Episode 621
with Hanif Abdurraqib and Kristin Hersh
Critically acclaimed writer Hanif Abdurraqib unpacks his latest book, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, in which he explores his lifelong love of the game and what it means to make it; singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses discusses her new book The Future of Songwriting, where she considers how to be an artist in a commercialized music industry, before performing "I Shine" from her latest album Clear Pond Road. Plus, host Luke Burbank and Elena Passarello share what our listeners are unwavering fans of.
Hanif Abdurraqib
Writer
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. His book, A Little Devil in America, was the winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named one of the books of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Publishers Weekly writes his latest book, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, is "a triumphant meditation on basketball and belonging... the narrative works as if by alchemy, forging personal anecdotes, sports history, and cultural analysis into a bracing contemplation of the relationship between sports teams and their communities. This is another slam dunk for Abdurraqib.” Website • Twitter • Instagram
Kristin Hersh
Musician
Kristin Hersh’s extraordinary four-decade music career is bookended by stints in Throwing Muses – the band she co-founded at age 14 – who blazed across the US grunge scene until their hiatus in 1997. She then continued to tour and release critically adored records, both solo and with her new band, 50FOOTWAVE. Throwing Muses regrouped in 2002, and Hersh also began to chronicle her life in book form, penning three memoirs. In her latest book, The Future of Songwriting, Hersh meditates on the future of her craft and considers her future as a songwriter. Website • Instagram • Twitter
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It is going spectacularly this week. I am wondering if you are in the right frame of mind for a little station location identification examination.
Elena Passarello: Always.
Luke Burbank: Of course. This is where I quiz Elena. On a place in the world where Live Wire's on the radio. She's got to figure out where I'm talking about. This city was originally named Centerville, and the Hub City was its nickname because it is halfway between two major cities, which are 87 miles to the north and 87 miles to the south of this place.
Elena Passarello: Well, I'm not sure if this is right, but I just want to say Spartanburg, South Carolina, because there's a great press there called Hub City Press. And I just wanted to shout out an amazing literary institution.
Luke Burbank: And it's fun to say Spartanburg, but you're going to need to go diagonally to almost the opposite corner of the United States.
Elena Passarello: Oh, dang. So it's somewhere in Washington state. Is it Roslyn where they film Northern Exposure?
Luke Burbank: No, but that's also a great town. This place was founded by a guy named George Washington, who was the first black person to found a town in the Pacific Northwest. He had this really interesting life story. This town, though, is not named for him. It is named for its unique location. It was called Centerville. And now if you took Centerville and replaced the back half with.
Elena Passarello: Centralia.
Luke Burbank: Trailia, you have Centralia, Washington, where we are on the radio and KSWSFM, part of the Northwest Public Broadcasting Network. So shout out to my pals in Centralia, Washington. Should we, get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX it's Live Wire! This week, writer and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib.
Hanif Abdurraqib: I love a dog with its head out of a car, watching the world speed by very quickly. It's like my most treasured image that happens because if I'm being real about myself, that is how I'm encountering the world, always. I feel like the world is operating at a velocity that is untenable for me.
Elena Passarello: With music from Kristin Hersh.
Kristin Hersh: If I'm going to recreate a moment of inspiration, I can't think I'm responsible for it. I hone my craft to serve it.
Elena Passarello: And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. So thanks to folks for tuning in from all over the country, including Centralia, Washington. We have a really fun show in store for you this week. We've got an audience question that of course we pose each and every week. This week we asked, what is something you will always be a fan of? This is inspired by Hanif Abdurraqib's undying fandom to basketball. We're going to hear the listener response is coming up in a moment. First, though, it is time for the best news we heard all week. Best news. This is our little reminder right here at the top of the show that there's some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay, so we have to go to a beautiful part of British Columbia for this week's best news. Kelowna, BC, which is on Okanagan Lake. That's where a person named Kelly Blair lives. He has a. It sounds like a kind of a nice yard with a garden well decorated. And at the end of June, he went outside one day to realize that all ten of his garden gnomes had disappeared.
Luke Burbank: Gnome theft. You hate to see it. It's a growing problem.
Elena Passarello: It's a phe-gnome-enon.
Luke Burbank: That's what I was. That's what I was reaching for.
Elena Passarello: So. And, you know, like, sometimes things disappear from people's yards. Kelly had recently lost a canoe, so he sort of chalked it up to that. But then at the beginning of July, about a week later, there was a knock at his door. He opened the door, and an older woman that he had never seen before was standing there, and she relatively silently handed him an envelope. And inside was a calling card in the shape of a gnome, and it said the Gnome Restoration Society. She was like, follow me. And then he followed this woman to her car, and she opened her car door, and there were all ten of his garden gnomes, which, you know, had been out there for a while. So they had shown several signs of wear and tear, but now they had been given total glow ups. We're talking painstakingly restored. New paint, new gestures, bright as the day is long. He started asking questions and she said this group would like to remain anonymous.
