Condition of Mr. Segundo: Horrified by “misprinted” books.

Author: Mark Z. Danielewski

Subjects Discussed: The origins of Only Revolutions, Hailey’s appearance in House of Leaves, the use of obscure uncanonized words in Only Revolutions (and their various origins), hip-hop, Gene Wolfe, Anthony Burgess, teenagers and vocabulary, how structure affects wordplay, skateboards, the influence of movies, the dots on the right-hand corner, on whether Danielewski is an experimental writer, fonts and typography, leaving room for ambiguity in a taut structure, the urgency in getting Only Revolutions finalized, the leftwrist twist, how the circular symbol came about, and immortality and maturity.

[PLEASE NOTE: The most enthusiastic answer from an author in Bat Segundo history occurs at 32:49.]

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Danielewski: I don’t think I’m an experimental writer. I don’t really know what that means, in fact, an experimental writer. For me, it’s always an exploration. I just can’t help but think, you know, when you experiment, you’re kind of tinkering. And this is such a prolonged investigation. You don’t tinker for six years. It’s a long quest to see where something goes. And the thing I really stand by is that I’ve fulfilled the qualities of Sam and Hailey’s journey. Now whether it’s a success or not, it’s clear what it is. It’s not halfly done. It’s wholly, spinningly done. You can either say, I don’t care for it. Or you can recognize, wow, if we go, if we follow this path to its — maybe not its conclusion, but as a long way, this is kind of where it ends up going. And these are the things you get out of it. And these are things you don’t get out of it. And that creates a valid type of conversation.

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Condition of Mr. Segundo: Attempting to set up a tequila-faith based organization.

Author: Richard Dawkins

Subjects Discussed: The audience for The God Delusion, comparing an atheistic text to Satan, evolutionary biology and religion, charitable religious-based organizations, Mother Teresa, whether imaginary constructs are a bad thing, living in the real world, the assassination of Harvey Milk, Twinkies, “In God We Trust” and the American zeitgeist, on Dawkins being “a university person” speaking to university crowds, politics and atheism, Stephen Jay Gould and non-overlapping magisteria, language and religion, Marilynne Robinson’s review, logical positivism, love and perception, sexual lust, on deists being fools, the susceptibility of children, the advertising industry vs. religion, Jesus Camp, and extremists vs. everyday religious people.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: What of love? You kind of go into this a little bit into the book. For example, speaking personally for myself, I’m madly in love with my girlfriend right now. But could I tell you — is there any sort of rational basis for this? No, not really. Would I do a lot for her? Well, absolutely. I would do all inexplicable sorts of things, that are completely irrational, for her.

Dawkins: Well, I’m delighted to hear that. I wouldn’t call them completely irrational. If you’re asking, how does either of you know that you love the other, then that is rational. I mean, that’s based upon evidence, that’s based upon little looks, smiles, catches in the voice, things you do for each other. That’s all evidence. Just because it’s subtle and complicated doesn’t make it free from evidence. It is evidence based. Of course, it could be wrong. But that’s always true of evidence-based belief.

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