Episode 36: Lost In Translation
October 3rd, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guests: Tobias Carroll
Produced by Katie Rainey
Transcript by Jon Kay
Podcast Assistant: Dylan Thomas
This week's episode of the Animal Riot Podcast invites Tobias "Toby" Carroll (author of the Transitory from Civil Coping Mechanisms, Reel from Rare Bird Books, and the forthcoming Political Sign, a work of nonfiction for the Object Lessons series of books). Tobias is a writer to be jealous of, having made his way with freelance work as the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn and writer for the Watchlist column for Words Without Borders. Join us for a deep dive into translations and other work and Brian struggling to call Words Without Borders everything but that.
>> Brian: Welcome to the 36th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum. I'm here today with Tobias Carroll, author of the short story collection "Transitory", out with Civil Coping Mechanisms or also known as CCM. I've actually only known it as CCM, which is funny. And the novel "Reel" out with Rare Bird Books. And up next for Tobias is Political Sign, a work of nonfiction, which will be out with Object Lessons' series of books in 2020. Tobias writes about books, music and food for A Host of Places, is the managing editor of Vol. One Brooklyn, and writes the Watchlist column for Words Without Borders, which we will get into in a minute. Sometimes Tobias can be found on Twitter and Instagram and tobiascaroll.com, and you can find him on Twitter and Instagram and read more about him. And so, yeah, should we call you Toby?
>> Tobias: You could totally call me Toby.
>> Brian: Cool.
>> Tobias: I prefer the fancy longer first name when I write. But I pretty much only use it there or... And this has even kind of gone away in recent years. Or like when my mom is really, really pissed, she will still be like Tobias Caroll. But I have not. I feel like as I've as I grow older, I've kind of managed to dodge the like, infuriated pronunciation of my full first name or really my full name by my mother, which is good.
>> Katie: What's your middle name?
>> Tobias: Andrew.
>> Katie: Okay, so I get called Mary Katherine when I'm in trouble.
>> Brian: Oh, I feel like that's a ubiquitous tendency. Like that comes from something deep in our DNA. Like parents call kids by their given names, you know? And so I'm just Brian. So there was never really much Brian Steven Birnbaum.
>> Katie: Yeah. I forget your middle name is Steven most of the time.
>> Brian: There was never much of that, But my parents are also Deaf, so they you know, sometimes they would sign.
>> Katie: Yeah, angrily.
>> Brian: And I don't think the Steven helps in the signing. But when they were mad, that would usually use their voice anyway. So anyway, yes. So today's brand of fuckery is brought to you by a screaming the full given and the Lord's name. Whatever you wanna call it.
>> Katie: Screaming our full names.
>> Brian: By the parental unit.
>> Katie: Your full Christian name. Whatever. Judeo Christian. And you know all the other religions. We are, you know, bipartisan here anyway. So, yeah, let's start with Words Without Borders, because I want to know what it is and we'll get into all that. But I'm also really curious as to how it fits in with your writing process and everything, so we'll get into all that. But yeah, let's start with what is Words With Borders.
>> Tobias: This is actually a really solid Segway because I was working at the Words Without Borders table at the Brooklyn Book Festival.
>> Brian: Words Without Borders. What I was saying Words with Borders, which is the antithesis of our producers... I do not want you, Katie to cut this, because that is the antithesis of what Words Without Borders is. And I have it like right in front of me. And I've just been reading about it all day.
>> Katie: Were you saying Writers Without Borders before? Which is even more...
>> Brian: No, you said it and then I was saying it.
>> Katie: Okay, I think that concept's even more...
>> Brian: But now we're back. We're back on back on brand. Okay, Writers Without Borders?
>> Katie: Words Without Borders. (laughter)
>> Brian: Who is on first?
>> Katie: Brian Steven Birnbaum
>> Tobias: Okay, so it's an organization that has been around for about, I think, 16 years. I've been writing the column for about a year and 1/2 now, then the Watchlist column is generally usually it's about six books that are being published in a given month in Translation. So you have been around for about 16 years. Oh, sorry. Watch list covers, mostly fiction. Also poetry. Also nonfiction. Also graphic novels. I would say, for my own part, you know, it's there's always the difficulty of trying to find a good balance of languages, of publisher...
>> Brian: Yeah, let's start with Like what it is just for our listeners that don't know what it is.
>> Tobias: It's a monthly column, and it's generally about six books. Sometimes there will be five. Sometimes there will be seven, but usually it's it's uneven. Six. It's a quick description generally taken from the publisher of what the book will be about. What the book is about.
>> Brian: And they're all international whose these are books that are being translated. Either they're in another language and they're all being translated. And they're English.
>> Tobias: There was one month where I did six books in translation, and there was also a book about translation that New Directions had put out. I believe it's on haiku. That was kind of included there as sort of a bonus where it seemed to fit. But I also didn't want to exclude a book that was in translation from the list. So, yeah, so it's six books generally coming out in a given month. Sometimes if a book is coming out on September 28th and it's something I really want to get in there, it might make the October list, for instance, and there's also sometimes a little bit of wiggle room with respect to books that may have one release date in the States and one overseas, there have been a few things like, I don't know if you're familiar with Tilted Axis press?
>> Katie: Yeah.
>> Tobias: So there have been a few Tilted Axis books where usually it's stuff that's a veil that's easily available in the States, although I've also ordered Tilted Axis stuff from you know, the states and perceived it so you know, it's a little bit of a... it can be a little bit of a juggling act.
>> Brian: Do you, uh, do you read or speaking in any other language?
>> Tobias: I do not.
>> Brian: Cause I'm really always, like, curious about translations And it really started with Bolano, You know, when I was younger, because he was kind of the first foreign writer that I got into. And then it made me start thinking about translations.
