Interview with Alan Rudolph on Tom Robbins, Tape 20

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how what was that how come tom is a good friend of mine because he's one of the most likeable and stimulate people i know excuse sir thomas says much fun itself as mount st helens you know he he knows a lot and debt and he's not pushy about it and days wise tom is what is to come is wickedly wise and he's a wizard of words and day out putting prognosticate are and you're eccentric and a snappy dresser and he's also i think of my taste one most important american writers of any time well because he tells the truth and he respects is he respects the essence of life and the rest of it he knows the job because

you have the one car get on bainbridge island is writing and why do you say his last word life it i think is one of the most important american writer certainly but nobody ever really i mean what he does with words he respects that it respects language and he has a tremendous sense of humor and that is a great teller of tales and nothing seems to frighten him in terms of subject i mean he's picked out story subjects that i would fight we didn't think of those things i would know where to go with it and i just think he's really why the case against his last day later in his plots against the head of i don't know if he had spots i think what you do is you have a beginning i don't i can't talk about tom's process i think is probably more mysterious than in sanskrit but at aei is the

book's her life as a reader not as a kafir thousand observers were how i think what he does is he is books are now plots entirely you could shrink them the reader's digest version of tom robinson told rob would be those plots themselves but actually i think it's the roots in the end and his flight suit of brilliance that that most people buy his books for it's the other stuff and but he really can't come up with that story or two that you just don't worry but it takes a lot to write i'm not living up and novelist spoke to and that i think is the central america truly and in a really interesting experiment is take one of his earlier books and really again and you'll be shocked i just looked it still life with woodpecker you'd be shocked how many phrases have been

incorporated our culture that time originated i mean it is almost like shakespeare that way apple has turned bumper stickers with how can use it defines what a new land where you say that the thing that makes its chickens one on on we like each other's company think to some mutual respect her he doesnt seem to follow the crowd so your user bump into people on the fringes and he's just a really good time running any a very unpretentious about army doesn't know i'm really how funny sometimes tumbled into two mindsets that are just hysterical he has offended danny o'keefe the

songwriters and pundits gave me a new song and i just listened to have disappointed so called outlaw ms sosa it can't be an outlaw fifty a one of many more stuff maybe i gather people on the fringes bump into each other mutual need the humanitarian use the rangers and i think he is that he says some bank and the established critics while the answer to that ulysses footprints our homes look at me he says well i think that most people are sometimes an artist and probably one that basic definitions of an artist is that there are the true artists at this is that you're not appreciating in your own time and but i don't find that true of town and i would know that if you hadn't said that i would think that thomas really praised by the critics maybe not the new york crowd because they really

write about themselves and our buddy in the reason tom would have been that critics would have difficulty with cheers because they can't take them down i can't the finance wholly original and i mean if you in the draw the broadest of strokes so you have to compare time today in a pension their burrows are you hunter thompson i suppose in some way and you can't really odd put him in a category most critics really want that easy categories has been always and most of them are lazy so they don't have to really the approach it on its own terms a work that and know your people to put labels on time but that's pretty silly eighty one when he was designer labels and that if you look closely i don't know what the labels people put on but i mean they can call him the humorist herb satirist

or whatever but i think he's said he's he writes literature i just books some cases it seems to be he's kind of the counterculture sixty in the thousands and i don't think it's a day over fifty five you have to describe you have to truly i'm not they call you you have to explain to me what the sixties are i mean i really don't know what that means time as a writer tom writer of his own there are no limits to the things he knows and what goes on between those two years i think i think again that sunniest city says that it's a lazy critic in trying to label him so that they can then approach his work from a perspective that they feel they're in control of that i think our culture's the renaissance may want to compare him to to that those writers as

