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Episode 458: Jaydra Johnson Had to Get Weird
439 Plays10 days ago
"And then this person said, 'Hey, you know, this needs to be, like, more weird or less weird, but it's in this kind of odd place that isn't working.' And I was like, she's so, right," says Jaydra Johnson, @jaydranicole, and author of Low: Notes on Art & Trash (Fonograf).
Lots of good stuff in this episode. We talk about:
- Luck
- Growing up poor
- Dialing up the weirdness
- And binge-buying books on eBay
Promotional Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
Introduction & Promotions
00:00:03
Speaker
Thank you. promotional sport for the podcast brought to you by the power of narrative conference the power celebrating its twenty sixth year the last weekend of this month it's like two weeks away hundreds of journalists are descending on boston university keynote speakers or include susan orlean connie schultz dan zak connie chunk listeners to this podcast get fifteen percent off So long as you use that code CNF15 at checkout.
00:00:34
Speaker
Go to combeyond.bu.edu. Use CNF15 and you get 15% off. That's book money, burrito money.
00:00:46
Speaker
What are you waiting for? Also consider pre-ordering the front runner. Maybe with some of that 15% you saved on your enrollment, you can order the front runner. Huh. I felt like, oh, I'm now the custodian of the stories of the people I love and I need to really be careful about what I disclose and also how I disclose it.
Meet Jadra Johnson
00:01:15
Speaker
Okay, not yet. um Actually, it might have just happened. Did it?
00:01:22
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNEvers. It's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. We continue with a slate of double features. Don't worry about it. And here we welcome Jadra Johnson at Jadra Nicole on Instagram, a native Oregonian from across the Willamette River in Springfield.
00:01:43
Speaker
She is the author of Low Notes on Arts and Trash,
00:01:48
Speaker
And it won the Phonograph Editions Essay Collection Contest. Judged by Maggie Nelson, whose publicist has effed me over, but we won't go there. Lo! was one of my favorite books of the past year, and it surprised the hell out of me.
00:02:01
Speaker
I had certain expectations for it. And, okay, here are you know, meditations on art and garbage. Okay, fine. And while, yes, that's a component, the most compelling parts of Low are growing up Low, growing up what we might call white trash.
00:02:20
Speaker
And suddenly this book took a turn about class and the invisible labor class. There are brilliantly funny interludes and collages and photography all packed into a book barely larger than a playbill.
00:02:32
Speaker
It's a remarkable piece of writing and a remarkable little book. Show notes of this episode more at brendanomero.com. Hey, there you can browse blog posts, follow my anti-social media feed, as well as sign up for the monthly Rage. It's the algorithm newsletter for book recommendations and cool links to cool stuff that I think will make your life pretty groovy.
00:02:52
Speaker
There's now a companion weekly creative nonfiction podcast sub stack. That has more goodies, like full transcripts, mostly accurate, and the parting shot of that episode that I've kicked over to that, and a other podcast ephemera like 100 episodes ago, 300 episodes ago, 400 episodes ago, i give you a little taste of the backlog without having to browse too far.
00:03:17
Speaker
You can find it at creative nonfiction podcast.substack.com. The link is also will be in the show notes, but also in the podcast episode notes. And if you care, visit patreon.com slash cnf pod to support the podcast financially. I just posted a little video inviting people to pitch club where I will listen to pitches and see what I can do to maybe coach the best out of them.
00:03:39
Speaker
First rule of pitch club is we don't talk about pitch club, but the rule three is if it's your first pitch club, you bring a pitch. Right to the face.
Jadra's Education & Publishing Journey
00:03:49
Speaker
Jadra earned a master's in education from Lewis and Clark College and an MFA in creative writing from Hunter College.
00:03:58
Speaker
Her work has appeared in Oxford, American, Guernica, Gossamer, Atmos, Atmos, I don't know, and Sweet Tooth. And here's an excerpt of what Maggie Nelson, whose publicist really effed me. over but we won't go there had to say about jayder's piece jayder johnson's low is part instruction manual part genealogy part art criticism and part memoir all of it pushing with urgency and necessity it's written in wry straight ahead prose that hits no false nose and feels honest and earned at every juncture i found myself rooting hard for its narrator
00:04:33
Speaker
Well, fuck. Parting shot weirdness. Let's just get right it. Here's J.J. Johnson. Riff. and is now our teacher well fuck
00:04:45
Speaker
parting shot on weirdness let's just garard too ah here's j j johnson
00:04:58
Speaker
You need to be a truffle pig. But you know, it was a machete brandished. I almost always have a very specific reader in mind. I know. i sometimes wish I would have never done any of these things. This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:05:17
Speaker
It's been really beautiful and very surreal. I spent a lot of time emotionally preparing for it to come out and for nothing to happen. Because I know for most people who write a book, I think I did some googling Googling around and it's like most books sell less than 700 copies.
00:05:38
Speaker
Even books that get like nominated for a Pulitzer or some of the bigger prizes that we know about in the literary world, like Yeah, most books sell under 1,000 copies. and Oh, my God.
00:05:51
Speaker
I'm sure – and I don't know what how many mine will end up selling, but I just wanted to be really realistic about my expectations. And there's so much great work out there. And there's also so much work that just sort of is – none of my business just like stuff I would never encounter or pick up and so similarly like why would someone pick up my little book you know it's pretty niche I think in a lot of ways and so I just didn't have any delusions about it being a huge success or anything and technically it's not
00:06:27
Speaker
But the reception has just been really warm. And I've had some great conversations with super intelligent people about the book who I feel like read it and really got it and understood what I was trying to do, like, formally, conceptually, content wise. And, you know, my friends have been hearing about this book for three years.
