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I have Alicia ANSTEAD in for a Cali cause this is the Cali cause of the show. The MIT museum is now home to 70 years of Polaroid history among the archives from polarized lenses to car headlights. The instant camera is probably the most recognized and revered the one step wonder is both. Darkroom. Magically dispensing images that materialize before our eyes within seconds. To take stock of this integration. We're talking to Cambridge portrait photographer elso Dorfman about her 30 year relationship with a large format Polaroid instant camera. But first it's a conversation with artist. She's a novelist screenwriter and co-founder of a writing lab for young people. Her new book The lovers around her trilogy of women in crisis. Up next Polaroid and prose. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst. A tropical depression off the coast of the

Bahamas is moving toward the Gulf of Mexico that's already forcing some crews to hold oil cleanup. And as NPR's Larry Abramson reports from New Orleans it could also force BP to reopen the well that has been plugged since last week. BP and the Coast Guard have already decided to suspend work on the relief wells that are expected to close at the leaking well completely. Workers placed a temporary plug in one relieve bore which is only a few feet from the well that has leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. BP says that rough weather could four surface ships back to shore and could require the removal of the cap that stopped the flow of oil only last week. Officials have also discussed leaving the cap in place and monitoring it from a distance. There is concern that bad weather could add weeks to the time it will take to get a permanent seal on the well. Larry Abramson NPR News New Orleans. Fire officials in New York City say a fast moving house fire on Staten Island killed a mother and her four young children and ers Margot Adler reports the cause of the fire is

under investigation. The fire. Fighters got the call at 4 in the morning the fire was considered very heavy when the firefighters arrived on the scene and it was under control an hour and a half later. It was one of the deadliest fires that residents of Staten Island could remember. All the tenants in the other three apartments of the two storey building got out safely. Police on the scene said they were able to save three families and four or five kids but the ceiling was caving in as they tried to save the last family. Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said there was no evidence of a smoke detector in the apartment and the family could have been saved. The four children who died ranged in age from 2 to 14. Margot Adler NPR News New York. New claims for unemployment rose sharply last week. The Labor Department says thirty seven thousand more people filed for benefits to a seasonally adjusted four hundred sixty four thousand people. Hugh Johnson of Johnson Illington Advisors says the jump in jobless claims is another sign of economic trouble. The recovery seems to have stalled out and we've had a very. Chairman Bernanke of the Federal

Reserve has been saying very. On certain time in our economic history this is a top period soft patch is probably putting it nicely. The increase comes after claims fell steeply two weeks ago to their lowest level since August of 2008. General Motors plans to buy America credit for three and a half billion dollars that's a deal allowing the automaker to expand loans to people with poor credit and offer more leases but it also means GM is getting back into the business of risky loans. And though government approval is not required GM did notify the U.S. Treasury of the plan the government owns 61 percent of the automaker stocks on Wall Street surging today largely ignoring the jobless claims the drop in homeless home sales rather. The Dow right now is up 209 points the NASDAQ up 52 the S&P 500 is up 24. This is NPR. He's about to turn 79 and he says it's time for rest. Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu says he is retiring from public life later this year. The former Anglican Bishop of Cape Town

plans to retire on his birthday October 7th. He says he wants to slow down and spend more time with his family. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 using his international standing to rally against apartheid. The International Court of Justice in The Hague today ruled that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 was not in violation of international law. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports. The decision by the 15 judge panel of the united nation's highest court is officially non-binding but it could set a precedent for separatist regions throughout the world. The ruling will be cheered in costs of oing could convince more nations to now recognize the Balkan state. Up to now only 69 of the United Nations 192 members have recognized Kosovo's independence in 1909 after a decade of Belgrade's repressive rule over Kosovo. NATO bombed Serbia for three months to end a brutal Serbian crackdown against Kosovo guerrillas and the civilian population 10000 Albanians were killed in close to a million forced from their homes. The ruling comes as a

disappointment for Serbia which considers Kosovo its spiritual heartland. Belgrade which had the support of Russia China and India claimed Kosovo secession was a violation of its territorial integrity. Sylvia Poggioli NPR News. Oil prices are ending edging higher today benchmark crude for September delivery is up forty seven cents to seventy seven dollars three cents a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in midday trading. European markets are also higher today following Wall Street the DAX is up more than 2 percent. I'm Janine Herbst NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the William T Grant Foundation supporting research to improve the lives of young people online at W.T. Grant Foundation dot org. Good afternoon. This is the Kelly Crossley Show. I'm Alicia ANSTEAD sitting in for

