1 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:10,880 Speaker 1: Welcome to a special Christmas edition of the Ricochet Podcast. 2 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:15,439 I'm Peter Robinson, born and raised in South Dakota. Joseph Bottom, 3 00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:18,239 or as his friends know him, Jody, spent a decade 4 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:20,280 and a half back East, first as an editor of 5 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:23,359 the Weekly Standard and then as editor of First Things, 6 00:00:23,879 --> 00:00:27,920 and then Jody returned to the Black Hills of South Dakota. 7 00:00:28,359 --> 00:00:31,160 He is a writer and poet, and he has a 8 00:00:31,239 --> 00:00:35,359 daily poem with commentary on a substack called Poems Ancient 9 00:00:35,439 --> 00:00:38,439 and Modern. But we today are going to be discussing 10 00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:46,280 Jody's spectacularly, heartbreakingly beautiful new book, Frankinson's Gold and Myrr, 11 00:00:47,039 --> 00:00:51,960 a Christmas Chrestomothy three beautiful and engrossing short stories and 12 00:00:52,119 --> 00:00:56,000 twelve really luminous essays. And if you think I'm going 13 00:00:56,039 --> 00:00:59,679 over the top because Jody is an old friend, that's 14 00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:02,719 not true. I've said many nasty things about him behind 15 00:01:02,759 --> 00:01:06,560 his back, But what I'm saying now I believe every 16 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:09,319 word of this the book. In fact, the book is 17 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:12,640 so good that all his friends hate him for having 18 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:18,079 been able to produce such prose. Jody, welcome, Oh thank 19 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:22,079 you Peter for having me. Okay, listen, why on earth 20 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:25,439 would you use a high falutin word such as christomathy. 21 00:01:25,599 --> 00:01:28,680 Let's just get this cleared up right away. Christomothy in 22 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:29,719 the title. 23 00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:32,560 Speaker 2: Well, it's ancient Greek. It's an ancient Greek word for 24 00:01:32,599 --> 00:01:37,560 a collection. And I only know it, Peter, the same 25 00:01:37,599 --> 00:01:40,799 way you should know it because h O Menkin, whom 26 00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:45,519 every writer secretly wants to be used it as the 27 00:01:45,599 --> 00:01:48,560 name in the name of one of his selected collections 28 00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:53,359 of selected essays named Mencan Christomathy. And I think he 29 00:01:53,519 --> 00:01:55,840 ran across it in a dictionary somewhere, you know, he 30 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,599 was a kind of word maven or word order or something, 31 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:02,760 and ran across it somewhere and thought, well, what the 32 00:02:02,799 --> 00:02:03,799 hell I have to use that? 33 00:02:04,599 --> 00:02:07,040 Speaker 1: Uh? And there we are. 34 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:10,960 Speaker 2: And all of my writer friends know this word solely 35 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:11,479 because of. 36 00:02:11,439 --> 00:02:15,479 Speaker 1: Bancon solely because of Bancoann. All right, So you're working 37 00:02:15,479 --> 00:02:20,520 within a tradition. Speaking of working within traditions, the title 38 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,680 of the book is Franken, Sense, Gold, and Murr, which 39 00:02:24,719 --> 00:02:28,039 I think reverses as I think of the three wise 40 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:32,479 men from school, I think we ordinarily say gold, Franken, sense, 41 00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:35,039 and murr. Is there some reason for the order in 42 00:02:35,039 --> 00:02:37,560 which you place those words or am I thinking this 43 00:02:37,599 --> 00:02:38,439 one perversity? 44 00:02:38,479 --> 00:02:41,599 Speaker 2: Of course, you know, the desperate attempt to be different, 45 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:48,639 matched with just the rhythmic sense. If you say gold, 46 00:02:48,719 --> 00:02:52,560 frankensense and murr, you have two stresses in a row, 47 00:02:52,599 --> 00:02:57,159 in gold and then frank. And if you say frankinsense, 48 00:02:57,319 --> 00:03:01,000 gold and murr, you get a nice kind of trochaic 49 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:04,639 falling rhythm that sort of holds up. You know. But 50 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:06,879 I think that is an example of overthinking. 51 00:03:07,479 --> 00:03:11,280 Speaker 1: Oh well, all right, but it shows our listeners. If 52 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:13,280 you can put that kind of thought into three words, 53 00:03:13,599 --> 00:03:15,719 imagine what the man does with a paragraph, let alone 54 00:03:15,759 --> 00:03:19,240 a story. Let's start with the stories three stories. Part 55 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:20,719 one of the book is called The Gifts of the 56 00:03:20,759 --> 00:03:26,719 Majeaw Three Christmas Tales, and the tales are Wise Guy, Nativity, 57 00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:33,960 and a town in the far upper Midwest which has 58 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,280 a French name. And I don't know how I imagine, 59 00:03:36,319 --> 00:03:39,000 since it's in the Midwest, it has an Anglicized pronunciation 60 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:42,159 porte decas. How has it pronounced it? Probably? 61 00:03:42,879 --> 00:03:45,240 Speaker 2: Of course there is no such town. 62 00:03:46,319 --> 00:03:49,840 Speaker 1: Oh it is. Oh you see how good you are? 63 00:03:49,919 --> 00:03:52,919 You made me? I was thinking to myself, one of 64 00:03:52,919 --> 00:03:55,159 these days I have to drive through this place. That's 65 00:03:55,199 --> 00:03:57,000 how much it lives in my head. 66 00:03:57,039 --> 00:04:01,240 Speaker 2: But the details are all drawn from my experience of 67 00:04:01,919 --> 00:04:07,000 Minnesota and and that world up in northern Minnesota, where 68 00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:10,879 Bamidge is a southern town to these people who live 69 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:14,000 on the northern shore. There that point that goes out 70 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:18,920 into the lake. But I imagine, you know, I grew 71 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:23,079 up in a town called Pierre. Pierre, South Dakota, like. 72 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:24,600 Speaker 1: The capital of South Dakota, isn't it. 73 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,319 Speaker 2: Well yeah, but you know, we say it like a 74 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:33,680 fishing pier or a jury of your peers, whereas Outlanders 75 00:04:33,879 --> 00:04:38,879 are easily identified because they say Pierre. And so all 76 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:42,279 of those des Moine, all of those old French names 77 00:04:42,279 --> 00:04:46,720 in the Midwest and the West, it twisted. My favorite, 78 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:52,319 of course, is the Texas Arkansas River that's called that 79 00:04:52,399 --> 00:04:57,879 The French explorers called the Purgatoire, the Purgatory River reduced 80 00:04:57,959 --> 00:05:02,959 somehow in that twang to the get wire. I wasn't 81 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,120 aware of that, but that's you know, that's how these 82 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:10,000 French names get warped. I think they'd probably say Porto Grass. 83 00:05:10,519 --> 00:05:13,000 Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well, since you invented it, you get 84 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,199 to title it, you get to choose the pronunciation. The 85 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:19,600 first and last of these stories, Wise Guy and Port 86 00:05:19,639 --> 00:05:28,240 de Grass are crime stories, Jody crime stories for Christmas. 87 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:31,360 By the way, they really are crime stories. Now the 88 00:05:31,439 --> 00:05:37,480 criminals are lovable criminals, and one really does does fall 89 00:05:37,519 --> 00:05:40,360 in love with them, and the first the tavern where 90 00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:44,439 they it opens and the big scene towards the end 91 00:05:44,439 --> 00:05:46,720 takes place in a tavern, and you really feel you 92 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:48,800 could walk into the tavern and sit down and have 93 00:05:48,839 --> 00:05:50,920 a drink with these people, and that you'd like to. 94 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:54,360 But they're criminals at the end, as they were at 95 00:05:54,399 --> 00:05:57,600 the beginning. This is these are not stories of penitence 96 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,920 or turning around or redemp exactly. So how do they 97 00:06:01,959 --> 00:06:04,240 fit in with Christmas? 