It has gone through many iterations. Now we are in the Dark Department art department. It has been publishing all sort of books since the 80s. There was a large stretch of time when they were publishing mostly regional poetry. Has roots in the illuminated manuscript. That is some centuries ago. It has happened all across the world. Many different cultures have some version of the book. It came to a head in the 60s. Starting with the constructionist. People started to call into question the versatility of a book. This is a book that is more interested in the tactile experience of the book. It tends to push the boundary of all kinds of material books are made out of. What kinds of shapes they take. It is not just a book bound on one edge. Most paperbacks are perfect bound and considered on the edge. It can become as large as the landscape it is trying to contain in its concept. Readers about the experience of turning the pages or flipping through it. Thinking about sequence. The pace of the information that the reader takes on. On theeally honing in tactile experience of the book. It is not about the words or experience it contains. There is a lot of process involved. People who are printmakers or printers tend to like the process. There is a lot of attention to detail going on. These are students from the art class, one of the advanced book art classes we offer. Theyre working on a typographic. The whole process is they come and set metal type. Right now, you see people behind ink. Ing inc. Mixing behind me, you see a student working on his typographical peace. Theakes metal and creates abstract with it which is then printed in all of its glory. Student is working on setting up the description that they wrote in relation to the typographic. A pretty detail oriented process in which they need to make sure the individual pieces of metal nice and tight so it can stay standing upright while they put pressure on to the type. It presses the text into the page. Times, itrything 50 is a world for people that love repetition. I keep using the word meditative but it is. The work is fun. The outcome is great. Multiples of whatever your project is. You can throw them out into the world. Were in the Knowledge Center on campus. I will take you around an exhibit. The exhibition is titled overall, we wanted the experience of the exhibit to be moving through a book. We decided to incorporate vinyl quotations that come into question like what can a book be . We are interested in the book medium thinking about the different scenes a book can encompass. The different structural shapes the book can kind of take and seeing that the book is really a versatile medium. Of anave a couple and this is a hydrant book. Hybrid it is a pamphlet with multiple layers. This takes on a really personal theme. About thecular one is s brother. T it is about interpersonal relationships, the physical space that we kind of inhabit and manipulate when we are near another person. Earth is interested in thinking about exterior of our body and complicate or be complicated by the interior. It is really looking at what is out the outside on the outside. There are many different kinds of fabric here. There is a wonderful little pocket. It reallyome hair in kind of thinking about can a book be a body . In what ways that literally happening and in what way is that happening in a more abstract sense . This case has three books in it. This one links back here. , they arebeyond it all very different. Talking about the uprising in cairo in 2011. All the complicated issues surrounding that. It is doing so in a very visual way. Interested in exploring the map of cairo. Thinking about the interwoven on very people who are different sides of an issue. Pagesside incorporates blood,xt that reads freedom, and social justice, which is part of the chant they had during the spring uprising. Incorporateshere many different kinds of handmade paper. This printing can take form as we even printed photographs sometimes. This book is about a village in mexico. Village treats its homosexual population. Book combines brain scans, her fathers brain scan, her own visual interpretation via color. Thinking about different parts of the brain as they correspond to colors. In taking itsted apart and rearranging it. , abstracting it, and presenting in a more visual way of allowing the reader to build and rebuild as they move through the book. This is a new acquisition and our special collection here. A border buse on between the u. S. And mexico. It is a conversation between two women. Layers of letterpress , it goes backext and forth between english and spanish. It has the faces that you see pressions that shift. The color corresponding to tone within the text in the conversation. Really quite an intimate book in that it is entirely a whispered conversation between these two people. It is using that intimate relationship in order to talk asut the larger theme such the experience of being on one of those buses and the experience of being detained at the border. The very complicated issues surrounding that. It is about concept manifest. Idea andthe abstract you want to find a way to visualize that idea so someone else could perhaps access in some way. Teach students because i think it is important for them to learn to slow down and engage more physically with the world, which we do here. We have digital capabilities and we are all about using them ertained