August 6, 2025 • 52 mins
Writing fiction about climate change is notoriously difficult. Some authors have gone for massive ensemble casts to defeat the hyperobject. But what if one zoomed in to smaller, quieter, interpersonal stories?
Jon Raymond is a screenwriter and novelist whose work I very much enjoy. He is a frequent collaborator of Kelly Reichardt's, on films such as Old Joy, First Cow, Night Moves, and Showing Up. He also adapted James M. Cain's novel, Mildred Pierce, which became an HBO miniseries starring Kate Winslett.
His novels in particular deal with our place in a world with a changing climate. His previous work, Denial, concerns itself with questions of climate culpability for the individual person with great skill. His new novel, God and Sex, asks poignant questions about the nature of miracles and doubt from within a climate context. We discuss both books at length in this show.
They're both worth reading. Pick a copy of God and Sex while it is fresh off the presses!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, thanks for listening to Reversing Climate Change.
I'm your host, Ross Kenyon. Before we get going, I'd love to
tell you a little bit about our sponsors.
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I originally saw Phillip Lee give a presentation about some
(00:22):
of the common provisions within off Take agreements, and I was
impressed by the quality of their scholarship and their
work, and I'm happy that we're able to stay in touch and
finally do this together. I think the law is an
underrepresented part of what happens within carbon removal.
We assume it's the background, we assume it's the mechanics.
It actually takes a very smart and creative person to be a good
(00:43):
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lawyer, you know that there's quite a big difference between a
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that they're also just the largest legal team dedicated to
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(01:25):
Get in touch with Phillip Lee. If you're working in this space,
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These projects need legal care. There's a lot of structuring
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point still. And there's a lot more
innovation and creativity that'sgoing to be needed to make sure
that the legal infrastructure that supports carbon removal is
there. So link is in the show notes, go
(01:47):
check out Phillip Lee, our othersponsors, our Bionics.
Our Bionics is great. They've been on the podcast
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(02:10):
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(02:32):
It's a really important set of questions that are Bionics
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If you want to support forestry,give our bionics a look.
Link is in the show notes there.Thanks for listening and now I
will go into the show itself. Thanks for your time.
Here it is. Hello out there.
(02:58):
Thanks for listening. I am Ross Kenny and I'm the host
of Reversing Climate Change. If you listened before, you know
that I'm a carbon removal and climate tech entrepreneur, but
I'm also someone who's obsessed with the humanities.
That's where I come from. I, I come from a background
where I did undergraduate work in history.
I did PhD work in political philosophy before deciding that
(03:19):
wasn't the right fit for me. But I think it's so important to
engage with the arts and humanities.
I think in a field like climate,if they're often neglected, but
I don't think they should be. In fact, I think more could be
done to make them the powerhouses that we know they
can be. Most of the things that we care
about, I feel like have a basis in the humanities.
(03:40):
We spend so much time listening to stories, reading, watching
TV, watching films. Storytelling is is very much key
to who we are. And today I have a storyteller
whom I really admire. I watched so much of his
content. I've read several of his novels.
You may have too. John Raymond is the screenwriter
(04:02):
who's frequently collaborated with Kelly Ride Chart, which you
might have known from their first big film.
That made a splash, especially in the indie world, was Old Joy,
where you can see Bonnie Prince Billy.
It's a road trip movie. It's 2 old friends talking about
life. It's quiet now.
It's a lot about feeling and being and it's not just about
(04:28):
action, zippy dialogue. It's mostly just processing of
life. I don't even know how else to
put it. They're they're very hypnotic
films in a way. The film work that he's done
since Old Joy is is wonderful too.
I I recently watched Showing Up with Michelle Williams and I
find her to be extremely engrossing in it and again to be
(04:50):
a quiet, sad, meditative kind offilm.
You should definitely check out Mildred Pierce starring Kate
Winslet in a miniseries from HBOthat's nearly 15 years old at
this point. It's just a wonderful period
piece adaptation of a novel about the Great Depression and
what it was like during that time.
Much of his work has a strong ecological and climate angle.
(05:14):
He wrote a film called Night Move starring Jesse Eisenberg
about an eco terror plot to blowup a dam.
In his two novels, which we discussed at length here, Denial
and his new one, God and Sex areboth strongly informed by
climate. I have to warn you that there
are spoilers here. I don't think spoilers should
prevent you from enjoying it. In fact, I find the desire to.
(05:37):
How do you do a podcast? The podcast is to tell you that
you should consume John's work and it's worth your time to both
you and to read. But if we can't talk about the
substance and the theme of the books, then we can't really make
a podcast telling you to go and do it without saying it's good
and you should check it out and hear some vague, you know, theme
(05:58):
that maybe you care about. I think it'd be a terrible show.
John and I discuss his work in detail.
I don't mind knowing the storiesof films before I see them, same
as novels. I find sometimes it helps me
absorb the story better if I know the the broad shape of it.
And I'm curious how much of thatsurprise element is really
(06:21):
necessary for appreciating literature.
And I suspect it's actually not as great as you might think.
So just a heads up, we spoil a lot of John's work, but I don't
think that should stop you from enjoying this show at all.
Denials about a near future where climate has been
addressed, at least partially because there's been a tribunal
(06:41):
where many people who are responsible for it are tried for
crimes, but some of those peoplehave escaped prosecution.
Similar to, you know, Nazis fling to South America after
World War 2 and other places anda journalist's quest to hunt one
down. I think it's a really
fascinating book. I greatly enjoyed it.
(07:03):
God in Sex is a new book of John's that you should go and
pick up. It's about a writer who's
working on a book about trees. And there is a climate event
that potentially produces a miracle.
And there's a question of how tounderstand miracles and what it
(07:23):
means to doubt. And even though you can be so
sure of something, what happens in its aftermath?
I'll let you get to the show in just one second.
But before we get there, if you'd please give a great rating
review on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen
to shows. If there's a rating and reviews
function, please do it. It helps so much.
I can't overstate how much it helps getting more people to see
(07:44):
the show and listen to it. And also, if you'd please become
a paid subscriber for 5 bucks a month, not that much money.
You get rid of the inserted ads,you get bonus content.
I put out some bonus content every month of special parts of
shows. In fact, today's show actually
has some bonus content in it that I'm going to cut out.
People who who want it can get some little extra with John and
I just thanks for listening. I've been fond of saying
(08:06):
recently that I'm honored by people listening to the show and
I truly am. There's so much content.
It's, it's just absurd. I'm often overwhelmed with it
and trying to keep up with things I think I need to, let
alone want to. You could be doing other things
right now, and I'm just glad you're choosing to spend it with
me. I do not take that for granted.
Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful day.
(08:27):
And here's the show with John. So thanks for listening.
Bye for now. Thanks for being here, John.
Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure to have you.
I've spent a lot of time in yourbrain recently.
Read two of your novels, Hangingwith Kate Winslet.
I watched several of your Kelly Reichardt films that you Co
(08:50):
wrote. Really interesting work and I'm
happy that you're spending time writing about climate.
I might not have predicted that from you, given your body of
work. Yeah, I mean, I mean, my, my
body of work, such as it is, Yeah, definitely falls into a
(09:10):
kind of realist or naturalist tradition, I think, which I
think people well rightfully associate with, you know, small
scale interpersonal dramas. You know, people obey the laws
of, of gravity and science and yeah, involve, yeah, usually
(09:33):
kind of small emotional journeysfor people.
And, you know, that is, I think that in today's world, though,
that kind of relationship to climate change is part of
reality. I mean, it is part of the the
(09:54):
actual really often small scale dramas of our lives.
And it's actually, yeah, it's popped up in the work I've done
for a long time. Like, you know, my first book,
The Half Life, dealt with, you know, the the early Beaver trade
in the Northwest, which in a sense was a form of, of
(10:17):
ecological devastation. Yeah.
I've done a book or a movie about blowing up a dam.
You know, I've written a book about that involved a plot line
about privatizing the wastewaterof Los Angeles.
And like, these are just things that for me kind of as a West
(10:38):
Coast person especially, are areare part of everyday life.
Much of your film work, especially the films with Kelly,
strike me as part of an outgrowth of Dogma 95 and Lars
von Trier and the Mumble Core movement and the Duplass
brothers and things that are supposed to be relatively quiet,
(11:00):
laconic. They're very personal.
They have a sort of meditative quality to it.
I mean, granted, even Night Moves feels a little bit like
that too. There isn't a huge amount of
talking. But I also see a lot of
stylistic divergent with your writing.
I don't find that as strongly inyour writing.
Maybe because you're so descriptive.
They're so thoughtful and there's a lot of third person
(11:22):
omniscient narration happening where you're telling me about
feelings and things of that nature, but I see those as
stylistically very distinct. Am I incorrect about that?
No, no, I think that there's, yeah, there's kind of a range of
things. I mean, you know, Kelly has and
I mean as a a brilliant directorand is I think the the measure
(11:43):
of her brilliance is how comfortable she is doing so
little in a certain sense, or like really allowing the, the
moments to breathe, the the, theshots to linger.
I think, you know, the, the quietness and the, the
miniaturism of the films is, is very much about her and the
(12:07):
conversation that I'm having with her.
I mean, for me, the, you know, acouple of those, a couple, few
of those films are based on short stories that I wrote.
And for me, the, the short storyform is more where some of the
the quietness and, and miniaturism or most evident may
be in the pros that I do. Novels are like a different
(12:32):
animal, though, and they kind ofneed bigger engines, I have
found, and those do tend to get a little bit bigger.