Luke Burbank: A-gnone-ymous.
Elena Passarello: A-gnone-ymous. A-gnome-nymous.
Luke Burbank: It didn't even really work. I just I'm trying to keep up with you.
Elena Passarello: And if you look at a picture, there's a picture of on the local newspaper of Kelly and his beautifully restored garden gnomes. They actually accidentally didn't take one. Maybe it was by accident. Maybe it wasn't. There was a left behind gnome. And when you look at that gnome versus the other gnomes, you can really see the difference, of this incredible restoration. And I think there's a Pixar film in the making as far as that's concerned, the left behind garden gnome. So, you know, feel free. Kelly gnome, restoration society. Who am I?
Luke Burbank: Sorry.
Elena Passarello: Pixar. Just give me a call, because, that IP is definitely, worth expanding.
Luke Burbank: Absolutely. I love this story that I want to tell you about Elena. And it starts when a woman named Helena Epstein was getting ready to, sit for her GRE, which is, you know, grad school examination, and she was feeling really nervous about it. So she reached out to her older sister, Amelia Epstein, who had taken the GRE before, and she called her to say, like, hey, do you have any advice? And Amelia said, boy, do I ever. Because when I was taking the GRE, I got this voicemail that was just scheduling the GRE was just confirming where and when I should show up for it. But it took a real turn and Amelia played this for her younger sister, Helena. And something really happened after that. Let me just start by playing you a little bit of the voicemail.
Voicemail: Amelia, this is Prometric giving you a courtesy call for your GRE with us tomorrow at 12. Know that you can arrive 45 minutes early if you come early. We start early. Make sure you have valid driver's license, ID or passport. Make sure that you come with a sweater or a fleece just in case the testing is chilly, and just come confident and and well prepared.
Luke Burbank: So this is like pretty standard right? This is just kind of the like where what and when. And this is where it starts to really go into a whole other category. Take a listen to this.
Voicemail: Ms. Amelia, this is what you studied for. This is what you work hard for. Bring your best girl confidence. Bring your best girl magic. It's called girl power. Girl power is the best power. Ain't nothing better than that. So, put in your head that this is what you want. Don't come nervous because when you have to do something for work, you're not nervous. But when you study for something, I just feel like people are more nervous when they study to get prepared. Then you walk into working you and work is unpredictable and you all are ready for work. You know what I'm saying Ms. Amelia? So, come in the same way as if you would come in for work. Just come confident, come prepared and just tell yourself I worked hard for it. Other than that, honey, I will see tomorrow in the afternoon and come with a smile. Because I have one already.
Luke Burbank: I mean, come on. So Helena, after hearing this, said we got to figure out who this person was who left this incredible message for my older sister. So what did she do? She put it on TikTok, of course. And then there were millions of views. And people were just like, this is what I need in my life, this kind of energy. And it turns out that the message was left by a woman named Tameka Rooks, who has become now, like the wind underneath our collective wings that we're all needing. Like everybody is celebrating her and this incredible moment of inspiration. I will mention that Helena had her best score she has ever had on the GRE. I guess she's taken it a couple of times. After this pep talk and she she's completely attributing it to Tameka Rooks. She of course is handling this all now that she's becoming kind of internet celebrity in stride. She says she's flattered by the love, but she wants people to know it's just a voicemail. If you need to hold on to it, hold on to it. But don't think you need somebody else to tell you that you're great. That's within you.
Elena Passarello: Oh my God, I love this woman.
Luke Burbank: That is the best news that I've heard all week. You. All right, let's say hi to our first guest. We don't like to play favorites around here, of course, but if we did, this guy would probably be on our list. It's not just us, though. He's a New York Times bestselling author. He's the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius grant and a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest book is "There's Always This Year: On Basketball And Ascension." Hanif Abdurraqib joined us on stage at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts in Corvallis, Oregon. Take a listen to this.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Hello, everyone.
Luke Burbank: Hanif, welcome back to the show.
Hanif Abdurraqib: It's good to be here. Thank you all for having me. It's really.
Luke Burbank: I, I, I love this book so much. I have been constantly reaching out to my friends, particularly like guys of a certain age who like me and like you talk about in the book, just grew up obsessed with basketball, the lowering the hoop to where you could dunk it, but videotape it from such a way that you couldn't tell the hoop was lower. I just this book is just it's so beautifully written and it's about so many things. You you start off in the book talking about beloveds, which is a nod to another Ohioan, Toni Morrison, who who are the beloveds that you're writing this book for?