00:06:50
Speaker
as I've been writing it and editing it and prepping for it to come out. A lot of them are reading it for the first time. i think i only had a couple friends who read drafts all the way through earlier in the process. And they're also texting me like, okay, wait, I knew that this was going to be good, but this is crazy good.
00:07:09
Speaker
And so, yeah, I just, I tried to go into it with no expectations, like either good or bad and I've just been very pleasantly surprised and really touched by how many people are really sitting with it and enjoying it. And then, you know, I had like a big reading at Powell's that was super well attended. And that was ah nice really heartwarming and had a party. And then I crashed and got really sick.
00:07:35
Speaker
So how did you like just lock into the form of it with these little riffs of like how to how to see you know let's see rituals to see trash like throughout and then different ah just different patterns in the way you synthe synthesize the whole thing?
00:07:54
Speaker
I was working on this book while I was doing and mfa program at Hunter in New York and early a very early draft of it. i kind of made a zine because I grew up reading a lot of zines and really interested in that sort of subculture.
00:08:11
Speaker
and so I had photographs I had taken around my neighborhood of trash and a couple of collages that I made. And some of those collages ended up in the final book. I've always been really fascinated by different forms that poems take.
00:08:25
Speaker
And so I was trying to take those concepts and put them into a creative nonfiction context. And so I turned in a zine basically for one of my workshops. And it's kind of based on also um Claudia Rankin's book, Don't Let Me Be Lonely, which is ah much less famous and earlier work of hers that I just think is really incredible.
00:08:46
Speaker
The early feedback was very much like this is too all over the place. You need to rein it in a little bit and do... less experimentation which I looking back at that zine I'm like oh yeah I know what they mean yeah I think it just emerged out of lots of different trials with different forms the opening essay in the book was originally a play on the I know everyone does this but it was like a play on the what is it 13 ways of looking at a blackbird 14 ways some number of ways in the teens but it's a very popular like
00:09:22
Speaker
um poem to riff on and I kind of later in the process one of my thesis advisors was just like okay dude you need to rein it in even more and he recommended to me Hanif Abdurraqib's book The Little Devil in America and Hanif has like and a crown essay in that and I was really inspired by that and He also has his little poetic interludes that are, I believe, in italics and they're first person and they're kind of these little memoir like anecdotes.
00:09:55
Speaker
My thesis advisor was just like, you need to pick one form for these interludes that you're doing. And so I picked the instructions of like how to look at trash in different ways and tried to connect them to the essay that came before. And of course this book, like what um when I you know got the the title and it's like notes notes on art and trash, I just figured it was just going to be like an artist taking on you know garbage as an art form, which you know there's elements of that. But i'm on I'm on a different trajectory than I thought I was going to be on. I was on a different road.
00:10:31
Speaker
And ah so yeah what was the crucible through which like this book was forged in that in that regard?
Class Identity & Family Dynamics
00:10:38
Speaker
First of all, it really started from this moment where I had made a new friend and I was like basically middle class by that time. I had a master's degree and I was teaching public school, which is like not the most esteemed profession in this country, but nevertheless, like was relatively stable at that point in my life.
00:11:01
Speaker
in a socioeconomic perspective and I went to the river with this friend and we pulled around the corner and there's kind of this big beach and she made a comment about like these disgusting white trash people on this beach and how just like fat and loud everyone was and why were they taking up all of our space and I was like oh uh I guess I made it and it didn't feel very good I was like oh I'm passing and and this isn't Great.
00:11:31
Speaker
so like that moment was kind of a turning point for me of like oh maybe i need to really rethink the way i've been kind of running away from my upbringing and thinking about it as this almost like death sentence and you know in some ways and don't want to ignore or push aside the very real like material struggles of growing up poor but i but it did set me on this path. And the book I proposed to get into Hunter was going to be kind of like Elizabeth Rush's book, Rising, where I wanted to go to these different places on very much like reporting trips and kind of embed myself in places where trash and people were kind of colliding.
00:12:14
Speaker
But then ah my program started in 2020. So I wasn't able to go on these reporting trips. And i had to write about something. So I started to write about myself and people really responded to it.
00:12:29
Speaker
And what was the your early experience of looking at your your your upbringing yeah head on? I was very surprised by some of the things that my family members said when I interviewed them, first of all. And I felt kind of a big chasm open up between us in a way.
00:12:48
Speaker
i guess I just assumed they understood our class position and our sort of political position in the same way that I did. And i quickly realized that was not true.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. I just learned some, I learned some really cool and surprising and beautiful things about my family from interviewing them and, They were so open and willing to talk to me ah about growing up and just even how they see themselves now. And I went into a creative nonfiction program and not a memoir program because I didn't want to write about myself. And so I did have a lot of resistance to and conflict about writing about my own life and particularly about not sort of selling out. Like I didn't want to, there's a lot of things I didn't put in the book.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I didn't put them in very intentionally to sort of like protect myself or protect my family. And also because I it was really i was very conscious of not slipping into like poverty porn, basically.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's hard for, no one no one knows that ah a child might grow up to be a writer, in which case that everything that was once thought off the record is now, has now on might be on the record. And it's like, yeah, you' like you handling that definitely oh shit, I was on the record this whole time and now suddenly all things could be aired And it was ah to your point of not sharing everything. I imagine you're like, okay, I have to be really judicious about what I do share because no one knew at the time that i might I might write about this someday.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And also, you know during the writing of this book, I was corresponding with my brother who was in prison the whole time it was being written. And so all of our interviews and talks were on the prison phone and through the mail. And I think that also kind of limits, certainly limited what he felt comfortable talking about.
