move out

On the heels of new short fiction, below, also got some new short nonfiction, too. Quick essay, me fantasizing what it would be like if I could talk in business meetings the way I used to talk in the army.

What else? Fiona stopped by the Statue of Liberty recently, and re-created one of her favorite pictures. Not too shabby. She added the Elton shades to mix two of her top heros at the same time.

And Kristina moved back to Burlington last week, leaving behind a very sad Farleys Bookshop, where she has been in residence (literally) for the past year, in addition to many years of employment there beforehand. She leaves behind a score of notes and illustrations all around the place...

Happy summer!

hardy, berlin, lomax, farleys...

Great picture of Jack Hardy above was taken by Brian Rose just a few months before Jack's untimely death one year ago. When I heard about Jack's death I wrote this long post. My old pal Jon Colcord (a fellow veteran, Hardy fan, one of the guys I dedicated The Ice Beneath You to, and a folk dj up in New Hampshire) got in touch recently and asked if I would read the piece for a Hardy tribute show he was doing. I did, and you can hear it here. An all-around terrific show that Jon put together...a good remembrance if you're a Hardy fan, and a good introduction if like so many others you're just getting into him now. Jack always said that the dead get fatter royalty checks.

In other news, I'm in Berlin this morning. I've been to Germany a few times before, but this is my first time in Berlin. I've always fascinated by Germany and the Germans. In World War 2 my grandfather was a US Army sergeant posted at a German POW camp (ironically right down the road from Ft Eustis, Virginia, where I would spend my 4 years in the service), and he befriended some of the former German soldiers...all of them working class, like him, pulled into the German war machine. The year I lived in India when I was a kid I discovered Robert Ludlum, and (like the Bourne movie writers who came later) realized what a great setting this country is for a thriller. Of course some of my German curiosity stems from ethnicity. Although I always felt a stronger psychic kinship with my Irish roots, the fact is that when your name is Christian William Bauman at some point you just can't get away from the fact that your blood is at least partially German. I wish I knew more about my German side. But whoever those Baumans were they came to the States a long time ago. Unlikely that I will ever know more. Anyway, just a few months ago I read In the Garden of Beasts, the eerie history by Erik Larson of an American family living in Berlin in the beginning of the Third Reich. Their neighborhood is where my hotel is. Directly across the street from my hotel is the building that was the headquarters of the German army in the war. It opens onto a courtyard where the 1944 coup leaders were shot.

But enough of that ancient history and evil times. I love Germany and am enjoying Berlin. And spring must be coming...James Taylor is on his way.

What else? Well, if you want a good way to kill a whole year (or maybe a whole decade), you can lose yourself here: they put the entire Alan Lomax archive online.

And finally, a little bit ago I wrote about Jim Farley passing away, and my love of his bookstore. There's a cool article about Farleys here, with the whole history.

radioactivity and two of my favorite people

Two of my favorite people here...one a buddy (Gregg), and one a stranger (Pierre, more on him below). Picture is from backstage at New Hope's 2012 Winterfest concert, always a good time. Winterfest isn't exactly Quebec's Carnival, but hey we try. Anyway, that's Gregg Cagno on the left. If you're reading this blog it's likely you know who he is, but here's one thing I wrote about Gregg. (That link goes to the original blog entry...jpg of the magazine article is below, just right-click it and expand.)

The guy on the right in that B&W pic above is Pierre Robert, quite simply the world's greatest DJ/broadcaster/radio concierge...whatever you want to call it. I'm very old school with radio, and consider "DJ" to be a compliment, so we'll call it that. Anyway, in my definition of things, Pierre has ascended from being one of the world's most unique and lovable DJs to assuming the throne of "simply the best." It helps that the station he's on, WMMR in Philadelphia, is one of the country's last great commercial stations. It's not freeform exactly, but it's as close as you can come in major commercial broadcasting. (In fact, Pierre did a brilliant broadcast on Thanksgiving weekend this year where he mapped the station's "Everything That Rocks" mantra and did this generational connections thing where he spun triple-plays of seemingly unrelated but oh-so-related-in-his-mind songs, all of which were about ten years apart from each other. I'm not doing a good job of describing it, but it was kick-ass. The fact that it started with an impassioned monologue on and song from CSN and then went on in the course of the hour+ to include Foo Fighters, Green Day, blah blah you name it...all wrapped in Pierre's wit and wisdom...lovely.) These days I'm 41 and old and if I'm in the car I tend to be NPR news on WHYY (mornings) or god-i-need-a-drink jazz on WRTI (evenings...home of the second greatest radio concierge, "BP with the GM")...but if I'm cruising around on the weekend, the odds are good that I need to rock out loud, and it's a comfort to know that WMMR is always there for me.

But back to Pierre, through a slight digression first.

It's a little known fact but I am a radio obsessive. When I was a boy, my father was in radio, both as a DJ and then later as a suit. And even as a suit, he usually kept his hand in as a broadcaster, wherever he was. My father is a whole other story that I don't want to get into right now, but of the few positive things he introduced into my life, radio was probably the biggest one. I could cue a record and run a board when I was 7 years old, skills I learned both directly and indirectly from him, at a slew of stations across the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, as well as the old WIFI in Philly (and all the other stations that filled 1 Bala Plaza, where I wandered unnoticed while my distractable Dad took phone calls or did whatever it was that he did), and a couple of religious stations whose call letters I forget. When I was pre-teen I built my own radio studio in the attic of my mom and step-father's house (no, it didn't actually work, but that's besides the point) where I would quite happily spend entire summer days (let's be honest, entire summer weeks) reading the news and commercial spots (all written by me) and spinning records. As the songs played I indulged my other obsession: reading. I'm sure psychologically all of this was supposed to bring me closer to my Dad or some shit. The side result was three things: 1. A huge and useless backlog of lyrics and liner notes that I still have memorized; 2. A huge amount of novels read at a very young age; 3. A deep and abiding love of all things radio.