And you know, I'm, I would love to be able to write a novel that
like existed more on the the level of, of smallness of the of
the films or the short stories. But it's AI and I might be
(12:53):
starting to figure that out, butit's it's still not yet really
happened. I look forward to reading that
as pertains to silence. I think that's such an
underrated aesthetic choice. I saw a Tig Notaro do stand up
at outside lands seemingly A decade ago and the stand up
(13:13):
before her felt so uncomfortablewith silence.
Manic filled every second with aquip and Tig would come out
there and be silent for 20 seconds and then say 4 words and
destroyed. And the amount of control that
that showed and confidence I felt taken care of by her and it
was the funniest thing I think I've ever seen live.
Among the best? That makes total sense to me.
(13:35):
I mean, yeah, I think it is. I mean, that's like the black
belt of of, you know, of artistry.
I think is, you know, that that ability to dwell in those those
silences, and I mean, often in those silences, it's where, I
mean, it's where the audience has a chance to have a thought,
you know, and it's also in writing, it's where a lot of the
(13:58):
expressiveness comes in, you know.
I mean, you know, you mentioned the idea of, of describing
things and those can be, you know, moments of like real
lyricism and, and kind of what Iwould call ekphrastic sort of
writing, which is the the sort of joy of writing about visual
(14:21):
images. And so that, you know, to to
sort of get out of the yeah, constant talking, the constant,
you know, yeah, just guiding of someone like is, is when
something really interesting happens.
Which makes the contrast all themore striking, because Will
(14:44):
Oldham seems like a chatterbox. How do you rein him in for
something like Old Joy? He seems like once you turn that
guy on, he seems like he goes. Maybe that's an incorrect
impression. I'm a Bonnie Prince Billy fan,
so I think I'm allowed to say that.
But yeah, I mean, I've loved Will's stuff forever.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm well enough in person to
know how much he rambles but keeps finding new things.
It's amazing. Yeah, one of those artists like
(15:07):
Tom Waits that you'll see pop upin a movie.
You're like, cool, I guess. Guess wilderness.
That's great. Yeah, totally.
Do you consider climate to be a hyper object?
A lot of novelists and theoristsof writing consider to be one of
those topics that's so big it's hard to see and hard to
communicate about. Do you agree with that and how
do you deal with it? I mean, yeah, in a sense it is,
(15:31):
I guess, you know, technically ahyper object as I kind of
understand that, you know, I mean, it does, you know, create
the entire atmosphere of our lives literally, you know, I
mean, it is the the air that we're breathing and the the heat
that we're feeling. And that does become sort of
(15:52):
hard to to navigate. But I mean, I think that that
makes it all the more, well, I mean, sadly kind of juicy as a
topic. You know, I mean, it's, it, it
brings like immediate kinds of existential drama and, and
(16:13):
suspense in a certain, in a certain way.
You know, the book I did before the new one was called Denial.
And that was, you know, specifically about a, a green
new deal that had a, a global green new deal that had
happened. And it was a futuristic book.
I'm not really actually into science fiction that much, but
(16:33):
this was a very soft science fiction book about a future in
which humanity really did get it's shit together and solve not
not so much salt, but at least address a lot of climate issues,
which also, you know, created a certain kind of judicial issue.
And there were like Nuremberg style trials for carbon
(16:57):
criminals. And so that book became kind of
a Nazi hunter story and eco drag.
I describe it as where a where awhere a reporter uncovers a
former oil executive in hiding in Mexico and and goes to to
track him down. But it was for me, like a way to
(17:19):
try and just project a future period.
You know, this was something I was writing in like 2020 when we
were having the megafires here on the West Coast.
And, you know, the idea of somehow speaking back to this,
like unfolding like very in yourface apocalypse was, was like
(17:42):
just a practical matter for me. Like I had to figure out a way
to even comprehend a future as long as a 30 year mortgage at
least, you know, like how, how can I, what what could happen
to, to make that possible? And, and, you know, thankfully
a, a certain noir, A noir plot device allowed me to think about
(18:03):
that. But but yeah, to me, like, like
talking about this hyper object is it's yeah.
It becomes just an an ambient subject in almost everything.
Yeah, you can contrast it to someone like Kim Stanley
Robinson, who's attempted to tell stories about climate by
(18:25):
making enormous ensemble cast ofcharacters that represent
different points of view and experiences.
And yours. It seems like you zoomed in
really far. I think there's only a couple.
Denial is a great book. I really like it.
Also, you should send it to Stanley Tucci.
I think he would be a great person to run that empty seat
role. Oh, that's an interesting idea.
That's. Why I imagine in there I'm like
this is a. Different.
That is a very interesting idea that the film project of that is
(18:50):
slowly making its way through the like world.
But that's that's not the personthat is like currently like
hovering over that seat. But we'll see.
I can't really talk about it because it's like too delicate,
but but that is a really interesting idea.
I like it, yeah. I get a producer credit for that
(19:11):
now. Yeah.
My people will call your people,don't worry.
Yeah, the back end will be hefty.
Yeah. But no, Kim Stanley Robinson is,
I mean to me, a very awe inspiring writer.
And there is a a level of research that goes into those
(19:35):
novels and, and of just scientific understanding that is
so far beyond what I could possibly reproduce.
And so thankfully, I had not read his work before I wrote
Denial because I would have, youknow, probably felt more worried
about my own just sort of, you know, groping for for, you know,
(20:00):
scientific sort of versimilitude.
But. But yeah, as long as you can't
really compete with that, you might as you might as well not
even try as far as I'm concerned.
And do it, do it in your own way.
You know, I mean, I, I like a smaller, like more intimate
storyline as much as I like his giant global ensemble cast as
(20:24):
well. Well, if you style it in terms
of noir, that's a genre with very strong conventions.
We understand what that means. It can be a more contained
story. It doesn't have to be how the
entire world grapples with climate change.
It's about individually distinctcharacters that have their jobs
that they're working with. And actually, I think the
(20:45):
zooming in allows for great contrast in denial because this
possible Tucci character in my head is a very charming person,
and yet he's someone that has been charged for high crimes and
is a fugitive. And there's this question of can
this person be a good person andalso be institutionally
responsible for great amounts ofharm?
And how should we understand that?
Is he actually a good person? Is there some degree of
(21:07):
sociopathy there? Like, how do we deal with the
personal and the impersonal bitsof mercy and justice in our
lives? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it was, you know, kind of a crime and punishment story.
And as, as you know, a couple ofthese have been, you know, Night
Moves has some of the that element as well.
(21:27):
And I mean, this is, I think forme, part of the the realism
question. You know, like, I mean, I love
this Kim Stanley Robinson stuff and, you know, certainly
Ministry for the Future reads insome ways like a, you know, a
policy paper and and novel form and which is fascinating and
great. And to me, like the the failure
(21:50):
of a lot of science fiction I read is just how historically
thin the characters are and, andhow, you know, they are kind of
androids being, you know, manipulated.
I, you know, in, in a more naturalist realist mode, I do
think it's, it's required to kind of test your characters in
(22:14):
your situations against reality as you actually understand it
and, and against like personalities that are real to
you, you know, and that disgorges like very mixed, mixed
characters and mixed bags, you know, I mean, I find many, I
(22:34):
have many morally questionable friends who I adore, you know, I
have, you know, I'm amused by a lot of people that I might
diverge from morally and in different ways, and some of them
in very small ways. And I think, you know, to talk.
I mean, I mean, this, I guess, is what literature is good for,
(22:56):
for me in addressing, you know, questions like our own
culpability for climate change and and, you know, sort of
larger social movements. You know, to read a newspaper,
to read a policy paper, the perversity of of human behavior
(23:17):
doesn't really register And and in literature it it profoundly
does. And you kind of have to
understand that whoever is, whoever is dealing with these
problems is is radically fallible.
I've been using lately about howthe empathy generation that
(23:37):
happens in literature. Good television has typically in
our culture, made us more sympathetic to characters that
we should feel stronger moral bright lines towards.
Like, why are we so enamored with the antihero?
And that's kind of a terrifying thing.
And then we have an antihero that leads the country and we're
somehow OK with it and act like maybe those things aren't as
connected. I think too much empathy can
(23:59):
maybe lead us astray too. Yeah, no, I hear that.
But I mean, this is, you know, Imean, you know, you can go back
to Milton and farther to find like the charismatic Antichrist,
you know what I mean? That is that's that's villains
are funner to write. Villains are more interesting.
That's just sort of a law, a lawof of of fiction, I think.
(24:22):
But I think you're absolutely right.
The kind of the diet that we've fed ourselves, Yeah.
I mean, I'd say particularly in prestige television of like
Satanic patriarchs. Is it it is a kind of
conditioning for, for this. And I mean, I guess that was why
for me, I'll just go ahead and spoil the ending of denial.
But it was important for me thatthis like charming, not even a
(24:47):
sociopath, but really just a, a charming, you know, petroleum
executive does end up having to,to pay for the, the, really the
policy crimes that he was responsible for, even though
our, our agents or our journalist, yeah, finds him a
(25:08):
good hang. It's like he does ultimately
have to, to pay for that. And that was important for me.
And, you know, that's part of the fun of writing too, is you
get 2 exact punishments on people.
And I've done that in a few books in different ways, but
(25:30):
there's something else I was going to say.
Oh, oh, the other, the other elements of of like sort of mass
cultural conditioning that I think is, is really unfortunate.
And this was a a big part of thedenial.
Genesis 2 is there's the the satanic patriarch trope that we
have, but then there's also justthe post apocalyptic trope that
(25:51):
is, is really like the narrativeof my lifetime, you know, of
watching the world be destroyed in every possible imaginable
manner and, you know, by zombie or meteor or, you know, pandemic
or whatever. And to me, that's also a similar
(26:14):
way. It it it also becomes a death
wish of a certain sort, like howmany times we have to imagine
the world exploding on our watch.
And that, for me, was part of the argument to denial.