00:14:44
Speaker
i don't know. I just, I felt like, oh, I'm now the custodian of the stories of the people I love and I need to really be careful about what I disclose and also how I disclose it. And I just didn't want to do the do wrong by them.
00:14:59
Speaker
ah Speak to the the challenge of interviewing family members Yeah, I mean... Interestingly enough, I think me saying it was sort of an official interview for my book, having that container around it, I almost think allowed them to open up a little bit more than they might just if we were on the phone or in the car together or something like that.
00:15:23
Speaker
And part of that was them feeling like a little bit more, maybe they felt a little bit more weight attached to what they were saying. And so they wanted to be really earnest. They were so supportive.
00:15:36
Speaker
of the book. And it it really struck me, I know i already said this, but just how I really thought I knew how they were going to answer some of the questions I asked and how I really did not know. And I definitely left thinking, wow, hardly know these people at all, you know, and it made me feel ah maybe a little bit sad that I had been living with these assumptions. And it didnt certainly inspired me to kind of enter into future conversations with them, even outside the container of like an interview for something I'm writing with a little bit more curiosity or they have just as complex of an emotional life as I do. you know and
00:16:18
Speaker
What were some of the assumptions that ah that were subverted or bucked by you having that ah open curiosity to hear hear them without judgment?
00:16:30
Speaker
Interestingly enough, we had literally never talked about growing up poor. hadn't talked about it with my mom. I hadn't talked about it with my brother. And those are kind of the, I have other family members, but those ended up being the main stories that came out in the book.
00:16:43
Speaker
I think I just expected them to go, oh yeah, we were totally poor. That was crazy. Like, remember getting free lunch and remember the horrible WIC food, the women, infants and infantsson children, like voucher program program and yeah, I remember this and that. And yeah, you know, i I write about it in the book, but my mom particularly like really pushed back against the idea that we were white trash. And there's an utterance from her in the first essay. And that's where the title came from, where she says we were never that low.
00:17:14
Speaker
Like that line really blew me away, I think. And, you know, talking to my brother, also, I assumed that he had an analysis to some extent that like, The way that we grew up in the context we grew up in had some bearing on the fact that he ended up incarcerated. And and I think he really thought about it as essentially personal choice um and did not see how any, you know, political or socioeconomic factors like might have contributed to him being captured by that system.
00:17:43
Speaker
And did you experience or, you know, you given given that you, quote unquote, like, got out, you know, and became and kind of and elevated your stat status and stature, did you experience any degree of um you know resentment ah from family at all? ah I haven't.
00:18:05
Speaker
in any overt way but it is something that I worry about and I guess I guess I'm just too cowardly to broach it with them directly but I do wonder what they think of me they show up for my success like my mom has been at my book events, which is really sweet. And my brother made a guest appearance at my launch party. It was, uh, that was a total surprise to me. And so, yeah, they've been very supportive. My dad read the book and said he liked it.
00:18:36
Speaker
didn't say much else, which is totally fine. But yeah, i it's something that I have guilt about, have a lot of guilt. Yeah. I'm too afraid to ask them.
00:18:49
Speaker
How do you reckon with that guilt and you know proceed in the face of it? Part of me thinks that the fact that I even feel guilty is a little bit condescending towards them because if I'm feeling guilty that my life is better than theirs, then I'm saying my life is better than theirs.
00:19:05
Speaker
And yeah who's really to say that?
Writing Process & Inspirations
00:19:08
Speaker
Particularly now, my brother, he's a truck driver, logging truck driver. that does like very high risk logging stuff. And, you know, he just started his own business. He bought his own truck. Like he seems to be like very happy in his life. And my sister's, you know, maybe a little bit less so from the outside. I'm not as close with them, so I don't have as much insight into their sort of feelings about their life, but yeah.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, so there's that that part of me that resists feeling guilty because of that, because I don't want to live as if, oh, my poor family members that like didn't get out. And it's just kind of a demeaning perspective. But then at the same time, it's like,
00:19:49
Speaker
I really try not to flaunt anything or appear snobby or... yeah it's just something I'm thinking about a lot, like not sort of rubbing it in their face or something. and But it's also something, you know, i often felt as a kid that I was getting...
00:20:08
Speaker
played against my siblings a little bit because I was extremely studious and very it was very natural and easy for me to like perform well in school and just follow rules and things of that nature and so I think I felt a little bit like sometimes my parents would be like why can't you be more like your sister and It's like, oh no I don't want to be that.
00:20:32
Speaker
I don't want to be that. You know, I don't want to be the person against which my family members are measuring like their lives or their success. So yeah, it's hard. And I i ah constantly am like, should I send the money? Should I like, I don't know.
00:20:47
Speaker
If this book makes any money, I'll send them some money. yeah be like Oh, shit. it's Books don't make any money. I'm sorry, guys. I mean, my name's on the cover of this book and everything, and that looks all well and good, but none of us make anything in this racket. Oh, it's like negative money.
00:21:05
Speaker
It's totally like I'm paying to do this, which is amazing. I like to say that ah a book is a great business card and the most expensive business card there is.
00:21:16
Speaker
Oh my God. yeah and know it just gives you, it just is like, oh, that there that's nice. here's Here's this thing that I can show you. and let me scribble my email in it. And there you go. There's is a 364 page business card or whatever it is. That's exactly right.
