The Musical Innertube - Volume 2, Number 178 - Gina Barreca's Fast Famous Women

JOHN

They used to call me Snow White, but I drifted... If you lean in, will men just look down your blouse?... Too much of a good thing is wonderful... It's not that I'm bitter, or how I learned to stop worrying about visible panty lines and conquer the world... These and other titles have come from the delightful mind of today's guest. Gina Barreca is a brilliant person, memoirist, scholar on women's use of humor, opinion writer. Gina is a distinguished professor of English literature and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut, where she has been teaching since years began with nineteen. Years ago, I tried to get Gina to be a regular commentary page writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, but I lost out to another wonderful paper, the Hartford Courant, and their gain was my loss. Today, Gina is with us again to discuss a new collection of essays she has edited and contributed to titled Fast Famous Women, 75 essays of flash non-fiction. Welcome Back, Dear Gina.

GINA

I'm so glad to be here, gentlemen. What a pleasure.

DON

Nice to have you back, Gina.

JOHN

So, Gina, we need to set the table a little bit and that is sort of a considered pun. Fast Famous Women is at least the third volume of - 4th volume, actually, I guess, in a series. Am I right?

GINA

Yes, I have 4 books in five years with 300 writers, so it keeps me off the street.

JOHN

Did you know it was going to be a project like that before you locked into it?

GINA

It no, absolutely not. It was actually, the CEO of Woodhall Crest, who does the books, happened to be - we like to grow them from stem cells for a certain amount - and he founded with two friends of his, and they've made it's a wonderful independent press. The books are distributed by the Independent publishing group. And so, they're everywhere, you can, you know, buy them not only in your local bookstores, but at, you know, at Walmart. I love having the books available at Walmart. I think that that's somehow, it's like when you want to reach people you, you go wherever people are. That's like, you know how you steal money, you go to the bank. Like to buy them and so now this is the, you know, they're now available as a box set. You can get all fast women that you want sort of through what all press and through everywhere that you buy books. But this was this was in a fast famous. Which is what we're talking about today was again, I like setting the table because the books I see them as like dinner parts. That's why I'm I do them. Even though, you know, I'm still teaching full time. I've got a day job still and but I love gathering these writers together and having them sit down and enter the conversation just for going on for 10,000 years and from their own angles. But this, this book the writers had to choose the woman, a famous a public figure who. Got them thinking, who settled in in their imagination. So it was almost like dealing with 150 people. 75 writers dealing with 75 other people, and so it was. It was an ambitious project and...

JOHN

Ohh really?

GINA

And this book more than any other book has driven me a little into the boundaries of crazy because it's territory I'm familiar with, but there were so many things to make sure that we got right because it wasn't just dealing with the writers, but we had to make sure that they were getting the details correct about the women that they were writing about, and if they were excerpts. And to make sure we could use them and it was just. It was a dinner party where everybody had special, you know, somebody was gluten free, somebody was. Who's speaking? So he's vegetarian. Somebody was really. Didn't you know? Just doesn't like, you know, chilies. And so it was a lot of it was a lot of.

DON

Paying attention. Yeah, we should say upfront that the reason that Gina says over the course of her four volumes, that there's 300 authors is because each book. It is a collection of essays, and the essays are maybe only two to three pages long, but they they concentrate on a subject or a person or something like that. Where these people, these these writers, give their reflections on whatever the theme of the. Book is and it goes by pretty quickly, but on the other hand there's. A lot of meat on.

GINA

Those bones. Thank you. I really that's and thank you for explaining why there are all these people in the books. Yeah, the essays are all 750 words or less. And I've done the books so that for all the collections that they are basically like setting up a mall. There are. Anchor stores. You know, so Jane Smiley wrote original books and she's wonderful. And Mimi Pond, who talked about LA, who's graphic novelist? The cartoonist has got a new book coming out. You should have her on. It's got a new book coming out. It's a graphic book about the Mitford sister.

JOHN

Ohh my gosh yes.

GINA

Yeah.

JOHN

Jessica and her sisters.

GINA

Jessica and the sisters, but all of them. And and their family dynamics and the political history and the the illustrations. The cartoons are absolutely amazing and drawn and quarterly. They're really classic publishers for those kind of books is publishing it and. He ponders there. This time we've got Molly Peacock. Who's one of? The great poets who? Just her recent book, what it was Crayon Box became a best seller in Canada, and she writes with Phyllis Levin, who's another fabulous poet. And they write. Actually, they write about each other and.

