Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / Writer of Lives

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Writer of Lives · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

0:01
SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone and welcome to Q&A.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm Jay Nordlinger and our guest is Clay Risen, a versatile writer.
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SPEAKER_01: He's one of the writers I read most regularly.
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SPEAKER_01: He's on the obituaries desk of the New York Times.
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SPEAKER_01: He has also been a political writer.
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SPEAKER_01: He has written eight books about the American civil rights movement,
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SPEAKER_01: Theodore Roosevelt,
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SPEAKER_01: McCarthyism,
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SPEAKER_01: whiskey,
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SPEAKER_01: and so on.
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SPEAKER_01: Clay, did I get the number of books right?
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SPEAKER_01: Eight?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: Do you have one in the works?
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SPEAKER_00: I've always got something in the works, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: I've done a couple of coffee table books that may or may not count.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm counting them.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm counting them.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: All right.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, then actually it's 10 total.
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SPEAKER_00: What are they about, the coffee table books?
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SPEAKER_00: Whiskey.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm proud of them and they're beautiful books,
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SPEAKER_00: but,
0:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: and there's good text in them,
1:00
SPEAKER_00: but they're visual primarily.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: I've described you as a writer.
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SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people say, Jay, what do you do?
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, what are you?
1:08
SPEAKER_01: And
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SPEAKER_01: I'm a journalist.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm a columnist.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm a writer.
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SPEAKER_01: I guess that's the biggest word, the omnibus word.
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SPEAKER_01: What do you say?
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SPEAKER_01: You're an historian.
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And as far as I'm concerned,
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you write little biographies almost every day.
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SPEAKER_01: You're a biographer.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what attracts me most to the obituaries.
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SPEAKER_00: Beat.
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SPEAKER_00: People often...
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SPEAKER_00: Think of it when I tell them, well, I get two reactions, right?
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SPEAKER_00: One is, oh, that's morose.
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SPEAKER_00: It's like telling someone you're a funeral director.
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SPEAKER_00: Far from it.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: And the other reaction,
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SPEAKER_00: which is,
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SPEAKER_00: I think,
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SPEAKER_00: the more appropriate one and the one that I have is,
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SPEAKER_00: oh,
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that's fascinating because people realize right away it's
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actually nothing to do
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SPEAKER_00: with death.
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The reason why we're doing an obituary at a particular time is
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someone has died.
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SPEAKER_00: But that's it.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm actually not really interested in the cause of death.
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I mean,
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unless it's absolutely germane to their story,
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it is just a part of...
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SPEAKER_00: It's this inevitable end to everyone's story.
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SPEAKER_00: But what we do is the life.
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SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
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SPEAKER_00: Every piece is a little biography, sometimes very much different.
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SPEAKER_00: personal,
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SPEAKER_00: just one person's story,
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SPEAKER_00: oftentimes plugging them into a much broader story of,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: American,
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SPEAKER_00: usually American history,
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SPEAKER_00: but sometimes far afield into Europe or Asia.
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SPEAKER_00: Often there are connections to kind of secondary histories.
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: I did an obituary recently of Gávar Borat,
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SPEAKER_00: who he was a Hungarian immigrant Holocaust survivor,
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SPEAKER_00: communist survivor.
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He had fought or he had been on the side of the revolutionaries
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in the Hungarian
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SPEAKER_00: Revolution,
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SPEAKER_00: came to the United States as a refugee,
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SPEAKER_00: remade himself as one of the country's leading Lincoln scholars.
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And so not only is there his story and the story of Hungary in
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the 20th century,
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SPEAKER_00: but then there's also the work he did around Lincoln.
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SPEAKER_00: And that allowed me,
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SPEAKER_00: gave me a reason to go back and read some of his work on Lincoln,
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SPEAKER_00: to read others.
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SPEAKER_00: And so to really get into kind of the historiography all too briefly,
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SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
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SPEAKER_00: because then there's a deadline,
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SPEAKER_00: have to move on to something else.
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SPEAKER_00: But to your question, what do I think of myself?
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SPEAKER_00: I hesitate to say anything other than a reporter,
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SPEAKER_00: because that's what I do most of the time,
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SPEAKER_00: is this is my day job,
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SPEAKER_00: this is my job.
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But in writer,
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it's funny,
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writer sounds both,
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I think,
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generic in its description.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is literally what I do.
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SPEAKER_00: I write.
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SPEAKER_00: I actually can't do very much else.
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SPEAKER_00: But I write.
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SPEAKER_00: But it also sounds there's a grandiosity to it, right?
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
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SPEAKER_01: I know what you mean.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, Ernest Hemingway was a writer and so are we.
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SPEAKER_01: And journalist is a good term.
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SPEAKER_01: People have said in the past, oh, they use this fancy word journalist.
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SPEAKER_01: We used to say reporter, newspaperman.
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But the thing is,
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journalist is a bigger word than reporter or newspaperman.
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SPEAKER_01: Some journalists don't work at newspapers.
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SPEAKER_01: Some people don't work as journalists don't work as reporters.
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SPEAKER_01: They are editors,
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SPEAKER_01: let's say,
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or sports writers that can be a kind of reporting and there are
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photographers or
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SPEAKER_01: all sorts of jobs and journalism that aren't reporting.
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SPEAKER_01: Of course.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: There was a time... I'll have to check this.
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SPEAKER_01: I keep talking about it, so I should check this.
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SPEAKER_01: Did U.S.
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SPEAKER_01: passports have an occupation line?
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SPEAKER_01: Or when you applied for a passport, did you have to put your occupation?
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SPEAKER_01: Or did it once appear on the passport?
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SPEAKER_01: You know, that's a good question.
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SPEAKER_00: I know it was required on the form.
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SPEAKER_01: Bill Buckley always said journalist.
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SPEAKER_01: Always.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: That was his self-designation.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, let's get to obituaries a little bit later, more on obituaries.
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SPEAKER_01: They're one of my great joys in life.
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SPEAKER_01: It's not that I'm macabre, not at all.
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SPEAKER_01: I just love life stories.
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Just about my favorite thing in the world of reading is
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biography and autobiography.
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SPEAKER_01: Also, my attention span seems to be getting shorter.
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SPEAKER_01: So these mini bios are made for me.
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SPEAKER_01: They give me immense pleasure.
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SPEAKER_01: It sounds weird.
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SPEAKER_01: Jay loves the obits page, but there's nothing ghoulish about it.
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SPEAKER_01: I just love short bios.
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SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
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SPEAKER_00: And the reception,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: I hear from people all the time who say,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: either thank you for introducing me to this person,
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SPEAKER_00: this story,
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SPEAKER_00: this talk.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you haven't have heard of them until the obituary.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, thank you for this trip down memory lane.
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SPEAKER_00: Just yesterday,
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SPEAKER_00: I wrote on very short notice the obituary for the actor Bud Cort,
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SPEAKER_00: who most people know only as Harold from Harold and Mott.
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SPEAKER_00: He did other things, but, you know, that was his major role.
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And so many people have commented on the article on our site or
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to me personally
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SPEAKER_00: and just said,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: I love that movie.
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SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen that movie forever.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for you.
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SPEAKER_00: I have a very pleasant memory of watching it.
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SPEAKER_00: Thanks for reminding me.
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SPEAKER_00: Thanks for bringing that.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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Thanks for telling me about this guy's story that I had sort of
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I'd kind of forgotten about him.
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SPEAKER_01: I know.
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SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned the Lincoln scholar, the refugee from Hungary.
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SPEAKER_01: There was, to me, a touching photo accompanying that obit.
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SPEAKER_01: I think it showed the historian leading General Powell around Gettysburg.
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SPEAKER_01: You know, what a trip from Hungary.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really, really amazing.
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SPEAKER_00: And he was quite,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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a couple of people described him to me as sort of an academic
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or an intellectual
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SPEAKER_00: entrepreneur and very much a showman in the best possible way.
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SPEAKER_00: Someone who was a scholar,
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SPEAKER_00: very versed in the archives and academic work,
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SPEAKER_00: but also very happy,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: he taught at Gettysburg College and very happy to
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give tours,
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not only to people who came by or students,
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but visiting just dignitaries.