it is interchangeably. Inis another thing to come here and touch a tiny piece of metal pipe and learn what it is like to build with individual sorts in that way. Specialooks are really because it is that unique experience of traveling through a sculpture in some ways. Being able to situate yourself in relation to the book. That is in a way you normally cant do it. It is about moving your arms in a certain way. Book on the table and having to manipulate it. Some look like puzzles. In our increasingly digital it seems important for people to keep returning to that intimate elation ship with the book. Art,fically with book engaging in a very physical way. Not just a mental way. I think it gives you the opportunity to manipulate your and have an experience you otherwise couldnt have. Books exist but it is a different way to approach it i think. The cspan cities tour is exploring the american story with a visit to reno. Next, we will hear about robert the son of a sheepherder who went on to become a prominent author. He was born an immigrant kid in a tiny hospital in california where his mother, two years 100,000 acre spread was cooking in the camps after the sheep crash of 1921. He grew up tough and scrappy in carson city, where she had moved her family for some semblance of stability. Forcing herse and kids to learn english. That is when the family grew tight. Immigrantsxtended with old country waves in a protestant world. It is important to know that in that process, the first language was basque. , they spoke basque and were made fun of. In town couldnt figure out what it was. Bob graduated from the heversity of nevada developed a new service of his own, the Capital Servicing carson city. For five years he developed himself as a journeyman reporter. He always wanted to write. He founded the university of nevada press. He wrote a bestselling book called sweet palmers land. That was his first book. His father toook the basque country. The sheepherder father had talked about going home to the basque country. It turns out he probably didnt want to. Boblaxalt and his brothers conspired to have the old cheaper go home and join old herder came to realize the sweet Promised Land of their life was not the basque country, it was the Carson Valley and sierra nevada. Bob told that story and sweet palmers land. I think you will go to the thatwers, they simply said book captured the heart of immigrant families as none other had done yet in the united states. It became an iconic book for the immigration. It became very famous at a time. Because of a Ripple Effect for bob laxalt because he didnt know how to read a book when he started. He had been a united press reporter for five years. He covered execution and mob hits. He became a veteran reporter. He decided he wanted to write this book about his father. He didnt know how to do it. Down and he wrote and wrote and couldnt out. He didnt know who was biography, memoir, novel, he had never written a book. He knew he wanted to be a writer since he was young but he didnt know it. He would write a page, crumple it up and throat in the wastebasket. Take another shot at it day after day. Then he wrote the words, he wrote my father was a sheepherder, his home was the hills. He unlocked the Creative Process in the book and started to tell itself. It became this beautiful little that is very heartfelt about people who had gone home to the purity is only to learn he is now an american. Is the older brother. Because the older brother was away in the mountains, almost hermit like for many years, the mother looked at paul and said help. You are the oldest. Help with the family. Paul became like a surrogate brother father to his three brothers and two sisters. He was recruited into positive politics. He ran for Lieutenant Governor and won. He subsequently ran for governor and won. After being governor stepped out of politics. He thought he had enough. City. Ut a hotel in carson changed his mind. He thought public life was what he should be doing and decided to run for senate. Reid,e ran against harry the poles were down to the wire. It looked like harry was going to win and harry would not be able to pull it off. Paul laxalts group of advisers came to the conclusion that there was one way to beat harry reid. Sweet Promised Land. They looked at it and said we need to bring out that book. We will flood northern nevada with copies of it. That will reintroduce paul nevadato the voters of as the son of a basque sheepherder. Paul laxalt beat harry reid and they all give credit to the book. That caused a bit of a problem. , a very close friend of bob laxalt, he told bob you really dont have a right to turn that book. That book belongs to the basque people. Part ofnot belong as political fodder to help your brother get elected. Bob was very concerned about that. The love for his brother and the basque blood they shared overruled his own creative notions to keep that strictly as a piece of literature, which it was. Afterward, they published the book and paul laxalt won the race. Bob was well known through his literary writing. He wrote many books and the cayman author and that is what he is known for. Journalism was not widely known. He became much more famous as an author. I knew him from where he started as a reporter. The concentration on the book was to tell how he became what he became. That was in the tradition of reporters becoming authors. I concentrated in that book of telling about Robert Laxalt and his journalistic career. Hemingway said the best literary he ever got was a Kansas City Star stylebook. Write short punchy sentences, use active verbs. Tornalists who turn authorship have that built into them as part of their dna. They dont just suddenly flower and become something different. They become an extension of what they are. They are storytellers. We like to state journalism is literature in a hurry. Our history is as it happens because we telik breaking deadlines. Writers who look into those tensions take that discipline with them into authorship. 