Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jon Mooallem This Is Chance 20240712

You dont walk around with that instability it is always there at random without warning. Kind of terrible magic can switch on and scramble our lives. As life magazine would put it afterwards struggling to explain the hidden volatility that caused earthquake somewhere to earth is quivering all of the time. All right you want to start . Yeah. Okay. Thats what thats all about . Nice to have a book in hand and following along while it feels like being in church right now it is most like interactive experience ive had in a while so thank you past ton john. Thank you we can do anymore on that give me a call. Hi everyone thanks for being here. This is really weird and im i think more nervous than i would be if i was in person. Not that im staring at any own space. But were here to talk about john. You will be for the fore foreseeable future to have a little motel on our handle. How do you write a book . Where do you begin and how does it begin to happen . Yeah. Thats really good question. I mean, this was look very much a labor of love for many years before it was leak work or, you know, so yeah it just, you know, the book is history, right . And so what happened was i found out about this character geneny im sure well talk about and realize she was a radio broadcaster who had all of these recordings of herself on the air after the earthquake or family recorded them. And learned that nothing ever have been done with them and i learn about it that. Through a kind of round about way and i started looking for them and you know, you know if you tell true stories for your job, when you hear that theres like this cash of untouched material sitting somewhere, you know it is look a treasure hunt. And it was just a purpose of you know that was back in 2014 i guess so it was like years of just looking for that. Any other documentation and archives calling you know looking up for survivors and we get names of survivors into the quake and who were involved in the stories and like calling you know 28, in a phonebook and not finding one youre looking for and that went on for years you know, and it sucked leak it was it was so bad but every once in a while you hit somewhere, and then be like sign up for a few more years of that. That was like how it started like trying to gets over the fear because usually i can call whoever i want, and with enough persistence find out what i want to know and worried can i tell a stoi like this if im going to hit points where people i need to talk to are dead and they dont remember it anyway. And nothing would have been written down about this particular question i have or this particular, you know, turn in the story took, and what was going to happen if that happened and i was just cowardly about it and i wouldnt write a book proposal because i wanted to find more an more stuff so that i felt leak i had enough. Wow. Actually that was one of my questions too. Theres so much stuff, like one of my very favorite parts of the book is hold on earmarked it is when youre describing the earthquake itself and theres the woman, one woman watching her son good outloud stuff look that is sort of thing that you know, as a big fan of your writing i happen to notice in your reporting so much easier to recreates. So immersing yourself and looking at it and for so many years how do you decide what to keep out . Yeah. That was really hard. Because yeah. Like i definitely love thats the pleasure of this job like you know what you can do because you do it in stuff you write you get to catch people kind of being themselves when theyre not paying attention to themselves you get to notice things. And then you get to describe them and that is most pleasurable art and that was weird because it was like trying to capture that from these static old pieces of paper. You know, like you have that same eye for detail but it is heart diseaser to find them and so what to leave out is like the problem of what to leave out was more leak i decided to tell a story of just about three days and anchorage and i thought that would be a way to simplify things and i wanted because it was look a whole universes in three days but what was painful was finding these, you know, i have to say you hit this pager like find huge resources for like there was some native communities that were wiped out by tsunamis, and i had read a lot about them and i had found people that werent involved and had passed away but this was not in anchorage or eventually came to anchorage and i felt like that was such an amazing story if you want to recreate that but i guess i cant and it was a story and one point i was in with an older couple lived in anchorage and this woman nancy, sort of like it was like i was there for two or three days and last afternoon there she was like i want to show you she happened me this four or 500 page report that she had been anthropology professor in anchorage at the time and done this study of the community where she was recreating experience and people in the communities and she handed me this document like everything with mas of where everyone in the village has been and he was flying and she was making a doll. You know, and i was like this is crazy. Like i know i cant use this and if i dont use it theres no one to see this. So you know, it was a really painful process. Like i try not to be that i had an outside role in preserving these things but in a sense i did because i was looking at peels garbage and it was literally some kids were getting thrown out. The question already which im actually into, but asked how much of your Research Time was spent on location in alaska . Yeah. I went there three or four different times i guess in a couple of years stretch, and you know, it was weird because there wasnt, there was some libraries there that i was using for sure. And