yeah, it does. Happy to read it. Chapter one. I
will be her witness. That would translate see Sue testigo,
and will not appear in your Traveler's phrasebook because it
is not a useful phrase for the prudent traveler. Here's
what happened. She left one man, she left a second man.

(42:54):
She traveled again with the first. She let him die alone.
She lost one child to quote unquote history, and another
two quote unquote complications. I offer in each instance the
evaluation of others. Judge herself capable of shedding that baggage,
and came to Bocca Glande a tourist una turista, so

(43:17):
she said. In fact, she came here less as a
tourist than a sojourner. But she did not make that distinction.
She made not enough distinctions. She dreamed her life. She
died hopeful. In summary, so you know the story. Of course,
the story had extenuating circumstances, weather, cracked sidewalks and paragorna,

(43:39):
but only for the living. I think that's such a
remarkable piece of writing, and it says so much about
how life is. For those of us who are reading
the book that she's writing, you know, it's a beautiful piece.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
It's also a piece about self delusion and how this
country produces dreamers. And incidentally, Diddyan, both on the page
and in your time with her, see to make a
dreamer out of you. And yet the greater irony is that,
as inspiring as she was, I imagine you had to,

(44:18):
like all writers, unlearn her voice in order to find
your own.

Speaker 9 (44:25):
Yes, I don't think I was technically influenced by her,
but I was certainly influenced by her interest in writing
about women in fiction well she I mean a lot
of people don't read her later stuff, which is unfortunate.
But if you look at novels like Last The Last
Thing He Wanted on Democracy, these are all kind of

(44:47):
romances about women who don't fit, who are away or
outside of the status quo, despite money or fame or whatever.
And I think that one of the things that I
love about her writing is this search for continuity, even
though she knows it doesn't exist in particularly in the

(45:09):
fiction and her essays. Of course, I loved finding out
that James Baldwin was one of her favorite writers, and
they do stand side by side on the bookcase for
me because of not only their voices, which are extraordinary,
but their ability to take the political and to make
it not only just personal, but the.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Narrative that was writer hilt Now's The Didion exhibition he
curated is called Joan Didion What She Means, and it's
currently available at the Perez Art Museum in Miami, Florida.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
I believe they have.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Plans to move the exhibition to multiple cities in twenty
twenty four. Do not quote me on that, but I
believe that's true. If it does end up in a
city near you, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It
is unquestionably some of the best three hours I've spent
in twenty twenty three. As Hilton noted at the end

(46:10):
of that section, Diddion's ability to blend the personal and
the political was really one of her greatest gifts as
a writer and essayist. The same could be said about
our last guest today, novelist Zadi Smith. We sat around
the publication of her newest book, The Fraud, which is

(46:32):
now available wherever you do your reading. But the personal
and political and the interplay between those two, and the
relationship between those two ended up kind of becoming the
heart of this conversation, the thing we kept coming back
to and turning over and interrogating. We asked these big

(46:52):
central questions around what the political efficacy is of making art,
how progressives seem to so often fail to recognize their
own hypocrisy, and then, probably most broadly, how do we
live a life of principles instead of of as Zati
says a series of public statements, This is unquestionably some

(47:15):
of my favorite twenty or so minutes of tape from
twenty twenty three, and in my view, a pretty fitting
way to.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
End this year. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Thinking about that great quote from Their Eyes Were Watching
God by zor'n Neil Hurston. She wrote, there are years
that ask questions and years that answer. It's beautiful that
period of moving to Rome, then Boston, then New York City.
I wonder if you were starting to discover some answers
for yourself.

Speaker 8 (47:55):
It was just great to get out of this parochial context,
to learn a different language. That's an incredible thing for
a write to like you, Just like you see around
the edges of what you do into a whole different universe.
I don't speak Italian well, but just to have it,
it's it made me understand translation and it was just
huge and in Italy I just decided to I don't

(48:16):
fere allowed to say this, but just like devote myself
to pleasure, like I worked so hard my whole youth
when other people are like having fun. I was writing
books and then anything. I was just like, I just
want to live. And it was fantastic. You know, it's
a fantastic place to do very little.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Why would you not be allowed to say that.