>> Katie: Brian normally hates translations.
>> Brian: No, it's no that that's not true. It No, that's not true at all. I don't hate translations. I hate the idea that I am taking... It's being bastardized in any way. Even if the translator does a great job, it's the sheer fact that once you go from that language, I do feel like it's like there's a turn of phrase in every sentence, you know, especially when I'm writing. It's like, how is that being captured in the other language? And I just really wish I was getting it. And, you know, I wish I knew have every language.
>> Tobias: I think it was it. I might be misremembering this and I have a number of friends who work for the publication in question. So I'm sure if they hear this, they're gonna like I'm gonna get some angry emails. I think it was in the first issue of The Believer. There was a conversation, I believe it was between Salmon Rushdie and Terry Gilliam, and they were talking mostly about Don Quixote. And I think there was an argument of... I think one of them made the argument that, like that, there has never really been that it's an impossible novel to translate perfectly because you're gonna... if you stay entirely lucked in with, You know, if you translate the prose faithfully, you lose some of the style. But if you keep the style, there isn't really a new English language equivalent.
There was another book I want to say it was translated from the Gaelic, but I could be wrong about this. It was an Irish novel written in the mid 20th century that had never been translated. And then there's a New Yorker piece about it when it came out. I believe, was two different publishers published two different translations at the same time, and so it was a joint review of both of them, and it sort of made the argument that you get the sense with one of these, you get a much richer sense of what the language was that was going on there and everything else. But it's a little bit more dry. And then there was one where they were kind of looking at this going. Some of these phrases are not, perhaps the profanity that a 19th century Irish woman would be using. But this also gives a sense of the irreverence of the prose.
>> Brian: So more the feeling, but less exact?
>> Tobias: Yeah.
>> Katie: You don't remember what the book was.
>> Tobias: I am totally blanking on the name of it. I think it was a Yale University Press, in Series and Translation released it. I can try to surreptitiously Google it.
>> Katie: We can Google it after. Who won the review?
>> Tobias: They kind of argued that they argued that both were worth reading if you have the time.
>> Brian: And that's a thing. Like with Don Quixote. It's like I feel like that applies to every single translation, does it not? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Like maybe, Like Katie is the only one in the room. I guess it speaks another language. She reads in French, too. But, like, I don't know.
>> Katie: I really I mean, I'm a big fan of translation, just cause I think translations in general is a huge art form. We need to get Aaron back on. Do you know Aaron Poochigian?
>> Tobias: Sounds familiar.
>> Katie: You guys should have. I should introduce him to Words Without Borders because he translated from Greek and other Latin. He has, like, eight PhDs.
>> Tobias: So now I'm wondering if I have inadvertently if I've already, like, encountered some of his translation work.
>> Brian: Yeah, he does. He does a lot of Greek classic translations.
>> Katie: But he's working on, what is it? Gender and sex in there? No. An LGBTQ.
>> Brian: Yeah. Like a coffee table book...
>> Katie: With translation of LGBTQ Greek texts and stuff. Yeah, we're excited about it.
>> Brian: But about translations is like one of those things were like, I can't There's no way I could say Hate him because, like, you can't be for or against translations. They're just necessary, right? Like I want to read Bolano, for example, I can't read Spanish then that's it, like right? It's like my feeling comes from the just desire. Like I feel like that conversation about Quixote can just be applied to any translation? Is there anything else you want to say about your column?
>> Tobias: I mean, it's every month, so I'm actually kind of waiting. Generally, I will submit or I will submit a list of books that I'm interested in to Jesse Chaffee. And then she will kind of get back to me to make sure that the books that I'm writing about her not being covered elsewhere because there are longer reviews published. There will be excerpts and interviews and things like that published, So there's generally just a sense of, you know, making sure that the six works that I'm covering in a given month are not also being duplicated elsewhere. And again, it's It's always a challenge because it can be a challenge to... there may be a large number of books being published in translation, but I also don't want to do a column where it's six books being translated from French or Spanish, which I feel like very much are the large, you know, largest, too. I mean, sometimes if I'm doing a book where it's a book translated from the Spanish and the author is Spanish and a book being translated from the Spanish and the others Mexican. If it's kind of a multi, you know, if I'm dealing with multiple nations, multiple continents then it's a much different thing. But it's kind of especially when, just in a given, you know, I'm living it to what's coming out in a given month generally, so sometimes it can be really frustrating when there isn't necessarily, you know, it's very much like the language is, you know, the language is where there are sort of an abundance of translators rather than, you know, sort of one that really fully reflects the number of literary works that are being written in languages around the globe.
>> Katie: Yeah. How did you come upon this editorial gig?
>> Tobias: I had interviewed an author for Words Without Borders. And basically the person who had previously been doing the Watchlist shortly afterwards announced that they were kind of stepping down and so they offered it to me, and I said yes.
>> Katie: Is that a volunteer years at a paid gig?
>> Tobias: It's a paid gig.
>> Katie: Yeah, that's great. We're always asking all the writers that come on, how they fund their lives. (laughter)
>> Brian: I think I've made, like, almost $500 in my life off writing, so it's fucking awesome.
>> Katie: Are you gonna ask your question?
>> Brian: Oh, yeah. Okay. So in the room and for the next book that Animal Riot is publishing, David Hollander. We have two of the biggest fans of Laszlow...? And so he got has come up through Doctors Without Borders. I'm just going to say that terrible joke. (laughter) I just refused to even try at this point, but yeah, so, like, they're huge fans.
>> Tobias: Oh, nice.
>> Brian: Yeah, like massive, massive fans. Yeah. When did he? I mean "Melancholy of Resistance" is like your favorite book?
>> Katie: Yeah, yeah. Have you read that?