Like, let's try to do a future that is neither utopic, you
know, like, let's not pretend we're going to solve it all, but
nor do we have to pretend that the world is going to die with
(26:37):
us. You know that we can actually
imagine that there's some sort of middle ground, which is a
pretty rare, a pretty rare thingto imagine, I think.
I think it's successful ambiguity because it doesn't
lead to this like, well, who really knows?
I think I'm still thinking aboutthe climax of denial where
(26:58):
they're at a bull fight and the empty seat is still just, he's
talking and pretending almost like it's not really happening.
And you feel a great degree of pity for this person.
You're like, wow, this is like adifferent lifetime of his maybe,
you know, a couple decades ago and it's finally catching up to
him. And you wonder like, how, how
would I feel? Then It's, you know, 1960 and
Eichmann gets scooped out of Argentina by Masa.
(27:20):
Like, am I? Am I somehow then thinking like,
oh, it's different for Eichmann all these years later?
But like, the answer to that should be no.
But in your case, it doesn't endup being a really hard no.
I end up thinking, like, what what type of culpability should
be applied to this person so long in the past?
And how important is the symbolism of of them now facing
repercussions even though they are no longer a threat?
And what theory of justice are we even using?
(27:41):
Those are the kinds of good questions I think we should be
thinking about. Yeah, yeah.
And you know, I mean, in this case it is different than
Eichmann. I mean, it's parallel to
Eichmann. But but if you're talking about
climate change, like who's not guilty?
You know, I mean, and this is part of the debate that they
have in that book is that, you know, he might have been at the
(28:03):
top of the of the corporate kindof pyramid, but all of the
consumers were buying it. You know, I mean, it's not like
he was doing this into a vacuum or forcing people to to burn
carbon or to, you know, eat meator do all the the various sort
of, you know, non criminal activities that we've like
(28:28):
sealed off in some way. You know, it's it is there's a
lot of a lot of ambiguity. I mean to me that, you know, you
talk about the the empathy generation.
I don't know, I haven't heard that phrase before, but but
second, my original coinage. Yeah, probably.
Not the movie. I like it, but you know, there's
(28:51):
also, you know, this virtue mongering kind of generation
that we've entered as well that very much likes to, you know,
portion out guilt, you know, andnon guilt.
And that there are, you know, and again, this is part of like
a long Western tradition of likea Manichean kind of worldview
(29:13):
that there's good and there's bad and there's people with
Halos and people with pitchforksand that there's this kind of
justice that will ultimately be meted out.
And that's just not really how the world works.
I agree with that, but then I without any.
(29:35):
I'm so pissed still. Exactly.
So pissed. I was going to say that.
I also just absolutely adore characters like Jean Valjean.
And I like these sort of like beautiful Christian martyr type
characters who have a conversionmoment and actually are just
good. Like there's not a lot of
complexity to Jean Valjean. It's a beautiful story, but this
happened. To you.
(29:55):
Oh, sorry, from from Les Mis Victor Hugo.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah.
Are you too contemporary? Don't read the classics, no.
I love the actually I bought it a few years ago but I did not
read it so it's sitting on my shelf but and it was.
Not for a long time. It's.
Wonderful. It's is it?
I didn't expect it to be as goodas it is.
(30:17):
I believe. Oh, no, I'm sure it's great as a
novel. Yeah, I have no doubt, Yeah.
Yeah, I felt like it would be like another one of those
obligatory, like, OK, I'm makingmy way through this.
I'm like, oh, I'm on every page that's still, listen, there'll
be like a chase scene, like an important chase scene.
And then there'll be 100 pages about how the sewers of Paris
were constructed and how night soil is the most important
fertilizer and we're throwing itaway down.
(30:37):
I'm like, go back to the chasing.
You're in the middle of the action right now.
That sounds great. No, I actually maybe I do.
I I often like to read like a big 19th century novel in the
summer, so maybe that'll be the one that I do this summer.
Wow, if I could have that influence, that would bring me
great pleasure. So we should talk about God and
sex too, because it also seemingly is just structured
(30:58):
around ambiguity as well. That that's clearly the the
thing that we keep coming back to with your work.
Was there a miracle? Is there not a miracle?
This is clearly a question that's keeping you up at night.
Yeah, well, I mean, you, you dida good segue there with the sort
of whatever theological epiphanic moment you're talking
(31:18):
about in Les Mis, which I don't know, but yeah.
So the new book is called God and Sex, which is, I recognize,
a sort of ludicrous, ludicrous title.
Very provocative title. Yeah.
But apropos, you know, I think so.
It does have those things. And yeah, it is, yeah.
(31:40):
It is fundamentally about a miracle that may or may not have
happened in the context of an adulterous love triangle in
Southern Oregon. And it also, yeah, involves a
climate disaster as the as the sort of backdrop, but which at a
(32:00):
certain point becomes not the backdrop and the becomes very
much the foreground. But.
But yeah, there is a there is a a prayer that may have been
answered in a moment of duress. And the the characters are then
I guess again. And what I would hope is a sort
of realistic or naturalistic wayleft to, to parse the, the
(32:24):
reality of that, you know, and Ithink the question of, you know,
what would I or my friends do if, if the hand of God sort of
gently touched something, how long would we believe that had
really happened? Or how quickly would we like re
narrated in a way that was like more acceptable to our worldview
(32:51):
that that that that kind of provides the the central spine,
I guess, of the of the book. And if this sounds coy, I mean,
I, I, I don't care too much about doing spoiler stuff.
So we can go. Ahead, whatever is useful to you
is fine with me. We can talk openly about it.
Yeah, I mean, I, I could go either way.
So I, I guess we can see if we have to.
I guess we can. But if we don't have to, I guess
(33:13):
it's great to leave some mystery.
But either way. I think it's good reading for
its own sake. There are plenty of those books
that you, you know what's going to happen.
They're still worth reading. Movies that you know, you know
what's going to happen at the end of The Sixth Sense.
It doesn't matter. It's still amazing knowing what
the twist is. It's like, yeah.
Totally. No, You know, you basically
know, Yeah, on that level with almost every artwork you enter.
(33:34):
Yeah, there's only a couple stories, right?
There's just variations on it. Yes.
Yes, Yeah. Well, miracles, OK.
They. I hear back from people who have
had profound psychedelic experiences, paranormal
experiences. Many of them come back to this
like it felt so real. Now that I'm removed from it,
(33:55):
did it really happen? Did I think that?
Did I communicate? Did the divine intercede in some
way? Or is this some sort of
physiological process? What actually happened to me?
I think a lot of people do have that experience as it wears off
over time. I think it's pretty fairly
common. Yeah, I think absolutely.
I mean, yeah, as with any experience, you know, the
(34:17):
experience becomes the memory ofthe experience and the
interpretation of the experienceand the, the the whittling down
of the experience in some kind of way.
Yeah. And yeah, the, the psychedelic
insights being like one of the primary kinds of ones that way,
(34:39):
you know, I mean, and, and so, you know, for me, unlike
probably I'm expecting Victor Hugo or, you know, a Dostoyevsky
or a million kinds of, you know,religiously minded writers who
(34:59):
are working in a more, I guess aNew Testament sort of sort of
ideology where, yes, there is some sort of revelation that can
occur, some kind of change of soul or some sort of communion
with a, with a higher power God and sex is constructed.
(35:24):
And what is what I, what I understand is a more apathetic
tradition, which is a more negative theological tradition,
which is built around the idea that you actually can never know
that there is a, a fundamental unknowing at the root of any
sort of understanding of the divine.
(35:46):
And that any sort of attempt to describe it or to articulate it
is, is kind of doomed to, to fail.
And that the best that we have is a sort of process of
elimination as far as like what is not divine.
And, you know, I think this book, you know, very much
(36:09):
proceeds on the sense of, of absence and, and silence and
lack of understanding, which is not to say it's not also infused
with certain divine questions. You know, they just are sort of
left a little bit like in darkness.
(36:29):
How much of the book is about a The back of the book describes
it as being a New Age writer, someone who's writing a nature
book about trees. And it has a sort of pantheistic
or pantheistic attitude to it, which I think if you talk to
people who have feelings like all of life is connected,
(36:50):
consciousness is a field, they express feelings like that.
Those don't necessarily leave huge amounts of room for doubt.
I think those are those are verypositive thinking.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Why contrast them in this way? I mean it, it probably has very
much to do with just a family romance that I'm dealing with
(37:11):
through my life, which is a dad who was a Buddhist and sort of
without croppings into Sufism. And, you know, you know, what,
what would definitely be categorized as as a new age kind
of ideologies, I think in a, in a kind of sophisticated way, but
(37:33):
definitely new Agey. And, and that, you know, if you
wanted to put a bigger sort of lens on it, you know, could also
be called an American transcendentalist sort of
tradition, you know, that is that kind of, you know, probably
has some, some nature worship involved in it and is, yeah,
(37:55):
pretty, pretty secure. And it's, and it's sense of a,
of a good, a good universe sort of taking care of itself in some
way. My mom is Jewish and is not like
observant in any way. But definitely I think has more
of an Old Testament sort of mentality with a divinity that's
(38:18):
much more insane. Yeah.
And is capricious and jealous and to be feared.
And that sort of trying to sort of square the circle between
those two has been sort of an interesting project for me over
the years. You know, I mean, I lean much
further towards my mom's like world view, but but I've, you
(38:43):
know, wanted to leave room in that.
But, but also, yeah, there is a pantheistic sort of nature lover
in me too. So yeah, getting the the the
hippie and the rabbi together are kind of it's, it's a
conversation that's been happening in in different ways.