Speaker 8 (48:36):
I don't know, I'm such I come from a Protestant
culture and it was such a privilege, like who the
hell gets to just sit in Rome and not do
very much? But I didn't do very much. I didn't
I ate and drank and talked to people and had
fun and it was kind of great. And I just
learned a lot about beauty. And like my husband's are

(48:58):
you know, Northern Irish Protestant, which is the most Protestanty
Protestant you can get apart from perhaps Scottish.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, top Protestant.

Speaker 8 (49:04):
Yeah, and is he okay? He's good? But he also
initially learned like some of the lessons of Italian life,
which is like, you know, enjoy yourself. Things are beautiful,
like don't rush everywhere, sit, have a coffee, chill the
fuck out, and that's what we did.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
It was good.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
You did eventually find yourself back to the page, so
it was you, not like you ran away entirely.

Speaker 8 (49:26):
No, But I remember the moment. I was sitting in
Tuscany at this lady's house and she runs a writer
to treat. But I wasn't doing any writing now. I
was just sitting around and the phone rang and it
was Bob Silversman in New York Review. He wasn't really
to talk to me, was ringing to talk to this woman.
Be a treacher. Sorry, But I answered the phone and
he was like who is that? And I was like, oh,

(49:46):
I'm Sadie and he was like hey Smith. I was like, yeah,
are you interested in Kafka?

Speaker 3 (49:51):
And I was like what.

Speaker 8 (49:54):
I had never like all the time in England, if
anybody asked me to review something, they would only ever
ask me to review books about multicultural London, like over
and over again. It was that kind of not they
have anything against them, of course I wrote them, but
the idea that I had no other concerns in the
world was so English to me. And for the first time,
as American was saying to me, are you interested in

(50:15):
something else? And as it happened, I really was interested
in Kafka. So he said, well, why don't you write
so see what you can do? How about four thousand words?
And so for the first time in Italy, I thought, oh,
maybe I should do some work, and I wrote that
essay and that kind of just changed everything.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
It was for the New York Review of Books that
you wrote that piece on Forrester. Yeah, that was in
two thousand and eight. Yeah, and I I have a
passage from it here where I think it seems like
you started to develop that idea of good writing requiring
good being puke.

Speaker 8 (50:50):
Yeah, I don't believe any of that anymore. So I'm
not going to defend that for one second. That's a
young person's foolishness. Okay, well, it's moralistic and it's just exhausting. Well,
let's let's interrogate what oare go on? What did I say?

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Uh? Is what Forster said? Oh God, do we in
these terrible This is not you don't worry.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I do have courtes from you.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
We can do that too, right, Do we in these
terrible times want to be humanists or fanatics? I have
no doubt as to my own wish. I would rather
be a humanist with all his faults than a fanatic
with all his virtues.

Speaker 8 (51:26):
Well, look, that is a good quote. But the argument
is what does humanism mean? And at the moment it
means to a lot of young people just some kind
of neo liberal cover story. Some willly bullshit about how
we're all the sa blah blah blah. So you can
think that that's humanism, and there is certainly a version
of that. That's the version sold to you by particular
corporations right in their adverts, and in there that's the

(51:48):
general human they're trying to sell to. But there is
another humanism, which to me is radical and socialist and
is interested in finding a collective category in which you
can perform acts of political solidarity.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Can you unpack your definition or one that actually matters
to you?

Speaker 8 (52:05):
Look, I would say it's about having a kind of
Angela Davis talks about it a little bit. You need
to have a bracketed sense of yourself as a political citizen.
So it's absolutely the case, particularly in America, because of
the way your politics are structured that you need to
gather in identity groups in order to pressure government for rights.

(52:26):
That's how America works, and that's not going to change.
But it is important, I think, to know that that
is not the only way that politics can function at
moments where you were I'm thinking particularly about like the
wave of AI that's about to come at us, or
also the literal wave that is coming at us through
climate change. If you don't have a radical collective idea

(52:47):
of the human you're splintered in the face.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Of the wave.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
That is my problem. You can expin that you're.