>> Tobias: I think that's the one of his I've read. I have not read nearly enough of his work.
>> Katie: I mean, it's not easy. That's probably the one that I think most people have read. But like, yeah, although I think it's very funny that this book that's coming out, that's one long sentence. What's it called... "Ducks, Newburyport"? And people are freaking out. Lucy Ellmann? Is that right?
>> Tobias: That sounds right.
>> Katie: So the books one long sentence and, like people are freaking out about it. And I'm like Laszlo over here has been doing this stuff for years.
>> Brian: It's funny. It's actually when I was reading Melancholy like That was one of the books where I was like, I kind of got frustrated because I was like, I wish I could read it in the original language like it just felt like I could just feel it like I didn't feel I wasn't getting the thing that like, I don't know. I'm so about language.
>> Katie: Hungarian would be a cool language to know.
>> Brian: Yeah, right, right. I mean, just looking at Laszlo's name. It's like Look at all those accents above the letters. It's like it just looks so rich.
>> Katie: So what Brian's asking is, Do you have contact with Laszlo?
>> Tobias: I do not. No. I mean, I guess I have a press contact with New Directions. So I, you know, probably could, if nothing else, send an email and get a galley of the book.
>> Katie: That would be amazing. But see in my head, I imagine him to never own a computer and to only write things in like a quill and ink on parchment paper in like the dusky caves of Hungary somewhere. I think I need that picture in my head.
>> Brian: I can see him with, like, a pretty, pretty cool typewriter, though. Look at this photo. He's just like he's kind of like, got a smirk. He's like like he's got, like, sly eyes, and he's got a cigarette just like right here. Is that a cigarette? Now that's not even a cigarette. It is. It is a cigarette.
>> Tobias: Is it Georgia or Martin who, like, still writes using like No, no, I'm sorry.
>> Brian: Is he still alive?
>> Tobias: He is not. That's another question. I was going George R R. Martin with John McPhee, who I think it still writes about how he has, like, this very primitive computer program that he has used since, like the early eighties as like his word processor and like he was in one of his more recent books, where he's writing about it in like this sounds like it's basically him talking about how it's like the only word processing software he's ever learned... he's ever like, learned to write on, and he uses it for everything. And just like this is... it's one of those things where it's it's interesting to see how at some point must have been the most state of the art word processing thing. And now it's like, yeah, it feels like reading a dispatch from like a steampunk universe.
>> Brian: Uh huh.
>> Katie: And the fact that he hasn't had any like any, you know, malfunctions to his computer and has had to go get it fixed. If there would be a person today that could fix maybe...
>> Brian: Yes, maybe Yes, someone that just, like, gets like the software installed into his new laptops or something.
>> Katie: Maybe he has some DOS program.
>> Brian: That's definitely gonna be me. Like every time they update Microsoft word, I get pissed off.
>> Tobias: I definitely moved away from like, for the longest time I worked on word and then for a while I was using this very bizarre... I was using the Web based Word on like a laptop and on a tablet, and I've recently begun doing more... I've started doing more and more in Google docs just because... I use Pages a lot on my desktop.
>> Katie: I hate Pages.
>> Brian: It's just so new fangled. You guys are just so Gauche.
>> Tobias: Since I started using a chromebook about five years ago, and I think that was also kind of the thing where it's still a bummer because there was there was a software was, like an Android app that Google bought and sort of folded into Google docs and Sheets and everything and for the And that was what I used for the longest time, and I really, really liked that. And the last two jobs I had Before I started freelancing full time, I would basically had an android tablet and have Bluetooth keyboard still use the Bluetooth keyboard. But the the Android Tablet, I don't really do much writing on anymore because the chrome book is about the same weight as the two combined. But I would just, you know after the workday would end, especially the last last job I had that basically was a job that was so frustrating, I was like, I am going to freelance full time because honest and I know it's like a weird leap into the unknown. But that still seems far better than like doing this for any more than I am now.
>> Katie: What were you doing before I were?
>> Tobias: I was doing Web development work for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and I was doing it right around the time of Bridgegate.
>> Katie: What's Bridgegate? Oh, that's the Chris Christie thing?
>> Tobias: Yeah.
>> Brian: One of the biggest rivals to Robert Moses' empire. I will say that. Just a fun fact. I just finished The Power Broker a couple weeks ago. About a month ago, anyway, just had to drop that in.
>> Tobias: The one really cool thing, though, that I learned from my time with the Port Authority that I had no idea it was before is like I grew up in Central Jersey so generally driving up to New York would frequently involved, especially like I had a car for the first couple of years I lived in Brooklyn. So when I would be coming and going from visiting family, I would go through Staten Island, go to Brooklyn over the Verrazano, and I would always take the Outerbridge Crossing. And I was always like, Oh, because it's the outermost bridge, right? No, there was a dude named you Eugenius Outerbridge. Which, like seems like the sort of thing that, like you would encounter in like, ah sub David Foster Wallace like...
>> Brian: I was literally about to say that's the most postmodern name I can think of.
>> Tobias: It's like think of like you Eugenius Outerbridge strolled into Starbucks. Nope. Real dude, There was a bridge named after him. Eugenius Outerbridge, I gotta hand it to him.
>> Katie: I gotta use that name for something.
>> Tobias: Yeah, I think I think everyone should use that name or something.
>> Brian: And it just going back to word processing. One thing is, first of all, Alexa probably listening to everything we're saying. And so when you got Google docs on, the NSA is probably reading everything you're fucking reading.
>> Tobias: In this particular case, it's like they're like, Oh, great. Someone's writing weird...
>> Katie: Yeah, want to read my fiction and maybe drop in some notes?
