KEY:
Joe Young = Roman
Mary Miller = Italic
Adam Robinson = Bold
Hey, Mary and Adam. See, just type in here.
Me, Adam, I'm the bold one.
A-Rob?
Sorry, I was messing with my set up. [Adam had at first logged into EtherPad (see below) as "God"]
I'll be back in one sec. Gonna get a beer, then ask the first Q.
OK, I'm going to crack some wine after all. You two are ahead of me.
I should probably log out God, too.
Haha.
No, God can stay. Whatever.
He gets lonely this time of year, God.
I imagine. People are eating and drinking and having fun and shit.
Ok, first Question. Wait, you there, Adam?
Check check
Checkedy
Check check
This interview is being conducted online with a software called EtherPad that lets Mary Miller, Adam Robinson, and Joe Young ask questions and respond to each other in real time. We can all type at the same time, even in the middle of each others' sentences. We can change the words in someone else's sentence, too. Each of us is assigned a color [which was changed later to font style: Roman, bold, and Italic], so we can tell who is speaking.
To start, Adam and Mary, tell us briefly who your favorite singer is, and why. Adam and Mary, you can comment on each other's choices (please do), and you can interject at any time during the interview to make comments about each other's ideas.
Favorite singer? Does that include bands? Or like, singer only? I like girl singers, like Cat Power and Kathleen Edwards and Aimee Mann and other sad girls.
Does it have to be favorite, or one of my favorites?
It's a warm-up question, whatever you want!!!!!!
Warm up!!!
Scott, from Whitecross:
Are we supposed to watch this video now? Lol. Play it in the background.
Ok, so now you two respond to the other's bad taste in music.
I heard Chan Marshall puts on a really bad show, Mary. She always cries.
This music is terrible. I'm listening to Katleen Edwards. I never heard of her before.
Ack!
I think she stopped drinking, though, so that's probably good. She's Canadian.
If that means anything.
Adam writes poetry and fiction. Adam, how do you know that you are writing one or the other? Mary, how do you imagine Adam writing? What does he look like while writing, or can you give us a bit of his internal thoughts as he's writing?
This Whitecross is distracting me...okay...I imagine Adam sits in his underwear and smokes clove cigarettes. And works on a typewriter. I wish I had a typewriter. I think then I would HAVE TO sit in my underwear and smoke.
That is true, when I'm writing poetry. I have pants on when I write fiction because fiction is so serious. That's how I know the difference.
This thing keeps doing funny shit.
Haha.Mary got the funny EtherPad. Mine is very serious. It keeps telling me to sit down.
Lol. Sit down and shut up. Oh? That's my new book title, I just decided: Sits Quietly, Behaves Well. I haven't written it though, yet. That is my elementary school report card.
Lol. Awesome.
Mary, your stories are so often about women and men. Why's that? Would Adam be a man in one of your stories? Adam, would you?
I would like to think of myself as more charitable than those fuckers.
I think Adam is too nice? Not like, nice, like I mean that in a bad way, but not an asshole. Right, that's what I'm saying. Those guys are kind of jerks.
How come you always write jerks?
Haha
Jerks, yes.
Um, well, I think that things sound worse in the telling, like when you write them down. They aren't really like that in real life. Also, somebody's got to be the asshole in stories and I don't like for it to be the narrator. (Therefore, narrator is a woman?)
The narrator is me, or some version of me, almost always. Even when I try very, very hard to make her different.
I have a question about this later.
I feel like I want to know more about why, uh, why there has to be jerks in stories. I think it's true, but why? Is that conflict? I mean, why are there no happy conflicts? I always wondered about that.
I have no idea. What would a 'happy conflict' look like? I sound very valley girl in this interview. I think I'll work on saying like and well and ah less.
Adam, how do you manage running the Pub Genius empire and writing and playing football? Mary, is he too busy? Should he focus?
Um, I get a lot of help, I guess. I don't know. I do it because if I don't I'll just watch bad movies ALL THE TIME.
He's amazing. And the books are gorgeous. Adam, how do you do it? You play football? Thanks Mary!
I watch a lot of bad reality TV, hence, goodbye cable. Yeah, I got a TV and sometimes I am late to band practice because I really want to watch The Office.