Cali Crossley. We're listening to music by the Met Levy dervishes of Turkey where writer Venda love sets her new novel The Lovers. It is also a screenwriter and editor of The Monthly magazine the believer and co founder of 826 Valencia a writing lab for kids ages 8 to 18 beat his latest book The lovers rounds out her trilogy on women in crisis as the protagonist a widow in her 50s who returns to the Turkish coastal village where she and her late husband honeymoon Vandeleur Veda welcome. Thank you we're so happy to have you here today. I'm excited that this is your third novel you must be very excited to to have three books out there. I'm excited to be done with it. Let's talk a little bit about the story itself let's flesh it out just a little bit for us of a mill. OK Vaughn is the protagonist of the lovers and she's 53 years old and the mother of grand twins and she's been a widow for two years her husband Peter died in a

tragic accident. And she at the start of the book she returns to the coastal town in Turkey a town called dacha which is right where the Aegean the Mediterranean meet in the southwest corner of Turkey. And she goes there because that's where she and her husband Peter honeymoon 28 years before and she has recently begun to view her marriage in a new light. And she wants to go back to the place where it started to kind of better understand how it might have unraveled. And why did you decide to choose Turkey as a setting for this you could have had to go anywhere in the world. It was completely by accident actually I I went to Turkey when I was finishing my last novel Let the Northern Lights a race your name which is set above the Arctic Circle in Lapland. And it's takes place in the winter. And I like to be as far away. You know we moved from the places I'm writing about as it possibly can be in Turkey in the summer seemed about as far away from Lapland as I could get. So I went there with no intention of writing about Turkey and took no notes when I was there.

And then two years later when I was starting a new novel which I thought was going to be set in Croatia actually the town that we had visited and this odd house was dated and kept presenting themselves in my mind. And suddenly I knew that that's where I was going to set this novel. We're often told that we should write about what we know about. And you're writing about a woman in her 50s and you're in your 30s and you're writing about Turkey and you're an American writer writing about America interim America and okay okay fair enough. How did how did you come to know about these two parts of your novel. So again in character and that's a great question. The character goes out of the setting. I mean usually start novels with a setting in mind. And what happened was I As I mentioned I was in Turkey to finish my previous book. And I went back there when I decided as an aside a novel that I realized well I took no notes when I was there so I have to go back and I went back to the Sansa writer's trick right like how just how. And to this town dacha again in 2007 and

I found it was not at all as I remembered it. A lot had changed it seemed to me in and the town which had once felt very European old European to me in its charm it has prominent odd and a very few tourists have become a lot more touristy in kind of seedy and also very loud. You know a lot of people on the beaches which were very filthy playing loud music and I wondered how much of it changed in reality and how much of it I've just been my new glow a Rosie interview no outlook on it when I was first there I was. When I was first there was pregnant with my first child everything was very you know exciting. And so I started I began to think well what kind of person would return to a town and be very disappointed to find that it was not as it once was. And in that by raising that question I came up with the character of Yvonne I thought someone would honeymoon there I was going back there and and found that she'd changed. Would that be a good character for this town and they seem to fit together. And I want to write about someone older than myself because I've always written about

women who are about 10 years younger than I am. And I felt like it would be a new challenge for me to write about someone older and I think we all have parts of ourselves that are younger or older and so I kind of just tapped into the part of me that's a 53 year old woman. Well surely. You understand what it's like to be an American in another country and that is very very clear from the challenges that your character faces in trying to understand the culture around her. Were you worried in doing the writing that you were doing in the research that you were doing that you might not get turkey right. I think that's kind of advantage of having a tourist be visiting country don't have you can see show everything through their eyes I certainly had to do a lot of research when I was there and talk with a lot of people and like with any novel I think you do 10 times more research than actually appears in the book and you almost have to be careful to not make your book into a history lesson or a little show that says hey look at all this research I did you know you have to kind of filter your

facts and you know sometimes you end up just writing one sentence about a topic that you've researched pretty thoroughly. How did you do the research on the law. I talk to a lot of people when I was there. I also fact checked a lot of contact even the travel agency even who you know who are turkish I. Read a lot. I did all the things you do as a writer when you're trying to pretend you're working when you don't actually want to write. And how did you how did you first develop Yvonne I mean you talked about the setting she came out of the setting but how did you begin to shape her. That's a great question too. Well even the fact that she has twins came out the setting because dacha has a town that's on the other side of the peninsula called you dos that is everything dachas Knott's a very wealthy port that people in the yachting community often stop at and it's very beautiful and has an old amphitheater from the headline at times and the Hellenic period and I so I think because of these twin towns I made her have twins and still I didn't have anyone in