>> Brian: The buzz words they're they're on you, man. Who knows what they got these days and in "Book of Numbers" by Josh Cohen... Basically,I don't want to spoil it, don't I? It's definitely as difficult a book as you're going to read, you know? But I really enjoyed it. I thought it needed some more drafts, especially the first and third sections, because the second is like, purely brilliant.
>> Tobias: I read the novella collection that Grey Wolf did a couple of years ago, "A Heaven of Others" and "Wits" and like I was floored by "Wits". But it was also, it felt, at times, like a book I was wrestling with.
>> Brian: What are these? I've never heard of these.
>> Tobias: A couple of his earlier works.
>> Brian: Josh Cohen's?
>> Tobias: Yeah, yeah. "Wits" is this just like Mammoth book about Judaism. And it's actually the one thing that, like I saw, a lot of things where it's like It's this, like, epic work on Judaism, culture and everything else. But it's also one of the most New Jersey books I've ever read. Where I was, just like you didn't tell me this was like gonna have scenes set at like Garden State Parkway Rest stops like I would have gotten to this, like, two months earlier if you told me that.
>> Brian: I feel like he's our He's like the great American Jewish writer. His newest novels, like Something Kings like The Moving Kings or something like that, Yeah, and it's about a moving company like everything in every book he writes is like with Jewish characters, you know, except for honestly, like booking numbers except for the biblical reference kind of, you know. Anyway, so we can't meet Laszlo. Unfortunately, it's a bummer. Maybe we'll break it to David later.
>> Katie: I'll find another way.
>> Brian: Yeah, I mean, I think David named a character in his upcoming novel after Laszlow.
>> Katie: Just to plug it, the character was called Laszlo Catastropha.
>> Tobias: Yeah, that's amazing.
>> Brian: Yeah. I feel like Melancholy is not nihilistic, but it is absurd. Absurd that we were hyperbolically or asymptotically approaches Nihilism.
>> Katie: It has one of the best less pages or a couple pages of a book I think.
>> Brian: But David's book is very also approaches the axes of nihilism.
>> Katie: So anyway, so you also work for Vol One Brooklyn?
>> Tobias: Oh, yeah.
>> Katie: We can talk about what you do over there.
>> Brian: Do you get paid for that too?
>> Tobias: That is, it is an entirely paid subscription.
>> Brian: Oh ok, we were about to kick you out.
>> Katie: Oh, you make too much money as a writer.
>> Tobias: So is it Jason Diamond started that 10 or 11 years ago now and yeah, I've kind of been around since the early days. We publish Sunday stories which you're generally fiction or memoir every Sunday. We do bi weekly essays on Wednesday is, and then other than that, interviews with writers with editors, sometimes musicians, other sort of book reviews, critical pieces.
>> Brian: It's crazy to me how, like in a decade, Volume One Brooklyn has become one of those staples in, like the literary scene now and just like 10 years, and it seems like that's almost impossible.
>> Brian: And I really respect like journals, what have you, Because it really is a labor of love like no one's getting.... I asked you that out of, you know, out of Jess like Like no one gets paid for that. And whenever someone starts to think about starting their own, most of the people I talked to say as soon as they started looking into it, they were like, Fuck that. I'm not doing this like, you know? So I do have a lot of respect for journals.
>> Tobias: It's a weird thing, because it's like for me as someone who writes for money. If nothing else, I try. If someone reaches out and says, Hey, are you looking for review of this? I will try to be very upfront and say, Look, we don't pay, But like I am also, this isn't a case of me going. You're not getting paid. It's kind of like nobody in this is getting paid. And if someone wants to send in a couple of reviews so they could build up clips and then, you know, you know, I've been very happy to see a number of folks who, like we've published, you know, have gone on to parlay that into a very high profile reviewing work, which I'm always very happy at, where it's like you got the thing.
>> Katie: And is that what you mostly oversee?
>> Tobias: It's a little bit of everything. I mean, it's honestly, a lot of it. It's something where the Maur I can kind of get scheduled out or, you know, it became a lot easier when I started, you know, keeping track of stuff in Google calendar. But it's still like it could be a lot just because it's like I am kind of our story review group. So it's more often than not, ends up just being me, taking sort of hunkering down for a night, just like all right, I'm gonna go through several dozen Yeah, fiction submissions right now.
>> Katie: There's a lot of people on the team, though, right?
>> Tobias: I mean, it's definitely goes through flux, and I think it's a lot of...
>> Katie: Yeah, well, we try and tell people like, you know, especially writers who are trying to build up that portfolio like you're talking about writing reviews for other writers is literary karma in the bank.
>> Brian: I mean, like, That's basically how I started, is doing reviews. Maybe I have done, like five or six?
>> Katie: And then all the people of his books you reviewed, I reached out to you and it was like Brian wrote this review of your book, like a few years ago. Can you review his book now? They're like, absolutely. It does come full circle.
>> Tobias: It's a tricky thing too because I want to say it was the Millions got bought by, was it Publisher's Weekly a few months ago?
>> Brian: Yeah, I heard about that.
>> Katie: It was somebody. I can't remember.
>> Brian: Yeah, I heard. I heard. I heard about that. They also just got under a new director or something, like last year. Something, right?
>> Tobias: Yeah, but it was interesting because there was a lot of discussion of, you know, was the Million's kind of the last, like, literary website of a certain both prominent and...
>> Brian: Pedigree?
>> Tobias: Yeah. I think, really the Millions can do like Millions interview with you?
>> Brian: Yea, which was very surreal. It was like I'd never thought I'd be in the Millions. I remember reading like stuff from my professor Garth Hallberg who published "City on Fire". Him doing a profile on another of my favorite writers...
>> Katie: Here we go again.