98 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:09,360 Speaker 2: Well, maybe there's some redemption in them, but also kind 99 00:06:09,439 --> 00:06:12,759 of hint that they weren't as bad as they thought 100 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:18,560 they were. They do come together, the young, hapless would 101 00:06:18,639 --> 00:06:21,959 be criminal, and the last story is turned into a 102 00:06:22,079 --> 00:06:26,600 national hero, you know, just by happenstance. I think though 103 00:06:26,959 --> 00:06:31,240 the model here. I once said to our mutual friend 104 00:06:31,319 --> 00:06:35,439 Andy Ferguson right that every writer wants to be Damon 105 00:06:35,519 --> 00:06:39,399 Runyan and write the kind of stories that Damon Runyan 106 00:06:39,439 --> 00:06:43,120 could write. Andy said, well, maybe but you know what else, 107 00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:47,360 every writer, every male writer, secretly wishes that he had 108 00:06:47,399 --> 00:06:52,720 published in Sports Illustrated. And you know he does politics 109 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:54,759 or literature. But what you really, you know, what would 110 00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:58,000 really make you as a writer, was what Sports Illustrated 111 00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:01,519 was in those old days. I think Damon Runyon too, 112 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:04,600 you know it. And part of it of the very 113 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:08,560 first story, which came out some years ago. Amazon had 114 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,399 started this self publish or this series that they were 115 00:07:12,399 --> 00:07:14,600 publishing called Kindle Singles. 116 00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:16,920 Speaker 1: Yes, and I knew. 117 00:07:16,639 --> 00:07:19,279 Speaker 2: An editor there, and he called me up and said, 118 00:07:19,279 --> 00:07:23,160 we don't have anything for Christmas? Do you have anything? 119 00:07:23,959 --> 00:07:26,920 And I wrote that first story kind of in a 120 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:33,279 Damon Runyon way, you know, lovable gangsters, this's territory right exactly, 121 00:07:33,519 --> 00:07:39,199 and you know, all meeting at Lindy's for for coffee 122 00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:43,480 or and and I wrote it for him. And then 123 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:45,800 I thought, well, that's kind of a wise man tale, 124 00:07:45,879 --> 00:07:50,240 hence the jokey title wise Guy. And so the next 125 00:07:50,319 --> 00:07:54,800 year I wrote a second one, and then life intervened 126 00:07:55,639 --> 00:07:58,959 and I never wrote the third one. Also, the editor changed, 127 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:01,639 and you know, you always lose giggs as a writer 128 00:08:01,759 --> 00:08:04,120 when the new editor comes in and wants his own people, 129 00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:07,879 and I was going through a rough time in my 130 00:08:07,959 --> 00:08:11,399 personal life at that point and just never wrote the 131 00:08:11,399 --> 00:08:18,199 third story. And then this year, less Full, lest Spring. Rather, 132 00:08:19,519 --> 00:08:22,480 my poetry publisher said, you must have a lot of 133 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:26,199 Christmas pieces, because I've written two or three of them 134 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:30,319 for magazines like the Weekly Standard as the Wall Street Journal, 135 00:08:30,439 --> 00:08:32,440 and the rest two or three of them a year 136 00:08:32,679 --> 00:08:36,639 for thirty years, and they actually add up, you know. 137 00:08:37,679 --> 00:08:39,840 So I said, yeah, you know, I could put together 138 00:08:41,039 --> 00:08:44,559 an anthology or selected ones. And then I thought, this 139 00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:47,279 is an excuse to write that third story and close 140 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:51,200 this trilogy of wise men's stories. So this summer I 141 00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:56,200 wrote the por de Grass, the third and completing story 142 00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,519 of these, kind of picking up links from the other stories. 143 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:05,720 So the first story, an independent thief is compelled by 144 00:09:05,759 --> 00:09:10,679 the local crime lord to recover twelve bags of lost heroine. 145 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:16,440 Merry Christmas, everybody, and the second house, or the first 146 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:21,360 house he actually burglarizes, belongs to a rich man. These 147 00:09:22,799 --> 00:09:26,559 packages of heroine were sent by mistake to an old 148 00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:30,039 Christmas mailing list out of a shipping center, so they're 149 00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:35,360 scattered across town, and one is to a rich man's 150 00:09:35,360 --> 00:09:39,279 house named Michael Stuyvesant, the very first burglaries of Michael 151 00:09:39,279 --> 00:09:45,279 Stevenson's house that ends with some resolution of his problem 152 00:09:45,799 --> 00:09:49,840 and a real Christmas spirit. The second story follows that 153 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:52,000 rich man who is not at home when he was 154 00:09:52,039 --> 00:09:56,360 burglarized as he's trying to drive to Denver. He's an 155 00:09:56,360 --> 00:10:00,399 ill man with his cancer's return and he's trying to 156 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:04,159 get to Denver to visit with his children while he 157 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:07,200 still feels well enough to do that, and has a 158 00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:11,639 series of misadventures across the Midwest. And then the third 159 00:10:11,759 --> 00:10:17,720 story is following the hunting down of the twelfth bag 160 00:10:17,759 --> 00:10:20,919 of heroin, which was the one that wasn't sent anywhere 161 00:10:20,919 --> 00:10:25,840 near by the thieves, but was sent to a little 162 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:31,759 Minnesota town called Poor de Grass, and a would be 163 00:10:31,919 --> 00:10:35,720 thief who's not actually very good is sent off to 164 00:10:35,799 --> 00:10:40,159 try and retrieve it because the sophisticated, wise guys in 165 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:42,679 the big city think, oh, it's just a little town 166 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:47,679 in Minnesota, it won't be any problem. And those of 167 00:10:47,759 --> 00:10:50,279 us who been to the Midwest know that, you know, 168 00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:53,960 there are a handful of sophisticated people who live out there. 169 00:10:54,559 --> 00:10:57,200 And he runs into trouble, but again it all works out. 170 00:10:57,919 --> 00:11:01,600 Speaker 1: Jody We've talked about this long enough. Give you give 171 00:11:01,639 --> 00:11:05,440 our listeners just the two opening paragraphs of the very 172 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:10,360 first story. It all starts. But then where does anything start? 173 00:11:10,919 --> 00:11:13,519 Back at the first moments of creation maybe, or down 174 00:11:13,559 --> 00:11:16,759 in some long ago legend, its meetings and purposes faded 175 00:11:16,799 --> 00:11:20,399 now into the darkened past. Every story's opening is a 176 00:11:20,399 --> 00:11:23,840 little arbitrary, one way or another. Every beginning is a 177 00:11:23,879 --> 00:11:28,879 small lie. Still, since this particular story concerns a thief 178 00:11:29,039 --> 00:11:32,720 named Bart Sagan, we should probably begin where he did 179 00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:36,960 the afternoon of December eighteen, a week before Christmas, when 180 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:39,759 he fought his way through the icy winds that slice 181 00:11:39,799 --> 00:11:42,639 down High Street to meet a friend at the Evergreen 182 00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:46,159 Tavern and ask her for some help hatch a quick 183 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:49,159 plan with her. In other words, plot a little crime 184 00:11:50,159 --> 00:11:53,480 that is so beautiful. I hate you for being able 185 00:11:53,519 --> 00:11:59,440 to write so wonderfully, But so how do you work characters? First? 186 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,519 Setting first, a line or two that comes to you. 187 00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:05,440 How do you do this? 188 00:12:06,799 --> 00:12:10,039 Speaker 2: You can't write, Peter, I mean I envy people who 189 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:11,480 can just sit down and write. 190 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:13,720 Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so happy to hear you say that. 191 00:12:13,879 --> 00:12:18,960 Speaker 2: You know you mean it's hard for you too, I said, 192 00:12:19,879 --> 00:12:22,559 writing is just like working in a coal mine, except 193 00:12:22,559 --> 00:12:26,120 you have to do it by yourself, and you know 194 00:12:26,159 --> 00:12:29,200 it's a hard thing. But you know, I remember I 195 00:12:29,279 --> 00:12:34,600 was close with be Crystal, Gertrud Timilfhard and she wants 196 00:12:34,919 --> 00:12:38,519 we're having lunch, and she launches into this complaint about 197 00:12:38,519 --> 00:12:42,360 her husband, Irving Crystal, on the grounds that he has 198 00:12:42,399 --> 00:12:46,159 an idea and he sits down and writes it, and 199 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:49,720 you know, three hours later the piece is done. That's 200 00:12:49,799 --> 00:12:54,519 just not how writing works for anybody, but Irving, who 201 00:12:54,759 --> 00:12:58,559 just could sit down and do it. Now, Irving was 202 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:01,240 no high Silas, but he was plenty. He had a 203 00:13:01,279 --> 00:13:05,279 plenty good style, that plain style, and he could. He 204 00:13:05,399 --> 00:13:10,559 knew how to wait his leads with the new piece 205 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:15,159 of information. He knew how to snap an article close. 