(39:04):
Do you think this book is pointed at the climate movement
or people who are climate concerned, or is it much broader
than that? I mean, I guess I would hope
it's broader in a sense, but youknow, I mean, but they all are
so interwoven in a certain way. I mean, the other, the other
thing I was trying to kind of deal with in this book is, you
(39:26):
know, to think about, you know, I, I, as I had said, I had
addressed sort of different kinds of climate things in
different, different ways. And, and with a generally with a
kind of political prism in mind,you know, and the, the politics,
the, the, the morality being sort of a, a political morality
in some kind of way. And I, you know, as as we have
(39:51):
moved into a period of history where really reality itself is
being questioned by a lot of people in ways that are largely
perverse and disgusting, you know, like that some of the
basic things that we take as reality have been.
Withdrawn in a lot of in a lot of people's minds, you know, I
(40:14):
mean, as far as you know, the efficacy of of vaccines or or
the fact of climate change at all.
You know, I mean to, to me, I guess the, the, the sort of
focus needs to get down even lower into like a more
theological plane than into a political plane, you know, and
(40:36):
that there are certain like veryfundamental questions of reality
that I wanted these characters to be grappling with.
And so, you know, they, they didn't end up being the sort of
topical questions of, of, you know, vaccines or, or fascism.
But in my mind, that is sort of the, the, the ambiance of my own
(41:01):
writing, you know, that like, oh, I thought we had agreed that
fascism was bad, you know, and in turn, it turns out many
people did not go to the same school that I went to.
And so this kind of this thing of a, of a, of a miracle that
someone has to sort of grapple with and kind of unravel in some
(41:24):
way. Yeah, for me is sort of
surrogate in a way for a lot of different kinds of like
foundational questions that are being undone around us right
now. Well, climate.
I don't know, it comes through, but it's like, you know, I don't
think it does come through. I mean, it's a small story, but
(41:45):
like that for me was the sort ofthe, the, yeah, the atmosphere.
I like that climate. It still is a prominent part of
the book, but it's a fact of theuniverse rather than the star of
the show. You might say there are those
old human stories, too. Like both of these books have
very strong themes of betrayal. There's a mechanic of betrayal
(42:07):
and both of them that is seemingly very interesting to
you for narrative purposes. Like you want to talk about the
ethics of it. OK, we'll spoil a little bit.
When the love triangle is revealed in God and Sex, the
husband is very, very understanding, which is
potentially even more aggravating than him becoming
murderously jealous. Yeah.
Again, like I like people to behaving like they actually
(42:28):
would, you know, and like there are plenty of people that, you
know, are not that they want their marriage to be destroyed,
but they are not vindictive people and they understand that
other people exist and they are actually mature.
Like, I mean, I get so annoyed in so much popular culture of
just the emotional immaturity ofpeople when it's like that
(42:49):
actually doesn't describe a lot of the people that I know, you
know, I mean, people are much more self reflective and, and
and, you know, not necessarily mellow, but just like our our,
you know, not, not as unwise as most people in popular culture
are. Yeah.
(43:12):
Emotionally, yeah. Wow, is that have you always
felt that way? Or is that just something that
as you've become older and livedmore life, you've just seen more
wisdom accumulate over time? No, I've always, I think felt
that way like even as a kid, like watching movies, like, you
know, watching like those John Hughes movies as a teenager, I
was just like, who are these people?
(43:33):
This is so stupid. Like this isn't really how
people are, you know, and and and I will say it felt
politically retrograde to me. You know, a lot of those, you
know, where I'm like, these are,these are like stereotypes and,
and sort of emotional narrativesthat are like, you know, in that
(43:54):
case, predicated on some form oflike Reaganite, like nostalgia
tripping. And it's just like I even as a
teenager, I was like, this is I like, I don't, these are not the
people that I know. This is like stupid.
Well, your books feel very, I think, the highest praise you
can give to any sort of writers,that the artifice is hidden.
(44:16):
And those worlds felt real to me.
And I'm wondering if they felt real at least partially because
the characters. Do you have some amount of
wisdom? You're like, Oh yes, that is how
people would actually act in this situation, have doubts
about their own actions. And then once it is revealed to
others, maybe they would have some degree of understanding as
well. And it isn't just now they have
to have a duel in the in the courtyard.
(44:36):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think everything needs to be reality
TV sort of juiced, you know, like of people just acting like
idiots and like there's still plenty of of drama to be had in
in life. You know.
I mean, there's no shortage of like, like actual moral
questions that you don't have tolike put steroids in.
(45:00):
Like they're I, I mean, honestly, that said, like a
novel is kind of steroidal. I mean, it's like even God and
sex, which is small. It is a it's a ludicrous and and
and large kind of device that isbeing deployed in there.
But yeah, at least you can kind of like shape it in a way that
doesn't feel insulting to someone's intelligence.
(45:24):
I've been thinking a lot about my life recently and how I've
spent so much time acquiring knowledge and reading lots of
books and trying to read the Canon and be well informed and
trying to shift over to wisdom as a goal of mine.
And in my head I have this unassumed model of becoming wise
where the problems do not get brought to me or I'm somehow
above it in Monkley. And actually, it might just mean
(45:47):
more cases get brought to me because I'm wise and I have to
exercise more discretion, not less.
Totally. No, I mean, I think wisdom is a
is an underrated, certainly literary virtue.
You know, I mean, and I've I've thought about this really
explicitly with like Ursula Le Guin, who to me is like an
extremely wise sort of voice, but not lacking in flair or
(46:12):
weirdness or anything. And like, yeah, that and, and to
me, the, the sort of moral engagement that you get to have
by being wise or judicious is, is actually deeper and more
intricate as opposed to like more aerial, you know.
I mean, it's like, like you werejust saying, you know, it's not
that you're above it, you're just actually involved in the
(46:34):
minutiae of of the scales, you know, And it's, I mean, that's,
you know, that feels like a morerabbinic sort of quality to like
you're, you know, you're, you're, you're balancing
everything out in the in the most sort of elaborate way
possible. Even if you are rabbinic and you
(46:56):
know the law very well, the nextstep is to know which of those
laws to apply and when and when.Also to show mercy regarding
them. It's not you know the laws and
it's done applying them as a whole.
Probably a greater step. Applying them as the pleasure,
you know, I mean, that's what's fun, you know, And it's like,
you know, that that to me has been like this, the enormous
pleasure of collaborating with Kelly on the films.
(47:18):
Like it is, you know, it's a form of gossip that we get to
engage in, you know, with with fictive characters, but that are
are informed radically by real people.
And you just get to have those, you know.
Yeah, those those very precise conversations about particular
(47:44):
people in particular situations.And that's, that's a pleasure
unto itself. What are you going to be working
on next? I know it's a dangerous question
to ask a creative person that, but what are you excited about
right now? I have a a novel started and so
that's kind of working up into something.
(48:05):
I mean, it's still so far away, but that it it is actually
something where I'm trying to doa book that does not rely on big
narrative hamburgers in a certain way.
And it's more like, you know, dealing with like a girls soccer
coach, kind of like life in a middle class kind of scenario.
(48:29):
And and that that's kind of filling up my days right now.
I have, yeah, a couple, a coupleactually really fun film
projects going with with Todd Haynes.
One of them is another adaptation, like a mini series
adaptation thing of the novel Trust by Hernan Diaz, which was
(48:52):
a really big book of late. It won the Pulitzer really
widely beloved book. And that will also be a Kate
Winslet thing again. So sort of returning to some of
that team and format. So that's cool.
That's great. Yeah.
(49:14):
And and then, yeah, a variety ofother film things in different
states of reality, you know, so it's sort of impossible to say,
but yeah. But the Denial film project is
is, you know, not dead. It's definitely alive.
So maybe that'll happen. Who knows?
(49:34):
Is it? Is it in development hell?
Somewhere else. I wouldn't call it a hell, but,
you know, just these things takea while, you know, So, you know,
there is it is it's making it's it's slow progress and you know,
it it yeah. I don't feel like we have been
like assigned to hell yet. I think it's it's definitely
(49:55):
still still climbing. Is there a lot of hunger from
the commercial parts of art for climate related stories?
Do you find out to be a help or a hindrance or neutral?
I think it's helpful. I do, I think that I mean, I I
have no idea honestly. My sense of the market is like
non existent, like I don't know really what people want.
(50:19):
As people like me like, as many means as there are, that's your
audience. Given my given my like chance,
like it's, it's these Kelly movies that I end up doing.
So it's like these are not like major like blockbusters, but
the, but I, I do think it, it, it offers people, you know, I
(50:40):
mean, my experience and maybe this is yours too, is in the,
you know, culture industry world, people want to do
interesting things and they're trying to like find ways to
address big issues and, and, youknow, be part of like a
conversation. You know, they generally seem to
(51:01):
lack the courage to do it in a really like, interesting way,
but like they are desiring to dothings, I think.
And so, yeah, I think that that people are drawn to things that
are, you know, feel relevant. I think a a really compelling
part of denial that I liked was the prion based illness, which I
(51:24):
imagine will become more likely with climate change as meat
becomes more stressed over time.And that's a very subtle way of
talking about climate induced disease and health risk that as
to the story, does not feel added for its own sake.
It really UPS the stakes in a way that I find useful.
And yet it is very it's it's subtle.
You don't overplay that either. I never call it mad cow disease,
(51:47):
Yeah, renders it sort of ridiculous already.
But like, but that basic idea, yeah, of, of, yeah, of certainly
of, of eating beef and, and well, I mean, I mean, there's so
many ways in which industrial, industrial meat production is a,
is an incredible stress on the planet as as everyone really
(52:10):
knows whether everyone, anyone will address that or whether
we'll just like run headlong into all of the dangers.
I I would say probably the latter, you know, like we will.
That's. Where the smart money is, yeah.
This has been super fun, thank you so much for like doing this.
