Description: The New Yorker's Joseph Mitchell has always been an inspiration of craft; Peter De Vries has been an inspiration for humor.

Transcript: No. Well the mortgage. I mean I think . . . No. You mean do I get up in the morning and think, “Wow. I see the end of that rainbow, and there’s something telling me, ‘Write the great American story about parking’”? No. No I don’t have that.

Question: Whose writing do you find particularly inspiring?

Transcript: Well it’s hard for me because I do different kinds of writing. And so . . . I mean there are non-fiction writers. I mean the one who has always been sort of my hero is Joseph Mitchell – who was a New Yorker writer for many years who died seven or eight years ago I guess – who I admired partly as just his craft. I mean what he was able to do in a . . . I don’t write the way he writes, but . . . So it’s not a stylistic thing; but I was always amazed that he was able to get the marks of writing off of what he did. And also he approached people head on and without . . . without any sort of condescension, or certainly without any fawning. I mean he didn’t write about the people that some reporters fawn over. I mean he wrote about . . . often people on the waterfront or in the fleabag hotels or something like that. But he was a . . . The stuff was wonderful, and . . . And I think as far as humor goes, one writer who is now sort of half forgotten who I have always admired a lot was Peter De Vries. His novels . . . Again, I don’t write the way he writes. I mean he had a lot of word plays, and puns and things; but I think there are a lot of good, humorous writers now who write short pieces that are funny and often wise, which is remarkable when you think of how many other avenues there are for somebody who’s funny. I mean you know it’s sort of legendary now, but the bright kid from the Harvard Lampoon doesn’t come to The New Yorker now. He goes to Hollywood and writes _________ or something. So . . . or television or movies. So considering how many other outlets there are, most of which pay a lot better than writing for a magazine, or a newspaper, or even books, it’s remarkable how many of the good ones there are, I think.

Recorded on: 9/5/07

 

Description: A freckled, gap-toothed muse.

Question: Where do you look for inspiration?

Transcript: I have favorite . . . I . . . I certainly was a fan of Mad magazine growing up, especially the Mad comics – the Harvey Kurtzman ones before it became a magazine.  Like you know I had the little re-print digest of those when I was a kid.  And I didn’t know what they were, the history or whatever; but they were so funny and weird.  And I . . . I would say of anything, like those were my biggest, say, comedic influences.  I’d . . . I’d reread those stories over and over again and . . . and sort of scour the background jokes – all the crazy background jokes.  I . . .  You know, I think Animal House is a nearly perfect movie.  It has an incredibly . . . it . . .  It’s like 98 percent of its jokes are successful, you know what I mean?  It’s a perfectly pleasant movie to watch, and with a lot of funny jokes. My family is really not that funny.  My family doesn’t really write.  As a matter of fact, my mother always . . .  Her advice to me as a child was, “Never put anything in writing,” which was strange; but . . .  Now there’s no one . . .  There was no, you know, kooky uncle who inspired me.

 

Recorded on: 9/4/07

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Description: On composing around the digressive, self-centered poetry of Newash.

Transcript:

I think composers are people who have not heard exactly a music that they would like to hear. That is to say, I think if all the music you wanted was in the world, you’d probably be a performer if you wanted to be a musician. But if there is something slightly different or radically different even, I think that’s what composers do. They look for something that they feel is missing.

I wanted to hear . . . I wanted to hear something that carried the qualities, that joined the qualities of the music that first gripped me, which was really in equal parts the dramatic improvisation, the live kind of improvisational quality of jazz, and the intricate structures of Bach. And that’s really, I think, always been what has attracted me, that there was a region there that I thought could be fertile and could be broad enough to keep doing it a long time.

I’m working on a piece which . . . part of it is a large poem, one of the last poems by Newash, who I’ve said before . . . this was again, just what I referred to. The overrun of not quite having found my way of where I want to be with him. He’s a difficult companion and sometimes digressive, and sometimes in a very pleasing way, self-centered and unapologetic of how much in the face of every event he still seeks pleasure rather than plume. So I think I need that, but I’m trying to settle a score with him. And it’s a very large poem, and it has tremendous segments which are not easily solved musically, which is interesting and sometimes discouraging. And then I thought that was the piece, but then at a certain point as I started something about his attitudes in the poem disturbed me. I needed an answer to his attitude to consequences of loss. And so the first thing that happened was a response in the form of a poem by ___________ for another singer. So I then informed my commissioner there was another singer and more music. And then that required a response because it felt formally upsetting to have a singer sing, and another singer sing, and not account for some other voice which might sum up two very, very, distinct viewpoints. So I then used a translation of a real good poem in which they could sing together in different characters than previously in the piece. So the text of the piece has been additive, and the approach to the piece also. And it’s a larger piece than I started out with.

I have to catechize myself. I have to talk myself into it. I think we’re all instilled with various levels of confidence. I’ve always been interested in reading Benjamin Britten’s statements. Almost his whole career is described in terms of level of confidence. I wrote that piece I was on a high level of confidence. Some people have that in great abundance, but others have to cultivate it like a garden.

 

Recorded On: 6/12/07

 

Poetry is just a forum for the ego.

Description: Moby makes sure he's ready when inspiration strikes.

Transcript:

The one thing I’m doing when inspiration hits is I’m sitting in my studio playing guitar or playing keyboards or sitting in front of the computer. But as long as I’m there, that way I can capture it and I can document it. And it becomes sort of almost like an ascetic, monastic vocation. You know? Like it’s just me alone in my small studio, which is sort of like a monastic cell. And I at some point . . . I mean, they’ll do document . . . documentaries on musicians. Like a behind the music on the dramatic things that are involved in making a record. And for me it would be the most tedious documentary in the world because it’s just me sitting in a chair in front of a computer or in front of a keyboard, and there’s really not a lot going on.

Recorded On: 5/29/07