The Interview & The Reading

Friends,

Diana (president of the Lisa Loeb fan club) posted a link to the Don Swaim, Wired for Books, interviews that can be found on the web by clicking these underlined words. Tom pulled out a good bit by the menacing Harry Crews on his blog, so I figured I should do my part, pimp the Don Swaim site as well. I haven't had a chance to listen to many of the interviews, but what I will do is provide links to the authors that caught my eye from the interviews. Note that this is not a comprehensive list, and there are other notables he interviewed that I haven't linked (like Maya Angelou), but these are the ones that once given the chance, I will listen to. Here you go.

Douglas Adams
Russell Banks (I wonder if William Kennedy crashes this party too, like he did at AWP)
Rick Bass
Ann Beattie
T.C. Boyle
Ray Bradbury
Anthony Burgess
Robert Olen Butler
William S. Burroughs
Ethan Canin (this one's for you, Nate)
Raymond Carver
Sandra Cisneros
Robert Coover
Robert Creeley
Harry Crews
Michael Cunningham
James Dickey
E.L. Doctorow
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
John Gardner
Allen Ginsberg
Gunter Grass
BARRY HANNAH (!!!)
Joseph Heller
John Irving
Kazuo Ishiguro
Erica Jong (check out her hilarious picture)
Elia Kazan
Garrison Keillor
William Kennedy
Jamaica Kincaid
Elmore Leonard
Norman Mailer
Bobbie Ann Mason
Ian McEwan
James Michener
Susan Minot
Toni Morrison
Richard Nixon
JuCO
Tim O'Brien
George Plimpton
Adrienne Rich
Gary Snyder
Susan Sontag (I bet she answers all the questions of the alphabet)
Art Spiegelman
Robert Stone
Amy Tan
Studs Turkel
John Updike
Kurt Vonnegut
Tobias Wolff

Now, I have a question concerning the literary reading. This came up at AWP for me after the Sharon Olds/Yusef Komunyakaa reading, but anyways, here we go:
Say you go to a concert to see your favorite band. You expect them to play certain songs, like their hits. If they don't, then you're disappointed a little. However, if you went to see a stand-up comic, and all he/she said was stuff you knew, you'd feel disappointed. Odd, no? I mean, you went to the comic based off material you enjoyed, same as with the band, but if you get what you enjoyed from the comic...it's no good because you've heard that all before...if you don't get what you enjoyed from the band...it's no good becuase you haven't heard that before. Isn't that a little strange?

Now, consider literary readings, what expectation rules apply here? Should the audience expect to hear at least part of the story or poem that motivated them to show up in the first place...or should they get only new stuff/work that isn't from the anthology?

For me, when it comes to poetry, and it's a big deal poet, I want one of their anthologized works. Give me at least one hit single. Fiction writers, well, I'm torn. I wouldn't want snippets of stories, like some kind of medley, and hearing something fresh is exciting, but if given a chance to listen to Barry Hannah read Testimony of Pilot or something new...I'm picking Testimony of Pilot.

Also to consider, is it different for the David Sedaris essayists? I mean, with shorter essays, they can cram a few into a reading, so they can give you some back catalog if they want, and also sneak in some others they've been tinkering with in the studio.

What do you think?

viva el mustache