there was some people that i work hard to track down and a lot of times i track down people and i would have so many documentation that i was like knew more about that they were dong that weekend than they knew so i would like and all nerdy with my shuffling my papers around and you got l call at 8 30 p. M. You know and this like some 86yearold man was like i dont know. That was disappointing and good to get the atmosphere learn about what it was like to live in anchorage at a weird moment in history, and all of that stuff where i would say you know ive been reading all of about this guy and he sounds like kind of a dweeb like you like fixing radio is that, yeah, and they would tell you a story about, you know, that they walked in the Radio Station in the morning and youve been up all night like check. I got it. But no, it was weird how little tile to spend there relative i think to like how hard i was working to recreate it and at one point i took a trip to essentially walk around, and just for my own confidence i think to go to the places i was writing about even though they were totally different 50 some odd years later this intersection, this apartment of town, just so i had some confidence that i knew how the city put together and i wasnt a complete carpet bagger about it. How did that trip make you feel . It made me get back into your next i didnt mean to cut you off. Go ahead. Did make me feel more like i had the authority to tell this story. I never, you know, thats the struggle you know. I never feel like, you know, entitled to tell the story but it did help in that way, and also just really fun it was a strange reporting trip because it wasnt, it was look, there wasnt a to do list really. You know, i dont know. It was literally just like looking at, you know, i had a genie account of like where she had gone in first hour after the quake and i locked that root and like when she was here earn turn to right she would have seen mountains and get to get it in my head and it was a process to spend money to go do that and make productive but yeah it was really fun. So i asked around, and someone told me that you had a pretty insane spread sheet where you were keeping track of all of your research. Yeah. How was that . So i love to talk about that spread sheet jazmine, thank you. Yeah. I remember my wife at one point when i was writing the book when she was like i think line this stuff sounds like it could be commercial. It could do well. You know like i wanted to do well enough in other journalist will ask me how i did it. Like how [laughter] so yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Doesnt matter if anyone is watching. Yeah. So yeah baskly i was just taking up odds and ends this, you know, letters and photographs everything and just photographing them with misphone. You know, and spread sheet of more than a thousand individual things of which were like it would be look a 50page interview fript so i had that and what i would do is read through them all, and i had a text document and try to find fancy software and i asked all of my techy friends and i got confuse sod i had this like text document that was a timeline, and as i read through these things i would just transferrings in to this like master time lien so you know like 8 p. M. On friday leak the fire chief over here having this conversation, and heres where he recounts it all and i was typing it into timeline so i had this like monstrous time line document that just, you know, went for hundreds of pages basically sometimes like within the records were so amazing that sometimes within leak a ten minute stretch, i would have thousands and thousands of words or just leak heres whats happening in the Police Station heres whats happening in this neighborhood. And that was superfun. I mean it was like very challenging im not a very organized person normally. But i was very proud of myself. About manage all of this, all of this information because it was just overwhelming otherwise. Would you feel like whats my question . I can imagine that being able basically to capture a moment and be able to get in every single Vantage Point how it makings you feel leak god thats how i would feel but again, whats it like to have this huge information about and basically be like a huge seeing eye of experience and culminate everyone together. Yeah thats a really good question. I mean, i think in truth it didnt it definitely felt that way. I think it feels that way more now that ive write about the book because you dont know what i didnt know. Like i was able to do things that yngt know but that was a real phenomenon, and i write about it in the book a little bit like because it was also just you could see everything like you could see like risks that people were taking and there was dramatic irony or you can see the future. You can see this guy is superin charge and everyone leak him and hes doing great work but in a month die in a plane crash, and you know, so yeah i talk about that in the book because onethird of the book is fact that this Movie Theater was in our town in anchorage at the time and i was having these weird feelings of also meeting, you know, the 90yearold alaskan guy who ive spent months reading about as a 30, 40yearold alaska guy and to meet him like youre an old man see where those stories end was eerie and i read our town, there was a stage manager character in the play who is basically in that same position somehow that he knows whats going happen to all of the characters as shes standing on staimg stage hes saying see that paper boy hes going to go to war in a couple of years and die and that kind of started dictating, you know, how i wrote the book like beginning of the book like chances and i was able to do that in the book too basically flash ahead and show you just really we cannily where these people wound out not everyone i mean it is odd. But it