(52:31):
Oh, I'm so pleased that you're here.
I obviously am a a big fan of your work and enjoyed spending
so much time with you recently, so this is a terrific little
cherry on top. Thanks for being here, John.
Thank you.
Hey, thanks for listening to Reversing Climate Change.
I'm your host, Ross Kenyon. Before we get going, I'd love to
tell you a little bit about our sponsors.
They make the show possible. I would love it if you could
listen for just a minute while Itell you about Phillip Lee LLP
and our bionics. If you work in carbon removal,
you very well may have come across Phillip Lee LL PS work.
I originally saw Phillip Lee give a presentation about some
(00:22):
of the common provisions within off Take agreements, and I was
impressed by the quality of their scholarship and their
work, and I'm happy that we're able to stay in touch and
finally do this together. I think the law is an
underrepresented part of what happens within carbon removal.
We assume it's the background, we assume it's the mechanics.
It actually takes a very smart and creative person to be a good
(00:43):
lawyer. I think if you've ever had a bad
lawyer, you know that there's quite a big difference between a
good and a bad lawyer. And what's good about Philip
Lee, beyond the good experience that I've had personally, is
that they're also just the largest legal team dedicated to
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They actually were awarded Environmental Finances, VCM Law
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These projects need legal care. There's a lot of structuring
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there. So link is in the show notes, go
(01:47):
check out Phillip Lee, our othersponsors, our Bionics.
Our Bionics is great. They've been on the podcast
before. I did a show with Lizette Week,
which I'll link to in the show notes too if you want to go
listen to that show I did with Lizette.
Our bionics is working on forestry in the Baltic states of
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good thing. But we also do need forestry to
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Our bionics has put out some great research recently about
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(02:32):
It's a really important set of questions that are Bionics
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If you want to support forestry,give our bionics a look.
Link is in the show notes there.Thanks for listening and now I
will go into the show itself. Thanks for your time.
Here it is. Hello out there.
(02:58):
Thanks for listening. I am Ross Kenny and I'm the host
of Reversing Climate Change. If you listened before, you know
that I'm a carbon removal and climate tech entrepreneur, but
I'm also someone who's obsessed with the humanities.
That's where I come from. I, I come from a background
where I did undergraduate work in history.
I did PhD work in political philosophy before deciding that
(03:19):
wasn't the right fit for me. But I think it's so important to
engage with the arts and humanities.
I think in a field like climate,if they're often neglected, but
I don't think they should be. In fact, I think more could be
done to make them the powerhouses that we know they
can be. Most of the things that we care
about, I feel like have a basis in the humanities.
(03:40):
We spend so much time listening to stories, reading, watching
TV, watching films. Storytelling is is very much key
to who we are. And today I have a storyteller
whom I really admire. I watched so much of his
content. I've read several of his novels.
You may have too. John Raymond is the screenwriter
(04:02):
who's frequently collaborated with Kelly Ride Chart, which you
might have known from their first big film.
That made a splash, especially in the indie world, was Old Joy,
where you can see Bonnie Prince Billy.
It's a road trip movie. It's 2 old friends talking about
life. It's quiet now.
It's a lot about feeling and being and it's not just about
(04:28):
action, zippy dialogue. It's mostly just processing of
life. I don't even know how else to
put it. They're they're very hypnotic
films in a way. The film work that he's done
since Old Joy is is wonderful too.
I I recently watched Showing Up with Michelle Williams and I
find her to be extremely engrossing in it and again to be
(04:50):
a quiet, sad, meditative kind offilm.
You should definitely check out Mildred Pierce starring Kate
Winslet in a miniseries from HBOthat's nearly 15 years old at
this point. It's just a wonderful period
piece adaptation of a novel about the Great Depression and
what it was like during that time.
Much of his work has a strong ecological and climate angle.
(05:14):
He wrote a film called Night Move starring Jesse Eisenberg
about an eco terror plot to blowup a dam.
In his two novels, which we discussed at length here, Denial
and his new one, God and Sex areboth strongly informed by
climate. I have to warn you that there
are spoilers here. I don't think spoilers should
prevent you from enjoying it. In fact, I find the desire to.
(05:37):
How do you do a podcast? The podcast is to tell you that
you should consume John's work and it's worth your time to both
you and to read. But if we can't talk about the
substance and the theme of the books, then we can't really make
a podcast telling you to go and do it without saying it's good
and you should check it out and hear some vague, you know, theme
(05:58):
that maybe you care about. I think it'd be a terrible show.
John and I discuss his work in detail.
I don't mind knowing the storiesof films before I see them, same
as novels. I find sometimes it helps me
absorb the story better if I know the the broad shape of it.
And I'm curious how much of thatsurprise element is really
(06:21):
necessary for appreciating literature.
And I suspect it's actually not as great as you might think.
So just a heads up, we spoil a lot of John's work, but I don't
think that should stop you from enjoying this show at all.
Denials about a near future where climate has been
addressed, at least partially because there's been a tribunal
(06:41):
where many people who are responsible for it are tried for
crimes, but some of those peoplehave escaped prosecution.
Similar to, you know, Nazis fling to South America after
World War 2 and other places anda journalist's quest to hunt one
down. I think it's a really
fascinating book. I greatly enjoyed it.
(07:03):
God in Sex is a new book of John's that you should go and
pick up. It's about a writer who's
working on a book about trees. And there is a climate event
that potentially produces a miracle.
And there's a question of how tounderstand miracles and what it
(07:23):
means to doubt. And even though you can be so
sure of something, what happens in its aftermath?
I'll let you get to the show in just one second.
But before we get there, if you'd please give a great rating
review on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen
to shows. If there's a rating and reviews
function, please do it. It helps so much.
I can't overstate how much it helps getting more people to see
(07:44):
the show and listen to it. And also, if you'd please become
a paid subscriber for 5 bucks a month, not that much money.
You get rid of the inserted ads,you get bonus content.
I put out some bonus content every month of special parts of
shows. In fact, today's show actually
has some bonus content in it that I'm going to cut out.
People who who want it can get some little extra with John and
I just thanks for listening. I've been fond of saying
(08:06):
recently that I'm honored by people listening to the show and
I truly am. There's so much content.
It's, it's just absurd. I'm often overwhelmed with it
and trying to keep up with things I think I need to, let
alone want to. You could be doing other things
right now, and I'm just glad you're choosing to spend it with
me. I do not take that for granted.
Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful day.
(08:27):
And here's the show with John. So thanks for listening.
Bye for now. Thanks for being here, John.
Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure to have you.
I've spent a lot of time in yourbrain recently.
Read two of your novels, Hangingwith Kate Winslet.
I watched several of your Kelly Reichardt films that you Co
(08:50):
wrote. Really interesting work and I'm
happy that you're spending time writing about climate.
I might not have predicted that from you, given your body of
work. Yeah, I mean, I mean, my, my
body of work, such as it is, Yeah, definitely falls into a
(09:10):
kind of realist or naturalist tradition, I think, which I
think people well rightfully associate with, you know, small
scale interpersonal dramas. You know, people obey the laws
of, of gravity and science and yeah, involve, yeah, usually
(09:33):
kind of small emotional journeysfor people.
And, you know, that is, I think that in today's world, though,
that kind of relationship to climate change is part of
reality. I mean, it is part of the the
(09:54):
actual really often small scale dramas of our lives.
And it's actually, yeah, it's popped up in the work I've done
for a long time. Like, you know, my first book,
The Half Life, dealt with, you know, the the early Beaver trade
in the Northwest, which in a sense was a form of, of
(10:17):
ecological devastation. Yeah.
I've done a book or a movie about blowing up a dam.
You know, I've written a book about that involved a plot line
about privatizing the wastewaterof Los Angeles.
And like, these are just things that for me kind of as a West
(10:38):
Coast person especially, are areare part of everyday life.
Much of your film work, especially the films with Kelly,
strike me as part of an outgrowth of Dogma 95 and Lars
von Trier and the Mumble Core movement and the Duplass
brothers and things that are supposed to be relatively quiet,
(11:00):
laconic. They're very personal.
They have a sort of meditative quality to it.
I mean, granted, even Night Moves feels a little bit like
that too. There isn't a huge amount of
talking. But I also see a lot of
stylistic divergent with your writing.
I don't find that as strongly inyour writing.
Maybe because you're so descriptive.
They're so thoughtful and there's a lot of third person
(11:22):
omniscient narration happening where you're telling me about
feelings and things of that nature, but I see those as
stylistically very distinct. Am I incorrect about that?
No, no, I think that there's, yeah, there's kind of a range of
things. I mean, you know, Kelly has and
I mean as a a brilliant directorand is I think the the measure
(11:43):
of her brilliance is how comfortable she is doing so
little in a certain sense, or like really allowing the, the
moments to breathe, the the, theshots to linger.
I think, you know, the, the quietness and the, the
miniaturism of the films is, is very much about her and the
(12:07):
conversation that I'm having with her.
I mean, for me, the, you know, acouple of those, a couple, few
of those films are based on short stories that I wrote.
And for me, the, the short storyform is more where some of the
the quietness and, and miniaturism or most evident may
be in the pros that I do. Novels are like a different
(12:32):
animal, though, and they kind ofneed bigger engines, I have
found, and those do tend to get a little bit bigger.
And you know, I'm, I would love to be able to write a novel that
like existed more on the the level of, of smallness of the of
the films or the short stories. But it's AI and I might be
(12:53):
starting to figure that out, butit's it's still not yet really
happened. I look forward to reading that
as pertains to silence. I think that's such an
underrated aesthetic choice. I saw a Tig Notaro do stand up
at outside lands seemingly A decade ago and the stand up
(13:13):
before her felt so uncomfortablewith silence.