206 00:13:15,279 --> 00:13:19,360 The famous essay he wrote on Joe McCarthy, he said 207 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:23,480 the one thing it ends, this commentary piece from years 208 00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:27,399 ago in the fifties. He ends by saying, there's much 209 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:32,480 to dislike about McCarthy, but one thing Americans know is 210 00:13:32,519 --> 00:13:36,080 that he is against communism. About his opponents, they know 211 00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:40,200 no such thing. Beautiful And you know, so he could 212 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:42,720 do that, yes, But you know, here is Gertrude Him, 213 00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:48,720 author of fourteen books and innumerable essays complaining about you 214 00:13:48,759 --> 00:13:51,440 know how people who find it easy to write? 215 00:13:51,639 --> 00:13:53,440 Speaker 1: May I offer you a return story? 216 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:54,200 Speaker 2: Sure? 217 00:13:54,279 --> 00:13:57,399 Speaker 1: My return story is dinner one evening out on Long 218 00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:02,840 Island with Tom Wolfe. Tom wolf and we sat down 219 00:14:02,919 --> 00:14:04,960 and I did I don't know what came over me, 220 00:14:05,039 --> 00:14:07,080 because of course you should never do this with any writer. 221 00:14:07,159 --> 00:14:09,080 But I said, Tom, how did the writing go today? 222 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:14,080 And his face fell, and his wife next to him. 223 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:15,960 I was seated. I was seated across from Tom, but 224 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,159 I was seated next to Sheila, and she stiffened just slightly. 225 00:14:19,279 --> 00:14:21,799 And I mean, what a stupid thing to say to her. 226 00:14:22,159 --> 00:14:26,200 But I must admit that my heart leapt and I said, Tom, 227 00:14:26,399 --> 00:14:31,279 you too, and he said, it's just as hard as 228 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,279 it ever was. The Only thing that has changed is 229 00:14:35,279 --> 00:14:38,399 that now I can look up from my desk across 230 00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:41,919 to a bookshelf that's filled with books with my name 231 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:46,159 on the spine and say to myself, wolf you did 232 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:48,919 it before, you must be able to do it again. 233 00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:53,960 Speaker 2: Yeah. I you know, I've always thought, but how do you? 234 00:14:54,039 --> 00:14:57,200 Speaker 1: How do you work? Now that we've talked about around 235 00:14:57,240 --> 00:14:57,799 other writers? 236 00:14:58,080 --> 00:15:00,519 Speaker 2: Oscar Wilde was staying in a country house and someone 237 00:15:00,559 --> 00:15:02,799 asked him, you know, how did the writing go at dinner? 238 00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:05,200 How did the writing go, mister Wilde? And he said, 239 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,519 this morning, I put a comma in. This afternoon I 240 00:15:09,559 --> 00:15:13,519 took it out. That's the ex question. But you know, 241 00:15:13,679 --> 00:15:16,440 I know, I just sort of fiddle around. I can't 242 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:20,720 write unless I have a lead. And this came from 243 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:25,360 really my very early writing. One of the first pieces, 244 00:15:25,399 --> 00:15:28,600 non academic pieces I ever wrote was a review of 245 00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:34,240 a biography of Ersy Kazinski for I can't even remember 246 00:15:34,279 --> 00:15:36,759 who now, the New Statesman may be, or one of 247 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:41,240 one of the journals of that day, right, uh and uh, 248 00:15:42,559 --> 00:15:46,320 And I wrote, you know, I just wrote it, and 249 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:50,120 the opening was something like, Ersy Kazinsky is a Polish 250 00:15:50,159 --> 00:15:54,559 American author who you know, achieved some fame with the 251 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:59,960 Painted Bird. And I set it aside and I went 252 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:02,000 to sleep, and I got up in the next morning 253 00:16:02,039 --> 00:16:04,480 and I wrote on the top of it, there's just 254 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:08,200 no getting around the fact that Ersy Kaczynski was a toad. 255 00:16:09,879 --> 00:16:11,240 Speaker 1: Oh, there you have it, of course. 256 00:16:11,399 --> 00:16:16,000 Speaker 2: And I thought, oh, if I can get the lead, 257 00:16:16,879 --> 00:16:21,519 then the rest flows from that. Then you've caught the audience, right, yes, yes, 258 00:16:21,559 --> 00:16:24,639 and you have their goodwill or their anger, you have 259 00:16:24,759 --> 00:16:28,840 their attention, you have their attention for the next couple periods. 260 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:30,639 Speaker 1: And maybe giving it to you grudgingly, but you have. 261 00:16:30,519 --> 00:16:33,799 Speaker 2: It right exactly. And that's when I sort of formed 262 00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,279 this habit of being unable to move on until I 263 00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:38,200 have the lead. 264 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:42,519 Speaker 1: And Andy's that way too, I think, isn't he is he? 265 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:46,000 I think he is? I think he is. I wish 266 00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:48,360 it well, the three, Well, we'll do another podcast with 267 00:16:48,399 --> 00:16:51,159 the three of us and we'll all moan about writing together. 268 00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:55,679 How's that? Jody? You and Christmas? You and Christmas? But okay, 269 00:16:55,679 --> 00:16:57,120 so you get the lead. I do. I do want 270 00:16:57,159 --> 00:17:02,000 to know, I really I can't. There's nothing that I 271 00:17:02,039 --> 00:17:04,400 want from you except your continued friendship. So I'm not 272 00:17:04,559 --> 00:17:07,480 for our listeners. There's no reason I'm sucking up to you. 273 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:10,079 If you were Elon Musk, I might flatter you here. 274 00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:15,640 I'm just telling the truth. The characters, even the minor characters, 275 00:17:17,759 --> 00:17:24,200 are just so completely present. They just present themselves to 276 00:17:24,279 --> 00:17:28,119 you and you write them. How does it work? The characters? 277 00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:28,960 How do they work? 278 00:17:29,599 --> 00:17:32,440 Speaker 2: Yeah? I think you know. I mean, fiction is relatively 279 00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:35,960 new I've probably only written a dozen short stories in 280 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:42,720 my career. But Mary Eberst our friend Mary Eberstat once 281 00:17:42,759 --> 00:17:46,480 accused me of writing nothing but fiction, not in a 282 00:17:46,559 --> 00:17:49,039 bad way that I was somehow, you know, telling lies, 283 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,160 but in the sense that my descriptions of people and 284 00:17:52,279 --> 00:17:59,079 scenes were always you know, using the devices of narrative fiction. Yes, 285 00:18:00,079 --> 00:18:04,359 and and I don't think she's wrong. But you know, 286 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:08,039 you start to form a character, and then sort of 287 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:12,440 details from people you know start creeping into them, and 288 00:18:12,480 --> 00:18:17,559 then then the fully formed character emerges from these borrowed 289 00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:22,480 bits of ten twelve different people. I mean, I'm not 290 00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:30,720 like Saul Bella, who you know, would really try and 291 00:18:30,799 --> 00:18:36,319 understand a character by a person he knew by casting 292 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:41,200 as a fictional character. You know this, and that went 293 00:18:41,279 --> 00:18:46,000 till the end. This is Ravelstein with Alan Bloom, you know, 294 00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:50,279 is the central the renamed Alan Bloom or Thomas Mahn, 295 00:18:51,319 --> 00:18:56,119 who had every literary gift except plot, I mean literally 296 00:18:56,160 --> 00:19:00,359 every literary gift at the level of a Nobel Prize winner. 297 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:03,920 He could do anything with pros except think up a story, 298 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:08,759 which ruined his children's lives because he basically plundered them 299 00:19:08,799 --> 00:19:13,279 for stories. I see, because you couldn't think of a story. 300 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:15,960 So you know, his children would be going through some 301 00:19:16,599 --> 00:19:18,759 breakup and he would like, oh, a. 302 00:19:18,799 --> 00:19:20,279 Speaker 1: Story for me. How interesting? 