00:21:34
Speaker
Speaking of 364 pages, my first thought when I held the print book for the first time was, it's so small. I know, it is. Because of how much work I put into this, the fact that it's physically pretty small was kind of, i don't want to say disappointing, but I was very much like...
00:21:55
Speaker
Oh, my God, what have I done?
00:21:58
Speaker
ah Here's this thing. It's like the the size of a playbill, you know, thicker than a playbill, but it's about that size. And it's like you think of all the the the emotional intent that goes into it and the weight of that. And then you feel it's like, oh, wow, this is this is my life.
00:22:17
Speaker
but Yeah. And just, that I mean, hours and hours and hours of research and editing. And then, you know, like when I was living in New York, working on this book, like I was making a lot of sacrifices financially um to have time to work on this.
00:22:34
Speaker
And so yeah, I'm just like, well, here she is. Here's what I have to show for it. But I am really proud of the book and really pleased with how it looks. and so I don't want to like...
00:22:45
Speaker
I'm not talking crap about it, but it just was really funny to get it and be like, oh, boy, fair exactly. Yeah, I know. It's like you almost feel like it's underwhelming in a sense, but it shouldn't demean the accomplishment of it because it is it may be may be slim and small in stature. But to me, ah to use a baseball term, as I always lean into baseball terms, it's like it's a heavy ball.
00:23:12
Speaker
And I was like very conscientious about that. And that was something that was really important for me to achieve because I think all my favorite books are pretty short. i really wanted it to be tight on a sentence level on the level of like,
00:23:33
Speaker
narrative on the level of these like different formal experiments that I'm trying and then kind of as a whole package so I was really thinking about all the different layers and trying to make it as I guess as perfect as possible and what was any like unique challenges to to this book as you were synthesizing it and editing and cutting it down blowing up certain things and you know bringing it bringing it to pass and making it as lean as possible Well, i will tell you that my editing process was to read each essay out loud and then listen to it back.
00:24:07
Speaker
And I did that several times. And so one challenge was just getting incredibly sick of it. Yeah. But... i I think that, you know, it felt, I talk about this sometimes as it felt very akin to like making a sculpture.
00:24:23
Speaker
And I was trying to chisel away without chiseling away too much to where the conceptual part of it fell apart. It was really important to me that art came through enough as a theme in each essay.
00:24:38
Speaker
Something people have told me a lot about my writing as well is like, They love it when I'm writing about myself and I'm resistant to do that, which is why I went with creative nonfiction as kind of a form to focus on is like, I want to be able to write about other people and I'm really fascinated by other people's lives and particularly people that are really good at things or that do things with such intense passion and focus and people that really give their lives to something.
00:25:09
Speaker
Those are the stories that i love the most, which interestingly enough, I've often fantasized about being a sports journalist because I feel like there's a lot of those stories in sports. And I love reading sports journalism, even though I'm probably the worst athlete on planet on Earth.
00:25:26
Speaker
um And i don't even remember the original question. I think it was about editing difficulties with editing. But yeah, it's like I wanted to have a good balance of like my narrative and then, you know, the lives of these artists and the work of these artists. And I wanted it to also work for people who maybe wouldn't pick up as much on that maybe aren't major literature nerds like I am and like A lot of my friends are so that like they could still enjoy it, even if they read it like almost as a memoir, that the formal experiments wouldn't be so distracting or so dense or sort of like, I don't know, esoteric or something that they couldn't access
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, and to to your point about you know locking into certain people who have a real passion or a singular vision, i think of the the one woman you play off of in this, ah at the Department of Sanitation in New York. ah Yeah, so talk about talk about her and what what made you lock in to to her and the work that she did over the decades.
00:26:33
Speaker
ah Part of my research for this book was... reading a lot about landfills and the garbage system and how that works. Because I was initially, as I said, interested in this as a book that's about physical garbage as well. And I think some of that is preserved in in the book. But um yeah, she is someone who I discovered through actually looking at the New York Department of Sanitation.
00:26:59
Speaker
And kind of clicking around on their website, trying to figure out where the trash goes and like what landfills it was actually being sent to. And was maybe it was on one of their pages, maybe a press page or something like that. But I saw her name and i was like, oh, who's this? And the more I dug into her, the more fascinated I became.
00:27:18
Speaker
by what she had done and i think that's where the book kind of kind of unlocked that this book was going to be about art and trash and not just trash in this very broad sense but kind of like focused in a little bit more because she talks about like name calling she talks about maintenance work which is like one of her big guiding principles as an artist is like illuminating and making visible and beautiful the everyday stuff that the working class is doing and the art that people are making that isn't necessarily institutionalized or called capital A art and she is very much like well why not and I just thought that was so brilliant and inspiring and also very much what I was trying to do so she became kind of a fairy godmother or something for this book
00:28:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And when you locked into her, that what what kind of reflection did she impart you just casting your gaze back to your childhood and you know just the guess the the the drudgery of the working class that you grew up around and those people in noble work who are just like – my God, it's just so hard to like pick yourself up and sometimes to get out of bed.
Art, Dignity, and Visual Appeal
00:28:42
Speaker
ah and And it's just, that I imagine that it, you just her work and her work on maintenance work and all that really cast your reflection back.
00:28:50
Speaker
It really did. and And that's why I ended up, you know, then the me part of that essay is my time spent working as a maid when I was young. And the fact that my mom had been a maid and my grandma had been a maid and i hated that job.
00:29:07
Speaker
I hated that job so much. And... Partly because it felt so demeaning or that I was demeaned through the job. And because it's not like I think that housekeeping is not valuable work. Like, obviously it is.
