Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV In Tulsa Oklahoma 20150405

Which is getting the best possible education for your kids. But we will see. People disagree. We have time for one more question. That was good a good one to end on. Thanks. [applause] she will stay for a few more minutes if anyone wants to ask a question personally. Thank you so much for coming today. You are watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on cspan2s booktv. Television for serious readers. This land is your land, this land is my land from california to the new york eye lens from the redwood forests, to the gulf stream waters this land was made for you in the a note of welcome to tulsa, oklahoma on booktv. Locator on the arkansas there its the second largest city in the state with a population of almost 400,000 in the early 20th century it thrived as old town oil town. With help of our documentation cable partner we learn about its history and literary scene from local authors. We begin our special feature on tulsa with oil magnate Frank Phillips and the founding of phillips petroleum. And on booktv a literary tour of tulsa, oklahoma, with help of a cable partner documentation. We start our trip with Michael Wallis whose book oil man takes a look at Frank Phillips who went from being a barber to one of the great oil barons of the 20th century. Frank phillips was an oilman. First and foremost, he was an oilman. Phillips 66 was a company he founded just north of us here in tulsa in bartlesville oklahoma, which became the headquarters for phillips 66. And today you still see the familiar phillips 66 shields on many highways and streets, and especially in this country as well, you know . Phillips 66 has become as much of me people as either a coke bottle. Its that iconic in the minds of many motorists. Well frank got his start in the oil business in a sort of the convoluted way. He was actually he was not from oklahoma. He was actually born on the nebraska frontier out in the loop valley. His father was a civil war veteran, thought in the union army, and his parents moved out into nebraska territory, and thats where he was born 1874. And they came back shortly after that, the phillips, to their home country in southwestern iowa. And thats where frank grew up. So we have those basically midwestern roots are came from a big family big family, many brothers and sisters. He was the oldest and he was the dominant sibling by far. His ambition was strong it wasnt necessarily pointed towards the oil business because there was no oil business to speak up when he was of course when he was a boy. It was just beginning back in pennsylvania and ohio and new york. This was in the fledgling taste of oil and gasoline. He went to be a barber. He saw the town barber wearing beautiful striped pants and a morning coat and looked like a million bucks, and he opened his barber shop, and he just thought that was a splendid. So he decided to become a barber. So he left iowa and made a big circle a swath through the west, midwest, northwest. And he did all kinds of things including barbering. He was learning how to barber antibarber did in of all places than you think of it today aspen, colorado. Aspen, colorado, was not a chic fancy foofoo place in the mountains back then. It was a roughandtumble town but he barber did there. A barber in mining camps and lumber camps up to the ranch lands, out in the front are up in the wild, and then he came home to iowa and he decided to set up a shop. And before long he owned all the barber shops in town. By the time he was 22 he owns those barbershops and he became quite successful. He insisted that the barbers who worked for him dressed to the nines, that they carry with them since then to get to the customers, splash on some bay rum in the morning that they all Carry Business cards. He also showed his first flash of salesmanship when he invented a hair tonic, a hair restorative called mountain sage, and the principal ingredient was rainwater. Because phillips noticed that out in the iowa hog fans a big old boar hogs have this big bristle of air, and he was out there watching them one day in a rainstorm. So he thought rainwater might be good with a little bit of a wink antibottled this stuff and sold and made an amazing amount of money. But the kicker is he was bald, totally bald. So its the proverbial selling ice cream the eskimos. I mean if this man in his early 20s could sell hair restorative to people in big numbers, and he was bald you knew he had the makings of success all about him. He was also smart enough to marry the town bankers daughter, john gibsons daughter jane, who became jane phillips. And his fatherinlaw mentored him, talking banking business, the bond business. Frank phillips without to the countryside with a horse and buggy selling bonds. He became very successful, but he had e. G. Feed. He had all those what i call gypsy feet. They like to keep on the move. So he came down here into old indian territory, you know. Oklahoma didnt become a state in 1907. This was indian territory when he came down early 1900s. Because a methodist missionary said, theres oil down there and this place is booming, and he came down, sniffed around and said this looks good. So we got a second oldest brother l. E. Phillips, brought him with them, they continue and they started in banking, and then they went into wildcatting independents going out drilling for oil. And it built from there. You know first of all frank wasnt born into a dirt poor family. I guess what we would call them today is a middleclass family, if there was such a thing back then but as close to it. They were by no means people with great wealth. So what he made, he had to make on his own. Thats true of all of these people got who got involved in the oil business. So when he and l. E. Set up its banking business, they had to make it a total success. And they did. And, in fact theres a funny story. L. E. Phillips was not at all like his brother l. E. Wasnt as daring as forthcoming as personable as frank. L. E. Would never have thought about selling hair restorative. But frank was a risk taker and one day in their bank in bartlesville, oklahoma a young man came in, cowboy boots and a hat, and sat down. And he was a looked like a cherokee cowboy, and he said i want to borrow some money. I want to hire somebody thats what they would say. And l. E. Said to how much do you want . He said 500. And they did some paperwork. He said, whats your collateral going to be . He said, whats collateral . L. E. Tried to explain to them whats collateral is like he didnt quite understand it. He was about to leave and l. E. Was nervous, didnt want to lose a customers we went over and talktalked to frank and said this guy wants to borrow some money and he doesnt have any collateral. Frank looked at him and said, he will be all right, lend him the money. He leapt into money. The next a l. E. Found out that the young man was angry star can by marriage to bill starr the outlaw queen. And henry starr was considered one of the best bank robbers in indian territory. He dropped more banks than anybody. Sometimes he would rob to banks in the day. Angier l. E. Was just panic. And by god henry paid the loan back pronto even before it was due. Frank said see, i told you. You cant go wrong loaning money to outlaw an oilman. Theres a difference between the two. So the rumor got around through indian territory now for the greater oil patch that fills boys had these banks that bank robbers robbed all the other banks and did their banking with the philips which probably wasnt true. But that was a grub state getting that banking going. And from there they could finance going out and drilling for oil. But they did that for quite a while and have small oil companies. They found one found another, they name them for their mother named them for the relatives and the debris will. That doesnt mean it didnt sometimes drill a dry hole. Every oilman has drilled dry holes there can sometimes you drill so many youre just about to give up and that happened to frank a few times, but he said just try one more. And they would do it and it would get. But by 1917, frank and l. E. Decided its time to start a Proper Company a Big Petroleum company. And in 1917 if one actually founded phillips petroleum. They