My 2007 interview with the WPR program To The Best of Our Knowledge will air again this coming week (starting on Sunday). I talk with host Jim Fleming about Dangerous Space, the character of Mars, and gender in fiction and life, and do a brief reading. I very much enjoyed the conversation with Jim — he’s a great host, asked thoughtful questions, and gave me lots of room to wave my arms around (in the way one does on the radio, grin).
If you’d like to hear it, you can find your local station here, or use this direct link to the mp3 of the show. My segment starts at about 38:30.
And in the spirit of it all, here’s a little something I’ve always loved. You don’t have to go far to find the wild side — it’s right there between your ears. Have fun with yours today.
(Click here if you can’t see the audio player.)
That’s a great interview.
And a classic tune. Enjoyed it even if I’m not feeling too wild today (even in my own head). It was nice to pretend for a few minutes.
How exciting! I really enjoy Jim Fleming’s TTBOOK. And your interview is special. I listened to it a while ago, then Jennifer refreshed my memory recently. Now I just re-refreshed it and want to go back to “And Salome Danced.” I have Jo/e envy. I wish I could shape-shift my body on command like that, the way I do my mind. *sigh* But I’ve said this before… I’ll just have to play demon in my daydreams for now.
The dialectics of gender are so interesting. The protagonists in my early high school stories were wildcards in that aspect. People kept pushing them one way or another, and I did try to conform, but I often ached to go back to the flexibility that felt natural to me for that particular story. This year, I’m not alone at the workshop. A colleague is also developing characters with malleable genders and it’s fun to watch readers’ faces when someone says, “So when she enters the room…” and another one interrupts, “What?! She?! I thought the protagonist was a he…” You can almost hear the gears in their mind shifting to accommodate the new speed of possibility.
So, yei for Mars! And for the author, of course. Hats off, on one knee and thank you.
I should think this Lou Reed song plays a part in everybody’s sexual history. When it first made the radio, we were all on the verge of our sexuality and thanks to LR suddenly every gesture at school was reacted to as sexual. I remember racing to catch my friend in the school hall and grabbing her wrist. And she said, ‘Take a walk on the wild side, Cato,’ and turned away. Seems silly now, but at thirteen I felt rebuffed and fearful that my mates would consider me one those girls. Hey babe. . .one of those girls is now on the cover of CoverGirl magazine. Hey honey. . .
Cato, it was like that for me in high school — that hope or fear (depending on the situation) that everything was some kind of coded message. I used to parse everything everyone around me did, trying to understand what it meant.
And those kinds of observations have become the heart of my writing, which is pretty cool for me. But oh, the drama and the confusion and the wild exhilaration, the hope….