303 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:25,400 Speaker 2: Yes, exactly not an ideal parent. But I think fiction 304 00:19:25,599 --> 00:19:31,720 is fiction is strange and interesting. And the poets that 305 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:35,599 said never lie because they do not speak the truth. 306 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:41,519 There's some realm in which, you know, art lives that 307 00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:49,319 aims to be more true than reality by being actually 308 00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:51,960 less true. 309 00:19:52,279 --> 00:19:56,680 Speaker 1: Jody Bottom and Christmas from your introduction, I write about 310 00:19:56,759 --> 00:20:00,400 Christmas so much because that's where I perceive the thin 311 00:20:00,599 --> 00:20:03,920 place to be, the moment in which I sense most 312 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:08,799 clearly the spiritual crossing over into the physical, the supernatural 313 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:13,200 sneaking into the natural, the arrival of the divine in 314 00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:19,200 the mundane is the central and most outrageous claim of Christianity. 315 00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,759 The thin place, Jody, we live, Peter. 316 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:32,519 Speaker 2: In in such a naked world. I mean, I take 317 00:20:32,599 --> 00:20:36,799 Matthew Arnold to be speaking the truth here that the 318 00:20:36,839 --> 00:20:44,480 world as it is to human perception is you know, 319 00:20:44,799 --> 00:20:48,319 the naked shingles where ignorant armies clash by night and 320 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:53,400 there is no help for pain, no grace, no meaning, 321 00:20:54,000 --> 00:21:02,160 It's just existence. And we clothe that in Dover Beach. 322 00:21:03,039 --> 00:21:07,279 Arnold uses this language of girdling of clothing, that the 323 00:21:07,319 --> 00:21:14,160 sea of faith once covered this naked shingles of the shore, 324 00:21:14,559 --> 00:21:18,480 you know, of the world of reality. And the trouble 325 00:21:18,599 --> 00:21:23,640 is that perhaps a saint could, but for most of us, 326 00:21:24,799 --> 00:21:28,960 we need a shared experience. We need shared shared ideas, 327 00:21:29,039 --> 00:21:36,359 shared symbols, shared feelings to clothe reality, to make it decent. 328 00:21:37,319 --> 00:21:42,000 We need morality. For that, we need something more than 329 00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:48,359 just physical reality. And we stripped that away in modernity 330 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:53,160 as much as we can. But one place, it has 331 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:58,920 always seemed to me where one time where the division 332 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:03,279 between the newman and the physical or the social, you know, 333 00:22:03,279 --> 00:22:10,640 which is so thin now and tabscent and weak, that 334 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:13,720 the there's one place where it still kind of leaks 335 00:22:13,759 --> 00:22:15,599 in where we still have a little bit of a 336 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:22,880 cultural and emotional feeling that the world is clothed, decently arrayed. 337 00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:29,000 And that's Christmas and my struggles with the modern my 338 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:32,519 you know which I The very first piece I published 339 00:22:32,599 --> 00:22:36,160 was called Christians and Postmoderns, and I actually praised the 340 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:39,759 postmoderns for at least seeing that modernity was a problem, 341 00:22:40,279 --> 00:22:43,599 right that you know, that something had gone out of 342 00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,759 the world with that. Took three hundred years to work 343 00:22:46,799 --> 00:22:50,839 out what that was. But we arrive at a place 344 00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:58,240 that is so stripped of meaning, and I want the 345 00:22:58,279 --> 00:23:04,880 world to be almost sacramental. I want the grass to 346 00:23:05,519 --> 00:23:09,759 be singing songs of the fact that it's created. I 347 00:23:09,839 --> 00:23:12,119 want this, and I don't often have it, and I 348 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:14,920 don't think any of us often have it. Except for 349 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,720 the handful of anvil is even too large a number 350 00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:21,079 for the saints we may have met in our lives. 351 00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,559 I think the vast majority of us don't have that 352 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:29,359 except Christmas, you know, except Christmas. Christmas is deep, is 353 00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,720 a chance where the numinous and the divine leak through 354 00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:37,799 and we see the world in a clothing light. It 355 00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:42,000 makes things look better. Now, I could have reversed the 356 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,839 metaphor and said it reveals things as they really are. 357 00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:49,799 But you know, my own sense is that it's the 358 00:23:49,839 --> 00:23:53,839 same stuff we see every day. It's the same feelings 359 00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,039 we have every day. They are just bathed in a 360 00:23:57,079 --> 00:24:03,319 golden light. They are they feel meaningful at Christmas. Acts 361 00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:07,119 of charity feel more meaningful at Christmas. Our love of 362 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:11,319 our families feels more meaningful in Christmas, not more real, 363 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:18,279 more meaningful more connected to a world of symbols and 364 00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:23,200 greenery and you know, care for the poor and all 365 00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,640 the things that all these metaphors that accrete around Christmas. 366 00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,680 Speaker 1: So this is one of the great themes that comes 367 00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:36,519 through Frankinson's Gold and myrrhr another. We turn now to 368 00:24:36,559 --> 00:24:39,480 part two of the book, which is called Twelve Christmas Thoughts, 369 00:24:39,519 --> 00:24:44,359 which is twelve nonfiction essays, and another of these is 370 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:51,960 a really specific particular sense of place from the first 371 00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,559 essay Dakota Christmas quote. If you've never seen the South 372 00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:01,079 Dakota country in winter, you have no idea how desolate 373 00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,680 land can be. I once asked my grandmother why her 374 00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:09,079 family had decided to stop their wagon trek in what 375 00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,839 became the prairie town where she was born, and she answered, 376 00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,759 in surprise, I didn't know, because that's where the tree was. 377 00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:24,880 The tree, all right, you had. It's something like a 378 00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:29,680 dozen or fifteen years on the East Coast, divided between 379 00:25:29,799 --> 00:25:33,720 the most cosmopolitan of lives in Washington as an editor 380 00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:36,960 with the now deceased to last but at the time 381 00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,000 with it and hopeful and buoyant publication, the Weekly Standard, 382 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:45,319 and then up to New York, where you edited. I 383 00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:47,279 think I can see this. Well. Somebody will write a 384 00:25:47,279 --> 00:25:50,000 note contradicting me if he wants to. But the most 385 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:56,839 important journal of religion and politics, religion and public thought 386 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:03,519 first things, and then you back and have stayed there 387 00:26:04,559 --> 00:26:09,319 ever since. And I am enough of a coast dweller. 