>> Brian: It is a running joke that I will mention Sergio or Susanna de la Pava on every single episode. It gets weirder every single time.
>> Tobias: Can I share my really embarrassing Sergio de la Pava story?
>> Katie: Yes
>> Brian: Oh, my God. You're the first person who's had, like, a response to that name I like when I weirdly bring him up.
>> Tobias: So last year I interviewed him for Longreads about but his then new novel.
>> Brian: "Lost Empress", right?
>> Tobias: Which I loved.
>> Brian: I reviewed it for 3 a.m. Yeah, it was fucking I fucking love that book.
>> Tobias: I've read "Naked Singularity" and "Lost Empress". I haven't read the one in the middle yet.
>> Katie: "Personae"
>> Brian: Yeah, I like his first and third the most but Personae’s got the biggest departure and tone.
>> Tobias: Oh, interesting.
>> Brian: It's very like almost it's very austere in some ways.
>> Tobias: I'm trying to imagine his approach to fiction but done in a more austere way.
>> Brian: It's very different than his others.
>> Tobias: So I've been doing interviews, probably for, you know, over 20 years. I mean, I kind of started out by sort of foray into interviewing was basically doing punk scene when I was in college. And I think a lot of what I do now kind of just is a is a direct outgrowth from that in many, many ways, which I can go into. But I have always had, and I've gone through a number of different digital recorders. The one I currently have is about 10 years old at somebody. Probably need to buy something new. I mean, I have my phone is a backup right now, but I also like the idea of not of having a dedicated recorder as opposed. So generally I will just, like, put the phone on speaker hit record on the recorder, talk. And, you know, I'm interviewing Sergio at, like, eight o'clock on a Friday night because that was like when he could with his with his schedule, we have a lengthy, sprawling conversation. I thank him for his time. I use like an online transcription service. So I send it in and I was gonna go over and see like a friend's band play, and like five minutes later I get a thing back. And they were like, there's no usable audio on this and there's just 40 minutes of static
>> Brian: Oh God, my stomach is not feeling well.
>> Tobias: And I realized that at some point the external microphone had gotten a little bit loose. So it was just rather than recording, it.... never happened to me before. And later and I'm like First I feel terrible. Second, it was just like, Well, I have just lost this really cool assignment because I feel like with most writers, most writers do not have, like the, uh, super intense day jobs that he does.
>> Brian: Yeah, I was about to say, because when you said 8 pm on a Friday night is because he handles a billion fucking cases as a public defender.
>> Tobias: So I'm just like I said this, like incredibly apologetic email Thio to to his publicist Like I'm so sorry. If he doesn't want to do this again, I completely understand. Like I'm so, so sorry. And then I get me go back, like the next day. It's like, Oh, totally fine. We could reschedule it for, like, next Tuesday.
>> Katie: Yeah, they're the most generous people ever. Every time we record a podcast or do something, I always have, like, one moment where I'm like, Is everything gonna disappear? I have to call this person and be like you got to come back.
>> Brian: I feel for you so much. Man. That feet. Oh, that must have been awful.
>> Tobias: It was. I mean, it was a good conversation, and it was very weird because I didn't want to try to replicate that.
>> Brian: Yes, but at the same time, there's probably a lot of good morsels there, and it's like, Yeah, man, that's rough.
>> Tobias: There were a couple of, like, so rough cut from the transcript. There were a couple of like, Well, as we said in our last iteration of this conversation, uh...
>> Katie: Oh, God. Is that probably like your worst freelance moment?
>> Tobias: No, no. My worst freelance moment was a very last minute interview with Orhan Pamuk.
>> Katie: Oh I don't know who that is.
>> Tobias: Turkish writer.
>> Brian: Was it for Doctors Without Borders? (laughter) I got I got it now. I'll stop.
>> Tobias: It was for Hazlett. Basically, I just, like, ran into some trouble and like, it was the sort of thing where he had, like, this very narrow window, and I just, like, hit subway issues. I hit like subway problem after subway. Probably like head, like, 12 minutes to talk to him. And it was just.... he himself. However, thankfully, thankfully, he was a very, very He was very kind. He was just like, Would you like some tea? Like, take a deep breath.
>> Brian: We don't fucking have time for that? (laughter) Was that you see how much I fucked up? You're offering me tea? Why are you being so nice?
>> Tobias: God, I think thankfully, like he's also someone who because he's been writing for so long, you know, you could kind of ask him something and he will give you back this, lovely, like miniature essay, perfectly sort of calibrated response. It's like Okay, great. So that was kind of that was like, I think my most my most personally nightmare is just because it was like the logistics of it also involved, like editors talking to publicists, talking to publicists. So and then publicists and other publicists all being very angry with me because I was not there on time. So Yeah.
>> Katie: Well, you've had so much experience with big name writers, different writers out there, I don't know. Is there one in particular that, one interviewer view or feature anything that you've done that was just particularly like awesome. And that you still like after after time or excited about?
>> Brian: I really want you to say the one that didn't get recorded with Sergio (laughter)
>> Katie: The one that never was (laughter)
>> Tobias: I totally feel on the spot right now, So I'm like, Oh, I don't know.
>> Katie: Yeah, we can come back to it.
>> Tobias: This is just one that's coming to mind. A couple of years ago, I interviewed a Cynan Jones for Volume One, and that was just a really enjoyable conversation, just, you know, in terms of like we met up at, like, a coffee shop near Lincoln Center, and just like had this incredibly long, sprawling conversation.
>> Brian: Is there anything in particular about that interview or you just remember the feeling?
>> Tobias: More the feeling. You know, I don't think I've had a lot of interviews that I would consider bad for our listeners.
>> Brian: Tobias actually just knocked on wood. A single tap.
