WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:06.160 great well um i am elizabeth holton i'm the 2 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:09.200 head of communications at the institute of museum and library 3 00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:12.880 services again i want to thank you so much for joining us today 4 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:18.160 in what is now our fourth event in the conversations with crosby series 5 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:23.439 featuring our imls director crosby kemper and some very special guests 6 00:00:23.439 --> 00:00:26.480 and today we're very fortunate to have with us a 7 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:32.079 novelist writer and one of many uh credentials this crossbow will share 8 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:35.120 francine pros for what promises to be a really 9 00:00:35.120 --> 00:00:38.480 exciting discussion and uh before i turn it over 10 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:42.399 to crosby to do uh to say a few more words uh just 11 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:47.120 a couple housekeeping items um this event is being recorded and we 12 00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:52.800 will share it on the imls website and youtube channel so uh on those 13 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:56.559 pages that you have on the imls website you can go back and we'll 14 00:00:56.559 --> 00:00:59.760 post the youtube recording on that page so you can see it 15 00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:04.799 re-watch it and share it and we welcome you to ask any questions you like 16 00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:09.040 via the question box there's also the the chat box that we can see if you have 17 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:12.880 any um technical issues or you want to just 18 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:17.600 shoot us a note um but for the questions there's that special questions box you 19 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:21.040 can submit them at any point during this hour of 20 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:24.320 conversation we'll keep an eye on them and pose them 21 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:29.040 to crosby and francine for a q a and discussion near the end of the 22 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:32.400 hour so with that i'll hand it over to crosby 23 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.680 to introduce francine and what they'll be talking about thank you 24 00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:39.920 great thank you very very much elizabeth and francine thank you so much for doing 25 00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:44.320 this i think the the world the world knows that you've written 30 26 00:01:44.320 --> 00:01:49.280 plus books um novels novellas 27 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:55.040 short stories critic criticism biography you're an essayist an advocate you're 28 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:59.520 the former president of penn and writer in residence at bard college 29 00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:06.240 not too far away from where you you are located in upstate new york 30 00:02:06.240 --> 00:02:09.840 doing your gardening candide like in this festival 31 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:12.959 possible worlds at the best of all possible times 32 00:02:12.959 --> 00:02:17.840 so thanks for leaving the garden and and and joining the conversations 33 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:21.440 you've one of the things i love about your writing 34 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:24.879 is that you you have characters protagonists and 35 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:29.840 and and the folks that they encounter swenson the professor in blue angel or 36 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:34.879 vincent nolan that converted we hope converted neo-nazi um 37 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.319 who are self-contradictory self-questioning 38 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:42.800 ambiguous and very humorous sometimes self-humorous 39 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:49.280 um humorous about themselves rather um complicated and tragic 40 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:53.599 sometimes characters and now you've published the vixen 41 00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:57.760 and and vixen's about the rosenbergs um and 42 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:04.720 and yet it's also a funny um witty uh uh look at the at the mid 50s 43 00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:08.480 early 50s mid 50s with the cia and the rosenbergs and roy 44 00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:12.319 cohn wandering through how do you get away with that how do you 45 00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:16.319 do that what's that all about the humor in particular 46 00:03:16.319 --> 00:03:19.599 well uh i've been thinking a lot about that i 47 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:23.360 in the class that i'm teaching at bard in the fall and the 48 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:27.519 i taught a class in the prison uh in eastern correctional facilities 49 00:03:27.519 --> 00:03:32.000 last spring and and both classes were kind of wound up being 50 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:35.840 about sympathy about how a writer creates sympathy 51 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:39.920 for character and and one of the things that the students 52 00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:44.080 were talking about was the way in which in some of the 53 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:49.760 texts i was teaching uh humor made you sympathetic to characters 54 00:03:49.760 --> 00:03:53.360 in a way you might not normally be now i mean i'm only speaking 55 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:56.159 to myself for myself i mean that is i find 56 00:03:56.159 --> 00:04:00.400 humor to be very sympathetic quality i mean i i'm sure that people 57 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:03.760 there are people who think it's it's the quality of the devil 58 00:04:03.760 --> 00:04:06.879 and they have a completely different attitude but 59 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:12.400 but that's my own feeling so so when i'm writing characters who i want us to 60 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:16.799 who are complicated who are complicated but i want us to feel a certain kind of 61 00:04:16.799 --> 00:04:20.239 uh interesting and sympathy for humor is the 62 00:04:20.239 --> 00:04:23.600 is one of the ways that i that i try to kind of 63 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.680 you know create that that aura around the character 64 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:31.199 so it seems to me that uh i mean a word that 65 00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:35.840 that occurs uh in a couple of places in your essays in particular is the word 66 00:04:35.840 --> 00:04:38.160 forgiveness and it seems to be one of the things 67 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:40.080 that you do brilliantly with these characters 68 00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:44.639 is they're they're either self-aware or they're becoming self-aware 69 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:49.440 and it's sometimes it's the humor their sense their sense of of humor about not 70 00:04:49.440 --> 00:04:52.080 only themselves but other people and the mistakes 71 00:04:52.080 --> 00:04:56.479 that they or these folks that they're they're they're gathering with uh 72 00:04:56.479 --> 00:05:01.600 uh mistakes that they they all make their sense of humor about it allows 73 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:06.160 them to become more self-aware and and maybe that's the you know in the 74 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:08.400 german the german term buildings roma that 75 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:12.960 that's how they build their lives it's by recognizing uh themselves and 76 00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:16.160 they can only do that because they have a sense of humor about it 77 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:20.000 you could do that as an author because you have a sense of humor about them 78 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.520 yeah i mean exactly there i mean there's scenes there's a 79 00:05:23.520 --> 00:05:26.880 there's a scene in the vixen where our hero goes to have 80 00:05:26.880 --> 00:05:30.400 uh lunch with this very sort of sad disappointed 81 00:05:30.400 --> 00:05:34.479 poet uh who's whose book is not gonna do well 82 00:05:34.479 --> 00:05:40.560 yeah and uh and i like to write scenes which are so excruciating that 83 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:43.280 they're funny they're just so awful that they're funny 84 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:46.639 because i think i don't know i just think it's a good 85 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:50.160 idea to acknowledge that things like that happen 86 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:53.840 you know that i mean because basically i just think 87 00:05:53.840 --> 00:05:58.400 we're flawed creatures we're just flawed creatures they're we're not perfectable 88 00:05:58.400 --> 00:06:02.240 and and once you once we learn to live with that 89 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:06.880 uh i can't help but think it will make us nicer to each other 90 00:06:06.880 --> 00:06:10.400 so i thought you were going to talk about the lunch that uh simon our 91 00:06:10.400 --> 00:06:15.120 our hero uh has with his uncle maddie who's a literary critic and 92 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.880 and uh you know sort of a sort of a sellout but who also 93 00:06:18.880 --> 00:06:22.000 has some witty things to say he's very condescending to everybody else but he 94 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:26.479 has some witty things to say and and he's your character simon and 95 00:06:26.479 --> 00:06:30.479 you the author are making fun of uncle maddie during the whole lunch 96 00:06:30.479 --> 00:06:34.560 but then slowly but surely it also it becomes very humorous about simon 97 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:39.360 because he's getting drunk uh while while while he you know he's 98 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:43.120 he's trying to distance himself from or he's discovering the the 99 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.240 the not uh the not very nice things which he already knew 100 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:51.280 uh about about his uncle and it's a i mean it's a wonderful scene 101 00:06:51.280 --> 00:06:55.599 in which simon can barely stand up at the end the waiter has to help him 102 00:06:55.599 --> 00:06:59.599 uh out yeah no it's no the uncle's a monster 103 00:06:59.599 --> 00:07:03.440 