mind when I was creating Yvonne. And I've never started a character without some basis I mean you know informative person who kind of just lends a few details to a character. And so I would just take I would just sit and brainstorm a lot OK what where where she from what her parents like how she been through menopause I mean all these questions that you ask yourself as a writer and I also did a lot of research on menopause and remedies and ended up only putting one line in the book about it but those are the kinds of things you do when you're really trying to figure out your character. I also was fortunate and that I'm in a writing group with about eight other writers in the Bay Area where I live and. In the same scope area and I didn't really think about this when I was starting the book but a lot of the women in my writing group are around a Vons age and that end up to be a very fortuitous for me. I feel because they could kind of fact check the book and they were they could assure me that certain details were right and they you know the only comment they really had was one

day Yvonne goes for a long drive and goes for a swim and gets you know she wins her car and all these things happen and a writer in my group said You know that's absolutely fine she can do all those things but just make sure at the end of the day she's really exhausted so I just put a line in there that said she was going to say she was exhausted but something to communicate that if you had to characterize Yvonne or a group of women in their 50s that Yvonne might represent. How would you describe them because she's a unique kind of 50 year old 53 year old woman. What are the qualities you think represent her represent her. You know I can only speak for her but I think that she's someone who has been going along in her life and not really even though she's a teacher of history she hasn't been looking back on it with a lot of introspection and till this point two years after her husband dies. And she's someone who I think allowed her husband her husband to tell the story of their marriage and their lives and frame it in a certain way. And I was thinking about how there's even a

line in the book about how they divided the household chores in that way and even that came down to the fact that when they represented their lives to other people he was the one who kind of packaged the story. And I thought well what would happen to her now that she's actually able to tell the story and how would she see it. And so for me if she's at a point just where this crisis or her husband passing away actually makes her look back at her whole life with different eyes with a clearer vision. And we should also mention that you Vonn. It's not just her husband who has a louder voice than she maybe in their family life but she has one golden sun and one less than golden daughter at least for in the history of the book the daughters is afflicted with addiction issues. And it seems to me that she really hasn't had a chance in life. To be fully in her own agency and she really stumbles doesn't she in Turkey.

She does stumble and I thought that was actually it. You know I think in Turkey is where she really realizes who she is and I think that happens to a lot of people actually why they like to travel. You start to view who you are in your your home life a little differently and since that all comes into place for her in Turkey surely her anchors come up. Exactly yes right right great description. You have written about women who have faced grief and sadness. And your books have been these three novels have been described as a trilogy. Could you explain that. I think there are very I think of them as a very loose trilogy The three books being and now you can go let the Northern Lights or race or name and now the lovers and a loose trilogy mean they're not about the same characters. You don't have to read one to you know to read another or to understand another. But I'm a huge Philip Roth fan and I really love his trilogy about American life and politics books that include Human Stain American Pastoral and I married a communist. And I think each of those books are wonderful when met on their own but there's something about reading them together that really makes them add up to more than the

sum of their parts. And I think in reading these three books together I was fully aware of the fact that I was writing about women who have experienced some act of violence and are in the process of forgiving forgiving so in some ways they're about violence and forgiveness but they're also about women in crisis and I think I started the trilogy idea because I'm a Philip Roth fan. Yes but also because when I got toward the end of my first novel and now you can go. I had that sensation I think a lot of writers experience we think oh no I didn't get everything that I wanted to get into this book. And so I kind of tried to liberate myself by saying OK I'll write a trilogy. And that of course put a lot of pressure on the on the last book. Right but that's I mean this is a case where more is more right. You're happy to have more stories to tell you. Tell me just quickly about the Philip Roth attraction I've really struggled with Philip Roth and I admire him as a writer but I sometimes get derailed by his themes.

What's your attraction to him. I really love the way that rage and humor can be so in you know connected in his fiction and I feel that's true in real life and something that I tried to do a lot of in my first two books in particular and kind of show where that intersection is I think it's a very fine line and how difficult circumstances can lend themselves to humorous situations and funny comments. Great. Great. And. Well let's let's let's take a break. I'm speaking with the end of libido and her latest novel is the lovers. We'll be back after this break. Stay tune to eighty nine point seven. Support for WGBH comes from you and from circus Marcus. The

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It was the ultimate birthday present. Your support helped. Eighty nine point seven connect your community with the world. Of the next. Actor Robert Duvall talks about his film career and why he likes to do things himself on camera. I dance the two step and I like to do my own dancing my own horsemanship and my own singing in a movie. Robert Duvall has a new film called Get Low. Join us. Get to the WGBH antiques and collectibles auction bid now for some great deals including 1052 NTT roadster a special thanks to the European watch company and custom restoration specialties. It's all happening now until August 3rd at auction to be GBH dot org. I'm Alicia ANSTEAD sitting in for Cali Crossley This is the Cali Crawl's Early Show.