I had a shortwave, which was amazing. And AM was amazing (for some reason getting a midnight broadcast from Singapore on shortwave or a midnight broadcast from Chicago on AM was equally cool to me). But as I entered my teen years my late-night radio listening began to focus more and more on FM, and where I lived there were only two stations that mattered: an hour north of me, Z95 in Allentown, and an hour south of me, the mighty WMMR in Philadelphia. My entree into WMMR was the legendary (and still rocking) Michael Tearson, and his late-night "For Headphones Only" show. Too much fun. But the guy who nailed it, the guy who symbolized everything I thought rock radio should be, was the guy who was on mid-day (then, later on, mornings, which made no sense, and now back mid-day again). An hour might go by and Pierre Robert might say very little...or he might just decide to talk for a full hour, which was just as awesome. He was about community, he was about equality ("Excuse me, fellow citizen..."). He knew more about arcane music facts than any other human being I'd ever heard, and he sprinkled the knowledge like shiny diamonds across the landscape of his broadcasts. He was generous. And, if you listened to him over the years, it was also clear that he loved radio as much as I did. Without a doubt my favorite Pierre Robert broadcast was similar to the Thanksgiving weekend broadcast I described above in that I heard it quite by accident, because due to circumstances I wasn't able to listen to Pierre much at the time (like now, honestly). Looking at the Wikipedia entry, this broadcast would have been in January 2004. It was Pierre describing the memorial service for Ed Sciaky, that he had just attended. Ed was another legendary Philly DJ, also with time at WMMR, but people my age probably more closely identified him with WYSP. Pierre spent a long time just talking about Ed Sciaky and his life and his love of music and radio, and then talked of all the amazingly diverse radio folks who came out to pay tribute...all the rock guys, of course, but also people like Ed Cunningham from WHYY (small side note on him below).

Anyway, Pierre has just always symbolized everything cool in Philadelphia ("always" self-servingly defined in my Generation X context). I remember being in high school and going with Gregg (remember him? See up top) to see Tom Petty and Bob Dylan at the old Spectrum (as I recall, Dylan sucked and Petty rocked) but seeing Pierre in person up on the second level was as cool as the concert itself. It's just a very simple outcome from an impossible-to-duplicate formula: when you turn on your radio and Pierre is there, it makes you happy. What could be better than that. The promise of radio, citizens...it's a beautiful thing.

+++

Last side note: to prove just how large of a radio geek I am, is this small story: Knowing what a radiohead I am, it should be no surprise to you that the number 2 and 3 coolest things that ever happened in my writing career weren't book related but were being a guest on Terry Gross and the approximately 10 or so commentaries I did for All Things Considered (those were #2 and #3 respectively). But what was #1? I was in the lobby of WHYY, waiting to be interviewed by Terry Gross, when who comes walking past me but Ed Cunningham, this giant voice of radio from my youth and still broadcasting today. Ed was concerned about the weather and asked the receptionist if he would need an umbrella. As he walked to the door he happened to glance at the visitor's couches where I sat, and he said, "Hi there." That was cool moment #1 with a bullet.

time to mind the pollacks

Very cold and very snowy this weekend. I was sitting by the fire yesterday, avoiding writing, and came across this very good, recent interview with Neal Pollack. The interview referenced an older interview with Mr. Pollack (follow the links, I'm too lazy to do it all here) which I distinctly remember, especially the opening line, which I loved. All of us loved Neal Pollack back then, and if you didn't then you didn't get it, and if you don't anymore, then I'm afraid you probably didn't really back then either. Jesus, that didn't make any sense. Sorry.

Although it has been a long time since I've heard from him, Neal and I were friendly once, in that Y2k-uber-email way of a decade ago. I forget exactly how we connected, but it was probably through Atrios. Neal and I were both rabble-rousing back then, and Atrios often hosted our individual rants. As one of very very few pissed-off writers back then who had actually been to war, I was skeptical of everyone. Neal took about two sentences of Neal Prose to win me over.

Neal was a god when those of us in our generation who write needed a god. He was an organic god, real and smelly and not something you would bring home to meet the folks, so to speak. He wasn't presented to us by the Times or the Guardian or the New Yorker, he made no best seller list, there was nothing sanitized about him. Which of course did him no good in the end, but it was good for the rest of us. Even better, he was genuinely a kick-ass person, at least that bit of him I got to witness. He cared. He would tell you to fuck off, but he cared.

I think I only met him in person once (the same night of my singular meeting with the aforementioned Atrios), at the old 215 Literary Festival in Philly. Right around when The Ice Beneath You was published. We were on the bill together, and I walked into the joint, a pretentious early hipster hole, and I thought to myself "Fuck, I can't spend the evening with a bunch of people who think it's retro cool to drink Pabst." At that moment, an angry man yelled across the bar, "Oh for fuck's sake...Pabst? Really?" That was Neal, and I was glad to meet him. He opened a door or two for me, or tried, and I appreciated that. I hope I did the same for him, but I don't know. I was very naive, and he was light-years ahead of me. A few years later he really pissed me off with something, which he is probably completely unaware of, but it hardly matters. He's a killer writer, a better and more honest person than a slew of our better-known peers, and I hope it all works out for him (which means I hope he keeps writing, and makes a living doing it).

stoneham-et-tewkesberry

A hairy crimble and a snappy goo year from Stoneham. Above, Fiona about to light out for the territories. Below, the view from the window at a mostly empty Feu Follett late on Christmas night, enjoying a good dinner while we welcomed some much needed powder from the sky. Another bunch expected today through tomorrow, fingers crossed.

hypothermia reunion

So... we actually did it. The Friday after turkey day, 25 years (give or take) after our last gig, we set up shop at the Pattenburg Inn off of ol' Route 78. The sign to the left there pretty much says it all. Bang for your buck, my friends. Bang for your buck.

Let me just say, I had a great time. Twenty years without drumsticks in my hands and I'd forgotten how much fun it is to pound the shit out of a 5-piece drum kit. And whatever instrument, there's not much more fun than plugging your way through some good ol rock and roll with a bunch of guys who never fail to crack you up. No one can make you laugh like guys you went to high school with. No hiding from those fellas. Mike, Matt, Karl, Gregg...all good, man. All good.

So, we came out swinging...literally, me flailing away at those cymbals. Who's gonna tell me to keep it quiet? My music teacher from high school who was sitting at the bar, perhaps. But he kindly kept it to himself.

One good long set, then we took a break, drank some beer, polished up the cowbells. After the break we did a little acoustic set. I even sang a few.

Then back behind the drums for the second set. Karl strapped on a squeezebox for "Squeezebox." Priceless. And love the shot over the bottles below.

If you missed it, here's a clip from Matt's movie, this clip about the history of Hypothermia, with some painful footage of my 16-year-old hairstyle choice and a cowbell-less "Don't Fear the Reaper" from the stage at North Hunterdon High School.