felt like that was right way to do that story. I know New York Times you did not care for that element of the we dont read New York Times in this family. I precincted it out there. But yeah. I mean it felt strange to do it because it felt strange to have that knowledge. You know . But i felt like there was something so painful about seeing the you know seeing life on that scale. Right that on the one hand look this superintimate three dhais youre lookings at minute by minute, but you have all of this knowledge of the magnitude of whats gong happen to these people and where are they coming from and going and, of course, all going to the same Police Station and going die. You know, and most of them are dead and i knew how it happened so it was a bizarre way to experience it an we dont have that in regular life. Right. I mean shall we talk about you of the stage manager in the system lets talk about our time . We could. I think it starts to sounds like were everything but yeah lets do it lets do. How do you im not. Special occasion. Yeah. Lets i mean we can just start with the opening quote of the book but i thought it was really interesting i didnt realize for a while that you were fed up of the opening of the book itself as set up of our town. Lets talk about our town in general for people who dont know. Did you know what was your knowledge of the play im curious i didnt know anything about it, really . I went to performing Arts High School and i didnt know about it so i felt very ashamed thank you for introducing it to me. Basically all i knew was episode of growing pains. I remember like kirk cameron in our time. But i felt it was this play that like my impression was a hokey simple minded play you know about like america and reading and this was bizarre so experimental and strange like that see how this character on stage and i mean the story about just like the book about three days in a small town. So that action is all very mundane and nothing that dramatic really happens. But you have all of these weird touches leak this stage manager who is just walking on and off stage. Talking to the audience, telling you the future. So yeah. So i think that in the play, thoom of the play is luke on the earthquake going on like the plot of the play it is about people inability to appreciate daily life that we go through lives and dont realize how beautiful they are and fragile they are. Until we can step outside of them somehow, and ends with a young woman died and looking back at ordinary life so painful for her to realize she wasted her time that she didnt look her mother in the eye or value what was there. That happened in anchorage into another realm sort of like realm were living in right now where were all inside or adjacent to a disaster, and you have this different look on things in some sense things simplify what you value. And now it is a spirit in anchorage theres a spirit of like oh, my god we have this special place. And we cant take it for granted now we have a chance, you know, to go back into it and try it again. So yeah our town took a part to sol degree it is hard to explain with we should all read the book and maybe this would make sense, and but yeah hard to talk about when we dont understand exactly why i did it i cant analyze it. But it was just felt so like such a true way to tell the story you know, and i was really lucky that was the play that weekend it could have been i dont know some stupid musical or i dont know. I dont know. Hard to do like incredibly clever and it sits in so perfectly but i wonder in actually writing the book did you feel like did it come together . It felt like the only possible way to do it, and so therefore, like i had to figure out because i had always feel like that what youre writing. Never written in my life. I have no idea. Thats good. [laughter] i dont know. It just like the thats what it is. Thats the story. You know, like it wasnt any real decision, i think, i mean, must have hit me at some point that was an option. But yeah. Weird im doing i guess im to say writing a profile right now about a, you know, sort of genius writer i guess. You know, and profile about me. John. How nice. Creative or i dont think im supposed to say this but i dont know i dont to get in trouble. But yeah, anyway thats one thing that he and i have been talking a lot about is sometimes you have like you dont have a choice of how youre going to do it you know. Because to you do it badly, then it comes out badly. But its a bad version of the right thing, and youve got to kind of keep pushing it in that direction and that was described how this felt. You know, and it was like i remember when i said, i said this to someone else other day when i sent in the booing to my editor at the house the first draft. I sent had sent him a document with my worries by john. You know, and it was like in lieu of a cover i was like all of the things that i was feeling. About the manuscript and that was first one. It was just like did i do it . Did i pull the time thing off. So yeah. It seems weird even to me but seemings like thats what happened. Im going to talk about jeanie. Who is amazing in every sort of way. But as a magazine reporter like were you spending a lot of time with someone either in our heads or in real loof where we were like consumed with them any time i wrote a profile about somebody i dream about them for month use worked on this book for six years and i wonder what your relationship with jeanie was at the beginning and how it changed if it ever did. Yeah it totally did because im at home i can show you this is jeanies press badge. Cool. This is jeanies campaign poster. Oh, anything god. Show an tell. I have a ton of her stuff here that is crazy and goes to your point yeah she yeah. I necessarily became kind of obsessed with her so i felt like i knew her and any time like i have two little kids and theyre look