If you're just tuning in my guest is writer Rivendell of PETA. Her latest book is The lovers Venda libido is also a screenwriter editor and a co-founder of the writing lab for kids. 826 Valencia. When the well let's hear a little bit of this book but before we do I need to ask you a question that's just been burning in my head ever since I saw your book arrive on my doorstep. Were you influenced by Marguerite Dura in her book called The Lovers. I was very much so and in fact you were asking a little bit earlier about how I develop characters and something I was thinking about was what kind of book would Yvonne bring with her on this trip to Turkey. And the first book that came to mind is that she would bring Margaret draws book The lover and I did this because that book is about an older woman looking back on her life and her relationships. One main relationship and the more I thought about it the more I began to realize how much that book had in common with this book in very subtle very subtle ways and I don't say directly in my novel what

book she's reading but there are several hints that she's reading Marguerite Ross book and after a while I just book some help. To give you titles that you don't even necessarily choose but this one I just felt like the title had to be the levers not only because it paid tribute to that book but also because I think the word lovers can either be the most wonderful world word in the world or if it doesn't include you can actually be the most lonely word. And everywhere Yvonne go she seeing couples and lovers and she's not a part of it. And so that's why I called it the lovers. Well I love that phonetic sound of it too which which breaks down to two other words which is love her which is of course what she needs to focus on in her life now. Right. One of those parts of herself that maybe she's left by the wayside in the work of her family life. And I'd like to pretend that I have thought of that. I'm glad you don't now all go around saying. Hello when you read a little bit of the beginning of the book for us please share. This is from the very start. When half an hour had passed and there was still

no sign of a white Renault Yvonne began to fear she been scammed. Her flight from Istanbul was the last of the day and the small Dolman airport was beginning to empty. She stood outside under a pink veined sky looking for anybody who appeared to be looking for her. There was no one but taxi drivers announcing. I TAKE YOU ARE MY mean the equivalent she re-entered the terminal hoping she'd missed seeing Mr cell ex-employee who she'd been told would be holding a piece of paper bearing her name. But the only visible sign was a large poster on the wall. Turkey where East meets West on the poster two figures each holding a briefcase were walking toward each other on a bridge. She opened her laptop to consult her last email from Mr Selleck and immediately regretted it. A pair of young men in tracksuits were staring at her. Now a woman pushing a mop was also her looking her way. Peter would have disapproved. They travel to 9 to 10 now 11 countries join the 26 years of marriage and have been proud of

their and ability to go unnoticed. This was her first trip since his death and already she was breaking their rules. So she's breaking the rules but what's going to happen is that she's going to become undone by these unfamiliar markers around her or at least in part yes that fear that you captured was really strong in this in this novel I mean that sense of watching whirling dervishes but also kind of being a whirling loose figure in the world. Have you felt that before when you traveled. You know I felt that a little bit when I travel for the third time to Turkey when I was writing this book I was I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with my second child. And I just finished rereading A Passage to India and I felt when I was reading that I had to have my character go to a cave to finish the famous cave a scene I thought Gosh Yvonne is so emotionally in a cave I actually want to physically place her there. But I had not been to the cave district of Turkey which is capital. And so I went there

in the last week that I could travel when I was that pregnant and. And I remember going to Konya this town where the Whirling Dervishes are and where they have want to is very you know thats where the Mevlana museum is and roomy as we call it here and I remember it was so hot and I got very lost in that town and the great thing about being a writer is as discombobulated as I felt the whole time I was there. I was taking notes and thinking I'm going to use this. So that was that was actually a great research trip. You know have had a terrible day. Yeah well. That's a perfect segue for us to talk about other work that you do as an editor and as a supporter of young writers and their work. There are many many people who find writing a completely decent arraign experience that makes them feel very lost but you and I both know as do many many people who are listening that there's a real discovery in writing. Could you tell us a little bit about 26 Valencia and about the work that you do there and about your

beliefs that inform that work. Ok I am on the board and also a teacher at 86 Valencia in San Francisco which is a nonprofit writing lab for kids between the ages of 8 and 18. And basics of everything is free there. The kids come in and get one on one help with their writing whether it's creative writing or homework assignments or if they're extra help or help or if they're writing a novel if they're 15 or writing a novel and have nowhere else to go they come to us. And I'm. Primarily and exclusively involve with eight to six months in San Francisco but there are now locations across the country including Boston. Yes he's a great great place. I hope you all check it out. And I am very passionate primarily about a class I teach every fall which is called Writing the college admissions essay. And so I've been working with the students since 2001 and helping them with their college admissions essays.