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SPEAKER_00: And so when when Colin Powell was there,
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SPEAKER_00: when George Bush was there,
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SPEAKER_00: they would ask,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: who's the best or,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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they would Gettysburg College would offer him up and he would
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very gladly say,
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SPEAKER_00: yes,
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I will take I will show the president of the United States
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around America's
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SPEAKER_00: greatest battlefield.
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SPEAKER_00: And anybody would, I think,
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SPEAKER_00: feel a great honor in doing that.
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SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
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SPEAKER_00: What must have been like for a man who,
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SPEAKER_00: as a boy,
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SPEAKER_00: watched his neighbors be taken off to be annihilated,
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SPEAKER_00: who watched communist oppression on a daily basis,
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SPEAKER_00: who fought against it,
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SPEAKER_00: who fled to the United States with no money and no education,
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SPEAKER_00: didn't speak English.
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What must it have been like for him to then be educating the
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president of the United States?
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just what a life trip.
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SPEAKER_00: So very American, too.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what he loved about it in the end.
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SPEAKER_00: He was a great lover of America.
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SPEAKER_00: Not that that's a rare thing,
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SPEAKER_00: but you could really see it in his choice of Lincoln as his life's work.
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SPEAKER_00: He had learned English by reading
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In part by reading a book of Lincoln's writings and really
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believed that Lincoln
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SPEAKER_00: was the apotheosis of American leadership,
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SPEAKER_00: of American values.
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SPEAKER_00: And he was.
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SPEAKER_00: It's certainly hard to disagree with that.
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SPEAKER_00: And that was what he spent his his life with.
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working on and promoting as a scholar and,
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you know,
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really parsing his Lincoln's words.
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SPEAKER_00: He was,
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SPEAKER_00: in a sense,
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an intellectual historian in the sense that he really got into
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Lincoln's ideas and
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SPEAKER_00: what drove Lincoln forward.
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SPEAKER_00: His first great book,
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SPEAKER_00: his first significant book,
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SPEAKER_00: was about Lincoln's economic ideas and what did he
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SPEAKER_00: want for the country?
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SPEAKER_00: What did he want the country to look like after the Civil War?
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SPEAKER_00: What were the policies he championed?
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SPEAKER_00: And,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: that's a,
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SPEAKER_00: I think,
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a side of Lincoln that maybe sometimes is undervalued or
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underappreciated.
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SPEAKER_01: Clay, where are you from?
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SPEAKER_01: Where did you grow up?
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SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: I think of that as a place to visit or to move to.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't think of people growing up there.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, it's funny because when I lived there.
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SPEAKER_01: It was before that was the, it was the bachelorette capital of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: That only happened after I left.
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SPEAKER_00: No, growing up, my father was from there and my mother is from Kentucky.
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And she,
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it was funny when I was in the eighties,
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you know,
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Nashville was a,
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SPEAKER_00: It was just a small city.
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: Nashville,
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SPEAKER_00: there was sort of an archipelago of these cities,
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SPEAKER_00: Chattanooga,
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SPEAKER_00: Knoxville,
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SPEAKER_00: Memphis,
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SPEAKER_00: Birmingham,
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SPEAKER_00: Louisville,
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SPEAKER_00: Lexington.
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SPEAKER_00: And they were all roughly the same size,
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SPEAKER_00: roughly the same dynamic,
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SPEAKER_00: pretty sleepy southern cities.
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SPEAKER_00: And Nashville...
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SPEAKER_00: among all of them,
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SPEAKER_00: was the one that kind of figured out where to go,
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SPEAKER_00: how to grow,
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SPEAKER_00: and now is in a league of its own.
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SPEAKER_00: But growing up, it was very insular.
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And my mother,
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I remember,
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she really didn't like it there because she felt excluded.
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She didn't fit in with the social crew or crowd that really
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valued Native people.
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backgrounds,
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if you weren't born,
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it didn't matter that she was married to a local.
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And it's funny because I didn't know many people who weren't
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from Nashville,
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SPEAKER_00: a few of my friends,
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SPEAKER_00: that was it.
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SPEAKER_00: Fast forward to today,
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or even I think it was about 15 years ago when I first started
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noticing this,
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SPEAKER_00: when I would go to Nashville and I would start to run into people
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SPEAKER_00: And they would say, well, where are you from?
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SPEAKER_00: And I'd say, you know, I'm from here, from Nashville.
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SPEAKER_00: And they would say, wow, I don't know anybody from Nashville.
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SPEAKER_00: Everybody I know is a transplant.
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SPEAKER_00: And now when I go back, I mean.
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SPEAKER_01: Your mother would have enjoyed it.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, they left after my brother and I.
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SPEAKER_00: you know, flew the coop, they moved to Blacksburg, Virginia.
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SPEAKER_00: They just wanted a small place.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lovely.
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SPEAKER_00: It's up in the mountains.
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SPEAKER_00: And they just wanted to get away from city.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: they saw where things were going as well,
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that the city was just getting bigger and bigger and their
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their house was worth a
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SPEAKER_00: little more.
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SPEAKER_00: So they bailed.
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SPEAKER_00: But I get back.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: you know, once a year maybe.
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And it's just,
12:43
there are things I recognize,
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but I also recognize that it's not my city anymore.
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SPEAKER_00: And that is, there's a certain, well, I mean, nostalgia for sure.
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SPEAKER_00: There's certain melancholy of knowing that,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: it's been 25,
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SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: depends on how,
13:02
SPEAKER_00: 25,
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SPEAKER_00: 30 years since it was my residence.
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SPEAKER_00: So as much as I have strong memories and affection for it,
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SPEAKER_00: It's just a different place.
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SPEAKER_00: Clay, what did you like to read when you were a kid?
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SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think up until a point I read what I love to read.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it was elementary school.
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SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of Hardy Boys.
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SPEAKER_00: I think I read everything.
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SPEAKER_00: It was right when they were updating the this is in the mid 80s.
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SPEAKER_00: They were updating the Hardy Boys.
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SPEAKER_00: So there were the original blue hardback Hardy Boys going back.
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SPEAKER_00: And of course, those were classics.
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SPEAKER_00: But then there were new.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Pardon my ignorance.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Did a team write the Hardy Boy books?
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's like with a lot of successful series.
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SPEAKER_00: It started off with one writer and then eventually it became a team.
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SPEAKER_00: So, and in the 1980s, they were revamping the series.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So modern stories about the Hardy Boys and a little more adventure.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: You know,
14:07
there was one where they confronted international terrorists
14:11
who had hijacked a
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SPEAKER_00: plane in Washington,
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SPEAKER_00: D.C.,
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And actually,
14:15
I remember that book because it really captured Washington.
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SPEAKER_00: After I moved to D.C.
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SPEAKER_00: for college, I went back and read it.
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And actually,
14:22
it was really good in terms of the geography and the cultural
14:28
picture.
14:28
I was struck someone,
14:30
whoever did that one must have really been a good writer.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, I read that as, you know, those as a kid.
14:35
And then I went through a whole phase of Tom Clancy and Clive
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Kessler and those.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: I read all of Clancy.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember Kessler.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Robert Ludlum.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Robert Ludlum.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sort of, you know, international thrillers.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, Cold War.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: end of the Cold War kind of thing.
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SPEAKER_00: World War III scenario, I was really into that kind of thing.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: And then in high school,
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SPEAKER_00: I went to a private boys school and we read all the classics and a lot of
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Shakespeare,
15:13
SPEAKER_00: a lot of Greek,
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SPEAKER_00: a lot of Latin poetry in translation.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: And all Canterbury Tales and all these things that
15:25
SPEAKER_00: unfortunately people don't read as much.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Good school.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
15:29
SPEAKER_01: What a good school.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: It was very good school.
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SPEAKER_00: Very, very happy that I went there again.
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SPEAKER_00: My father went there and it was sort of a given that I would go there.
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SPEAKER_00: But I, I did a lot of supplemental reading.
