Gumption (30 page)

This has really become a refrain with so many of the great scholars profiled in this book. Own your doubts. Recognize our fallibility as humans, admit we can never possibly know even half of everything about the natural world, and so then embrace the unknown and, thereby, embrace one another. There is comfort.

George continued. “It’s funny to go back to the Catholic stuff with some of that in mind. They had a beautiful thing that they kind of covered in crap, and if you could tear all that [dogma] off, there are incredible principles at the center of it. But it’s almost like if I was gonna give you a gift, and I put it in the middle of six rooms full of Styrofoam. [You] would be like, ‘What’s all the Styrofoam for?’”

An excellent point that I would reiterate. Most all religions have terrific and valuable principles at their centers. The owner’s-manual quality of the values they have to teach us is sublime, or it can be. But by the time you get down to simply meditating upon the principle, you have had to slog through a great number of self-serving, man-made rules.

George: “It’s that people get habituated to certain ways of thinking and they associate, for example, Christianity with a legitimately positive feeling they’ve had in church or whatever. But then it gets locked in, so they take all the Styrofoam as well. They accept it. So the enemy becomes the habituation.”

He talks good, this George Saunders. Super good. We agreed that this conundrum is very similar to the state of politics in most households
as well. Habituation sets in, and we citizens no longer feel the need to stay on top of every issue coming down the pike. Thanks to the “Styrofoam” around our political leanings, we can simply (and lazily) vote down party lines and never miss a wink of sleep. George pointed out that it’s just like Wendell Berry’s take on the programs of optimism and pessimism—our “programs” put us in the dangerous position of complacently siding with “our kind,” whether it’s Catholic or Muslim, Democrat or Republican, Caucasian or Cherokee.

George and I reemerged into the park after lunch, enjoying a bracing stroll as he walked me to the subway, but he had thankfully not quite finished chewing on his theme. That is (to paraphrase him), that these habituations that have become deep ruts in which all our wheels will run without a need for steering are a sort of philosophical slavery. Quoting Abraham Lincoln (yes, he’s like
that
, and what’s more, he later sent me the full quote for accuracy), he laid this on me as we arrived at Columbus Circle: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” That guy Lincoln also talked pretty good.

From this, I would suggest that since many of our politicians are by now being rather openly paid by corporations to shape our nation’s laws to serve their profits above our individual rights, we have all become slaves of a different sort. Are we not slaves (me included) to the messaging that controls much of our prodigious consumption? How else do we explain our insistence on blithely purchasing an endless stream of unnecessary goods, sending each previous generation of disposable purchases to the landfill?

In 2006 George was hired by
GQ
magazine to write a series of pieces about the contentious border situation between Mexico and the United States. He loaded up his car and began to drive along that imaginary line, and, as he puts it:

It was so amazing because every time I’d start [writing] with some idea, usually a liberal idea, then go in, and in the first couple of days of reporting it was totally destroyed. [I] come back and start writing them, and [I’m] like, I’m not going to write according to some notion. I’m gonna see what my best bits are, polish them, put them together, and then see what light comes off. That’s the closest to the truth, and it’s always gonna be contradictory. . . . By the end, I couldn’t think of a thing to say, and I thought—that’s the truth. Right there. The individual things are all true but
the truth
is the composite of all those with [me] not choosing.

You should buy all of George’s books. They are immensely enjoyable but also rife with food for thought in the vein of the topics in this chapter. His most recent book of stories,
Tenth of December
, is a masterpiece of prescient social commentary, packed with the uncomfortable laughter of self-recognition.

I’ll end by recommending to you his smallest book,
Congratulations, by the Way
, really just a printed version of the convocation speech he delivered to the graduating class of Syracuse University in 2013. It would make a great stocking stuffer or certainly would be well received by any graduate in your own life. He takes the opportunity, in addressing the shiny, hopeful, collected students, to advise them, above all else in the impending adventures of their lives, to
practice kindness. That’s it. The fact that this very successful, richly lauded writer chose that sentiment as the focus of his address—be kind—moves me profoundly. As I say good night, George, let’s end with a lovely excerpt from that address:

Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you—and go after those things as if nothing else matters.