if you could have dinner with anyone jeanie, but yeah i went in so she was like this protofeminist figure, in anchorage of all places who you know if you were yo a woman in broadcast at that time you were supposed to do a show about home making. Or you do recipe swaps on the air so actually i have her recipe swap cookbook when she did a show like that and she became this news reportser instead. She went for it and she was like just like, you know, the win sensual of driven working mother who was, you know, with all of these expectations. That told her she shouldnt be doing those they thinks so when i started out, i think i saw her in retrospect one dimensionally i saw her with like a me too, you know, lens exclusively, and i sort of flattened her humanity in that way. Because she seemed look a type, you know. And i mean it was a very good type leak an admirable type but it was familiar. I guess how far it comes but thats a familiar type now. You know that woman who succeeds against, you know, society that shouldnt. And so yeah. I think that process was actually and i was completely e enamored by her i love who she was and she was that. But i learn more about her and i saw other sides of her and i saw, you know, her more of her interior monologue and the whole picture became much more rich and deeper and more complicated i saw things i didnt like about her like i saw that like you know, yes all of the men that she worked with who were difficult and dramatic like were absolutely sexist but i also saw leak other situation she was very difficult for someone to work with sometimes not work jobs but family and there were jobs that defied blowing portrait that i went in with and that was great because that makes you real like it makes you also e learn that she was being abused by her husband too which i learned sort of not very early on. Like it took a while to get there. And that changed everything too. You know, that just is leak this whole other darker apartment of her life that thats in her background this whole thing. So it wasnt that my vision of her necessarily changed but i would say it just kept being more and more around that initial portrait with different angles. There was my question i have read now six pages of the journal in the murder right is did your writing about jeanie and in the writing about yourself as a character, change the way that you approach wreg of all people . That you have to sort of look go through your own of the coming of character to be like dissected and translated to an audience . Yeah. I dont know some say that but i dont think im not a very beg character sort of like a in the book im sort of just like the writer who shows up and starts asking peel questions. So im not writings about anything thats too intimate about myself or that cause me to have to look really, you know, deeply or harshly at myself even. Andty guess i make fun of my appearance maybe that counts. But yeah i guess i dont know thousand answer that definitely like writing about i did feel a responsibility of writing people more less than people that i meet because i felt look when i spend time with people in person i can trust my impressions of them more. Whereas when youre just working with a bunch of dts and seeing people through other peoples eyes and then through their own eyes it is like you have to make judgments about who to believe or how to take a certain thing and was this sarcastic because it is typed, you know, and thats made me think about about how much i missed when im writing about people im with too maybe i shouldnt be trusting those judgments. You know as much but the truth is too like i havent written much since the book yet still in the process so i dont know. But you wonder like working on the book im stuck on the fact that you worked on it for so long and that it is so good and everybody should buy it. But i was thinking about the story you did for the times magazine, and how alaska sort of lying a place as it took a theme in your work. Do you want to tell everybody what that voyage trip was about . A story i wrote about in was that last year, i dont know. Did you last year . Yeah its a century and a half ago and i wrote this piece i dont write about myself almost. Like overtly but this was a stoirp of that in my early 20s i went to alaska with two friends one living out there. And we went kayaking and long story short sounds absurd but walking one day and a giant tree fell on him on my friend. And so the story was kind of reconstructing accident and getting him out he was medevaced out he survived and everything. You know now he works at the New York Times as a matter of fact. Really . Some technically when life continues. Thats a good paper. [laughter] yeah. Not bad. So yeah. So that was a story just, you know, in some sense it was leak adventure story i guess. I dont know. But it was like an adventure story that somebody like me thinks about things too much would write. So it was very much similar to the book i think in the sense that it was about randomness and it was about, you know, a tree falling on someone random and the rescue unfolded just as much with just randomness and could not have whatted we got very lucky in a lot of ways so whens i think about that story now it is like so obvious to me that i was finishing the book at that time because i was you know seeing it through as one part of the same idea kind of did i i dont know if you asked me about that i didnt answer your question. [laughter] all right. I think so. Its hard to tell. But to go off what you were just saying with this book is clearly about disruption, and there was an entry you get about it in which you mention that you started working on it or you were really working on it after the election. And now it is coming out and midst of a lot of destruction and considering like the alaska trip. I just this was a hokey impression but i feel like if anyone can give us strong words about perseverance and grit and ability to get through things it is could be you. Yeah. Yeah and putting a lot of [laughter] i think that you can do it aye seen you on popup magazine but in researching this book but like that surprised you when it keam to how resilient people can be . 