The Archive Project

In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature Adam Gopnik, who joined us for Portland Arts & Lectures in 2016. Gopnik is best known for his work at The New Yorker, where he has written on wide ranging topics such as Mark Twain, hockey, dogs, Icelandic coffee, Babar the Elephant, snowflakes, magicians, the New York Jets, spirituality, and aging among others. But perhaps where Gopnik is his most insightful, funny, and even tender is when he is writing about family life. It’s a subject that provides a through line in his long career. His first collection of essays, Paris to the Moon, is about living and raising a family in France, and his second, Through the Children’s Gate, focuses on the same theme, but in New York. Both were national bestsellers and have become classics in their category.

When he joined us onstage in 2016, he returned to the topic of family, presenting a talk full of humor, unpretentious wisdom, and great storytelling.

“Just as magicians learn that the most obvious moves impress people, big talkers learn that anything committed to memory and recited with emotion in an age when nothing is committed to memory will impress people even more than something intelligent freshly said.”

Adam Gopnik has been writing for The New Yorker since 1986. He is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism and of the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. In March 2013, Gopnik was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic. He lives in New York City with his wife and their two children.

“If you think about it, we all live in that ambiguity, don’t we? We all live in that twilight zone. Because if you think of it, there are very few moments, very few relationships in life, where saying ‘I’m laughing out loud in your presence’ and saying ‘I love you a lot’ don’t really mean the same thing.”

“The thing about long marriages is that you have the same argument over and over and over. One good argument lasts a lifetime in a marriage, and the key to having a good long marriage is finding that argument early and never letting it go.”

In this episode of The Archive Project, Orhan Pamuk discusses his published works and why he writes about Turkey so much: to him, this act is not only about portraying the city to outsiders, but also about retracing his memories of the city. He reads from Other Colors, a collection of articles and notes from his personal journals, which comprise ideas and segments of writing he wanted to include in some of his books but ultimately left out. Throughout his lecture, Pamuk shares personal stories, including experiences at the barbershop, moments with his family, and his thoughts on the concept of time, concluding his talk with a discussion of the reasons why he continues to write.

“The first aim of an intelligent person is to achieve unhappiness when everyone around her is happy.”

“Digital watches represent particles of time as numbers, whereas the face of my watch is a mysterious icon. I love to look at it—the face of time. In some ways it conjures up that metaphysical conceit, or something close to it.”

“The beauty of a city is also held in the sentiment that the city carries along.”

Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a large family similar to those found in his novels. He first discovered storytelling through art, devoting himself to the pursuit of a painter’s life throughout his childhood and early twenties, including three years spent studying architecture at Istanbul Technical University. At age 23, Pamuk experienced a change of heart, decided to become a novelist, and succeeded in publishing his first novel, Cevdet Bey and His Sons, only seven years later. “I am happier when I paint and draw, but I definitely feel more intelligent when I write,” he has said. In 1985, his third novel, The White Castle, earned him international notoriety. Apart from his time in New York at Columbia University, which he visits once a year as a guest lecturer, Pamuk has resided in the same district of Istanbul for his entire life and even lives in the same building where he was raised. In 2006, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. To date, Pamuk’s 18 published books have sold over 11 million copies and have been translated into more than sixty languages, making him Turkey’s best-selling author.

On this episode of The Archive Project, Mark Bittman addresses the politics of food and the negative impact current food trends in America are having on the world. He defines food as something nutritious and contrasts this with the sugary junk food—or “nonfood”—that many Americans consume on a daily basis. According to Bittman, America needs a more sustainable, democratic food system in order to support an exponentially growing population. At the heart of his lecture is a push to start a movement that makes healthy, nourishing food available to more people while also making junk food less available. In order to do this, he says, issues of consumption, production, and the knowledge that people have of what they’re eating must be addressed. This, he believes, will produce a ripple effect in other areas of our lives, with the money once poured into supporting unhealthy eating habits now available for things like better education and healthcare systems.

If we want to see dramatic improvement in the environment, health care, employment, poverty, climate change—if we want to improve our likelihood of survival—then those who value the wellbeing of the planet and the mental, spiritual, and physical health not only of human beings, but of other inhabitants, must gain more power.”

“You can barely talk about your garden or your supermarket or the food on your table without talking about the failure of government, the dominance of corporation, the break down of food security, and so on.”

“When we look back twenty to fifty years from now, I think it will be obvious that added sugar was the tobacco of the twenty-first century.”

Mark Bittman is an American food journalist, author, and columnist for The New York Times, where he writes about policy, agriculture, health, the environment, and, of course, cooking and eating. His weekly column, “The Minimalist,” sparked a cookbook series of the same name. Bittman has now co-written 16 books and cookbooks, including his best-selling How to Cook Everything, which won the Julia Child general cookbook award, the James Beard general cookbook award, and three other major international cookbook awards and also spent a record 130 weeks on the Los Angeles Times’ “Cookbook Hot List.”