Hanif Abdurraqib: I think, like past versions of myself in my when my knees were in better shape, perhaps, actually, I feel like my knees are actually incredible shape, if I'm being honest. It's not that I'm bragging, but, I also think there's a there's a central idea in this book that I'm playing with of what it is to make it and kind of like how to complicate the idea of what it is to make it or not make it, which is usually framed as if you have made it out of somewhere. But I think the central question I'm asking in the book is, what if you do not want to exit the place? Is there a way to make it and still be left in a place that you want to stay? And so I think there's a way that I'm writing towards the people who I love, who have decided to stay in the place that I also love, which in this case is, specifically Columbus, Ohio, but broadly Ohio, I think.
Luke Burbank: Yeah.
Elena Passarello: Oh, yeah.
Hanif Abdurraqib: You've heard of it.
Luke Burbank: You also you write about the enemies, too. Who are the, who are the enemies of this book?
Hanif Abdurraqib: Well, okay, so the great thing about this book, well, I don't know if it's a great thing. The great thing in my head that I did was, trying or attempting to define the idea of an enemy early, which is to say that I the opening sentence in the book is, you will surely forgive me if I begin this brief time we have together by talking about our enemies. And then I, in order to make the trick work of I'm talking to all of us, I deconstruct the definition of enemy to something that we can all perhaps relate to, which is anyone who stands between us in our ability to feel great affection for a people, a place, a time, an era. Anyone who is hindering our ability to reach our fullest level of affections is an enemy, which also means that sometimes our enemies are our beloveds, and sometimes our beloveds veer into the lane of enemy and then veer out of it. And so I think both the beloved and the enemy is a central construct, but they're kind of malleable. They work against each other and they work with each other, and sometimes they are the same, and sometimes the enemy is us.
Elena Passarello: Sure.
Hanif Abdurraqib: The beloved is hopefully, yes, every now and then too. If we're lucky.
Luke Burbank: For people who think, I don't know basketball like it's a sport, whatever. It's, you know, it doesn't really matter. Can you try to explain what it has meant for you, particularly what it meant for you growing up in in East Columbus and what it all means to you? Why is basketball so important to you?
Hanif Abdurraqib: It still means a lot to me. I am currently right now. Thinking about the Minnesota Timberwolves. Even though I am here with both of you.
Luke Burbank: Your body is here, but your mind is with.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Like, literally as I was right before I walked off the stage, I had like put my phone back in my pack because I was streaming the Timberwolves game. But I'm also happy to be here.
Luke Burbank: That's fine.
Elena Passarello: You can multitask. Yeah. We're fine with that.
Hanif Abdurraqib: You have both let me down collectively fewer times in the Timberwolves ever have. So in a way.
Luke Burbank: It's a low bar.
Hanif Abdurraqib: You know, when I was growing up, we had a I was lucky in that I had, I lived across the street from a park called Scott Wood, which was also an elementary school. But you saw it as a park. That's where the court was, the great east side Columbus basketball court, where everyone came to play, which means that I got to see literal All-American high school, All-American basketball players playing. But in in a game of pick up basketball, you are sometimes playing alongside just like a person, you know. So you're six eight high school All-American power forward was sometimes playing against just like a guy who was maybe get kicked off his high school team, you know? But if that guy who got kicked off his high school team couldn't miss that day, then that was the All-American. Pickup basketball affords one the kind of democratization of the space. If your day is your day, then you are having the day, right? You are the All-American. You're the all star. You are the one who has made it in that little spectrum of the world. I love that about pickup basketball. I'm not very tall. I'm not super fast. If all those skills come together for 15 points at a time, then I feel invincible. And what a gift to get to feel invincible once every few months for an hour. Yeah, I feel like not everyone gets to drift into that world often.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire Radio. We're talking to Hanif Abdurraqib about his latest book "There's Always This Year: On Basketball And Ascension", a lot more coming up here from Corvallis in just a moment. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. We are at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts and at Oregon State University in Corvallis. This week we're talking to Hanif Abdurraqib about his latest book, "There's Always This Year: On Basketball And Ascension." If you were from most places, maybe it would have featured Michael Jordan a lot. But you're not from most places. You're from Ohio. So it features LeBron James a lot. Who you would watch in high school. And and I'm just I think the the way that you write about the state of Ohio but particularly Cleveland's relationship with this person. And and and how amazing it was when, when Cleveland got the first pick in the draft and got to have LeBron play there. But then also how devastating it was when, when LeBron left to go to Miami to try to win a championship. And there was a moment that I didn't know about till I read the book, that there was a recording of a song by folks in the state of Ohio, set to the tune of "We Are the World." But it was "We are LeBron."
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yes.
Luke Burbank: And I was wondering if you could kind of read that part of the book.