the uncle's a monster and the uncle is is i mean 104 00:07:03.440 --> 00:07:07.120 we've all met these guys they're just they're all about knowing everybody in 105 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:10.000 the room and then and then trash talking the 106 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.080 person that they've just been friendly to 107 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:15.680 i mean just horrible people but and then and then the but the 108 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:22.240 and i you know that my first editor who who at least that restaurant is 109 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:24.400 based on was nothing like that he was a wonderful 110 00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:28.560 person but but at the end the scene where simon falls over because he isn't 111 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:32.240 used to drinking and what's that happened to me i mean 112 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:34.880 that was my first lunch with my first editor 113 00:07:34.880 --> 00:07:38.800 this was in the 70s and i hadn't been a drinker in college i just didn't and i 114 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:42.319 didn't i didn't know what to order i just 115 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:44.400 didn't know what to call you know so i ordered i mean 116 00:07:44.400 --> 00:07:47.680 the way it happens in the novel i ordered a whiskey sour 117 00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:51.440 and my editor was just horrified that anyone would and then we split a bottle 118 00:07:51.440 --> 00:07:55.199 of wine and i fell over but but i was trying to write about the 119 00:07:55.199 --> 00:07:59.440 70s which was like the 50s in a way which was you know 120 00:07:59.440 --> 00:08:04.479 people were men in particular were judged by what they drank by what 121 00:08:04.479 --> 00:08:09.919 they drank and didn't drink and and to order a whiskey sour was like 122 00:08:09.919 --> 00:08:16.080 the worst thing you could possibly do right right um so i one one of the 123 00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:21.039 things i i wanted to to talk about and and uh 124 00:08:21.039 --> 00:08:24.319 is the arts and humanities and the library in the 125 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:27.759 life of museums and libraries and and the nation 126 00:08:27.759 --> 00:08:32.159 and uh you wrote a piece uh four years ago in the guardian 127 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:35.919 uh about the humanities um and and what was happening 128 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:39.440 particularly focused on the university world in in which 129 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:43.919 universities were dismantling philosophy departments humanities majors were 130 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:46.959 floating away administrators were getting uh big 131 00:08:46.959 --> 00:08:52.480 salaries to administrate god knows what um and uh and you particularly defended 132 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:56.560 the humanities based on the idea that the humanities 133 00:08:56.560 --> 00:09:01.360 teach critical thinking and the question i want to ask you about 134 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:05.680 that is it seems to me that the phrase critical thinking is probably the single 135 00:09:05.680 --> 00:09:10.880 most misused phrase in our intellectual world 136 00:09:10.880 --> 00:09:14.880 it frequently is is anything but critical it's almost never 137 00:09:14.880 --> 00:09:19.200 self-critical and that that's one of the things that has affected the humanities 138 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:22.240 is that we we don't we don't use the humanities to 139 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:27.600 to truly open our minds up to uh to to to real to real criticism which 140 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:31.920 is always an an expansion of the mind and 141 00:09:31.920 --> 00:09:36.399 what did you mean by critical thinking what what constitutes critical thinking 142 00:09:36.399 --> 00:09:40.000 well it's so interesting you're saying that because because as you say it i 143 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.480 realize there are many many ways in which you 144 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:46.480 can understand that phrase in a way i just mean 145 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:50.959 thinking i mean that is i mean i you know 146 00:09:50.959 --> 00:09:54.399 the humanities philosophy history all of it 147 00:09:54.399 --> 00:09:57.600 so complicates your sense of the world that it gives you 148 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:01.360 a way of or of human beings or human nature 149 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:06.880 it gives you a way of what i want to say of processing information that you're 150 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:10.079 getting or figuring out what might be true of and 151 00:10:10.079 --> 00:10:14.079 what you're hearing which is you know has never been more 152 00:10:14.079 --> 00:10:16.880 important i mean it just gives you a way of of 153 00:10:16.880 --> 00:10:22.320 sorting through the unlikely or unders or you know even 154 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:26.620 paying attention to language i mean you know i mean one 155 00:10:26.620 --> 00:10:30.320 [Music] for several years it borrowed one of my 156 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:34.399 my students out of class assignment was to read the same story in three 157 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:37.920 different newspapers and to write about the way language was 158 00:10:37.920 --> 00:10:42.480 used just to spin a very simple story so uh so even you 159 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:46.240 know even the way in which humanities makes 160 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.720 us more thoughtful attentive to the world 161 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:55.040 is is incredibly useful well i mean there are two things here that i think 162 00:10:55.040 --> 00:10:58.560 are interesting number one you use the phrase in the guardian piece 163 00:10:58.560 --> 00:11:02.480 tolerating ambiguity which is kind of i think what you do 164 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:06.399 with your characters is you don't talk not really tolerate 165 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:10.160 ambiguity you you embrace it and you analyze it and you 166 00:11:10.160 --> 00:11:13.519 and you use it and use it for humor but you also use it for 167 00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:17.120 for understanding and and and then the second 168 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:20.240 thing in in that and and you have so much 169 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:23.760 fun with this in in in your writing figuring your criticism 170 00:11:23.760 --> 00:11:28.640 um is that the notion of in foreign languages are a discipline 171 00:11:28.640 --> 00:11:34.160 and study of anything in depth that is in the humanities can be a discipline 172 00:11:34.160 --> 00:11:38.720 and and there are rules in a discipline and you have a lot of fun with rules 173 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:43.600 which we which we really like and need at the same time you talk about check 174 00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:48.240 often more more than once obviously you're a chekovian um yeah and 175 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:52.240 you talk about teaching a class and telling them about the rules of 176 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:56.079 of writing and then each step along the way you read 177 00:11:56.079 --> 00:11:59.360 a another check off story in which he violates 178 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:04.480 those rules um that the rules are out there but they're 179 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:07.920 we need to violate them regularly or or at the best you know 180 00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:11.360 if you're check off you get to violate them 181 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:15.279 yeah well sure although you know checkup really is 182 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:20.320 is a deep well i mean you can keep going back because there's so much there and 183 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:24.320 i mean for example speaking of again just returning to sympathy 184 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:28.720 i mean he has this famous uh he has this famous 185 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:31.839 uh quote in one of his letters where he says you know it's not 186 00:12:31.839 --> 00:12:35.360 our it's not the writer's job to judge our characters but just to 187 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:38.480 portray what kind of people they are he says 188 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:41.920 and he's because he's written a story about these horse thieves 189 00:12:41.920 --> 00:12:46.320 and whoever he's writing to suvarn says you know you didn't say that they were 190 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.680 how horrible they were and jacob says oh i just have to show 191 00:12:49.680 --> 00:12:52.000 you what kind of people they are and what their tastes are 192 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:55.360 and what their passions are etc etc okay i've been 193 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:59.839 quoting this for years it's you know seems like such a great quote blah blah 194 00:12:59.839 --> 00:13:02.800 blah and it occurred to me like a couple of 195 00:13:02.800 --> 00:13:06.160 months ago and i'd never read the chekhov story 196 00:13:06.160 --> 00:13:09.440 about the horse thieves i've been like blah blah about what he says about the 197 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:12.399 story but i haven't read the story so i go and 198 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:16.079 read the story and the story there isn't nothing 199 00:13:16.079 --> 00:13:19.440 redeeming about these characters i mean they are completely 200 00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:24.000 theirs is they are so judged they are so there's nothing decent about these 201 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:28.560 people so so i don't know it just made it all the more interesting i mean here 202 00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:31.600 he was saying there are no rules of a certain 203 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:34.000 kind but he was making another kind of rule and then 204 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:38.560 breaking even that one in the story because that was the way 205 00:13:38.560 --> 00:13:44.720 he saw the characters right right so you know 206 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:48.000 one of the things you you say in light of check offer you 207 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:54.399 have an essay on clarity and um you know the thing that chekhov does 208 