388 00:26:09,599 --> 00:26:14,839 I grew up in the Shock Area, the Blast area 389 00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:20,039 of New York, and I now live in California. That honest, 390 00:26:20,079 --> 00:26:21,880 I mean, I would ask you this if I were 391 00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,279 an interviewer. I live next door, but since I live 392 00:26:24,319 --> 00:26:26,559 on the coast of California, this is to me a 393 00:26:26,759 --> 00:26:30,279 saggering thing. Why did you go back? And why do 394 00:26:30,319 --> 00:26:34,440 you what is it that you love it? Desolate as 395 00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:35,559 it is you love it? 396 00:26:37,559 --> 00:26:40,680 Speaker 2: Well? You know. Bollsac has a line in great short 397 00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,920 story about a man who's trapped at a water hole 398 00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:48,799 in the desert an oasis with a lion, a female lion, 399 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,039 and this becomes a metaphor for male female relations and 400 00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:56,000 all kinds of things, because Ballzac always has several things 401 00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,720 that he's juggling. But it ends with someone misunderstanding and saying, well, 402 00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,400 I don't get it. What's the point of the story, 403 00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,000 And the narrator says, uh, or the you know, the 404 00:27:05,079 --> 00:27:10,680 narrating first person narrator says, uh. You see there in 405 00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,759 the desert, God is there, Man is not. 406 00:27:15,279 --> 00:27:15,400 Speaker 1: Uh. 407 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,200 Speaker 2: And you know there is a kind of burnt over 408 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:24,160 purity to the snow on the prairie. It's like white ash. 409 00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:30,839 You know, this world seems pure sometimes, but also you 410 00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:36,480 know it's I'm native to the soil, and and I 411 00:27:36,519 --> 00:27:38,880 don't know, Peter, you know, this has kind of been 412 00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,400 in my mind. My daughter is in New York right now. 413 00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:44,960 Speaker 1: Well do I know it? Faith Bottom, who writes for 414 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,240 the Wall Street Journal and has her father's ear. How 415 00:27:48,279 --> 00:27:50,319 you managed to pass it along, I do not know. 416 00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:51,559 But she has your ear. 417 00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,359 Speaker 2: She writes lots of beatings, lots of beatings, all right, 418 00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,359 but the uh. But she boasted, you know, last year's time. 419 00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,519 She said, well, you know, we lived in New York, 420 00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,839 we lived in Washington. We had a summer house out 421 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,839 in the Black Hills, and then moved out there full time. 422 00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,279 And now I'm back in New York. And so I've 423 00:28:12,279 --> 00:28:15,960 lived in rural settings and small towns, and I've lived 424 00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,920 in the middle of big cities. At least, she said, 425 00:28:20,519 --> 00:28:22,920 I can say that I've never had to live in 426 00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:29,720 the suburbs. And she said it with such distate, and 427 00:28:29,799 --> 00:28:32,720 I thought, how did I give her that that was 428 00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,039 not the lesson that you were supposed to take away 429 00:28:36,079 --> 00:28:40,519 from all of this, Honey. You know, we had friends. PJ. 430 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:45,799 O'Rourke loved the serbs, wrote about them, you know, marvelously comically, 431 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:51,720 of course, But I think you know, it's not And 432 00:28:51,759 --> 00:28:54,799 I think Tom Wolfe had an appreciation of the suburb too, 433 00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,759 and you know, and the aspirations of middle class life. 434 00:28:59,759 --> 00:29:02,799 I did really like hearing my daughter say this, you know, 435 00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:08,480 but there is a truth there that we've never lived 436 00:29:08,759 --> 00:29:12,839 in suburban America, right. It was always small town or big, 437 00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:13,559 big city. 438 00:29:14,079 --> 00:29:15,000 Speaker 1: And it gives you a. 439 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:21,160 Speaker 2: Picture of America that I don't know it's truth anymore. 440 00:29:21,799 --> 00:29:23,920 I mean, I think, you know, I don't know how 441 00:29:24,039 --> 00:29:26,839 true this is of the American idea that there's the 442 00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,160 country and the city. I think the vast majority of 443 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:35,480 people actually have an entirely different experience of life in 444 00:29:35,519 --> 00:29:39,680 this country. But it will say it does create in 445 00:29:39,799 --> 00:29:48,119 one peter an appreciation of eccentricity. G. K. Chesterton once said, 446 00:29:49,079 --> 00:29:53,279 the Gospel urges us to love our neighbor, and the 447 00:29:53,319 --> 00:29:58,200 Gospel urges us to love our enemy, probably under the 448 00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:02,200 assumption that they were often the same, right, And there's this, 449 00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:04,880 you know, because you've got to live with these people, 450 00:30:06,279 --> 00:30:12,160 and I like that, but also you know they're our friends. 451 00:30:12,279 --> 00:30:16,799 And my daughter and family are urging me now that 452 00:30:17,279 --> 00:30:20,680 you know my situation has changed and my wife is gone, yeah, 453 00:30:20,839 --> 00:30:25,200 she slipped away last year, that I should return this 454 00:30:25,279 --> 00:30:28,200 house to the summerhouse and go back to Washington. You 455 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:33,000 know where we have friends, I would say California, except Peter, 456 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,519 you were the exception to an experience that many of 457 00:30:36,599 --> 00:30:40,839 us in the old conservative world had, which is, whatever 458 00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,720 I have to sell, whatever we had to sell, it 459 00:30:43,799 --> 00:30:46,440 only sold the east of the Mississippi. There you were. 460 00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,240 You know. Out of those hundreds of talks and panels 461 00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,839 and everything that I've done over the years, maybe three 462 00:30:53,039 --> 00:30:56,400 four five have been in the state of California. But 463 00:30:56,519 --> 00:30:58,599 you flourish out there. 464 00:30:58,799 --> 00:31:02,799 Speaker 1: Well, we've done that, we've yes, thank you. But back 465 00:31:02,799 --> 00:31:07,720 to you. Another of your essays, this is called actually 466 00:31:07,759 --> 00:31:10,160 it's the closing essay of the book. It's called Christmas 467 00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,839 and the Boy Reader. There were always books for Christmas, 468 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:19,319 mounds of them, flurries of paperbacks, drifts of presentation copies 469 00:31:19,359 --> 00:31:22,799 inscribed in the unreadably copper plate hand of maiden, great ants, 470 00:31:23,599 --> 00:31:26,319 avalanches of books on chess, and manuals of do it 471 00:31:26,359 --> 00:31:32,839 yourself chemistry experiments. Christmas was books and books. Christmas in 472 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:36,839 those days, now mostly washed down to the cold sea. 473 00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,559 Was it such a bad way to grow up? The answer, 474 00:31:40,599 --> 00:31:42,640 of course is that it was a wonderful way to 475 00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:47,279 grow up. And how much are you and I permitted 476 00:31:47,319 --> 00:31:52,720 to And if it is an indulgence, indulge in despair 477 00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,960 when we see faith Bottom was of course far too 478 00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,079 fine and intellectual to do this. But when we see 479 00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:05,400 our children or their friends pouring their lives into iPhones 480 00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:09,920 or on video games. When when, or let me just 481 00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:13,079 give you a specific example. This will take only a moment. 482 00:32:13,799 --> 00:32:15,920 I think it's worth it because it makes a point. 483 00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,960 When I was an undergraduate at Dartmouth, I stayed on 484 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,920 one summer to work reunions. You could make good money, 485 00:32:23,519 --> 00:32:28,400 and my job was to sit in a dorm from 486 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,480 something like six in the evening until two in the morning. 