2001, six months before he died he received word from the university of nevada wouldthat his manuscript be published. It was called travels with my royal, the life of a writer. Once he decided to become a idear, i had the remotest of what was involved in the writing life. ,ust growing up into adulthood i didnt know writers, nor had i ever read anything about the life they lived. I didnt know how they lived, how much money he makes, where a writer goes to find time to write. About what makes the story, most important of all, to whom a on these questions. I would learn the answers through the years of growing up in the years that followed. It came in a slow and often painful process that never ended. I suspect they will continue to come all over writers life until the day he puts his pen down for the last time. A look at the reno Literary Community continues as we speak with author elia parker and Lieutenant GovernorKate Marshall about coming out of nevadas recent economic recession. The book is called nevadas Great Recession. I used to because write newspaper columns in the state of nevada about what was going on with the state of nevada during the recession. Those newspaper columns had a great theme. After she stepped down as treasurer, we started writing columns together. Subject try to pick a that we thought really mattered for the future. Something we had to deal with. Obvious ones, education, infrastructure, budgets, how do you deal with poverty . It is such a difficult issue. We would take these issues and who go to the copy house. Usually the way it would start is i would write a detailed version of it with all the facts. Kate would take what i was doing and we would talk about it. We would say what really do want to say here, what policy issues . It worked really well, it was a lot of fun to write together. We got married in 2014. We were relatively a new married couple. This didnt create tension. We acted like an old married couple. Elliott after we had done those, then we decided to put them in the book. They by themselves make up one of the chapters. We took some of the columns i have written before and wrote sort of an introduction that would tied together. Kate would have these stories about what was going on in nevada. While i am writing this column or having this section about what is happening with the state budget, kate was actually there watching the sausage be made. She would tell little story. Stent to stomach some extent the best part of the book. Kate you take the economics of what was going on in nevada, in andcountry, in the world you have to add what was happening day today, how it made people feel. How you were trying to deal with it. You have to understand that this was a phenomenon. City, your only opportunity is to react. You could manage yourself as best as you can and and its this as best as you can, but you are reacting at that point. What is happening is bigger than us. How do you do that . The batter was hit deeper and longer than any place the country. On in nevada,ing in particular reno during that time of the recession . Elliott it was bad. We had the highest unemployment of any state in the country. Kate the highest foreclosure. Elliott we have the most homes underwater. Kate the largest number of people in the country that went from middleclass to poverty. Elliott we had probably the biggest budget crisis of any state in the country. The only reason it wasnt bigger is because we have relatively small budget. We had the biggest hole to fill of any state in the country. It was a mess. We had gone from being sort of the top of the heap. We had been fastestgrowing state in the country. We have an income per capita that was about 10 above the national average. Median Household Incomes are higher. Average wages were higher. We fell very quickly to below the national average. We have not come back up. Kate partly it was because of what industries we had. Nevada is really focused on tourism. If the country is in a recession, one would argue it was a depression. Out whatying to edge it was. Nobody is going to go vacationing. Your other industries construction. If everybody is out of a job, nobody is moving into a home. Your two Largest Industries are like this. Nevada had a hard time. Elliott the fact that we had so many people building homes in nevada, construction workers, we had the largest percentage of the workforce in construction and any state in the country. Twice the national average. So many of those people lost their jobs because we stop building homes in 2006 when the crisis started to dip. That is the reason we have the highest unemployment in the country. Construction cycle been average, our unemployment wouldve been average. Because we hadse accounted on people coming from out of state to send spend money. That is also this