00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:57.360 with clarity he's the most lucid of all all 209 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:02.160 writers is it reveals character um and and so in 210 00:14:02.160 --> 00:14:04.800 essence the the judgment's there in the reporting if 211 00:14:04.800 --> 00:14:09.600 you will he he's he makes the the judgment uh 212 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:14.959 of not by telling you but by showing you the character 213 00:14:14.959 --> 00:14:19.199 yeah i mean sure i mean maybe this sounds simple-minded but i think it's 214 00:14:19.199 --> 00:14:22.720 i think it's important to be understood and i don't understa 215 00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:26.399 you know on the other hand i mean there are writers who are very 216 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:30.160 like beckett for example i mean understanding in our joys it's 217 00:14:30.160 --> 00:14:33.360 rea it takes a lot more work than it does or improves it takes a lot more 218 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:37.120 work but but i think you know the main thing 219 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:39.199 when i'm when i'm dealing with students i don't 220 00:14:39.199 --> 00:14:42.480 teach writing but i teach they have to write an essay every week 221 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:47.519 i'm just saying look at this sentence and see if someone could understand 222 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:50.800 what you're saying which seems to me so basic 223 00:14:50.800 --> 00:14:58.480 about about writing and uh so often ignored yeah understanding i think 224 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:01.360 is a is is a word that's that's frequently 225 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:06.560 missing and uh in our dialogue uh the critical dialogue uh in in the 226 00:15:06.560 --> 00:15:09.600 humanities we're all always looking for some kind of silver 227 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:13.600 silver belt silver bullet variable in the 228 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:16.800 in the world that will teach us everything we need to know and 229 00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:20.480 uh understanding is a little more complex than that 230 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:26.800 so i you know i i want to talk um about museums of course museums play a 231 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:30.880 major role in in your characters lives and a lot of 232 00:15:30.880 --> 00:15:36.160 stories and novels um they're constantly visiting museums encountering 233 00:15:36.160 --> 00:15:40.079 encountering paintings but you've also written 234 00:15:40.079 --> 00:15:45.120 eloquently about a couple of museums in particular i'm thinking of your book 235 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:49.600 about anne frank and the anne frank museum and and your 236 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:55.839 book about peggy guggenheim and and and her creation of a series of 237 00:15:55.839 --> 00:16:01.440 art galleries and then finally the the museum uh in in venice 238 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:07.440 and you you have uh in in your uh in your book um uh what to read and 239 00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:11.360 why you have 10 reasons that uh the arts are 240 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:14.720 important you have an essay 10 reasons that the arts are important 241 00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:18.720 um and and and all those relate it seems to me 242 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:24.639 to uh to the to the museum world um in in your book about anne frank 243 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:30.800 there's a section about the museum and uh and you described the museum and 244 00:16:30.800 --> 00:16:34.240 one of the interesting things to me is the 245 00:16:34.240 --> 00:16:40.800 the sort of portal effect uh that uh the recreation of the museum 246 00:16:40.800 --> 00:16:44.399 they they reestablished the bookcase that had to be moved 247 00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:48.000 for them to get into the the space the annex 248 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:51.759 uh the attic space where the franks lived 249 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:55.920 um and you describe that and then you describe the annex to the annex which is 250 00:16:55.920 --> 00:16:59.040 the foundation and you describe all the things that they're doing 251 00:16:59.040 --> 00:17:05.280 and then you describe your um disagreement with cynthia ozek on 252 00:17:05.280 --> 00:17:09.839 the importance of the outreach efforts of the museum 253 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:12.079 and 254 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:16.880 talk a little bit about the importance of that 255 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:23.679 that museum what it what it means and uh and and and and whether or not it it 256 00:17:23.679 --> 00:17:29.440 is in any way cheapened by the the activities you talk also about the 257 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:34.480 movie and the play and and all of that what's the meaning of of 258 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:41.840 the museum why should we go see it well it's it's it's physical proof that 259 00:17:41.840 --> 00:17:45.520 a certain thing happened well it's physical proof i mean what 260 00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:48.320 happened in that house happened in that house and it happened for 261 00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:53.760 a reason it happened because the family had to hide for their lives there and 262 00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:57.360 and to save their lives and it it's important to see it 263 00:17:57.360 --> 00:18:03.919 and also it's you know it's it's it's it's kind of reasonable on its 264 00:18:03.919 --> 00:18:06.720 portrayal i mean i've seen holocaust memorials 265 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:11.919 that are so over the top and uh and off-putting for that reason 266 00:18:11.919 --> 00:18:15.440 but it's but it's not elaborate and it's it's 267 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:18.960 it's faith it's in as far as it's possible 268 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.760 with zillions of people walking through all the time 269 00:18:21.760 --> 00:18:26.640 faithful to the events that transpired there 270 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:30.240 so and and you know cynthia ozig says that the 271 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:36.720 divorce of the uh the museum divorces uh anne frank and the movie and the uh 272 00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:40.240 and the play too i guess you mean but this is the museum and all the 273 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.720 things that they're doing you write about her sense that otto 274 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:48.880 frank you know uh her sense that 275 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:54.160 otto frank indulged the uh people's identification with anne frank 276 00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:59.360 too too much but then it divorces her from the tr from the not merely tragedy 277 00:18:59.360 --> 00:19:04.240 but the horror of the holocaust it becomes uh a teenage 278 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:10.480 uh a romance uh story in in essence and but you don't have that 279 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:14.960 you you don't by by that reaction no 280 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:18.240 i mean only a very stupid teenager would not ask 281 00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:22.080 how she died so young or why she died so young 282 00:19:22.080 --> 00:19:25.760 or why she was in that attic in the first place i mean it's not 283 00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:28.799 you can't really reduce it to a love story and also 284 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:33.440 you can't hold an institution or a book responsible for the 285 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:37.039 for the use that's been made of it i mean if you were gonna 286 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:40.480 if you were going to hold the bible responsible for every 287 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:45.120 horrible biblical film that had been made you know you'd have to 288 00:19:45.120 --> 00:19:48.640 it's not it's not the diary's fault and it's not the museum's fault 289 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:53.200 i mean it's and also you know i mean i know what she's talking about but i'm 290 00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:57.120 i think so what you know i mean one of the things i don't know if they're still 291 00:19:57.120 --> 00:19:59.679 doing it but one of the things they were doing was they were taking 292 00:19:59.679 --> 00:20:05.200 they had these traveling exhibits uh of you know with aunt frank starry with 293 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:08.480 with placards and quotes and so forth and they take it to various places in 294 00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:12.159 the world so they did it they took it to argentina 295 00:20:12.159 --> 00:20:15.520 and the and the victims of the dirty war and the 296 00:20:15.520 --> 00:20:18.799 perpetrators of the dirty war both came together to look at the 297 00:20:18.799 --> 00:20:20.960 exhibit and to talk which is a good thing 298 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:24.559 i mean whether or not this made any lasting change i don't know 299 00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:27.760 i don't you know but i don't i can't see how that's harmful 300 00:20:27.760 --> 00:20:32.080 and i can't see how that's uh betraying the horror 301 00:20:32.080 --> 00:20:40.240 of the holocaust to use it to possibly make one situation slightly better and 302 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:44.000 and i agree with you and you it in and what i was really good at getting at is 303 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.760 in in your your 10 reasons that the arts are are 304 00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:50.880 important you talk to two of the reasons one is they move 305 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:53.679 us and there's no question the story event frank the 306 00:20:53.679 --> 00:20:59.039 the diary the story the museum i've been there too it it's a moving 307 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:02.880 experience there's a traveling auschwitz exhibit 308 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:05.039 right now happens to be in kansas city and 309 00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:09.360 i went through that and she's there and uh 310 00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:12.480 and it isn't moving it's a moving experience but then the other 311 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:16.799 the other question you you you make the statement as a question 