And the music aside, it was so great to see so many people I haven't seen in such a long time. This was about the closest I've come to a high school reunion, and it was really cool to see Nic, Virg, Graham, Nancy (or rather, N. Elise), Kenny C.... Everything I wrote here a few years ago basically sums it up.

i'm no better a drummer at 41 than i was at 16

Oh, the horror. Oh, the humanity. Cats and dogs, living together. Cowbells will be rung.

You know...I think Hypothermia must have been a much more influential band than we realized back in 1986. An article in this week's New Yorker says that Occupy Wall Street might fail due to "the pressure of hypothermia." Damn.

See you on Black Friday. More info here.

In other news, speaking of Occupy Wall Street, my friend Chris Hedges has been up to some mischief.

And in other other news, five years after having it painted, we finally got the sign up yesterday. It's got nothing to do with education. It's Gaelic, for "The Dog House."

farleys forever

I stopped in at Farleys Bookshop the other night for a wine & cheese & cigar memorial for owner Jim Farley, who passed away last week. I didn't really know Jim, but boy do I know his shop and some of the people he's cultivated. Farleys Bookshop -- half a block in from the Delaware River in New Hope -- is almost a piece of fiction itself, or, rather, from a piece of fiction. It is so good, so perfect, that it doesn't seem possible that it exists in the modern world. It calls to mind a little bit of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop, but, more, something out of Dickens. Or a shop found deep inside Diagon Alley. That Farleys is the best book store in the greater Philadelphia area is without question; to me, it is the best book store in the country. It is wood and plaster and towering, teetering stacks and aisles too narrow for those widely hipped. If you get invited upstairs for some reason the stacks become mountains; these are decades worth of galleys and advance reader copies, which any bookstore gets ten of a day. Any normal merchant would throw most of these out. But not at Farleys. Because who can throw out a book? Indeed. You may read inside of Farleys, for as long as you need to, without fear of raised eyebrows or grublmed admonition.

When I was a boy growing up in Hunterdon County, across the river, a winter day in Farleys was to slip the bounds of reality into a transcendent universe ruled by the greater magisterium of literature and language. When my first novel was published and The New York Times photographer came to snap the requisite so-serious-young-author photo, it was in front of a leaning Farleys stack that I posed. The happiest book release party I ever had (In Hoboken) was in the back room there. And still, when I need to disappear for while, it is on my top five list of locations from which to vanish. In a town with an abnormally large population of writers -- living and ghosts -- Farleys is the nexus around which we all orbit.

Not just real estate, though. People...Rebekah Farley...Julian...they seem to know where everything is. Books and otherwise. I'm prejudiced, of course. One of my daughters works there. But still. In what sounds like an overall interesting life (he went to seminary with Mr. Rogers...he lived in Paris), building Farleys was an achievement for which we could never thank Jim Farley enough.

In other news, last weekend I took the picture below. That's Fiona, just below the top lip of Trail 41 (a blue) on the new mountain at Stoneham, in Quebec. It was the height of perfect autumn in Quebec last weekend, 70 degrees with no humidity and clear blue skies (for the most part). So strange and funny to see this place that I have only ever seen under four feet of snow, sans snow.

From the wildflowers of Quebec, I arrived back home in New Hope on Monday to garden flowers in a vase, picked by Kristina while I was gone. Not impressed by the flowers is Ms. Thing, who is generally not impressed by much.

there is a town in north ontario

As August naps its way toward completion, Bill Donahue and I had a long chat about where I live and why. He distilled that down into this piece. But as it turns out, I'm currently not where I live right now. I'm here:

Staying there (look up). Doing this (look right). And walking, and fishing, and a lot of eating. No shortage of sleeping, either. Spending a lot of time thinking about someone in Boston.

Here for another few days. Then in the car headed southeast to take a peek at Niagara Falls, from the Canadian side. Last there when I was six, I believe. I wonder if it will remember me.

Ontario is nice. For the last 15 years or so we've spent part of each February in Quebec. The Canadians got it going on. They just do. When the zombie apocalypse hits, look for me here. Actually, don't look for me here, because you might bring something unwanted with you. But here is where I will be.

a tough week to be a folksinger

About a decade before I published In Hoboken, the great songwriter Bill Morrissey published his first (and tragically, last) novel, Edson, expertly edited by the legendary Gary Fisketjon. Reading that novel was a lot like diving into one of Bill's songs. Interestingly (to me, anyway), one of the sub-themes of Edson was parallel to an In Hoboken sub-theme: one generation of musicians coming to grips/terms with another. Just that the point of view was reversed (one looking down, one looking up). Bill Morrissey sure had a way with words, and it's a good read, if you get a chance. I found out this week that Mr. Morrissey passed away. So close on the heels of Jack Hardy it just doesn't seem fair. I didn't know Bill Morrissey, but I knew his songs for sure. It's a sad thing.

In the same week, we lost Dan Peek. You may remember him as one third of the original America. Funny thing...because Dan was gone from the band for so long, I tend to think of America as just Gerry and Dewey. But Dan Peek wrote my favorite America song, "Rainy Day." Cagno taught me how to play that, a very long time ago. If you get a chance, the NY Times obit of Dan is a good read. The others I read just pissed me off, with descriptions of America as that "soft, vanilla good-times band from the 70s." Really? Come on. Why does America always get the "CSN-lite" label? Too easy. Go back and listen to those first handful of albums (produced, by the way, by the great George Martin...and he didn't work with just anyone). Killer songwriting. Great musicianship. They're a kick-ass band. Always were. And Gerry and Dewey are still out working it.

Anyway, a moment for the late, great Bill Morrissey, and a moment for the late, great Dan Peek.

on a mission from god

Anyone who knows about me and music would probably picture something like this image. Backstage at the legendary Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, circa 1995ish. Which explains the hair-do. (My bad hair aside, I loved the Lena. Played there bookoo between 95 and 99...alone a handful of times, opened for the late great Odetta there, and of course Camp Hoboken.)

