August 21, 2007
Sarah Vowell, Author
Sarah Vowell’s distinctive voice is instantly recognizable to listeners of radio show This American Life and fans of the animated Pixar film The Incredibles (she played Violet). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times (where she filled in for Maureen Dowd), McSweeney’s, Spin, Salon and elsewhere. And she’s authored four books; the most recent one, Assassination Vacation
For those who don't know, what is 826NYC? 826NYC is a writing center in Park Slope, Brooklyn. And we also have a satellite branch at the Williamsburgh branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Our main mission is to offer free tutoring five days a week during the school year for any student between the ages of 6 and 18. We also offer workshops for students in writing, filmmaking and theater. Last night we had our big screening of the summer filmmaking workshop at BAM Rose Cinemas. Students made films: they wrote them, acted in them, and directed them.
The other workshops range from your standard SAT prep or writing a college entrance essay to more whimsical things; "Candy Criticism" was a big hit. We had one for our elementary school students called "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto" where the students built their own robots and the writing component was to write an instructional manual for the robot. And we also have field trips where a whole class from a New York City public school will come in and write a book together and we will publish it all in a day. Then we also have the 826NYC Review which is an annual publication of student writing that comes from either the workshop or a lot of times during the drop-in tutoring after school the student will do extra writing after finishing their homework. We publish that too. Our publications are really nice looking and professional.
We also have a storefront in our Park Slope space; that’s the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co., which I think is the best superhero store in the five boroughs. And that’s the way we hook ‘em; a lot of kids who come for tutoring first came to our space because they liked to mess around in the store. There’s a secret door from the superhero store into the writing center. And the proceeds from the sales in the store go to help support our programs. We do a lot.
The way you talk about it sounds like you’re more deeply involved with this than I realized. Oh, I’m the President of the Board.
I did know that but sometimes these boards can be comprised of people who are more figureheads than hands-on participants. Do you do any workshops with the students? Mainly I help with fundraising and organizing events and figuring out the budget and helping to figure out what the staff needs.
What inspired you to get involved with it? 826 is kind of an evolution of McSweeney’s and so I’ve been a McSweeney’s person from the get-go. When McSweeney’s started we would have readings and events that would be fun with interesting writers and people giving haircuts and smashing guitars. And now we still do these silly kinds of events but they have a more upstanding purpose; it’s a way we raise money and awareness for these writing centers around the country. It’s still the same sort of D.I.Y. style and the same group of people who help out and are involved but now it has more of a point, really.
I think we have really great programs and some incredibly talented kids but one thing I like that we do is really basic and kind of democratic. We have kids who come in for the drop-in program who were kind of average kids and they’re now above-average kids; third graders who never did their homework before and now they finish their homework. Our core ethos is to give personal attention and to be free of charge. I basically feel like the head cheerleader of the place. The staff is so dedicated and hardworking; it’s just five people, I think. And the director who runs all the programs and supervises everything also built a set of the New York city subway for a student film in his non-existent free time. I don’t know if that answered your question.
Yeah. [Laughs.] It sounds kind of like a cult and I guess it sort of is. But I guess it’s a cult dedicated to helping people with their homework and I just feel unequivocally good about the people who work there and the students who study there. I get really evangelical talking about it.
I can imagine that for a kid to see their work published or presented on a movie screen at BAM would be hugely inspirational for them. Also, our style, as an outgrowth of McSweeney’s, all sounds really good and upstanding - and it is - but I think we view it in a way that’s completely kid friendly and unpretentious. To get to our tutoring center you have to go through a superhero door. Besides making publishing or filmmaking not scary it also seems geared to kids and fun and not like altruism with a capital “A”.
How much time do you have left because I have some more questions. Oh, I haven’t had a job since 1994.
Well, good, that leads me to my next question which is what are you working on now? Well, a couple of things. In the short term I’m working on a piece about the painting American Gothic for the Harvard Guide to American Literature. That’s what I’m doing today. But mainly what I’m doing right now is writing a book about the Puritans, specifically 17th century Boston and Rhode Island…Fun!
Have you named the book yet? Yeah, it’s called The Wordy Shipmates.
How did you get interested in this topic? I have my favorite Puritans and they’re all so different from each other, bickering with each other and banishing each other from Massachusetts. The stars of Puritanism always seemed like such interesting individuals to me; especially their writings. I mean, I love a good sermon where devils are walking the streets in chains and there’s a lot at stake. I always found them so much more interesting than people give them credit for. And the two things that interest me most about them are sort of the two things that interest me most about life, which are words and, for lack of a better word, community. They have this incredible communitarian ethos that was both really idealistic and incredibly strangling, probably. And they were just so obsessed with words, especially the Bible, but they were incredibly literate. Words and other people were two of their biggest concerns. I have all these ideals about community but I’m a really individualist loner type person and so I’m fascinated by other people and also completely repelled by other people. That all may sound incredibly high-minded but I also have things in the book like the Mayflower waterslide and a trip to the Mohegan Sun [casino].
