I’d love to do a complete transcript of the conversation of the girls sitting next to me on the train. It’s all like full of the solutions to like the world’s problems, at least like the interpersonal ones like it’s just his attitude, she spent like $30 dollars on him that night, she paid for him to get into the strippers.
And now they hopped off at Flinders, to be replaced by a father and son combo who is not saying much at all. I’ve just been to a talk at RMIT Storey Hall, Jonathan Safran Foer in conversation with the director of the Wheeler Centre (maybe called Michael Clarke? Smith? Something normal like that.). It was Excellent. Really really. I should have taken notes, but I didn’t bring a notebook and anyway my pen was leaking.
Nothing that I could have scribbled down would have captured the loveliness, the genuineness, the intelligence and something-specialness of the hour-long interview though. So much of what he said surprised me, or contrasted with what I have heard other writers say. For example about his solitariness as a writer (not the same as solitude) – he doesn’t feel like he’s part of any community of writers. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s just about the way that birds don’t need to be ornithologists.
He talked about his grandmother, about parenting (vaguely), about writing being like aeroplanes. I liked that idea, except I don’t like aeroplanes, so a bit of processing was required to overcome the cognitive dissonance. He answered a question about whether carrots feel pain in an unexpectedly pragmatic way. Identity-politics were mentioned as a hindrance to talking sensibly about eating animals. That reminded me of my own identity issues which have come up lately – nothing drastic, don’t worry – I’ve just been thinking about what science means to me. And, following the talk, “what writing means to me” was thrown into that mix as well. Am I A Writer? According to Jonathan Safran Foer, the difference between non-writers and writers is that writers write. I haven’t been writing much (here) lately. But of all possible prompts to get me started again, this evening was probably the most gently amazing I could ever have hoped for.
