A good weekend to you. I had the honor of interviewing Tony Kushner, the esteemed playwright, onstage to receive the Carl Sandburg Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation this week. He’s best known for his Pulitzer-winning play, Angels in America, and the Oscar-winning film Lincoln.
“I write about politics and history,” Tony told me, “not because I have anything like confidence that what I write will get people to take action or see the world a certain way. I’m actually quite glad that I have no such confidence. I wasn’t elected by anyone to wield power and I often wonder if I know what I’m talking about.
“If I do my job well, if I figure out how to really set the dialectics spinning, not only do I not need to be right, but it’s also useful if sometimes I’m wrong, as long as I maintain a sharp awareness of my errant imagination.”
I found it inspiring to hear from a great artist that the mistakes we make along the way can teach us as much as any success.
“You find some way to make this squirming, ineffable, divided, frantic-to-escape thing,” he told me, “this truth, into something vivid, a dream or a nightmare, something an audience can tear into, puzzle over, put away, and someday return to, or even completely forget.”
On our show this week, we got to visit with John Irving, who has written his longest novel, The Last Chairlift, at age 80 and imparts his best-seller formula (“Create characters that the reader cares about, if not outright loves. And make terrible things happen to them”).
And Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, and Cindy Wilson of the B-52’s are charming and funny speaking of one last "Farewell Tour." But their punk, dayglo pop music shines on!
Scott Simon is one of NPR's most renowned news anchors. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and one of the hosts of the morning news podcast Up First. Be sure to listen to him every Saturday on your local NPR station, and follow him on Twitter.
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