opened a big office in new york, and by 1927 they were refining their own oil. And thats when the phillips 66 shields and the retail gasoline went out and all these Little Cottage buildings with little pitched roofs started showing up across the land. Frank always dead on the boards of banks but he, he gave up banking. Be weaned off of banking fairly early on and just devoted his time and his energy to those, first of those wildcat oil finds, and then eventually to his company. You know people for years tried to get him to move his company out of oklahoma. They said, you dont want to be down here in oklahoma. You get the new york office, why dont you bigger headquarters to new york or chicago or st. Louis . And he said not on your life. Im going to stay right here in oklahoma. He said if i can get in and out to my ranch i can close a deal like that. Because he discovered that a lot of people were like he was you know . If you crack open frakes just you would pull out the heart of a 10 year old boy. So he would get these big time investors, Board Members bankers, all these stuffed shirts he would put them on private homeland cars bring them into oklahoma, bring them into bartlesville. They would get often they would have on these great suits and spats and carrying canes and heads and all this and very selfimportant. And to two needed and that the station would be people like henry wells was a retired bank robber, a cowboy bank robber. And they would they would have these stagecoaches pick these guys up and then drive dry them out, not to some hotel, not to the mayo hotel in tulsa or one of the hotels in bartlesville. Take them out to will a rock. Take them out to the ranch and on went to the ranch guess what would have been . He would have some outlaws with bandannas on ride the ponies right over region to stop the stagecoaches and they would rob them and they call these mens wallets and their watches, every bit of their jewelry. Generally terrorize them a bit and then they would write off. And these people were, you know dumbfounded. Can you imagine some guy from philadelphia or boston or new york and stagecoacstagecoac hes would pull up to the lodge, and frank would be standing there with a cigar waiting for them, and they would get out, coming. It was his japanese valley, always with frank. He would pour them a drink, and they were looking around and there on the of the table would be all their wallets and jewelry laid out. And, frankly, just be sitting there laughing. They would look at him and youd have a big glass of milk and say, this is buffalo milk. This is what keeps you going out here. And from then on those guys got rid of those close and they would put on some levis or he would give the outfits to wear. And four days they would play cowboy. They would go out shooting. They would go out talking to the indians, and at night it was set up there on that little mezzanine on the lodge playing poker. And frank would close the deals. The thing that was theres so me things about Frank Phillips ever unusual. He was a real dichotomy. I mean, i know this man just about as well as anyone, but i could never figure him out. He was like mercury. I could never get him quiksilver. For saw he was such a contradiction, a total contradiction. He could be as big and bold as christmas and then he could be as predictable as christmas and then turn right around and be totally unpredictable. He was a guy that such a profound impact on the interim combustion engine, and he never knew how to drive a car. Never drove a car. He was a man who would fire you for the least breach of ethics in a new york second, and then probably hire you back at the end of the day. And along with that little moral code, this seemingly straight shooter loved outlaws. He liked to be with outlaws. But these are the kinds of things that drove Frank Phillips. So you see what i mean by this dichotomy in by not really being able to get a hold of him. But i got a hold of him enough and i dont think i really wanted to get a hold of him all the way. I kind of liked that aspect of franks life. Frank phillips passed away in 1950. And he died in Atlantic City a gamblers down. Thats where he passed. They brought his body back here to oklahoma and carried him out to the ranch put them into a mausoleum, doug in the hill where is lady jane, where his wife is buried. Frank left in his will. Ive been in that mausoleum a few time. Its a beautiful creeks were designed with tiles, mosaic. His orders were, lets air condition the mausoleum. I want a telephone and their and leave all my fishing gear. He said again some day you boys will be down at one of my ponds fishing, catching the best im going to come down there and tap you on the shoulder and went my line right next to you. I dont know if thats ever happened yet or not but thats the way it was done. Some years ago philips merged with another old arrival of his conoco oil which was located in ponca city oklahoma across the osage prayer. Sunday have conoco phillips. Just love the phillips 66 brand and name. There is still phillips offices in all of these cities, and you still see the phillips 66 signs, still pumping gas at if not the same period like so many businesses now we have people with mbas and proper educations and not quite as colorful, a little more predictable, great folks but theyre not quite like those old oilmen were. While in tulsa we spoke to Jami Fullerton whose book advertisings war on terrorism recounts an Advertising Campaign in arab countries run by the u. S. State department shortly after the captain the 11th attacks. Shortly after the september 11 attacks. I became attention because i enjoy working with ochoa more than anything. Im a schoolteacher School Teacher in Public School in the United States of america. I wear this in the classroom were i teach. Children asked a lot of questions. Ive never had any child to thought it was weird or anything like that and the like the fact theres a different culture. I was born in beirut, lebanon. I came to the United States in 1984. Islam and the United States could be followed just as well as i follow my village where i was raised the shared values initiative was a program that the state department launched right after 9 11. Charlatan was a former advertising executive had been invited to washington by colin powell, and she was sworn in as the undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy and public affairs. Im thinking late 2002. And she put together this initiative that she called the shared values initiative and the objective was to basically win hearts and minds in the middle east and the arab world. So the initiative was some i call it a Propaganda Campaign that she was an advertising person and she believed that she could use media and particularly Television Ads to tell folks that, first of all even though you know 9 11 happened, we are not at war with islam. Is lot of things that we have in common, americans and muslims. In my neighborhood all the nonmuslims, i see that they care a lot about their childrens education just as much as i get and family values. My neighbors have always been supportive truly. I didnt quite see any prejudice anywhere in my neighborhood after september 11. Thats getting tickets the kids to understand that most important that we should work on our similarities rather than our differences. There were three shared values that she found through research. Faith, family, and education. So she took those values and Building Campaign around them. The corps of the campaign were these 90second mini documentaries is what the state department called them. If you saw then you basically say they were commercials, and they were commercials in that they ran on the panarab satellite and broadcast television in five different arab countries. And so in that way our government paid for these the messaging to go out to the arab and muslim world. And, of course it sounded like a good idea to charlotte because she had been paid from the advertising world, and she knew the power of media aided messaging, but it was very much criticized in washington. And the sense was that it didnt work, and charlotte resign and then we went into the war with iraq. How i became interested was that was all this criticism but nobody seemed to have any research