312 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:20.240 uh does it make us better the arts and humanities 313 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:26.720 make us better and and and and so that there's this question in in in the anne 314 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:30.880 frank uh book about her statement 315 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:33.919 about finding the in her diary the goodness 316 00:21:33.919 --> 00:21:36.960 in human beings even as she's going through this incredible 317 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:40.799 experience of course is before she goes to auschwitz but um 318 00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:44.400 and and and of course that's actually taken out of context a little bit she 319 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:47.919 doesn't actually she goes she she talks about the the 320 00:21:47.919 --> 00:21:50.480 horrors uh before and after that's that 321 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:55.039 statement um but but you do feel that there's a 322 00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:58.559 potential for uh for appeal to to the best in human 323 00:21:58.559 --> 00:22:03.280 nature that comes out of experiences like this you know 324 00:22:03.280 --> 00:22:07.039 experiences yes i mean art i don't know you know i think 325 00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:11.360 i mean my own experience has been that that 326 00:22:11.840 --> 00:22:14.799 there are certain things you read that you actually think i'm going to be a 327 00:22:14.799 --> 00:22:17.840 better person but i've also noticed that it doesn't 328 00:22:17.840 --> 00:22:21.120 last for very long i mean it's good for it's good for like 329 00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:24.559 45 minutes you know it's good until somebody cuts in line in 330 00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:28.720 the supermarket and you know whether or not you've read 331 00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:33.360 dostoevsky's father's awesomeness speech the night before forgetting you 332 00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:38.400 know doesn't make you less irritated so you know later later in your list of 333 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:40.960 10 there's another that's almost this kind 334 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:43.840 of the same question but it's but it's really it's a little subtler 335 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:48.799 it's uh i'm going to paraphrase i think now um 336 00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:52.720 does it help you understand uh human beings 337 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:57.280 uh goodness and and maybe evil and that and that it seems to me the 338 00:22:57.280 --> 00:23:01.039 the clear question the clear answer to that is is yes 339 00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:07.440 yeah yeah may not help us act better but it helps us it it helps us 340 00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:11.520 analyze it better i know it exists or know certain things exist 341 00:23:11.520 --> 00:23:16.480 or no you know know the way know the way certain things have been happening 342 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:19.679 all the way through history and they have it and 343 00:23:19.679 --> 00:23:22.799 you know there's there's certain recurrent patterns in 344 00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:26.640 human behavior that you can go back and i maybe i said this but i've been 345 00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:31.200 i was reading a lot of plutarch this winter and reading at his lives about 346 00:23:31.200 --> 00:23:34.880 you know why i continue to teach the classics because 347 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:39.840 shockingly people's relationships to to take just one thing power 348 00:23:39.840 --> 00:23:46.480 were as complex and twisted and noble whatever complicated back in first 349 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:51.039 century a.d bc as they are now i mean it's just the 350 00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:56.400 same things repeat themselves so and i just think that's it's 351 00:23:56.400 --> 00:24:00.559 useful to know it's useful to know i mean whether it makes you learn it 352 00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:04.559 it helps us it is so it now shifting gears and 353 00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:09.760 entirely to peggy guggenheim so you you wrote a biography of of peggy guggenheim 354 00:24:09.760 --> 00:24:14.080 and and and it's she's led a fascinating life and she 355 00:24:14.080 --> 00:24:18.720 was directly engaged and responsible for the promotion of a lot of 356 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:22.559 modern art um her galleries in new york and 357 00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:26.960 uh elsewhere uh and then eventually the museum in venice which 358 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:30.240 of course you spend a lot of a lot of time she's kind of 359 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:34.240 you make her into you know we we're we're really interested in all her 360 00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:37.840 lovers and her sex life and all that but you make her into a kind of heroic 361 00:24:37.840 --> 00:24:40.480 figure uh going through through her life and 362 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:45.840 you know persisting in this um in in understanding promoting 363 00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:50.640 uh modern art and uh and i i i 364 00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:54.000 that it really came through to me that that she that 365 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:58.240 uh she and the museum were were an important thing in the history 366 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:03.120 of modern art and the one thing i want to ask you about is 367 00:25:03.120 --> 00:25:08.080 her relationship to beauty it seems to me that i was relatively 368 00:25:08.080 --> 00:25:12.000 recently in the museum and one of the things i was startled by is i felt 369 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.360 there was a peggy guggenheim aesthetic in the museum 370 00:25:15.360 --> 00:25:19.200 something that the nature of the things that she collected 371 00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:26.240 the the lines were very important to her strong lines and and and the mixture of 372 00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:31.279 the lines with color and and and the portal uh to the museum 373 00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:34.480 and the garden and the sense that it's it's got a certain 374 00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:39.200 scale which is much smaller than most modern art museums that which which 375 00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:42.400 would surprise me my previous memory was not was that it 376 00:25:42.400 --> 00:25:47.279 was larger than it was and i and and that beauty was important 377 00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:50.480 to her um you know she comes across as in in 378 00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:53.520 telling the life as this hard heroic character 379 00:25:53.520 --> 00:25:57.120 um and and maybe maybe sad and some of her emotional 380 00:25:57.120 --> 00:26:01.600 complexity right well you know i've always thought i always thought 381 00:26:01.600 --> 00:26:04.320 that her favorite piece i mean she doesn't say 382 00:26:04.320 --> 00:26:10.559 this but the way she was uh was brancusi brancusi's bird in flight you know which 383 00:26:10.559 --> 00:26:14.960 is just pure line pure line i mean no you know i i kind of 384 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:19.200 in a way when i was finishing the book i thought i'd written it backwards because 385 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:22.320 i'd been to the guggenheim collection years ago 386 00:26:22.320 --> 00:26:25.840 and then i wrote most of the book and then i went to the collection again and 387 00:26:25.840 --> 00:26:29.919 i was so blown away by what she collected and also she 388 00:26:29.919 --> 00:26:33.200 saved this stuff you know she it was like because she 389 00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:38.640 got it out of europe on the right before the nazis who hated that 390 00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:41.440 kind of art invaded france so she was just buying up 391 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:45.279 all this stuff and putting it in crates with her laundry and sending it 392 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:48.400 back to new york or it just would have disappeared somewhere 393 00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:52.799 so i mean her collection's amazing and she had this incredible eye i mean 394 00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:58.240 you know people i don't know i mean i've heard people say people who know 395 00:26:58.240 --> 00:27:03.039 her s talk about well a very famous art critic said to me 396 00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:06.000 oh she was so stupid but i don't think she was stupid i think 397 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:10.640 she was really smart and and then people say uh 398 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:15.200 oh she just had a very good sense for advisers you know because duchamp told 399 00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:17.679 her what to buy and you know a series of 400 00:27:17.679 --> 00:27:22.320 investors blah blah but i i just think she was 401 00:27:22.320 --> 00:27:26.640 she had a real eye she had a real eye and she just 402 00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:31.039 and she that was her life i mean that was her passion 403 00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:34.640 and plus she was funny i mean her speaking of humor 404 00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:41.679 her her uh memoirs are hilarious i mean she has this kind of weirdo drawl 405 00:27:41.679 --> 00:27:44.880 tone and even when things are just horrible it's 406 00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:49.840 she is i mean she's very very good she's a very good writer 407 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:55.039 so to talk a little i'd like you to talk a little bit about the experience 408 00:27:55.039 --> 00:28:01.200 of a museum of and you know not any in all museums but the 409 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.880 particularly important experiences that that we sometimes have and many of your 410 00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:10.320 characters have there's a uh a moment at the uh end of 411 00:28:10.320 --> 00:28:17.440 golden grove where nico the the heroine are our teenage heroin goes with her 412 00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:20.480 father who she's had a very rocky relationship 413 00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:27.200 with uh on on their pilgrimage to um see uh garlandio's uh 414 