Hanif Abdurraqib: And for those who haven't seen this, I would encourage you to go home and, YouTube this. It is a delight. The song is called "We Are LeBron." And if you are right now counting syllables in your head, wondering if this is a riff off of We Are the World. You have already done the required math to understand this level of desperation. Instead of chart topping singers clustered together in a studio. This version was populated by local news anchors politicians including Ted Strickland, the actual governor of Ohio at the time, a TV lawyer known for his absurd commercials, and alumni of MTV's The Real World, among others. When I said back there that the song doesn't take itself too seriously, what I meant to say, I think, was that it is impossible to tell how seriously the song is or isn't taking itself. Some of this is simply because the vocal performances of the involved parties. Most of the people can't sing and don't really try, but every now and then there is a perfectly stitched together, two part harmony between a meteorologist and a county clerk. The uneven nature, the uneven nature of the cast itself also leads to confusion about the song's urgency. The song is both a production and not one of those things that many of us know all too well. Built off the notion of of course I'm joking with one. I turn toward a reaction and in unless underneath the tongue. If there's something to be admired about the song. From my point of view. Lover of the pleading valid. I am lover of the too late sobbing lover of the person leaning against a makeshift wall of packed boxes, refusing to move until they can state their case just one last time. I must say, I truly admire how shameless the lyrics of this curse collaborative tune are, how, under many other circumstances, these type of pleas would be at best whispered in a prayer heard by no one but whatever divine power they're being sent up to. Where this song turns and faces the soul of songs is first the question of need. The song, silly as it is, doesn't really offer up much in its first act other than reminding LeBron that Cleveland needs him and may not survive without him. But the song's emotional engine relies on an expression of what could be offered. And like in so many of these kinds of songs, what can be offered ain't much. Look, the song says with a half shrug, no one will love you like we can. Yes, the whole wide world has more to offer you than we've got here. The coasts are more beautiful. There's a shortcut to glory that does not run through Northeast Ohio. But no one will love you like we love you here. How can we get you to believe that's enough? That whatever is out there beyond this place. We have loved each other. And it's too uncertain to trust. Even if you're bored or unhappy. Even if we don't dream in the same language anymore, we're familiar to each other in the depth of knowing is an intimacy that can cover at least some of the scenes that might otherwise tear us apart, isn't it? The song is pathetic, sure, but all of these songs are pathetic. I find very little shame in the absurdity of the pathetic when it's all a person feels like they have in their toolbox to keep close what they imagine is better than absence. The difference between soaring, crooning soul ballads that beg and beg in the all star cast of the Ohioans attempting to squeeze more time out of a savior, is that the ballad has no real epilogue that anyone can see. Sure, sometimes we get to believe that the beloved comes back or sticks around or forgives the no good metaphor, but many of the songs dismount with a reliance on assumption. Even if the beloved returns, we are to believe that the no good man has changed their ways, in that there is a renewed period of happily ever after. The songs like this I love most, like "Don't Take My Sunshine Away" by the Soul Children just end with a rotation, of course, a single man's voice stomping along the outskirts of a song with short yelps and shouts that become almost unintelligible. Some version of I don't know what I'd do if. Even as the music fades down, the voice still haunts, throwing the same word against a dwindling wall of sound. And what other outcome could there be, then? But a person giving in this is what fools like me have been made to believe. What the movies say, what the romantics say. And so I believe that on the other side of this robust suffering, there must be a bouquet of years better than whatever years that two people to a near demise.
Luke Burbank: Whew! That's Hanif Abdurraqib.
Luke Burbank: That's the kind of thing you'll find in this book, "There's always this year: On Basketball And Ascension" by Hanif Abdurraqib. It's incredible. So LeBron then, he left for Miami. He got some rings and then came back to Cleveland and won a championship with Cleveland. How did that feel for you? As a lifetime, a lifelong fan, how you kind of thought it would feel?
Hanif Abdurraqib: Well, I'm. I mean, I'm not. How do I word this? I'm not not a Cavs fan, but I'm certainly not a Cavs fan.
Luke Burbank: I guess as a as a.
Hanif Abdurraqib: As a Ohioan. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: As an Ohioan.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. Well, I think the nature of the 2016 NBA finals felt so unreal. Like, just as a fan of basketball, I felt like I was watching. You know, eventually it gets to the top of them. I was like, what do I do now? The boulders here, it felt like that. And it also felt like this massive moment of absolution where it was like everyone was so mad at LeBron when he left. And I think even when he came back, there was some skepticism. I feel like people don't remember that part of the story after the 2016 final. I feel like no one could say anything about him to him. I think what people also don't remember is that they got back to the finals the year after. That was kind of like they were destined to lose, you know, they just didn't have it. You know? I feel like no one really cared. And that's kind of I love that arc of a career or life, you know, like Stevie Wonder could make 20 records of him just like snoring. And it wouldn't matter to me because he made songs in the key life, you know? I mean, he did the impossible thing. Yeah. And I think sometimes if he can do the impossible thing once, you can do whatever else you want for a lifetime. And I think LeBron has perhaps secured his legacy. And to watch that happen in real time. It was really beautiful, I think.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, yeah. Something else in this book, that you do is a really riveting kind of breakdown of the movie He Got Game. The Spike Lee film. And you describe this kind of, sort of, I guess penultimate scene where you've got, I think it's Ray Allen, right. Playing Jesus Shuttlesworth. Yeah. And, Denzel Washington as his father and they're, they're in a, legally, I don't know if this holds up as a way to decide if someone should finish a life prison term, but father and son are playing basketball against each other. The stakes are very, very high. And, what I thought was interesting was you then kind of pivot to your own experience with your father and seeing how for the many things about your father that you admire and that were really great, you kind of were a little regretful that he wasn't that into basketball because you two could not have this epic scene.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah, we could never play one on one.