to answer the question, you know, did advertising work in this case . Right after 9 11 of course nine days after 9 11 president bush said to the american people, you know why do they hate us . I think everybody was asking that question. Why do they hate us . So there was an awareness on the part of the u. S. Government that we needed to do some image restoration. And thats what the state department does. This was a really new in a lot of ways. This is Public Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy involves winning hearts and minds and telling americas story abroad. And so in the course of that after 9 11 there was this great urgency to reach out to people in other countries, just a regular people not governmenttogovernment that people to people and say, you know, hey we should all be getting all. There were five spots that they produce, and they were testimonies about muslimamericans. So, for example, when was a baker in toledo who was originally from libya. They just followed him in the course of this day and they showed his family and how he ran his bakery and soul food from this country and all of his american customers. And it was a shot of the Islamic School where his children attended. It also showed their family life and the religious life, how they were free to pray and worship in america now there was very little prejudice against muslims in america. This was about a 50 million taxpayerfunded campaign which really, if you think about international branding campaigns, was very little money money. And i believe that all the money wasnt even spent because it was cut short. There was a negative reaction in washington. The best way to put it is i think one of the congressmen said, you cant sell america like you sell cocacola. Just this idea of using advertising in association with United States just almost seemed vulgar too many people. But actually if you look back in the history of Public Diplomacy, there have been many times that we have used Popular Culture mass media to make a point about america. I think part of it was a culture clash. You bring somebody from madison avenue to foggy bottom and it was the automatic culture clash. Media wasnt kind to her either. They criticized her. And the folks that work at the state department really were not well trained in how Communication Works and how its measured, and so when folks like Richard Boucher would have to talk to the press he was a very, he just wasnt very good at explaining you know, well yes, its working. How do you know . He wasnt able to interpret that research very well. So i think it was just a combination of things. And i also think that Charlotte Beers wasnt used to having to answer questions like that. She knew what she was doing and didnt expect i dont think all the criticism coming from all sides. They tried to make it mention more of a political issue. In other words its inappropriate to use advertising to this looks like propaganda. You know, who is this woman in the advertising world . She has no business here. She doesnt understand the subtleties of politics and those, really was a culture clash. Im still not quite sure because im very much an outsider, and i dont always understand why washington doesnt reach beyond its boundaries and access specialists in areas beyond washington, d. C. So im still learning and im sure there are lots of good reasons and if someone were here from the state department they could inform me of that. But as an outsider as a researcher, sort of as an objective observer who is certainly important about communication, i was surprised at how hard they treated her and the program in general. When you ask me about how does advertising work in Public Diplomacy, thats where i become very unpopular because most people would say the two things should have nothing to do with each other. But if you think about advertising and how much we learn from advertising, lets think about only you can stop forest fires or click it or ticket. It but all the Public Service announcement campaigns that have taught us some very good behavior. And so if you think about advertising in that way why shouldnt come in very select situations, the u. S. Government use paid controlled messaging to get across the message a favorable message about the United States . The great thing about advertising is that you can control the message. And because it is paid media, you know that it runs. And, of course, the downside is you reach a lot of people. Its a very efficient. Some of those people dont care. Some of those people are not in your market but with a certain messaging i think its very appropriate. In addition to a lot of other things that need to be going on. Yes, i think of the countries do use paid media at times. The world is different than it was, immediate world is quite different than it was 10 years ago. Thats other forms of advertising and of publicity you might consider, including social media now. But this is related to a concept called nation branding and there are a lot of countries the United States not so much but a lot of countries who have very organized Advertising Campaigns to promote their country. And the use advertising all the time. In one way think about tourism. To the extent theres a National Tourism board, which the u. S. Really didnt have until just recently. Tourism advertising in a way helps people learn about a country, you know, maybe hed never been to australia if you sort of know what australia is about because youve seen ads about australia or youve seen movies about australia. You have to think of it in the Bigger Picture about how much we learn from the media or at how it creates pictures in her mind about places and an image about places. And so in that way its all very much connected. During okis recent visit to tulsa, we toured the oklahoma writers exhibit which takes a look at 60 authors and their connection to the sooner state. Leaping across the country comes one of the great achievements of our time. A human revealing oldest touring story that instantly becomes the most successful novel of modern literature the grapes of wrath. There are a lot of stereotypes of oklahoma that come from some very powerful images. First of all the grapes of wrath. When i was growing up that was the one book my father would not allow me to read. I could read anything no matter how salacious as long that wasnt the grapes of wrath because he felt that it did harm to oklahoma. Many stereotypes emanate from that book. Thats not to say there wasnt a dust bowl in oklahoma, but we are not a dust bowl now and were not a dust bowl forever. So that was the prevailing in which. Been on the heels of the book we had this powerful john ford film with all the images of the mesmerizing black and white images of the dust blowing. And so of course they have lingered with people. Of course, people see oklahoma in black and white. And then the totally opposite end of that we had a moving musical oklahoma exclamation point this is oakland is the place where corn process as the elephants i. Thats not true either. Oklahoma writers i think it had the extra challenge of reclaiming the oklahoma landscape in oakland the people stood up to were not all people that use bad grammar. That were not all people that live in little shacks and struggle against the dust. But associate that is the case what all oklahoma writers were telling the story. There some dust that theres so many other things as well. The oklahoma writers exhibit is a vision of mind to make oklahomans more aware of their literary heritage. So many people oklahomans included, see all these lives were oakland is way down at the bottom when it comes to letter c. , when it comes to competency and certain other academic skills, and yet we have this rich literary history. And so the exhibit is a way to make us more of what of that. And its just a beginning. Weve got 60 authors future. Weekend feature 600. So thats my goal. We are a little behind. We had the exhibit conservative venues and we did this in conjunction with Oklahoma History center but several different venues so that these writers are part of our lives in several different locations several different locations, several different activities embrace these writers and bring them into our school. They become a part of our everyday