00:29:25
Speaker
But like the way I was treated by people in that job was probably the worst of any job I've ever had. And I've worked in fast food. I've worked in lots of different contexts where one might feel that way. But there was something about her work that allowed me to look back on sort of my birthright of like being a maid basically and starting to pick that apart and interrogate it. And it was really beautiful experience to think about my mom and grandma as doing a dance.
00:30:02
Speaker
or doing some kind of performance art while they were cleaning. and So yeah, it was kind of like redemptive, I guess. And it really did start to open up my perspective on also the art that I had encountered as a kid, which I felt very judgmental about. like There was this tire store on the corner that I write about.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah. this intersection we passed all the time and they had like cut up tires and spray painted them so and they were selling them as like flower pots and i just thought they were so ugly and embarrassing and trashy and i was like oh but like this is people making art out of what's at hand and how beautiful to take the materials that are around you and
00:30:49
Speaker
including like a bald tire and an old can of spray paint and like try to really make something out of it. And so it helped me also like critique myself in that way of and be like, okay, what am I still holding onto in terms of like this internalized, I guess, classism and with respect to art, but with also with respect to other things and helped me kind of start to take that apart.
00:31:09
Speaker
An early like sentence I wrote on a sticky note and put it above my desk or something was make it so beautiful they can't look away. Because i really did want part of this project to be, like, people seeing things that they would rather not see. And a lot of those things are very sad or difficult for whatever reason to look at.
00:31:36
Speaker
It was important to me to make the book beautiful and engaging on an artistic level so that people would keep reading. Because if I just wrote down all the horrible things I learned about garbage and about the way people are treated, you know, no what probably no one could finish the book because it just would be like too sad and overwhelming. And so a big part of this project for me was making...
00:32:02
Speaker
That kind of thing, visible not just visible, but also beautiful. So people could really look at it in a sustained and thoughtful way. Yeah, yeah. there There is an arresting quality to the...
00:32:16
Speaker
to the book and a very propulsive quality to the book. And i just, uh, I'm i curious as as to how, and you're kind of speaking to it about how you, how you achieve that and how you kept that as kind of a North star to, yeah, to make sure that it wasn't too downtrodden, but it was illuminating in this, in this way that was unique to the rest research you did, but also through your own personal rubric.
00:32:40
Speaker
I don't know if I'm going to have a great answer to this, but it was to some extent intuitive or like emotional in a physical way of like how I felt while I was reading it back. And i tried to have each essay, you know, go on this kind of meandering path and some times it goes into like a more depressing part but I was thinking about maybe like a ah build and release of tension throughout and I really wanted each essay to end on not a high note but a statement that would act almost like a
00:33:25
Speaker
I don't know, like when you fling a rubber band or something, like just kind of urge the person towards some kind of action, whether that would be turning the page or sitting and thinking about it further. I tried to really have the last paragraphs be...
00:33:45
Speaker
redemptive and triumphant and really cast the rest of the essay in that light so that even if you'd been sort of reading about a lot of sad crappy stuff by the end the ultimate you know feeling that you're left with is one of maybe not hope but certainly rebellion or just i don't know just some energy I really wanted the last the the the end of each to have energy and then the little interludes are supposed to be you know and they're in some ways they're very earnest but they're also supposed to be kind of funny
00:34:24
Speaker
yeah And, you know, poking fun a little bit at the seriousness of performance art poking fun a little bit at, you know, the lies that we're told and the lies that we tell ourselves about material and metaphorical garbage. And I think those really help as well to kind of keep up the moment. Because listen, Brendan, I know how long those essays are.
00:34:47
Speaker
read them out loud. I remember the first time I read the first essay out loud and it was like 52 minutes and I was aghast.
00:34:56
Speaker
I was like, no one's going to read this. But I guess, you know, people are reading it, which is fantastic.
00:35:02
Speaker
Well, to your point of ah of one of the interludes being pretty funny, it's um i it's when you like when you're buying stuff and you realize you know when you're buying anything how much you're actually just buying trash to it. the play You throw all the plastic in your bathtub and then then hop in the bathtub and and then ah note how it imprints on your skin. Consider getting a tattoo of the imprint. I was oh, that's pretty funny.
00:35:30
Speaker
like that. I thought that was like in an absurd way. I thought that was pretty hilarious. Yeah, they're supposed like pointing out absurdities and and all that. I like the one that's about like, you know, my mom lives outside of a small town and she doesn't have garbage service. So they have to go to the dump. And so they always have this big pile of trash.
00:35:49
Speaker
at their house and I, um you know, some of it they burn. but yeah, I think it was just such a fertile place to explore high and low art which is like a big part of this book as well and how those things can collide. And and back to merril Letterman, Euclides and her work with the trash. It's like bringing art to the garbage pile at my mom's house.
00:36:15
Speaker
you know is one of these little this is rituals to see trash number three i guess it's like oh yeah like take that trash and make a little sculpture garden and then document it and then you know make paintings of the photos and show them in a gallery funded by fracking profits and yeah i was just like having a bit of fun because i realized that they're is a lot of pressure. Maybe instead of tension, I was thinking about pressure in the book a lot and how to like, turn the pressure up and down in terms of like, the amount of information I was giving, or the quality of it, and like the emotional quality of it.