But this year, when I say "We're getting the band back together," it ain't folkie, and I don't have to change any guitar strings. Long before I hopped the decade-long endless Greyhound Bus trip in search of Woody Guthrie, I played drums in Hypothermia (named for the cold loft where we practiced), our high school cover band (our being: me, Gregg Cagno, Karl Dietel, Matt Angus Williams, and Mike Slaven, plus others who came and went). And Matt called a few months ago to say those very words: we're putting the band back together. Mission from God. For one night, anyway. The Friday night after Thanksgiving, this coming November. Problem is, I haven't played drums in 20+ years, I didn't play particularly well even when I was playing regularly, and I don't have a drum set. Well, I can't fix the first two problems, but we got the third one licked. Fiona and I drove up to Chez Angus a few weeks ago and picked up a 5-piece he's loaning us for the summer. And so...I started test driving.

Lordy, how my neighbors love me! They just can't get enough. Fiona's digging in, too...see below. One thing I had forgotten: how truly satisfying it is to bang the shit out of drums after a long day. I may not BE good, but I FEEL good.

the best tool in hitchhiking

Fiona above, demonstrating what it feels like to live with four dogs. Pictures and thousands of words and all that. Yep.

We're deep in spring here in Pennsylvania. Wet and green. A few things...

I'd like to thank the kids and teachers of Solebury School (esp Lauren Janis and Scott Eckstein) who made feel so welcome on Friday when I spent some time with them. We talked about "real life" to fiction and other scary prospects.

What else? I ran the Broad Street Run in Philly a few weeks ago. Context: this is a 10-mile run. I haven't run 10 miles since Fort Eustis, more than fifteen years ago. Still, 10 miles isn't the end of the world, or so I told myself. Easy to train for. Except for the whole popping out of the shoulder while skiing incident this winter, which kept me from training for anything. Still, I'm stubborn like that, so showed up for the run anyway. And finished! In just under 2 hours. Couldn't walk for the rest of the week, but what the hell.

And speaking of Fort Eustis...yeah, I was planning on going to this, and who knows perhaps I'll still be able to make it, but at the moment it doesn't look good. Really bummed. As said above, it's been 15 years, and I haven't been back since. Fingers crossed. But if I don't make it this year, will absolutely be there next year.

And the title of this post? This was a quote I heard on All Things Considered the other day, an interview with a kid hitchhiking in Texas. He said the best tool in hitchhiking is a smile. Ain't that the truth. Keep it in mind. We all gotta stick our thumb out sooner or later.

***

Oh yeah, important update: the mighty Hypothermia returns! Day after Thanksgiving. Somewhere near Clinton, NJ. Stay tuned.

sing hallelujah, for the guttersnipe lives

I am devestated to learn that my friend Jack Hardy has passed away. Linda Sharar just called with the news. Jack and I hadn't talked in about 2 years, and I didn't know he was sick. Our last communication was a letter he sent me about 2 years ago, a great, long, Hardy letter, giving me his opinion on my turning him into "Geoff Mason" in In Hoboken, and reminiscing about some of the old days; it was a great letter, like the kind he used to write me when I was a soldier in Somalia...and that great letter has been sitting on my desk since the day I got it, waiting for me to respond. Ah, Jack. I'm sorry, man. I'm having trouble imagining the world without you in it. I don't even know what to say. At a complete loss.

UPDATE: The Times ran an obituary of Jack yesterday. I think he would have been pleased, although he would have grumbled about the innaccuracies and the stuff left out. "Fucking journalists and editors," he would have sneered...although with a small twinkle in his eye to show how pleased he was that the thing got done. Let me put it this way: if the Times hadn't run an obit of him, I believe he would have haunted them.

One thing I'd like to say (and this isn't just to avoid the haunting I deserve for failing to reply to Jack's last letter to me...in fact, I'd love a haunting, Jack, if you could arrange it). But here's the thing: the press and everyone talks about Jack as a mentor, and influence, and the guy who had the weekly songwriter's dinners, and the guy who founded Fast Folk. That's what everyone always says about Jack. What I'd like to hear a little more of, and what I'd like to talk about now, is Jack as an artist. So let me just say this: Jack was an incredible artist. To call him a poet is akin to saying Dylan Thomas liked an evening nightcap. He was a master carver of words, slicing and sorting the lyrics like he sliced and carved his subjects. And Jack was an incredible performer. He had a beautiful voice, a great tenor that could go higher than you'd imagine if you knew him, and then dip all scratchy into spooky nether-regions. He was funny, and could hold an audience in his palm. He was a journeyman, and this was his craft. We all learned from him. Way back in the day, I used to marvel at Gorka's stage presence, and the technical brilliance of it, and take notes (yes, literally)...the way he owned and controlled a vocal microphone, for instance. I knew Jack, then, but had not seem him perform in public. One night Jack came out to Godfrey Daniels for a rare night there, and we all barrelled out to see him. And goddamn if it didn't become instantly clear that JG had cribbed directly from Jack's playbook. Very cool.

That aside, in my opinion Jack was at his best around a campfire. With a Texas (or Massacussetts or Colorado) dark breeze blowing and the fire popping and just a shadow of his face visible...that was Jack's realm. That's where I'll remember him.

As I said above, it was Linda who called to tell me about Jack's death. I'm glad it was her. Besides the comfort of hearing it from a friend rather than in the paper, I think Lonnie had a similar place in her heart for Jack as I did, in her own way. Our times as regulars in his apartment didn't overlap, actually, but we were both relatively young when we met Jack, both had mixed feelings, both grew to love him in our own ways. I wrote her an email the other night, trying to talk about that. I loved Jack, plain and simply. Some if it was idolization, and I'm okay with that. But his acceptance of me (you see, he didn't accept everyone) so early on, when I wasn't all that good frankly, his ability to see the flame of something in me below all the smoke, his willingness to have me around and encouragement, meant so much to me. I was a basic wreck of a human being at 19, 20, 21 years old (the years of my life I consistently attended the weekly gatherings in his apartment), and Jack's encouragement meant the world to me. Jack made me feel like I had something worth offering, when the picture couldn't have looked more different. And the fact that some people thought he was an asshole only endeared me to him more. He once referred to me on a radio show or article or something as a fellow ne'er-do-well, and I consider it one of the greatest compliments I ever received. I'm so sad today. Pasta and asparagus and olive oil, and come on by anytime, Jack. I could use a haunting. Did I mention I was pleased to meetcha?

(If you don't know Jack's work and are intimidated by the volume of stuff available when you search online, just order the single CD "Retrospective" from Brambus Records in Germany. No, you can't get it on itunes. Buy the CD, pay the foreign premium, and listen to this work of art. And then go buy "The Passing" from Prime CD records, which you can get on itunes, I believe.)

best nonrequired reading

I just found out a nonfiction piece of mine from last year got a nice "Notable" mention in the 2010 Best Nonrequired Reading. The essay is called "Our Father," and can be found through this link to it at the NY Times.