life. Instead of just being books on a shelf that we might forget sometime. This is part of a multivenue exhibitor oklahoma writers a literary tableau in this particular station is that the historical tulsa museum. This is my favorite quote. I violated history in telling the truth by the great historian angie debow. What a story hers is the fact that this woman from martial oklahoma had the courage to tell the truth about the indian land theft that were disgraced oklahoma but nevertheless needed to be told in their interest in her later years she said i said some most awful things about obamas politicians but no one seemed to hold it against me. I just think thats extraordinary. Then, of course, John Frankland undistorted of the greenwood race riots and some of the prejudices that have happened and occurred in oklahoma. So we look at obama history we see that its a matter of going back and collecting history revisionist history is our real history. In many cases in oklahoma. When the Toni Morrison can obama to do research for her novel paradise one of the things she said that struck her about the state was the fact that it was much more lush than she had expected. A lot of times, its interesting to people that have written about oklahoma has caused us to change course in our history jim lehrer wrote a really funny satire about oklahoma politics called a crowd of oklahoma bemoaning the fact that wasnt a crown on the oklahoma capital. If you look at the picture, you can see that sure enough we have a dell now and many people credit jim with getting the kick started the exhibit consists of the narrative about various writers. We divided by genre because oklahoma has extraordinary genres like journalists memoirists, historians, literary novelists playwrights. So its divided into genres but beyond that we also have some personal artifacts just so people can understand that these writers are some faraway literary figures they were real people with real names. For example, we have some of them see that in on display. Shes of course cribbage honor of young adult literature when she was just 16 and wrote the outsiders. The amazing iron is she got a d. In a creative writing class on the outsiders. But we have a writing helmet. She loved to ride promised to she collects bronze frogs so we have our little bronze frog and she named her frogs. That give you an inside look at her. Another artifact we have pulitzer winner tracy lets was asked if he was disappointed that he didnt get an oscar nomination for his screen adaptation of august us each candidate and he said no, the only award i ever wanted to win was the pine wood derby trophy. So we had his history we have his pinewood derby trophy and his little racer. Understand that their work was very personal for them that it was there hard that they were writing, that it was their committed to oklahoma and they make sacrifices in order to fulfill their artistic dreams. Were at the home of the arts and you and his counsel in tulsa, the arts center and were looking at some of the writers featured. First of all, western writers. I love this quote. He said anything to is just a romantic thing for trouble but it sounds swell when you write about it but its hell when you meet it facetoface in a dark and lovely place. I think that was true for many of these writers. These writers i think are great examples of defying stereotype. Elmore leonard the great mystery writer, hes also a Great Western writer who came from oklahoma. He was so proud of his oklahoma roots, lived in Oklahoma City briefly but one of his novels was serialized in a new times and it was such partially in the luxurious mail to tell in tulsa. When the first illustration came out for him to look at illustration said the motel and it wasnt detected in all of its grandeur. So hell from its of no this is a luxurious hotel. You need to show for what it is. And all the discredit of the oklahoma has had its struggle with womens rights, women can serve on juries in oakland until 1952, but women have learned to work around that in many ways. One woman who came from new york to obama was Helen Churchill and she was trying to get divorced in new york and that wasnt working. Her husband was very powerful there, and so she came to oklahoma territory to establish residence and to actually get a divorce. While she was here she wrote the first novel that makes people think this is the first novel that was written about oklahoma territory called oklahoma romans. I love the with the New York Times describes the book as a love story complicated with a land claim. Believe me, a lot of things are complicated with land claims. And then we have a rich history of memoirists. Reclaim the author of reading lolita in which a school at university of oklahoma. That time she was to remind us that many people have visited our state and have carried it with an. She still has very fond feelings for oklahoma. And then, of course, the wonderful satirist sarah vowel you can when my favorite essays is what i see when i look at the face of the 20dollar bill, shes recalling a road trip commemorating the 10th of just becomes her own journey of selfdiscovery. Of course, we are very proud to talk about womens rights a moment ago. Wilma man killer principal chief of the Cherokee Nation who wrote her memoir, who fought so hard for womens rights. She made the statement once that when she just assumes the role principal chief because the chief had to resign to accept another position, that people were fine with that. It wasnt until she ran in her own right as a woman that she was challenged to a degree. Weve talked a lot about oklahoma writers. We also are so grateful to those who have embraced our state. Author Clifton Tolbert author of once upon a time when we were colored, is one of her most memorable authors. He is from mississippi originally but he says that when he came to oklahoma he actually discovered is a voice. And now i think this is wonderful. Is not on writing about his mississippi homeland but hes writing it an excellent oklahoma sister. He and his son marshall who is a Los Angeles Film and are doing a documentary about 1921 greenwood race riots. And then our journalists, we have some wonderful journalists from oklahoma. I love, we all of the classic line from paul harvey, now you know the rest of the story but of course, will rogers. So many people may think of will rogers remembering from his wonderful movies, easily person i ever have heard of who it wrote a mouse, but he could. To use a tiny rope to rope the most. What we need to remind ourselves and what art exhibit at this point is that he was a very dedicated, a very dedicated working journalist. He was also a very serious man. Sometimes he used the folksy that is so known for two different subjects. For example, his radio address they can of beans in limousines and the timeless statement about inequities of poverty for everlasting. Bill moyer is from oklahoma. Think of all the great things hes done. Thats extraordinary. In the twotime pulitzer winner who gave his life in the course of covering stories about war. First of all i want people outside of oklahoma do know that we are a literate state, that we are a state that has produced an extraordinary number of incredible writers. People have written groundbreaking book. Ralph ellison, invisible man for goodness sakes, on the list of 100 best books of the 20th century. Ive are to mention susie hit and created a genre of young adult literature. We have pulitzer winners. They have made a national, International Impact with their work. Somewhat to make people more aware of that but i want oklahomans to be able to embrace their own heritage. We need in oklahoma to celebrate and embrace all these wonderful writers that have given voice to us and help us emerge from the stereotypes. You are watching booktv on cspan2. This week and were visiting tulsa, oklahoma, with the help of our local cable partner cox communications. Next, we visit professor najwa raouda author of the feminine voice of islam which looks at the challenges that come with being a muslim woman in the United States. Muslims in american in the millions, and we dont know much about moslem let alone muslim woman. So this is a part of society we want to understand. The media are what we know about