100 like the i mean so much of the book is about, you know, so many of the stores in the book. So much of what people did in anchorage was helping. You know, like in very simple straightforward ways like as soon as the earth stopped moving. People started helping. And digging people out of rubble or, i mean, doing crazy things like a neighborhood that slid off a cliffs and dozens of houses across the shore and people were lowering themselves down on roping to find people doing that. So there was that heroism and then theres things like you know lets get 100 people together to make some swfs sandwiches so people were doing that so that to me was what the book was about. It was sort of that theres chaos, that we live with, and and it throws us in situations and in those momentses almost like similarly as leak a force of nature. Like our own nature, theres something in us that propels us to meet that. You know, and to start fixing all of the stuff that just got broke. You know, and its weird now to try to apply that to see this right through that lens because everything just refracted so strangely because like youre helping and im helping now because were in our homes doing nothing. And you know theres, obviously, people doing a lot more direct than society and that we do have a place in that. You know. And so i think its, we have to kind of see ourselves as participating in something. You know like we have to see this as active. And not passive and we have to see ourselves as were, were empowered enough to be part of a solution. Rather thanking this that we have to stay out of the way for the people who are going to solve it. Thats jeanie story she showed up at the Police Station right after the quake because she had a Radio Broadcasting in her car and she was basically going to be like police chief, fire chief take my thing and broadcast and they were like where you do it were busy and she was like didnt think she was supposed to be doing an important job like that and 25 hours later shes like at the center of this whole recovery operation, and no one can even she cant take break because she cant explain too complicated to explain to people. So i think we need to somehow just see ourselves in that light like see ourselves as i dont know like pill get depressed today looking at protest open it back up and stuff. As if like we need to get back to doing stuff. But we are doing stuff like we need to be doing more stuff and need to be doing it beaters and need to have like someone leading us and doing it and with that spirit but yeah, i dont know. I feel like we keapght cant feel like were hiding but working because we are. Loosely put im not working too much but you know what i mean. Your great book and it is everywhere. Yeah. But i did know. I learned like perseverance and that energy its there. But like we miss it a lot of times but its there. See i knew you would give a good answer to that. Yeah. Prepared. I neededded to hear that im sure lots of people did too. A can answer to that question but i dont because life is so strange and changes every day and i cant have coherent thoughts about it. You know. Youre first person ive spoken to in 36 days so you have to keep it fresh. Okay low bar. One thing ive been thinking about as a person in selfquarantine isolation ive been thinking you and your walks are you still walking . Still walking so yeah ill explain for viewers at home. Ive made a podcast of the walking podcast which is in the woods in Washington State outside seattle. I take a lot of walks because i work at home by migs and its hard to find anything to do. So i go for a lot of walks and i start this podcast where i recorded myself walking without talking and like i read an ad in the middle so i stopped doing podcast. Because you know, podcast was down right now, and the ad revenue wasnt coming in and im being heard by the, you know, the recession. I dont know and then ill come back but still walking all of the time. I did feel like making walking podcast had found eights moments and would be useful to people who were like stranded at home and they could listen to and walk and some are but theres 20 something episodes out there. So i dont need to. I like to take walks for me sometimes. Yeah. I get that. So we were talking before this started about how we met which is through popup magazine, and now we write for the same magazine. And ive always known you to be like incredibly creative mind you have a lot of stuff cooking and subjects going and so again within just considering period of time that youre working on the book, and working on bunch of other projects like do you think all of your work comes from the seam creative place like how do you put things in the back burner how do you multitask do it all . Yeah. I dont know. Thats im not sure i really recognize myself in that question so look i dont i dont think i have a very good gauge of like what i do really. Like i dont. Extreme talented and we all love you. I wasnt fishing for im not saying the quality of what yotdz. Okay. I meant like to me ive been realing for magazine for 15 years and like understand i was 26, 25 and thats like amazing. I feel so fortunate about that but i also kind of feel like my fatherinlaw worked for like the phone company for 50 years. [laughter] and i kind of feel like that. I know like how to write a story in the New York Times magazine i do other things too but thats main thing i know how to do so it feels like i you know, i get ideas and they seem like theyre going to be that be a magazine story so then i do it. And then some