So part of it will be informed by actual traveling like in Assassination Vacation? Yes, not as much as that one but there will be a little local flavor.
Who is your favorite president? I guess it’s probably Lincoln. I’m going to go out on a limb and say I like Lincoln. I guess for a lot of reasons; the whole ‘come from nowhere’ kind of thing. Mainly the thing I like about him is just how effective he was. And what haunts me about him is how his efficacy sometimes comes from a place of procrastination; how he changed and grew as a president. When he gets elected he just wants to stave off war and he would have totally sold out the slaves to do that. And then the war happens and at some point during the war he just kind of decides, “Okay, I didn’t want to be the guy to do this but I have to and now this war is about ending slavery.” And if he had been a more radical abolitionist and more outwardly admirable especially to later generations he would have never gotten elected and he could have never gotten that done. There’s something kind of haunting about that to me. Because I’m always attracted to more black-and-white type people; I mean obviously there’s something more heroic about being a straight abolitionist in the 1850s than just being someone who just didn’t want slavery in Kansas. But it’s the person who just didn’t want there to be slavery in Kansas who ended up ending it totally. I’m just interested in the gray area of that.
Who is your least favorite president? Well I guess I have a few bones to pick with the current one. I don’t know that I know enough about all the horrible presidents to make a claim. I would say that this one’s unnecessary body count is as high as anyone I can think of.
Do you think he’s the worst president in history? He might be. He might be. Anyone can be incompetent and some people are just born that way. But just the sheer audacity with which he blunders through his incompetence and the language surrounding it. To decimate the Clean Air Act and call it the Clear Skies Initiative, that kind of thing. Just the audacity of this guy is what makes his incompetence amplify into bigger blunders. Because I’m personally incompetent about a lot of things but I think I have enough self-awareness not to brag about my mistakes and inadequacies.
I don’t know, I mean where do I start? Our place in the world is so precarious now and it’s only getting worse and we’re making so many enemies and we’ve become this sort of big evil joke. And I don’t like to be evil or a joke. It’s the same thing people say about how the symbol of America used to be the Statue of Liberty and now it’s Guantanamo – that’s deeply offensive to me. All that stuff. I’m a believer in all the basic good old American principles like Congressional oversight and not torturing people. I mean, the torture thing is so… I don’t have anything super articulate to say about this. I just get so physically angry all my words turn into screams.
I can relate, I’m just curious about something. Because I know you work in the media and talk to other journalists a lot I thought maybe you’d have some insight about this: Despite all the criticisms that can be leveled against the current administration I think most people would agree that they aren't stupid, with the exception of the president himself. Were they really so naive as to think they could install a harmonious, democratic society in Iraq? The architects of this had been planning it for so long. Weren't they smart enough to know this would require a sustained military presence? Just the other day a TV interview with Dick Cheney in 1994 surfaced in which Cheney predicted Iraq without Hussein would be "chaos, a quagmire." So what do you suspect their real motives were; assuming they were smart enough to know what chaos this would turn into? I honestly can’t say; I can say as a student of history that we’ve been here before. My last book was partly about the McKinley administration and his war, the Spanish-American War. But it’s basically the same situation; you go into Cuba and say we’re liberating it when really all we want is their sugar and it’s been, what, 109 years and it still isn’t free? And so we go in, it’s total chaos, we take over, then support a series of dictators until finally the Cuban revolution, which turns out for us even worse than before. And it’s just been one big mess after another. It didn’t work out of anyone; it didn’t work out for us, it didn’t work out for the Cuban people, a lot of people’s lives were ruined. It’s been a mess since day one. Even the way we got into it; “Remember the Maine” and the trumped up photos of that and how that was used to justify going in. And that was probably not an attack at all; it was probably just a coal fire on the ship. And that was exactly Colin Powell at the U.N. with the stupid photos. Our track record in the world of going in and “helping people” is not so good.
Do you consider yourself a patriotic American? Absolutely, yeah.
But don't you think national pride is often a primitive urge that can blind people to their connection with others around the world? Yep. But there are certain things about this country that are inarguably grand. In small ways, personally, the kind of life I’ve had and been able to lead. To do what I’ve been able to do with my career, especially as a woman, to be able to lead this incredibly self-determined life. Not to get all Obama-ish but my grandmother picked cotton and now I’m talking to you from my very nice New York City apartment with a view of the Empire State Building. And it’s an incredibly old fashioned American story about how, two generations later, I can sit in my incredibly privileged life and do what I want to do with the people I want to do it with. And it’s thanks to a lot of very tangible opportunities like Pell Grants and Student Loans and a Land Grant university. Things like that make me incredibly grateful to have been born in this country and to experience some of the opportunities it provides. And certainly if you look at things like the arts I’m incredibly patriotic about that; American music and literature and cinema. Like today is the 30th anniversary of Elvis’s death, one of my favorite artists, and I’m sitting here listening to old Elvis albums. I’m not particularly patriotic about the actual government but the ideals and the traditions and especially the arts I’m a total booster for.