Luke Burbank: Where you prove to him that you're finally a man, etc..
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah, or whatever. You know what I mean? With this idea where you can beat your parent at something, I don't know. I don't think that I live most of my life wanting to triumph over my father in any way. But there was something about the basketball court where I thought, if I could beat him one on one, I could show him something about myself that otherwise would not be able to be revealed in any other form of our interaction with each other.
Luke Burbank: Was this the most that you've written about your father in one of your books?
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. You know, for anyone that's who knows my work a little bit. My mother passed away when I was young, and I feel like she hovers over most of my books. Yeah. And I had this thought that I am still continuing to have. I think there are some very real, tangible ways that I am becoming my father. Right? And that I sense and that I would I felt like running from for most of my life. But I realized two things one, if I don't have grace for my father in our complications, enjoice, then I do not have grace for the version of myself that I'm very rapidly speeding towards.
Elena Passarello: Well, yeah.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah, but the other thing is, it's in my mind, I thought for so long I'm becoming my mother, but I actually don't know what it is to become my mother because my mother died when I was 13. And so my only real relationship with her is that of mother and child. You know what I mean? Yeah. As you, I think if you're lucky enough to have a tenured parent through that tenure might come some complications. But there also comes like a shared humanity of your your shared adulthood where you can the mirror, the mirror in which you exist becomes a lot firmer. And I think I am, trying to take pride in becoming a version of myself that is a reflection of my father. A really tangible reflection of my father.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. One of my favorite things about this book is kind of circles around what we're talking about now, where you're talking about LeBron or you're talking about He Got Game. But then we move into these personal stories about your hometown, about your family. How did you find yourself navigating that as you're putting this whole book length piece together?
Hanif Abdurraqib: Hey, sometimes you just stay really still in the thing that is not the personal. And I think Ross Gay does that really well. Mary Oliver does this really well when you just kind of stay in the one spot until through the staying. Something revelatory about your life emerges. You know what I love? I know this is a winding answer. You know what I love as an image and just as a thing? I love a dog with its head out of a car, watching the world speed by very quickly. It's like my most treasured image that happens because if I'm being real about myself, that is how I'm encountering the world. Always. I feel like the world is operating at a velocity that is untenable for me. What I require out of my brain is to say, I would like us to sit with this one single thing for maybe 10 to 15 pages, because I miss it already. Like I've seen something that I know I'm going to miss if I don't catalog it, but through the cataloging of it, I also have to address what the ache is like. How have I seen this thing that already something an ache within me? And how long do I need to sit with it on the page until that ache reveals itself? And then I turn and say, oh, then I am talking about my father. Like this ache exists because of an absence in my own life that I'm trying to chase.
Luke Burbank: For those who are not basketball heads, there is also legends of Ohio aviation in the book. Yeah. And you mentioned somebody who now I feel is a personal obsession of mine. Lonnie carmen.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Carmen my guy. Yes.
Luke Burbank: I didn't know if maybe you invented this person. And then I googled it and I was like, this is a real thing that happened. Can you talk about what this guy Lonnie Carmen did?
Hanif Abdurraqib: Oh, Luke, thank you for bringing up Lonnie carmen. No, seriously, I haven't got to talk about this at all. And that means a lot. So, Lonnie Carmen is from the east side of Columbus, where I'm from. And Lonnie Carmen, is a guy who was nicknamed the Junk Man because he would take people in East Columbus, would just drop their stuff off at his house, would be milk cartons and apple crates and things like this. And he built a plane out of people's junk, and he, he, he got like a lawnmower engine or something like that, and and it flew. I mean, it literally flew. Yeah. But on weekends he would take it and fly it around the neighborhood. Not very high, obviously, but he would fly. And it was it's this incredible, miraculous thing that people in Lonnie Carmen's neighborhood, who loved him and he loved them, got to watch him repurpose the things that they were done with and take them skyward. Like that is just so beautiful. And there's a money. And the thing with Lonnie Carmen is that he applied for a job at the Columbus airport, and he didn't get it because he wasn't, quote on quote, qualified enough, which is it's like this dude built a plane out of nothing.
Luke Burbank: If you fly to your interview.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: At the airport in a plane you built, they should give you the job. They should make you president of the airport immediately.