>> Tobias: There was one where it got off to a really awkward start because the person I was interviewing, who is like, he's a very talented writer and translator and editor, any of which just on its own he would be fantastic at. But the fact that he has all three.
>> Tobias: This is the author, editor, translator Ken Liu. And he and I think the first question I asked him was something that he had been asked a lot. So he was kind of like Well, as I've said, you know, in a number of other interviews what this feels like... I was like oh crap. Nooo. I fucked up (laughter)
>> Katie: Oh, that's a punk move. (laughter)
>> Brian: Yeah.
>> Katie: We won't call him out for that.
>> Brian: Yeah, I would never do that.
>> Tobias: But well, you know, and I will say that from there, the rest of the interview was perfectly fine, But I just very much felt because it's like you're talking to someone who is ... I think one of the anthologies is of like, Chinese science fiction that he's edited and translated, it was kind of just began with him, just literally translating short stories because nobody else was doing them.
>> Katie: Yeah, that's really cool.
>> Tobias: So, yeah, he was very much a formidable presence. And there have definitely been some other folks where it's kind of like, Oh, my God, yeah.
>> Katie: We've been doing the podcast for a while and obviously, like the reading series too. We've had some moments where we were just like this is happening right now.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, even if we just did one with Sugi Ganeshananthan and Whit Terrell. And like, just even just with people from, like, the Iowa workshop, I was like, You got in there? Who the fuck am I?
>> Katie: That was more because you were intimidated because they're pedigreed. And they're super intelligent people. But no, I just meant, like, in general, we've had some people up on stage who is just went off the rails on the mic, things like that where we were just like, Okay, we're in this. This is awkward. There's nothing you can, so we're just gonna own it.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah. You know, something that really bothers me. I'm just gonna say this right now is when there's an allotted amount of time. I just experienced this recently and like, people just totally disregard it, and we've talked about it. I think we talked about this recently on, like, a podcast or something, but yeah, but anyway.
>> Katie: Oh yeah, Tobias. When did you read for Animal Riot? That was a number of years ago.
>> Tobias: Yeah. I want to say at least 2 or 2 and 1/2?
>> Brian: I think that's the last time I saw you.
>> Katie: Because we write personal bios for everybody, I've tried to find your bio, but I think actually, Devin might have written and said it. So I think he is the owner of that somewhere.
>> Tobias: I still have the pencil sketch of me done while I was reading.
>> Katie: Somebody did a pencil sketching of you. That's cool. Remember who?
>> Tobias: I don't. I had never seen them before. I never saw them again.
>> Katie: That's pretty cool. Awesome. Well, we have been talking about other writers. Do you wanna?
>> Brian: I was gonna ask if you wanted to talk about your work a little bit.
>> Katie: That's what I was gonna do. Jinx.
>> Brian: Yeah, 8, 9, 10 she owes me a coke. (laughter) Um, yeah. Before you do a reading. Like how you started. Where are you coming from? All that all. All that good stuff that usually ask people who write.
>> Tobias: All right, Well, I mean, I think every book has been very different. Yeah, transitory was a collection of short stories, and that was probably the one that came together the most easily just because it was a question of like looking at short stories I had published, figuring out which of them worked well together, Figure got what order they went in and then, after it had been accepted for publication, talking with Michael site linger from Civil Coping Mechanisms about potentially adding a couple Maur to it and then getting two more stories in there and just figuring out where they would...
>> Brian: So you only added two to the already published collection?
>> Tobias: Yeah.
>> Brian: Oh, wow.
>> Tobias: Yeah, because it had been submitted during, you know, there are sort of open call for submissions.
>> Brian: I like that, though, because most of the stuff that I've published have been essays and like, I've kind of wanted to put out a collection of essays. So I kind of like the idea of already having a body of work out there like creating a theme. That's cool. I like that.
>> Tobias: There are definitely like I don't know if you're familiar with the Render John Langdon, who writes these like immaculately structured, very literary horror stories.
>> Brian: Sounds like a better version of Stephen King.
>> Tobias: I also really like Stephen King.
>> Brian: Yeah, I'm sorry to offend you. I'm gonna say this. I have to now, like, I think he's such a good writer. I just fucking hate the way he liked portrays horror. Like I wouldn't like that when he's writing about his characters, it's so good. And then when he gets to the horror elements, I'm like, you have a fucking cosmic turtle that stretches towards infinity. And I'm just like I'm like, What the fuck is this? Anyway. I'm sorry. I know you love him. I just and honestly, I love him too.
>> Tobias: I can see a copy of "It" behind you.
>> Brian: Yeah. I think I read it last year or something, and I finished it. Yeah, I'm not a fucking punk. Like I finished.
>> Katie: You must have read from Transitory about the time you read for Animal Riot. I remember you had a very funny short story. Remember what you read?
>> Tobias: I do not.
>> Brian: You don't remember if it was from Transitory?
>> Katie: I think I must have been, right?
>> Tobias: I think it was. Although I also it might have been long enough after it was published that I was like, I have a weird sense, though, that it might have also been one where I was like, 'This is gonna be my first time reading something that's not from either book. Just because I had I've been doing a lot with that.
>> Katie: Like, uh, did Dolan Morgan read the same night?
>> Tobias: Did we?
>> Katie: I don't know.
>> Tobias: There's a weird part of me that thinks we didn't if only because I probably would have kept it back at the same because we live like, two blocks apart.
>> Katie: Really?
>> Brian: So that you and you probably would have remembered because the first time I saw Dolan read, he read this story about this giant and like, this woman who wanted to fuck this giant. And I was like and me and Devin looked at each other and you're like, this is literally the best story I've ever heard in my life and the way he read it, it was like, Dude, it was And she was like doing laundry and thinking about this giant fucking her. And I was like, 'This is the greatest thing I've ever heard. (laughter)
>> Tobias: The weird thing is, actually I do have a past reading section on my website, which is more for my own reference than anyone else's.