JOHN

Yes, and this is a, you know, I I I'm so excited to talk about the book because people could make of your assignments, so to speak, almost anything they wanted to and they take it in different directions. And I was very much taken. With the two poets I know Molly a little bit, I don't think I've met Phyllis, but. And and the two of them sort of write it together and it's it's so wonderful how they and they even talk about managing the voice of the collaborative project and and all that that wonderful stuff. But it's also. Such a great. It's it's a really great picture of a friendship, not just through poetry, but just a friendship between two women. I I was very taken by that one.

GINA

Oh, I'm really glad. I mean they they talk about how they have met and discussed their work together. There for decades and how they were they always do it over a meal and that they figure out even though they're living, you know, they're in different countries, they've always been in different cities where, you know, since Graduate School and and and that they treat each other with generosity and kindness and there's there's not. Any sort of line by line critical response it's it's a welcoming space. It's the first person who's going to hear the new work. Who is, you know, going to be involved in it and it it. It's a way we should all have our friendships, let alone, you know, like the collaborative enterprise between.

Speaker

Ohh yes.

GINA

Both of you.

DON

Yeah, except that, you know, I just tell John, do whatever the heck you want. And he says, OK and goes from there. So. So yeah, there's a little give and take there.

JOHN

But better for worse, I should say, yeah.

DON

That's right.

GINA

Sounds like a marriage. I mean, all collaborations are like the best of marriage. You know that. It's it is.

Speaker

Yeah, no.

DON

And we don't even get any food. That's the.

JOHN

Right, that's us. You know, someone would feed us. It'd be so much better. So, you know, I think.

DON

Yeah. Darn.

JOHN

This is one of the very few books. In fact, it's uncertain. It's the only book so far in my life that I'm going to be recommending just on the basis of its table of contents, because how it's structured listeners is that you get an introduction to the person who is writing, let's say, Jane Smiley or Pamela Quinn or Polly. Ingram.

Speaker

Mm-hmm.

JOHN

And then you get a pull quote from the conversation that's coming in, and the pull quotes are that it's used. I mean they know they are so much fun. I'm gonna give you a couple of them. And I want some comment here, Gina, on some of these because this is great. So Leanne Lord has.

Speaker

Right.

JOHN

Maya Angelou and the Pope quote is as the flight out of her way, the phenomenal woman took out her laptop and the voices said. Oh my God. Maya Angelou has a laptop.

GINA

It's it's wonderful. I mean, it's really Leah. Lord is a stand up comic. She is absolutely brilliant. And so I and and the idea of meeting somebody who's been your heroine or sitting next to. Her on a flight. And then again, another wonderful line to get the whole thing away. But from the essays Leanne saying. That, as the flight attendants come around, my Angela orders. I think it was. I don't know if it was about.

DON

Orange juice and vodka.

GINA

Yeah, exactly. And so that mentally assets, now I know why the caged bird sings, but there's there's a feeling of connection and that's one of things. And thank you, Sir, by saying that with the TLC, because I really did. That's something I learned from writing for newspapers that it was be a. Quote that that you had to get the reader involved from the beginning because it's like, what am I going to hear about Amelia Earhart that I haven't heard before, but this is the different take on her. This is when she's going to she goes to visit Purdue. And in the early days and it's talking about how women have to understand that they're going to have a relationship to.

JOHN

Yes.

GINA

Engineering and machinery in the new technology. See and and it's such a a wonderful celebration of her at her liveliest and not just in tomb in the mythology. Yeah. And the the same deal with Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's.

JOHN

Yes. I love that one. Oh my gosh, she is so high handed. Oh my goodness.

GINA

But she wants to. Know she's being interviewed, you know, by contemporary like a women's studies conference, yeah.

JOHN

You are obviously undereducated.

DON

Yeah, well, one of my favorites is Queen map of Ireland's ancient mythological Queens. They're just like us, which is very.

GINA

Yeah.

JOHN

And by the way, if if you know the cattle Russell at Cooley. Queen Maeve is.

DON

Ohh yeah, she was a pirate. We she. Yeah. Well, she was a swashbuckler. And yeah, she's on. We got a little bit of that in our in our DNA.