model nevada had before the Great Recession. We are only starting to deal with it at the time and hadnt gone very far. Byhave an economy driven relatively low skill sectors. Our economy is driven by casinos. You could graduate from high school and go off and get a wellpaying job working in a dealing 21 or being keno runner. Kate you could come out of high school and get a job parking and making cars 75,000 a year. Person that young sounds pretty good. We have that kind of economy. Elliott people were buying homes, people lost jobs, this , one of the things we know is the stage that had a more educated population were states that bounce back faster. We were a state where you didnt have to do much education to make a good living. That was great until it wasnt. What was happening politically . Kate the state began to go into a series of special sessions of the legislature. In nevada, like in many states we are required to balance our budget. In nevada, like in many states or 10 off your budget, it triggers a special session. If the numbers are coming in that much different, it triggers a special section session. The governor might issue an order and say every agency needs to cut the budget by 10 . You take a state that has a bounce budget, doesnt have a lot of facts and you cut it 10 . To cut they needs budget by 14 . N another special section session. Each one cut, cut, cut. I was the state treasurer and need 50d say we million. I would say let me look at these accounts, this is something we havent been using. We will find some more pennies but when you get to the fifth session for the sixth session and they say we need more money. Im the state treasurer and an , it is not called part of my budget. They call at 9 00 in the morning and say they cant make payroll. Do you have 45 million . I will call you back. I hang up the phone and am working with my staff and you have to understand if you have a balanced budget, if you take all the money you are required to spent and all of the money that nets out. It you dont have 45 million sitting around. Call them back and say if i give you 15 million today and 15 million tomorrow, can you make payroll . They said we will call you back. They go and do their math. Ok, now the big question, when are you going to pay me back . Accessy we hope to have to our money. What happened was the reserve fund had broke the book and they shut it down. Money is there but no one can access it. This is happening across the country. Elliott everybody is panicking. That weey say we hope can have the money by the end of the month. I say i dont do faithbased financing. If you campaign me by the end of the month, i cant do this again pay me at the end of the month, i cant do this again. Manual. No i called senator reid and said i have to speak to him personally. Money is not moving. The state and city and county and Public Institutions are frozen dead in the water. You have to do something. House didhe day the not pass the bailout. That was that day. That is where we were. We were we cant make payroll, that is where we were. Can you bring us to date for today . Kate politically, that went on for a while. We got to a point in time where linell that the mendoza because we barely had enough money to pay the states bills. E dipped below it this went on for a while before we started to come back. One of the things that helped was that they started pushing money in so we could somehow fill it. We cut education drastically. Elliott university lost Something Like 35 or so of its entire state allocation. We were a State University that relied very heavily on the state funding a good chunk of the students tuition. Kate the governor lost his primary. Elliott how many times in u. S. History has a governor lost his primary for reelection . This is probably the only time. And we got a new governor the administration changed. Bills, pumpingse a lot of money into the system. We slowly began to stabilize. That felt like doing better. Nevada started to slowly come back. Was of what happened governor sandoval said we need residents different here. We cant live off the next boom waiting for the next bus. We can keep doing this boom bust. Tesla came, that was a game changer here in northern nevada. Whether you think it was good what we did with tesla or a bad deal, the fact of the matter is it put us on the map. Eople were like, oh elliott it change the narrative. Reno 100 years ago was known as the place to come get a divorce. Then reno became known as the place to build a family. Frank sinatra had the tahoe here. Eventually vegas overtook that. We were seen as a place you would come for casino gambling. That has been drying up for the last 25 years. We have this reputation. Having tesla come to town and build basically the Worlds Largest factory, the giga factory Something Like 30 miles outside of town, that changes the narrative. Reno, town that is reinventing itself as something new. We are trying to diversify our economy. We have seen growth in the number of manufacturing jobs. In reno we have seen about it 3 increase in the percentage of the population that is moving into manufacturing. Panasonic has come and switch has come. Those change the way you think about reno. Elliott this is being called startup ro, there are so many new firms coming into the area. Kate those are engineering firms and tech firms. Elliott the university is helping and the Governors Office with