opposed to a sixties rock finally bolivian that either daily on time is actually a i like the creative people seem to be formed and the first team in the teenage years i would think in a conservatory or something and the rest of this is apply what you move to what is a foreigner are being formed and i think it comes up bringing from virginia and probably and his reaction and revolution to toulouse surrounded it had more influence than almost anything else in his life they didn't agree with it in his life you can hear us at is that it did people know iranians university oh here oh you time as a nature

writer would you say is so haunting is known i think as you just didn't want to live with him and are discovering them all over the world it only other day that day is his greatest audience now our young kids and you were in college which is fantastic yeah i think i think amongst people who know i'll be no serious about about what they read but i think everyone's aware of time i think the problem with with it's truly serious you know the eggheads about his work as a student entertaining i mean it you know it i don't know if he has a big following in germany but they're probably too serious about an affair and he doesn't because sarah toms b he seems that you know everything is fair game for the for the big joke on all of us and he had the center of his work seems to be

this energy of love you know and i mean you can spin that anyway and then can come out very temporary korea but the truth remains is says is that bout is good at a goal to pursue his anything i would think but i was i think thomas a writer and certainly as well not the way to really find that out and test that his desk other poor anomalous with what they think at i would they just say that is probably very very respected by people occur fight you know who shares a the similarity in that they both find humor in the darkest places oh the times knowledge of things is really i think what would pave the road for writing so smart you know so much and he's intimidating away and got you know

just to show i really know what but i just forgot that thom really and he he he retains if he uses it he explores that and his references are are not done on the illusory and he really has historical factual and knowledge that he'd been can seem to find the essence of which is so it's so fascinating to me take any period or any moment or a hypothetical mormon and then find a taker that that's a gift and here he is he insists jeff brady npr news you're thirsty alexa well they were both there tom an old alexa alex

i were in mrs parker in the vicious circle tom also appeared in a film i made it was moving out of films made have and that was a studio singer was rather uncomfortable for me but for tom about swearing mrs parker in the vicious circle they played down the patrons of the brothel where dorothy parker robert benchley frequent in town was also in a movie called made haven't there and they and it a line in that movie that he wrote himself i play the toy maker and it says the toys are made in heaven batteries are made and help end a couple weeks ago i add ice cellars anthology famous quote books you know looking at a bookstore and that was the quote that was used then there was times quote in the book but there are is it

terrifically bad actor but i mean he's wonderful because he's naturally scum the day what if he tries to act is not very good but when he's himself is very good so like of the rest of us would be the same way but he was very good with my film is funny it's just funny is at a he can be accurate even knowing that the films that they cannot be yes you mind like a big presence that takes a big camera take it off on oh he's just i think just have a good time says it is quite good she's sort of profession but thomas i sit right in the background you know it always people playing their famous people and our time was very natural uncomfortable and funny very funny it would be a very attractive looks good but most people when they win the worst thing you can do is get somebody who's and thomas like this force whose thinks

there and i've learned just enough to be bad and you can't shake them of that you know you go to this in the small towns and shoot a film in you do you recruit the you know the local actors have been a little theater and they just horrible because they don't give her a hint of what they think it should be but people who've never acted before terrific so this was tom doesn't act allowed he'll be good to take that seriously watch out if he does need to be unfamiliar uses enough in his own house and eighty one me and the us government has ended and is there some question whether his books are being the purity and why i would love to one of these films are always filled with eyes to bed you can just be like a half liter soda and it's a long term contract with somebody

else and because i think the key to time films translating them this is to respect their history and not get too literal about it but kept the essence in the spirit of what he's doing and use the are the situations that i think you might get he did to try and follow the language to literally might be real tough because what would happen is and the dolphin would have to be i think at that level of of the seattle county which probably would be about different difficult for the lowly audie it's especially given what the other things which can accomplish that i think these books are in a translated book i did have to crack it was his books turned out pretty nice but the screenplays it you know it has to be thinking really have to be a certain kind of filmmaker to to approach that because i love with think the

screenplay is just a guide and you have to be a test of olive oil are you naked that could be will it in turn on c cover of song looking at ease that it fb

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