moslem is what we know about oppressed, but when you come to know their stories from the voices stories from the voice of the executive story. I can only choose 10 muslim woman, and there were jordan lebanon, syria egypt india cyprus, iraq and iran. Iran is the one that is very important. The one from iran for example would have never thought that should come to america. She was studying here and then get married to an american. It was interesting that before she got married she asked him to become a muslim himself which he did. But also like she wanted a connection with god. But because shes a muslim, that iran is an edited and she didnt know arabic. Somewhere grandmother would keep on telling it if you love god you have to talk to him. So you have to study arabic. And she failed all the time. She said i still want the connection with god, so she started going to church, and then she changed and sheena she said i found a voice, now i can speak to them in english. So you know something . This is america has opened the door for her. This has never happened where she was in iran. So this is a new freedom. We dont think that muslim women have premonition which they do have which is different different because it is cultural and objective are different from our understanding in western feminism. Its very interesting that story story. The one i was telling about from United Arab Emirates a student, very bright. She won a scholarship to osu to finish or master degree she came here and she was a child. She wore the veil. From a very educated family harvard, oxford everybody in the family highly educated. When i told her now just to finish a master degree, why didnt you just take a couple of years and finished your doctorate degree . She said no. Its time for me to come home to arranged marriage. This time for me to get married. And then ill come back and finish my doctorate degree. Amazing, the first of a range of measures because in their Society People dont socialize men and women are go out, they dont live together to theyre not supposed address for the families to choose somebody who is much like her. And does exhibit. She was telling me that both of them were chosen from the groom and bride would have to make the marriage work because the husband, the decision of the family and theyve done a good job. So very interesting. And misconception is that women are oppressed. It is us in the west that has to freedom and help them get their freedom. Its not so. Summit of my participants have chosen. Its interesting the latest of damascus, none of their families woman she came to america and her husband didnt ask her to do this. It was just a guy who was muslim and then when her kids taken 14 for something she wore a veil. She chose to. Its interesting as she explained to me. She said i go out now, i dont people just be attracted to my beauty or look at me as an object. I go home and my kids are quieter than before. They know that i have a structure of prayers, a call to to keep and then im sort of religious. So she said even my husband is now quite. Is talking to a religious one. He cannot curse, he cannot come home drunk. She said i have both feet in the house. She is happy with that. So very interesting. The veil has been an issue from the time of the colonization. They dont with the french. Its something that they believe they wanted the whole world to believe that this is a sign of oppression, a sign of having woman. It is not so. It may be so in some societies but not over the world. We see them in candidate dick we see them in pakistan. These people are choosing the veil is sometimes as a statement, sometimes as an identity. Sometimes because they want to have peace. Sometimes because they dont want to objectify themselves. Just respect me as a coworker or a student not as a beautiful one. So of course theres a whole bunch of people who Something Like 2 . When we see them in europe, the people who were the whole thing, the burqa this is what we see. We have also the negative thing because it has become associate with islam and now when you listen to the news we have all this problem with islam and the world. Its in libya and iraq and now with isis am a with alnusra, all over. This is something that we need to deal with. When i talk about this book when i started doing it my intention was to bridge this gap the fear and ignorance. Once you know the the stories you do that they are like you, like anybody else. If aspiration for the kids. And i believe in womens power. They can communicate. They have the love, the understanding. I believe that at the corps of the family and the society and the world. So strengthen the woman, understanding, hearing their voices, hearing their stories it would give you an opportunity to feel that theyll like you and not fear them. If you fear them you will put them against us which is very, very wrong to thats what happened in europe. They are isolating. You have to do your best to integrate them. So when i finished writing about the interviews, my professor asked me give me a solution. I said okay the thing that i propose a curriculum, written for woman by woman, teach woman and help them in betterment. Because they do have the intention to become better in society. Once they are in society, part of it and they call it home. It is your home as much as it is my home. So this is my curriculum to unfortunately i never had the time to start on the curriculum but i think it will be very much worth it to educate women and help them with all aspects of being integrated in a western society. This weekend tv is in tulsa oklahoma, with help of our local cable partner cox communication. Next week is a with a Plymouth State University professor stacy takacs whose book terrorism tv exams away partners and terrorism has dealt with terrorism following the events of september 11. Spent terrorism started be prepared showed in 1980. We had an initial war on terrorism during the reagan years. Particularly a relationship to some of the bombings that were happening over in lebanon, in libya and places like that. And kidnappings were big. Not just the iranian hostage situation but actually kidnappings of journalists, and they were held for ransom and this was an obsession at the time. So technically theres this first war on terrorism in the 80s. Terrorism the way we think about it today, it starts with 9 11. On 9 11 the scope of the disaster was such data seem to bar a different kind of response. It was at that moment that our culture becomes really obsessed with terrorism and arguably inflates the threat of terrorism well beyond what was necessary at the time. This new mentality manifested itself on television. Initially im mostly concerned with Entertainment Television going to talk a little bit about the news. It initially manifests in news reports in part because they are covering officials, and officials are talking about it. And whenever our politicians are talking of something in thats what tends to show up on the news but it does trickle into our entertainment programs in a variety of ways even before 9 11 but particularly after 9 11. And its largely the line that these shows take on terrorism is largely dictated by our politicians. So initially many of the programs are fairly supportive of the wars on terror, the turn to war after 9 11. Day pretty well follow along with the depiction of 9 11 as an unprecedented historical event, and portray it as such. So it tracks pretty closely along with what the official opinion is regarding this incident, initially. Now, that changes as the war goes on. To give an example of how our understanding of terrorism predates 9 11 a little bit the most famous of these spy programs were actually conceived and planned to air well before 9 11 happened, right . So you have three, alias, 24 and the agency which all premier in 2001, which means the planning for these shows predated 9 11. So theres already sort of alqaeda is on the agenda. Its not as if we have not heard of them or didnt know about them. We just did not know the they could pull off something of the scope of 9 11. After 9 11 shows like the west wing start to tackle more Foreign Policy issues than they had previously. West wing was a show about the white house and behind the scenes operations of the white house for people who