development is trying to bring in investment from other states and also from internationally. We have friends from poland here coming. You are an International Company and dont have a footprint in the united states, nevada is working very hard to get those companies to come here. Elliott it took a long time to claw our way back. Our income stopped declining in 2011. In 2012 our housing prices stopped falling and at that point our housing was so cheap, everybody started buying again and since, prices have prison the fastest as any place in the country. Kate when you change your narrative like that, you have an opportunity to make sure that you keep or create or finetune your identity. So theres a couple of ways to go. You could become a big, place and we know all the problems big, sprawling places have. They have transportation problems. They have gridlock. They have gentrification but it also moves people out. So you have people doing very well and a lot of people not doing very well. Nevada, and reno in particular, now toopportunity right say, this is the kind of community we want to be. If they want to be a Community Short distances. So not a lot of sprawl. Wants to be a community are not alleighbors in the same income band as you diversity in your neighborhood. And reno has an opportunity to create that. And i think that our city council and our mayor are trying do that. And its a lovely thing to watch. Back andlooking looking back at how far youve come, what kind of lessons can make sure thato future mistakes arent made . Kate i think that theres four do,gs that people need to if im going to remember them correctly. Four things. One is, you have to invest in your resources. And resources always include human resource. So human capital. You need to invest in your brain power. Means education. That means k through 12 and that means higher ed. Also other resources. So nevadas a place where we have a lot of sun. Noticed a little bit of wind. We also have geothermal. In those resources is very important Going Forward because you will need resources keep your economy going and yourild resiliency in economy. Checkedty needs to be and stopped. Did a studygard inequity drops your economic product, it drops the wellty of your area to do economically so you have to inequality so that means ising sure education available to all and opportunities are available to in and in nevada, especially reno, we have kids trying to get to harvard and we have kids are illiterate in their mother tongue. Thats a wide range. To address that entire range in order to be successful economically. On your have to work infrastructure. Panasonic andand switch and if you drive out there in the morning, you will place to be a scary highway. Elliott youve got a fourlane freeway and a lot of people aying to get to work at fairly high rate of speed. Its all of a sudden fairly crowded and were starting to notice a number of accidents out were going to have to do something about. Kate so you also have to deal it. The hope end of you have to make sure that people believe that they can they dont need to retreat. Elliott but hope alone, right, youre looking for. Weve got to get away from this mentality of looking for Silver Bullets and if you live in a nevada haslace, like long been. First we did and then we did we did casinosn and then we did warehousing and then we did construction. These are boombust kind of industries where youre counting on somebody else to demand for your goods. Right . Casino work . Casino works when you have a and others dont have. Matter . D divorce you could move mere and get a divorce. At some level were looking for a Silver Bullet to solve our current problem. So whats the next single solution . To get away from that. We have to realize theres a lot have to fix what we in this state and think of it in the long term. Nowwhat can we fix between and the next election but what can we address between now and next generation. Kate in nevada, Great Recession economy and it shrunk our dreams. Is being inwhat this country is the idea of america. So to come out of this, to really come out of it, and to go need to stretch it back out again. Not just the economy, but also dreams. Elliott its hard to top that tryingt of what we were to do in this book is to also point the way forward and to try to say, you need to think about recessions differently than you do, especially the kind of recession we had. That was very different. It was a recession caused by financial crisis and this is much worse than a normal recession. And you need to think differently as a state about for that. And so part of what we were trying to do is tell the story of what was actually happening, get people to see how the pieces to understand more about the state economy, but also just it was a good lesson. How do you deal with a crisis ite that and come out of stronger. Announcer as part of our 2019 cities tour, were diving into renos Literary Community. Coming up, the story of former member,an u. S. House bukenovitz, as told by her daughter. She was the first female to serveative elected in congress. She was a congresswoman from nevada. 