What's the piece about? Hard to say. Here's how it's described at Identity Theory, who published it: Entwined contemplations of author Chris Hedges (War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning) and former ad-man Bruce Bauman, and their respective relationships to this essay’s author (a ne’er-do-well novelist and ex-soldier); one poem by Gerald Stern and that poet’s perceptions of God and Paul Giamatti; the writing process of an older book by Hedges (wherein there be soldiers) and the contents of a more recent book by Hedges (wherein there be Fascists); Ocean City, New Jersey tongue-talkers who later go on to become hosts of the 700 Club; what it means to be a born-again Episcopalian Jew; Ralph Nader’s time in the army; and trying quite unsuccessfully to stop the war in Iraq.

Yep. That's about it. Easy. As easy as anything about your family can be.

Anyway, my great thanks to Identity Theory for publishing it, as well as publishing a whole slew of my stuff over the past 10 years. Matt B and his friends are great people, and IDt should be on your weekly reading list.

no snow yet, but soon

Bacon bagel sandwiches on this Christmas Eve morning, and tonight: our time-honored Indian buffet in front of the wood stove. Presents in the morning, then the long drive to Vermont. Merry Crimble and a Happy Goo Year.

boo!

The occasion of this -- the only known photo with two Baumans smiling at the same time -- was sitting on the tailgate celebrating the successful move-in of Kristina and Logan to their new studio apartment in Lambertville. They got a great place, just steps from the best sandwiches in the river towns: Ennis deli (which I wrote about in this essay). They'll be around for a year, and then we'll see where their adventures take them...

It's so good to have Krissy local again, though. She came over yesterday with a new bow and arrow set. When asked where she acquired the weaponry, she answered with the immortal words of Timmy Turner: "Internet."

Krissy, Fiona, and friend Lexi pummeled the hell out of a cardboard box for an hour or so. Very, very fun. Scared the cat.

And then when the sun went down, it was over to Gayle's for annual pumpkin carving. A smaller group this year, but good to see everyone, and some wicked jack-o-lanterns as a result. We lit them all and scattered them around the garden afterward, then sat by the fire and drank our beer and watched the pumpkins flicker and glow. Tonight, back to Lambertville for the main event. Happy Halloween, y'all.

prepare to be boarded!

That's pretty much the best possible title for the pic below... "prepare to be boarded." What could be more menacing than our band of 11-year-old pirates stalking a rusty shipwreck? Nice. (Ignore the drowning 40-year-old novelist in the foreground.)


Many many thanks to Marrit and Anneke Gorter and family for hosting us in Aruba (and the trip to the secret beach!). What a cool place, and what a cool family.

A good summer all around. Busy, like no summer before. But no shortage of nice moments. My nephew and niece CJ and Samantha Wagner are kicking serious butt
in the world of golf. They passed through Pennsylvania last month and we got to see CJ play (that's him to the right). I don't know much about golf beyond cocktails and golf carts, but sure am proud of those two.

What else? Matt Walker and I are valiantly progressing at snail's pace toward a finished screenplay for The Ice Beneath You. It's been a cool experience, working with Matt on this. It almost doesn't matter if we ever finish...the process is a good time. But finish we will, and soon, I think.

And I've set a goal for end of autumn to finish The Dog House. And I mean it. Really. I do. And I will. Watch me.

I have to, actually. Because I'm ready to go back and finish The Night Door. It's had enough time to marinate. But that's a winter book, so I need to be ready to do it by winter. And I can't do it until I finish Dog House. So there it is.

And that's about it, I guess. Except: I can't stop listening to Peter Mulvey's Notes From Elsewhere and Kitchen Radio albums lately. Check em, if you haven't. Peter's as good an album as any to slip into autumn with, and those two in particular are good slip-into-autmn albums. Know Peter's stuff? No? You should. Really. I wrote about him in this piece I did for The New York Times around the time when In Hoboken came out. He's the most, indeed.

Additional note: Over at Ward Six, the blog of novelists J. Robert Lennon and Rhian Ellis, a discussion on Kindles and iPads and Hardbacks and Paperbacks. My comment to this discussion was easy to write because it seems this is Topic #1 these days for many writers. And then a conversation about why we (writers) do this, and who do we do it for.

"he didn't do well at academics"

As a boy, Saturday night was huge fun because it meant I'd get to listen to A Prairie Home Companion while eating dinner. From that one sentence, you can pretty much extrapolate how I feel about Garrison Keillor. So you should be able to tell what this means to me (scroll down after the link). Thanks, Garrison. I couldn't think of a cooler 40th birthday present.

a pirate looks at forty

A PIRATE LOOKS AT FORTY, or, REMEMBERING ALICIA'S APARTMENT, NORTHAMPTON, MA (a long post, go get a coffee)

This is the forty-eight-hour period when Kristina turns twenty-two and I turn…well, you know. (The pic here of the two of us is from a few years back, on the Upper West Side, I think. I was still in my "fat Bauman" phase, yikes. But Krissy looks fierce, in the best possible way. I love it.)

My title above is a slight tweaking of a Jimmy Buffet title (“A Pirate’s Look at Forty”). Love the song, but always thought Jimmy put an “s” in the wrong place. Stronger this way. Not that Jimmy asked me. But it’s my post, so I’ll put the “s” where I please. Jimmy will understand.

As a brief aside, I always liked Jimmy Buffet. Back in the day, Jimmy was an ass-kicker, and still somewhat obscure. We loved him, down at Fort Eustis, Virginia, back in the early 1990s. Can’t think of a better songwriter for a bunch of slightly crazed waterborne soldiers. This was an environment, after all, where lines like “This morning, I shot six holes in my freezer” (from “Boat Drinks”) and “I have been drunk now for over two weeks” (the aforementioned “Pirate”) held no shock factor but were simply straight journalism about us. Jimmy was singing about how we lived, and we didn’t think much about it.

Eventually, I left behind the sea dogs and pirates of army life and fell in with a different group of ne’er-do-wells. Musicians and artists, and those brave or unfortunate enough to live with us. The violence slipped away, but the alcohol consumption didn’t decrease much. We moved in expanding and contracting circles with a magnet somewhere in Massachusetts holding our center of gravity loosely in place. We were very young and had no idea we were very young.

