Nardwuar: The Great Vancouver Interviewer
Written byPosted on February 20, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized
I’ve been having some difficulties with the portable locker now holding my brain. You see, I checked it in on Friday, with the hopes of reclaiming it on Tuesday — it being a three-day weekend and all. But the locker is now busted and I’m now thinking at half-mast while trying to raise hell at the incompetents who promised me a “smart and secure locker room.”
So if you have time to kill as my brain crawls across locker, I direct you to the Vancouver-based Nardwuar the Human Serviette and his interviews with assorted notables. Nardwuar is possessed of an infectious and delightfully strange enthusiasm that frequently has him referring to his guests by first and last name, and asking them bizarre questions. Consider this hilarious interview with Ron Jeremy, whereby Nardwuar insists that Mr. Jeremy smells fine and is perturbed at the various sullies (”hedgehog” and the like) directed his way. Or his interview with Franz Ferdinand, whereby Nardwuar asks, “What did you think, Alex, of your bandmate having to have some flesh taken out? Was that how hard it was in the early days of Franz Ferdinand?” Even Harlan Ellison was puzzled by Nardwuar’s boisterous malapropisms, attempting to play the humor game with Nardwuar, only to see his own lackluster jokes taken seriously by Nardwuar. What can one say when Ron Jeremy gets Nardwuar and Ellison does not?
Thankfully, Nardwuar continues his efforts on Vancouver radio. The man even talked with James Brown in 1999 and asked him what he thought of sweat, getting the following answer: “I think sweat is something that is a very emotional thing in regards to where you put it at. You might put it in different places! Sweat expresses emotion, either way, whether it is hard work, or… uh…, I wish I could get out of here, I’m tired.”
Strange wine often spills the truth.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
- The Possibilities of Small
- Ben Macintyre: The Latest Sourpuss to Run Away From Possibilities
- Untapped Currency
- Reminder: Live Conversation with Sarah Hall on Tuesday!
- Five Three Oh
- The Bat Segundo Show: Marjorie Rosen
- When Parody Replaces Opportunity
- The Benefits of Notebooks
- Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #8
- Slowdown
