WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.880 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 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 Uh? And there we are. 34 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.960 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 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 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 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 Of course there is no such town. 62 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:49.840 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 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 The capital of South Dakota, isn't it. 73 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:28.319 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 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 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 Yes, and I knew. 117 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:19.279 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 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 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 Oh, I'm so happy to hear you say that. 191 00:12:13.879 --> 00:12:18.960 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 May I offer you a return story? 216 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:54.200 Sure? 217 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:57.399 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 Yeah. I you know, I've always thought, but how do you? 234 00:14:54.039 --> 00:14:57.200 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 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 Oh, there you have it, of course. 256 00:16:11.399 --> 00:16:16.000 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 And maybe giving it to you grudgingly, but you have. 261 00:16:30.519 --> 00:16:33.799 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 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 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 Story for me. How interesting? 303 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:25.400 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 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 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 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 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