15:41
I felt like I was,
15:43
you know,
15:43
what was I not reading or what was I not reading in class?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: So I read,
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Jack Kerouac.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: I read more Edgar Allan Poe because we only read a little bit,
15:55
SPEAKER_00: and I fell in love with Edgar Allan Poe.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: More Hemingway because we would only read a little Hemingway.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: More contemporary stuff.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: What were we not getting?
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't because I resented my education,
16:09
SPEAKER_00: but it was simply because there's only so much that we could read,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: and there was a fairly...
16:16
set curriculum so uh so a lot of a lot of things like that uh a
16:21
lot of french
16:22
writers who we didn't read a lot of in class uh you know
16:27
nothing so there was no
16:28
real orientation it was just you read some camus and some saint
16:32
exupery and yes
16:34
SPEAKER_00: people like that yes yeah i remember i was uh i went through
16:40
SPEAKER_00: a Camus phase as a senior.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: That's a good phase.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: It was.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I read The Stranger, and I thought, oh, this is really good.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And then I read The Fall,
16:52
SPEAKER_00: and The First Man,
16:55
SPEAKER_00: his biography,
16:56
SPEAKER_00: or his sort of fictional memoir that was never published.
17:01
I think it was only published in the 90s,
17:02
or maybe it was only published in English in the 90s.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that came out, and that was a big one for me.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, things like that.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And but no rhyme or reason.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: We also wanted my school.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: required us to have New Yorker subscriptions.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And so through our English class,
17:22
SPEAKER_00: and we would read,
17:23
SPEAKER_00: this is during the,
17:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:26
SPEAKER_00: the really great,
17:27
SPEAKER_00: one of the great eras of really fantastic New Yorker writer cores.
17:33
And so we would read those,
17:36
sometimes the fiction,
17:37
sometimes the nonfiction.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: You probably read short stories by Alice Munro.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was, yeah.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: So I was exposed to a lot of, yeah, contemporary short story writing,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: really enjoyed, really enjoyed that.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: And really,
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I think that left a mark on me as a,
17:54
SPEAKER_00: as a writer,
17:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:55
SPEAKER_00: I didn't really have an idea about what the writing world was like,
17:59
SPEAKER_00: I was I worked on the yearbook,
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I was a pretty good English student.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: But what it meant to actually be a writer, I didn't have a
18:09
SPEAKER_00: a good idea.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know writers.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Nashville has a very literary history, but
18:16
SPEAKER_00: our school didn't really engage with it that much.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: It's done a better job since then.
18:20
But,
18:20
you know,
18:21
back to Vanderbilt in the 1930s,
18:23
this is where the fugitives were.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you had Robert, all these guys.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Robert Crowe Ransom.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Robert Tate and John Crowe Ransom.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: No, John.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I got the first name mixed up.
18:33
Yeah,
18:33
they all came through there and had a literary magazine,
18:37
The Fugitive.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I was aware of that.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: But what did it actually, so the New Yorker was actually a great,
18:47
SPEAKER_00: introduction.
18:48
Not that I was going to walk out the door of my high school and
18:50
go get a job at The
18:51
SPEAKER_00: New Yorker,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: but oh,
18:52
SPEAKER_00: here are people working as writers today.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And then that became an entree into lots of other things.
19:00
The other thing I did as a kid that really left a big mark for
19:05
me was I was a debater.
19:08
And I think unless people really have been exposed to what high
19:13
school policy
19:14
SPEAKER_00: debate is like,
19:17
SPEAKER_00: they don't really understand it.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: It's this intensely...
19:22
SPEAKER_00: intellectual, intensely driven field.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I spent all my free time in this.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I went all over the country.
19:31
I went to regularly went to Texas,
19:34
Illinois,
19:35
Iowa,
19:35
New York,
19:36
Georgia,
19:37
all over the place.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And you speak at incredibly rapid speeds.
19:43
You do intense research and then bring this research to the
19:48
topic of the year.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And it
19:51
It ends up being,
19:52
and it's still this way,
19:55
this very arcane,
19:56
very rule defined,
20:02
activity that introduced me to an enormous variety of ideas and
20:09
topics,
20:10
policies.
20:11
So we would spend a year debating immigration policy,
20:15
a year debating trade policy.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And I learned so much through that.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Things that in some cases a high schooler has no business knowing about.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I knew more about
20:30
SPEAKER_00: US trade policy toward China than I've ever needed to know.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: But it made me very comfortable with those topics.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And most people in debate
20:39
SPEAKER_00: go on to be lawyers.
20:40
And there are some great lawyers today,
20:44
legal minds,
20:45
who started out in debate.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: But surprisingly, very few of them become journalists.
20:50
And I say surprising because it was a great basis for me to be
20:57
a journalist.
20:58
One of the things I think a good journalist has to be able to
21:01
do is to walk into a topic
21:04
not know anything about it,
21:06
and very quickly surmise,
21:09
what are the salient points?
21:11
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to know?
21:13
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to tell people about?
21:14
And how do I structure that in a way that,
21:17
you know,
21:19
serves the need of what I'm trying to do?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And that was exactly what I did in debate.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: So in a lot of ways, that was my real education.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And
21:29
Going going through college,
21:31
that was the framework through which I kind of pursued things.
21:36
I mean,
21:37
in the sense that I never really had a desire to focus on
21:42
anything.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: I was just very I took a lot of different classes.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Same.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And you're a generalist.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Very much.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm a generalist for better.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:54
And there have been times where I've definitely felt more on
21:57
the master of none
21:58
SPEAKER_00: kind of side of the equation.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: But.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: We always have a couple of things on which we can go deep.
22:07
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: This is what I advise generalists.
22:09
And Noren Podhoretz would say that most people can go about two
22:12
minutes or many
22:13
SPEAKER_01: people can go about two minutes on a range of subjects.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Can you go the third?
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Can you go the fourth?
22:20
And so there are a couple of things on which you should be able
22:22
to go an hour.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: You know.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Well,
22:25
SPEAKER_00: the other thing that I find that complements that,
22:29
SPEAKER_00: for me at least,
22:30
SPEAKER_00: that I think is one of my
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And I don't need to go on about myself.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, that's why you're here.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: That's why I asked you.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that makes a good journalist is curiosity.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
22:42
SPEAKER_00: in the sense of can you sit down with someone,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: know nothing about who they are,
22:47
find out what they're doing and just ask and talk and learn and
22:52
hopefully bring
22:53
SPEAKER_00: some sense of background information.
22:59
But after an hour,
23:01
come away,
23:01
and both sides feel,
23:03
wow,
23:03
that was a great conversation.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: But as a journalist, I come away feeling like I learned so much.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: I once had a conversation,
23:10
SPEAKER_00: this was before I was in obituaries,
23:12
SPEAKER_00: a long conversation with a funeral director.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And it was fascinating.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: It must have.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Boy, so many things must go into that job.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Psychology, diplomacy.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: But most jobs, I think...
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Most jobs are like that.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: One of the books that I really love,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: and there have been a couple of books like it,
23:35
SPEAKER_00: it's Studs Terkel's Working.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because he was a great interviewer.
23:41
And he just went and talked to people doing all kinds of jobs
23:47
and just said,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: tell me about your job.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
23:50
SPEAKER_00: What is this job like?
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And they and they told him.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: And the beauty of the book is it's this mosaic, all kinds of things.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Some jobs you would love to have,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I forget what they were,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: but,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:02
runway model or a guy who picks up dead animals on the side of
24:07
the highway.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: In this structure,
24:10
each one has dignity and each one has he presents each in a
24:16
fairly an open and an
24:18
SPEAKER_00: empathetic way.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: What a great idea for a book, by the way.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm almost envious it's been done.
24:26
You remind me of something about the importance of curiosity in
24:30
a journalist.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Probably Bill Buckley is not thought of as a model of humility, probably.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: He once made a wonderful remark about Carl Sagan.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: He was writing a column and he said,
24:44
Professor Sagan,
24:46
testifying before the Senate committee,
24:47
was so arrogant.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: He reminded me of, well, me, Bill wrote.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: But Bill was very humble in that he loved talking to people,
24:59
SPEAKER_01: interviewing people who knew things he didn't.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: He knew he knew a lot.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: He didn't have to display that he knew a lot.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: He knew he did.