Because, actually, nothing else does.

LAURIE ANDERSON

A
s it turns out, I’m writing this chapter in Istanbul, which used to be called Constantinople—a turn of events that is melodically described in a swinging number by the Four Lads, later covered by one of my all-time favorite bands, They Might Be Giants.

I have often expressed my gratitude to those friends in my life who have been responsible for pointing me in the direction of “the good shit,” in terms of books, records, plays, and films. One of the most formative instances of this benevolence occurred in 1989 when my dear pally Joe Foust sold me on They Might Be Giants. Their first few records, in fact, could serve as the soundtrack to my personal transition from ignorant but curious small-town athlete to ignorant but curious college theater student with better taste in music.

Joe hooked me specifically by using their cover of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” as the front-of-house music when he did a college production of
Constantinople Smith
, by Charles L. Mee, the self-same prolific fellow who wrote
The Berlin Circle
, the play in which I met my wife. Near the end of that show, the entire cast sings the Beatles’ “All
You Need Is Love” in German (“Alle Brauchen Liebe”), bringing me around to Yoko. I do so appreciate such turns of serendipity, and I like to notice when the strands of life connect in such a fashion.

On their albums
They Might Be Giants
,
Lincoln
, and
Flood
, the band displays myriad examples of musical styles, rendered with the whimsy of the most sublime jesters. With lyrics hilarious, strange, and educational, backed by instrumentation ranging from baritone sax and xylophone to accordion, to literally the kitchen sink and a refrigerator being struck with drumsticks, the charismatic Brooklyn duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell funded our young, burgeoning imaginations with artistic possibilities both richly detailed and patently absurd.

On their third release,
Flood
, considered to be their definitive recording (although they have many varied and excellent subsequent records), track six stood out to me as something special. “Your Racist Friend” is sung from the point of view of a partygoer who refuses to stand by while another reveler engages in racist language. It’s a catchy tune with a thoughtful heart: “This is where the party ends / I can’t stand here listening to you / And your racist friend.” This was an eye-opening moment for me—a song from a fun, weird band that I loved could also have a powerfully relevant social message? Say. I liked where this was going.

This epiphany, it turned out, was merely the appetizer for the work of another artist who was about to change the trajectory of my creative development. Mr. Foust and the rest of the gang who would go on to form Chicago’s Defiant Theatre company with me took me to see a woman on tour at the University of Illinois’s magnificent
Foellinger Auditorium. It proved to be one of the most astonishing live performances I have ever witnessed. The tour and album were called
Strange Angels
, and the woman’s name was Laurie Anderson.

When performing live, especially in that era, Laurie Anderson loved to employ technology, or as it became in her hands, toys. Please bear in mind that in 1990, technology was not remotely as advanced or ubiquitous as it is today. The Sony Discman was cutting-edge, and computers were generally still monstrous hard drives with a TV monitor—and not a flat-screen TV, but the kind that was as deep as it was wide. An entire rock concert of the day, replete with projections and video components, probably used less memory than your iPod Nano.

There was a large video screen hanging upstage at Ms. Anderson’s show, and she stood at a keyboard, or set of keyboards, with other doohickeys in evidence, technically speaking. There were three microphones, side by side in a row. I’m writing this from memory, but what I remember is that through her groundbreaking use of technology in performance, she bent and stretched our little midwestern minds before fully blowing them when she picked up her electric violin.