Who among us thought -- did any of us have even an inkling of premonition -- that the age of forty was a possibility? Did any of us see us at forty? That would have been hard to see, us gathered in a cold apartment kitchen on a Northampton morning, tousle-haired and sock feet with sweaters layered and bacon sizzling and coffee pressed so strong. The Story on their second album, from a cassette deck on the counter, those harmonies and alternate tunings floating behind our brave and limitless winter. Could any of us in that room have cut through the thick-pad gauze of slow collective hangover, still wrapped in the fumes of the night’s tequila, cut through to see us at forty?

Us, pulled apart and pulled back together over and over in the fifteen years of future to come, passed through madness, sadness, marriage, divorce, death, childbirth, babies.

And could any of us been so prescient as to know that this music we were hearing for the first time, this music that pointed us toward the future, would someday point backward, that all of us in the kitchen so alive would be ghosts soon, and this music would speak not of the tomorrow we were desperately trying to channel and control and own but a yesterday we would desperately be trying to remember?

Of course eventually we do gather in kitchens again, in smaller groups, those of us who made it this far. Our popcorn turned to pasta, beer turned to wine. In quieter conversations, and more averse to risk. I used to laugh the frenetic laugh of the perpetually nervous. That, thankfully, has changed for the better. Although I’m not sure any of us are any less scared; simply afraid of different things.

...and with a double major, so there

She did it! Artist, photographer, author, anthropologist, traveler, sympathetic friend, recovering skier, forgiving daughter, all-around wicked cool woman, the only person in the world whose name is inked permanently on my arm...and now college graduate. Kristina bid adieu to UVM on Sunday. It was a ridiculously beautiful morning in Vermont, and a splendid time was had by all.

Two of my favorite essays I ever wrote for All Things Considered were about Kristina. It's not easy writing about family. In fact, it's not easy being in a family. I could never, ever capture complex, beautiful Kristina in a piece of writing. Impossible. But memories help put a picture together, even an imperfect picture. This one from 2004 is really just a reminder of how far we've all come. But this one from 2003 is hands-down my favorite thing I wrote for NPR. When I think of my "little Krissy" and how patient and amazing and curious and smart and funny she was (all those traits just strengthened since then), this is the memory I have.

And now back home. Nothing more telling that life is back to normal than this: I walked in the door last night to find a big bag of Poly-Fil on the kitchen table, this white fluffy synthetic stuff. I said, "What's up with this?" The answer: "Fiona decided today she needed to make voodoo dolls." Of course.

april and everything after

Hard to believe, but about a month ago things still looked like that in Pennsylvania. That's the view out of my kitchen door, Buddha the chow/lab in the far distance. And this weekend? 75 and sunny. We spent Easter at Peace Valley Park with burgers and beers. Nice.

In other news: My favorite local bookstore is Farleys, where daughter Kristina works when she's home from college. Anyway, Krissy sent along this pic that a Farleys colleague took in Paris, of The Ice Beneath You in the used bin at Shakespeare & Co. I love it. Funny thing: I remember right around the time that Ice came out (back in 2002!), some journalist asked me what "success" as a novelist would look like to me. My answer was that success would be my book or books ending up as beat-up and abused paperbacks in the backpacks and messenger bags of high school and college kids and travelers and beach bums. So, the used bin at Shakespeare & Co is very good news indeed.

Speaking of Ice, it's been one of the things keeping me silent here for so long. I've been working on a sceenplay of it, with my friend Matt Walker. Matt was the editor at Simon & Schuster who bought Ice. He later went on to other professions and other things, and we thought it would be fun to take a whack at adapting my first book. (There were Ice movie false starts back when the novel first came out...I'll tell those stories someday if the movie ever gets made.) I've never written a screenplay before, so this has been a fun education. We'll see what happens. If nothing else, it's been great to mind-meld with Mr. Walker.

What else? Speaking of Kristina, the poor thing ripped her ACL when we were in Quebec this February. Very very painful. She finally had surgery...and then fell on it a week later. As the short guy in Princess Bride says: inconceivable! There are some really horrific pictures of her knee she sent me. I was going to post one here...but in a moment of clarity have now thought better of it. She says she's doing somewhat better and limping along. Not how she wanted to spend her last 6 weeks in college, I'm sure. Poor kid.

And what else? My new colleague and friend Jeff Goldberg has a delicious tale of removing his wedding band here. And my other new colleague and friend John Foti has a pretty cool new album here.

c.t. tucker...he did what he did

I'm saddened to learn about the death of C.T. Tucker (Tucker Hartshorne), one of the strangest, funniest, most genuine human beings I've ever met. Even trying to describe WHO Tucker was is difficult, which makes me smile right there. To many, Tucker was a musician first and foremost, frontman of the legendary Blue Sparks From Hell (see pic to left). He was also a businessman and musician supporter...for years he owned Tucker's Breakfast King in Long Valley, NJ, which on weekend evenings became Rosie's Cabaret (named for his pig, Rosie). Tucker was kind and generous at times when few others were. Blunt and truthful, too. (Said to me one evening, two minutes or less before I took the stage: "You gonna tune that thing...or is that your thing? If it's your thing, to be untuned, I mean, then please get a new thing." God bless ya, Tucker.) Tucker was also an animal lover, and successful animal trainer for Hollywood and NY etc.

For my readers, you should know that Tucker played a role in my novel In Hoboken, although not in an obvious way. It's not his character in the book, but his language. The repeating line "We do what we do," attributed at various times to the characters of James and Thatcher, was classic Tucker. I believe I heard it from him a few times, but the centerpiece memory was at the wedding of Tim and Sarah Blaikie, where the Blue Sparks had agreed to be the evening's entertainment. A drunken guest at one point was yelling up requests -- can't even remember what the request was, and it doesn't matter -- and Tucker looked down on him and calmly shrugged No and said simply, "We do what we do, my friend. We do what we do."

haiti

In late 1994, I rode out a hurricane off the coast of Haiti, onboard the US Army vessel LSV-1. The hardest part of the storm hit overnight, and when not on watch we spent the time trying to make ourselves as flat as possible on the decks of the engine room...the lowest point of the vessel, with the least amount of rocking. Didn't matter, we were all sick anyway. The next day we returned to Port-au-Prince, loaded the ship with Red Cross trucks carrying food, medicine, etc., and steamed as fast as we could (not very fast, in our case) to Jacmel, in the south. Jacmel had taken a direct hit from the storm, and was in terrible shape. Voodoo Lounge was of course a novel, but the telling of that hurricane and the condition of Jacmel when we found it was all accurate.