Speaker 8 (52:53):
Going to have to find a way, just as they
did in the nineteenth century in the battle against slavery,
to say I am a Manchester cotton worker. You are
a sugar worker and forced laborer and enslave person in
the Caribbean. We are not in the same situation exactly,
but we are working under the same system, which is
a system of capital. Can we work together even though

(53:14):
our situations are not perfectly analogous. To do that, you
need some conception of your human situation under this power structure.
And if you say no, we can't work together because
you can't exactly comprehend my situation comprehend yours. The only
person who wins from that is capital itself.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
This seems like you're hinting at the You kind of
reminded me of Chappelle's line the imperfect allies.

Speaker 8 (53:39):
Yeah, it's okay to have in perfect allies. It's not
a compromise, it's not. It is a way of making
politics work.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
You did just accidentally kick me. Was that because I'm
twenty nine and I represent a younger generation?

Speaker 9 (53:50):
No?

Speaker 8 (53:50):
No, And that's that's the most of all the stupid
binary dialectics, Like if you're young, you are going to
become old, So that dialectic is literal insanity. There is
no point screaming about how awful the old are. It
is coming at you so soon, so we might as
well find some That's a classic example some way of
communicating that isn't a war.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I think we've done a good job.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
So, yeah, you said recently, I can't emphasize how quickly
people much younger than you are going to find you
utterly absurd.

Speaker 8 (54:20):
I know you never believe it. No one believes it.
Everybody thinks, But I'm young in a new way that
will never age and I will never but it just
always happens, so you might as well get ready for it.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah, good writing requires good being. This is something you
said for many years and you think it's absolute nonsense.

Speaker 8 (54:38):
Now, yeah, I think it's absolute nonsense, nonsense nonsense.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Does writing make you a better person or no?

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Okay, are you a better person because of writing?

Speaker 4 (54:47):
No?

Speaker 8 (54:48):
Sorry, I just I don't.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
That's not my experience, Okay, because these were all feelings
you had and sentiments you had before.

Speaker 8 (54:54):
Yeah, because I was when you're in the world. Part
of the kind of simplicity when I was young. At
least I can't speak to other young people when I
was young. The ethical area that you're dealing with is
really small. So if you wake up in the morning,
like if I'm twenty four and I'm writing novels, all
I have to do to be a good person is
to get up in the morning, have my breakfast, write
my book, maybe to hang out with my friends and

(55:16):
go to bed. Right, the ethical area is really small,
so you can really do it the moment you add
more people, partners, kids, dogs, you have two kids, right, Yeah,
the ethical area immediately what's that thing? May sometimes say online,
like just be good. It's not complicated. It's so complicated.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
It's quite hard.

Speaker 8 (55:34):
Yeah, it's so hard, and the more people involved, being
good to one person of course means perhaps not being
good to another. Rights and duties are in constant tension.
So it's just something you maybe don't know when you're
twenty four, but it becomes radiantly clear the older you
get that the ethical area is so complicated that the
hope of being perfectly good is you know, of course

(55:54):
you can hope it, but it really is deeply delusional.
Parenting is just so humbling and destructive of your sense
of yourself as some great person. It just it destroys that.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Unfortunately, she says, staring at me, knowing I'm twenty nine
with no kids.

Speaker 8 (56:11):
No, but I don't know. I never felt I was
a particularly great person. So that's not something. It's not
like I'm falling from a great height. But the only
thing what I do is not giving. I write, which
is for me. People who actually are outward facing and
are constantly giving of themselves, like actually doing that are
to me the admirable people.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
You know, in fact, beyond the personal reasons of making art.
You've written pretty extensively about the perceived political power and
the quote necessity of storytelling. Yeah, because throughout the pandemic
and through lockdown, many people were making the case for
art's nobility, it's capacity to change us, to enlighten. And

(56:55):
yet in an essay from your book Intimations, which was
written I think in the throes of the pandemic, you
seem to have a very different view, at least when
it comes to the work you've been making for the
past twenty six years.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Can we take a look at that?