25:06
He wanted to extract from you what you knew,
25:09
but he didn't,
25:10
to broaden him.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think that's a mark of.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Well,
25:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say,
25:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:19
SPEAKER_00: in his case,
25:19
SPEAKER_00: a great mind,
25:20
SPEAKER_00: but,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: an ingredient,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: it's an ingredient.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
25:23
SPEAKER_00: yes,
25:24
I think anybody who really has a first class mind has to be
25:27
willing to say,
25:29
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
25:30
SPEAKER_00: there are a lot of things I don't know.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm always fascinated.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: I always love running into people who are like that.
25:36
And I am lucky that I work at a company that has a lot of
25:39
people like that,
25:40
right?
25:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in a way, they can't help but interview me.
25:45
And I'll have long conversations with my colleagues,
25:48
and we'll just talk about what we're doing.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And we'll learn.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: For no other reason than just to enjoy that process and that learning.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
25:57
the New York Times is a place where a lot of things happen and
26:00
there are a lot of
26:01
people doing a lot of different things and we're running in a
26:04
mile a minute.
26:05
But one of the joys is that there are a lot of smart people
26:09
doing a lot of really
26:10
SPEAKER_00: interesting things here.
26:11
And you can learn so much if you just maybe slow down and take
26:18
a minute to chat with people.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk for a moment.
26:21
You have so many subjects,
26:23
but I want to talk for a moment about T.R.,
26:25
Theodore Roosevelt.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: He was not only an important guy, he was a very unusual guy, wasn't he?
26:34
SPEAKER_01: An unusual character.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of amazing he went so far in public life because he was such a,
26:41
SPEAKER_01: well,
26:41
SPEAKER_01: in a crossword puzzle,
26:42
SPEAKER_01: they'd say a one-er.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: He was so idiosyncratic.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, he was even a bit weird.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: And I say that admiringly.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: Very weird.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: Very weird.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: Did you enjoy companioning with him, so to speak?
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
26:58
By the way,
26:59
before I let you answer,
27:00
I may have sounded like someone who knows a lot about him.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: I really don't.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: I've always intended to know more.
27:07
I read some of his speeches in preparation for a history of the
27:10
Nobel Peace Prize,
27:12
for example.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I've read articles about him, but I...
27:15
SPEAKER_01: He seems to be a man of so many parts,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: and one day I will actually get to know him,
27:19
SPEAKER_01: but I don't really so far.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, please.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Well,
27:22
I think that's one of the reasons why so many people continue
27:25
to be fascinated by
27:26
SPEAKER_00: him,
27:27
SPEAKER_00: is that he is setting aside the fact that he was president.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: He was one of the most singular figures in American history,
27:36
SPEAKER_00: and so many labels can be applied to him,
27:38
SPEAKER_00: and you see so many books that
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Zero in on different aspects.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Conservationist, outdoorsman.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: He was a writer, a great accomplishment.
27:50
Yeah.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, obviously a politician.
27:53
Sort of like Lincoln in this way,
27:54
a practicing politician,
27:55
but one hell of a writer.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: A deathless writer.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and one with...
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Great depth.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: That man in the arena speech, isn't it?
28:04
SPEAKER_00: The man in the arena.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable piece of rhetoric.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: He wrote a multi-volume book,
28:10
SPEAKER_00: a history of the American West and the opening of the American West.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, and that book is, or series, is okay.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really stand to the test of time, let's say.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: But his history of, his naval history of the War of 1812, I think...
28:28
SPEAKER_00: some scholars would say it still stands up as a useful guide.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: There aren't that many.
28:36
And even up through well into the 20th century,
28:39
it was held up as the book on the subject.
28:42
And it was,
28:42
I hesitate to say it was the first,
28:45
I think it was his first or second book.
28:48
He wrote it while he was at Harvard as a student,
28:52
the bulk of it,
28:52
and it came out right after.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: But he was an immensely,
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Interesting figure.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: You talk about Buckley.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, that comparison or that... It's been made.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Goes directly to Roosevelt because Roosevelt was obviously no small...
29:13
SPEAKER_00: He was not particularly humble either,
29:15
SPEAKER_00: but he was intensely curious.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So the book that I wrote was about his period with the Rough Riders.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I took away from the book was...
29:26
How much or the thesis of the book when it came to him was that
29:30
the Rough Rider
29:30
SPEAKER_00: experience,
29:31
SPEAKER_00: though it was fairly short,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: was a crucible for him.
29:34
He brought together all these elements of his personality into
29:38
this one moment,
29:40
SPEAKER_00: which he called his crowded hour.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: But it made him who he then was going forward as president.
29:47
And one of the talents that he exhibited or qualities was that
29:51
curiosity and humility.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And he was surrounded by men who were much younger than he was.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: but who had a wide variety of experiences that he didn't have.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: There were military veterans.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: He had some West Point graduates.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: He had trackers, miners, sheriffs.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you name it, that walk of life was in the Rough Riders.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And he would spend long periods of time talking to these guys,
30:19
SPEAKER_00: just trying to learn about,
30:20
SPEAKER_00: well,
30:20
SPEAKER_00: what is it like to be a cowboy in the New Mexico territory?
30:25
SPEAKER_00: What is it like
30:26
SPEAKER_00: to be a sheriff of a small town.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: He reveled in the diversity of the Rough Riders.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think really came away having learned a lot, not only about
30:41
the men in his group that the about america but but about
30:44
himself i think it really
30:46
transformed him and you know he was he insisted from then on
30:51
that he was even after
30:53
he was president you know that people called him colonel and
30:56
and i think really
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, he was Colonel Roosevelt.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, he was very proud of that.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there was a certain arrogance.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: But also,
31:06
SPEAKER_00: I think more importantly,
31:08
SPEAKER_00: it was his way of saying,
31:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:10
SPEAKER_00: this was the most important time for me.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: This is what marks me as a person.
31:15
What made me who I am is my time in Cuba,
31:19
really,
31:19
even in Texas when they were training.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: This is what made me who I am.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And I and it was just it was a lot of fun.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, I always think even today, I wrote that book several years ago.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, would I would I enjoy his company?
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Because I also read,
31:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:39
I've read lots of accounts of people who are around him and
31:42
some people love many
31:43
SPEAKER_00: people loved him.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: But also other people said, you know, he's a lot.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Today we would say he's extra.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: From a journalistic point of view,
31:52
SPEAKER_01: from a professional point of view,
31:54
SPEAKER_01: you would like being around him.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: He might be kind of a jerk at times.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think a jerk, but also...
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I like people who are full of themselves.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, me too.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: I can start naming names.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: I've known several charming, talented egotists.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: I quite enjoy them.
32:16
And I sit back and allow them to perform and enjoy it as though
32:21
I had bought a ticket to a show.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
32:24
the thing that I really appreciate about him was that he saw no
32:27
bounds to what he
32:28
SPEAKER_00: could do.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that in both.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's an arrogance about that.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: But there's also,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: I think,
32:34
SPEAKER_00: a wonderful,
32:35
SPEAKER_00: almost childlike naivete,
32:38
SPEAKER_00: right,
32:38
SPEAKER_00: that I can do anything I put my sights on.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: And let me ask you.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: Was that a result of privilege, of having been born into privilege?
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Was that a positive side of privilege?
32:48
SPEAKER_01: The idea that you, young man, can do anything.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: You're a master of the universe.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: But of course, a lot of people born poor have felt that way.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people born rich have not felt that way.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: So maybe I should...
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, no, I think it's definitely a factor.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I'd hesitate to say that it's a cause because the converse,
33:08
SPEAKER_00: I think much more important is that he was born.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: He was always very sick as not sick like Kennedy was sick.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: He didn't.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: He just he was had a lot of respiratory issues.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: He had, you know, he died young.