It's a strange thing to watch TV and see buildings that I have seen (or, in some cases, been in) flattened to the ground. The entire view of Port-au-Prince has changed...the cathedral, the Presidential palace. As for Jacmel, beautiful Jacmel, I haven't seen pictures of the town, but can't imagine what an earthquake would do to the city. It's such a fragile place, Jacmel.

I'd wanted to post today some options for $$ aid, and some good reading about Haiti. Karen Kleckner at the Library Journal beat me to it. On her one page she has both...a link to 2 lists of aid options, and a good list of Haiti reading. (The Library Journal list is all novels. In addition, I highly recommend Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.) Please do what you can, and read a good book while you do it. Haiti is one of those countries that is so easy to assume you understand...but nobody understands. Certainly not until you've been there, and even then, not really. Broadening understanding of our troubled neighbor to the south is a good first step in helping them.

black sheep, commerce, and vampire weekends

Here comes, end of year. Here comes. Uncomfortable, how quickly it flies by now. A cliche to say it, but there it is. Like John Prine sings, "Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps." And then he advises that you don't let your baby down, and that's good advice. The song is "Storm Windows," a white-knuckle of a song if ever I heard one. (It's a good time of year for Prine. I usually equate him with summer, but things like "Storm Windows" and "Late John Garfield Blues" lend themselves to first-of-January introspection. So does Wynton Marsalis's moody stuff, which is what's on the Bose right now.)

This is the time of year I'm most reminded of being the blackest sheep in the local flock of my family -- the holidays put it right there in your face -- and it's always good to spend some time thinking about that. Usually, I am amused. I come from a family of absurdity. That is absurd you taste deep in the dark marrow when you crack the bones after baking. And what can you do with a rich broth of such absurdity but spoon it in and stand amused. It's painful, though. You know? Families are painful. You try to sing with a smile on your face, and sure, you're amused. And weeping.

But that's the local flock of the family. In the larger flock, there stands a sheep even blacker. He spent this holiday being transfered from a South Carolina prison to a North Carolina one. And from there...I fear any further journeys will only be similar transfers. Those gates will not be swinging free for a long time. For this particular sheep, that might be a life sentence, then. As the late Chris Whitley sang, it's hard living with the law. He is one family sheep who doesn't even try to live with the law, though. But that makes for a boring story...not even trying. We all know drama lies in the conflict.

I mentioned white-knuckling up there earlier. Speaking of, I'm making my first read of 2010 the book on addiction that Benoit Denizet-Lewis published last year. I've been waiting for the right moment to read this one, and have been looking forward to it (if that's the right phrase) since publication.

It's also the first book I'm reading on my new Kindle. I gave specific orders to those who might care that I did not want a Kindle, in any way, shape, or form. And there it was on Christmas morning. And I love it. I took it to Vermont last week, newly charged with subscriptions to The New York Times and The New Yorker. I think I'll cancel the Times subscription. I don't like the Kindle's functionality with newspapers. You get a better product, with richer content and easier functionality -- and free -- online. But Lady Kindle is a good forum for New Yorker. Perfect.

Speaking of Kindle, I should get to what I should get to. And that's the blog post one should write on the receiving end of emails from New York reminding one that since I'm unlikely to have anything at all ready for any kind of publication until 2011, I should be somewhat responsible and give some love to the catalog, such as it is.

So let's start with this new page I found on Amazon, a great place to begin your post-holiday gift-card shopping. How nice of them to put all my novels in one easy little space. Help put my daughters through college and spend liberally. Specifically -- of course I had to check -- I am pleased to report that both The Ice Beneath You and Voodoo Lounge are now available in Kindle format. Dirt cheap and on your Kindle in one minute. What's not to love. Unfortunately, In Hoboken is not available in Kindle format yet (I haven't had this specific conversation, but I get the feeling that Dennis Loy Johnson, owner of Melville House, doesn't much like Amazon. Simon & Schuster, publishers of Ice and Voodoo, thankfully have no such scruples.) But don't let the lack of Kindlization stand in your way. The bright orange spine of In Hoboken will add a sparkle to your bookshelf that you won't soon regret.

What else? Oddly, my interview with Terry Gross from 2003 is now available as an audiobook at itunes. Or you can listen to it free here. This was recorded a few months after The Ice Beneath You was published (approximately a billion years ago), and I'm talking fast and sound nervous. I was nervous. First book, first time for this stuff. And this was about a year before I started doing those essays for All Things Considered, so I wasn't terribly comfortable in the studio yet. Also, 90% of Fresh Air interviews are not done in person...the interviewee goes to a radio studio convenient to them, usually in LA or New York. But because of my proximity to Philadelphia, I was sitting directly across the desk from Ms. Gross for the hour. Fortunately, I manged to sound like a complete idiot only once (only once that made it onto the final broadcast, anyway.) We talked army, Somalia, the writing of the novel, Jack Hardy, songwriting and folksinging, you name it. (A funny side note, if you listen to this in either the free or paid version...stay tuned after the interview with me ends about 40-something minutes into the program. Still attached is David Bianculli reviewing those new-fangled reality shows and trying to decide whether or not they'll last.) Also available from NPR, completely free, the audio for the ten or so commentaries I did for All Things Considered (if you prefer text to audio, you can also find them in the permanent links on the right side of this page).

Enough about me. What else, to start the year? For one, if you write, you should consider my friend Peter Murphy's annual poet and writer's retreat in Cape May, NJ, coming up later in the month. I taught there a few times, loved it, but have been unable to attend the past few years. A serious bummer, that. Because it's a wonderful weekend. Highly recommended.

That's about it. I said above what book I'm beginning the year with. I ended 2009 with Barbara Kingsolver's new novel The Lacuna. I haven't read anything by her before, and this was fantastic. I read it on mid-December flights between the UK, Germany, and Italy, and enjoyed every page. And music? My new discovery (I'm late, what can I say) is Vampire Weekend. Love them. Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma, indeed.

mcgill's hill

Back in the USA just in time for...snow!

hamburg!