1982 to 1996, or 1997 14 years. Longestthe second serving person from nevada, the first woman elected to federal office from november. What comes to mind when i think of my mother . My mother was a great lady. She was kind, thoughtful. Never forgot where she came from, who she represented. Was a good mother. Five kids that she raised. When my sister turned 21 is the time she ran for office. She was in her 60s. Year before 1982 when she actually ran, shed been manyved in politics for. Ears actually the whole time she nevada from the 1950s on. Women volunteered, they stuffed phone calls and put on events. She did that for many politicians in nevada. Shes a republican. And then when nevada got its second congressional seat, we only had one for the whole state, one congress person. Was encouraged to run for congress and she ran in we were stuffing envelopes in 1981 trying to organize. Y and thats how she got in. Paul arfelt, he was the senator then, and he encouraged the seat. For she had worked on his campaigns before, actually had run the northern nevada operation and then when he was elected to the ran his office in northern nevada. So she knew everybody in the north. The south. Erybody in it was a much smaller state in those days. What drew her to the republican politics was conservative values, family, limited government. But notced taxes increasing taxes. Strong national defense. Her father was a general in the ofy so she was very two her brothers graduated from west point. She was a very promilitary family so Strong National defense was very important to her. Ton she was first elected congress in 1982, that was when nevada got its second seat in congress. And it was an open seat and, of always open seats are very well sought after. Trying to beatn an incumbent. She already knew the state. So many timesed for paul and been out in all of the counties. Was elected, she represented the whole state. District congressional was just limited to clark county and she had all 16 rural clarkes plus a part of county. So she knew the state, she knew the issues. She knew agriculture, she knew mining. She knew what it was like in the small towns. She knew people everywhere. So it was easy. For state ran treasurer which was a statewide race, constitutional race, and i was the first woman elected to Constitutional Office in the 1982. Of nevada in i had actually run in 1978 for won theeasurer and id republican primary but lost the general election so i had traveled around the state and then when she ran, we lot together wheree she was in a state id raced, basically. We had a good time. After and get done event and the three of us would get back in the car, back in the plane and wed talk about people we met, what their issues were. Wed all talked to different people. We would exchange and learn a had we been by ourselves. Laxalt,iduals like paul vucanovich could get elected because of their personal relationships with people. You could travel the state, meet people, they could know you. For governor,n well, you better meet me in nevada because i want to look decidethe eye and whether i trust you or not. She represented rural nevada is all the resources. She was on the interior committee. Resourcets called the committee now. Those were always issues. Whether it was agriculture, which is grazing fees. Mining laws. Big, big things impacted rural nevada. Bige were a couple of things that she passed, got getting theone was speed limit lifted because during the Energy Crisis they limit to 55. Peed if youd been in rural nevada, the distances are great and 55 and theres nobody out there, so it made no sense. To repeal the 55 limit, whichspeed made her very popular. The rural counties. And the other thing that her was brought to taxing of pensions. Called a source tax. So if you retired in california nevada, california still taxed your pension. And it was like, well, youre giving me any services, right, and why should and im any of your services big issue. Ame a some retired military guy brought it to her from carson city. And there were other places. Mostly it was military people who had served around country and had come to nevada and their by statesere taxed by states they had left five and 10 years ago. So she was able to repeal the source tax or get it imposed so states couldnt tax your pension. Cancer, shed breast was sworn into congress, she physical and they discovered a lump in her breast mastectomy and over spring break. She didnt miss a vote in congress. She did a lot of outreach to had breast cancer. In fact, her former opponent, gojak, was diagnosed with mother ander after died. Timately and mother and she struck up quite a personal relationship. And they talked on the phone. Day oconnor was another one that comes to mind. Of course she knew her. Mother reached out to her. Of her big one legislative agendas but she, when bill clintons budget took annual mammograms out of medicare funding for it, she was not happy with that and she get that backd to who was an ensign, successor senator, he was able restored to medicare which was very, i think, important, because she was a big advocate for prevention. I approached her about writing memoirs. I wanted people to understand vucanovich was, that she was a conservative woman and she represented conservative values and i didnt want that distorted by the media. Anybodys donenk that. Not because of the book, but just because of who she was. And, you know, there should be a place for conservative and women in the political discourse and it just seems like toohe moment we dont have many conservative women speaking out. Honored to serve. She knew the state. She knew the people. Think she did a good job and was well respected. Had a commonsense