Manic filled every second with aquip and Tig would come out
there and be silent for 20 seconds and then say 4 words and
destroyed. And the amount of control that
that showed and confidence I felt taken care of by her and it
was the funniest thing I think I've ever seen live.
Among the best? That makes total sense to me.
(13:35):
I mean, yeah, I think it is. I mean, that's like the black
belt of of, you know, of artistry.
I think is, you know, that that ability to dwell in those those
silences, and I mean, often in those silences, it's where, I
mean, it's where the audience has a chance to have a thought,
you know, and it's also in writing, it's where a lot of the
(13:58):
expressiveness comes in, you know.
I mean, you know, you mentioned the idea of, of describing
things and those can be, you know, moments of like real
lyricism and, and kind of what Iwould call ekphrastic sort of
writing, which is the the sort of joy of writing about visual
(14:21):
images. And so that, you know, to to
sort of get out of the yeah, constant talking, the constant,
you know, yeah, just guiding of someone like is, is when
something really interesting happens.
Which makes the contrast all themore striking, because Will
(14:44):
Oldham seems like a chatterbox. How do you rein him in for
something like Old Joy? He seems like once you turn that
guy on, he seems like he goes. Maybe that's an incorrect
impression. I'm a Bonnie Prince Billy fan,
so I think I'm allowed to say that.
But yeah, I mean, I've loved Will's stuff forever.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm well enough in person to
know how much he rambles but keeps finding new things.
It's amazing. Yeah, one of those artists like
(15:07):
Tom Waits that you'll see pop upin a movie.
You're like, cool, I guess. Guess wilderness.
That's great. Yeah, totally.
Do you consider climate to be a hyper object?
A lot of novelists and theoristsof writing consider to be one of
those topics that's so big it's hard to see and hard to
communicate about. Do you agree with that and how
do you deal with it? I mean, yeah, in a sense it is,
(15:31):
I guess, you know, technically ahyper object as I kind of
understand that, you know, I mean, it does, you know, create
the entire atmosphere of our lives literally, you know, I
mean, it is the the air that we're breathing and the the heat
that we're feeling. And that does become sort of
(15:52):
hard to to navigate. But I mean, I think that that
makes it all the more, well, I mean, sadly kind of juicy as a
topic. You know, I mean, it's, it, it
brings like immediate kinds of existential drama and, and
(16:13):
suspense in a certain, in a certain way.
You know, the book I did before the new one was called Denial.
And that was, you know, specifically about a, a green
new deal that had a, a global green new deal that had
happened. And it was a futuristic book.
I'm not really actually into science fiction that much, but
(16:33):
this was a very soft science fiction book about a future in
which humanity really did get it's shit together and solve not
not so much salt, but at least address a lot of climate issues,
which also, you know, created a certain kind of judicial issue.
And there were like Nuremberg style trials for carbon
(16:57):
criminals. And so that book became kind of
a Nazi hunter story and eco drag.
I describe it as where a where awhere a reporter uncovers a
former oil executive in hiding in Mexico and and goes to to
track him down. But it was for me, like a way to
(17:19):
try and just project a future period.
You know, this was something I was writing in like 2020 when we
were having the megafires here on the West Coast.
And, you know, the idea of somehow speaking back to this,
like unfolding like very in yourface apocalypse was, was like
(17:42):
just a practical matter for me. Like I had to figure out a way
to even comprehend a future as long as a 30 year mortgage at
least, you know, like how, how can I, what what could happen
to, to make that possible? And, and, you know, thankfully
a, a certain noir, A noir plot device allowed me to think about
(18:03):
that. But but yeah, to me, like, like
talking about this hyper object is it's yeah.
It becomes just an an ambient subject in almost everything.
Yeah, you can contrast it to someone like Kim Stanley
Robinson, who's attempted to tell stories about climate by
(18:25):
making enormous ensemble cast ofcharacters that represent
different points of view and experiences.
And yours. It seems like you zoomed in
really far. I think there's only a couple.
Denial is a great book. I really like it.
Also, you should send it to Stanley Tucci.
I think he would be a great person to run that empty seat
role. Oh, that's an interesting idea.
That's. Why I imagine in there I'm like
this is a. Different.
That is a very interesting idea that the film project of that is
(18:50):
slowly making its way through the like world.
But that's that's not the personthat is like currently like
hovering over that seat. But we'll see.
I can't really talk about it because it's like too delicate,
but but that is a really interesting idea.
I like it, yeah. I get a producer credit for that
(19:11):
now. Yeah.
My people will call your people,don't worry.
Yeah, the back end will be hefty.
Yeah. But no, Kim Stanley Robinson is,
I mean to me, a very awe inspiring writer.
And there is a a level of research that goes into those
(19:35):
novels and, and of just scientific understanding that is
so far beyond what I could possibly reproduce.
And so thankfully, I had not read his work before I wrote
Denial because I would have, youknow, probably felt more worried
about my own just sort of, you know, groping for for, you know,
(20:00):
scientific sort of versimilitude.
But. But yeah, as long as you can't
really compete with that, you might as you might as well not
even try as far as I'm concerned.
And do it, do it in your own way.
You know, I mean, I, I like a smaller, like more intimate
storyline as much as I like his giant global ensemble cast as
(20:24):
well. Well, if you style it in terms
of noir, that's a genre with very strong conventions.
We understand what that means. It can be a more contained
story. It doesn't have to be how the
entire world grapples with climate change.
It's about individually distinctcharacters that have their jobs
that they're working with. And actually, I think the
(20:45):
zooming in allows for great contrast in denial because this
possible Tucci character in my head is a very charming person,
and yet he's someone that has been charged for high crimes and
is a fugitive. And there's this question of can
this person be a good person andalso be institutionally
responsible for great amounts ofharm?
And how should we understand that?
Is he actually a good person? Is there some degree of
(21:07):
sociopathy there? Like, how do we deal with the
personal and the impersonal bitsof mercy and justice in our
lives? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it was, you know, kind of a crime and punishment story.
And as, as you know, a couple ofthese have been, you know, Night
Moves has some of the that element as well.
(21:27):
And I mean, this is, I think forme, part of the the realism
question. You know, like, I mean, I love
this Kim Stanley Robinson stuff and, you know, certainly
Ministry for the Future reads insome ways like a, you know, a
policy paper and and novel form and which is fascinating and
great. And to me, like the the failure
(21:50):
of a lot of science fiction I read is just how historically
thin the characters are and, andhow, you know, they are kind of
androids being, you know, manipulated.
I, you know, in, in a more naturalist realist mode, I do
think it's, it's required to kind of test your characters in
(22:14):
your situations against reality as you actually understand it
and, and against like personalities that are real to
you, you know, and that disgorges like very mixed, mixed
characters and mixed bags, you know, I mean, I find many, I
(22:34):
have many morally questionable friends who I adore, you know, I
have, you know, I'm amused by a lot of people that I might
diverge from morally and in different ways, and some of them
in very small ways. And I think, you know, to talk.
I mean, I mean, this, I guess, is what literature is good for,
(22:56):
for me in addressing, you know, questions like our own
culpability for climate change and and, you know, sort of
larger social movements. You know, to read a newspaper,
to read a policy paper, the perversity of of human behavior
(23:17):
doesn't really register And and in literature it it profoundly
does. And you kind of have to
understand that whoever is, whoever is dealing with these
problems is is radically fallible.
I've been using lately about howthe empathy generation that
(23:37):
happens in literature. Good television has typically in
our culture, made us more sympathetic to characters that
we should feel stronger moral bright lines towards.
Like, why are we so enamored with the antihero?
And that's kind of a terrifying thing.
And then we have an antihero that leads the country and we're
somehow OK with it and act like maybe those things aren't as
connected. I think too much empathy can
(23:59):
maybe lead us astray too. Yeah, no, I hear that.
But I mean, this is, you know, Imean, you know, you can go back
to Milton and farther to find like the charismatic Antichrist,
you know what I mean? That is that's that's villains
are funner to write. Villains are more interesting.
That's just sort of a law, a lawof of of fiction, I think.
(24:22):
But I think you're absolutely right.
The kind of the diet that we've fed ourselves, Yeah.
I mean, I'd say particularly in prestige television of like
Satanic patriarchs. Is it it is a kind of
conditioning for, for this. And I mean, I guess that was why
for me, I'll just go ahead and spoil the ending of denial.
But it was important for me thatthis like charming, not even a
(24:47):
sociopath, but really just a, a charming, you know, petroleum
executive does end up having to,to pay for the, the, really the
policy crimes that he was responsible for, even though
our, our agents or our journalist, yeah, finds him a
(25:08):
good hang. It's like he does ultimately
have to, to pay for that. And that was important for me.
And, you know, that's part of the fun of writing too, is you
get 2 exact punishments on people.
And I've done that in a few books in different ways, but
(25:30):
there's something else I was going to say.
Oh, oh, the other, the other elements of of like sort of mass
cultural conditioning that I think is, is really unfortunate.
And this was a a big part of thedenial.
Genesis 2 is there's the the satanic patriarch trope that we
have, but then there's also justthe post apocalyptic trope that
(25:51):
is, is really like the narrativeof my lifetime, you know, of
watching the world be destroyed in every possible imaginable
manner and, you know, by zombie or meteor or, you know, pandemic
or whatever. And to me, that's also a similar
(26:14):
way. It it it also becomes a death
wish of a certain sort, like howmany times we have to imagine
the world exploding on our watch.
And that, for me, was part of the argument to denial.
Like, let's try to do a future that is neither utopic, you
know, like, let's not pretend we're going to solve it all, but
nor do we have to pretend that the world is going to die with
(26:37):
us. You know that we can actually
imagine that there's some sort of middle ground, which is a
pretty rare, a pretty rare thingto imagine, I think.