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:31.120 sorry i'm getting this backwards to frangelico's last judgment 415 00:28:31.120 --> 00:28:36.000 um and uh uh it it's you know it's it's a wonderful scene 416 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:40.720 because it's sort of the the uh it's the moment she grows up in a way 417 00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:43.919 in what what she sees that there's so many things in 418 00:28:43.919 --> 00:28:47.919 uh in in in this painting uh and and 419 00:28:47.919 --> 00:28:51.039 somehow you know it unites her with her her 420 00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:54.399 father their experiences like that throughout your 421 00:28:54.399 --> 00:29:00.080 uh your your writing well i've been to a lot of museums 422 00:29:00.080 --> 00:29:03.919 crosby i mean i've been to i'm married to a painter i write about 423 00:29:03.919 --> 00:29:07.679 art i love looking at paintings and i love museums i mean i just love 424 00:29:07.679 --> 00:29:10.880 museums there's some obviously i love better than others 425 00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:17.039 but uh but when we would travel a lot we would never not go to the museum 426 00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:19.840 independent and sometimes it didn't matter i mean of 427 00:29:19.840 --> 00:29:23.279 course the great museums you know the prado and the lure and blah blah 428 00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:28.080 but then also some little french provincial museum where they had like a 429 00:29:28.080 --> 00:29:31.840 hundred dutch flower paintings in the same room 430 00:29:31.840 --> 00:29:35.200 i didn't care i mean it's just it's just interesting and 431 00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:40.080 you know i love the smell of museums and the furniture polish or whatever and so 432 00:29:40.080 --> 00:29:42.640 forth so and then they're great museums i mean 433 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:48.159 there are two museums in sicily that uh scarpa designed which is just 434 00:29:48.159 --> 00:29:52.399 the i don't know the best that a modern museum could be i think 435 00:29:52.399 --> 00:29:55.679 so you did an interview with an author dune 436 00:29:55.679 --> 00:29:58.960 arbus um a little while ago in event last 437 00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:03.840 last fall about her uh novel the caretaker with in which there 438 00:30:03.840 --> 00:30:06.960 there's a it's a sort of similar thing to uh 439 00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:10.240 uh barn albert barnes and the barnes collection that 440 00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:16.559 her character is uh in involved in um but you in in this you you you quote 441 00:30:16.559 --> 00:30:20.399 philip gustin there's a great uh quote from phil gustin which you 442 00:30:20.399 --> 00:30:25.120 relate to writing she relates to uh to writing but it seems to me it's is 443 00:30:25.120 --> 00:30:31.279 about the the ultimate museum experience um uh in in which you 444 00:30:31.279 --> 00:30:34.320 as a writer painter he's obviously talking about about painting 445 00:30:34.320 --> 00:30:38.559 you know when he gets going he he eliminates the 446 00:30:38.559 --> 00:30:42.320 um sense of the outside world and then he eliminates the sense of character 447 00:30:42.320 --> 00:30:46.159 ultimately he eliminates the sense of himself um 448 00:30:46.159 --> 00:30:50.080 and that's when he knows he's really engaged and it seems to me that that 449 00:30:50.080 --> 00:30:54.159 that's the great museum experience and some of your characters have museum 450 00:30:54.159 --> 00:30:57.760 experiences like that there's a short story called garlandi 451 00:30:57.760 --> 00:31:02.880 owen which are our heroine uh and again with father 452 00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:08.000 um uh has a deep experience with the garlando painting 453 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:12.960 um and it seems to me that that you know that we've all had that experience 454 00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:19.120 anybody who loves museums anybody who who loves art has had the experience of 455 00:31:19.120 --> 00:31:22.960 having some something that takes you out of yourself so far that you you don't 456 00:31:22.960 --> 00:31:26.000 even know you're there you're in the painting or you're in the 457 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:33.840 in the sculpture or or the exhibit is taking you away yeah when i was a kid i 458 00:31:33.840 --> 00:31:37.120 really believed and we had art books around the house 459 00:31:37.120 --> 00:31:41.760 i mean we had some art books around the house and i really believe that if you 460 00:31:41.760 --> 00:31:45.919 that i semi believe let me put it that way that if you looked at a painting 461 00:31:45.919 --> 00:31:49.360 long enough you could get in it and in fact there were some 462 00:31:49.360 --> 00:31:53.600 there was you know get inside it i mean there was some uh one of these 463 00:31:53.600 --> 00:31:56.480 omnibus british sort of semi-ghost film you know 464 00:31:56.480 --> 00:31:59.600 they made films in the 30s and 40s that had several british short stories 465 00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:03.840 and one was about horror stories and one was about a guy that goes into a 466 00:32:03.840 --> 00:32:06.640 painting in a museum that was like my favorite thing 467 00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:11.279 so i think part of me has has always you know i understand that doesn't 468 00:32:11.279 --> 00:32:14.640 happen now but part of me feels that way i mean you can just look 469 00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:17.279 at a painting and keep seeing more and more things in it 470 00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:25.519 and uh that's not a bad way to pass time well and and and you do what one of your 471 00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:29.600 other 10 um reasons for the for the 472 00:32:29.600 --> 00:32:34.559 for the arts is it it's time travel um and it's a little bit like that the 473 00:32:34.559 --> 00:32:39.919 experience you've just described the 30s british movie with it you know going 474 00:32:39.919 --> 00:32:46.880 into a painting um we're we're we're in in somebody else's 475 00:32:46.880 --> 00:32:50.000 story um and the story can be gripping and can 476 00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.880 take us away i mean uh we were talking earlier about 477 00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:56.399 uh thomas cole paintings i mean if you know there's 478 00:32:56.399 --> 00:33:02.159 uh his you know his history of empire uh series of paintings and they're all 479 00:33:02.159 --> 00:33:04.799 engrossing paintings and you feel like you're 480 00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:09.440 you're there with them at just as civilization rises and civilization 481 00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:12.799 falls all in the same place and you recognize the landscape 482 00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:16.000 and you begin to think about our own times and 483 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:22.480 where are we in the decline and fall um but it it it it seems to me that 484 00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:26.399 it is time travel that that we go to a museum 485 00:33:26.399 --> 00:33:30.640 for the same reason that we read we read a great book or 486 00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:34.159 or even a good book that's just engrossing is to take us away from 487 00:33:34.159 --> 00:33:37.440 ourselves take us into another place to visit 488 00:33:37.440 --> 00:33:41.120 somewhere else somewhere else it seems to me 489 00:33:41.120 --> 00:33:45.120 is the the great thing about museum going and 490 00:33:45.120 --> 00:33:49.600 and reading reading a great book and writing a great book or writing a book 491 00:33:49.600 --> 00:33:53.600 period i mean it's just you're not yourself 492 00:33:53.600 --> 00:33:57.600 i mean that was that's as i said that's the point of the philip gustin quote 493 00:33:57.600 --> 00:34:01.840 where he says finally if you're lucky you leave the room so you're just not 494 00:34:01.840 --> 00:34:07.600 you're not a present and you're just uh you're something else is 495 00:34:07.600 --> 00:34:13.200 is kind of pouring through you in some i don't know what mysterious interesting 496 00:34:13.200 --> 00:34:17.679 way you you you also talk about the power of 497 00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:20.639 shock um that's one of your 10 reasons for the 498 00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:25.440 for the arts and humanities what it what 499 00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:29.119 what's the good you know there's a lot that's shocking in our world today 500 00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:32.480 i mean we've we've been we've been given a whole series of 501 00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:38.159 of shocks over the last couple of years the political shocks the racial shocks 502 00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:43.200 uh the pandemic shock uh uh and you know our concern 503 00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:46.480 uh about uh inequality thing things like that all 504 00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:51.760 all shocks to our to our system what what can the arts do with shock that can 505 00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:56.480 that can help us through this well it can get better i mean it's 506 00:34:56.480 --> 00:34:59.599 always shocking when it gets you know when art itself gets better and 507 00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:03.359 it can make you it can make you see things in a new way 508 00:35:03.359 --> 00:35:06.560 or see art in a way i mean you know one of my favorite 509 00:35:06.560 --> 00:35:10.480 art exhibits i ever went to is being in museums was the guggenheim had a 510 00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:17.599 uh 1900 show curated by robert rosenberg and uh the it started with all these 511 00:35:17.599 --> 00:35:20.800 like it was all 1900 right so it started with all these 512 00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:25.359 kitschy genre scenes i mean these horrible 513 00:35:25.359 --> 00:35:30.800 you know 1900 sentimental realist and then you went up and went up 514 00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:34.320 and at the end there's cezanne and gauguin and van gogh and 515 00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:38.400 and all done at the same time and it makes you re and it's shocking 516 00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:42.020 and this and it can kind of restore your sense of like something 517 00:35:42.020 --> 00:35:45.280 [Music] really different happen something really 518 00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:50.480 different happened and and i think it changed how people saw 519 00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:54.160 the world around them or color or light or plans or so forth so 520 00:35:54.160 --> 00:36:02.320 uh it's good every so often and um it seems to me that 521 00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:05.839 one of the powers of the traveling exhibit 522 