The Office is good. I liked to watch Intervention. So bad. I like to watch fucked up people.
How come?
Yeah, how come? So you can write about them in your sad books? Where people are jerks?
Lol. I just like watching people who are much, much worse off than I am. Also, I like to make myself cry. I've been renting movies from the library lately. I've watched 2 documentaries on the Rwandan genocide in the last week.
Adam, your poems have famous people in them. Would you write a poem for us right now with Mary in it? You've got 2 minutes. Mary, you can edit it as he writes it, just start right in.
You gonna do this, A-Rob?
I think I've got something. I'm going to send it. I'm going to send it to . . . where should I send it?
Can Adam work on command like this? That's just mean.
We will see, huh?
I'm sorry you guys missed it [Adam typed his poem in another part of the Etherpad so he wouldn't keep getting interrupted, but therefore we missed him writing it]. I really can't write a poem like that, but it IS in fact how I start the process of writing a poem.
I think my mom ordered pizza. Thanks, mom!
Mary Miller is at her parents house or something
She's like at her parents house using the computer
This is happening now, it's ugly beautiful in a poem
She is using her parents typewriter with the internet on
But she doesn't have any clothes on because that is how she writes NAKED
Mary Miller has it all figured out probably
She is the author of two books, Less Shiny and Big World
They are some of my top 10 books from 2009
They convey an acute sense of how men
Come from a different planet
Dear Adam, I've seen worse.
When did you start writing, Mary? Why? Adam, if you disagree with her, let us know.
When I was 27. I remember that, exactly. I disagree. It was Christmas, no, after Christmas and there was a dead tree in the living room and got "inspired" to write about it. I wrote a really fucking awful poem about dead Christmas trees and how bad it is when things are over. I cringe.
I hate you there/when it's over. Lol.
I want to talk about the intro to your book, Adam. Joe, are you going to ask him questions about it?
Go ahead and ask. Please!
I can't think of an intelligent way to ask it, but I just liked the whole idea, the meta-ness, the pseudonyms. Thank you. Did you think it was too long? No. The last line, so good. I like to picture you on your bike, riding home. The real you and not these other 'yous,' whoever they are.
The title of Adam's book is Adam Robison and Other Poems. Adam, say 2 things that are different between Adam Robinson and Adam Robison. Mary, who do you think Adam Robison is?
OK, well, they aren't really different people or even two parts of the same person. There is a little crossover, or a lot of crossover. It's like in that Borges story, Borges and I. Anyway, Adam Robinson is different from Adam Robison in that he is more responsible and more popular because he's less obnoxious.
Is this serious? More responsible?
I think Robinson is more responsible than Robison, but that's because the canon tells me the second name is the Hyde. HAHA. I like this.
I'm all confused. Which one is he again?
The one on his birth certificate? Robinson.
He is a nice boy who runs a great press and stuff. I don't know him terribly well, but I like what I know. I like this!
Also, Adam. You are self taught? Wait—you're in an MFA program now, no? Or did I dream that?
I am in an MFA program. And it's nice that you think of me as "taught" at all. What program again? I forget. In case you both don't know—I am completely self absorbed and remember very little about other people. A terrible quality, obviously. I would be very surprised if you remembered many details about me at all.
I know you are in an MFA program in Hattiesburg, MS. I know about your books, and that might be it.
Yes, PhD. WHOA. Now, which means I write a lot of criticism, which I won't talk about because it makes me very irate. I had better start acting more intelligent.
Damn, PhD? That's nuts! I'm jealous.
I'm like the stupidest person in the program and I say things in class like, "I don't like theory," which makes my teachers very, very unhappy.
Naturally. It doesn't make me unhappy though, because I think it's brave. Why are you in the program? And also, do people think you're cooler because you did a book?
Yes, good question. You, Adam?
You mean do people think this about me? No, they don't know I have a book coming out.
They don't think I'm cool. They think I'm nice, but antisocial, which is pretty much true. I like to hide. I don't think of you as antisocial, but on the two occasions when we hung out I kept wondering where you were. I would usually recruit some unsuspecting person (usually a boy) to hide with me and we'd watch television or something but everyone thought something else, of course, which is okay. I just get scared. Lol. It makes you seem mysterious and also smart. Lol. OK, now to Joe's question below. K.
