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120 Questions for... George Saunders
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Any notable personage can answer twenty questions -- even Liza Minelli. But only the exceptional ones can tackle more; like, six times more. Here at The Feed, it's not about harvesting the thoughts of interesting people; it's about finding out how long they can tolerate One Hundred and Twenty Questions. You're probably thinking to yourself: This is going to be better than any reality TV show or James Lipton interview ever. And, you're absolutely right.
For our first installment we are proud and lucky to have George Saunders, author of some of our favorite writings, like his latest: In Persuasion Nation. Mr. Saunders is one of the smartest and funniest guys on the planet. He publishes in the fancy-pants publications like the New Yorker and was recently interviewed in the New York Times (where they only asked him like 11 questions or so.) Let's see how many of our questions he can take:
1. What do you consider your biggest achievement so far?
Being a halfway decent husband and father. This is ongoing, and far from a sure thing. But I'm doing my best.
2. What's your biggest regret?
I have about a million, all regarding kindnesses I should have done, but didn't.
3. Which government official gives you the biggest belly laughs?
Prince Vladistok of Romania, from the 14th Century. I have his mouldering corpse here in my study (thanks eBay!) and every time I look over at him, I just think, Vlad, wow, you crack me up.
4. What are you looking at?
Vlad. And I am cracking up. He isn't. He is kind of flaking. And - oops. He just tumped over, taking myguitar with him, the stupid….Hold on. I have to go "discipline" him…
5. Where do you get your ideas?
They just arise in my brain, even when I'd rather they didn't. One idea I've been having lately - really just in the last like two minutes -- is: "Wow, George, 120questions is a lot of questions, and here you're only on 5 and are already you're lapsing into kneejerk cleverness. It's going to be a long 120 questions unless you can start answering earnestly, pal." And then another part of my brain is saying, "Well sure, but these questions aren't really meant to be answered seriously, are they? How does one give a serious answer to 'What are you looking at? You try it!"
Incidentally, my Vlad is NOT the famous "Vlad the Impaler." My Vlad is actually the grandfather of that Vlad. My Vlad -- who lived on the typical bean-intensive Romanian subsistence diet of that era -- was known as "Vlad the Imploder," due to the rather rudimentary understanding the Romanians of that time had of what we would now call "farting." They believed the person was exploding inward! Silly ancient Romanians! They don't know, as we do now, that farting is the sound the body makes when a tiny bit of the soul is escaping in terror.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: IN PERSUASION NATION | CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE
------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Did you hear that?
Vlad again. Sorry, sorry. A nice little organization like AOL gives me this terrific break, and Vlad has to mess it up with his little Romanian mini-farts. It's all about him or, as they say in Romanian:"Ders vled ding vled mrtibled."
It's weird though, that he can still do that after being dead hundreds of years.
7. What book do you wish you could live in?
"The Big Book of People Praising George, Seeing Only the Best In Him, and Overpaying Him, and Overpaying Him On Time For Once." The hardcover. The one that shows me grinning from ear to ear.
Either that or "The Silence of the Vlad."
8. What movie do you wish you could live in?
The film adaptation of "The Big Book of People Praising George, Seeing Only the Best In Him, and Overpaying Him, and Overpaying Him On Time For Once," the title of which Hollywood has changed to "Savage Desperate Lust Vendetta Handjob."
9. What model of 2007 Cadillac doyou wish you could live in?
The one - that special edition one, I can't remember what it's called - that is shaped like a mansion and located high in the Alps and is filled with servants and gold boullion. You know that one?
10. If you could have lunch with one famous person, who would it be?
Leo Tolstoy. And he pays.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: PASTORALIA | THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL
------------------------------------------------------------------
11. And what if that famous person had to be from a Boy Band?
I would put Tolstoy in a Boy Band without him knowing it. (This was not uncommon in 19th Century Russia, and in fact many scholars cite this as an underlying reason for the Russian Revolution. There is a famous incident inwhich Belinsky, the critic, suddenly realized he was in a then-famous Russian Boy Band, the name of which roughly translates as "Coy Adolescents in Tight-Fitting Hats Continually Stroll Up My Street Calling Oldsters By Names Not Relished by Many Oldsters!" And it was just after this that he wrote his famous incendiary screed, "Lip-Synch This, Bourgeois Oppressors of the Noble Proletariat!"
12. How about something refreshing?
Not for me, thanks. Vlad might want something. Sometimes I'll squeeze a sponge over him or whisper a few vignettes from his days as the Absolute Ruler of Romania. But no beans.