And when you teach them about college admission essays give us a couple of points that you always make sure that they know before they leave your presence. Well there are a lot of don't you know a lot of things to avoid in this. And this information I called in talking to a lot of readers of college admissions people who look in the U.S. system and another you know great institutions and they. Kind of they told me when I was first talking to him about certain essays to avoid which really surprised me they said Oh tell them not to vote not to write about the summer I went to Mexico and built a school. And it's really nice. We get so many of those the summer vacation essays and they said also tell them to avoid the essay about the goal that changed my life. Unless they're a really great athlete and their goal in going to college is to play seriously. We see that as a way to many times and so when I tell my students that the start of every class every you know the start every September or October when we start the sessions. I see this look of dismay on their faces and you can tell they were all going to write those kinds of essays but I think

we can we can go through their lives and find other things that are more unique to them that really help them form a personal essay that I think can really make a difference and help them stand out. And the youngest writers you have are eight years old and very impressed that you're starting children that young and taking themselves seriously as writers. Let's listen to one of those clips that features your 8 to 6 Valencia also does podcast on its website. And this is a young man who's 11 years old. He has decided that the technical capability of young people ages 11 and around that age are under appreciated by the teachers and adults around him and he has something to say about it. But you know today tonight. In the world of the Internet during the World of the Internet. My fourth grade class my teacher wanted kids to help her with anything having to do with the computer program or specialist. Now remember these are kids performing jobs that are vital to the running of the class to teach them.

Last year my substitute teacher was having trouble setting up the VCR so she called in the help of the custodian an adult he can fix the problem. Then she called in a really smart kid nicknamed encyclopedias. Guess what. He picks the U.S. army parade. Recently I asked for a guitar teacher if I could bring him to tell the truth for a new song on one floor and. She said no. She didn't understand how to read the tablature. Finally I thought. She was the teacher and guess what have you got talent. Sure on my own until I saw the uni to do very ready rooms in the. It's alright but there isn't room. For you but he never tells me. You're just a kid when you know. I want to ride along. So that's 11 year old Joseph a writer eight to six Valencia in San Francisco. Tell us how you get these stories out of kids. I think there's a lot to be gained by just sitting down with a kid one on one and really looking at them and we don't start office and lots of computers and finally we decide we actually like to put them to the side

because the kids didn't necessarily want to use them and we realized important thing with them to tell their story was really feel like there was an adult there who really want to listen and help them craft their story and I think if you just listen to what a kid has to say it's amazing the stories they come they tell you and the same thing applies to you to try and draw out kids that topic for their college applications if you really you know sometimes these kids are having older kids now too but they don't realize what's so interesting about themselves they think oh I had one student who said well you know I've been working at the zoo since I was six but you know it's not really interesting. I said Really you don't think that's interesting and she said do you think it's interesting and I said Yeah I think that's very interesting especially given that you want to be a veterinarian and and I think that she found a lot of affirmation and authority in the fact that someone an adult said no your interests are of value and that's a great story. But Bendel is a great validation for you as a writer to hold your books in your hand as a degree of validation I have.

I don't know if it's a great validation. I do know you know there's nothing better than having a finished book especially if every time I get to the end of a book I think I'm never doing this again. It's so hard it took so much work it was so much harder than I ever thought it was going to be. What do you mean when you say it's hard it's hard just in the term in terms of I think the editing process is really hard it's hard when you. I don't mind a writer who maps out my plots ahead of time because I think that takes some of the fun out of it and some of the surprise and for me personally I feel like I can tell sometimes when I'm reading a book that the author is meticulously plotted because I can feel they're just trying to get from point A to B. But that can also be part of the struggle when you get halfway through a book and you think OK now the knot has been tied as Aristotle said. And the trick is actually figure out how to untie the knot and that is that can be the hardest part of a book and you're not the only person writing in your household and you have two young children.