"I was born in Liverpool, but I grew up in Hamburg."
--John Winston Ono Lennon

Tomorrow...Rome.

writing friends, real and imagined

Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks usually (on good years) lead to much time on couch in front of fire, plowing through books. Which also tends to lead to some time standing in front of the various bookshelves, which leads to rearranging, fondling, dusting, you know. I found Bartholomew Gill whilst mussing about this year. And with daughter Kristina home from college for the holiday, holding the paperback in my hand made me very...whistful? Perhaps. (Is it wistful?Whistful?Whatever. I'm not even sure it's the word I want.)


Let me back up and say that I'm not surrounded by writers on a daily basis. I'm hat-tipping familiar enough with no shortage of scribes, even some of grand reputation. Being a reader as much as a writer, this is fun, no doubt. But means nothing, really. As far as my best of friends, not a noevlist among them. No shortage of artists of other ilk, but not much in the way of key-pounders. Some people I am very fond of who are writers, but I don't see many of them very often.


Where am I going with this?


So, I'm usually just fine with this state of affairs. I much prefer real life, and let that infuse the art. I don't need to live in the art. Not at almost 40, anyway. That can be exhausting. I did enough of that in my 20s...barely survived. Besides, of the arts, writing is fairly solitary...both literally and spiritually. There are people I know fairly well who have no or only passing knowledge of my life as a novelist. (Funny story from back when I was doing commentaries for All Things Considered on NPR: the day after one of my pieces ran, I was dropping off Fiona at school and another dad said to me, "There was a guy on the radio last night with your name." Wow, says I, preparing to humbly but quite happily explain, when he continues, "For a second thought it might be you. But how could it be you? That's stupid. Besides didn't sound anything like you." These are the Buddha moments to which we aspire.)


There are other times, though...


When I was more songwriter than any other kind of writer, I was surrounded by it. Lived it, breathed, ate it. It was who I hung out with, and all we talked about. It got annoying, sometimes. But when you were stuck, when you couldn't find your way through it, when the answer was teasing but staying in the shadows out of reach...well, there was someone there to talk it through, someone who understood, someone who got it. You know?


I like being solitary in my writer's life now, but there are times, every now and then, when I really wish for someone whose brain works the way mine does, who understands my circuitry. There is always someone there on the end of a phone line or email if I want. But the days of having Nick there with a cup of coffee on a Tuesday morning at the Bridge Cafe in Frenchtown are sorely missed.


When my daughter Kristina was a wee lass, her best friend's Dad was a writer. Not just a writer, a fairly remarkable, talented novelist. Mark McGarrity was his name. And because I was living through art in the army and then the guitar circuit at the time (that was a joke, see above), I never met him. By day, Mark was a reporter for the Star-Ledger. By night, he was Bartholomew Gill. Both Mark and Bartholomew died in a very tragic accident in 2002, right around the time I was beginning to simultaneously lose it and come back to Earth.


I wish I'd known him. Krissy tells me his daughter is doing well. They're still in touch.


Anyway. My final toast this weekend, when it comes, will go to Mark, and his daughter. And if you find yourself hankering for a good Irish mystery, you could do worse than Bartholomew Gill.

welcome home

So, it's now been 14 years since I got out of the army. 15 years since I came home from Haiti. 16 years since I came home from Somalia. Yes, sorry to say, that's yours truly above, in Somalia, Mogadishu precisely, with good buddy Michael "Norm" Bauden. The photo was snapped just inside the back door of the warehouse we called the Mogadishu Marriott. I've never seen Black Hawk Down (read the book, skipped the movie), but I hear that a re-creation of the Mogadishu Marriott made it into the movie. Nice. I was 23 in that picture, just two years older than my daughter Kristina is now. I have no idea what was going through my mind in that picture, in that place. It's just that far removed. I could tell you...and, on good days, I will tell you...but I'll be lying.

Anyway, I don't normally get all date-specific here, or sentimental for that matter. And it's been a long time since soldiering was on my mind. But it is, today.

You know what I'm reminded of today? Back when I was still in, recently returned from Somalia and Haiti, but still in, the biggest joke we had was the fact that everyone got off on Veterans Day...except us. Veterans Day is a busy day in the world of active-duty soldiers. Parades to march in, flags to salute, brass to polish. Every jackass in the universe was off on Veterans Day except the veterans still serving. That was our big true joke.

Anyway. Welcome home.

nicholson bakes a new one

Nicholson Baker is a weird, wonderful writer. I've not read all his books. In some cases, I have some catching up to do. In others, the subject matter didn't appeal to me. But I read his sort-of memoir U & I years ago, and I read A Box of Matches when it was released. I was unsure when I began it, but ended up devouring it in a day, and then went back for a second read. I pushed it on everyone I ran into for the next few weeks. Checkpoint I never got to, likewise Human Smoke (although I'm very intrigued by the nonfiction Human Smoke, and have it on the list). But The Anthologist I guessed I would enjoy from the first I heard of it, and sure enough it hasn't let me down. The writing I'd hoped to do today on a flight to San Francisco was dashed by crying babies, but instead I got to read this book. In many ways, it seems an extention of A Box of Matches. It's a different protagonist, a different story, but similar in form, tone, and style in all the right ways. It's like revisiting A Box of Matches, but more focused. (The plot, at broad stroke, is a medium-success poet who is attempting and failing to write an introduction to a new anthology of poetry.)

Baker is fun...one of the main reasons I like his stuff so much (or what I've read of it). It's hard not to like him while you're reading. He's having such a good time with language, and so enthusiastically bouncing all over the place in thought. (He's also a folk fan; anyone who tips a hat to Slaid Cleaves in the first few pages of a novel gets a smile from me.) But I think what I really admire about him is his unabashed honesty. It's that same honesty that his detractors don't care for, I think. Too much honesty, they say. But I recognize in his work a level of self-reflection I'm envious of as a writer. Seldom have I witnessed a novelist lay it out there so boldly as Baker does. There is much to learn for me, from him.

Anyway, I found a great passage in the book that I'll post here. This actually isn't self-reflection on his part as I describe above, but just funny and true.

"At some point you have to set aside snobbery and what you think is culture and recognize that any random episode of Friends is probably better, more uplifting for the human spirit, than ninety-nine percent of the poetry or drama or fiction or history ever published. Think of that. Of course yes, Tolstoy and of course Keats and blah blah and yes indeed of course yes. But we're living in an age that has a tremendous richness of invention. And some of the most inventive people get no recognition at all. They get tons of money but no recognition as artists. Which is probably much healthier for them and better for their art."