13. What's next for you?
"Question 14, I suspect," he said mournfully.
14. Why do the new Chevy Impalas look so much worse than the old ones?
It's the way you're squinting at them. You'd look bad too if some guy from AOL was squinting at you like that. Try it. Go to a mirror, squint at yourself, and see how you look. Soon you'll be asking: Why does the AOL Inquisitor look so much worse than he used to?
By the way: Do we have some kind of product placement deal with Cadillac and/or the Chevy Impala? If so, do I get a cut? If so, is my cut calculated by how many times I mention "our" products in this interview? If so, Cadillac Chevy Impala Cadillac Chevy Impala.
15. What's overrated?
It's "a quality of being rated too high." For example: The old Chevy Impalas.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: IN PERSUASION NATION | CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE
------------------------------------------------------------------
16. If you could own and operate any national franchise, why wouldyou do that?
This slightly ironic 'anti-corporate' question from the guy who works for AOL? Ha ha! Just kidding. Don't truncate the questioning now. There are still many witticisms to be accomplished, thus selling many books. Ask the question again, and I promise I'll answer it nicely.
16. If you could own and operate any national franchise, why would you do that?
Thank you for this wonderful question. I would have to say that I would own and operate a national franchise for the same reasons human beings do anything: Security for my loved ones and a sense of personal accomplishment.
What I really wish I could own and operate, is AOL. And I'm not just saying that.
17. Where's your favorite place to sit in your house/apt.?
On top of the refrigerator, regarding my kitchen as if it was my kingdom. Or as if it was AOL, and I the absolute ruler of AOL.
18. What kind of music makes your ears bleed?
That kind-I think the kids call it EarBleed? You literally drive your file-sharpened IPod earphone into your ear with a hammer and then crank it up. But EarBleed, as I'm sure you know, has already been rendered passé by the new RearBleed, which is - well, on to question 19!
19. What's your favorite way to blow money?
No questions about my sex life. I told you that in the "pre-questioning."
20. Which living writer most influences you?
I would have to say I've been most influenced by myself. Which is too bad, because basically I think I suck. But what can I do? When young, I didn't think I sucked, and during that time, that critical time when my asthetic opinions were being formed, I was quite enamored of myself, and therefore kind of imprinted my view of the world on myself. So now I find that, no matter what I do, I am always eitherimitating myself or (perhaps worse) contra-imitating myself, ie, acting in such a way as to distance myself from myself. In other words, I am always operating under my own influence. Or, like, operating under the influence of myself. What I mean is, I can embrace myself, I can reject myself, but ultimately, what am I reacting to? That's right. Myself. But enough about me. Let me ask you a-
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: PASTORALIA | THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL
------------------------------------------------------------------
21. What did you dream about last night?
Wait, how did you do that? I was right in the middle of asking you somet-
21. What did you dream about last night?
Ah, I see how it is. You're "AOL" and I'm just a guy with a computer and my art, and so whenever I-
21. What did you dream about last night?
Okay, I get it. You Master, me Slave. Fine, fine, just let me think a minute. I'm actually getting kind of a minor panic attack-
21. What did you dream about last night?
Jesus! Why don't you just give me a mild electric shock through the keypad of my computer if you're so almighty and - HEY! GOD! That hurt! NOT funny! I get it, I get it, you're the big heartless corporation everyone thinks is so hip and cool, and I'm just the lowly fiction-writing stooge, and I'm supposed to know my place and be grateful for this chance to access two million people! I get it!
No more shocks. I'll do whatever you say.
I dreamed…I dreamed about you, AOL Guy. You and I were riding across this windswept meadow on that AOL logo thingie, and I asked you a question - something about food, a dinner we'd just eaten, something like that - and you said You Were Sorry But You (AOL) Were Currently Unavailable. And I was like: Huh, tell me something I didn't know. And you were like: Is that some kind of joke? Or are you trying to hurt my feelings? And I was like: Why is it always about YOUR feelings, how about scooting over on to your side of the logo thingie, Mr Wideass.
And then I woke up.
There. That's it. That's my answer.
*
*
*
I'm ready for Question 22.
Hello?
READY! I don't have all day here. I've got things to do too, you know. Like go put a Band-Aid on my typing fingers.
Okay, fine. I'm going to dinner and I'll check in back in awhile. It's cool. You asked me what I dreamed, and I told you. The phrase "Mr Wideass" was in the dream. I was just reporting it. I've never seen you, have no idea about the width of your etc etc.
I don't even know if you're, you know, an individual, a committee, a consortium…
I'll just…check back later.