Speaker

What? And.

GINA

And she's she's buried. Now.

Speaker

Yes, yes.

GINA

So we can face the next battle. She is she has her back turned to England and she's facing Ireland and she is ready. She's ready for battle and that's.

DON

I bet I bet the the the parts of her hands that are facing towards England have a middle finger out. But that's just that's just the Irish in me. One of the interesting things about all these essays is that they they. Run. The gamut of peoples reaction to famous people. There are people who have met famous people. There are writers who were inspired by the famous people. There are writers who are just intrigued. There are writers that write some of the essay writers that you have that write letters to the famous people saying here's what I'd like to know about you. That I don't. So there's all sorts of different pathways towards those famous people, and it's just it's amazing the different paths that these riders take to get to, to the the literate, if you will.

GINA

Well, it was interesting because again I. I don't put out like really public. Calls for these because I don't have the resources to read everything that would come. You know, over the transom under the door, but I I, you know, having I'm 68 years old, the teaching since 1987, I've been around a couple of blocks for that one. And so I've got to meet from both emerging writers and well respected, you know, situated writers. And as I was saying, like putting the books together. So I've got. The famous writers who are. Writing original pieces and then I have a lot of where I gathered at at the table of the books for all of them, but particularly for fast, famous women, a lot of emerging writers. And as we know, emerging writers can be of any age. I mean, there are people who are in their 60s who have never been published in a volume with an ISBN number on it. You know, they have been local columnists or they have written for communities of people, but they've never actually set like a. Loud, they're riding across the street by itself before, so for them to be in a book with these people who are are the ones who are, you know, marking the pathways and the lanes and saying, are you gonna go? It's really been fun. So the the, there are people who are writing as the famous woman, which was a lot of fun. So that.

DON

Yes.

GINA

For example, one of my favorite pieces in the book is by Linda Button, and she writes about Lizzie Borden. Now, do you guys know Lizzie Borden is, of course.

DON

Yeah, Lizzie Borden Wax gave her, gave her mother 41.

Speaker

OK.

GINA

Right.

DON

That that was a a yeah jump rope where I'm.

JOHN

I've been to her house. I've been to her house.

DON

It was used to.

GINA

Say yeah.

DON

So ohh yeah, were you invited, John? Did she serve you mother and father?

JOHN

She had a rather cutting wit, I think, but I was just. I was just a hack at the time. Did you answer questions, John?

GINA

Oh.

DON

Did you?

GINA

To go now. Ever.

Speaker

Well, I.

JOHN

I saw her for. A long time, but I love the Lizzie Borden. That comes. Doesn't she say something like call me Lizbeth or something at the beginning? No, I'm just saying that that persona of her. Is so sort of snub nosed and sort of direct and, you know, shut your mouth kind of thing. It's almost like she's from Brooklyn. It's so it's so wonderful the persona.

GINA

Is a compliment and it's right. It's a girl from Brooklyn, but it's what Linda Button gives. Lizzie Borden, the voice that is very so. Assured that is not the mad woman in the attic or the mad woman with the axe. This is she's just like the and Linda has written a lot of different kinds of work but feel. So did this. This writing was in a public space, you know, as a doing PR, doing different kinds of work for, for companies and individuals. And and she brings in the sort of corporate speaks so that the one of the lines that she had to say is, well, in terms of her parents, she had to make plans. And execute them. Like the back to your you know it's it's a great use of a time on that corporate lingo that is coming to play in the last few years, but it's a different vision and I think that so that even well, I hope that people are not inspired by Lizzie Borden. Go at least on that the first one. To do this.

DON

She was acquitted. Don't forget that she was acquitted.

GINA

And you know why she was acquitted? Because in those days it was, you know, a jury of your peers. But of course, it was all men. And so here is this woman whose attorney is presenting the case. Where it it? You know, everything pointed to Elizabeth as as the murderer, but her attorney, her lawyer, would defense her. It was going to bring up the fact that, you know, they had found part of the. Evidence, was they. Had found blood on her clothing, which she had attempted to burn behind the bar, but there were. Part of her skirt. Still left, and the lawyer said, we're hinted that he was going to bring up the fact that there would be other reasons for women to have blood on her clothes. So I this image of like there have never been 12 men so fast, it's like no. Yeah, you don't hear what she did. Just don't tell us that. Just don't say those. Don't say minces don't say much. It's just like. And then she became like a philanthropist, and she was a cultural icon in Fall River. I mean, she lived in the house, did well, was. Very much a social butterfly is the reward, but a social magnet and people, not just, you know, not just this curiosity that like yourself, oh, but in fact opened her doors and said, you know, here I am. You want to talk.