I think it's successful ambiguity because it doesn't
lead to this like, well, who really knows?
I think I'm still thinking aboutthe climax of denial where
(26:58):
they're at a bull fight and the empty seat is still just, he's
talking and pretending almost like it's not really happening.
And you feel a great degree of pity for this person.
You're like, wow, this is like adifferent lifetime of his maybe,
you know, a couple decades ago and it's finally catching up to
him. And you wonder like, how, how
would I feel? Then It's, you know, 1960 and
Eichmann gets scooped out of Argentina by Masa.
(27:20):
Like, am I? Am I somehow then thinking like,
oh, it's different for Eichmann all these years later?
But like, the answer to that should be no.
But in your case, it doesn't endup being a really hard no.
I end up thinking, like, what what type of culpability should
be applied to this person so long in the past?
And how important is the symbolism of of them now facing
repercussions even though they are no longer a threat?
And what theory of justice are we even using?
(27:41):
Those are the kinds of good questions I think we should be
thinking about. Yeah, yeah.
And you know, I mean, in this case it is different than
Eichmann. I mean, it's parallel to
Eichmann. But but if you're talking about
climate change, like who's not guilty?
You know, I mean, and this is part of the debate that they
have in that book is that, you know, he might have been at the
(28:03):
top of the of the corporate kindof pyramid, but all of the
consumers were buying it. You know, I mean, it's not like
he was doing this into a vacuum or forcing people to to burn
carbon or to, you know, eat meator do all the the various sort
of, you know, non criminal activities that we've like
(28:28):
sealed off in some way. You know, it's it is there's a
lot of a lot of ambiguity. I mean to me that, you know, you
talk about the the empathy generation.
I don't know, I haven't heard that phrase before, but but
second, my original coinage. Yeah, probably.
Not the movie. I like it, but you know, there's
(28:51):
also, you know, this virtue mongering kind of generation
that we've entered as well that very much likes to, you know,
portion out guilt, you know, andnon guilt.
And that there are, you know, and again, this is part of like
a long Western tradition of likea Manichean kind of worldview
(29:13):
that there's good and there's bad and there's people with
Halos and people with pitchforksand that there's this kind of
justice that will ultimately be meted out.
And that's just not really how the world works.
I agree with that, but then I without any.
(29:35):
I'm so pissed still. Exactly.
So pissed. I was going to say that.
I also just absolutely adore characters like Jean Valjean.
And I like these sort of like beautiful Christian martyr type
characters who have a conversionmoment and actually are just
good. Like there's not a lot of
complexity to Jean Valjean. It's a beautiful story, but this
happened. To you.
(29:55):
Oh, sorry, from from Les Mis Victor Hugo.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah.
Are you too contemporary? Don't read the classics, no.
I love the actually I bought it a few years ago but I did not
read it so it's sitting on my shelf but and it was.
Not for a long time. It's.
Wonderful. It's is it?
I didn't expect it to be as goodas it is.
(30:17):
I believe. Oh, no, I'm sure it's great as a
novel. Yeah, I have no doubt, Yeah.
Yeah, I felt like it would be like another one of those
obligatory, like, OK, I'm makingmy way through this.
I'm like, oh, I'm on every page that's still, listen, there'll
be like a chase scene, like an important chase scene.
And then there'll be 100 pages about how the sewers of Paris
were constructed and how night soil is the most important
fertilizer and we're throwing itaway down.
(30:37):
I'm like, go back to the chasing.
You're in the middle of the action right now.
That sounds great. No, I actually maybe I do.
I I often like to read like a big 19th century novel in the
summer, so maybe that'll be the one that I do this summer.
Wow, if I could have that influence, that would bring me
great pleasure. So we should talk about God and
sex too, because it also seemingly is just structured
(30:58):
around ambiguity as well. That that's clearly the the
thing that we keep coming back to with your work.
Was there a miracle? Is there not a miracle?
This is clearly a question that's keeping you up at night.
Yeah, well, I mean, you, you dida good segue there with the sort
of whatever theological epiphanic moment you're talking
(31:18):
about in Les Mis, which I don't know, but yeah.
So the new book is called God and Sex, which is, I recognize,
a sort of ludicrous, ludicrous title.
Very provocative title. Yeah.
But apropos, you know, I think so.
It does have those things. And yeah, it is, yeah.
(31:40):
It is fundamentally about a miracle that may or may not have
happened in the context of an adulterous love triangle in
Southern Oregon. And it also, yeah, involves a
climate disaster as the as the sort of backdrop, but which at a
(32:00):
certain point becomes not the backdrop and the becomes very
much the foreground. But.
But yeah, there is a there is a a prayer that may have been
answered in a moment of duress. And the the characters are then
I guess again. And what I would hope is a sort
of realistic or naturalistic wayleft to, to parse the, the
(32:24):
reality of that, you know, and Ithink the question of, you know,
what would I or my friends do if, if the hand of God sort of
gently touched something, how long would we believe that had
really happened? Or how quickly would we like re
narrated in a way that was like more acceptable to our worldview
(32:51):
that that that that kind of provides the the central spine,
I guess, of the of the book. And if this sounds coy, I mean,
I, I, I don't care too much about doing spoiler stuff.
So we can go. Ahead, whatever is useful to you
is fine with me. We can talk openly about it.
Yeah, I mean, I, I could go either way.
So I, I guess we can see if we have to.
I guess we can. But if we don't have to, I guess
(33:13):
it's great to leave some mystery.
But either way. I think it's good reading for
its own sake. There are plenty of those books
that you, you know what's going to happen.
They're still worth reading. Movies that you know, you know
what's going to happen at the end of The Sixth Sense.
It doesn't matter. It's still amazing knowing what
the twist is. It's like, yeah.
Totally. No, You know, you basically
know, Yeah, on that level with almost every artwork you enter.
(33:34):
Yeah, there's only a couple stories, right?
There's just variations on it. Yes.
Yes, Yeah. Well, miracles, OK.
They. I hear back from people who have
had profound psychedelic experiences, paranormal
experiences. Many of them come back to this
like it felt so real. Now that I'm removed from it,
(33:55):
did it really happen? Did I think that?
Did I communicate? Did the divine intercede in some
way? Or is this some sort of
physiological process? What actually happened to me?
I think a lot of people do have that experience as it wears off
over time. I think it's pretty fairly
common. Yeah, I think absolutely.
I mean, yeah, as with any experience, you know, the
(34:17):
experience becomes the memory ofthe experience and the
interpretation of the experienceand the, the the whittling down
of the experience in some kind of way.
Yeah. And yeah, the, the psychedelic
insights being like one of the primary kinds of ones that way,
(34:39):
you know, I mean, and, and so, you know, for me, unlike
probably I'm expecting Victor Hugo or, you know, a Dostoyevsky
or a million kinds of, you know,religiously minded writers who
(34:59):
are working in a more, I guess aNew Testament sort of sort of
ideology where, yes, there is some sort of revelation that can
occur, some kind of change of soul or some sort of communion
with a, with a higher power God and sex is constructed.
(35:24):
And what is what I, what I understand is a more apathetic
tradition, which is a more negative theological tradition,
which is built around the idea that you actually can never know
that there is a, a fundamental unknowing at the root of any
sort of understanding of the divine.
(35:46):
And that any sort of attempt to describe it or to articulate it
is, is kind of doomed to, to fail.
And that the best that we have is a sort of process of
elimination as far as like what is not divine.
And, you know, I think this book, you know, very much
(36:09):
proceeds on the sense of, of absence and, and silence and
lack of understanding, which is not to say it's not also infused
with certain divine questions. You know, they just are sort of
left a little bit like in darkness.
(36:29):
How much of the book is about a The back of the book describes
it as being a New Age writer, someone who's writing a nature
book about trees. And it has a sort of pantheistic
or pantheistic attitude to it, which I think if you talk to
people who have feelings like all of life is connected,
(36:50):
consciousness is a field, they express feelings like that.
Those don't necessarily leave huge amounts of room for doubt.
I think those are those are verypositive thinking.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Why contrast them in this way? I mean it, it probably has very
much to do with just a family romance that I'm dealing with
(37:11):
through my life, which is a dad who was a Buddhist and sort of
without croppings into Sufism. And, you know, you know, what,
what would definitely be categorized as as a new age kind
of ideologies, I think in a, in a kind of sophisticated way, but
(37:33):
definitely new Agey. And, and that, you know, if you
wanted to put a bigger sort of lens on it, you know, could also
be called an American transcendentalist sort of
tradition, you know, that is that kind of, you know, probably
has some, some nature worship involved in it and is, yeah,
(37:55):
pretty, pretty secure. And it's, and it's sense of a,
of a good, a good universe sort of taking care of itself in some
way. My mom is Jewish and is not like
observant in any way. But definitely I think has more
of an Old Testament sort of mentality with a divinity that's
(38:18):
much more insane. Yeah.
And is capricious and jealous and to be feared.
And that sort of trying to sort of square the circle between
those two has been sort of an interesting project for me over
the years. You know, I mean, I lean much
further towards my mom's like world view, but but I've, you
(38:43):
know, wanted to leave room in that.
But, but also, yeah, there is a pantheistic sort of nature lover
in me too. So yeah, getting the the the
hippie and the rabbi together are kind of it's, it's a
conversation that's been happening in in different ways.