8 pm. Dinner over. Nothing from AOL. Note to self: May have screwed the pooch. Should not have told real dream. Going to bed. Nothing to do about it. Dang, dang, dang.
Fingers really, really hurt.
2 am. Can't sleep, still nothing. Kiss two million people goodbye. Crap. Story of my life. Self-destructo? Due to nuns? More in the morning.
April 16. Nothing. Cold and rainy. Checked several times, still nothing. Sent out taxes, came home, nothing from AOL. Done deal I guess. Some other writer gleaning benefits of direct access to two million, etc etc.
April 17. Rainy again. Big argument with UPS dude. Cat threw up in back entry, I had to clean. Big argument with neighbor, plus old lady at store. Plus very old man who 'defended' old lady. Surprisingly strong for old guy. Am now nursing big bruise on arm from old-guy "pinch." Perhaps am a bit cranky? And I have no idea why. Nada from AOL.
April 18. Sunny day, spring finally here! Am getting over AOL stuff. What the heck. Who needs them? I am actually kind of ashamed that I betrayed my satirist role by playing right into their hands, and why? Just because I am 47 yrs old and have kid going to college and need $$ and would like to sell a few books? You hypocrite! Isn't that what your new book (IN PERSUASION NATION, RIVERHEAD BOOKS, ISBN 1-59448-922-X, http://www.inpersuasionnation.com)is all about?! The evils of 'persuasion,' and these big mega-corporations who eventually appropriate EVERYTHING, even everything counter-culture, even things critical of them, in this strange Borg-like synthesis that ultimately renders them abovereproach! Oh God I came so close to betraying everything I believe in, in the name of stinking MAMMON! But am saved, saved by corporate indifference, saved by the mega-corporation's thin-skinned response to anything it finds even vaguely critical of its-
22. If you had to eliminate a disease, what would it be?
Come back later in the week to see what disease Saunders eliminates and the next batch of questions. Update: Read the Next Batch Now
- More on George Saunders
- Buy IN PERSUASION NATION
- Buy CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE
- Buy PASTORALIA
- Buy THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL
- Enter the George Saunders PHOTO CHALLENGE: Bring IT!
-----------------
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120 Questions for... George Saunders
Any notable personage can answer twenty questions -- even Liza Minelli. But only the exceptional ones can tackle more; like, six times more. Here at The Feed, it's not about harvesting the thoughts of interesting people; it's about finding out how long they can tolerate One Hundred and Twenty Questions. You're probably thinking to yourself: This is going to be better than any reality TV show or James Lipton interview ever. And, you're absolutely right.
For our first installment we are proud and lucky to have George Saunders, author of some of our favorite writings, like his latest: In Persuasion Nation. Mr. Saunders is one of the smartest and funniest guys on the planet. He publishes in the fancy-pants publications like the New Yorker and was recently interviewed in the New York Times (where they only asked him like 11 questions or so.) Let's see how many of our questions he can take:
1. What do you consider your biggest achievement so far?
Being a halfway decent husband and father. This is ongoing, and far from a sure thing. But I'm doing my best.
2. What's your biggest regret?I have about a million, all regarding kindnesses I should have done, but didn't.
3. Which government official gives you the biggest belly laughs?
Prince Vladistok of Romania, from the 14th Century. I have his mouldering corpse here in my study (thanks eBay!) and every time I look over at him, I just think, Vlad, wow, you crack me up.
4. What are you looking at?
Vlad. And I am cracking up. He isn't. He is kind of flaking. And - oops. He just tumped over, taking myguitar with him, the stupid….Hold on. I have to go "discipline" him…
5. Where do you get your ideas?
They just arise in my brain, even when I'd rather they didn't. One idea I've been having lately - really just in the last like two minutes -- is: "Wow, George, 120questions is a lot of questions, and here you're only on 5 and are already you're lapsing into kneejerk cleverness. It's going to be a long 120 questions unless you can start answering earnestly, pal." And then another part of my brain is saying, "Well sure, but these questions aren't really meant to be answered seriously, are they? How does one give a serious answer to 'What are you looking at? You try it!"
Incidentally, my Vlad is NOT the famous "Vlad the Impaler." My Vlad is actually the grandfather of that Vlad. My Vlad -- who lived on the typical bean-intensive Romanian subsistence diet of that era -- was known as "Vlad the Imploder," due to the rather rudimentary understanding the Romanians of that time had of what we would now call "farting." They believed the person was exploding inward! Silly ancient Romanians! They don't know, as we do now, that farting is the sound the body makes when a tiny bit of the soul is escaping in terror.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: IN PERSUASION NATION | CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE
------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Did you hear that?Vlad again. Sorry, sorry. A nice little organization like AOL gives me this terrific break, and Vlad has to mess it up with his little Romanian mini-farts. It's all about him or, as they say in Romanian:"Ders vled ding vled mrtibled."