In this episode of The Archive Project, Bill Buford discusses his history working at Granta, including iconic magazine covers and experimentations with the magazine’s content. He goes on to talk about being an editor for Granta Books, stating that it is “the aim of every editor, at some point in his or her life, to get arrested.” Later, he discusses his research for Among the Thugs, a nonfiction piece on British soccer and crowd violence, including his experience at the World Cup in Italy in 1990.

There is an ambition in any literary editor, I think, to start a world war because of the cover of his magazine.”

“This was a very self-conscious literary project, this was literature with a capital ‘L,’ and it made me distinctly uncomfortable. And I have to admit I am still uncomfortable with this idea of literature. I don’t really know what it is. I have my own definition of what I regard as a literary work, which is nothing more than ‘a complex piece of writing that allows me to respond to it in a complex way.’ But, actually, literature and the idea of doing a literary magazine—it’s the kind of thing that people who wear socks with their sandals do.”

Bill Buford is a staff writer and European correspondent for The New Yorker, where he has written about sweatshops, the singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, and chef Mario Batali, among other topics. Prior to this, he also served as the magazine’s fiction editor, an editor for Granta magazine, and publisher for Granta Books. Buford is the author of Among the Thugs, a personal nonfiction account of crowd violence and British soccer hooliganism, and has edited three anthologies: The Best of Granta Travel, The Best of Granta Reportage, and The Granta Book of the Family. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.

On this episode of The Archive Project, Sharon Olds begins her lecture by reading a poem by Langston Hughes called “Luck,” which she tells the audience she memorized on the subway in New York City. From there, she reads several of her poems on the theme of family and personal life, including a description of her experience learning to read and her memory of running through the airport on the way to visit her dying father. Between her own works, she shares a selection of poems by other people, including one written by her sister.

“It’s great to have someone in a field that you love—someone to love and admire and study and feel close to.”

“One of the great things about traveling is the new point of view you can get on things you thought you knew.”

“I just love to read poems by other people. It’s the only time up here when I’m really happy.”

Raised a Calvinist in Berkeley, California, Sharon Olds published her first book of poems, Satan Says, at age thirty-seven. This was the start of a career that would include 12 collections of poetry to date, including Strike Sparks, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Stag’s Leap, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the T.S. Eliot prize. When describing her writing process in an interview with Salon, Olds stated she is “not asking a poem to carry a lot of rocks in its pockets,” and instead tries to be “an ordinary observer and liver and feeler and letting the experience get through you onto the notebook with the pen, through the arm, out of the body, onto the page, without distortion.” Olds’ awards and honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets. She served as the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to 2000 and currently teaches in the graduate writing program at New York University.

This episode of The Archive Project, features a lecture from prolific author Jonathan Lethem from 2007. As a writer, Lethem melds genres, often mixing crime and sci-fi with more traditional fiction. He is also known for his unpretentious incorporation of American pop-culture into his works. In this lecture, Lethem’s dry humor, sincerity, literary allusions, and post-modern sensibility are on full display as he discusses what has shaped him as a writer, including growing up in New York during the 70s, and the tragic loss of his mother when he was just fourteen years old. He also speaks to the debate on the generative function of art, calling out writers in particular. This is a great introduction to Lethem and also entertaining chance for existing fans to get to know him even better.

“Ruined things, after all, can be transformed. Shattered things can reconstitute and be repurposed. Artists do this all the time. And loss itself can be repurposed, which is exactly what I did. I’ve made my career, in a sense, on that black hole of loss. That missing mom, my argument with her departure, with the unreplying ghost she left behind, became my whole enterprise of selfhood.”

“Should we resent the distraction or be relieved? We live, I think, in a world of punch lines taken seriously. To watch television is to be immersed in practically nothing else.”

“Who are these people? Who invited them to the convention, let alone gave them the floor? Are they starting the important conversation, the one we so desperately need to hear, or are they ending it—dissolving it in schemes and nonsense?”

Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels including The Fortress of Solitude, Dissident Gardens, Chronic City, The Feral Detective, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of National Book Critics Circle Award. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Lethem has been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times, among others. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.

In this episode of The Archive Project, actors from The Milagro Theatre read excerpts from Cristina Henriquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans, Multnomah County Library’s 2016 Everybody Reads selection.

Cristina Henriquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans explores the lives of two families who have come to the United States from Mexico and Panama, as well as the experiences of men and women who have immigrated from all over Latin America, as they pursue different versions of the American Dream. It was recognized as a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, one of The Washington Post’s top 50 fiction books, and an NPR Great Read, among other accolades. 