33:25
uh and and he knew this and and he also knew what was it sort
33:28
of a little runt who
33:29
who determined to box yes yeah he was undersized he was uh
33:35
skinny he didn't put on
33:37
weight easily uh you know until he did uh as an older man but
33:42
he built himself
33:45
SPEAKER_00: There's a wonderful,
33:46
I think one of the best single books on Roosevelt is David
33:51
McCullough's Mornings on
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Horseback.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's really just about his childhood and early adulthood.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And it really, it's wonderfully researched.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: There's so much in there that he discovered about Roosevelt.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: But it's a wonderful portrait of how someone at a very early age decides,
34:12
SPEAKER_00: I am going to make myself into a person.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: I have an idea about, I know what that person is going to look like.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: It is not who I am.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: It's not where I'm headed.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to build myself.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to exercise.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to build my body.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And then intellectually, I'm going to build myself.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to know?
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And with a fierce determination that...
34:34
SPEAKER_00: He was able to certainly play out because of his privilege,
34:40
SPEAKER_00: but I don't think that came from privilege.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: I think that came from just something innate within him,
34:45
SPEAKER_00: his need to be a full person in his mind.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's who he was.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: If you look at photos of him as a child,
34:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, he really is quite scrawny.
35:00
And then there's a wonderful photo of him when he was at
35:03
Harvard as an undergraduate.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: And he looks, he has these giant mutton chops.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: He's, you know, he's not wearing a shirt.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: I think it's right after he was in a boxing match.
35:15
And,
35:15
you know,
35:15
he just,
35:16
he's sitting down and he just looks gnarly,
35:20
to be honest.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Macho dude.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Hewn.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, he looks human.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: You can really, he is the image of someone who has worked for who he is.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's just, it's an amazing story, I think.
35:39
And it's one of the things that just drew me to him was just
35:44
his self-actualization.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: So let's get back to obits.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: At the New York Times, who makes the cut?
35:55
SPEAKER_01: Who gets obituerized?
35:56
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: We always try to balance between the headline names and...
36:06
making sure that you know if someone famous dies we are on it
36:11
um and often you know
36:12
fame is is a fairly elastic concept so they may not be famous
36:16
today but they were
36:17
famous before um you know we we do forgotten before they died
36:23
so to speak yeah we
36:24
do a lot of athletes right yes i mean frankly if you were in a
36:30
major hall of fame
36:31
SPEAKER_00: if you were a professional athlete in new york if you were
36:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, the bar is not that high for us to write about you.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: I love that fact.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, our advances.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: We tend to know about the great and the good.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: I like reading about the more minor figures.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And then that's the other category,
36:53
SPEAKER_00: right,
36:53
SPEAKER_00: is people who you don't know about and that we don't know about.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, we'll write obituaries for people
37:01
SPEAKER_00: who died weeks earlier.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's only because we,
37:05
we've just found out because they weren't famous because no one
37:09
marked their death.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes this will be things like inventors,
37:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:14
SPEAKER_00: people who,
37:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:16
SPEAKER_00: I,
37:16
SPEAKER_00: the,
37:17
SPEAKER_00: the,
37:17
SPEAKER_00: or the,
37:18
SPEAKER_00: the guy who created the Jansport backpack,
37:21
SPEAKER_00: which really revolutionized backpacks.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Can I give you a confession on these inventors?
37:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't really like reading about science.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: I wish I did.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: But I love reading about these.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: I love reading 600, 700, 800 words about these scientists and inventors.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: It's just perfect for the likes of me.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly it.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: And so it's figures like those where you don't know the name.
37:46
But then either because of the thing they were attached to or
37:50
the culture and the
37:51
SPEAKER_00: ones that I really like are these kind of amorphous characters,
37:57
amorphous in the sense that it's not that they did anything per
38:01
se that I could put
38:03
SPEAKER_00: my finger on.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: It's that they were there in a scene.
38:06
SPEAKER_03: They were part of the furniture.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were part of the furniture.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a lot of New York characters.
38:14
You know,
38:14
New York is a perfect,
38:15
because New York is made up of scenes,
38:17
right?
38:18
So you can say,
38:18
you know,
38:19
here's someone who was all over the New York art scene in the
38:23
1960s.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Not a famous artist, not a journalist.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: They were just...
38:28
SPEAKER_00: you know, a fly on the wall at every opening.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: There was something about them that made them,
38:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:34
SPEAKER_00: oftentimes they are journalists in some way.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: You know,
38:38
SPEAKER_00: here's someone who,
38:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:41
was Mario Savio's right-hand man during the free speech
38:45
movement in Berkeley,
38:47
SPEAKER_00: right?
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, is that in and of itself that necessary, you know, that
38:53
SPEAKER_00: important a role?
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe not.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: But it's a great opportunity to now talk about,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: well,
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Berkeley in the mid-60s,
39:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:02
here's this place on the cusp of completely changing its
39:06
identity as a culture,
39:07
SPEAKER_00: right?
39:07
SPEAKER_00: Becoming the Berkeley that we sort of think of today.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: But the Berkeley before that was...
39:12
SPEAKER_00: different.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: And,
39:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:15
so to write about a character like that allows you to then get
39:18
into that whole
39:19
SPEAKER_00: story.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I love,
39:21
SPEAKER_00: the challenges of obituary writing is,
39:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:27
SPEAKER_00: we,
39:29
given that I have a background in also writing history and
39:31
reading a lot of history
39:33
SPEAKER_00: and debates about history and
39:36
You know,
39:36
I'm aware that even with an obituary,
39:38
there's not one story,
39:40
right?
39:40
And there's not one interpretation of even a life or the world
39:45
that that life inhabited.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: And so often there's an extra,
39:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:50
SPEAKER_00: if I can put a little spin on it,
39:52
SPEAKER_00: if I can say,
39:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:54
SPEAKER_00: here's how people traditionally interpreted this point in time,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: this history,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: but actually here's somebody who shows us a different view.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: a different influence.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Here's someone who was deeply,
40:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm making this up,
40:10
SPEAKER_00: but let's say someone who is deeply religious,
40:13
SPEAKER_00: deeply Christian,
40:14
SPEAKER_00: and they were very active in anti-war politics in Berkeley in the 1960s.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And it shows that there was a lot more, that kind of thing.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: So really almost a thesis, to some extent, a little revisionism.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: going on in there.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: And can you pack that into an 800, 1000 words?
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Not all the time.
40:36
And it's not something that I go in thinking,
40:39
okay,
40:39
I'm gonna just make a big move here.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: But every once in a while,
40:44
a character presents themselves where I can really position a
40:48
novel argument,
40:50
bring out a different perspective than people are used to in
40:56
their history.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: What's the average length of an obit?
41:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, on your pages.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: They would like them to be about 850 words.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: We are nowhere near that.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: I would say the average probably comes up to about a thousand.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: And,
41:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
41:13
SPEAKER_00: I know for maybe non-journalistic listeners,
41:17
SPEAKER_00: that might sound like,
41:17
SPEAKER_00: well,
41:18
SPEAKER_00: it's 150 words.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: But as you know, every word counts.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we get into these sort of fights.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: But my editor is very...
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Very giving.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: And there is no... If we can get it at a short length, great.
41:38
If it needs to be a thousand words,
41:40
because remember,
41:40
you're telling someone's life.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: And the idea that,
41:43
SPEAKER_00: well,
41:43
SPEAKER_00: we have to cut a bunch out of their life story simply to make a page,
41:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
41:49
SPEAKER_00: a word count seems cruel.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we take very seriously, there's almost...
41:57
SPEAKER_00: there's almost a sacral element to what we do.
42:00
And in the sense that we are oftentimes the last people who
42:06
will ever write about somebody.
42:10
Obviously,
42:11
if you're a famous actor or politician,
42:13
you'll be biographized.
42:16
The obit that you write will be the one that people turn to for
42:20
years and years and
42:21
SPEAKER_01: years to find out about so-and-so.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot riding on it.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
42:26
And so we are,
42:26
I don't mean to put a religious spin on it,
42:32
but there is something.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we take that very seriously.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And that whether this is someone,
42:39
SPEAKER_00: we don't see our job as honoring somebody,
42:42
SPEAKER_00: but recording somebody.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: And that in itself is a great responsibility.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: You bring up something.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: I have so many questions for you.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: First, who is your editor, Clay?