so i dont feel like of a very driven by yotd. I do pop up stuff and i do projects with bands sometimes but i guess none of that feels that stuff mostly feels fun. You know it doesnt feel leak work it feels like playing more, and so i think thats, you know, i dont know. Of a weird time knowing that do you think that writing magazine story is right ive never thought of that or thought of it as leak this was artistic pursuit but expressive but that i think if youre doing it well then you kind of have to have your yourself be smaller than what youre writing. I dont know how you think about it. Theres different approaches too. But yeah i guess thats what is interestings about your question it doesnt i dont feel like im john Jackson Pollock going into the studio and come without with a magazine draft. You know it feels like almost luke a boost. Thats how ive envisioned you dong. Why to lay it out this cannily but i think First Magazine story ever making us weep was one of yours and i emailed you about it and thats kind of how it became friends too and when they tell you nice things about yourself. When you have the ability to make me cry before you meet them. But i do think like i couldnt call what i write for the magazine art because its really hard, and maybe if im better i can think of it more. But i understand why you might be tiebl call your own. But i think as a fan of someone who like was enjoyed it. Over the years and has grown from it as a writer who like look up to you and feels gratified by it by human like i do think that your work is tremendous artistic. Not trying to be selfefficient but characterize it and i do worry to be totally real. I do worry about sometimes that theres like a push in magazine writing because of like we all have to be sort of a brand in some sense we have to have the sensibility and approach to things, and some kind of you need to know who youre reading. You know, and a voice i guess. And i think thats great. I dont have any problems with that. But i think that danger, though, is you know the how it is calibrated look that balance im talking about. Like not leak some stories thats absolutely theyre just being along you know, burst of energy from that mind you know and thats how that is the story. But i really like to do stories where like the way im expressing myself is just leak in what im noticing or just what im capturing about somebody else you know for me it feels dangerous to like think about it as like my own creativity you know. Because thats at odds with like being a observer or leak a presenter of this story. You know, and its not that i myself doesnt exist in that process but absolutely it does and it is like expression of how i see things and how i think about things. But yeah just make me i dont know make me a little weary to like indulge thoughts too much. You know . You know i think i feel like im trying no i think youre being thoughtful and listening to the thought whatever they can see in the book now this is a reason why i like your work so much. Because you be sort of see wheels turning but in an interesting and creative hard to use the word but unexpected way thats what i like so much. Im going to ask one last question an open it up to everyone else there are questions in q and a but well get to it. I have a favorite part of the book. But people came here to see me so whats your favorite part of the book and ill tell you. I mean, i feel weird anything with jeanie i love but the favorite part of the book is this story that theater honestly like it is not as big of a focus of the book. But i love i fell in love with the guy that frank produces a play and completely larger than life and its like hes good. And hes valued to this community you know that its like you can kind of make fun of him a little bit. But also look just admire him so much and just so i like any time that he backs into the story because hes always, you know, he talks and hes gigantic sentences with, you know, 58 adverbs and hes just so dramatic for lack of a better word. So i kind of fell in love with him and any i would say that was first where i look at my research ands i like scooping all up putting it into the book that was nothing left in the buck the like i scrape every every bit of him that i could find and put it in there. So yeah. Thank you. All right im going to turn it over to everyones q and as this one is a question from chloe thanks so much for having this event. She is joining the event from anchorage, and she asked im wondering if you have a priest connection to alaska and decided to write this become and if not was it at all difficult to connect with folks in the community . No i had been to alaska before but i didnt have any connection to it. I guess i was sort of interested in it like i had read books about alaskan but not a strong connection to it and no it wasnt difficult at all. I really i was very intimidated i think by, you know, trying to show up in alaska and Start Talking to especially these guys was knowing how to fix things and you know and everyone was like supergenerous and kind and it has been cool to hear i was supposed to be doing a bunch of events in alaska for the book and i was looking forward to it because theres no shortage of people with earthquake stories and never got tired of what heag them but it was great just like my own reservation. Oh a question from dana how many hour of jeanie videotape did you listen to . I had something about like 18 okay so this was one bag in his stuff and all real to real, and then there were a lot more at different libraries especially the library in anchorage so i dont think. I dont remember exact number i think i had close to 20 hours total of some tape from those weekend. But not the vast majority that well most of it didnt have actually jeanie on it. You know, that jeanie was like kept like give me a chance an there was a second for part of