JOHN

Well, and this and this sort of contributes to one of the themes. If there are themes in this book, there definitely are. Uh, that there are more than one way to be famous. There are more uh than one path to fame. You have this one, but you also have Annie Oakley and but it. But that chapter focuses and I'm not gonna give away too much. It focuses on just the one thing about her life, which is that.

Speaker

Add.

JOHN

He won a big lawsuit against William Randolph Hearst. In fact, she won four, I think 53 out of 54 lawsuits or something. So there's that, just that one, that one focus. And then there's Marilyn Monroe and the poll quote, there is something like more people. Have wanted to be want.

DON

More people. To be you, Marilyn, than ever you wanted to. To.

JOHN

You. That's right, yeah.

GINA

Yeah, it's really Amy Hartwell Sherman and she is again a terrific, very funny writer and the. Is again what happens when you become an icon? You know what happens when you you have this famous persona, right? This other that you become versus the quote UN quote real person, you know, but that real person is again to use an overused. Like Taylor, Swift is a curated version, and even those millions and millions of people who have made her a billionaire, you know, are are they feel personally connected to her. But so this essay was written at a conversation between a mother and a daughter. Who like see Taylor Swift as like the connecting generation between them. And it talks about going to concerts together and how both of them know the words. And they included a playlist, you know, with the essay, so that you didn't find that online.

JOHN

And. Good playlist I might add.

GINA

A good playlist, but it was nice. So again, the the way that the writers is do I invited people and and then pretty much there was a lot of you know back and forth as as one does as an editor were you going this part is great but. This needs more clarification. I'm not sure that that example works. Or do you really mean this? And but it was great that they all picked their they picked the door. They wanted to. Open to get into that room with that person. Did they want to do it as the third person? Do they want to do it as? A letter writer. Did they feel genuinely personally connected to her? Or was she just an object of fascination for them, and then the larger issue, of course, is I just wrote a piece for Psychology Today that got posted yesterday about how famous different for men and for.

Speaker

Yes.

GINA

And so I think that, you know, women you didn't get famous, they got reputations. At least.

Speaker

That's.

GINA

Was in my high school and and that's from how? Well, thank you. It took you a second. But you were good boy, weren't you? You were a nice boy.

JOHN

Well, last yes. Now I regret because.

DON

We always we always. Said he was good for nothing. So there you right.

GINA

There, men show affect.

JOHN

And that's how I have a witness. Yes. Yes. Well, don't you think, if I may ask, don't you think that in a in in a sense when men become?

Speaker

Yeah.

JOHN

And it's it's expected when women become famous, they're blamed for being famous.

GINA

Absolutely. What a very good way to put it. And that somehow and then you have to excuse it somehow. Well, she's only famous because she's beautiful back because she tells. Let's go back.

JOHN

MHM.

GINA

Right, we've got Rory Monaco talking about Mary Oliver. So this was a young poet that was inspired by Mary Oliver. But she's, like, asking for Mary Oliver's help. A lot of the essays are women who are writing about people who have inspired them. And it was sort of.

Speaker

Yeah.

GINA

How did you do it? And like? Not not in a bad way. How did you get away with it? But, like, how did you navigate and negotiate public scrutiny? Because it's not just applause. I mean, once people start to know who you are, you then there's a lot of envy. There's a lot of bitterness, there's a lot of, you know, what did she do? Did she sleep her way to fame? Did you know her? Daddy buy her way to fame. You know, it's there's, it's not always appreciative. And I think that. And I'm sure, man, I'm sure, get the same thing, but they get. In a way that it seems, and this just may be the women's idea of men's lives, that it doesn't, it doesn't get eternalized as immediately as it does. So what?

JOHN

Oh yeah.

GINA

The minute that you say, OK, she's. Let's look at Amy Schumer, who actually nobody wrote about. She's she's so that Amy Schumer talks about like, everybody just wants to talk about her.