Speaker 8 (57:11):
Sure, don't sound so excited, you have a look? Okay?
Oh boy, here here okay. The more utilitarian minded defenders
of art justify its existence by insisting upon its potential
political efficacy, which is usually overstated. Artists themselves are especially

(57:31):
fond of overstating it. But even if you believe in
the potential political efficacy of art, as I do, few
artists would dare count on its timeliness. It's a delusional
pain to finishes a canvas at two o'clock and expects
radical societal transformation by four. Even when artists right manifestos,
they are hopefully aware that their exigent tone is finally borrowed,

(57:53):
only echoing and mimicking the urgency of the guerrilla's demands
or the activist protests, rather than truly enacting it. The
people sometimes demand change, they almost never demand art. As
a consequence, art stands in a dubious relation to necessity
and to time itself. It is something to do, yes,
but when it is done, and whether it is done
at all is generally considered a question for artists alone.

(58:16):
An attempt to connect the artist's labor with the work
of truly laboring people is frequently made, but always strikes
me as tenuous, with the fundamental dividing line being this
question of the clock. Labor is work done by the
clock and paid by it too. Art takes time and
devise it up as arts is fit. It is something
to do. Do you know what I want to say something?

(58:37):
It's occurred to me on this tour recently that I
think what it is when I listen to other artists
talk like they use the words radical every other word.
They're constantly stating these apparently progressive arguments. But then I
know about them, like I know that kids are in
private school. I know that it just really blows my
mind that people haven't literally no shame about this rhetoric

(59:00):
that has no relation to their lives, particularly in America,
they continue to live these like harp bourgeois lives. And
then so I've never said I never speak like that,
because embarrassing, I realized my life is actually in the commons,
like I have a case.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 8 (59:17):
I mean, I try and live like some of the
things that I really believe a society should be arranged.
I don't. I don't know. I mean my parents had
their kind of moments of activism when I was a kid,
and so I connect that activism with actually going out
and doing it, like they went out and marched and
they were involved at a kind of grassroots level. So

(59:39):
that's the thing I take seriously. I just cannot take
seriously people speaking as if their very existence is just radical.
They're just radical because they are alive and willing to
give you their art.

Speaker 9 (59:52):
I can't.

Speaker 8 (59:52):
I find that really hard to take seriously.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
It sounds like the part that's rubbing you the wrong
way is that you have contemporary writers that are acting
like politicians maybe or speaking in public like their policy.

Speaker 8 (01:00:08):
That's I realized that in the age of the algorithm,
politics is something that has to be legible. So because
I haven't said I am this and this is what
I believe, I think I've allowed people to assume politics
that I really do not engage with. But I always
assume that. I mean, I don't know, I just rem
Does that bother you, No, it doesn't really, because I

(01:00:29):
want The lesson I took from my parents is do
you want to label yourself endlessly in your armchair or
do you want to get on the streets and actually
change people's minds. So to me, the arguments in my
books are they're open enough that people can enter. Hopefully
they enter and something happens.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
It's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
The very thing that I probably love most about your
work is that it does feel inviting and that it's
not not particularly dogmatic, and perhaps in the absence of
clear definition, others, especially on the Internet, have maybe trying
to define you in your work for you.

Speaker 8 (01:01:10):
Yeah, and I've realized that they have no idea like
where I come from with the people I come from,
because I never said but that's because I believe in privacy.
I just don't understand this kind of public facing person
who's a series of statements. I can't engage with it.
But it just surprises me that people think making radical
work is saying my work is radical. That's not what

(01:01:33):
I think radical work is. I think radical work is
radical work. It does something radical to you as you're
reading it, to the way you think, and to the
formation of your ideas.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
As believe, we're trying to sift through a whole lot. Yes,
very big ideas, right. And the truth is, as you
were talking, I couldn't help but shake that headline that
came about from a recent Vulture review. I think it
was how Zady Smith lost her teeth, which did take
issue with your politics, or at least how you think

(01:02:06):
of politics in relation to your work.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
What did you make of that?