the weekend so theres some of that and a ton to listen to and i was disappointed there wasnt more of the jeanie stuff that i would have loved to have more. But it was still a lot. Yeah. All right question from deborah i love the section in the book about anthropologist why did you decide to have that information in the book . These were people that came to anchorage the day after the qeak to start looking at how society was like supposedly falling apart is what they thought and then actually they were like oh everyone is pretty chill and working together thats good. But yeah. That was one of the biggest finds of researchers that they interviewed 400 in alaska starting that next day, and all of those transcripts were at the university of delaware right now so i think spent time in delaware as question did through alaska reading through interviews so i thought it was great because like when you do a magazine story theres this sort of rough formula that often works were you see a bunch of stuff happen. And describe it and then you call like an expert an they tell you like oh that thing you notice it has a name. It is this concept and you know, they give you this framework to think about it. And in in case it is like i have that. But he was like experts walked right into the story and just started naming everything. You know, and like literally i was working with their first work and started to taung talking about how society respond so yeah i thought that was an interesting wrinkle of this story and put other stuff that you read, you know, kind of wrap it in a wrapper. Oh. And another question. What did you think of our town when you read it and what do you think of it now during covid . Yeah. I really leaked it when i read it. Parts i think are boring. I didnt, you know, i cant say i loved it. But i like them. I liked it admiring like how it was made you know. I thought as a work of art it was really interesting. And i think part of that too is just like i said the surprise of realizing how cool and weird it was. Going into expectation that it was just sort of dribble. Do you think you could write a play . I wrote a place. Play in college when i was with myself. What was it about . Okay are you ready for this . It was about an animal Testing Department where they were just people were just at these tables all by themselves just testing like sewing animals eyes shut for test cosmetics and stuff you know, and it was all change themselves and shy and then you realize theyre all in the Witness Protection Program and that the evil corporation and the government have been just, you know, shunting them in here and they have to decide whether to like rise up or not. And i was, you know, just the young overconfident guy liberal arts school and it was what i wrote down so there was that. So why was i talking about that to make sure something embarrassing that happened. Oh. [laughter] yeah i had read plays before and reading plays i dont think 50 eu78 im a good reader of plays i dont get what you get out of them when you read them necessarily but i watched some and that was cool. But yeah. I think it speaks to right now too it is hard because its, you know, its tiny town in new england 100 something years ago so its very particular in that way buttening the message is, the message is like a zen thing i think its a kind of thinking that a lot of us are kind of scrambling for now is just like yearning to get to ring more out of life and ability to do it completely that part of being alive meanings missing your life. And just like letting go by, and that thats inevitable but you have to try to latch on to it more you know . You think my favorite part of the book could go back to me was when jeanie family found out that she was okay and like that scene of action actually really did feel look a play to me and started to get into what you were doing and just like people coming to the flood, house all of that stuff should reason for the play writing. I think you have i dont know. Well see. Okay i think someone is raising their hand for a question. Zachary ill see if this works. Oh, okay. Is it working . Oh yeah im loving, going so well and i dont know how to use a computer sorry just jumping in so zachary should see invitation to talk. To accept it and we should be tiebl hear him. Okay zachary jazmine john who are your nonfiction writers and nonfiction writers . I dont know how to answer that. You dont have to say me so that knocks one for itself. J i love your work a lot and i think its like just like representative of something that ill never be able to do too. Like so i feel like its i know a spirit to it that i think is really singular so yeah. Ill fill you in there. But i feel like nonfiction it is just a thing because where a book about disaster too and rebecca ive learned a lot from her. And you know, like her Favorite Book of mine is this book about a photographer, and i think thats a very particular kind of writing. So then you think about that. But then you know you can think about leak the magazine like happier and other kind of nonif i can where it is like i dont know how to answer that. Like one fern i always look to mention because elf like i dont understand why hes not like the so much more well known writer than he is is this guy Robert Sullivan who i just like reading some of his books when i was starting out really made me love nonfiction made me want to write it. He wrote about rats in new york and something and then written books where he tromps around looking at issues like john mcphee but if he were like really fun to hang out with instead of knowledgeable you know, and you know it is like the spirit of it is like i dont know. Maybe im sure john is fun to hang out with but not in the seam way. Not in the chat. [laughter] is he there . All right john. Sorry john i love him too. But it is just like this is more fun. You know. Like i