Hanif Abdurraqib: Lonnie carmen, in that that that little piece I read about him, I talk about Lonnie Carmen has this little monument at the Columbus airport. And, I'm not superstitious when compared to, like, other black people, because every black person. And I was like, the boss, and I'm just like, I'm like, I'm like, on the on a wing scale I'm not like, spicy superstitious. I'm like mild superstitious. But one big superstition of mine is that when I'm going to get to walk to the TSA lane at Columbus Airport, I touch the John Glenn monument and I touch the Lonnie Carmen monument because I love them both so much.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. And John Glenn, you write about in the book, too. I thought that was a really lovely moment where you were a school kid and he came to your school and you asked him, are you ever afraid? And what did he say?
Hanif Abdurraqib: He said, I've never been more afraid than I have been curious. And this was right after he saw John Glenn, when he was very old in his late 70s, convinced NASA to let him go back up the street.
Luke Burbank: Forgot this happened, by the way.
Hanif Abdurraqib: And you know what? He convinced NASA let him go back up into space because he did so much scientific research to show that what happens to the body as it ages is the same as what happens to the body as it enters space orbit, as it breaks the threshold. But like what? No one. People talk about that in a scientific way, but no one talks about it in this emotional way, which to me is that John Glenn. Decided that he had found something he was willing to die for. You know, I mean, like, that's it. He had seen outer space, and it moved him to such a degree. If it meant that he would die to go back to see it again, he was going to do that. I admire a specific kind of person who decides it would be unsatisfying for them to live a life without touching that kind of beauty again, you know?
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I love the title of this book so much. "There's Always This Year." As a sports fan, you know, that's the refrain is always there's always next year. Is it a call to action?
Hanif Abdurraqib: Kind of. I mean, I think one is a very material reason for it. I don't know if anyone knows about the the banner that the Cavs unfurled during the 2016 NBA finals. They were down. I think it was like there was think it was a three games to one. They were down in in Quicken Loans Arena. They unfurled a banner that said there's always this year. But also I wanted to make a book that is formally, structurally, in some ways linguistically, like nothing I'd ever seen before. To do that meant two things. One, it meant that I did not have a relationship with failure. I didn't know what failure looked like. I could say I'm making something that I'd never seen exist, and therefore it. I don't really know what I'm failing, which is kind of cleansing. But in order to do that, too, I think for me. A writer had made great deals of late, Greg Tate and Greg Tate was so great because I feel like everything he wrote, he wrote it like it was the last thing he was ever going to write. Every review, every essay. It's like the last thing. But I think in order to pursue something that you cannot see and you don't, you can't touch, you in some ways have to bring yourself to a place that is very much now or never, you know, at least in my mind, I can't say anymore. I'll try that next book. I'll try that next book. It was kind of like everything I've been dreaming I can put into one book, because who knows if I'm thinking about Ross Gay, the poet who has this very strong engine towards every time could be the last time. And so it has to be a very focused effort. Part of me latched on to the the phrase of "there's always this year," because internally I needed that as my actual engine to say it's now with this book or it's never with any book.
Luke Burbank: Well, to borrow, from your friend Ross Gay. This is a book of delights, my friend.
Hanif Abdurraqib: It is, thank you.
Luke Burbank: It's an incredible piece of work, and I'm just so glad you put it in the world. It's, "There's Always This Year: On Basketball On Ascension" by Hanif Abdurraqib. Everyone right here on Live Wire. That was Hanif Abdurraqib right here on Live Wire. Make sure you check out his latest book, "There's Always This Year: On Basketball aAnd Ascension." It is truly an incredible piece of writing and it is inspired. Our listener question this week. Of course, we like to ask the Live Wire listeners a question. And based on Hanif's deep, deep love for basketball, which I also share, we wanted to ask the Live Wire listeners, what is something you will always be a fan of? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: I love this one from Tara. Tara says, "I may be in the minority here, but I love the talking interludes in old school R&B songs like Boyz to Men. Shivers down my spine every time." And I think that's those like, hey girl, we've been together for so very long.
Luke Burbank: Yes.
Elena Passarello: I want you to know that I'm sorry. I'll take you back. No questions asked. We should put one in this show. Hey, girl.
Luke Burbank: All right. What is, another thing that one of our listeners will always be a fan of?
Elena Passarello: What do you think about this one from Seth? Seth will always be a fan of old school arcade games. The satisfying clunk of tokens, the possibility of a small crowd cheering you on. And and I love this part. The smell of very mediocre pizza and popcorn. Video games at home just can't compete.
Luke Burbank: Did you have an arcade game that you got particularly good at as a kid? Like that was kind of the one you could show off with?
Elena Passarello: Oh absolutely not. No. And [Luke: me neither] involved hand-eye coordination. I could barely even do Duck Hunt with the gun up against the screen.