Tell us a little bit about what that family life is like and how you find the time and space to write. I have a 1 year old and a 4 year old and I'm also married to a writer and I think that being an author actually is a very is a is a great profession for our mothers. But I think you know it's also it's very challenging as you have self discipline issues. And one thing that we do in our household that no one can believe that this is actually we do we don't have any Internet. And so I'm actually the weird person he'll see outside the local carpet store at 11 o'clock at night kind of bumming their Internet access and trying to get my email. But I find it very very efficient to actually do your email in a parked car in a parking lot 11:00 at night because you don't want to spend a lot of time downloading videos or looking up other extraneous links. And I'm sorry why don't you have why fire at your house. It's more distracting Oh yeah. I think we had it for a month and we just got nothing done that month. I think I watched a lot of videos and I loved when I was 18 but I I found it even if I would tell myself I was only going to spend five minutes returning an email I would end up spending an hour and a

half. And I think when you don't have a lot of time in the day which I don't between various jobs I have. It really helps ensure that at least have two hours to write every day. Sure we should mention too that both your work at Valencia and as a writer you and your husband work together and we should mention your husband is Dave Eggers another well-known writer and I want to I want to just finish out our time together. There's so much more that we could say about your book and about writing but my next guest is a photographer named elso Dorfman who's been doing her work for many years and she was associated with the Beat Generation. And she said to me a while ago. She said at the time we were just living. Did we think it would add up to anything. No but we stayed friends for 40 years. That was how we lived. You're in a great group of the San Francisco Bay Writers. Do you feel that it will all add up to something and if so what would you like. All that great writing that you're

doing and the support that you're giving to other writers what would you like that to add up to. Gosh you know I don't know what I want but I know I do know what the believer with. The literary and arts magazine I at it I do feel like it adds up to one big long conversation both with my CO editors and with our writers and with our readers and for me that's what makes it worthwhile. Great great. Well Venda Levine we're delighted to have you here. I've been talking with writer Venda libido Her latest book is The Lovers. You can catch her tonight live set at 7:00 p.m. at the Brookline Booksmith excuse me the Brookline Booksmith and tomorrow night at 7 at the Odyssey bookshop in South Hadley. And it will be to thank you so much for joining us. Up next it's a Cambridge portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman on the Polaroid instant camera. Stay with us. With. With.

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62. You can learn more at Newbury CT dot org at Deaconess abundant life community. Monday morning. What are you going to remember from your weekend. Turns out that only amps and humans have full scale impersonal warfare where masses of individuals go after each other. And that's because ants and human have larger societies than anything else up to millions of individuals. Stories are not going to forget coming up this weekend on the new eighty nine point seven. WGBH radio. Eighty nine point seven WGBH radio makes you do more than listen it makes you think about things in a whole new way. It introduces you to people on the other side of the world. It makes you understand different ideas a little better than you did before. It makes you laugh. And dance and sing. Cry and. Listener supported eighty nine point seven WGBH. It's for people who do more than just listen.

Why is 9.7. Because the way some Kenyans run out is there but maybe better for their bodies than running in shoes because you'll only hear Marco Werman and the world on the new eighty nine point seven. WGBH Radio One of my God you have just taken your first picture with a Polaroid picture. Patients symptoms come on the well if you just press the button. No focusing. Minutes later the Polaroid 1000 if you were going to cut a good heavens think it's nice you know the camera couldn't lie you know it's a young Dolly. I'm Alicia ANSTEAD sitting in for Cali Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. You may recognize the mechanical sound in the TV commercial for the Polaroid 1000 which was popular in the 1970s. The MIT museum is now home to an archive of more than 70 years of Polaroid history including the famous Polaroid instant

camera. Joining me to take stock of this one step wonder is Cambridge portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman. She's been working with the Polaroid 20 by 20 for instant cameras since 1980. Elsa Dorfman a big welcome to you. I think it's great to see you. Elsa you've been in love with this camera for 30 years. Tell us how you got there. Tell us about what the camera looks like first of all. OK. The camera looks like I was going to say count how many times I see. OK. The camera looks like your refrigerator. It's on on the wheels of the supermarket basket. It weighs 200 pounds it has very long bellows that are about 40 inches. They can go from 40 inches if you doing a close up to about eight inches if you're far away and. It is just amazing the pictures come out in 80

seconds and you peel its appeal apart like the open Holroyd you peel it apart and then you can show someone a picture and its 23 by a 36 hour forward. Its very big and its very dramatic and it was made by Edwin Land when he invented Polaroid color film and color film was a huge deal. And what he wanted to do was show that you couldnt tell the difference between an original painting and something made with his Polaroid color film. So he had his technicians at his instruction. Make a camera that would take a very big picture and he took a picture borrowed a picture from the Museum of Fine Arts for his annual meeting which was always very dramatic. It was like before television so

