Indeed. Obviously the key is that he doesn't pose what he says as a question, but as more of a statement for the interviewee to riff off. Exploding or at the very least subverting the traditional Q-A format is Michael Silverblatt's forte.
the intro where she recounts DFWallace saying that he wished Silverblatt could adopt him is so sad, cuz beneath his razor sharp wit maybe Wallace could never shut up the writer/voice in his head? Silverblatt likely has as much or more head traffic, he somehow has tempered it or it was mercifully tempered for him by_____, what, soul?
voice(s) in my head is so intrusive, so unhelpful, but i read & listen to Eckhart Tolle, & am facing that voice (those voices) from a growing new (but ancient) perspective of a feeling presence, one that we all have within our reach & can access...
I first came to know Silverblatt through his DFW interview. Much like Silverblatt would read every book an author wrote and influential books author’s read, I found myself trying to get acquainted with the background details of DFW’s life-fortunately, Silverblatt is utterly fascinating in his own right
really great, insightful interview, as well as questions. I can't begin to imagine how you could think it's your job to save an entire medium (the novel) like DFW did, as related by Silverblatt here. Being burnt out with unachieved potential as he said Donald was, is something very familiar though
A very frank and from the heart talk. No tough persona, no BS, no propoganda. Just plain and down to earth honesty. Our politicians and elites could learn a lot from this man, but I am guessing they do not have the moral core to even understand it.
oh yeah, our egos, egoic minds, especially on stage, get all caught up in giving a good performance, to imagine how we are seen, but when all is said & done, the ego is not your amigo...or anyones, never has been never will, people can dress it up, make it behave better, smarter, funnier, but if that's all we got we are worse than empty..
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know a tool to get back into an instagram account?? I stupidly lost my password. I love any tricks you can give me!
i resonated especially with the part where his parents were begging him to take the civil service exams to becomea postman. My aunt is always trying to get me to take the test to become a sanitation worker
0:47:20 "I'm not at all sure that the world exists, and I'd rather think that it didn't. At this stage, I'd rather think that this was a nightmare that I was having. And not ... believe that others were being subjected to it." Disbelieving that so many others should exist only to suffer so terribly ... this is surely his sentiment. That it can be held as a belief is unclear. It's not even clear whether solipsism itself is coherent. To be _selflessly_ solipsistic is to occupy a logically impossible emotional state. And yet, thus he spoke.
A mental disorder that seems to come to those that are isolated for long periods. There is a possibility that the people that he feels are suffering so terribly are perhaps not suffering as much as he believes. People certainly aren't living in his nightmare, if nothing else, we are all living in our own nightmares. And to paraphrase Herodotus if we all came to meet and exchange one another's nightmare we'd all be content reject all others and to leave with our own.
@@josh-rz3uq the question of what it means, in the wake of Darwinian naturalism, for an organ or biological structure to be dysfunctional is quite complex and contested. i won't let you get away with talking smack about my auditory acuity
i think it was dave eggers paraphrasing zadie smith abt "ideal readers" & from there, what constitutes a genius. and she said she believed a genius was someone who was an ideal reader for many authors. i tend to agree, & using this 'definition' would have to unequivocally label silverblatt a genius i could be butchering how this sentiment was delivered as it was from a Great American stories collection (edited & intro by eggers) from circa 2006 which i lent to a friend in the same time frame & have never seen again, but that idea of ideal readers & genius has stuck with me ever since