JOHN

Yes, let's look at her. Though.

GINA

Right. Not the brilliant stand up that she does. The fact that she's willing to put herself out in these movies, some of which are good, some of which are not so good, but that it's again this sort of scrutiny where if you're, if you are, if you keep yourself on the other side of the podium or the platform or the the theatrical stage, you know, you get to make all these judgments. But to have these judgments made about you when you're told as a girl and I like to think things have changed in 40 years, 50 years. That you're not supposed to be. Competitive, you know that if you have something you're supposed to share it and it's sort of like, so that I remember I was on Oprah a couple of times and one of the time that I was on where she was talking about that people who were fans of hers who were deep fans of hers would write her letters and saying, you have so much. Can you please buy me a house? For you, it would be nothing, but she actually showed the letter. She did show the. Names and that people feel that they're entitled to a piece of you because they feel they have a connection with you and it's like you get this much. Honey, how come I can't have some of it? I also I'm a very good speaker. Can't I be your?

DON

Co-host. Well, it's it's the old story, too, about and men and women get this if they're well known. If their face is famous, try to go to a restaurant and sit down and have a meal without people coming over. And all you're trying to do is have dinner.

GINA

That that.

DON

And people are coming over and interrupting that dinner. And then when if you show the least little bit of prickliness, like, excuse me, I'm eating dinner. These people are well, who the heck do you think you are? You know, like somehow you owe them. Something just because they've seen you on television or in a movie or whatever, whatever the the.

GINA

OK.

DON

Level of fame is.

GINA

Right. And I think that but the larger sense there, Don is The Who do you think you are that that's that's a big part of it. It's like I remember who I can't remember who wrote about it, but somebody was talking about you know when Johnny Carson was the. Oh. My God, along owned that world and that, but people would often say about him. He's just a regular guy. I can do that. He just sits there and he invites people and they perform. How hard is that song? Why does he earn that money? I mean, that's like being a host, you know, coming up with this being charismatic. Being generous, being again on every night, having you know, constructing this universe, that inventing this stuff. But it's like, no, it's just a regular guy. I don't know he must.

Speaker

Yes.

DON

Have known somebody. I remember reading an interview with him at one point where he said something along the lines of.

Speaker

What?

DON

All right, try talking to somebody and having a guy just the other side of that somebody. Oh, you're in the middle of a very interesting conversation. He's saying. Wrap it up. We gotta go to commercial.

JOHN

Right. How do you do it?

GINA

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you guys do it. I mean, you do it without. I mean, you say to each other, wrap it up. I presume it at some point you'll say it. To me. But you know, yeah.

JOHN

I was just about to sit. No, go ahead.

GINA

Do it. The idea of doing it, you know, under the massive lights and three cameras and the cacophony of an audience and and again, everybody has to be the most entertaining person in the world for the 5 minutes that you're talking to them, right. It's a lot of them, you know.

JOHN

Ohh it does and and as Shakespeare says in Henry the 4th Part 1 has Falstaff, say detraction will not suffer fame. There's always going to be the Boo birds. The rumor mongers. The people try to undercut you. There is a lacerating.

GINA

Yeah.

JOHN

Section about Patti LaBelle. Yes.

GINA

Oh, good, I'm glad you read Patty.

JOHN

Ohh yeah, now if ever there was anybody who was gifted by the Lord above with talent and beautiful voice and there's no reason to walk up to her and say, well, how did you get here? I mean, it's clear how she got here but but her. But the person who is imagined who was in his fourth in this section really has an awful lot to say about detraction. And about how difficult it is and there might, it might be more difficult for women. It might just be, you know.

DON

Ohh yeah.

GINA

Because there are there are in a way, fewer spots. Right. You're allowed to be. You know, again, I like to think that all the work that women and men have done in the last couple of generations made a difference. But you were either like, the sexy 1, the smart 1, the comfy one, the sweet one. But so. But so there were only a number of spaces that could be. Occupied and that being the talented 1 was rarely something that women were called or being the skillful one, it was like some it was some other, much more superficial. Presentation and that you were and also the idea that somehow, well, she is again it's it's a gift and I I think it's true I think that there were gifts that were given it's. Like you know.

JOHN

Definitely.