dont know. And initially they dealt with things Like School Funding and how you take a poll and what is the irca and she would have are not . These are domestic concerns but after 9 11 it becomes much more about Foreign Policy. Thethere are at this is what the president has to decide whether to bomb a middle eastern name is, well its not nameless extended made up name. So those are some of the shows, particularly post9 11 we get this explosion of spy programs but its not just the threepenny mentioned that there are things like tnts the grid showtime has a show called sleeper cell which does really well. Theres a terrible one on abc called threat matrix which doesnt last that long but it is clearly drawn directly out of Bush Administration discourse. They have this report called the threat matrix which the president went straight into every morning. This is a show that was playing off that idea. As you can probably guess, given the name it was a fairly, terrorists are evil, theres no excuse me them. Theyre in league with drug dealers. Toso all criminals got lumped into the category of terrorists and they are all bad, and the good guys always win. It was pretty simplistic and thats why didnt last very long arguably but thats a good example. Post9 11, our entertainment is talking long with the prominent discourse. The program he started shift a little bit because i believe that the wars started did not go the way that we have helped and Public Opinion starts to become more divided over whether these wars are sustainable, whether they were ever legitimate in the first place in the case of the iraq war in particular. A little more moral complexity. You are located not on Network Television by cable or premier cable. It has a black muslim hero. I dont think you could do what Network Television even today i dont think you could do it on Network Television. You certainly couldnt do it in 2004, 2003 or 2004. Showtime is a very different economic model. They dont have to please advertisers and get a great means in order to have a success. Success for them is simply how many subscriptions to begin it. Do we maintain our subscriptions and if we do that is considered success. If we get critical acclaim out of our programs, that is considered successful because it draws attention to the network. Working under that model they are able to get more uncharitably with more complexity because they dont have to cater to popular taste and they dont have to cater to advertisers who are always reluctant to do with controversy. Controversy splits audiences than it might drive people away from the products placed in the shows. Im showtime that is not a concern. I hope they take away from my book that this was not a simplistic exercise in the government propagandizing. Theres a lot of complicated factors in the industry. The industry had its own motive for doing these things, which sometimes shy at what the Bush Administrations motive but other times whereby eventually exposed to the administration interests. I tried to look at both of those tags that are relatively supported by the official line on 9 11 and the war on terror and also those which existed everywhere as well which are trying to complicate. Arguably an Entertainment Television we were having some of the most interesting and complex discussion about terrorists, u. S. Foreignpolicy how these things should play out way more interesting than what is happening on the sunday news talk shows, which were dominated by politicians from washington. All of whom were this rare exception on the same page as far as our response to 9 11. So were having much more interesting discussions on shows like west wing or i talk a lot about scientific programs and shows like battle star galactica in jericho, both of which imagined these possible futures were u. S. Citizens were placed under occupation and we had to think about if you have to live under these conditions, conditions we were opposing in iraq if you yourself have delivered these conditions, how would you feel about it . What would you be willing to do in order to resist. Fascinating stuff. What i hope people take away if this is a really complex moment in Television History with a whole range of opinions being expressed. We were airing on its possibilities and debating them in seeking them through the implications if we go this direction, where does that lead us and is not a good place to be. Otbs visit to tulsa oklahoma continues with j. C. Hallman talking about his book b me which discusses the relationship people have with books. [applause] thank you very much for coming out. Thank you to book smart tulsa into just right around the corner. Thank you jeff. I think i will talk for about 20, 25 minutes about the book and i think then we will have time for some questions. So this book is really about reading. Extensively it is about reading the work of Nicholson Baker, but more it is a book about reading. I say that because if you have not read Nicholson Baker or you havent heard of Nicholson Baker come you might well be saying to yourself, how can i read a book about Nicholson Baker. How would that make any sense at all. The truth is if you have an read Nicholson Baker or even if you havent heard of him even if you hear the first time tonight come you might be the perfect reader for this book because when this the weekends, i hadnt read Nicholson Baker read there. As you can probably imagine there is a story there. The story is this. Sometime ago i started to get interested in how we write about literature. I was worried about how we read about literature because it seems really strange. We grow up creating stories and we absolutely craven love stories. Mom, please tell me another story before i go to sleep tonight. We go to school and we start getting interested recite getting introduced to the study of literature and that includes we are taught how to think about literature and how to write about it. Something happens there. I love in that passion all of the a motion we associate with reading the frustrations of reading, the anchor of reading, the love of reading, the sadness, poignancy arousal all of the emotions that come to associate with reading all kind of get cut out and we are not supposed to include the name when we write about literature. Were not even really supposed to consider ourselves. Instead, we get into High School Early college in suddenly and writing about richer we are supposed to argue. We are supposed to be persuasive than you are not allowed include yourself. I started thinking about that a number of years ago and getting frustrated about that. I set out to find what i thought of as a Better Rating about reading and what i hope to find was that there would be stories about literature. So rather than arguments about literature what you would have would be a story of your relationship with the nonstory book. Turns out theres plenty of that out there. Not the way literary criticism works. Its not the way you get taught how to think about literature. For many many years, going back 150 years to people like Matthew Arnold and john ruskin and walter pater and on through to people like henry james and Virginia Woolf and dh lawrence and William Gaddis and cynthia o. Say 10 people writing today like rebecca mead and geoff dyer and if you know these names you know ive just described a sensory progress of people writing about literature in doing it in this passionate way. I thought of these essay kind of creative criticism in the literary relationships. They were the story of early should ship with an author rather than an argument about that. And looking at all of that what i found was that there is a whole. But no one had ever done no one had ever done is tell the story of a literary relationship from this moment of conception from the moment when you first hear of the writer and save yourself any to read that. I need to seek out that person find their work. It is strange no one had ever done that because well go through this dozens of times or hundreds of times. We are constantly hearing of writers and say to ourselves, maybe i should seek out that persons work. Its very, very ordinary, yet no one had ever told that story. And so in the back of my mind, something i wanted to do as i started executing small lakhs of creative criticism