487 00:32:32,359 --> 00:32:36,039 And because in those days dorms had keys that opened 488 00:32:36,039 --> 00:32:38,200 the I would hand. I would take the key from 489 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,160 the alumni as they would go to their dorm room 490 00:32:40,319 --> 00:32:42,720 where they were staying for their thirtieth reunion, and I 491 00:32:42,759 --> 00:32:44,880 would hand them the key when they went back. That 492 00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,079 was all I had to do, sit there and hand 493 00:32:47,079 --> 00:32:49,799 out keys and take them back. And I read a 494 00:32:49,799 --> 00:32:52,480 book a night. And then I went back for my 495 00:32:52,599 --> 00:32:57,799 thirtieth reunion and there was still the same job. But 496 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,880 the kid was watching movies on a laptop instead of 497 00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:06,119 reading books. And I thought to myself, Oh, something has 498 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,000 been lost. Am I a dinosaur? Am I a fool? 499 00:33:11,279 --> 00:33:11,519 Speaker 2: Well? 500 00:33:11,599 --> 00:33:12,480 Speaker 1: We can, we can. 501 00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,240 Speaker 2: We have to be careful, or I have to be 502 00:33:16,279 --> 00:33:18,680 careful because I am prone to what I sometimes called 503 00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,559 the old man's disease. Well that the sky was bluer, 504 00:33:22,799 --> 00:33:26,799 the grass cleaner, and the girls prettier, and we had 505 00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:33,880 to walk to school uphill both ways. But the but 506 00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:37,920 there's a loss here, the loss of the physicality of books, 507 00:33:39,279 --> 00:33:47,759 the necessary engagement, the slow pacing of reading. There's an 508 00:33:47,799 --> 00:33:52,839 extraordinary video I mentioned I would recommend to you Peter 509 00:33:53,599 --> 00:33:59,880 of Marshall, mccluan and frank Kermode. Frank Kermode was an 510 00:34:00,039 --> 00:34:02,960 aim to conjure with in literary circles once upon a 511 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:07,599 time and they're on some Canadian talk sixties talk show, 512 00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,880 you know where they would have, you know, endless space, 513 00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:18,480 and nobody's watching. Remember Michael Kinsley's famous headline, most guaranteed 514 00:34:18,519 --> 00:34:21,159 to make you not want to read the article, and 515 00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,639 the headline was a New York Times headline of worthwhile 516 00:34:24,679 --> 00:34:31,039 Canadian initiative. But there they are, and you know, Kramote 517 00:34:31,159 --> 00:34:35,159 is trying to understand why Marshall mccluhan is taking off 518 00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:39,079 as a figure as a cultural figure which soon petered out, 519 00:34:39,079 --> 00:34:42,599 and I think he's undervalued now after having been overvalued, 520 00:34:42,639 --> 00:34:45,440 but he's starting to take off, and Kimote's trying to 521 00:34:45,519 --> 00:34:50,599 understand that. And mccluhan says, brilliantly, I think, or at 522 00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:57,239 least really thought provokingly, that the virtues of the American Founding, 523 00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:02,360 the virtues of the the Bill of Rights, the sense 524 00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,960 that all those young lawyers had at that moment as 525 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,840 the revolution is going on, and then we build to 526 00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:12,840 the Constitution, that the virtues they had in mind were 527 00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:17,639 the virtues of readers. Yes, and the Bill of Rights 528 00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,960 is sort of fundamentally directed at readers, a protecting readers 529 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:25,159 from the government. And he said, if you think what 530 00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:29,280 you have When you have readers, you have a very 531 00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,280 slow pace for the transfer of information, as opposed to 532 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,760 nomadic tribes which are trying to read whether there's a 533 00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,800 leopard in that tree or not. They have to condense 534 00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:44,239 information with myth, they have to condense it with memes. 535 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:48,920 They have to process very very quickly, and they develop 536 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,639 storytelling techniques and language techniques to do that processing very quickly. 537 00:35:54,519 --> 00:35:59,159 Reading is much slower conveying of information. It requires time, 538 00:35:59,639 --> 00:36:03,320 which only really modernity brings to the masses, at least 539 00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:07,400 to the middle class. And I thought, what a really 540 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:11,719 thought provoking thing to say. And then I looked at 541 00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,880 the challenges that are emerging to the Bill of Rights, 542 00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:21,960 the fact that very near a majority of undergraduates today 543 00:36:22,559 --> 00:36:28,519 want to abolish free speech, and I think unthinkable, not. 544 00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:33,159 Speaker 1: Just a minority position when we were in school, unthinkable, unthinkable. 545 00:36:33,679 --> 00:36:37,239 Speaker 2: Well, what's changed they've ceased to be readers. It doesn't 546 00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:41,079 they don't see the need for it. And it seemed 547 00:36:41,079 --> 00:36:47,199 to me a small confirmation of mccluan's thought. And so 548 00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:52,000 I worry very deeply about the disappearance of reading, not 549 00:36:52,199 --> 00:36:57,119 just on the attention spans formed in adolescence from watching 550 00:36:57,599 --> 00:37:00,559 Instagram and TikTok all the time, which I think is 551 00:37:00,639 --> 00:37:05,559 very destructive of unformed mental pathways that really don't emerge 552 00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,320 maturity till eighteen or nineteen. But even more, I think 553 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,719 it's dangerous to our republic. 554 00:37:13,199 --> 00:37:16,599 Speaker 1: By the way, do you remember Goodness? I think he 555 00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,280 just died two or three years ago at an extremely 556 00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,000 great age, one hundred or one hundred and one. Bernard Balen, 557 00:37:22,079 --> 00:37:27,079 the great Harvard historian and his work. Oh it's a 558 00:37:27,119 --> 00:37:29,360 classic book. And of course I can't remember the name 559 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:34,920 just now, but Balen, who, if I understand things correctly, 560 00:37:35,079 --> 00:37:37,000 was It came along at a time when he was 561 00:37:37,039 --> 00:37:41,480 reacting against the Marxist rereading of the American Founding and 562 00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:44,079 the Marxists saying, oh, no, no, the Constitution is just 563 00:37:44,199 --> 00:37:49,280 cover for economic interests of various kinds. And Balen read 564 00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:54,119 the documents, He pulled together all the pamphlets and all 565 00:37:54,159 --> 00:37:57,119 the articles, and all the little town newspapers across New 566 00:37:57,119 --> 00:38:02,360 England and down into the South. He discovered that what 567 00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:07,280 you had here was an intensely literate society in which 568 00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,880 reading and writing were taking place all the time at 569 00:38:12,039 --> 00:38:16,599 a serious exchange of ideas, and that far from being 570 00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,519 cover for underlying economic interests. You just could not conclude 571 00:38:20,559 --> 00:38:25,599 other than that they had read and written themselves into 572 00:38:25,639 --> 00:38:30,039 real belief. Okay, so this is a compliment to the 573 00:38:30,039 --> 00:38:32,280 Marshall McLuhan comment. 574 00:38:33,679 --> 00:38:36,800 Speaker 2: And it's why I think we should worry about young 575 00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,119 people not reading. There was a recent article in The 576 00:38:39,199 --> 00:38:45,239 Atlantic that talked about declining reading lists in college courses, 577 00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:49,400 and one professor from Georgetown I think, which is my 578 00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:55,519 alma mater, saying she notices that her students at Georgetown 579 00:38:56,039 --> 00:39:00,840 can't read a sonnet with attention. They lose track in 580 00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:06,079 fourteen lines of what's going on, you know, so they 581 00:39:06,079 --> 00:39:09,159 can't think, oh, that's where he picks up this symbol, right, 582 00:39:09,199 --> 00:39:14,039 they can't read fourteen lines with attention. I think she's 583 00:39:14,079 --> 00:39:17,360 probably exaggerating, but on the other hand, maybe not, because 584 00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:19,239 it has not been demanded of them. 585 00:39:19,679 --> 00:39:21,719 Speaker 1: Right right, by the way, I want to interject for 586 00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,280 our listeners, the name of the book is Frankinson's Gold 587 00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:31,840 and murr It's three stories and twelve essays. And I'm 588 00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:35,760 repeating all this just now because if you buy a 589 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:40,679 couple of copies and leave them around the house, teenagers 590 00:39:40,679 --> 00:39:44,400 pick them up and Jody's first sentences, let alone his 591 00:39:44,519 --> 00:39:49,960 first paragraphs and first pages, are enough to tempt I 592 00:39:50,159 --> 00:39:54,559 think even an adolescent male into setting down his phone 593 00:39:54,599 --> 00:39:59,280 and sticking with the book. Frankinsense Golden Murr. Do it 594 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:04,599 for your children? Okay, Jody? A couple of last questions 595 00:40:04,639 --> 00:40:10,960 here if I'm reading Frankinson's Golden Merrh at all correctly. 