approach. Partisan, it wasnt an ego trip with her. So she didnt complain. There. Happy to be announcer we continue our look at reno with a trip to the great author, michael branch, explores environmental humorous story telling. Michael welcome to the great desert. Youre in the western great 110,000 square miles into which water comes and never leaves again. Were about 20 miles outside of reno, nevada. And you can see this mountain snow, me covered with mountain. When i did my research about videoook, i came across a of you driving and not driving your truck across the desert. Whats the story . Travel aroundi the country to read from my books, im trying to help people imagine what a great basin landscape is like and one of the things i always say is we playahese dry lakes, basins, that are incredibly not, no sticks, no holes, weeds, nothing, the most isotropic landscapes on the planet. People whot to havent seen the great basin, it doesnt mean anything for them so i try to come up with stories to help them imagine this so when im traveling i say let me give you a sense of how big and are. These lake basins you can going in your truck, set tor cruise control, climb on the cab of the truck and drink truck drive your itself randomly across the the most isotropic land on the earth. My truck going 45 miles an hour, climb out the window on sit back and read my book and drink beer and let my itself across the playa basin. Whats the title of your book . Michael its one of three books writtenive nonfiction about this area. The first is about raising wife and i my raising your daughters on this remote desert. On theond is rants hill, a series of essays about next book isnd the called how to cuss in western withhese books have to do family, environment and humor, as well. Soundedcuss in western like a fun way to approach some of the topics i was interested in. Raising wild, they form a trilogy interested in three main things. One is family. Really interested in how a family can operate in the wilderness. A real tradition in American Literature of men alone wilderness. The huck finn goes to the raft on john muirsippi or disappears into the sierra or henry thorough goes to walden mond. Pond. Interested in how that narrative changes if you take you when youith retreat into nature. My wife, two daughters and i, a remote area of the western great basin desert and thats where our family life has prospered so one idea in all the books is why family is important be why its interesting to in a family in the wilderness. And then the second thing is to of to give people a sense what the great basin desert is like. Its a landscape thats often and misunderstood. If you say, desert, to any and ask them what they picture, theyll say sand and cacti, typically. We have hollywood to thank for that. Proximal toesert is l. A. So if youre making a film or television, thats the desert shoot. Typically going to 110,000we have this square mile high elevation cold basin andthe great people cant picture it and when pictured as a vast waste land so im trying to get people to reimagine and question beautytandard of natural and reimagine why this place is so special. And the third thing that all of with books are concerned is humor. I really believe in healing power of comedy and can getental writing pretty serious. Environmentalists, we take pretty seriously and we fret and worry and mourn a angry. Were and i think its important for people to remember that humor us together bring and make us more resilient, but it can do important work, as well. Trying to accomplish in all of these books of creative nonfiction is to think about my to my family in a helprness setting, to people imagine what the great basin desert is really all about and to remember that its ok to laugh, even when were dealing with really serious issues. Ask where the title came from, how to cuss in western. Most parents, i use profanity in front of my children and shouldnt so we set a swear jar and realized quickly i couldnt afford that. Hand fast. Of so i got interested in the idea profanity in use the old west. I did research into the cuss used in the old west and that was what launched the title for the book. A passage, ifou youd like. Please, go ahead. Michael i like to think of new west kind of guy but all this regularizing and penalizing of what i view as an of Self Expression caused me to wonder what the tradition of profanity in the old west might have been. I looked into it. And it turns out the pedigree of west andin the old such swearing was once referred to with the beautiful phrase, the lungs, is, in fact, quite distinguished. Slang, vernaculary, wovenole, were once deeply into the fabric of western life and manners. Flamboyant expressions pioneered by early cowboys, miners, prostitutes and are still part of the american lexicon. We all know what it means to be be bamboozled or to have a bee in your bonnet, to cahoots or to be in to get something done by hook or by crook. After all, if you dont cool heels, you might end up dead as a door nail. Row to hoe, a hard a mind a ponye up, instead of being a skin flint, you might end up with atugh coin to shake a stick instead of mad as a hornet. Not miners taught us that everything in life will pan out. To hold ournded us porss and strike when the iron is hot. Herders helped us to see what it means to be on the fence dyed in the wool and they also crafted their stories into which they spun