myself and reading many essays, many relationship hooks and thinking i might want to do that someday. But not necessarily knowing how to please who to write about. That was when i heard of Nicholson Baker. It was strange because when i first thought of him i realized i had dirty heard of him, somehow he had crept into my mind and he was an author whose name i knew but i couldnt remember the first time i heard the name. The literary world sort of worksite disappeared we are cant delay getting inundated with names that we dont even process the fact that we are lodging them away in her mind, waiting for other connections and so forth. I realized that i even knew something about Nicholson Baker even though i hadnt thought a whole lot. I knew he had written this book called uni. You and i is a literary relationship story. It was strange that i hadnt read the uni because i was interested in all of these tories. I knew it was about his relationship with john updike, but i didnt know anything about it. It was peculiar. I had to say to myself, why havent i read this book quite by order dated but around the house for a while, but i never actually read it. Then something happened. All of this reading id done, all these literary relationship essays that i had read to put together. I wound up teaching a class in creative criticism and i used those as text for the class and i collected all those essays into a book that proposed a better kind of writing and bad anthology was called a story about a story and was published in 2009. Looking back uni was the kind of book i should have been looking to include in that anthology. But i didnt because i hadnt read it and i didnt know why i hadnt read it. So then what happens is my allergy was published in two or three months later Nicholson Baker published learned to book in just two months after i published my anthology he published the apologists. I thought wow that is always so strange as to appear almost like faith. I think this is something really central to everyday lives. That is partly why i say this is a book about reading and not just about Nicholson Baker. Because i think when we are sifting through all of these writers that we have heard a man trying to decide who or what to read next we look for those books that bear on acid some way, they seem to have some to do with us. That is how we choose them. So as soon as baker published this book shortly after i published my anthology, it is seemed suddenly like he had a whole lot to do with me that i hadnt thought about or explored. That was when i sat down and started writing about him before i read a word. From there it is a crazy story because i had to figure out how to sell the idea for a book. I tell the story of the book. This is the kind of book in which he tells the story of its own creation. Nonfiction book proposals these days fell by a proposal appeared so i had to come up with a book or postal or serta Business Plan for the book that essentially said there is the author that probably a lot of people havent heard of. Hes the writers writer. Many people as just described to have red Nicholson Baker and love him, but hes not a household name in any way. I want to write a book about him, but i havent read him either and its going to be great. That was my plan now is that the proposal. If ever you need a solution to your crisis of faith about the state of publishing in the world, you can look to the fact that the good people at Simon Schuster went with me and they went ahead and bought this. They took it with me and it was fantastic. That is why i say its really not strictly about reading Nicholson Baker although thats what i go on to do. It is more about the whole process of how we choose the writers we choose and why we do that and how that works. From there the book does sort of chronicle the experience of reading. What i wanted to do is tell the story from the moment of conception the moment when you first hear of a writer and thinker to read them all the way through when he Read Everything theyve done. Its not just that. Im going to read the first sentence of the book because it sets up a couple important things. What seems odd now is that i fell in love that pretty much the same time i forgot how to love books. That establishes a few things. First theres two stories. It is the story of two relationships. The first is rediscovered and fallen in love with the work of Nicholson Baker so as to save myself from the crisis of having lost a love of literature. The other is the story of my partner and i. So in addition to chronicling the experience im telling the story of my partner and i assume that in st. Paul, as it moved to oklahoma, as we vacation in paris for a while and eventually to when we go together two main were actually encountered Nicholson Baker and meet and talk to them for a while. You might see yourself, can you do that in a book about literature and that does go back to that basic tension between the way literary criticism tends to work in this idea of creative criticism of these literary relationship stories. You know, bruce once said that what we remember most about a book is where we were when we read it. I thought that was a really interesting quote. He said that in his essay on what he, which interestingly enough is about john ruskin a fundamental to the role of criticism. I think its really true. If you think back on the books youve read you might find youve made an association between the book and where you were or who you were or what your life predicament was at that time. Again, it seems odd that this thing that happens practically and biologically without even knowing you are registering gets cut out of what youre allowed to write about your experience in the books. So i wanted to do that. So that is how this book works. It tells these two stories. The story of my reading baker and the story of my relationship with a partner and how those two love stories twine together and really become connected to one another. What this illustrates that what im trying to illustrate is the way that our reading lives are not separate from allies that we live while we are reading. But the context of ourselves if maybe the most important context that we read from and we should cut that out when we write about literature. When i actually wound up reading baker it turned out that my suspicion that he would be good for this project was spot on and thank god it was. What if i had sold this book and it turned out i hated his work. That would be terrible. It turned out to be perfect for a lot of different ways. Just touched on bakers fascination with the impact of the digital revolution on the letter very world that is something weve all got in the back of our minds right now. It was something that got me thinking about how we write about literature in the first place because it seems to me that literature is under threat. I wouldnt say storytelling, but looks. If the object of the book does seem to be suffering somewhat. Theres a lot to say about that and we can debate that if we want. One of the things i was thinking about. Baker was interesting because his career from the earliest stages was touching on that and something not a lot of people know. The mezzanine was written entirely on a computer. Akers novel was written on the mid80s. So there are some thriller writers that are writing on screens people were baker was. It is fair to say that the first novel for him and his career it is not to say that akers concern for this was only a senate easiest for the digital revolution. He didnt sign himself wholly over to that. Later on he wrote a book about libraries called double fold and he was thinking about what was happening how technology was impacting the world of books and the way that the processes of miniaturization and digitization were impacting libraries that what they would do and what their holdings, what they thought of as their job and what they thought of his books. Miniaturization had a bizarre history stretching back to the shrinking of battle plans down to the size of things you could strap under the leg of the page and so you could communicate your plants across distances or whatever. Digitization had a similar kind of history in the intelligence community. Baker documented all of this and the way this enables