00:36:57
Speaker
And so that was like a pressure release, basically, like, okay, you just read this really long essay that's pretty complicated. And let's have a little, let's have a little fun break. Yeah, yeah, I like those. I dug it. And it was, ah like you said, are ah kind of a pressure release. ah And it allows you as a reader to reset and recalibrate yeah just as a as a and an experience of turning the page and seeing more white space and then seeing a list. You're like, okay, this is changing my eye level and changing my experience with it physically. And i I appreciate that when I come across it in a book. Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun with those, just writing them. And when I was shopping this book around before it like won the contest, um I was sending it out to agents and i didn't have those.
00:37:50
Speaker
don't think I had those in there. Did I? Yet I was originally shopping it around as much more of a memoir and it was actually called Other People's Toilets, which is the title of the second essay. And I didn't like really have the art focus on it yet. like I didn't even realize that that was what I had been doing all along and like that I was really doing art criticism and cultural criticism.
00:38:12
Speaker
I don't know why I didn't realize that, but I didn't. And you know my... and MFA advisors kind of encouraged me to make the book less weird. And so I was shopping around this like less weird version of It didn't have the collages in it. I don't think it had the rituals in it. It was just the essays and, you know, I was getting very nice rejections. They were like, oh, this is cool. I don't want it, you know?
00:38:36
Speaker
And ah then this person said, hey, you know, this needs to be like more weird or less weird. But it's in this kind of odd place that isn't working and I was like she's so right and I put the manuscript away for a while and then I was just on Instagram and saw like phonograph creative non-fiction contest like do you have a really weird manuscript sitting around like send us your worst it's judged by Maggie Nelson and I was like
00:39:10
Speaker
oh, like, I have something like that, you know, and at the time, it was only 99 pages. And, and yeah, I like opened up the document, and I put the collages in, and I put the rituals in, and I like put this other essay that I had written about TLC that ended up being published in Oxford American. And then so I ended up taking it out of the book, because it had been sort of rewritten to be in a magazine, it had a very different voice than the rest of the books, I did end up taking that one out. And replacing it with some other stuff. But yeah, I just, I was like, i just had a feeling.
00:39:45
Speaker
I was like, I could win this. And i don't know, it's delusion. It's, you know, delusional, but it's only delusional till it doesn't work. Oh, for sure. And it just goes to show you the degree of luck and serendipity that comes into play,
The Role of Luck & Patience in Writing
00:39:59
Speaker
and you submit it. And it's just, who knows what would have happened if you never stumbled across that? Like, you could be still struggling to find a home for it, or maybe something else would have happened, but this this happened to happen. It's just...
00:40:10
Speaker
I think it's important for people to keep it that in mind that sometimes you just need to keep doing the thing you're doing, you know, and then these weird doors will sometimes just materialize. Right. Totally. And that's something that I learned being in New York for sure is like, you know, nepotism aside,
00:40:29
Speaker
It is so much about luck and finding some way to do the work long enough and often enough and to continue being open to and putting yourself out there enough that, you know, it's 50% hard work, 50% luck. That's a very reductive thing.
00:40:49
Speaker
And simplistic way to think about it. But for me, that's been true. And I've kind of watched it be true for other people, like, because there's plenty of people out there. And this kind of goes back to talking about the release and my very moderate expectations that I've had about it.
00:41:05
Speaker
is like I know that there's so many people out there making incredible stuff that's not getting recognized that no one's seeing that for whatever reason you know it's just not their time and it's like I guess this was just my time i don't think that my I think my work is good i I put a lot of effort into it but I don't think it's like the best book that's gonna come out this year or something you know it's like there's just so much great work out there and There's our artistic genius like all around us, and you know that includes a lot of us so working class artists who are making this stuff, and some of it languishes, and it shouldn't, but not all of it does.
00:41:47
Speaker
This year, I took a job teaching dual credit like college classes at a public high school, and you know haven't written anything since the beginning of the year because...
00:41:59
Speaker
the job is so emotionally and creatively and temporally demanding that I haven't been able to write anything. So I'm in it, but like I hadn't had health insurance in a really long time. And I spent down all my savings, you know, being in New York and trying to get this writing career off the ground. And I also have like a visual art career is such a weird word, but you know, visual art career. and I made, I haven't figured out the money part yet, basically. And so this year i was like, okay, like this job kind of presented itself to me. And I was like, I need to take
00:42:37
Speaker
it's like the responsible thing to do. I had spent about five years working like very marginal jobs and surviving on very little in New York City. And so this is kind of like me replenishing that side of things. And I was talking to a student actually the other day after class, and he is like visibly Very obviously poor and he's so brilliant. And I just was like, we need to talk about what you're going to do with your brilliance and your potential because...
00:43:13
Speaker
it is so easy for people like us to just get really eaten alive and for that all to languish. And that's something that is really heartbreaking for me. And I think about it a lot, like how many, but you know it's also, ah it's also very beautiful and inspiring that people are making art and making a way and making life in their own ways with what they have, which is, but you know, part of the thesis of the book.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah. is like, don't look down on trash people, because you never know what they're really up to. It's really hard out here to be a working artist and not have even if you have some financial resources, it's still really hard. And there's no guarantees. And like, for some reason, you know, we do it anyway. And Yeah, well, and to your point about not having written anything this year, I had this quote from Raymond Carver I saved because it because I kind of wanted to get your impression on it because it's it's a good quote, but then you saying you' go to not having written anything, um and actually is pretty germane. like He said, yeah when I'm not writing, it's as if I've never written a word or had any desire to write. I fall into bad habits. I stay up too late and sleep in too long, but it's okay.
