In undergrad I spent my time listening acutely during critiques to those professors and students who had already mastered the art of bullshit, articulation, and the clever dissection of ideas and artwork. In graduate school I became the conversation starter, enjoying how interesting conversations can be when you direct where they go. Teaching became another kind of public speaking stress, where you are expected to know in advance the correct answer to every unexpected problem. Presenting your work to an audience is a challenge as your voice is the only voice, and when it reaches a deadend there is nothing but your own desire to avoid embarrassment to redirect it. Interviewing an artist is stressful in a completely new way, being an odd combination of planned questions and improvised discussion. Avoiding the nervous trap that prevents from happening what should be an easy conversation about something both parties know a good deal about, seems key. It was a special kind of torture to slowly transcribe this 45-minute interview, as I heard every verbal blunder, stutter, and hesitation more times than I ever dreamed of having to. In the end it was a fantastic experience, and when whittled down to its core, a good interview.
It was a drunken and disheveled Syl Johnson I saw stumble about the stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg Friday night, gesticulating a bit uncontrollably and singing with all his inebriated soul. Not exactly at the top of his game, but somehow he still made the show; just not exactly in the way you might expect.
“How does the never to be differ from what never was?”
The Road seems like the kind of book that requires little explanation and needs no context. I knew before reading it that Cormac McCarthy’s last son was a young child when he wrote the book—it is dedicated to him—and that he was born when McCarthy was in his 60’s or 70’s, but I actually forgot these personal inspirations while I was reading the novel. The Road is a contemporary revival of the classic father and son journey narrative, but more than that the book questions and explores a father’s self-sacrificing love, and to what extent and under what circumstances that love can be maintained. It does not seem to be a story about McCarthy and his son, or even about a real father and his son, but more an imagined speculation of all that a paternal love could entail. The Road is not literally about a dark and desolate projected future for mankind, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it is a nightmarish story born of parental anxiety.
“I wash a dead man’s brains out of [my son’s] hair. That is my job. Then he wrapped him in the blanket and carried him to the fire.”
