More wisdom from David Berman

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing David Berman (pictured) of Silver Jews (Friday, 40 Watt) for a show preview that ran in today's Marquee. Here are a few questions and answers that did not make the cut for the story, but found a home on our blog.

You're kicking off the "power city" tour in Athens. Was there a specific reason why, or is that just how the chips fell?

Three or four years ago I gave a reading in Athens at a white stone building (Caledonia?). Anyway, when I got to Athens we went to check out the place two or three hours before the reading. Usually, when I do a reading, it's at a college and they pay you 500 or a grand out of student funds. When I got to the club and saw the signs on the door noting a cover charge for the reading, I realized that the gracious Athenian who had set it up wasn't doing it via UGA and thus was forced to find the funds to pay me the way rock bands are paid, via the audience's money. I didn't think I could read to an audience of people who had actually paid to see me. Poor them I thought. Plus I thought no one pays to go to readings. The place is going to be deserted. My reading was going to generate the only tumbleweed seen in Athens in 100 years. When I realized there was going to be a cover I was devastated and wandered off to one of your bars to feel sorry for myself and panic. I got good and drunk and when I got back the place was full of the most beautiful, kindest, most civilized folks I'd ever seen. I thought what kind of town is that cultured? Just on the basic everyday level, I thought the interest in arts, popular and high, in Athens is stratospheric on a per capita basis compared to any city I can think of. But the reason it's first is becasue it's in the corner of the rectangle I drew on the map. The nearest corner to Nashville, where most of the band lives. ...

Your collection of poems ranks 64,801 on Amazon.com's list of best-selling books -- but few books ranked higher have more (and more interesting) fan reviews. One fan asked, "Is it negative to call David Berman's work "Actual Air" an immensely entertaining work? Would he, would any poet, prefer his or her work to be called important or profound?" Well, what do ya' say?

It used to be you shot for immortality in art, the great ones are in it for the long run, etc. Now that the long run has been so suspect for so long, i'm bagging those high art ambitions, and am getting active, slipping inside the mortal now. I say "let's active" to my own forty-watt-ward-self and I finally get what that means for the first time.

Why has it taken so long to get the desire to hit the road?

I think it's taken me this long to have a home that I can leave. I'm 39 and I bought a house 18 months ago and it's changed my life in ways
that I couldn't have imagined. Having, retaining, permantent shelter solved hundreds of problems I didn't even know I had.

What is a k-hole? [The title of a song from "Tangleweood Numbers" (Drag City)]

It's a "place" one can "go" on the raver drug Ketamine. It's what hippies meant by "bad trip."

Posted by David Bill at March 9, 2006 08:04 AM