>> Katie: I'm on it right now. Yeah, So what's Political Sign about? Your next one coming out in 2020?
>> Brian: And it's coming out with, like, this editor, this press. It's just like it seems interesting to me.
>> Tobias: Yeah, so, Political Sign, may I mean, it's part of the Object Lesson series of books. So, like Alison Kenny, a whole bunch of writers I like have have done work in this series, and it's basically like a 30,000 word, more or less long book about a given object. So I mean, they've had everything for a hotel like Joanna Walsh did a book on hotels. Um, there's been one.
>> Brian: So they're all kind of like treatises? Is that like, kind of what it's like You kind of focus in on like, I mean, it's kind of eponymous object object lessons.
>> Tobias: Yeah and they're definitely, I think different. The approaches that I've seen have been very different. I mean, I don't know that like, you know, I think at some point I was I said to someone who had sort of more of a music background, like It's kind of like the 33 a third series. But, like for any object you might find in the world or sort of any abstract concept.
>> Brian: I was about to ask you that literal phrase because I'm now thinking of the weather monograph that I'm going to write. I'm obsessed with the winter weather.
>> Tobias: Oh nice.
>> Brian: And so for all the weather nerds out there, Paul Kosen, and I'm coming for you. OK, anyway, continue.
>> Tobias: So the very sort of condensed version is that I mean, they have an open call for submissions, So I had submitted a proposal for them, and then that sort of evolved and went through various permutations and ended up being selected for publication. So I am in the middle of working on that right now. I leave for a residency for the month of October, where the bulk of what I'm gonna be working on is that I was for the second half of August, I was at a residency where I was doing a fair amount of work on the on this as well, both getting some writing done and getting some structural things figured out. And I've never written... This is the longest nonfiction work I'm going to... I've ever written. When I was writing up the proposal for it, I was very keen to, structurally speaking, keep each of the chapters fairly self contained because I feel like just especially with, you know, having to get a draft in fairly quickly, If I think of this as like a 8 3500 word essays, that's a lot more manageable than like one you know, 30,000 word book.
>> Katie: Structurally coherent 30,000 word book. And so So the object is political signs. Yeah, and so was Are there, like each of the eight on a different political sign?
>> Brian: I have to ask, Is the swastika in there?
>> Tobias: It's not. There are still things that are going to be written, so it might get in there.
>> Brian: Confederate flag? I'm asking about if there's any, like, super like touchy subjects, basically. I'm curious.
>> Tobias: I'm trying to, I think at least as of right now, it's going to be somewhat idiosyncratic in places just because I'm the person writing it. Uh, but like, yeah, it's, you know, it's sort of beginning with... It sort of began out of an idea of riffing on black political yard signs and billboards.
>> Katie: That's what I was thinking.
>> Tobias: A little aspect of things. But it's going to other like, I think there's gonna be a chapter in protest signs. There's going to be at least as of in this current incarnation, you know, there's gonna be something about like what happens when, like protest science or political sign... It's become viewed in the context of art or history, as opposed to sort of the more immediate evaluation of them.
>> Brian: Right, that's interesting.
>> Tobias: Yeah, so it's gonna be a lot of different takes on this. I realized what I was doing at this residency in August, that I was beginning to use research as a little bit of a procrastination mechanism. But I have to fight about this and this and this.
>> Brian: It can become addictive. I was talking to a new friend of mine. This guy Chris Wood, who came to our launch party, and we become friends since we have a lot of similar interests. And he was talking about how accruing knowledge can become its own form of addiction, you know? And I was like, I totally get that. Like I confined myself on Reddit or like Wikipedia or some more reputable source. Just digging into something. And it's like, Wait, but what am I actually writing here?
>> Katie: Do you have anything on MAGA in there?
>> Tobias: Others I think it's kind of going to culminate with, like, I think, Yeah, I think there's gonna be a lot of discussion of, like, the Maga hats and also the Shepard Fairey Hope print that sort of came here.
>> Brian: I was gonna say magazine like a palimpsest because it's been something that's been used in so many iterations of the very varying forms of the same thing. Like going back to like are you know, you know, Brexit did the same thing? Their message was the same thing, like in a different form, you know?
>> Katie: So it will be 2020?
>> Tobias: Yeah, I think. I mean, at some point before the election in 2020. It is kind of is the best time.
>> Katie: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta get it out before the election. I don't even think about that. But that's good. That's good publicity right there. Well, what are you gonna read for us today?
>> Tobias: So I'm gonna read. Actually had a short story come out in an anthology very recently. The UK based press Dostoevsky Wannabe.
>> Brian: Oh, I love that name. I've never heard of that press with pressed Fucking awesome.
>> Tobias: The press. It does really, really great stuff. They did an Anthology of very short fiction. Inspired by the music of the Buzzcocks and Peach Ellie.
>> Brian: I'm not familiar. And basically, I think there was. They had reached up some writers and there was an open call for some, and I submitted something to the open call and they said yes. And the book is now, I believe, available wherever books are sold. My contributor copy arrived in the mail yesterday, and I was very, very happy to see it. And there are some fantastic, fantastic writers in it.
>> Katie: Now we may have to order this. Alright, whenever you're ready.
>> Tobias: So this is called "Erased Pop Songs and Other Righteous Wakes".
>> Katie: Good title.
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"Erased Pop Songs and Other Righteous Wakes" by Tobias Carroll forthcoming publication by Dostoevsky Wannabe in 2020.
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>> Tobias: That's it.
>> Brian: Ohh. Would you call that flash?