everybody from all over the country would go and he put on an easel you know a picture of flowers. And then he did it with his Holroyd and then he said can you tell the difference between the switch tween has a Tony. Can you tell the difference between the real thing and the Polaroid. And he was obsessed with this idea of copying art because he felt that that scholars could see things closer with his camera than they could. You know with their eyes. And he even took the camera to do like the top of the Sistine Chapel. I mean he really he was he. When I first started there was a camera in the basement of the Museum of Fine that was very oriented. Also I think that this this collection of these archival pieces at M.I.T. which will be in an exit Bishan several

years from now in 2013 will give us the opportunity to go back and re-examine the word and the notion of instantaneous. Because when the Polaroid came out that was as instantaneous as we got. And now with technology and computers instantaneous is not 90 seconds. It's less than a second. No no no because in 90 seconds you get a piece of paper you get a picture. But now instantaneous. You see it on your little screen but you have nothing in your hand to get something in your hand from your instantaneous digital. You have a whole nother sequence to go through. So it's still the mock of instantaneous. However when they do do that show this is a sad thing that those will be dead artifacts because there's no film for any of those cameras.

Tell us what's going on with that with the film situation for Polaroid users. Well it is so complicated because Polaroid it's even hard for me to keep it straight. There are several permutations of Polaroid and the Edwin Land Polaroid ended and then the brand name of Polaroid has been sold successively to different companies. So at one permutation they whoever owned the company then decided they were going to make a film Polaroid film anymore. And they basically. Dear I use the word trashed trashed all the equipment that made this marvelous Polaroid. There was one stash of equipment and one factory in the

Netherlands that were bought by other people and the stash for the 20 by 24 was bought and saved and the owners of Polaroid that Polaroid let us have the equipment that went with the film. When you say let us explain who you mean you have a collective a collective of people who run by John ruder who is like this genius dedicated intuitive wonderful photographer but also really a scientist who was able to model people who had retired from Polaroid and get them to help him people who were involved in Polaroid who were so devoted so devoted to Dr. Land and so devoted. You don't see that now no. And maybe the people at Amazon are devoted or you know at Apple they commit suicide

can't be Apple I don't know what you're trying to put it. If you know anybody who's in the AF or you know a very devoted group of people so then then they're like that because in many ways Apple is like Polaroid sure. So what do you mean when you say that also. Well in this sense of design and commitment to design and commitment to the consumer and commitment sort of to the arts making it the kind of products that people in the ads will want and will use. Also do you know how many portraits you've taken since 1980 or approximately. I think about 4000. And how many more can you take with this finite amount of material. The idea is 30 pictures in a case so I can maybe a thousand. Because nobody can use more. It's a finite amount of film and so it

can't be a hog. You know I want it all right. You have said that with your subjects you'd like them to wear clothes and that your work is about affection and survival. I'd like to read a comment that was made by the documentary filmmaker Errol Morris whose portrait you've done several times and whom you helped out during fog of war by taking a photograph of McNamara McNamara. Errol Morris said of Elsa Dorfman. I've had my picture taken by a fair number of people. The closest thing I can compare it to is avid on in the way she works. There's something about being an extended family. Elsa has this extraordinary presence this welcoming presence. You feel like you're being brought into the community of the people whose photos are on the wall. And there are hundreds of them. Tell us what happens when we walk into your studio and have you take our picture.

Well by the 20 by 24 is big and needs a lot of light so the 20 by 24 is always in the studio and I have a studio that's in the basement of an office building in Cambridge and you it is something about getting off the elevator and knowing you're in the basement of a sub. It's very subterranean and I have I have a studio and it's jam full of postcards and props and chairs for people to sit on in little tiny Victorian coach. And it's a very comforting situation. And that's not only my studio every studio with a 20 by 24 is has to have sort of that ambience because it needs all this light. It doesn't need daylight so it's never in you know daylight. And so it's very embracing.

And since I do people and families I know exactly what Errol means and I think it will be. Like the summation and sentence of my work and I did the interesting thing is that I did that even in the sixties when I did black and whites I did them all in my house and so my house was like my studio and it did have this family. Arra of all people who knew each other of a family and since my work if I were a sociologist everybody comes from knowing someone else or hearing something you probably could map a cluster so that it could be like a 1990s family so to speak. So it does have that and I think certain people and I'm one of them have this.