Are you a registered democrat? Uh-huh.
Who do you foresee yourself voting for in the democratic primary? Well, right now I’m kind of undecided between Edwards and Obama. I like Edwards’s thoughts on domestic issues and poverty and education. I voted for him in the last Democratic primary because of that moment in the debate when Kerry was talking about Vietnam again and Kerry made that crack about not knowing what Edwards was doing while he was in Vietnam. And Edwards said, “I can tell you exactly what I was doing. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and dad trying to decide how I could afford go to college.” This was an incredibly big moment in my life. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do; getting through college. But I heard Obama speak last month and he was a much more intriguing speaker than I had realized before. I don’t think I can say what he was talking about because it was officially off the record but he’s a really deep thinker and I don’t know how to expound on that without saying exactly what he said. But I feel like he is both pragmatic and idealistic and really, really, really, really smart. So I think for me it’s between either of these two guys.
Okay. I’m idealistic up to a point. But like that thing you were saying about the difference between the president and all the other people in the administration and what they really thought going into the war… I’m not one of these new-fangled ‘all parties are alike because they’re all in the pocket of the corporations.’ I guess they probably are but the reason why I’m still a registered democrat and will back my party’s choice whoever that may be is because while an administration is about the person at the top it’s even more so about all the people below him or her. And those people are usually the way more ‘true believer’ types who are actually going to run things like the EPA and the Department of the Interior and all those bureaucrats. And I generally feel my side’s bureaucrats are better than the other side’s bureaucrats. And they’re more interested in the things I hold dear such as environmental protection and civil rights prosecution at the Justice Department and not treating the National Parks like an afterthought. So…
Yeah, I think that’s very perceptive. I just have a few more questions. Okay! Can you think of a question where I don’t sound like a didactic pontificating ass?
You don’t sound like that to me but these last questions are more like confectionery that we put at the end of every interview, although the first one is kind of somber. Given New York's tantalizing nature as a terrorist target, soaring real estate costs, the homogenization of the city by corporate chains, how optimistic are you about the appeal of New York in 2027? To people who want to live here?
To you. Because I look at your career and I think, here’s someone who could do broadcast journalism and write books in any city in the world. I can live anywhere in the world; I choose to live here. I live here for no other reason than I love to be here more than anywhere else in the world. I’m incredibly optimistic. I guess in that ‘where you buy your towels’ sense maybe things won’t be so Mom n’ Pop, but I’m old school about all our major civic intuitions: The Metropolitan Museum and MoMA and The New York Public Library and the 92nd Street Y and all the major civic institutions in this town, Central Park and Central Park Summerstage and Town Hall, and all the things we hold dear. I don’t see a decline in those institutions and I love MoMA since their renovation and there’s nothing I like better than a Friday night at The Met and I’ve seen some things at the 92nd St Y that I hold dear. I think the people in this town will always make sure those places are run well and supported. I walked home over the Manhattan Bridge last night coming home from Brooklyn and I hope someone’s taking care of that kind of stuff. I don’t know. This town is almost 400 years old, it’s been through a lot and I don’t see that changing – I mean it will change but a lot of the things I like are not going away. No matter what they put at 26th and Park it’s still going to be where Herman Melville lived. Those things are not going away.
What's your favorite restaurant at the moment? Well, let’s see. I don’t even really like Japanese food but one of my favorite restaurants these days is Kasadela; it’s on 11th Street and Avenue C, I think. And it’s just a small place with the best Edamame in town! And really good eggplant that’s like eating a piece of candy and beautiful little roasted peppers.
Can you please share a strange, "only in New York" experience? Hmm…Let me think. Can you tell me something someone else has said?
Somebody talked about sitting in Washington Square Park and a homeless guy came up and sat on the railing next to her, defecated and then walked away with his pants down. And after walking away a bit he stopped and said, “Oh, I forgot!” And then he pulled his pants up. To me that’s just so sad and appalling but it makes me laugh because there’s this element of grotesque slapstick to it… What about an encounter with a fan? I imagine you get recognized more for your voice. I was standing waiting for a train in Penn Station and this woman came up to me and said, “I was just thinking about you!” But it was because I’m allergic to wheat and she writes a gluten free newsletter. [Laughs]
Photo of Sarah Vowell by Bennett Miller.
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