sometimes in order to fleece the listener. Writer and certified curmudgeon, i especially printerse that early express the feeling of being out of sorts, the term that refers mood brought on when a printer runs out of letters while setting type. Into the old west and realizing that the language rich,s landscape is so and im always so impressed with the environmental beauty of this thats braided with a cultural beauty, often expressed in language, much of which we lose over time so it was fun to resuscitate old cussing. What void are you trying to fill . Manyere are so environmental writers whose work i really appreciated. Probably the thing singled out they my books is that introduce humor into environmental discourse. There are some writers, a lot of of edwardl think abbey, hero to many western american environmentalists. Natureerally speaking writing hasnt been willing to laugh. We take our mission seriously and im trying to convey that important work can get done through the use of comedy. What would you say that mission is . Michael for me, its a mission of awareness. You always felt that if want to protect the Natural Environment, you cant begin with a sermon. People protect things that they fight for. They fight for things they love. Things theyve experienced. So for me, as a writer, i try to at my readers from a starting point that isnt to or necessarily to educate them but to begin with, let me show you this thing that passionate about. And give you a glimpse into why and together maybe we can build toward a new kind of appreciation that can lead to environmental concern. The desert solove much . And why did you choose to grow a family here . Michael in terms of why i love this landscape so much, i think constantlye it just inspires a sense of humility. Desert,irst came to the i felt so vulnerable. The way i put this sometimes is basinme to the great desert for the for the firstim, you feel like a carry you off. L it feels like a timeless, alien landscape. Youre vulnerable to dehydration, to flash floods, to rattlers, to scorpions. Not naturally a landscape that makes you feel cared for. Of in that is some kind really primitive encounter and that becomes very addictive and arepeople like me who desert rats, environments that feel like theres plenty of shelter, water and food, somehow dont awaken the same kind of energy. The vast expanses, i big the weather, i love the critters, to be able to see antelope gliding in front of me hour, its an magical place. But i think ultimately at the the deserty love for is the in fact it reminds us all the time of something that is we tend toe time but forget which is that were small and weak and vulnerable and something thats much, much larger. What do you want your readership to walk away with . Michael i think the most important thing to me would be that this landscape is special, that its valuable, that its important. Then i think also to understand that its ok to laugh. Us feelthat many of like our daily lives are challenging, our political life challenging, our Economic Life is challenging. And you know humor has a real force. When people are able to laugh, it not only makes them stronger, ofgives them a form resilience that i think helps them to encounter the other invariably theyll confront. Also, when we dont understand landscapes, that has implications for how we treat those landscapes. So, for example, nevada is repository the main for the storage of all the Nuclear Waste weve created around entire country. Nobodys going to propose putting Nuclear Waste in a field a snow cappedon mountain or sparkling lake. But if you perceive this landscape as not being beautiful, it invites the idea that its a good place to dispose of things so i think in addition to educating people about the beauty of the desert, i want them to feel there are political implications to what they single pretty and what they is barren and Nuclear Waste storage is one example of landscapes will always be protected or destroyed based myour aesthetics so part of work as a writer is to help people adjust their idea that is barren or empty and help them appreciate how beautiful it is. Closinghing thoughts to add . I would say look at this landscape around me. Were on the edge of a city. I think there are not many cities in north america that reno has which is Wonderful Community of people, wonderful Arts Community of and artists and writers and brewers. But also this were right on the this vast wilderness and that were in this ecotone. Were on the eastern slope of the viera nevada mountains so we look up at snowy mountains. Edge ofe on the western the great basin desert which is and beautifulvast thatsionive desert so combination, easily excessible inviting. Ul reno, is i think our Natural Environment as a crucial be determinant to life is like in our city. Years now,for eight cspan has traveled to u. S. Cities bringing the book scene our viewers. Watch more of our visits at cspan. Org citiestour. Oh, do i look forward to running against them. Tuesday, President Donald Trump holds a rally in orlando, officially launching his run for a second term. Watch live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2, online at cspan. Org, or listen live on free cspan radio app. The co congress is now available. It has the current session of congress, contact and bio information about every representative and information about committees, governors, and the cabinet