It's weird though, that he can still do that after being dead hundreds of years.
7. What book do you wish you could live in?
"The Big Book of People Praising George, Seeing Only the Best In Him, and Overpaying Him, and Overpaying Him On Time For Once." The hardcover. The one that shows me grinning from ear to ear.
Either that or "The Silence of the Vlad."
8. What movie do you wish you could live in?
The film adaptation of "The Big Book of People Praising George, Seeing Only the Best In Him, and Overpaying Him, and Overpaying Him On Time For Once," the title of which Hollywood has changed to "Savage Desperate Lust Vendetta Handjob."
9. What model of 2007 Cadillac doyou wish you could live in?
The one - that special edition one, I can't remember what it's called - that is shaped like a mansion and located high in the Alps and is filled with servants and gold boullion. You know that one?
10. If you could have lunch with one famous person, who would it be?
Leo Tolstoy. And he pays.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: PASTORALIA | THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL
------------------------------------------------------------------
11. And what if that famous person had to be from a Boy Band?
I would put Tolstoy in a Boy Band without him knowing it. (This was not uncommon in 19th Century Russia, and in fact many scholars cite this as an underlying reason for the Russian Revolution. There is a famous incident inwhich Belinsky, the critic, suddenly realized he was in a then-famous Russian Boy Band, the name of which roughly translates as "Coy Adolescents in Tight-Fitting Hats Continually Stroll Up My Street Calling Oldsters By Names Not Relished by Many Oldsters!" And it was just after this that he wrote his famous incendiary screed, "Lip-Synch This, Bourgeois Oppressors of the Noble Proletariat!"
12. How about something refreshing?
Not for me, thanks. Vlad might want something. Sometimes I'll squeeze a sponge over him or whisper a few vignettes from his days as the Absolute Ruler of Romania. But no beans.
13. What's next for you?
"Question 14, I suspect," he said mournfully.
14. Why do the new Chevy Impalas look so much worse than the old ones? It's the way you're squinting at them. You'd look bad too if some guy from AOL was squinting at you like that. Try it. Go to a mirror, squint at yourself, and see how you look. Soon you'll be asking: Why does the AOL Inquisitor look so much worse than he used to?
By the way: Do we have some kind of product placement deal with Cadillac and/or the Chevy Impala? If so, do I get a cut? If so, is my cut calculated by how many times I mention "our" products in this interview? If so, Cadillac Chevy Impala Cadillac Chevy Impala.
15. What's overrated?
It's "a quality of being rated too high." For example: The old Chevy Impalas.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: IN PERSUASION NATION | CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE
------------------------------------------------------------------
16. If you could own and operate any national franchise, why wouldyou do that?
This slightly ironic 'anti-corporate' question from the guy who works for AOL? Ha ha! Just kidding. Don't truncate the questioning now. There are still many witticisms to be accomplished, thus selling many books. Ask the question again, and I promise I'll answer it nicely.
16. If you could own and operate any national franchise, why would you do that?
Thank you for this wonderful question. I would have to say that I would own and operate a national franchise for the same reasons human beings do anything: Security for my loved ones and a sense of personal accomplishment.
What I really wish I could own and operate, is AOL. And I'm not just saying that.
17. Where's your favorite place to sit in your house/apt.?
On top of the refrigerator, regarding my kitchen as if it was my kingdom. Or as if it was AOL, and I the absolute ruler of AOL.
18. What kind of music makes your ears bleed?
That kind-I think the kids call it EarBleed? You literally drive your file-sharpened IPod earphone into your ear with a hammer and then crank it up. But EarBleed, as I'm sure you know, has already been rendered passé by the new RearBleed, which is - well, on to question 19!
19. What's your favorite way to blow money?
No questions about my sex life. I told you that in the "pre-questioning."