Speaker 8 (01:02:11):
I mean, I do slightly take issue of being judged
the level of my black radicalism by by someone who
isn't in that tradition. And also, yeah, I don't know,
I don't know how to put it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
I just what.

Speaker 8 (01:02:30):
I think.

Speaker 9 (01:02:31):
What do I think?

Speaker 8 (01:02:32):
Oh God, it's about the principle of hospitality. I think
that's like even like that kind of ancient Greek idea
that the door of pros is open, like I so
remember when I was a kid, like we used to
hand out the socialist work and all that kind of stuff,
And there was always this idea when you're dealing with

(01:02:52):
like upper middle class intellectuals, they have this idealized proletariat
figure in their mind. And of course that was we
were the We're the people. We were there waiting for
the And I remember, particularly my father, like watching the
way they would talk to my father, that there's this
disappointment that the pot when you meet them, isn't using
the same language that you're using, right, doesn't fully embrace

(01:03:15):
the Marxist discourse. In his language, is worried about his
rent and his food maybe doesn't have the same aesthetics
as you, and and I was always struck by that,
And even when I got to college, it was more intense, right,
that there's this kind of leftist movement, and the inconvenient
thing is that the people they speak to they don't
really like or understand. So I come from somewhere else,

(01:03:37):
and I do think I both like and understand the
people I grew up amongst. And I'm not ever willing
to just shut the door in them because their language
isn't correct or they're not thinking in quite the way
that I would wish they would think. I'm trying to
find common ground, and to me, common ground is not
a middling space. It's like a radical space. It's a

(01:03:59):
space you can share in common. The commons is the
thing that concerns me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Back in two thousand, yes, you went on Charlie Row.

Speaker 8 (01:04:09):
God, yeah, that's the only time to be on television
twice on Charlie Rose.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Yes, yeah, I've seen them both.

Speaker 8 (01:04:14):
Yeah, that's it. And after that it's like, I never
want to do this again in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Well you did just fine.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
You had a quote in that first one that I
wonder if it's still true for you. You said, empathy
and voyeurism are kind of two sides of the same thing.
You have to like looking, and then once you finish looking,
you have to make an effort to understand. Does that
still ring true to you?

Speaker 8 (01:04:41):
Yeah, that's my kink for sure. I like to watch.
I like to watch people. I like to watch their lives.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
I wasn't gonna say kink, but no, but it's fine.

Speaker 8 (01:04:48):
I don't mind. That's truth. I'm really voyeuristic. It's deep
in my nature and I know it is and yeah,
I guess the problem people have the idea that in
understanding people, you forgive them. It's all very Christian, that
kind of idea, And.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Your husband says you have to do everything in your
power to not be Christian.

Speaker 8 (01:05:10):
What he said. But you know, when I was writing
this book looking at these radical socialist Christians who were
some of the greatest anti slavery campaigners, Thomas Spence, Robert
Wedderburn who turned from Christ but then spoke of correctly
that when you get into the social Gospel, what you're
being asked to do there is beyond any Marxist fantasy.

(01:05:32):
It's like you're being asked to give every single thing
that you have to the weakest and poorest in front
of you. So there is certainly a radical Gospel, but
now I'm nowhere near anything like that. But understanding doesn't
have to mean approving. But I think that the really
hard thing, the difference between me and perhaps younger writers,
is that whether I approve or disapprove of the people

(01:05:55):
in my novels is not the point to me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
This was your point around tar. Yeah, that is interesting.

Speaker 8 (01:06:00):
Yeah, it's just it's a serious difference. Of course, I
have my personal views, and but that's not the beginning
and end of when I'm critiquing something, I just, you know,
like I'm reading Virginia Wolf's stories now, and I love Wolf,
and sometimes she's an asshole, and I can just know that,
do you know what I mean? I just know that

(01:06:21):
sometimes she's a fucking asshole. Yes, so that's that. It's
not I'm not condoning. I'm just it's just the fact
it's okay to contain more than one idea, like you
can just have have it and know it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
And you think my generation is not capable of holding them.