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Bill McDonald is the editor of the department.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: He's been here a long time.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: If anyone's ever seen the documentary, Obit,
43:00
SPEAKER_00: which came out a few years before I joined.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: He's all over that documentary and, of course, still today.
43:07
Clay,
43:07
I want to give you a few phrases that came to mind as I was
43:10
listening to you.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: And I go back to Bill Buckley.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: I learned this quotation from him.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: It is not his.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know who said it.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he did either.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: But he would sometimes quote, 99 of every 100 people are interesting.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: And so is the hundredth for he is the exception.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: And he was interested in everybody.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: And I think we are too.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: And when you were talking about people on the scene,
43:36
SPEAKER_01: I thought of two phrases I learned from Paul Johnson.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: I borrow from him constantly.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: He was an adornment to society.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: One was adornment to society.
43:45
SPEAKER_01: The other one is added to the gaiety of life.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: Johnson would say so-and-so added to the gaiety of life.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: You know,
43:53
SPEAKER_01: not the most important figure,
43:55
SPEAKER_01: not necessarily a sober figure,
43:57
SPEAKER_01: but someone who added to the gaiety of life.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: So you often hear,
44:03
SPEAKER_01: you've heard this a thousand times,
44:06
SPEAKER_01: obits in British papers are different from obits in American papers.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: Obits in British papers are more colorful and they're often insulting.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: And I must say, I like the balance that the New York Times obits
44:21
SPEAKER_01: set in that they're colorful enough.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: They have flair enough.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: But they're also, they're rarely insulting.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about Pol Pot.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, monsters one obiturizes.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: And so that's an interesting line.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: And I love reading the obits in the British papers.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: Who wouldn't?
44:43
SPEAKER_01: But I sometimes feel a little bit guilty about it.
44:47
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: And so then this whole business of do not speak ill of the dead.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: So in your mind, I'm not talking about anything written down.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, as part of Clay Rison's ethics, so to speak, what are the rules?
45:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
45:03
so I come at the job as a journalist objective in the same way
45:11
that I would any
45:12
SPEAKER_00: other beat.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have thought of that.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what I start with.
45:17
And then I would say that I,
45:19
I put ever so slightly a thumb on the scale in,
45:23
in two senses.
45:25
The first is in the sense of respecting the family and an
45:30
awareness that most of
45:32
SPEAKER_00: the time,
45:32
SPEAKER_00: not all the,
45:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:33
SPEAKER_00: sometimes people don't leave anyone behind them,
45:35
SPEAKER_00: but even then they leave behind friends.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: They'll be reading this.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: I think about that in my music criticism, believe it or not.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, how could you not?
45:49
SPEAKER_00: And to keep that in mind.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes that's where I think about death,
45:57
SPEAKER_00: because people sometimes don't want to get into causes of death.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: They're embarrassed or they're just private people.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: And I will, you know, we'll have a conversation.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: If I happen to know, I'll have a conversation.
46:10
I always lean on the side of journalistic transparency and
46:15
telling what I know.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: But if someone doesn't want to tell me, I'm not going to push them.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: And if someone says to me, well, we don't want to talk about that.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: And then I find out independently.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: I...
46:30
probably won't list it because the family has expressed to me
46:35
that they don't want
46:36
SPEAKER_00: that exposed.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: You won't even do an according to so-and-so or such-and-such.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: No.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
46:43
No,
46:43
no,
46:43
because now if they tell me,
46:47
that's,
46:49
you know,
46:50
it's always a negotiation.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: But I think that sort of humane... Suicides must be tricky.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Suicides are very tricky.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: And I actually have a very specific take on that,
47:04
SPEAKER_00: which is somewhat different from my colleagues.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Some of my colleagues.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: I am very wary of specifics.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that,
47:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
47:16
SPEAKER_00: frankly,
47:17
SPEAKER_00: from a public health point of view,
47:19
SPEAKER_00: we should not be talking about the specifics of suicide,
47:22
SPEAKER_00: how they did it,
47:23
SPEAKER_00: where they did it.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: And often those are the most painful for the family.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: That's a different story.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: That's more like a news item than an obit.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: But what I do want to talk about is if someone does die by suicide,
47:38
SPEAKER_00: I think it should be discussed.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: I think it should be out there because my my uncle killed himself.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, it has run in my family.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, you know, you know about this.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm just personally aware.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: And it and it is it is something that needs to be.
48:01
demystified i think yeah yeah yeah i think that there's a fine
48:05
line to be walked
48:06
between uh this sort of macabre obsession when people find
48:10
suicide fascinating and
48:12
i don't want to get and hush hush but at the same time hush
48:16
yeah it's a very common
48:17
SPEAKER_00: cause of death
48:18
SPEAKER_00: It absolutely is.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: And the more that it can be spoken of in sober and appropriate ways,
48:27
SPEAKER_00: the more we can talk about it as a culture.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: It is an epidemic in this country.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: So,
48:32
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:33
so those are the kinds of considerations that I bring to
48:37
aspects of the job that I
48:38
SPEAKER_00: think I wouldn't bring to if I was reporting on climate policy or trade
48:44
SPEAKER_00: negotiations.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: This is it's a little different.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing with,
48:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:50
there are times where I'll be researching someone and I'll come
48:53
across a great
48:54
SPEAKER_00: nugget about them that doesn't show them in the best light.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'll.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: Where it's not necessary to, you know, so, for example, I mean, this is.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: not really talking out of school, but I'll just pull the curtain back.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: So I was writing this obituary for Bud Court,
49:12
SPEAKER_00: the actor from Harold Baud,
49:13
SPEAKER_00: and he had started a movie called,
49:15
SPEAKER_00: this is afterward,
49:17
SPEAKER_00: called The Son of Hitler.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: And it was...
49:20
SPEAKER_00: as bad as you probably imagine it is, right?
49:24
SPEAKER_00: But at the time... I'll just interrupt you, Clay.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: Is it about the man who claimed to be the son of Hitler?
49:29
SPEAKER_00: No, it was a completely... Something different.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, never mind.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: Because I wrote about such a person in a book.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: No, no, not... It was a completely made-up story.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: But Bud Cort was also a method actor.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: And he brought that to his interviews.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: And he said some things that...
49:45
probably at the time were embarrassing certainly if i were to
49:49
repeat them now uh in
49:53
an obituary it would not make him look that good i don't think
49:56
they were intrinsic
49:57
to who he was i think he was playing a part and and and
50:02
promoting the movie uh you
50:04
know these were things that were let's say a little more a
50:08
little less critical of
50:09
SPEAKER_00: hitler than we would like someone to be uh and you know
50:14
SPEAKER_00: if I were mean spirited,
50:15
I could have written a very different obituary that took him to
50:20
task for all these
50:21
SPEAKER_00: things.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: I would think unfairly.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that reflects who he was, but I could do it.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and there, but, but I wouldn't do that because that's not our job.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think that,
50:35
SPEAKER_00: I think at the end of the day,
50:36
SPEAKER_00: that,
50:36
SPEAKER_00: that little thumb on the scale,
50:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:39
SPEAKER_00: I just don't really,
50:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't,
50:43
want people to come away with maybe a more fun and titillating
50:49
vision of a person,
50:51
SPEAKER_00: but ultimately unfair or somewhat inaccurate.
50:57
It's one of the dangers of obituary writing is someone dies and
51:02
they leave behind
51:03
SPEAKER_00: oftentimes an immense corpus of comments,
51:07
SPEAKER_00: interviews,
51:08
SPEAKER_00: writings,
51:09
SPEAKER_00: and you can pull all kinds of stuff and you can...
51:13
SPEAKER_00: you have a broad palette from which to draw all kinds of elements,
51:21
SPEAKER_00: to paint someone as a monster,
51:24
SPEAKER_00: as a saint,
51:25
SPEAKER_00: the same person.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not out to do either, but- Journalism is choice.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: Journalism is taste.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: Writing is judgment.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: Abe Rosenthal was once asked, how do you edit the New York Times?