20. Which living writer most influences you?
I would have to say I've been most influenced by myself. Which is too bad, because basically I think I suck. But what can I do? When young, I didn't think I sucked, and during that time, that critical time when my asthetic opinions were being formed, I was quite enamored of myself, and therefore kind of imprinted my view of the world on myself. So now I find that, no matter what I do, I am always eitherimitating myself or (perhaps worse) contra-imitating myself, ie, acting in such a way as to distance myself from myself. In other words, I am always operating under my own influence. Or, like, operating under the influence of myself. What I mean is, I can embrace myself, I can reject myself, but ultimately, what am I reacting to? That's right. Myself. But enough about me. Let me ask you a-
------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy: PASTORALIA | THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL
------------------------------------------------------------------
21. What did you dream about last night?
Wait, how did you do that? I was right in the middle of asking you somet-
21. What did you dream about last night?
Ah, I see how it is. You're "AOL" and I'm just a guy with a computer and my art, and so whenever I-
21. What did you dream about last night?
Okay, I get it. You Master, me Slave. Fine, fine, just let me think a minute. I'm actually getting kind of a minor panic attack-
21. What did you dream about last night?
Jesus! Why don't you just give me a mild electric shock through the keypad of my computer if you're so almighty and - HEY! GOD! That hurt! NOT funny! I get it, I get it, you're the big heartless corporation everyone thinks is so hip and cool, and I'm just the lowly fiction-writing stooge, and I'm supposed to know my place and be grateful for this chance to access two million people! I get it!
No more shocks. I'll do whatever you say.
I dreamed…I dreamed about you, AOL Guy. You and I were riding across this windswept meadow on that AOL logo thingie, and I asked you a question - something about food, a dinner we'd just eaten, something like that - and you said You Were Sorry But You (AOL) Were Currently Unavailable. And I was like: Huh, tell me something I didn't know. And you were like: Is that some kind of joke? Or are you trying to hurt my feelings? And I was like: Why is it always about YOUR feelings, how about scooting over on to your side of the logo thingie, Mr Wideass.
And then I woke up.
There. That's it. That's my answer.
*
*
*
I'm ready for Question 22.
Hello?
READY! I don't have all day here. I've got things to do too, you know. Like go put a Band-Aid on my typing fingers.
Okay, fine. I'm going to dinner and I'll check in back in awhile. It's cool. You asked me what I dreamed, and I told you. The phrase "Mr Wideass" was in the dream. I was just reporting it. I've never seen you, have no idea about the width of your etc etc.
I don't even know if you're, you know, an individual, a committee, a consortium…
I'll just…check back later.
8 pm. Dinner over. Nothing from AOL. Note to self: May have screwed the pooch. Should not have told real dream. Going to bed. Nothing to do about it. Dang, dang, dang.
Fingers really, really hurt.
2 am. Can't sleep, still nothing. Kiss two million people goodbye. Crap. Story of my life. Self-destructo? Due to nuns? More in the morning.
April 16. Nothing. Cold and rainy. Checked several times, still nothing. Sent out taxes, came home, nothing from AOL. Done deal I guess. Some other writer gleaning benefits of direct access to two million, etc etc.
April 17. Rainy again. Big argument with UPS dude. Cat threw up in back entry, I had to clean. Big argument with neighbor, plus old lady at store. Plus very old man who 'defended' old lady. Surprisingly strong for old guy. Am now nursing big bruise on arm from old-guy "pinch." Perhaps am a bit cranky? And I have no idea why. Nada from AOL.
April 18. Sunny day, spring finally here! Am getting over AOL stuff. What the heck. Who needs them? I am actually kind of ashamed that I betrayed my satirist role by playing right into their hands, and why? Just because I am 47 yrs old and have kid going to college and need $$ and would like to sell a few books? You hypocrite! Isn't that what your new book (IN PERSUASION NATION, RIVERHEAD BOOKS, ISBN 1-59448-922-X, http://www.inpersuasionnation.com)is all about?! The evils of 'persuasion,' and these big mega-corporations who eventually appropriate EVERYTHING, even everything counter-culture, even things critical of them, in this strange Borg-like synthesis that ultimately renders them abovereproach! Oh God I came so close to betraying everything I believe in, in the name of stinking MAMMON! But am saved, saved by corporate indifference, saved by the mega-corporation's thin-skinned response to anything it finds even vaguely critical of its-
22. If you had to eliminate a disease, what would it be?
Come back later in the week to see what disease Saunders eliminates and the next batch of questions. Update: Read the Next Batch Now
- More on George Saunders
- Buy IN PERSUASION NATION
- Buy CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE
- Buy PASTORALIA
- Buy THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL
- Enter the George Saunders PHOTO CHALLENGE: Bring IT!
-----------------
thefeedblog at 1:43:00 PM EDT Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
4/25/06 9:42 PM
After reading some comments about Saunders' writings it is true the United States is facing a virtual future with harsh consequences.