596 00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,320 Of course we've just discovered this. One of the themes 597 00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:17,840 is your love of Christmas. And the other which we've 598 00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:21,800 discussed in a way when we talked about the Midwest, Actually, 599 00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:24,880 what is South Dakota. It's too far west to be 600 00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,440 the Midwest, but it's not really a rocky mountain state. 601 00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:29,119 What do we call where you live? 602 00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,880 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I have a friend, the actually wonderful South 603 00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,480 Dakota History, and he writes on the Midwest all the time. 604 00:40:36,599 --> 00:40:42,280 Had a popular book recently, John Louck and John Says 605 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:47,639 has this quip that the West begins about twenty miles 606 00:40:47,679 --> 00:40:51,480 east of the town of Chamberlain, South Dakota, because that's 607 00:40:51,519 --> 00:40:54,119 when the river hills start rising. Then you get the 608 00:40:54,159 --> 00:40:57,039 Missouri and you're in the Midwest up till that point. 609 00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:01,400 So eastern South Dakota is basically Iowa. Western South Dakota 610 00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:02,679 is basically Wyoming. 611 00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:05,559 Speaker 1: Okay, all right, all right, So you're in the We'll 612 00:41:05,599 --> 00:41:09,679 say you're in the West, and you love the West 613 00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:14,880 because you love American life in some ways, you love 614 00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:19,519 those towns because that's American life at its most distilled, 615 00:41:19,599 --> 00:41:23,400 it's most it's most American, all right. From your essay 616 00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:28,760 Beyond the Bleak Midwinter quote one sentence. I've always thought 617 00:41:29,079 --> 00:41:39,239 depressed people understand Christmas best. Close quote Jody explain that 618 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:44,079 one your love of Christmas, ordinary American life, and then 619 00:41:44,119 --> 00:41:45,800 you introduce depression. 620 00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,840 Speaker 2: Well, I you know, I'm a melancholy man, and so 621 00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:54,159 there's some self defense in there. Look, I understand Christmas 622 00:41:54,199 --> 00:42:02,199 really well, look at the book. But also when things 623 00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:07,199 are going really well for you. I don't just mean financially, 624 00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:11,039 although that sually has something to do with it, and 625 00:42:11,119 --> 00:42:15,639 in your family and in your mental health, it's easy 626 00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:20,440 to think, oh Christmas. You know, it's when you're depressed 627 00:42:20,559 --> 00:42:22,760 and Christmas makes you more depressed. 628 00:42:23,079 --> 00:42:25,360 Speaker 1: Yes, it can be very sad to see. 629 00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:30,960 Speaker 2: What Christmas is. I mean sad people understand how much 630 00:42:31,079 --> 00:42:38,360 Christmas matters, how it changes the world. They're further saddened 631 00:42:38,519 --> 00:42:41,639 by the fact that they're not getting it, but they 632 00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,960 see it was the point I was trying to make there, 633 00:42:46,159 --> 00:42:53,000 and you know, the Christmas asks us one of the 634 00:42:53,039 --> 00:42:57,360 carols I wrote. I've written several Christmas carols, and in 635 00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:01,599 one of them, I put this line in that I 636 00:43:01,599 --> 00:43:04,639 felt had really personal application and bears on that bleak 637 00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:10,000 mid Winter Essay, which is a title taken from Christina 638 00:43:10,079 --> 00:43:17,280 Rosetti's Great Christmas poem. But there's a couplet in there 639 00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:24,719 we will escape the sadness. There comes now grace and gladness. 640 00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,719 And grace and gladness was the phrase that this Nashville 641 00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,920 studio took. Is the kind of album title for these 642 00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:37,559 carols that I had written when they recorded them. But 643 00:43:38,199 --> 00:43:45,039 you know, grace and gladness the message of Christ, the 644 00:43:45,639 --> 00:43:51,760 whole Christmas feeling. It has to be an answer to something. 645 00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,039 One of the reasons I think that some of our 646 00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,679 you know, people fall away is they forget what the 647 00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:04,679 quest question is to which Christ is the answer, and 648 00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,760 they or they lose track of it. It doesn't seem 649 00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:14,519 important anymore to think we're going to die. We live 650 00:44:14,559 --> 00:44:17,920 in a world that has you know, whose intrinsic meaning 651 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:24,400 is is invisible to us. We live in a culture 652 00:44:24,559 --> 00:44:32,559 that's strange and bleak and manic, and you know it 653 00:44:32,639 --> 00:44:35,960 is to those things that christ is the answer. And 654 00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,840 in the same way Christmas needs an answer for a question. 655 00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:43,599 Speaker 1: You and I are of an age that when we 656 00:44:44,039 --> 00:44:48,719 took our English classes, we were reading Fitzgerald and Hemingway 657 00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:55,039 and Gertrude Stein, and all the cool kids were skeptics. 658 00:44:56,519 --> 00:45:02,039 Christianity did not enter in to the the fizz pop 659 00:45:02,079 --> 00:45:07,960 whiz bang of the twentieth century on whom we were raised. 660 00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,599 We studied as when we studied our English. And I 661 00:45:13,679 --> 00:45:17,480 was thinking, as I was reading your book, I can 662 00:45:17,519 --> 00:45:19,400 only think now you, being you, will be able to 663 00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:23,079 name twelve more, but don't because I want to come 664 00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,199 to the point of this is you. I can only 665 00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:36,760 think of one American author who embraces the modern, who 666 00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:42,760 embraces modernity in her prose and uses and produces modern novels, 667 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:44,880 although we're talking about mid century or second half of 668 00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:50,280 the twentieth century now while while while insisting on remaining explicitly, 669 00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:55,800 not overbearingly, but explicitly Christian, and that is Flannery O'Connor 670 00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:01,320 until Jody Bottom comes along. I can see no you see, 671 00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:03,239 I said, you being you, you're thinking of a dozen 672 00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:08,440 other authors who fit that narrow bill. But so that 673 00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,559 your middle story, Nativity, you've already explained it's about a 674 00:46:11,639 --> 00:46:14,519 rich man. What you've left out is that this rich 675 00:46:14,559 --> 00:46:19,800 man who's dying on this adventure, which is thwarted because 676 00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,800 of because of course we're in we're in the Upper Midwest, 677 00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:27,960 and he's thwarted by a snowstorm. The drive to Denver 678 00:46:28,039 --> 00:46:30,760 becomes impossibly. He has to pull up, and he rescues 679 00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:41,280 a manic, crazy chatterbox young woman, who, however, is pregnant. 680 00:46:42,639 --> 00:46:45,199 That's enough others. If you want to know how the 681 00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:49,199 story ends, read Jody's book. But let me quote a paragraph. 