Everybody Reads is a community reading project of Multnomah County Library made possible in part by gifts to The Library Foundation. The Everybody Reads program celebrates the power of books in creating a stronger community through a shared reading experience. In partnership with Multnomah County Library and The Library Foundation, Literary Arts is proud to present Cristina Henríquez at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall as the culminating event of the 14th annual Everybody Reads program on Tuesday, March 8, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.

Back then, all we wanted was the simplest things: to eat good food, to sleep at night, to smile, to laugh, to be well. We felt it was our right, as much as anyone’s, to have those things. Of course, when I think about it now, I see that I was naïve. I was blinded by the swell of hope and the promise of possibility. I assumed that everything that would go wrong in our lives already had.”

“I like it here. I started off as a manager, but now I own this building. Bought it out almost ten years ago after working jobs on the side, saving up. I got a good deal. The area is changing, though. A clash of cultures. I try to make this building like an island for all of us washed-ashore refugees. A safe harbor. I don’t let anyone mess with me. If people want to tell me to go home, I just turn to them and smile politely and say, “I’m already here.”

“Maybe it’s the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing. Someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place…People do what they have to in this life. We try to get from one end of it to the other with dignity and honor. We do the best we can.”

The mission of the Miracle Theatre Group, aka Milagro, is to provide extraordinary Latino theatre, culture, and arts education experiences for the enrichment of all communities. Since its founding in 1985, Milagro has filled a unique program niche while building a solid reputation. The organization works in three distinct areas: fully mounted productions at El Centro Milagro, with each season presenting a combination of English, Spanish-language, and bilingual performances; Teatro Milagro, the bilingual touring & arts education program; and multilingual community arts programming at home and in the field. Milagro is committed to presenting works that exemplify the Latino experience through a culturally informed lens.

Performers:

Dañel Malán co-founded the Milagro Theatre with her husband, Jose Eduardo Gonzalez, and in 1989 she created the bilingual touring program, Teatro Milagro, which tours nationally to schools, colleges and universities.

Ajai Terrazas Tripathi is a graduate of Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. He is an actor, teaching artist, grant writer, director, playwright, and Tour Manager of Teatro Milagro.

Monica Domena, Adriana & teaching artist, is a graduate of Central Washington University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Of Puerto Rican decent, this is Monica’s second season of touring with Teatro Milagro.

Giovanni Alva, Estefano & teaching artist, is a graduate from Humboldt State with a Bachelor in Theatre Arts. He is also an improv actor, originally from San Diego, California.

Shenekah Telles, Josefina & teaching artist, is an actor from Las Cruces, New Mexico with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Portland. In addition to acting, she brings to Milagro skills in costume and make-up design.

Tom Brokaw begins his lecture with a humorous discussion of his transition into retirement as one of the leading American television journalists of the late 20th century. He turns his attention to more serious subjects following this, focusing the remainder of his talk on the major social developments of the 20th century, how these have shaped the attitudes and actions of Americans today, and what he hopes is to come for the nation as it heads farther into the 21st century.

As a journalist and as a citizen—as a husband, as a father, and as a grandfather—I have been trying to think about how we can help create a new national dialogue about America going into the twenty-first century.”

“I thought about these winds of change that had swept about America and around the world during the 1950s and then picked up pace and velocity and effect as we moved into the 21st century. And I came home not just as a journalist, but as a grandfather now, and I looked at my four darling, whip-smart granddaughters, and I thought, 40 years from now, if they have this same kind of reflective moment, what will they say about what we left them? How did we prepare their future? What is our legacy? Will we be able to extend what the greatest generation gave to us? And I must say, I was not entirely confident about that.”

“We have been witness, wherever we are in this country, in the last ten years to an increasingly polarized political culture—a determination not to find common ground, a retreat, if you will, across the political spectrum to the far corners of the room in which the operating ethos of the day is to shout but not to listen.”

Tom Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known for anchoring the NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He worked as a news editor for a television station in Omaha, Nebraska, before leaving in 1965 to anchor the late evening news for a television station in Atlanta, where he reported on the Civil Rights Movement. He joined NBC in 1966 and served as NBC’s White House correspondent during the Watergate scandal. From 1976 to 1982, he was a host of NBC’s popular morning program, Today. As a co-anchor of the Nightly News, Brokaw covered such historic events as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Persian Gulf War, and he hosted documentaries on such current event issues as global warming and the Iraq War. His books include The Greatest Generation (1998), Boom!: Voices of the Sixties (2007), and The Time of Our Lives: A Conversation About America (2011). A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland (2002) and A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope (2015) documented his childhood and his battle with cancer, respectively. Brokaw received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.