Luke Burbank: Right up against the screen. Yeah. That was I would sometimes do that when people would leave the room and then they'd just come back and be like, hey, look at the score I got. And they would say, can you reproduce that with independent auditing? And I would say, I cannot.
Elena Passarello: But I did love going to a pizza parlor and having that like two seater Pac-Man being there. Like it. It was just like this place has[Luke: The table top?] everything. Yeah. Tabletop game. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Okay. One more quick one before we get out of here.
Elena Passarello: Here's a really sweet one from Sarah. Sarah will always be a fan of Family Game Night. "I loved it as a kid. I still love it as a parent, even though it turns out that my children are cheaters."
Luke Burbank: This is what I feel like the arc of any game night is we start doing it. And I think, why did we agree to do this? And then cut to an hour later and I'm so invested in the game, the conversation that has been happening like it ends up being really fun. I always think it's a bad idea when I start, and by the end I'm like, so happy that we did it.
Elena Passarello: I never laugh harder with my family than when we decide to play a game together. It's just there's something about it that just turns like your most curmudgeonly family member into, like, a competitive excited. It's such a great way to just, like, laugh till your stomach hurts.
Luke Burbank: Just watch out for Scrabble. Because we've had some arguments in the Burbank family that have almost been relationship ending around what words are and are not acceptable.
Elena Passarello: Noted.
Luke Burbank: Things have been said that can't be unsaid. Let's just put it that way. But I just want to say thank you to everybody who sent in a response to our listener question. We've got another one for next week's show, which we'll hear coming up. In the meantime, you are listening to Live Wire from PRX, our musical guest this week's extraordinary four decade career includes her time with Throwing Muses, the legendary band that she co-founded at the age of 14, along with her solo records and her latest band, 50 Foot Wave. She's also a writer with three memoirs under her belt. Her latest book, "The Future of Songwriting," meditates on the future of her craft and considers her own trajectory as a songwriter. Kristin Hersh joined us at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. Take a listen.
Kristin Hersh: Thank you.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to the show.
Kristin Hersh: Thank you dear.
Luke Burbank: I love this book and it's so interesting. So this is part of a series, right? The future of, various things. And the folks that are putting those together approached you and wanted you to write about the future songwriting.
Kristin Hersh: Futurist thinker series. And they had suggested that I be the music guy, which I thought, you know, pretty wide parameters. So I narrowed it to songwriting.
Luke Burbank: This book is so interesting because you're in Australia, it's Christmas time, which is hot as balls. [Hersh: Yeah, yeah], but they're playing "It's a Wonderful Life." But you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.
Kristin Hersh: There were flying foxes hanging from the trees. It was 4000 degrees and they weren't just playing "It's a Wonderful Life," they were playing it 24 seven from online, which is like that's just a glitch, right? But you can't turn it off. If you're a homesick American. It stays on in your flat in Sydney. So it was like coming home to this weird, sort of twisted homesickness dream that was made better and more touching for that.
Luke Burbank: And the structure of the book is you're in conversation with a friend of hers who's a comedian, and I get the sense you're both performing as part of a festival.
Kristin Hersh: Yeah it was the Sydney Fringe Festival.
Luke Burbank: Now why did you choose those conversations to to sort of be the structure of this conversation about songwriting?
Kristin Hersh: One of the reasons is that comedians are an interesting, juxtaposition of inspiration and response. They are trying to recreate the moment of inspiration that made them crack up. That response is given in their audience. Yeah, unless it's not. Which makes them an interesting trainwreck sometimes that I don't have to be because I just keep doing whatever I'm doing. A musician can't really die on stage the way a comedian can, but they can't really measure musical response. They try and they end up with breadth, not depth. And that has been one of my frustrations throughout my career. It's what made me leave the corporate recording industry. And of course, you can't measure depth, and it's difficult to go to a record company and say, I'd rather have one person buy one record and listen a million times, and a million people buy a record and listen once. Duh. And that's not really how the industry is set up.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, it turns out we've been trying to do this show with one listener and it's it's not penciling out. I mean, that is one of the central themes of the book is this idea of commerce versus art and how commerce seems to really be the enemy of making good art. But you need a certain amount of commerce to happen to be able to keep making the art. And I know that that's, you know, throughout your career, something that you've really talked about and pushed back against and experienced in a bunch of different ways.
Kristin Hersh: It's often imperative to work within a structure in order to have any impact. And I don't think we're here to change the world, but we're here to live. And if the world doesn't let you live, you have to change it to help others like you. And I know that there are millions of actual musicians who don't want to play product on this planet. I've met them and they won't go anywhere near the business, and we're poorer for that. And I'm sorry that there is a musically illiterate populace that has only heard fast food. They're going to eat it, but that doesn't mean we insult them by calling them the lowest common denominator and giving them more junk food. It just makes them sick.