was reading because it was a good time. You know. But i dont know. I never know how to answer that. Trying to think right now im reading novels right now so i cant tell you what im reading now. Anything in particular . Anderson you know it. Get a text or saying post up yeah. Next time we do this john can just argue. Did you read any books in particular to put this together . Interesting what i did was i did same thing i did when i was writing my first book which is i started rereading just books that i really loved like just to kind of see how they were made you know. So i read i reread like rebecca book about henry alax and ages of hawk. I read, i like some of those like, you know, like historical that are narrative david and things like that. But i was reading a lot of those kinds of books too just to see the how other people did it. That answer your question i dont know. Jasmine your questions to be perfectly honest ive not been able toll read a lot of books right now. And so ive mostly been going back in in archives reading and last night i read consider, very good. So that i recommend. Once my mom was talking a speech writing class and she had to look up speeches, graduation speeches on youtube and found a bunch of really teffs and she like them and she like fell in love with him and felt she and i would be friends and he and i would be friends and she wrote about putting this guy up youre going like him. I had to tell news to her. Anyway. I reread that and Dave Chappelle and i read John Sullivan going to disneyland that really holds up. I need to for myself. I dont understand. Thats my question wrote a magazine i dont know if it was in or why time or not where they sent jerry to watch tv at a luxury hotel like watch russian tv for a week. No. For that. Well, honestly i got to get into the oceans. To complain thats pretty good. You have like a great okay. Ting that we have to wrap up. I cant tell what time it is. This is like most delightful conversation ive had again only conversation ive had in a long time. So happy with this john thank you for asking me to do this and writing a great book. Thank you for doing it. Thank you for coming attendees and then i will get back to you. [laughter] trveg thanks jasmine thanks john youre awesome. I almost like laughing out loud and glad nobody could hear me in my own room thanks for giving us a good time. And thank you john so much for your wonderful book were so excited all of us to read it. Again, i have pasted info in chat about how to buy that getting book to support the legal written dependence store as well as a brilliant author so thats a great option to have. You can see more events that we have at green light bookstore and find awforts that weve been talking about and reading for your quarantine so thank you guys so much. Thats a wrap of the book john well see you guys soon. Thanks for doing this. During a virtual author program, richard former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reflected heres a portion of his talk. One of the important things for people to realize is Consumer Finance dramatically changed in last two generations. When we sense world war ii there was very little Credit Availability to our grandparents, it wasnt a big part of their loves we didnt take a lot of risk they couldnt get into a huge amount of financial trouble. But in Todays Society fast forward two generations, credit cards spending is pretty ewe beck us to among americans. Autoloans are a big part of peoples lives in any part of the country where people drive to work. Mortgages are how we buy and Student Loans are now a very prief lent part of life for many families and people can carry those loans for years even for decades so people have a lot more opportunities that credit provides that they face a lot more risk than they can get into more trouble. So this is a bigger piece of our lives which brings us so financial crisis of 2008. Which was paused by widespread irresponsible and predatory mortgage legending that caused many families to lose their homes. During that crisis and really upend entire economy, that led to congressional reform to try to prevent that crisis like that from happening again. It created part of that idea that was put forward by then professor now senator Elizabeth Warren for a Consumer Agency to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. And very straightforward analogy that was a win argument for many was that we have got to the point in america where it is basically impossible to sell toasters with a 20 chance of bursting flame and burning down their house. But it is entirely was entirely legal to sell them a mortgage. That had a 20 chance of putting them in foreclosure out on streets with their families that would once providing protection for Financial Products was a huge oversight. And the financial regulatory system in washington was really focused on the big banks and Financial Companies themselves. It was about keeping them safe and sound. Itit was about making sure they prospered overtime thats important. Important to remember that type of Consumer Protection too. If your bank goes belly up not goods for customers but it was important for everyone to turn around 180 degrees and look at the customers of these institutions and realize that if they were mistreated in the marketplace, something was wrong and we needed to readdress balance rebalance marketplace to have support they need in order to flourish. To watch this Program Visit booktv dorg and search richard for the title of his book, watch dog. Book it have is television for series readers all weekend every weekend join us again next saturday 8 a. M. Eastern for the best in nonfiction books. Cspan, created by americas cabletelevision companies as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider. Host this week on the communicators we are pleased to be joined by jonathan spalter