00:44:19
Speaker
I've learned to be patient and to bide my time. and Just hearing you talk about not having written and we were talking about patience and luck and sticking it out. I wanted to get your sense of that, of just the patience that maybe you're granting yourself, you know the grace you might be granting yourself, you know given that new job, trying to figure out your place.
00:44:39
Speaker
Book just came out and it's just that not beating the shit out of yourself because you know you're not churning out essay after essay, month after month. Totally. And, you know, I just was talking to a friend on the phone this morning about my fear that there will be some momentum around this first book. And then, you know, I i do have a proposal and some material for a second book and ah was able to actually meet with an agent about it the other day. So it's like there's a little something there, but I'm not making any progress. And I have this
00:45:13
Speaker
fear that there's going to be momentum around the first book and then I'm not going to be able to like take advantage of whatever luck might come my way next and seven I also do beat myself up a lot about or maybe it's not beating myself up but I have this like trying to figure it out like I'm like okay well like where can I find the hours and how can I it's like trying to solve a puzzle but you don't have all the pieces but so it is just something I wrestle with a lot also though my friends are always like you're working while you're not working you know like thinking about the years and years of
00:45:50
Speaker
experience and thought and reading and conversation that went into Lowe, you know, a lot of the experiences I'm having now, I know will end up being in service of the next book, which is tentatively about like difficult art. Like why do people make...
00:46:06
Speaker
And consume art that's hard in some way, like whether it's like violent or ugly or kind of unintelligible or whatever, like people still people do really difficult stuff all the time.
00:46:23
Speaker
And I'm doing difficult stuff right now and you are too. And yeah, there's just something there. And I know that particularly the experiences I'm having like professionally right now are going to contribute to that in some way. Yeah. At times it's hard to keep in keep in perspective like the long game of it.
00:46:38
Speaker
You know, when when you want things to happen right. want things to happen ah Yesterday. and like and to have that patience is, ah it's very hard, especially when you're just trying so hard to get some degree of a toehold.
00:46:52
Speaker
And it just feels like, i've and I've used this before, and some of the resentment I always felt and routinely feel, but I've metabolized it far better than I used to.
00:47:03
Speaker
I always felt like I was walking up an escalator going down and just going nowhere. Meanwhile, it felt like everybody else was just on the one going up and walking up and they're just blowing me away.
00:47:15
Speaker
It's frustrating dealing with that. and But ah the fact is everyone is kind of on your side of the. escalator it just feels like everyone else is on the other one it's but it's really frustrating because you're just trying to trying to make a go of it it just feels like everyone else is making it and you're not and it's like alright you just gotta somehow put your head down and weather weather that insecurity and weather that storm That is so true, Bestie.
00:47:41
Speaker
Like, particularly when I was in New York, and you know, there was a period of time where I was trying to write for money, like, and I did end up getting some bylines and whatever. But that was for me, that was a losing game. Yeah.
00:47:54
Speaker
i As I hope is obvious from the book, like I'm not a very commercially viable writer in a lot of ways. Like what I'm doing is not necessarily in line with quickly consumable and like easy to create um stories that a lot of people are going to like. And I'm not ah like trying and to demean myself at all, but just like it was impossible for me to come up with enough pitches.
00:48:19
Speaker
But like other people I knew were getting pieces and was just like, what is going on? And I'm poor and I need money. And like, Yeah, so I felt that a lot at the beginning. And now that I've been through also the feeling of like, okay, my I have a book deal, you know, and that sounds very impressive. and And editing my book, but also like, I'm a substitute teacher, you know, like, which is what I was doing all last year while I was kind of figuring out where I was going to land in terms of like, New York, LA, Portland of substitute teaching. And I was just like, you know, the material reality doesn't always keep up with
00:48:55
Speaker
the success part either. So even when I'm having publication success, it can still feel like it's so, it's just so feels so precarious sometimes.
Final Thoughts & Recommendations
00:49:06
Speaker
And still like being on the down escalator, walking up to your point of you know being poor in New York. It's like you, you know, you write about growing up poor and then you kind of you know, you, you go through and you, you go to college, you get the, the master's degree and you've got these credentials.
00:49:24
Speaker
And then like, still poor it's like it's like what the fuck totally yeah and then like being in New York too it's like actually was very liberating for me because I realized how what a joke it was for me basically to try to be upwardly mobile because the type of wealth I was interacting with there is so different than the type of wealth I'd been interacting with in Portland like It was like people with Carnegie money, you know, people with just like, I mean, such a different life from what I grew up with. And that really helped me write the book with clarity too. Cause sometimes I gaslight myself and I'm like, was it really like that? Like, was it really that bad? I mean, my dad had a job and like, you know, but going to New York really clarified some of this class stuff for me that I'm writing about where it's like, oh, it's so much about,
00:50:19
Speaker
just when and where you're born and into how much wealth and not that that necessarily determines your future, but that it's less escapable than they would have us believe. And, and then that's not necessarily like a, it's not necessarily a bad thing in terms of like, you don't have to be fatalistic about it. But, you know, i think I thought of myself, certainly as not a person who is living under the fantasy of the American dream or anything. But yeah, being in New York and being around the kind of like wealth and privilege I was around there, definitely whatever, you know, vestiges remained of that for me were stripped away.
00:50:58
Speaker
ah Nice. Well, I want to be mindful of your time, Jadra, and one of the things, as as you know, I think, from listening to the show, I love asking guests for a recommendation for the listeners, ah just something that's bringing you joy or are making your life easier, just making you happy.
00:51:11
Speaker
and So what what might you recommend for the listeners out there who are looking to zhuzh up their lives or just make something a little easier, a little happier? I really recommend binge buying books on eBay. It's a great place to get affordable used books.