Luke Burbank: You have a chapter in this book that's titled "Never Forget That You Sometimes Suck," and I was wondering why that's an important thing. That seems like it would just make it harder to be creative. What's the useful? When it comes to songwriting and creative? It's a useful part of never forgetting that you sometimes suck.
Kristin Hersh: I would actually tweak that and say, never forget that you always suck.
Luke Burbank: A message of hope this week on Live Wire from the famous Kristin Hersh.
Kristin Hersh: Inspirational. Because when you get in the way, you start to kill it. If I'm going to recreate a moment of inspiration, I can't think I'm responsible for it. I hone my craft to serve it. But if I were to start making stuff up at you, that's me trying to be bigger than you. Me trying to imply that the narcissistic infant equation that we're so used to is somehow at play. And and it's not. We're standing on two sides of a song, maybe, but my goal for a listener is that they take the song as their own. You know, a fan can't do that. That's that's not what they're doing. They're there to be sad because they put a pop star on a pedestal that they would love to knock them off of, and it's not them up there. There's a sadness and no love is just like, so if I'm going to say we'll love something, then I have to get out of the way.
Luke Burbank: You have to really kill your ego.
Kristin Hersh: That's it. Yeah, that's a better way to say it.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're listening to a conversation with the singer songwriter Kristen Hersh of Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave. Now we've got to take a quick break. But promise me you won't go anywhere. Because when we come back, Kristin is going to perform a song from her latest album, Clear Pond Road. And I have heard the song. I was there when we recorded it, and I can tell you you don't want to miss it. So stick around. More Live Wire in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay, before we get back to our chat with musician Kristin Hersh, a little preview of next week's program, we are going to be talking to Avery Trufelman about her podcast Articles of Interest. It explores fashion and clothes and the impact that that has on all of us. Even if you don't like identify as a fashion person, we're also going to talk to the author, Camille Dungy, about her latest book, "Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden."It's the story of what happens when a black family moves into an HOA community in Colorado and wants to grow wild, possibly banned plants in their yard. It's also about a lot of other stuff. Plus, we are going to hear some great music from a sensation on TikTok and also other places. In case you're not a TikTok person, this is really good music from a really talented performer, olive Klug. And as always, we are going to be looking to get your answers to our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the Live Wire listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: Well, in honor of Avery Trufelman and her podcast, we have to know about an article of clothing that you cannot seem to let go of. I, I have a garment in my life known as Whitewater 81 that, I can't wait to tell you about.
Luke Burbank: All right, if like Elena, you have an answer to that question, go ahead and hit us up. We're at Live Wire Radio pretty much everywhere on social media. This is Live Wire from PRX. So let's get back to our conversation now with musician Kristin Hersh. She joined us at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon, who were talking about her book, "The Future of Songwriting." And we're also going to hear some music from her latest album, which is Clear Pond Road. This is Kristin Hersh. You're on Live Wire. You were so young when you started the band Throwing Muses, and then had a lot of success with that at a really, really young age. What do you think that did to your view of the quote on quote, industry and creativity and songwriting and all of it to so many people, toil in anonymity for their whole career. They do music as a side project. Very few people have the exact experience you did, which was you and the people you collaborated with made stuff that was really well received.
Kristin Hersh: So I was very confused. I still don't really have an impression of why anyone would listen. I think it's personal. Go write your own song, but I can't seem to continue being a musician with that any more than I can with the person who buys my record and listens a million times.
Luke Burbank: That would be very John Cage of you if you just showed up and said, all right, everyone, do the concert and then you just left. You all do your music.
Kristin Hersh: But honestly, I didn't notice. I didn't do any of the math. I was staring down at a guitar. I could have been in an alley somewhere, as far as I knew. I never understood that if you played a big place, you were supposed to be more successful than if you played a little bar or a party. I was I'm not real bright, but I was also very focused and I was always asked to do the same thing. So wherever we were, I was thinking about music and I did the same thing, and I still do. It's it's worked for me because there's actually much more truth to it than there was at the time when it was all but every magazine cover, all the radio play, everything was just bought and paid for. It wasn't. The public voting for anything.
Luke Burbank: Well, can we hear a song now?
Kristin Hersh: No, I don't think so.
Luke Burbank: Audience. Does anyone in the audience have a song? I knew it would come to this. What are we going to hear?
Kristin Hersh: This is "I shine." It's from a new record, Clear Pond Road.
[Kristin Hersh plays "I Shine"]
Luke Burbank: This is Kristin Hersh on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: That is Kristin Hersh right here on Live Wire off of her new album, Clear Pond Road. And that's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A big thanks to our guests, Hanif Abdurraqib and Kristin Hersh.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Evan Hoffer is our technical director and our sound is by Daniel Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor and Becky Phillips is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Al Alvez, and A Walker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we would like to thank members Rebecca Tabac of Portland, Oregon, and Amanda Trujillo of Milwaukee, Oregon. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Livewireradio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.