00:36:05.839 --> 00:36:08.960 uh the the famous painting whether it's a 523 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:14.240 mona lisa or whatever going to visit the egyptian exhibit uh 524 00:36:14.240 --> 00:36:17.280 the permanent egyptian hall in the in the matter 525 00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:22.000 whatever it might be is that it it provides uh an opportunity 526 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:24.560 for conversation conversation with the person you may go 527 00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:29.920 with you've got you've you have some funny uh uh comments about 528 00:36:29.920 --> 00:36:33.280 guided tours and the you know the the the uh 529 00:36:33.280 --> 00:36:36.640 the promotion of the the uh recorded tour 530 00:36:36.640 --> 00:36:40.320 and that sort of thing you've got one guided tour of hell which is 531 00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:43.760 an actual guided tour and you're one of your novellas uh 532 00:36:43.760 --> 00:36:49.200 to uh to auschwitz um yeah you know speaking of which that maybe it 533 00:36:49.200 --> 00:36:51.680 was the auschwitz uh exhibit you mentioned earlier but 534 00:36:51.680 --> 00:36:56.480 there were there at some point there was an ad there was some outfits 535 00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:59.200 exhibit in a museum downtown i'm not sure exactly 536 00:36:59.200 --> 00:37:03.280 and and there was an ad for it on the sides of buses in the city 537 00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:06.560 and you'd be crossing the street and the bus would go by the city australia it's 538 00:37:06.560 --> 00:37:10.800 like oh oh my god you know no i i really 539 00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:14.640 i hate guided tours i just hate guided tours i hate them more and more i mean 540 00:37:14.640 --> 00:37:17.920 there are i've been on many many interesting ones 541 00:37:17.920 --> 00:37:20.000 but there's so many that aren't interesting to 542 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:23.280 um the last few i've been on i just like had to flee 543 00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:28.480 in the middle so so that anxiety is you know it seems to me that one of the 544 00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:32.320 great things about going to a museum is going to museum and exhibit work or 545 00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:36.000 you know the permanent exhibit or just going to see one painting or or 546 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:39.440 one one thing that you love going with someone going 547 00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:43.040 going with your your spouse or going with your your best friend 548 00:37:43.040 --> 00:37:46.800 and talking about it and and experiencing it and 549 00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:50.800 experiencing somebody else's experience of it 550 00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:54.000 yeah when i was writing when i was writing art criticism for the wall 551 00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:57.440 street journal i would go with howie my husband and i would just write down 552 00:37:57.440 --> 00:38:02.400 everything you said and that would be i know it would be of course how he's an 553 00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:04.640 artist 554 00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:12.960 with the guided tour the you know the thrusting that upon you not to mention 555 00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:16.160 you know sort of the you know the met pioneered and everybody 556 00:38:16.160 --> 00:38:20.240 else has joined in with the blockbuster exhibit and you know the 557 00:38:20.240 --> 00:38:23.280 store at the end is you know everybody's goal 558 00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:29.359 uh you know by related to to the exhibit that that you know the 559 00:38:29.359 --> 00:38:31.680 the and the leisurely stroll which is hard 560 00:38:31.680 --> 00:38:34.160 to do now that you've got ten thousand people in the 561 00:38:34.160 --> 00:38:38.079 same room with you but the leisurely stroll and the conversation 562 00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:45.040 uh the sort of pristian uh aspects of museum going are are are difficult to 563 00:38:45.040 --> 00:38:48.640 come by these days um i know it's different well i don't 564 00:38:48.640 --> 00:38:52.960 like honestly i don't like the time time ticket thing because it just 565 00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:55.680 changes the whole experience i mean you can't 566 00:38:55.680 --> 00:38:58.800 you know if you're in a city you can't say oh 567 00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:02.400 let's go to the blah blah museum of art and look at i mean now you have to know 568 00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:06.480 in advance and do a thing on your computer and so forth and it just 569 00:39:06.480 --> 00:39:09.920 it's different i mean i understand the reasons for it i get it but 570 00:39:09.920 --> 00:39:14.800 uh but uh you know that that alone changes the experience and 571 00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:18.000 also i'm not you know i think in a lot of places 572 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:21.200 the museum shut down because of covet and now 573 00:39:21.200 --> 00:39:24.320 i mean there's certain things that i noticed it just seemed like 574 00:39:24.320 --> 00:39:27.680 they were done by people who had too much time on their hands and now 575 00:39:27.680 --> 00:39:30.760 it's going to revert back to some other but you know just 576 00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:36.320 unnecessary uh you know fiddling with collections in ways that 577 00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:39.440 don't seem inspired especially well of course 578 00:39:39.440 --> 00:39:42.800 you know every every new curator has to come in and do something 579 00:39:42.800 --> 00:39:46.240 something new that's the that's the nature of the of the game and the 580 00:39:46.240 --> 00:39:49.839 museum of modern art i know you know about every decade they have to 581 00:39:49.839 --> 00:39:52.880 you know redo everything completely um and 582 00:39:52.880 --> 00:39:56.640 and they're and they're not alone and feeling the necessity of 583 00:39:56.640 --> 00:40:01.520 uh of doing that but whether or not they they improve things and obviously over 584 00:40:01.520 --> 00:40:04.560 the years there is lots of disagreement about 585 00:40:04.560 --> 00:40:12.160 about that um so um one one notion uh that i that i 586 00:40:12.160 --> 00:40:19.119 i i get from reading uh uh forensic and prose is the notion of 587 00:40:19.119 --> 00:40:22.800 a kind of pilgrimage to certain paintings 588 00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:29.280 uh certain places um and what we're if you if you were 589 00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:35.839 the pandemic is over and you you you're you can go anywhere you want 590 00:40:35.839 --> 00:40:38.480 is there is there a place that you would want to go a 591 00:40:38.480 --> 00:40:44.079 museum you'd want to go to a place that a place of art uh that you would want to 592 00:40:44.079 --> 00:40:47.680 go to that that that speaks to you over over 593 00:40:47.680 --> 00:40:51.119 your over your lifetime now that i haven't 594 00:40:51.119 --> 00:40:54.720 been or that i would well you know i not do 595 00:40:54.720 --> 00:40:58.160 you necessarily have the one you haven't been too sure but i'm just 596 00:40:58.160 --> 00:41:01.760 i'm just wondering if they're you know you reach a certain 597 00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:04.880 certain stage where you want to revisit some things too 598 00:41:04.880 --> 00:41:07.920 just as rereading you talk about rereading um 599 00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:12.720 and you know uh the the things that you reread 600 00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:16.800 uh are become important are there do you have the same experience with 601 00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:24.000 with museums or an artwork i want to go i if i could go anywhere i 602 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:28.319 want to see the monasteries in georgia i mean i i'm i'm really into fresco 603 00:41:28.319 --> 00:41:32.160 painting medieval fresco painting and a friend of mine just did this and i've 604 00:41:32.160 --> 00:41:35.440 been reading about it and they have these incredible monasteries with still 605 00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:38.640 paintings from the 13th century i mean i saw some of them and 606 00:41:38.640 --> 00:41:41.839 i don't i've been i've been really into byzantine art for 607 00:41:41.839 --> 00:41:46.960 quite a while now so like i went to um to uh northern greece just to look at 608 00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:50.240 the byzantine art museum 609 00:41:50.720 --> 00:41:54.480 remember what i saw but there i i was looking at some of these in turkey 610 00:41:54.480 --> 00:41:59.359 that that are essentially monasteries in caves 611 00:42:00.839 --> 00:42:03.839 um 612 00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:08.160 yeah in georgia too i don't know those places those places appeal to me more 613 00:42:08.160 --> 00:42:10.800 and more uh i mean there are plenty of museums i 614 00:42:10.800 --> 00:42:15.440 love but but i don't know what the museums you can't 615 00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:20.400 the uh that the the thing of the crowd i mean i twice went to go see the alice 616 00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:23.280 neil museum and show what they met yeah and they were 617 00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:27.520 like huge lions it was like a camp i just can't you know but that does tell 618 00:42:27.520 --> 00:42:31.280 you something about the pen the end of the the pandemic that 619 00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:36.240 i mean alice neil i think is a wonderful a wonderful painter uh but um 620 00:42:36.240 --> 00:42:40.400 she you know that she would be that popular at this stage is really 621 00:42:40.400 --> 00:42:43.119 interesting i know from from a lot of different 622 00:42:43.119 --> 00:42:47.440 points of view but you know it does tell you the pandemic is in many 623 00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:51.440 people's minds is uh uh i'm knocking on wood crosby i 624 00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:58.400 just knocked on it so um 625 00:42:58.400 --> 00:43:03.200 so uh uh is there 626 00:43:03.839 --> 00:43:07.280 at the you know you talk about the garlandio painting in one story 627 00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:14.079 you talk about uh frangelico and and uh uh hieronymus bosch and uh 628 00:43:14.079 --> 00:43:18.319 uh at various moments is there is there one painting in the 629 00:43:18.319 --> 00:43:22.480 in the world that that speaks to you or or does this change over time now you 630 00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:28.240 want to go and and visit the georgian uh the monasteries yeah i mean there's 631 00:43:28.240 --> 00:43:30.880 some you know all sorts of things i mean 632 00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:34.240 