51:39
SPEAKER_01: He said, with my stomach.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: Very important.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: And I just thought of something that I hadn't thought of.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: There's an extra weight on you because of the publication you write for.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: Because so many people are gonna read it and that will be the obit.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: I've often thought about this in the area of music criticism.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: The New York Times is the trade journal of classical music.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: A critic of the Times can really hurt someone.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: I really can't.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: I do my scribbling for an arts and letters journal,
52:08
SPEAKER_01: which I prize and value,
52:10
SPEAKER_01: and which a few thousand people do,
52:11
SPEAKER_01: the New Criterion.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: I can't really hurt somebody, which is good.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: But a Timesman can.
52:19
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to Broadway,
52:22
SPEAKER_01: this I know very little about,
52:23
SPEAKER_01: but it used to be,
52:24
SPEAKER_01: I've heard people say,
52:25
SPEAKER_01: the Times used to be able to kill a show.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: They can't anymore, but they could.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's a lot of power.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: And when people go to an obit,
52:36
SPEAKER_01: oh,
52:36
SPEAKER_01: so-and-so has died,
52:37
SPEAKER_01: or I need to know about so-and-so died in 1973.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm just making this up.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: Let's read the Times obit.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: Today,
52:43
SPEAKER_01: it might be the Wikipedia entry,
52:44
SPEAKER_01: but still,
52:45
SPEAKER_01: these things you're writing and leaving in the great database,
52:50
SPEAKER_01: These things matter.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: Well,
52:52
SPEAKER_00: just to give you an example,
52:54
SPEAKER_00: a few weeks ago,
52:55
SPEAKER_00: I wrote an obituary for this pioneering submarine captain.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: He was at the forefront of the nuclear Navy and he left.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: He was a colonel and he left at a surprising time in his career.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: And when.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: What's his name, Clay?
53:13
SPEAKER_00: I read every obit you write and I can't.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: His name was Alfred.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: That's OK.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: We'll get it later.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
53:21
SPEAKER_01: Makes me think of Hyman Rickover and those guys.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: No, no, but he was chosen by Rickover.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: Anyway...
53:28
SPEAKER_00: In the course of my research,
53:30
I found that essentially he was fired from his job with the
53:37
Navy and then was
53:38
forced to retire from the Navy because he had hired a
53:43
girlfriend and promoted her
53:47
SPEAKER_00: at his office and he was called out for it and punished.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: I was going to guess it was something sexual.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have guessed that, which is relatively benign.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: It is.
53:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, he was married.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: Ah, okay.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: Gets less benign by the minute.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: But I see what you mean.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: But certainly not criminal, but also evil.
54:03
not not good but intrinsic to his story because one could very
54:09
and as i had wonder
54:11
here's this guy with this great career who is beloved within
54:16
the navy who's very
54:17
clearly on the track to be an admiral and and yet then he
54:21
leaves and and goes off
54:23
and you know has a second career as an academic and he was
54:25
really did some amazing
54:27
SPEAKER_00: things uh but
54:30
what happened so i felt yes this is and it wasn't a story that
54:35
the family told me
54:36
it wasn't a story that was in uh he had written some memoirs it
54:40
wasn't in that but
54:41
it was in the record it was public it was reported in
54:45
newspapers so uh so i
54:48
included it um and you know i feel very strongly that that was
54:53
the right decision
54:55
But,
54:56
you know,
54:57
not surprising,
54:58
members of his family were not happy with that.
55:00
SPEAKER_00: And I take that as a... I don't dismiss that, right?
55:06
SPEAKER_00: As much as I feel like, yes, I made the right decision, that was...
55:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not just scuttlebutt.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: It really does help explain this story.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: And we are not here to bury unnecessary... But it's not a eulogy, is it?
55:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not a eulogy.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: And yet,
55:27
SPEAKER_00: at the same time,
55:28
I take to heart that there were people who were harmed is the
55:35
only word I can use.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: They were harmed by that.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's...
55:41
SPEAKER_00: you know,
55:41
SPEAKER_00: it matters all the more when it appears in the New York Times,
55:44
SPEAKER_00: because as you said,
55:46
SPEAKER_00: this is the one that people are going to read.
55:48
This is the picture of the person that comes out for hundreds
55:54
of millions of people.
55:55
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and I can't, I just sit with that.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: I have to sit with it.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I did the right thing.
56:03
SPEAKER_00: I would do the same thing again, but I would do it
56:08
With clear eyes,
56:09
open eyes,
56:09
knowing that there are consequences to what I do.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: And that I think about that all the time.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: And and it's there's no answer.
56:20
And there is just try to do the best we can and spend a lot of
56:25
time thinking about
56:25
SPEAKER_00: those choices.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I totally hear you and relate.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, I have about two more.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: And this is not flattery.
56:37
It's just truth that some of the best writers in journalism are
56:40
obituary writers.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: I know you don't disagree.
56:44
I mean,
56:45
if you want to exclude yourself,
56:48
how good is Penelope Green,
56:50
for example?
56:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Penelope Green is just... She's full of jazz.
56:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: She's like a jazz artist.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: Penelope's great.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: Anita Gates, who was never a full-time obituary writer.
57:04
SPEAKER_00: She was a movie critic, but...
57:07
she now in her retirement writes a lot of our advances on film
57:13
and cultural figures.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful job.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes the people who, I mean, we have a wonderful staff.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm very happy, you know, really think we have the best.
57:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll say toot our own horn.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: I think we have the best writing staff.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, you ought to.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: But also people, the obituary, the form of obituaries brings out
57:34
SPEAKER_00: I think the best in certain writers who write for us.
57:36
So Vanessa Friedman writes a lot of our,
57:39
you know,
57:39
she's our culture,
57:40
our fashion critic.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if a fashion designer dies, she will write for us.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: And she does a wonderful job.
57:47
I like her writing anyway,
57:48
but I think when she writes for us,
57:49
it's really something special.
57:50
SPEAKER_01: How about Sam Roberts on New York political figures?
57:53
SPEAKER_00: Sam Roberts, I mean,
57:55
SPEAKER_00: Who would you prefer?
57:58
SPEAKER_00: Who would you pick?
57:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
57:59
SPEAKER_00: here's a guy who literally lives and breathes New York politics,
58:03
SPEAKER_00: has done it for decades and decades and decades.
58:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, no one is going to beat Sam.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: And he's so such a wonderful writer.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: So I think of him as a very economical writer.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can get so much through.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Margot Fox, who has retired and now just writes books.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, she did some advances.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: Did she write under a different name, Clay?
58:26
SPEAKER_00: Margalite.
58:27
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: But we call her Margot.
58:30
SPEAKER_00: Bruce Weber, who used to write a lot of our movie films.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: And it goes back,
58:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
58:40
SPEAKER_00: the first one,
58:41
SPEAKER_00: Alden Whitman,
58:42
SPEAKER_00: who he wasn't the first obituary writer,
58:45
SPEAKER_00: but he was the one who really created the modern obituaries desk.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: And the irony is that he had been
58:52
He had been a member of the Communist Party and New York Times
58:55
had a policy where
58:57
SPEAKER_00: we wouldn't blacklist people.
58:58
But if you lied or if you were believed to have lied in front
59:02
of Congress or if you
59:05
SPEAKER_00: took the fifth or whatever,
59:06
SPEAKER_00: there were consequences.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, this was the Red Scare and this happened.
59:12
SPEAKER_00: And so he was sort of put on paid leave for a couple of years.
59:16
And then when he came back,
59:18
they said,
59:18
well,
59:18
you're you're going to be on the obituary's desk.
59:21
SPEAKER_00: And it was seen at the time as sort of this Siberia.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Siberia.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: And instead, what he did was revolutionize.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you write an obituary?
59:31
Well,
59:32
he took it from the stale recitation of facts to being the
59:36
crafting of a life story.
59:38
SPEAKER_00: And just amazing to go back and read his obituaries.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: They are wonderful portraits.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: And then there have been people through the ages.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: This was, he was doing this in the 60s.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: And people,
59:52
SPEAKER_00: Robert McG Thomas is another one who really,
59:56
SPEAKER_00: he won an obituary,
59:57
SPEAKER_00: won a Pulitzer for his obituaries.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: And just wonderful.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: He was the master at unsung lives.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: You know,
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: he would find someone,
1:00:07
a woman who was had who was the world's greatest candle pin
1:00:12
bowling player.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_00: I love that kind of, you know, here's the guy.