Mary has a book from Magic Helicopter Press called Less Shiny and it has the story This Boy I Loved a Rock in it. Here's the third paragraph, where the protag and her lover are eating ribs:
"I don't like it when my teeth knock against someone's bones," I told him, and he said, "Suit yourself, but there's nothing else to eat in this house," and I said, "Fuck it," and threw the covers over my head so he'd leave me alone, but he sat next to me and poked me with a stiff finger until I screamed and got up and now I'm sitting in front of the big screen brushing my hair.
Adam, you've met Mary. I know you're not supposed to do this, but do you think of that first line of dialogue as autobiographical at all? Also, name something about this axiom from the story: "the more worthless the gift, the greater, and often the more desperate, the love." Your response, Mary?
I don't read that as autobiographical at all, only because it is so, what, so abstract or nonsensical. Lol. Teeth don't knock. I mean, it's better this way in the nonsensical way, not nonsensical but, whatever. Yeah, I got it, no one likes to eat chicken off the bone when they think about it. Funny. Am I the only one laughing out loud? You boys are funny.
No, I am laughing. I get to sit here and watch.
I'm concentrating too hard on naming the axiom. What's an axiom again?
Like a truth. I always took that as one of the wisest things I ever read in a story.
Thanks, Joe. Ah yes. OK, seriously, the thing I pick out of that quote is that it is shit that I don't know. It's kind of very Mary Miller. Profoundly unverifiable? When I try to name something about it, I get mad at it. Give me another minute.
Take your time.
See, I'm not nailing "worthless." Like, one time a girl gave me an apple with a celebrity's face taped to it, and I thought it was really awesome
She LOVED YOU LOL
and worthwhile. But putting that in context of a Miller story really complicates it. It's really beautiful and resolved. It is certainly axiomatic. Let's talk about someone else. Adam. Let's talk about him. I want to know stuff about him. I like referring to things as Miller-isms. I will pay you in hamburgers and rocks and things. Thank you.
I don't like chicken on a bone. Bones, in general, don't go well with food.
(I like how you two have your conversations w/o me.)
One time a boy actually did throw me a heart-shaped rock. We were 'just friends,' and we stopped hanging out soon after. I still have it in my wallet. It's one of the little worthless trinkets I pull out when I'm trying to buy a coke and need 65 cents. Tiny weedy flowers, things like this equal true love.
I gave a girl a pink eraser and she kept it in her purse. I counted that as love.
Yes. Clearly. Also, pink erasers are very nice.
Here is Adam's poem, Codename: Ruby Blade, from his upcoming book, Adam Robison and Other Poems:
The first President of East Timor is nicknamed Xanana after those hep, Sha Na Na
You're named Sha Na Na you rule with an iron fist maybe
Xanana is wed to an Australian named Kirsty Sword
She was an insurgent, codename: Ruby Blade
They met while he was in Cipinang lockup for leading the EastTimorese resistance
Ruby Blade schooled the rebel in English and they fell in love and horsed around
Kirsty Sword has a jawbone that could slay a thousand men
She wrote a book called A WOMAN OF INDEPENDENCE
Xanana wrote a book called TO RESIST IS TO WIN
Mary, say the very first 2 things you think about after reading that poem. Adam, you respond to those 2 things right after her.
I'm thinking about colonialism. That's what gets hammered into my head in PhD school. My thoughts, however, are very abstract about this. I think it's sort of weird how I never, ever thought about colonialism or post-colonialism before, like, now. I like saying "Xanana" in my head. Post-colonialism is so pre 9-11. Lol. That was supposed to be funny, right? Yeah, "I am stupidest when I try to be funny." I'm terribly literal. Who said it, people? Uhg. Anyone? Anyone? That guy from Deadwood, when Seth Bullock and Sol Star came in to buy the lot. Swearingen. Anyway, I think colonialism fits for a reading of this poem. It happened just before the uplifting part of Timorese history.
I never watched that show. Have y'all seen the new Sandra Bullock movie, btw
I am against Sandra Bullock.