they're very they're speaking churches i mean there are a lot 633 00:43:34.240 --> 00:43:37.040 of mosaics that i would go back to again and again 634 00:43:37.040 --> 00:43:42.400 just because because they were designed and such like santa maria interest ever 635 00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.119 or and sit in various parts of sicily 636 00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:49.359 because they're designed in a way that the light hits them in a certain 637 00:43:49.359 --> 00:43:52.560 times of day and various parts of the mosaic of the 638 00:43:52.560 --> 00:43:56.400 golden example and that's like you could watch it for 639 00:43:56.400 --> 00:43:59.280 24 straight hours you know because it's so big 640 00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:04.960 so they're places like that i mean and and i'd like to go to uh 641 00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:09.040 you know my taste in art or what i love most has changed from time to time but 642 00:44:09.040 --> 00:44:12.560 but for a long time i've loved cnn's painting 643 00:44:12.560 --> 00:44:15.680 i mean speaking of not being someplace else 644 00:44:15.680 --> 00:44:19.359 so uh so be nice to go to sienna and just 645 00:44:19.359 --> 00:44:26.560 spend a day is whole day is looking at cna's art um 646 00:44:26.560 --> 00:44:30.800 with uh i i noticed in in your book on caravaggio 647 00:44:30.800 --> 00:44:36.720 you uh you you you were able to make a link that i'd 648 00:44:36.720 --> 00:44:40.160 never seen in caravaggio before mainly because i haven't seen that much of 649 00:44:40.160 --> 00:44:44.240 caravaggio the nelson here in kansas city has got a really great 650 00:44:44.240 --> 00:44:51.359 uh uh caravaggio but um with naples and rome and 651 00:44:51.359 --> 00:44:55.280 malta and sicily with the various places that he lived 652 00:44:55.280 --> 00:44:58.640 frequently for very short short periods of time with the 653 00:44:58.640 --> 00:45:01.920 with the street life and and also with the 654 00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:08.000 with the time of his life that the the various ways he he plays with uh 655 00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:12.240 with light and and darkness um and 656 00:45:12.240 --> 00:45:16.480 i i it seems to me that that one of the great things that you 657 00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:21.280 are able to pull out of a painter and a painting 658 00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:25.599 is their ability which is your ability as a writer 659 00:45:25.599 --> 00:45:30.480 as well to pay attention the art of paying attention 660 00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:35.839 and and so much of our museum going is walking quickly to get through the 661 00:45:35.839 --> 00:45:38.560 exhibit to say you've been through the exhibit just 662 00:45:38.560 --> 00:45:43.520 instead of standing in front of that one painting or that one 663 00:45:43.520 --> 00:45:50.160 whatever the the whatever the medium is that that that work um and and absorbing 664 00:45:50.160 --> 00:45:53.599 it and and paying attention and it's a 665 00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:56.640 problem i think in the contemporary world with everything that's going on 666 00:45:56.640 --> 00:46:01.440 the media the social media the the internet etc we have lost the 667 00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:06.240 ability to to pay attention okay well i 668 00:46:06.240 --> 00:46:09.359 you know the only reason i can write about art at all 669 00:46:09.359 --> 00:46:12.800 is because i can describe what i see and that seems to me 670 00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:16.160 pretty basic and and that that was the only reason i thought i could write the 671 00:46:16.160 --> 00:46:19.119 caravaggio book because there was a great biography 672 00:46:19.119 --> 00:46:22.800 of him of caravaggio by helen langdon that had already been written 673 00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:27.119 but she wasn't that wasn't her principal interest was describing the paintings i 674 00:46:27.119 --> 00:46:30.560 mean it was more about what happened so uh 675 00:46:30.560 --> 00:46:35.280 and that's a that just takes a long period of looking 676 00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:39.520 at the painting you know uh my my model for writing about art you 677 00:46:39.520 --> 00:46:43.040 know because so much of writing about art is completely jargon 678 00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:46.079 written and unintelligible when you can't even begin 679 00:46:46.079 --> 00:46:49.760 my model was sister wendy remember this strange nun that lived in a little 680 00:46:49.760 --> 00:46:53.520 airstream and she wrote these books or you know 681 00:46:53.520 --> 00:46:57.359 she had a tv show and she just described what was in the painting she 682 00:46:57.359 --> 00:46:59.920 described what was in the painting and it was 683 00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:03.599 i mean this was especially in the 90s and the 2000s given how much 684 00:47:03.599 --> 00:47:06.800 writing about art was completely unintelligible 685 00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:10.720 it was a revelation to me that that you you could just do that 686 00:47:10.720 --> 00:47:18.319 so that's you know that's always been the way i've begun writing about art 687 00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:25.359 so you uh you you uh um at one point yeah in uh golden grove 688 00:47:25.359 --> 00:47:27.599 you've got uh nico standing in front of 689 00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:32.300 frangelico's last judgment and you have her thinking um 690 00:47:32.300 --> 00:47:35.599 [Music] she's standing there with her father how 691 00:47:35.599 --> 00:47:38.960 astonishing that one painting could tell so many 692 00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:41.119 stories that seems to me to be a great 693 00:47:41.119 --> 00:47:46.400 description of you i i feel how astonishing it is that francine pros 694 00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:49.520 can can tell all these stories you know and 695 00:47:49.520 --> 00:47:52.079 in so many different ways and so many different 696 00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:58.240 modes you think of yourself as a as a as a storyteller in the in the 697 00:47:58.240 --> 00:48:01.920 fiction and the non-fiction and the criticism 698 00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:05.520 i guess so i mean i'm pretty surprised myself crosby so 699 00:48:05.520 --> 00:48:09.040 so i you know the evidence would suggest that 700 00:48:09.040 --> 00:48:13.280 yes the answer is yes yeah exactly there's plenty of evidence out there 701 00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:15.680 that's true i mean you refer to yourself as you're 702 00:48:15.680 --> 00:48:19.599 talking about teaching writing and and describing writing as a as a 703 00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:22.720 reporter and it's what you talk when you talk about check off 704 00:48:22.720 --> 00:48:26.000 you you there's a there's an aspect of this where you 705 00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:33.040 uh uh seem to me to diminish the the creativity of the imagination 706 00:48:33.040 --> 00:48:36.559 of what you do which is also true true of chekhov 707 00:48:36.559 --> 00:48:39.760 he's not really just a reporter he's he's he's 708 00:48:39.760 --> 00:48:44.720 he's crafted it you uh you know that you quote the i think it's the lady with 709 00:48:44.720 --> 00:48:46.640 the dog the end of the lady with the dog where 710 00:48:46.640 --> 00:48:52.400 um uh there's a his his his statement that it's 711 00:48:52.400 --> 00:48:55.280 basically the ultimate ultimate statement about whether or not 712 00:48:55.280 --> 00:48:58.720 there are happy endings is is is that they've decided to get 713 00:48:58.720 --> 00:49:01.599 married that is that lady with a dog where they 714 00:49:01.599 --> 00:49:05.359 decided to get married and and it's the beginning of the 715 00:49:05.359 --> 00:49:08.640 complications uh and the struggles yeah they really 716 00:49:08.640 --> 00:49:11.760 they realized that the hardest part was still before them 717 00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:14.720 that's how it is right the hardest part you realize that the hardest part was so 718 00:49:14.720 --> 00:49:16.880 good 719 00:49:17.680 --> 00:49:24.079 you know creating the the ability uh uh for for us to to 720 00:49:24.079 --> 00:49:30.960 uh to understand that um that the life beyond the the story 721 00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:35.200 um is is an extraordinary thing that chekhov is able to 722 00:49:35.200 --> 00:49:41.599 able to do and that you do just to sense that so i um 723 00:49:41.599 --> 00:49:45.200 i thought uh we might have some questions 724 00:49:45.200 --> 00:49:49.440 uh elizabeth we have any any questions from uh from the audience that if 725 00:49:49.440 --> 00:49:55.280 you've picked we do we have a question from sophia she's interested 726 00:49:55.280 --> 00:49:58.319 in learning more about uh granting your fulbright 727 00:49:58.319 --> 00:50:02.480 experience and if you had any culture shocks that had an impact on 728 00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:04.960 your writing 729 00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:12.079 oh yeah i'm not so so odd because because before we began crosby said 730 00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:15.760 we're going to talk about yugoslavia well actually that was my fulbright 731 00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:18.880 experience it was in the former yugoslavia 732 00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:23.680 excuse me in the late uh the late 80s just a few years before the war began 733 00:50:23.680 --> 00:50:28.400 yeah it was shocking i mean it was the whole experience it was fascinating and 734 00:50:28.400 --> 00:50:32.559 then later shocking although well really not 735 00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:37.280 so much because uh because why because i traveled all 736 00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:42.480 over the country and it was i mean it didn't take a genius to pick 737 00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:44.640 up on the various tensions that were going on 738 00:50:44.640 --> 00:50:50.319 between different groups in the country different uh nationalist groups so um 739 00:50:50.319 --> 00:50:55.520 so yeah and then you know i mean the the relation of shock i mean we would 740 00:50:55.520 --> 00:50:59.119 we all went to the bridge over mostar the 12th 741 00:50:59.119 --> 00:51:02.960 century bridge you know we went our kids were there 742 00:51:02.960 --> 00:51:07.200 and then the shock of watching the news and there was across the river and then 743 00:51:07.200 --> 00:51:10.880 it wasn't there it had gotten blown up in the war so uh 744 00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:14.800 so was one of those um 745 00:51:15.680 --> 00:51:20.160 i was glad my kids saw that and understood what that what had happened 746 00:51:20.160 --> 00:51:26.160 yeah and you have a list um uh at uh at the end of uh uh reading 747 00:51:26.160 --> 00:51:29.040 like a writer uh of books you have to read uh 748 00:51:29.040 --> 00:51:32.400 immediately and