(39:04):
Do you think this book is pointed at the climate movement
or people who are climate concerned, or is it much broader
than that? I mean, I guess I would hope
it's broader in a sense, but youknow, I mean, but they all are
so interwoven in a certain way. I mean, the other, the other
thing I was trying to kind of deal with in this book is, you
(39:26):
know, to think about, you know, I, I, as I had said, I had
addressed sort of different kinds of climate things in
different, different ways. And, and with a generally with a
kind of political prism in mind,you know, and the, the politics,
the, the, the morality being sort of a, a political morality
in some kind of way. And I, you know, as as we have
(39:51):
moved into a period of history where really reality itself is
being questioned by a lot of people in ways that are largely
perverse and disgusting, you know, like that some of the
basic things that we take as reality have been.
Withdrawn in a lot of in a lot of people's minds, you know, I
(40:14):
mean, as far as you know, the efficacy of of vaccines or or
the fact of climate change at all.
You know, I mean to, to me, I guess the, the, the sort of
focus needs to get down even lower into like a more
theological plane than into a political plane, you know, and
(40:36):
that there are certain like veryfundamental questions of reality
that I wanted these characters to be grappling with.
And so, you know, they, they didn't end up being the sort of
topical questions of, of, you know, vaccines or, or fascism.
But in my mind, that is sort of the, the, the ambiance of my own
(41:01):
writing, you know, that like, oh, I thought we had agreed that
fascism was bad, you know, and in turn, it turns out many
people did not go to the same school that I went to.
And so this kind of this thing of a, of a, of a miracle that
someone has to sort of grapple with and kind of unravel in some
(41:24):
way. Yeah, for me is sort of
surrogate in a way for a lot of different kinds of like
foundational questions that are being undone around us right
now. Well, climate.
I don't know, it comes through, but it's like, you know, I don't
think it does come through. I mean, it's a small story, but
(41:45):
like that for me was the sort ofthe, the, yeah, the atmosphere.
I like that climate. It still is a prominent part of
the book, but it's a fact of theuniverse rather than the star of
the show. You might say there are those
old human stories, too. Like both of these books have
very strong themes of betrayal. There's a mechanic of betrayal
(42:07):
and both of them that is seemingly very interesting to
you for narrative purposes. Like you want to talk about the
ethics of it. OK, we'll spoil a little bit.
When the love triangle is revealed in God and Sex, the
husband is very, very understanding, which is
potentially even more aggravating than him becoming
murderously jealous. Yeah.
Again, like I like people to behaving like they actually
(42:28):
would, you know, and like there are plenty of people that, you
know, are not that they want their marriage to be destroyed,
but they are not vindictive people and they understand that
other people exist and they are actually mature.
Like, I mean, I get so annoyed in so much popular culture of
just the emotional immaturity ofpeople when it's like that
(42:49):
actually doesn't describe a lot of the people that I know, you
know, I mean, people are much more self reflective and, and
and, you know, not necessarily mellow, but just like our our,
you know, not, not as unwise as most people in popular culture
are. Yeah.
(43:12):
Emotionally, yeah. Wow, is that have you always
felt that way? Or is that just something that
as you've become older and livedmore life, you've just seen more
wisdom accumulate over time? No, I've always, I think felt
that way like even as a kid, like watching movies, like, you
know, watching like those John Hughes movies as a teenager, I
was just like, who are these people?
(43:33):
This is so stupid. Like this isn't really how
people are, you know, and and and I will say it felt
politically retrograde to me. You know, a lot of those, you
know, where I'm like, these are,these are like stereotypes and,
and sort of emotional narrativesthat are like, you know, in that
(43:54):
case, predicated on some form oflike Reaganite, like nostalgia
tripping. And it's just like I even as a
teenager, I was like, this is I like, I don't, these are not the
people that I know. This is like stupid.
Well, your books feel very, I think, the highest praise you
can give to any sort of writers,that the artifice is hidden.
(44:16):
And those worlds felt real to me.
And I'm wondering if they felt real at least partially because
the characters. Do you have some amount of
wisdom? You're like, Oh yes, that is how
people would actually act in this situation, have doubts
about their own actions. And then once it is revealed to
others, maybe they would have some degree of understanding as
well. And it isn't just now they have
to have a duel in the in the courtyard.
(44:36):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think everything needs to be reality
TV sort of juiced, you know, like of people just acting like
idiots and like there's still plenty of of drama to be had in
in life. You know.
I mean, there's no shortage of like, like actual moral
questions that you don't have tolike put steroids in.
(45:00):
Like they're I, I mean, honestly, that said, like a
novel is kind of steroidal. I mean, it's like even God and
sex, which is small. It is a it's a ludicrous and and
and large kind of device that isbeing deployed in there.
But yeah, at least you can kind of like shape it in a way that
doesn't feel insulting to someone's intelligence.
(45:24):
I've been thinking a lot about my life recently and how I've
spent so much time acquiring knowledge and reading lots of
books and trying to read the Canon and be well informed and
trying to shift over to wisdom as a goal of mine.
And in my head I have this unassumed model of becoming wise
where the problems do not get brought to me or I'm somehow
above it in Monkley. And actually, it might just mean
(45:47):
more cases get brought to me because I'm wise and I have to
exercise more discretion, not less.
Totally. No, I mean, I think wisdom is a
is an underrated, certainly literary virtue.
You know, I mean, and I've I've thought about this really
explicitly with like Ursula Le Guin, who to me is like an
extremely wise sort of voice, but not lacking in flair or
(46:12):
weirdness or anything. And like, yeah, that and, and to
me, the, the sort of moral engagement that you get to have
by being wise or judicious is, is actually deeper and more
intricate as opposed to like more aerial, you know.
I mean, it's like, like you werejust saying, you know, it's not
that you're above it, you're just actually involved in the
(46:34):
minutiae of of the scales, you know, And it's, I mean, that's,
you know, that feels like a morerabbinic sort of quality to like
you're, you know, you're, you're, you're balancing
everything out in the in the most sort of elaborate way
possible. Even if you are rabbinic and you
(46:56):
know the law very well, the nextstep is to know which of those
laws to apply and when and when.Also to show mercy regarding
them. It's not you know the laws and
it's done applying them as a whole.
Probably a greater step. Applying them as the pleasure,
you know, I mean, that's what's fun, you know, And it's like,
you know, that that to me has been like this, the enormous
pleasure of collaborating with Kelly on the films.
(47:18):
Like it is, you know, it's a form of gossip that we get to
engage in, you know, with with fictive characters, but that are
are informed radically by real people.
And you just get to have those, you know.
Yeah, those those very precise conversations about particular
(47:44):
people in particular situations.And that's, that's a pleasure
unto itself. What are you going to be working
on next? I know it's a dangerous question
to ask a creative person that, but what are you excited about
right now? I have a a novel started and so
that's kind of working up into something.
(48:05):
I mean, it's still so far away, but that it it is actually
something where I'm trying to doa book that does not rely on big
narrative hamburgers in a certain way.
And it's more like, you know, dealing with like a girls soccer
coach, kind of like life in a middle class kind of scenario.
(48:29):
And and that that's kind of filling up my days right now.
I have, yeah, a couple, a coupleactually really fun film
projects going with with Todd Haynes.
One of them is another adaptation, like a mini series
adaptation thing of the novel Trust by Hernan Diaz, which was
(48:52):
a really big book of late. It won the Pulitzer really
widely beloved book. And that will also be a Kate
Winslet thing again. So sort of returning to some of
that team and format. So that's cool.
That's great. Yeah.
(49:14):
And and then, yeah, a variety ofother film things in different
states of reality, you know, so it's sort of impossible to say,
but yeah. But the Denial film project is
is, you know, not dead. It's definitely alive.
So maybe that'll happen. Who knows?
(49:34):
Is it? Is it in development hell?
Somewhere else. I wouldn't call it a hell, but,
you know, just these things takea while, you know, So, you know,
there is it is it's making it's it's slow progress and you know,
it it yeah. I don't feel like we have been
like assigned to hell yet. I think it's it's definitely
(49:55):
still still climbing. Is there a lot of hunger from
the commercial parts of art for climate related stories?
Do you find out to be a help or a hindrance or neutral?
I think it's helpful. I do, I think that I mean, I I
have no idea honestly. My sense of the market is like
non existent, like I don't know really what people want.
(50:19):
As people like me like, as many means as there are, that's your
audience. Given my given my like chance,
like it's, it's these Kelly movies that I end up doing.
So it's like these are not like major like blockbusters, but
the, but I, I do think it, it, it offers people, you know, I
(50:40):
mean, my experience and maybe this is yours too, is in the,
you know, culture industry world, people want to do
interesting things and they're trying to like find ways to
address big issues and, and, youknow, be part of like a
conversation. You know, they generally seem to
(51:01):
lack the courage to do it in a really like, interesting way,
but like they are desiring to dothings, I think.
And so, yeah, I think that that people are drawn to things that
are, you know, feel relevant. I think a a really compelling
part of denial that I liked was the prion based illness, which I
(51:24):
imagine will become more likely with climate change as meat
becomes more stressed over time.And that's a very subtle way of
talking about climate induced disease and health risk that as
to the story, does not feel added for its own sake.
It really UPS the stakes in a way that I find useful.
And yet it is very it's it's subtle.
You don't overplay that either. I never call it mad cow disease,
(51:47):
Yeah, renders it sort of ridiculous already.
But like, but that basic idea, yeah, of, of, yeah, of certainly
of, of eating beef and, and well, I mean, I mean, there's so
many ways in which industrial, industrial meat production is a,
is an incredible stress on the planet as as everyone really
(52:10):
knows whether everyone, anyone will address that or whether
we'll just like run headlong into all of the dangers.
I I would say probably the latter, you know, like we will.
That's. Where the smart money is, yeah.
This has been super fun, thank you so much for like doing this.
(52:31):
Oh, I'm so pleased that you're here.
I obviously am a a big fan of your work and enjoyed spending
so much time with you recently, so this is a terrific little
cherry on top. Thanks for being here, John.
Thank you.
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