SHE's SO HOTTT.
I am for Sandra Bullock.
Lol. That was me trying to be funny. She's blonde in this one. I am for Sandra Bullock. Maybe we'll just write this for the rest of the interview: for/against Sandra Bullock.
Yeah, give me an either/or question.
LOL. That would be Perfect right now. Uhh, Tin House or Glimmer Train? Is this a joke? Did I miss something or doesn't Glimmer Train, like, completely suck? It's run by two older women my mom's age who like boring stories.
I honestly don't read it, but I hear it's big. I bet there is some good stuff in it somewhere along the way. I'm sure. And don't be an ageist. I haven't found it, though. I've read a few issues, or scanned them. Yawn. Yams. My mom is very snappy. That is good. Do you read a lot of stuff? I read lots of lit magazines. I really like them. I guess I like the combo you get: nonfic, poetry, essays, fiction, etc. Do you read them straight through or what? No, I flip around. I really love memoir/nonfiction. I've been thinking about writing it lately. I may give it a shot soon. I think you should use your title about staying seated and behaving. Yes!
Both of you are funny in your stories and poems. Can you both say something funny right now? How about, Mary, you give Adam a set up and he'll give you a punch line. Then, the other way.
Oh good idea. I'm really good at this. I'm famous for my sense of humor. Shit. I don't do anything well on command. I'm not kidding. Also, I hate jokes. What are you, Bob Dylan? Lol. I'm very literal and don't get them. You are funny in a good way. I think it's just "joke jokes" that I don't like—the idea of trying to purposefully be funny and there's a build-up and then a punch line. How do you write the funny parts of your stories? Do they just come to you? I like witty banter. Yeah, it just comes to me. It's usually not anything someone has said to me or whatever. What about you, Adam? How do you write your funny stuff? Is it sometimes things you've overheard/said yourself? No, they are very worked. I don't take notes or anything, so by the time I sit down to focus, I just bash out lines and then I cut most of them, but by the end I know what I liked about what I was doing, and I enhance that stuff. When did you start working on this manuscript? How did the idea come about? I've taken over the interview! Lol. Just curious.
Go at it.
I really started in earnest summer of 2008. I initially wanted to write all biography poems, but I found myself being fake in a lot of them, so I mixed it up more. I wrote down a bunch of ideas and things I like about poetry and books and things I don't like, and then I didn't do the things I don't like but I did the things I do like. It was easy once I had a list. That's cool. Easy once you had a list? You make it sound so easy! Lol. Thank you for asking. What kinds of things were on the list? I wish I knew where it was. I bet I still have it. But things I don't like included footnotes and obvious gimmicks. I really was scared that it would be too gimmicky because they walk a fine line, you know? It just feels focused, not gimmicky. So I paid attention to things I was doing as "talking points."
Footnotes=bothersome. Yeah, like, a good trick but dangerous.
Will each of you pick a favorite moment from each other's poems/stories? Why does that moment stand out? The other person, do you feel like those moments characterize your work well?
Oh good one.
My favorite moment right now is:
"He had deplorable handwriting
All sloped everywhere, mingled cases"
Something about "mingled cases" is just perfect, and "All sloped everywhere" is also perfect. Precise, surprising language. I like that..... Now I'm still thinking about "mingled cases." It makes me think "mangled" for some reason.
Adam, does this line stand out as one of your favorites?
Yes, it's one of the reasons that poem stayed in the collection. I was really proud when I was researching Jim Eliot to make that discovery. There is a website that has .jpgs of his journals, and I don't think his penmanship/spelling was noted as bad, so it's a contribution I've made to the world mission field. Awesome.
I feel like I want to note the obvious thing for you, Mary, because it works so well—and it's the first sentences. These first sentences are amazing. They all stand out. Here's one: "I sat across from a crumpled woman who appeared to be miscarrying." I mean, for stories that are so rich in emotionality, the first sentences pack a punch that isn't necessarily borne out in the story. Do you agree? I don't know. I've never thought of it. Do you mean that the story is usually unresolved in a way that sort of juxtaposes the first sentences or something? Did I use "juxtaposes" correctly? Dunno, Doc. What did you mean to say? No, no, I think I understand what you mean. What I mean is that, like, in the story that begins "My father didn't like my sister's orange hair," you quickly move on to something else. Oh, yeah. The first line is sort of ignored after that, like the woman who was miscarrying was barely mentioned again? Right, you're fucking with expectations, but at the same time nailing a tone. Which seems really crafty. Yes. I don't know what I do or how. I try not to think about it. The whole point of being in a writing program is to MAKE us think about it but I still try not to.