1:00:18
There was a guy who was a professor at Queens College who
1:00:21
specialized in accents,
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: and he worked with students to D to remove their New York accent.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: That was his specialty.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: He would teach people how not to speak.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_00: how to speak the King's English instead of the King's County English,
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: which is what,
1:00:40
SPEAKER_00: that was one of Nick G.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: Thomas's great lines.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: And it was even better when he wrote it.
1:00:45
I didn't get it right,
1:00:46
but essentially they had this great ability to turn a phrase.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: And so we have these people.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: And then I think,
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: Margot,
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: certainly in Penelope,
1:00:54
SPEAKER_00: these are,
1:00:55
SPEAKER_00: we are inheritors of this tradition and we all go back and read them.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: there is an understanding that,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: sometimes I will go back and read certain writers,
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: certain obit writers.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: If there's a,
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: if I'm looking for a particular style or inspiration,
1:01:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll say,
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: you know that,
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: let me go back and read,
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: how would Margot tackle this?
1:01:15
SPEAKER_00: Cause this is a care.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: I know she's written about characters kind of like what I'm doing,
1:01:19
or she did something once that was sort of like what I'm trying
1:01:21
to write here.
1:01:22
Let me go back and read her obitories and,
1:01:25
and I'll draw inspiration and,
1:01:27
and some sense of,
1:01:29
um,
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: you know, what to do.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: So it really is this,
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: as much as we read all kinds of people and we read the rest of our,
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: our colleagues at the Times,
1:01:39
there's also an understanding that we ourselves have a history
1:01:43
and have styles and
1:01:46
SPEAKER_00: genealogies through the decades.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: Marvelous.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: here at the end,
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: Clay Risen,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: and by the way,
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: are you asked not every day,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: but every week or every month how to pronounce your last name?
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: All the time.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: Let me clarify for our, what do I call them?
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: Viewers?
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes, this is on video.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: And listeners?
1:02:10
SPEAKER_01: Also audio.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: It's R-I-S-E-N.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_01: Like the English word risen.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: People ask all the time and I get, well, I get two things, right?
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: One, how do you pronounce your name?
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: People say Risen, Risen.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: I stopped caring.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_00: It is Risen, but if someone says Risen, that's fine.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
1:02:37
Someone at a restaurant where you have a reservation calls out
1:02:39
your name and you
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: don't,
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: you don't say,
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm Mr.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, even, even podcasts and.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, yeah.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_00: I know.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_00: But the other is people think it's a Jewish name.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's not.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_00: My wife is Jewish for what it's worth, but I am not.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: And not even in the slightest.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: We don't know really where the name came from.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_00: I spend...
1:03:10
You know,
1:03:11
a few hours,
1:03:12
maybe every couple of months,
1:03:14
just digging and going further.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_00: I traced it back to 17th century Middle England.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a long way.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a Dutch name.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: I think my great ancestors in that line came from Holland originally,
1:03:33
SPEAKER_00: but I haven't found a lot of evidence.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_00: They were in Maryland by the end of the 17th century.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_00: And then in Virginia, Kentucky.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_01: You're what the nationalist right would call a heritage American.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not the most bullshit expression in the history.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: It is because I think of myself as a mongrel.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what am I?
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm part of my family.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, part of my family's Catholic.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: Part of them are my mom's side is mostly Scottish.
1:04:06
You know,
1:04:06
I mean,
1:04:07
obviously,
1:04:07
this is all within a fairly,
1:04:09
you know,
1:04:10
England,
1:04:10
Scotland.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's fairly narrow, but.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: you know, what is my identity?
1:04:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, kind of a mutt, really, mongrel.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's fine,
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: because- By the way,
1:04:23
SPEAKER_01: as you well know,
1:04:24
SPEAKER_01: Clay,
1:04:24
SPEAKER_01: between some Englishman and some Scotsman,
1:04:28
SPEAKER_01: There's a big, big, there's a vast gulf.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, so yeah, funny.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things,
1:04:35
SPEAKER_00: and I know we need to go,
1:04:36
SPEAKER_00: but one of the things I think is fascinating is back a long time ago,
1:04:41
SPEAKER_00: the distinction between being Scots-Irish in the Appalachians,
1:04:46
SPEAKER_00: for which one side of my father's family is very much that.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_00: And the other side is Tidewater, Virginia.
1:04:53
And today,
1:04:54
of course,
1:04:55
you know,
1:04:55
no one even recognizes that unless you're a Virginian.
1:04:59
But the intense importance of that and then how those many of
1:05:04
those people,
1:05:05
what would they think that one of their descendants married the
1:05:09
granddaughter of a
1:05:10
SPEAKER_00: Highlander?
1:05:12
And,
1:05:12
you know,
1:05:14
and,
1:05:15
and,
1:05:15
and,
1:05:15
but this all together and doesn't matter in a way.
1:05:21
And that's,
1:05:21
what's wonderful about America is we just rebuild ourselves
1:05:25
into something new.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's, so I love that.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: Clay,
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: we,
1:05:29
SPEAKER_01: we began this discussion,
1:05:30
SPEAKER_01: I think by,
1:05:31
SPEAKER_01: by saying,
1:05:31
SPEAKER_01: what are you,
1:05:32
SPEAKER_01: how do you describe yourself?
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: And you really are, this is,
1:05:35
SPEAKER_01: This is a term I heard in academia.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't hear it much these days.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: You're an Americanist.
1:05:40
You're like an American studies kid or prof.
1:05:45
You really are an Americanist.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I sort of wish I had done Americans.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're doing it now.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I am.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_00: In a way.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it would have been fun to study that in college.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'd like to ask you at the end.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if you've done political writing in your career.
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SPEAKER_01: And, of course, there's politics and obit.
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In this period,
1:06:08
in this era,
1:06:09
are you kind of glad not to be a political reporter?
1:06:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_00: A thousand times yes.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I still keep up with politics.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_00: It's in my blood.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
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And I follow it,
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you know,
1:06:23
all I read in the newsletters and newspapers and magazines.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad you're doing this other thing?
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So glad to be able to step back and to spend time in the past
1:06:34
as part of my job and
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: to think about different times,
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: which helps me,
1:06:42
SPEAKER_00: brings perspective onto the present,
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: but also is at a remove.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't think,
1:06:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:06:48
SPEAKER_00: I spent 10 years,
1:06:51
SPEAKER_00: more than 10 years,
1:06:51
SPEAKER_00: almost 20 years,
1:06:52
SPEAKER_00: really,
1:06:52
10 years at The Times and before that at the New Republic and
1:06:56
other places,
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SPEAKER_00: very much immersed in politics.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_00: Day-to-day, R's and D's.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad not to be in that.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad people do it.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_00: And, of course, it's very necessary and important.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could quote Churchill.
1:07:12
Paul Johnson would give us the exact quotation,
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and so would Andrew Roberts.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_01: But when he was going through great travails in his day job,
1:07:20
SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
1:07:21
SPEAKER_01: he was writing a history of the English-speaking peoples.
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SPEAKER_01: And he said something like that,
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SPEAKER_01: I'm making this up,
1:07:27
SPEAKER_01: Clay,
1:07:27
SPEAKER_01: but something like,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: after dealing with Nazis and so on and so on.
1:07:30
I'm so glad to retreat into the world of Angles and Danes and
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all those early
1:07:36
SPEAKER_01: tribesmen of the British Isles.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_01: He said what a pleasure it was to retreat into that world.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_00: I feel that every day.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's not Angles and Danes, it's movie stars.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_00: The past is the past.
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Ladies and gentlemen,
1:07:55
he is Clay Risen,
1:07:58
R-I-S-E-N,
1:07:59
of the New York Times.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm Jay Nordlinger, having done Q&A.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_01: Clay, what a pleasure.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is so much fun.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you having me on.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_01: I look forward to our next talk.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: Anytime.
1:08:11
SPEAKER_01: So long, ladies and gentlemen.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.