Bull on or a learned behavior. Always creating little families. I think it comes I was brought up in Boston at a time when I lived in Roxbury and Roxbury was like a Stadol And I think I have a shtetl mentality. Well after you grew up in Boston you went away to New York for just a little period of time but it was enough to have you engage in a very heady group of artists there. When you came back part of that extended family here in the Boston area you live in Cambridge included Allen Ginsburg and Robert Creeley great poets of that time period. And what was that scene like for you Elsa. Well I always wanted to be arty. So it was. Hang on hang on. What does that mean. Well in one thousand fifty nine. Artie was the opposite of immediately getting married and having children.

So Art equals independent. So are the minutes not living in your mother's house. Are the men and having an apartment with friends. It was unheard of and you couldn't be arty and not live in your mother's house and stay in Boston. That would be a scandal. She's not living with the lane and I after I mean it would be so in a way I had no choice but to move to New York because I couldn't live in but I couldn't imagine it. So I moved to New York and I got a job at Grove Press. And Grove Press was the publisher of the Evergreen Review and very important landmark books and I was the secretary because it was nothing else. Anybody with a B.A. who is a woman would be even at an enlightened group of people. And so I was the girl Friday it was called. I wasn't even Secretary.

And so I was the girl Friday to the editorial department and I worked there for a year and I arranged poetry readings which I kept on doing and that was like a huge turn in my life. And you. You managed to have enough of a connection with the people you met in New York so that they all came to visit you in Cambridge which I think helped create that community around your artwork and it seems to me to help put you in a milieu that supported you as an art right. Right. Because those people like Ginsburg increasingly. Ferlinghetti Robert Bly. They they were at the same time in their personal life I think they were toxic for women in relation to me. They were very supportive and paternal and they themselves were like a family. They created a family for themselves of themselves and of course that was very for me

to jump into because I had those same family steadily yearnings or talents or inclination inclination probably so. So that that that was how it happened. I think also you just to go back to your portrait photography for just a moment. You have we talked about your 20 by 24 Polaroid. It's one of six existing cameras of this size in the world and you continue to take photographs with it but you've not really found your way with digital cameras as much. No I haven't found my way with the digital cameras and yet you love your iPhone. I love my iPhone. I love my little tiny Olympus 35 Millot millimeter that must be about 25 years old. I have a wide Lux that I love film cameras I just. But

I think and I love my computer so it isn't that I'm a computer phobe. I think that my eye has been hit on something that I really love enough to take a digital picture to printed to me that it's the print so to me the whole story isn't taking the picture and then downloading it to my computer. So I think it's an emotional thing I haven't been drawn into it. I still have a stash of little Polaroid film. You know I think not even four by five is smaller. And and I love taking them they're like little jewels and I would be happy happy if the iPhone had like a Polaroid printer. That was the size of say a cigarette pack that could give me a print. The minute I took the picture.

OK all you Apple people out there get busy figuring that one out. That would be a great little it would be handy I see the huge app. But you know Hugh I wonder if anything will revolutionize. Photography as much as the Polaroid and digital photography have I mean those are two very very big steps. What about CAD. The CAD computer stuff for architects That's huge. Or in printing itself the line to type machining to a computer printing it's hat breaking. But I think you know it's taken a lot of industries and that's what's happened. It's very creepy for me to have this happen to me. But in my field but I think it's just it's an American story I think. I think it's an American

waiting for Robert kero story. Well you know heartbreak is almost always accompanied by Discovery and the digital world has thrust us all into a world of discovery. Right but we haven't let go yet have We're also realists moments of technology that you fall in love with. Also just quickly tell me what makes good art. Just jump right into the biggest field Suffolk question. Well I think it's different for everybody. Don't you think. I think people see differently. And so I I I don't think this is an E answer. If there were any answer I'd be more than a photographer I'd be a philosopher. I I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if someday they said oh people who go to one side of the room and the other side of the other room their perceptions are different. And so we don't probably see the same way.

Right. Right. Are you happy with the work that you chose. Has it been fulfilling to you is it fulfilling to you to do this work. I have felt like I'm the luckiest person in the world and that I have the most wonderful clients who select me and they share how they feel about their families with me. And they come always come at times it mean a lot either their mother is 95 or they know they're dying or the whole gamut. And it means the world to me to have these people come. I love the people that come to me and tell us a couple of the people the famous people besides Errol Morris you photographed Well the truth. I'm not into fame. I'm sort of into the fame so I really downplay the people who are famous.

Well Elsa Dorfman you're one of the famous artists in Cambridge Massachusetts thank you so much for joining us we've been talking with also Dore Dorfman a portrait photographer a former Girl Friday and a true cultural trailblazer an artist. You can visit her website at Elsa Dorfman dot com. I'm Alicia ANSTEAD in for Cali causally. This is the Cali Crossley Show where a production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture and today the arts. The air.