The central microphone worked normally, but each of the two side microphones piped Laurie’s voice through a filter, so one sounded like a somewhat truculent, authoritative man (an alter ego who has come to be known in later years as Fenway Bergamot), and the other mike filtered her voice into a harmonizing chorus. The videos on the screen alternated between abstract beauty and short vignettes in which she was playing the man character, complete with mustache, and shot with some sort of fish-eye lens, creating a somewhat dwarfing, fun-house-mirror effect. Her electric violin looked like something out of
Tron
that might also emit a lightsaber’s blade, and I also recall a bit where the lights went dark and the only light was inside her mouth, intermittently visible through the opening and closing iris of her lips.

Those futuristic effects were merely the garnishes of an aural feast that served course after course of poetry and song, alternating effortlessly between humor and beauty and erudition, sometimes all in one verse. The artist herself was, and is, the definition of puckish. She casually wields a beautiful, fairylike face, augmented by hair sculpted into spikes of mischief. Her singing voice, unadorned, is lovely and plaintive, given to chewy consonants and popping stop-plosives when her voice goes into character. The combination of her violin and the computer/synthesizer/keyboard at her fingertips provided a veritable onslaught of musical sound, running the gamut from a quiet, ambient shower to a crashing monsoon.

Can you tell I was smitten? I was, in case that’s not made clear by the intensity of my recall some twenty-six years later. Just imagine, you take that whole package in a dark theater, bring up some interesting, minimalist shafts of green and blue light, strike a few sustained chords like a tired calliope, and then hear her speak:

I met this guy.

And he looked like he might have been a hatcheck clerk.

At an ice rink.

Which, in fact, he turned out to be.

And I said,

“Oh, boy. Right again.”

Let X=X.

You would have been equally enamored. As was my habit, I began to search out everything she had done that I could find, which turned out to be a great deal, as she has been an accomplished visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist since the 1970s.

There was another song that first night that stood out to me in the same way that “Your Racist Friend” had struck a chord with its social consciousness. This time, the track was “Beautiful Red Dress,” and the theme was not racism but feminism.

I’m sure that I was distantly aware of the 1970s ERA of Carol Burnett and other heroic ladies, but with the much more imperative subject of baseball on my child’s mind in small-town Illinois, it did not occur to me to perform any arithmetic around the topic. So when Laurie Anderson spoke these words to me and my fellow audience members during the bridge of that song in 1990, it was very much my awakening as a woman: “Okay! Okay! Hold it! I just want to say something. You know, for every dollar a man makes, a woman makes sixty-three cents. Now, fifty years ago that was sixty-two cents. So, with that kind of luck, it’ll be the year 3888 . . . before we make a buck.”

It was hard to miss the point, when she put it like that. Here I was, absolutely besotted with this ethereal talent and the plying of her
wares, but when I heard that particular line—that was the moment I understood Laurie Anderson to be heroic as well as intoxicating.

Contemporary research reveals the gender wage gap to be a bit of a moving target. President Obama cited the ratio at seventy-seven cents to the man’s dollar a few years ago, but that has been discredited. It’s difficult (for me, anyway) in this age of the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the endless websites devoted to “the truth” to ferret out any purely factual information, unblemished by some party’s agenda. Regardless of the precise number, the gap perseveres. I do find it satisfying that the situation is improving, but the glacial pace of coming equality could use a goose.

It’s been 240 years or so since this nation was founded by an elite group of white men, which seems like it would be a decent enough amount of time to find a balance in the way we reward folks of either gender, as well as those whose genders reside somewhere in between male and female.

As I have said, throughout my life, women have been in charge of a significant portion of my own little universe, beginning with my grandmother and aunts running the farm business in roles somewhere between CEO and CFO (not to mention driver, cook, laundress, and card sharp), followed by the directors and artistic directors of the Defiant and Steppenwolf Theatres.

Five excellent female persons make up more than half the staff of eight at Offerman Woodshop: Lee, my shop manager, is a small but mighty lady of talent and mirth without whom we would founder. Michele is a fearless surgeon and effervescent giggler, armed with chisel,
dozuki
, and block plane. Krys (gender nonconforming) has a
three-year streak going for best smile and staunchest labor. Jane brings light to the shop, literally, with her intrepid lamp creations of wood and steel, and she also runs the shipping office with Sally, our sage and sometimes mother hen. (Apologies to white dudes Josh, Matty, and Thomas. While I love you equally, this is not your chapter.)