How do you guys feel about this kind of interview? Not this one specifically but in this kind of format? It's like having to have multiple strings of conversation in your head all at once.
It's fun, although I'm afraid that I sound very stupid, which would be okay, I guess, but in other interviews I get to really think, which is important, I think. I also feel like I might sound stupid! I don't think you sound stupid though, Mary. You're saving me a lot. Anyway, I like this because with email interviews, well, people are just kind of figuring out how to do them. That's true. Like how Sam Pink do you love Sam Pink? writes in silly questions to let people be silly there, and then they can not have to worry about making jokes at the other times. Not saying that's why he does this, but I think it's a smart technique for dealing with the impersonality of email. Doing his interview WAS pretty fun. Like, on TV if you're funny you're funny. You don't get a chance to think about it. Totally. This is more like that, but with typing. And timing. Timing your typing is hard.
Adam and Mary, last thoughts. Make us an ending to this interview.
Here is what I learned:
MM is in a PhD program, she likes girly music, she writes jerks because she finds that to be a good source of conflict for stories, I might be wrong about that one, she is able to speak well under pressure about her stories, she isn't deliberate about her craftiness, she says LOL a lot which reminds me that she might be laughing at that moment, there's a lot more too. She hasn't watched Deadwood, she is pretty smart about reading my poems and oh she is typing now what is she typing.
Here is what I learned: Adam is a very nice boy who is in an MFA program, I still don't know where. Also, I'm glad I got to read his book before other people. Also, and in addition to, Adam and I are both very, very bright young people. Also, even though I've been drinking, I did NOT talk shit about other writers, even though I was tempted to.
DO it! Blake Butler or Tao Lin?
Like, which would I do? Lol.
Yeah, which would you "WATCH TV" with?
Oh, that's very funny, Adam. Very funny. I've never met Tao. Not sure if this is 'helping' or 'hurting' him at the moment. I guess I'd go with Blake. Blake is an amazing writer and maybe after we watched television he would write a very short story about me. Or with a girl like me, except I probably wouldn't recognize her.
God, I hope Blake never writes a story about me. Yick. I mean, he's good and all, but I would feel bad about all the back problems, and what would happen to my Dad? Many, many fucked up families in the world of Blake Butler: mom dad and the rest. The full deal.
Yick. What a funny word.
Joe, Yick or Yuck?
Yick.
Correct!
Um, wait.
What about Easter Rabbit. Joe, which stories in ER do you think are funny? Do you think they're funny because of the backstory that you don't know, Mary, or because you don't know? Que? What's the question again?
Yeah, I don't get that last part.
Well, like, Joe might think a story is funny because he knows the whole thing, and reads it differently than someone else. But in some stories, like in A Millionaire's Time, like in that story I guess I kind of know what I think is funny, but I don't know what is actually funny, shit. stop typing! No more typing.
I have no idea what is funny…
I'm rereading it now!
…in that story.
I think the title is funny, when you realize I wouldn't laugh out loud or anything a millionaire's time is Lol worth more I'm fucking with your pencil guinness sentences and this is what he's doing. Yeah none of them are knee slappers. Lol.
I will not call it Easter Island again, I promise. Haha!
I have read "We Need Supper" two dozen times. Does that answer any questions? I like the confrontation with silverware.
Silverware killed my grandfather.
REally?
Yes, in ought 6.
You a big lie.
Listen, I've got to go sing at my uncle's funeral? It's a long story. Am I released?
No, just his house. We're prepping for a show tomorrow. Bye, boys. THIS WAS A LOT OF FUN.
I wonder what the show will be. I'm going to make it up.
Yay! Happy T-Giving!!! YOU TOO.
Too all a good night!
Thanks!