00:51:28
Speaker
The conflict I have recommending this is that obviously like... it's not necessarily supporting presses or authors. However, i just love to be really wild and free roaming with like what I'm reading and discovering new people all the time. And used to keep this very long list of book like books to read. and instead now I just kind of turn around and buy a $4 copy on eBay right away and let it come and That way, I'm not beholden to like the deadlines of the library. And also, I just have time to really spend with like the physical copy of the book and see if it's something I want to commit to
00:52:05
Speaker
So yeah, with some reservations of like, then if I do like the book, I try to support the author or if there's like a small press to support, I do that. But yeah, I think that giving myself permission to just like be inspired in that way is really helpful to me in my creative process and also just like my general joy as a human being.
00:52:25
Speaker
And then I just don't feel that bad about getting rid of them either. Cause I'm like, Oh, it was $4. So right then I can to go put them in a free library or some, you know, pass them on to someone if if it's not really my thing.
00:52:35
Speaker
So. Oh, fantastic. Well, J.D. I'm so glad we were able to talk ah you know about your book and about you know writing and the writing of this book. And I like i loved it to death and I'm recommending it to a lot of lot of people i know. And um yeah, it's just ah it's a really wonderful book and i I wish you the best of luck with it And thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much. Yeah, I loved. I just, yeah, I really appreciate your time and and inviting me on and and everything. It's been really wonderful. Long time fan, as know.
00:53:09
Speaker
Oh, no, different song now. burn a entertainner burnin er aon a act that Whatever. Thanks to Jadra for reaching out to me last year and for coming on the show and for being patient. We recorded this several months ago.
00:53:24
Speaker
She expressed how she had been a listener for many, many years. I think going back to 2017, like, you know, OG listener. So it's always nice to hear that people not only yeah founded at a long time, at a long time ago, but they've stuck around.
00:53:39
Speaker
That says something. It does say something. Thanks also to the Power of Narrative Conference's promotional support. And if you could be so kind, consider pre-ordering the Frontrunner.
00:53:52
Speaker
Jadra hit on a great point about her book either being too weird or not weird enough. And when it comes to any art, especially when you're dealing in essay or podcasting, you gotta go weird.
00:54:08
Speaker
And that doesn't mean Weird Al or talking like Pee Wee Herman. like there It just means be distinct. Be singular. This was a great problem I experienced in my MFA program where I tried to sound literary.
00:54:24
Speaker
I wanted my writing to sound artful. It's what you might call the dreaded MFA voice. And it took a few years of for me to scrub that out. There was this time when I sent this stupid email to three friends um of mine, weekly roughly, about ah this drinking game, Beard Eye, doesn't matter.
00:54:45
Speaker
um We took this game way too seriously for way too long. I'm talking like way into our late 20s, even maybe early thirty s a bit. ah You know, when I should have been thinking about getting some velocity down the runway for this thing called a career.
00:55:01
Speaker
I called these little missive newsletters and my best friend who had read some of my quote artistic writing from my MFA manuscript told me, say, ABO, I don't want to insult your book.
00:55:14
Speaker
But these emails you write is some of your best writing. And he made a great point. It was in it was in my voice. I can be funny sometimes, right? Especially on the page. Maybe not so much in person because I'm not really great on my feet.
00:55:28
Speaker
But there was an energy and on the page when I was making fun of all of us that was decidedly lacking in my literary journalism project. Now, of course, if you're dealing with sober material, you're you're not going to go bang zap-a-wooga all over the page. That would be weird.
00:55:47
Speaker
You have to read the room. But it was a valuable lesson in voice and style. How would you write your book or a book of essays or anything, if for that matter, if it was just ah an email to your best friend?
00:56:00
Speaker
Same goes for podcasting. yeah The interview podcast has a lane, and but when I hear people or when I see people following the same speed limit, trying to sound like, i don't know, an NPR interview or something, I'm like, yeah this is just boring.
00:56:17
Speaker
It's why I use heavy rock music, even if it's distasteful to some people. It's why I, God forbid, change the tone of my voice here and there, and don't drone on the mic.
00:56:28
Speaker
You can inflect. Your voice is an instrument, dude. It's why I occasionally interject in the middle of the show, ah be it to offer context, a fact check, or a little addendum. It's why I put the parting shot at the end of the show and don't weigh down the start.
00:56:43
Speaker
It's why im unafraid to swear. It's why I'm unafraid to tell you how shitty I feel on an almost hourly basis. Hold on, I'm going to check my blood pressure right now. Oh, it came back 144 over 94. That was improvement on the other day It was like one... Truly, it was 160 over 101.
00:57:01
Speaker
In that red zone right before they tell you to go to the ER. Hey, I'm trying, man. I'm down to one cup of coffee a day and almost no alcohol, and I'm not happy about it. I'm irritable, dude.
00:57:12
Speaker
Point is, if someone can catch an interview of so-and-so or read such-and-such, if AI can do it, then why do I care? If Jesse Eisenberg or Aaron Brockovich are being interviewed by a lot of people...
00:57:23
Speaker
And yeah, I'm going to side with Marc Maron because at least Marc has a voice, a personality, and a point of view. Same goes for writers. Hanif, Elena, Elisa, George, and now Jadra.
00:57:34
Speaker
I know I'm in for a ride if I see their name with these writers because they're weird. If you're not flying your freak flag, dust that shit off, would you?
00:57:45
Speaker
Stay wild, CNFers, or weird. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.