In the film and television business in Los Angeles, Amy Poehler springs to mind as a shining example of a person with talent, integrity, ambition, class, and gumption, whom I consider one of the best bosses I’ve ever had. Nicole Holofcener, as well, is a maverick filmmaker for whom I love working, and Beth McCarthy-Miller is a legend of a director. The splendid talent Diablo Cody. Superheroic Lake Bell. Legendary beauty and famously nice Courteney Cox on her show
Mix It Up.

Oh. That’s only six ladies. Out of dozens of producers and directors with whom I’ve played. Oops. Thar she blows. The White Guy Whale of Unfairness! B’Christ, mateys, she eludes us yet! We’ve nary a choice but to keep on her, even round Cape Horn if that be what it takes. We’ll not rest until we are warming our chapped white hands by the flames of her oil, and this metaphor is beginning to erode a bit. . . .

The point is, we must needs keep at it. Hillary in the White House will be a profound, although long overdue, step forward. I’m not here to argue the better or worse of it all (it will be better) but simply add my voice to the momentum. If a group of American people, in this case, the ladies, is not receiving a fair shake, then that is a deficit that must be remedied. The great thing is, like the Super Friends, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or Voltron, we can grow stronger as a nation only by utilizing all the powers on the team.

Laurie Anderson is just the sort of person I’d like to see in charge of some decision making, but she will likely remain too wise to be caught wearing any such mantle. I think the reason I am so inspired by her work is because of the sublime balance she strikes between mischief and benevolence. Her voice and her melodies are generally very loving, which makes the social criticisms therein very easy to swallow. On top of this “spoonful of sugar” approach, she also refrains from pedantic language, making us instead engage with her in the arithmetic of her phrasing. She is a storyteller, first and foremost, wrapping her anecdotal morals in showmanship and delight.

Speaking of language, another of her early refrains that has always stuck with me is the phrase “Language is a virus.” Referencing a line from that institution of American letters and Anderson collaborator known as William S. Burroughs, “Language is a virus from outer space,” this simple declaration stuck with me, which I suppose has also had something to do with the fact that a lot of my own work involves writing and speaking words carrying the very same virus, as it were. In her song of that title, she speaks the lines:

Paradise is exactly like

Where you are right now

Only much, much better.

This assertion moved me. It contains wit, it reminds me of something Mark Twain might have said, but it also inspires me to consider words in general, and their accepted meanings, and the effect they have upon thought. The abstraction of “paradise,” for example, can conjure anything from a vision of the Christian heaven or Garden of
Eden, to a tropical island getaway, to an empty room containing nothing but a fine steak, a glass of Scotch, and
The Bridge on the River Kwai
on the tube.

I am reminded of a dinner in the Offerman household, circa 1982, when I broached the question that was surely on everyone’s mind:

“Mom, why is it okay to say ‘crap,’ but we can’t say s-h-i-t? Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Watch it, Jasper,” said my dad.

“Eat your beans,” said my mom.

There were issues of censorship in the air all around me: the words that weren’t allowed in school, George Carlin’s “seven words you can’t say on TV,” Tipper Gore’s shamefully overweening efforts to “clean up” the music industry. I became (and remain) a fan of language that is considered profane by the more puritanical factions of society, not because I wish to cause offense, but because its use communicates an adherence to the freedom of speech that is imperative to understanding how all humans can be treated equally. By freely interchanging “shit” and “crap” as a curious kid, for example, I was learning to signify that I was not a member of the vast cabal of conformist thought striving to maintain an atmosphere of oppressive conservatism in the home of the brave (coincidentally the title of another top-drawer Anderson record).