two two of those books are rebecca 749 00:51:32.400 --> 00:51:35.839 west's books words fall down which i i agree with you 750 00:51:35.839 --> 00:51:39.680 i think it's why it's one of the underrated uh novels and i think it's a 751 00:51:39.680 --> 00:51:42.160 wonderful wonderful book the black lamb and gray 752 00:51:42.160 --> 00:51:46.480 falcon which is of course about what what you're talking about or 753 00:51:46.480 --> 00:51:50.800 about the the uh the the world that that you're 754 00:51:50.800 --> 00:51:54.240 talking about uh which which is i think a great but 755 00:51:54.240 --> 00:51:58.400 problematic book um well it's weird it's weird but 756 00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:00.640 because there's things going on that she doesn't tell you but 757 00:52:00.640 --> 00:52:04.000 but again she was a great describer i mean i 758 00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:07.280 carried that book all around for me yugoslavia the book is like 800 pages 759 00:52:07.280 --> 00:52:12.559 long ways a ton but but speaking of uh speaking of um 760 00:52:12.559 --> 00:52:16.559 of medieval monasteries and churches she would describe 761 00:52:16.559 --> 00:52:21.280 the um the uh the churches and and on the albanian near the 762 00:52:21.280 --> 00:52:25.040 albanian border and this was after 60 years her 763 00:52:25.040 --> 00:52:28.000 description was dead accurate i mean the way you know 764 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:31.359 the scaffolding that was set up so i would 765 00:52:31.359 --> 00:52:34.640 just read her description of a place before i got to the place and 766 00:52:34.640 --> 00:52:38.400 and it was startling you know after half a century 767 00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:45.920 how how bright on the mark she was there there's another writer who writes 768 00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:51.440 about the same part of the world patrick lee firmer um who i i also think 769 00:52:51.440 --> 00:52:54.880 is is wonderful and and 770 00:52:54.880 --> 00:52:58.400 and again the descript the description of particularly the 771 00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:04.720 the religious but both the sites and and the people um their devotion 772 00:53:04.720 --> 00:53:09.520 in various ways uh uh is is pretty extraordinary 773 00:53:09.520 --> 00:53:13.119 another amazing you know christ stopped at abilene that's another one about 774 00:53:13.119 --> 00:53:18.160 southern italy that's just beautiful 775 00:53:18.160 --> 00:53:23.280 right are there any any more questions elizabeth 776 00:53:23.280 --> 00:53:28.319 yes we have one um about escapism you spoke about the great 777 00:53:28.319 --> 00:53:31.599 feeling of escaping into a book or painting 778 00:53:31.599 --> 00:53:36.079 do you see elements of escapism on the rise due to current events or is this 779 00:53:36.079 --> 00:53:40.839 something you think has always attracted us to museums and 780 00:53:40.839 --> 00:53:44.880 libraries i don't know why that question makes me 781 00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:50.400 laugh it's a really good question i well of course i mean what you know 782 00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:53.839 there's so many pressures and there's so many 783 00:53:53.839 --> 00:53:58.079 frightening to be perfectly honest frightening things going on 784 00:53:58.079 --> 00:54:03.359 the uh the urge to escape i mean of course it's always been you 785 00:54:03.359 --> 00:54:05.200 know frightening things have always gone on but 786 00:54:05.200 --> 00:54:09.359 but but the pleasure of just getting away from it if even 787 00:54:09.359 --> 00:54:13.599 just in your head for a certain period of time is 788 00:54:13.599 --> 00:54:16.640 would naturally be attractive did it change 789 00:54:16.640 --> 00:54:20.720 did the pandemic change your reading habits at all 790 00:54:20.720 --> 00:54:24.400 i read changed my sleeping habits which in turn 791 00:54:24.400 --> 00:54:27.599 changed my reading camp so i read more in the middle of the night 792 00:54:27.599 --> 00:54:31.520 i mean it kept changing i mean for a while i was so upset that all i could 793 00:54:31.520 --> 00:54:35.839 read was were like uh sort of domestic novels 794 00:54:35.839 --> 00:54:39.760 written by women in the 1930s taking place in the countries i mean complete 795 00:54:39.760 --> 00:54:43.040 it was like eating cream of wheat but a little better than that for 796 00:54:43.040 --> 00:54:46.319 and then you know then i would read biographies and so on but 797 00:54:46.319 --> 00:54:50.880 uh but finally now finally no i mean they've it's always been the same like 798 00:54:50.880 --> 00:54:53.440 there are times when i just read all the time and then at times 799 00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:58.160 for some reason i can't read for a while and then i'll start reading 800 00:55:00.799 --> 00:55:06.480 so mine changed a little bit i used it as an excuse to to go back and 801 00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:09.760 and and re read things that i had always considered 802 00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:13.040 were were frivolous and i decided they weren't really frivolous 803 00:55:13.040 --> 00:55:18.319 like pg woodhouse um who i think is a great 804 00:55:18.319 --> 00:55:21.520 novelist of manners at the end at the end of the day 805 00:55:21.520 --> 00:55:28.480 um but i also tried tried reading anthony trollope um he knew he was right 806 00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:30.880 i've started i've started three or four times and i 807 00:55:30.880 --> 00:55:33.520 finally gotten into the middle of it that i have 808 00:55:33.520 --> 00:55:37.440 i can't read it i can't read trollo everyone's told me it's so great 809 00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:41.200 and it has to be the people lots of people i respect have told me it's great 810 00:55:41.200 --> 00:55:43.920 but i just but i just keep bouncing out of it and i 811 00:55:43.920 --> 00:55:47.040 don't know why i'm still stuck in the middle if you knew 812 00:55:47.040 --> 00:55:53.040 who was right i got that far anyway uh it's sitting on my bedside table 813 00:55:53.280 --> 00:56:01.599 to uh to pick it up again again so elizabeth any more questions 814 00:56:01.599 --> 00:56:05.680 we do uh we're nearing the top of the hour and we have one last question for 815 00:56:05.680 --> 00:56:08.319 you uh though i think you may want to spend 816 00:56:08.319 --> 00:56:12.960 a few more minutes on it but it's related to the last one and it says 817 00:56:12.960 --> 00:56:16.960 in this age of information when we are increasingly overwhelmed by 818 00:56:16.960 --> 00:56:21.599 digital content and misinformation what role do books 819 00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:25.040 or stories and storytelling play in the future 820 00:56:25.040 --> 00:56:32.640 of american culture and society wowie 821 00:56:33.200 --> 00:56:36.880 any other big questions out there i don't know i don't know 822 00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:41.280 i mean i just think i what do i think i mean they're not 823 00:56:41.280 --> 00:56:45.119 here's what i think they're not called humanities for nothing 824 00:56:45.119 --> 00:56:48.480 you know they're i mean humanity actually means something it means 825 00:56:48.480 --> 00:56:53.359 our our species and what it is that makes us 826 00:56:53.359 --> 00:56:59.920 the beings that we are and i think you know i i think you can't i think 827 00:56:59.920 --> 00:57:04.240 that books can help remind us of that i mean it's it's something else 828 00:57:04.240 --> 00:57:08.720 i mean i understand the way in which our phones and news 829 00:57:08.720 --> 00:57:12.000 addiction is telling a certain kind of story and 830 00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:15.760 books are still telling a different kind of story but 831 00:57:15.760 --> 00:57:19.119 but it's a story that's it's a kind of story that's been told 832 00:57:19.119 --> 00:57:24.079 for a very long time and we hope is going to continue to be because that's 833 00:57:24.079 --> 00:57:28.319 who we are as as again a species and um i don't know 834 00:57:28.319 --> 00:57:31.599 it's a comfort a little bit 835 00:57:32.160 --> 00:57:35.359 yeah that's your i think is reason number 836 00:57:35.359 --> 00:57:40.160 number ten number nine and your your ten reasons for the arts and humanities that 837 00:57:40.160 --> 00:57:43.920 is comfort or refuge and we certainly all 838 00:57:43.920 --> 00:57:48.880 needed needed that and and and can you could use some more of 839 00:57:48.880 --> 00:57:53.359 it so you know my my my advice is is keep reading francine 840 00:57:53.359 --> 00:57:56.799 pros and friends and pros keep writing i'll try 841 00:57:56.799 --> 00:58:00.480 and do that and everybody should thank you crosby 842 00:58:00.480 --> 00:58:03.280 thank you so much see thank you this has been a great 843 00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:08.640 conversation as always and thanks everyone for listening and 844 00:58:08.640 --> 00:58:11.680 watching thanks so much and as a reminder this 845 00:58:11.680 --> 00:58:14.520 conversation will be recorded and posted on 846 00:58:14.520 --> 00:58:17.920 imls.gov to close this out we actually had one more 847 00:58:17.920 --> 00:58:23.520 uh late question um um would love to know more about francine's 848 00:58:23.520 --> 00:58:27.040 frivolous reading to uh end on a light note uh francine if 849 00:58:27.040 --> 00:58:31.040 you want to share um a couple things oh yeah well i i mean 850 00:58:31.040 --> 00:58:35.520 for example there's an uh a writer named dorothy whipple who uh 851 00:58:35.520 --> 00:58:39.520 wrote in the 30s and 40s and she writes these domestic novels of 852 00:58:39.520 --> 00:58:44.000 and they're sort of like watching really good masterpiece 853 00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:48.240 theater tv but a little but better than that so i read everything she wrote and 854 00:58:48.240 --> 00:58:51.520 then for other reasons i read i had to go and i 855 00:58:51.520 --> 00:58:55.839 reread molly keane it was an irish novelist from the 50s and so forth 856 00:58:55.839 --> 00:59:00.400 it was very very funny and very dark actually but very funny so i 857 00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:04.160 don't know i just i i mean maybe frivolous was the wrong 858 00:59:04.160 --> 00:59:08.880 word but it was just they they were just they were amusing 859 00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:14.400 and distracting and to be honest all i could handle at that point 860 00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:18.880 although mollyking is i i could handle at any point yeah she 861 00:59:18.880 --> 00:59:22.400 she's a wonderful writer i think she's being republished now oh yeah new york 862 00:59:22.400 --> 00:59:25.280 review books is published is uh publishing good behavior which is 863 00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:30.640 her great great novel super fun being a funny i mean 864 00:59:30.640 --> 00:59:38.960 no kidding damn family breakdown uh well thank you i guess is that is 865 00:59:38.960 --> 00:59:41.359 that elizabeth where are we that's it thanks 866 00:59:41.359 --> 00:59:45.520 so much everyone for attending and francine thank you thank you thanks 867 00:59:45.520 --> 00:59:48.160 so much thanks thank all of you take care 868 00:59:48.160 --> 00:59:55.280 everyone thanks