682 00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,079 This is Michael Stuyvesant, of whom you were speaking a 683 00:46:52,079 --> 00:46:53,880 moment ago. By the way, do you remember that old 684 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:55,719 It was never never appeared on the masted, but it 685 00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,840 was one of the greatest newspaper models ever The New 686 00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:01,639 York Daily News in the old days, when it was 687 00:47:01,639 --> 00:47:04,840 still known as New York's picture newspaper. In the newsroom, 688 00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:06,599 the word was, or what they would tell a new 689 00:47:06,639 --> 00:47:11,199 hire was tell it to the McSweeney's The Stuyvessants already know, 690 00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,639 isn't that wonderful and old New York there? All right? 691 00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,960 But here this is Jody. This is Jody Bottom, his family. 692 00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,920 His family had always been Episcopalians. But Anne, this is 693 00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,880 writing about his late wife. Anne was a Catholic, something 694 00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:27,639 of a to do in the family. At the time 695 00:47:27,639 --> 00:47:31,639 of their marriage. He remembered her explaining to him that 696 00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:36,440 all pregnant women are beautiful because they are signs, visible 697 00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:40,559 reflections of the blessed Virgin Mary in all her future 698 00:47:40,639 --> 00:47:45,039 joy and all her future pain and sorrow. Close quote. 699 00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:49,679 Now you didn't have to do that. That doesn't exactly 700 00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,719 advance the plot, but you do do it, and of 701 00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:55,039 course it's right. I don't want to say it's you're 702 00:47:55,079 --> 00:47:58,639 introducing an extraneous note, but that's you. Why do you 703 00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,679 do that? If you've just been a little more skeptical, Jody, 704 00:48:02,559 --> 00:48:04,119 it'd been so much easier to sell. 705 00:48:05,519 --> 00:48:08,280 Speaker 2: There was this moment in the late nineteen forties early 706 00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:15,440 nineteen fifties when it looked like the pieces the fragments 707 00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:23,199 of conservatism we're going to cohere into a fundamental statement 708 00:48:23,559 --> 00:48:29,760 of the glory of Western civilization. Against the Communists, and 709 00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:35,280 this would have been the new Critics, and this would 710 00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:37,960 have been T. S. Eliot's poetry, and this would have 711 00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:42,320 been Richard Weaver's ideas have consequences. And there was a 712 00:48:42,519 --> 00:48:45,639 world out there that looked for a moment like it 713 00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:52,840 might cohere, and it didn't. But I mentioned that simply 714 00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:58,360 because Peter, I think we have a responsibility, you and 715 00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:07,119 I to make the pieces of ourselves fit. That there 716 00:49:07,199 --> 00:49:10,119 has to be some kind of unity, that we have 717 00:49:10,199 --> 00:49:13,800 to reject any doctrine of double truth, that oh, there 718 00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,079 are these truths of physics and then there are truths 719 00:49:16,119 --> 00:49:20,440 of religion and poetry, and they don't go together, but 720 00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,400 that's okay because they live in such entirely different worlds 721 00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:26,239 that we don't have to make them go together. I 722 00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:32,320 flinch every time I hear someone say my truth. Yes, yes, 723 00:49:32,679 --> 00:49:36,519 because truth is truth, and we have a responsibility. We're 724 00:49:36,519 --> 00:49:41,960 not going to succeed at making the world whole, making 725 00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:46,320 the universe of truth. One God does that, but we 726 00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:50,440 have a responsibility to hold the pieces together as best 727 00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,440 we can. And I am a believer and I want 728 00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,360 to be an artist, although I usually fail at it, 729 00:49:56,840 --> 00:50:03,960 and I want to no things, Peter, you know that 730 00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:08,599 that schoolboy hunger, just to know, yes, it never left me. 731 00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,280 I still have it. You know. I was listening to 732 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:16,199 a lecture on quantum mechanics thinking I don't understand any 733 00:50:16,199 --> 00:50:20,559 of this, but by God I should, And because you know, 734 00:50:20,599 --> 00:50:24,079 I still have that schoolboy hunger for that and all 735 00:50:24,199 --> 00:50:29,559 that has to cohere, and sometimes around Christmas, I feel 736 00:50:29,559 --> 00:50:30,159 like it does. 737 00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:34,440 Speaker 1: Jody, would you take us out, if you would, by 738 00:50:34,519 --> 00:50:38,719 reading a passage from Angels, from one of the essays 739 00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,679 Angels I have heard on high I want to hear. 740 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,440 I want our listeners to hear this prose in the 741 00:50:44,519 --> 00:50:46,280 voice of the man who composed it. 742 00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,320 Speaker 2: Let's see, so the passage you picked out was this. 743 00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,639 I love the Santas with their bells, the Salvation armies 744 00:50:55,679 --> 00:50:59,920 call to charity on the sidewalks of American cities. Love 745 00:51:00,119 --> 00:51:03,199 the stores with displays of candy canes and sleigh bells. 746 00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,559 I love even the musact carols in the elevators, and 747 00:51:06,639 --> 00:51:09,599 the municipal trees, and the oversweet candies from the neighbors, 748 00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,639 and the fruitcakes like depleted uranium, and the school children's 749 00:51:13,679 --> 00:51:16,320 Nativity plays and the advent calendars, and the trips to 750 00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:19,320 the food bank, and the seasons goes for Christ's sake? 751 00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:23,639 Why not be happy? So much around us shouts reminders 752 00:51:23,679 --> 00:51:29,079 of the cause for Christmas joy. A sinner, corrupt and soul, sick, 753 00:51:29,199 --> 00:51:33,840 heartsore and muddled in my thoughts, I sometimes wonder what 754 00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:37,679 this world looks like to the saints. The universe must 755 00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:41,679 glow every day a holiday, a homely day, like the 756 00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:45,119 blinding sunlight off the clean snow and sharp swirls of 757 00:51:45,199 --> 00:51:50,880 sparkling ice. But it needs no individual grace, no special 758 00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:55,239 sanctity to feel the life of the Christmas season. Portions 759 00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,119 of the wall are tumbling down, and through the breeches 760 00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:02,000 anyone can discern some of what we ordinarily keep hidden 761 00:52:02,039 --> 00:52:06,119 from ourselves, Christ himself, and the faces of the poor 762 00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,960 and battered, the treasures the charity lays up in heaven, 763 00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:14,360 the supernatural beauty of nature, the joy of creation, and 764 00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:19,960 the objects all around us, the almost sacramentality of everything real. 765 00:52:21,119 --> 00:52:24,760 This December, I heard the angels singing, actually heard their 766 00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:28,840 voices high in the wind across a western meadow, frozen 767 00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:33,360 stiff and covered with the fallen snow. Listen and you'll 768 00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,719 hear it too. Down from the hills and the cold trees, 769 00:52:37,119 --> 00:52:41,559 Ponderosa pine and Black hills spruce, along the icy stream bed, 770 00:52:41,599 --> 00:52:47,639 through the brush and over the rocks. All those voices caroling, praising, rejoicing, 771 00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,360 a swirl of joy beyond all deserving. 772 00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:59,079 Speaker 1: Jody, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Peter the book again, Frankinsens, 773 00:52:59,199 --> 00:53:05,400 Gold and Murder, A Christmas Christomothy by Joseph Bottom, available 774 00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:10,199 on Amazon. Do yourself a favor, buy the book and 775 00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,079 read it, and leave a copy around for your kids. 776 00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:16,719 For Ricochet, I'm Peter Robinson.