Speaker 8 (01:06:36):
No, I think they absolutely are.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
I know they are, because you think they do the
beginning and ending thing that it begins to ends with
their own personal politics.

Speaker 8 (01:06:43):
No, I don't think that either. I think that dumb
people are like that. But I keep reading really brilliant
novels by people younger than me all the time. I'm
brilliant criticism, And so it's not I don't believe in
like it's some kind of generational trait. It's always that
instinct is in every generation of like shutting down at
a certain point or No, I don't believe that. I'm

(01:07:06):
just talking about my particular which just don't stop. They
just keep going. I can't help that, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Eighteen years ago, Yes, you interviewed author Ian McEwan in
the Believer magazine. Yeah, he was about fifty seven at
the time.

Speaker 8 (01:07:22):
Is this the meaning of deep dive? Is this what
happening here? Sam? Is that what you like to do?
I really understand it now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
You were skeptical in the beginning.

Speaker 8 (01:07:30):
Yeah, I know, but now I'm like, whoo, it's intense.
It's amazing the things you've managed to find go on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
He was about fifty seven at the time. Yes, And
toward the end of your interview, you asked him what
it feels like to look at your own bookshelves and
this nice little backlog of work, this little stack. You said,
I don't know what that would feel like. Amazing, I
would think. Does it give you any pleasure?

Speaker 9 (01:07:55):
Though?

Speaker 8 (01:07:56):
What did he say?

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
I'm a little more interested in what you would say now,
because you know, when we started this conversation, he said,
I've been on book tour and people keep bringing all
these books to me, and I don't know how time
has moved so fast, And I never imagined having all
these things written that you have spent your time on

(01:08:19):
in your life, invested.

Speaker 8 (01:08:20):
In I just it's weird, Like I you know, when
you're young, you come to destroy the generation above. I
came to destroy Ian. I love Ian, but I came
to destroy him, just as he came to destroy the
generation above him, just as young novelists come to destroy me.
That's like the natural ecosystem of literure. And if it
doesn't happen, it's not healthy. So I'm so used to

(01:08:41):
coming to be the destroyer, and now I'm here to
be the destroyed. And it's just a weird feeling. I
don't know, it's weird. I did these books, I'll probably
do some more. And what I do notice about the
writers I came to destroy is that you feel a
kind of new fondness for them. You see new things
in them and which I like. And I hope I

(01:09:01):
feel that way about my work as I get older,
that I come around to it again. But the moment,
I'm still like full of beans. Man, I'm kind of
I to do something new.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Have they given you pleasure?

Speaker 8 (01:09:13):
This one gave me a lot of pleasure, satisfaction, And yeah,
like I didn't know if I could do it, and
I did it to my own satisfaction. That's the best
way I can put it. And then last night when
I was signing, people came up talking to me about
White Teeth have so moved like a book I barely remember,
and it was so nice, like kids coming up and
talking about reading it. And I still felt quite disassociated,

(01:09:37):
like it's not I couldn't remember writing it. But I thought, God,
that's so nice that it's just out in the world
being with people. What an incredible thing?

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Do you want to know? His answer?

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Oh, yeah, go on, he said, to your question, does
it give you pleasure? It's like a family album, the
consciousness of your own past. People say what you were
doing in such and such years, And I know exactly
what I was doing. I know I was publishing a
particular book. Are halfway through another one. These books are
the spoonfuls with which I've measured my existence.

Speaker 8 (01:10:07):
Yeah, that's exactly it. And I don't know if that's
a normal thing to do with your life, but that's
what I've done.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
It's okay, Is it okay?