libraries to deemphasize the importance of keeping him holding books as part of their mission. Libraries turning towards an Information Science idea rather than a keeper of books idea. Baker was concerned about the impact of the digital revolution on looks. In addition to being an easy assignment. So he was really interesting in that way. Is also interested or you will other set of books that is written which are loosely called his sex books. The fox of the fermata and house of holes and to give you some idea, the subtitle is a book or watch. So they are very, very thinly veiled literary. Maybe not even thinly veiled. Maybe not failed at all. That is really fascinating to me because it was something i was thinking about in the sense that i suspected these folks are metaphors. That there has been for a long long time a metaphor that reading books offers us a kind of into v. That has no better analog and physical intimacy. You get very close to another person. You have a private encounter with the other person. Two people together and something beautiful is created out of nothing. Such a metaphor is late in there. Since i was twine in this together with the story of my own relationship and the vicissitudes of falling in love and be with someone for a while and the ups and downs of the rotation should invent thinking of all of that as a metaphor and recognizing baker was perfect for this because he had been writing all of long. Was interesting as nobody had seen that in this work or at least not an enthusiastic way. If you havent heard of Nicholson Baker at all, you can be forgiven. But if you just know when and about baker you may know that his first book of literary pornography was the but that Monica Lewinsky gifted to bill clinton. Given what played out as the result of that affair, it may be safe to say that vox is one of the more influential books in history. So i get to play around with that. He was perfect for that because what those folks are really about was this reading as intimacy metaphor. Once i started reading him for that, they were everywhere. That became some connected explorer in the context of a book that was not just a novel but with a book his story a kind of criticism in which i could tell a story in employed the same metaphors. Last baker once said something that i thought was really fascinating. He said in his paris review interview, even after i started this project he gave his paris review interview. They asserted the interview of record. For the paris review decides to interview you. In his paris review interview he says that he tries to write unfilmable books. I thought who does that these days 79 i was trying to write a book about defending the idea of the book as an important cultural artifacts. I mention storytelling earlier. It is interesting because it is such a broad umbrella of possibility. Your tv film drama. Also things like musicals and operas. These are all forms of storytelling. The advent of ebooks threaten storytelling at all. Storytelling seems like it is poised to not only survive the digital tsunami, it is going to surface in on me and do just fine. The books very different thing. It wasnt clear to me and i say to this in the book. Books are not going to wind up as just merely a deceleration in storytelling fall from the epic poem to the hollywood epic. Who is out there working to defend the idea of the book, the importance of the book. Who is out there saying the book is an important version or medium of storytelling. Nicholson baker is they are. That was one of the things that even people recognized about the mezzanine when it first came out because there is no way you could turn that hook into a film. To date this isnt entirely true, but for the most part, no Nicholson Aker book has been turned into a film. There was a really, bad british romantic comedy that are the ideas, but its really terrible and bakeries and evening credited on it. For the most part no one has tried and did it anyway because they cant. They cant because baker was more or less trying to prevent them from being able to do that. Saying i want to write a book that actually must be a book and that cant be anything but a book at night is the way we defend books as an object books as an important cultural artifact. That brings me back to why this book isnt really about Nicholson Baker. Even though its about reading his work he becomes a kind of representative from all writers. Even i take is saying we are all is through this digital era. We are all living in a time when human books seem to keep lots of other different kinds of media and baker turns out kind of by accident to be the perfect writer to look at and to ask what is the writers job these days. What should a writer be doing so as to ensure the books survive. So he really became a representative to me of all books and i hope what the book winds up being about is not aker per se but a plea not that he will go read Nicholson Baker that would be great if you did. But you go and find some writer and reid have exhaustively. And that is very much what i want this book to be, to be a plea to recognize that maybe something is not as good as it could eat, that we are a little bit under threat and there is a solution right there. So maybe i will leave it at that if youve got some questions. Theres a microphone right behind you. We need it for the show. Tgg books upon a logical order and why did you make that decision . Well, i set out to. The truth is i actually started with uni because i had it laying there at hand. So when i learned that he had allah just was published to my just published anthology it was right next to me so i could just reach over and pick it up and start reading. But i did try to go back and read him in order. But that kind of broke down after a while and i didnt worry too much about it because i think this is how we tend to read. Very rarely pick up with a writers work right at the beginning of their career unless they are writing their first book when you happy to be alive and right when you happen to be looking for the next thing to read. More often, way more often i think, we step in mid stride in a way that might even be better. I talk about this at one point in the book. One of the pleasures, one of the often unremarked pleasures of the reading life is when we read a writers later books, we then go back to earlier books and we see in reverse order the way they are thinking they are thinking evolves. There is an outoftown quality to it. I started out saying i will read them in order and experience these books the way he did. Then i outgrew it and realized one of the benefits of books, one of the benefits of being able to preserve stories and some kind of permanent form in being able to reconstruct them as you can go in some other order and experience them another way. Yes. Can you talk about the word literary arousal and how is that different than literary romance or love or something to that effect. I was curious as to why you chose the word arousal because it feels like there is a significant player rather than romance. Yeah, i guess what i think is when we think about our reaction to books that last is a better metaphor than love. But you know it is strange. I talk about teaching in this book. As a teacher what your job is to do is to rouse your students attention. Youve got to be careful because you cant arouse them. [laughter] of course that is kind of silly in the context of teaching literature because so much of the literature contains a taboo subject. I would argue that literature exists precisely to give us a venue to talk about those things that cannot or will not talk about in any other precinct of human discourse. And so it kind of goes back to that idea of the reading of physical intimacy metaphor. This is ancient. I argue in the book when they coined the term romantic writing come in the 1837 essay. He coins the term creative writing, he is already thinking. He is posing this up as an alternative to the pros of the time creative writing that they had step from procreative writing windproof describes literature as an incitement it is a tiny had step from an excitement. When will embark writes a lovers discourse hes talking about letting both and that is of course a small hitch step from a lovers. The metaphor is everywhere we look