>> Tobias: Yeah, I would certainly call it flash.
>> Brian: I love the idea of a short story, Especially as like, just like a contained enigma. You know, I really like that. It's like it's just it is itself a contained mystery, you know? It also Yeah, it feels like a lyrical path that just doesn't stop when the story ends, you know?
>> Tobias: Yeah
>> Brian: I like that kind of style. I'm trying to think I'm trying to think of a so to speak analog now, but it's kind of escaping me. There's some I mean, I brought up Bolano earlier. Some of his short stories are like that, too, but it's written in a different style than you, obviously.
>> Tobias: But yeah, that's like one of my one of one of the stories that I really enjoyed writing that was in Transitory was there's one story in there that sort of it was originally written, I had been given a prompt by another writer to kind of write something about a fictional film and getting to write something about a fictional film was definitely, you know, a a fun thing to kind of do and sort of create this whole alternate mythology around that. And I think there was a little of that, uh, when I was writing my novel, "Reel" that also came to mind in terms of like dealing with he's weird historical artifacts and hopeful artifact and everything else. The novel I was working on after "Reel" that has not come out yet. This novel called "Ex Members" that's dealing in part with a music scene in a fictional town in northwestern New Jersey. And so getting into that involved like creating again, like creating fictional artists and creating fictional musicians and getting to play with that and getting to play too much like in this story with the passage of time. One of the things that was fun about writing this was I, for whatever reason, because I because I am very much seeking to write a super commercial fiction, I have sort of embraced the novella as Form.
>> Katie: I love novellas.
>> Tobias: No, I do, too, but I've definitely gotten me like This is great, but it's I mean, this even happened with real, which is not a particularly long novel like This is great, but it's a little short. And so there's something else that I recently finished a draft of that I'm pretty happy with. It's like a 30,000 word thing. And then there are two other things in progress that are also like very much, I think you're also gonna probably fall into the novella slash short novel category that I'm eager to get to. The main priority is pulling is getting a draft on a Political Sign. But I also am hoping that I will have a little bit of time while I'm on this residency to work on them as well because I haven't sat down and worked on them in a while, and they're kind of starting to each of the back of my brain and kind of like, Hey, you should write more and you should kind of make more headway on this.
>> Brian: You're preaching to the choir right now with my book out now and like all the readings and a lot of stuff going on, like the projects that I want to be working on. It's just like it's a constant voice in the back of my head. It's like a constant guilty conscience. Kind of compunction, maybe is a better word for it. So I know what you mean.
>> Katie: Well, when you're when I was about to say Political Sign comes out, we should really we should have another episode because we've been wanting to do kind of political episode. Maybe have Sugi and Whit on yeah fiction, nonfiction, politics and literature.
>> Brian: But before we sign off, I just I have a question. You don't have to answer this. I'm curious. When you wrote that story, did you know the song that you were trying to think of? Or was it like an echo? Because I know, I know you weren't thinking of a song. That's kind of you weren't thinking of a song, but what was there was it Was there an idea like a wish for a song that had been covered up like, you know, like I guess in in the spirit of I'm Muddy Waters and now fucking Eric Clapton is doing some, like, you know, some rendition, like on Layla. And it's blowing up now, you know what I mean?
>> Tobias: I think for me, it's like the Buzzcocks were always a band that I would kind of heard about, you know, as like, a young... So I'm an only child.
>> Brian: Same.
>> Tobias: Nice. Yeah. So a lot of my discovery of music was very, very, very happenstance. You know, I didn't really have, like, you know, as many of my friends did like an older sibling to kind of like, Oh, here's this really cool thing you should check out. So I was, like, very much just, like flailing around and like, finding stuff here and there and, you know, occasionally Still not really having any idea what I was doing, but eventually like And I think the Buzzcocks were always in the weird category of a band that I would like read about as an influence as like being influential on bands that I listen to you. But there are certain bands where I'm like Oh, I know the first time I heard Fugazi or Public Enemy or someone like that, like I can remember being like, Oh, this is what this is what all the fuss is about. But with the Buzzcocks, I really didn't like it was because it's like the first time I was like, Oh, I'm going to sit down and listen to the Buzzcocks either. I was like, Oh, this is a Buzzcocks song and so is this one. And so is this one. But like, there wasn't I did not have a similar thing of like, Oh, yeah, And the first time I heard this was totally on the radio or at a party, or like when a friend of mine was like, You need to hear this band like which is how especially bands that I have, like, been listening to for over half my life. You know, generally I have, you know, I have a story behind like, Oh, this is how I first heard them or them or them. And I don't know where the hell that came from. So it's It's this weird sense of, like listening to the Buzzcocks were like, there is this strange part of my brain that sort of things almost like these feel like these songs that just like one night I woke up just like having remembered them from somewhere. And I was sort of trying to use that very surreal bit of flash to kind of put that feeling Put that sensation into into something resembling language.
>> Katie: Wow.
>> Brian: Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. I like how you started off with what we're doing this analog and like, got all of them on chalkboard. I recently heard someone referred to cigarettes as analogs. Oh, how do you know? And I love that. So don't you fuckers steal that, okay? Is there anything else you want to add?
>> Tobias: I think that's all.
>> Katie: Thank you for being on.
>> Tobias: Yeah.
>> Brian: Thank you very much. Okay, that's it for today's episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe in review on whichever platform you're listening. You can get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @animalriotpress or through our website animalriotpress.com. This has been the 36th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot Press with me, your host, Brian Birnbaum, and featuring to Tobias Carroll. Transcripts for our Deaf and hard of hearing animals are provided by Jonathan Kay and we're produced by Katie Rainey, who has also joined us tonight, without whom we'd be merely three of Shakespeare's 1000 monkeys banging on a typewriter.