Speaker 8 (01:10:15):
Yeah, it's actually it's good. Yeah. I mean, I I
personally feel that relations with human beings are more important,
and I treasure, my friendships and my loves and my
children and all of that. But it's not a bad

(01:10:35):
way to spend the day, not at all.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
That was Zadie Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
She's the author of books like White Teeth, Intimations, and
most recently The Fraud. You can listen to that episode,
or any of the episodes we played clips from today
at Talk easypond dot com. You can also listen to
those full conversations wherever you are listening.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
To this right now before we go.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
I've been doing Talk Easy since twenty sixteen, and one
difficult part of doing a show every week. There are
a few difficult parts, but one especially difficult part, and
something I don't talk a lot about on the program,
is that if you do this work long enough, some
of the people that I've sat across from pass away.

(01:11:25):
And I'd be remiss to not pay tribute to one
of my favorite guests in my seven years of making
Talk Easy. He came on many many times. I'm, of course,
talking about the late Norman Lear. He passed away in
early December at the age of one hundred and one.
He's probably the only one hundred and one year old

(01:11:46):
that left us much much too soon.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
What can I say?

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
He was more vibrant in his triple digits than I
am at the end of my twenties. His contributions, of
course include all in the family, good times, Maud, basically
the television that you were raised on, or the very
least your parents were raised on. But but I think
about his legacy, I do think he will live on

(01:12:13):
through all the people that he championed and supported, all
the shows he produced, all the careers he made, all
the young people like me that he believed in before
just about anyone else did. I still remember that first
time I sat with him. It was in twenty seventeen

(01:12:34):
or twenty eighteen. I think I couldn't have been old
in twenty three, twenty four I had never met him.
I went to his office with two microphones because in
those days we didn't have a studio, and I remember
I walked in and he was yelling at the TV,
which undoubtedly featured Trump, who had just done something terrible,

(01:12:57):
which narrows it down to Chex's notes every single day
of his four years. So I can't remember the exact day,
But what really mattered was his spirit. Norman in that conversation,
if you heard it, or even in our conversation in
twenty twenty, which was around his ninety eighth birthday.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
He had a.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Warmth to him, a curiosity to him, a generosity of
spirit that was unmatched, a joy and a love for
being alive that made you want to live more. To
know Norman was to know a man who knew the
power he had and knew how to use it. And

(01:13:42):
I mean that in the best way. He knew what
a word of encouragement could do for someone, and he
did it again and again. I saw it with people
in my life. I saw it in my life. He
opened doors for people, He stayed in touch because he
loved people that loved doing what they do. And I

(01:14:03):
mean this, I do not think that we would be
making this show today if not for him his support,
if not for his love, and that is the thing
that he will leave behind as well.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
The year ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
I am not going to use this time to scare anyone.
I think we know that it's going to be hard
and taxing and emotionally exhausting. I don't know how exactly
we're going to do it, but I think we have
something to learn from Norman.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
This is a man who.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
He bought one of the few original copies of the
Declaration of Independence. He's someone who literally fought in World
War Two for democracy, spent a lot of his life
doing political work and humanitarian work around democracy and on

(01:14:57):
behalf of this country that he believed in.

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
That's what he had.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
More than anything, he had belief. And I don't know
how we're a manage through twenty twenty four, but I
do know whatever stamina he had, whatever belief he continued
to hold to the very end, that is what we
are going to need. He will be so missed. I

(01:15:25):
don't know what we're gonna do without him, I really don't,
but I'm so grateful that we got to pass through
at the same time. And with that we will do
just as he always did and continue onward. His three
favorite words in the English language he always liked to

(01:15:46):
say this. His three favorite words are the same ones.
I will end today's show on to be continued, stay safe,
and I'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
You in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
And that's our show. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok.
Our executive producer is Janick sa Bravo. Our associate producer
is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by Kitlyn Dryden
and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck.
Our illustrations are by Christia Chenoy. Video and graphics by
Ian Chang, Derek gaberzak, Ian Jones and Ethan Seneca. I

(01:16:48):
also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond,
Julia Barton, John Stars, Kerrie Brody, Eric Sandler, Jordan McMillan,
Kira Posey, Tara Machado, Jason Gambrel, Justin Lang, Malcolm Gladwell,
Greta con and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you
for listening to this special New Year's Eve edition of
Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week. Until then,

(01:17:14):
stay safe and so long.