GINA

Not given grace at. And not into everything things you want or I have not. You know, I I was prima ballerina was never anything I was going to go for. I did get. I hope I think a sense of humor, and so that was a mitigating factor, but it's sort of, you know, for a lot of these women and especially ones who came through even before our time, they really have to be. They had to take one of these identities and could not show that those boundaries were at all permeable or flexible. So if you were the good woman, you could not, you know, make eyes at somebody's side, then then you were to be amble and then you were going. So, I mean, there weren't that. You know, there there weren't that many options. And so it was, there were a lot of people auditioning, but an even smaller cast that these women could, you know, be part.

Speaker

Well, when you.

JOHN

Of the narrow, the narrow range that is accorded to women. Not only is there no middle, in other words, you're not allowed to be yourself. But you really. Yeah. Unless you are Mother Teresa. Uh, you know you are Lizzie Borden. You know, you are really. Uh, we talked about the Madonna ***** complex. This is sort of a an echo of that, that you either have to be perfect or you're terrible. All the way.

GINA

Absolute. No. That's very good. Yeah.

DON

You know, two things. Gina #1. Joan Rivers thought you were funny. Yeah. So there's that. Don't worry about that.

JOHN

You were funnier than she was, she said. Yeah.

DON

Are funny. The second thing though, is now that I'm I'm. I'm going to lay a psychological thing here on you. I've been thinking about this for a couple of minutes and I decided to go ahead and do it. A couple of the essays are about women who were perceived by the writers as portraying somebody that they would like to be. There's a letter to Jane Lynch that starts it off. With the very end, there is a an essay about Diana Rick. Now these people are seeing these actors in a role and saying, Gee, I wish I could accomplish that. What do you think you would find out if you asked the actors about those roles and how?

Speaker

Right.

DON

They were portraying somebody that may not be them, in other words, how many layers are we going on this, you know?

GINA

1. No, that's a great question. And with the Esther Cohen wrote the piece on Diana Ring or it's S Esther. I went to college again. So we're exactly the same age. And I mean, I also grew up worshipping at the altar of Diane, Rake in The Avengers, right in The Avengers.

DON

Yeah, and I grew. Up drooling at the altar dinner.

JOHN

Absolutely unfair. Yeah. Diana Rigg was unfair. That was unfair to happen. Go ahead. Ohh yes, go ahead.

GINA

He got too many gifts, but in fact she was. She was one of the. That was one of the few roles. Where Mrs. Peel could be at, I mean ferociously, fiercely sexy and absolutely serene and low key. And if she, if you were projecting desire onto her honey, that's your issue or she's a. Doll like that's your. Issue you know, it's not it. It's not that. She's shrugging her shoulder. She's just putting on that latex. Outfit with the high heel. The thing she goes on to she is one of the central core members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, and then she comes back in her thank God you could see somebody in their old age and in the Game of Thrones and that we see her in all of these incarnations. And what? Esther is talking about is is looking at the characters. Esther was a theater major. His work in this theater for a very long time and and talking about the the ability for a great actor, for an artist to pour themselves into the vessel that is best for them. And so that there is, there's a self that's poured into this shape and they have to take the shape of that. Because all of these essays had to be around the same shape, I wasn't, you know, all of these books, everybody is is got the same platform. Everybody's gotta same 750 words, you know, around. And so, you know, imagine me telling. Jane smiley. Jane, you're over. Yeah, well.

JOHN

Ohh my goodness.

GINA

I mean, since not and but again Jane Smiley sourced the book as as you guys read saying that she wants Jane Lynch to play her and and again that it's, you know, because they're both named Jane. She thinks she could do the accent. They're both tall and Jane Smiley is just so just again just makes those 750 words. Disappear.

Speaker

Oh.

GINA

Saying but it's like, you know, then the the idea of Caroline Levitt, who's a New York Times best selling novelist, has a conversation. Jane Smiley writes the letter to Jane. Rent lynch. But Caroline Leavitt was just again, her latest book was just on the New York Times became a near Test best seller.

JOHN

So good. Yeah.

GINA

Working on the next one and she does a wonderful podcast, by the way, from the left to mention. The podcast called lighting.

JOHN

No, sure.

GINA

Please.

JOHN

Oh, go ahead. Say what it. Is again, what's the title?

GINA

Mighty Blaze be, uh, mighty like Mighty Mouse and Blaze. ELA, ZE and she interviews writers, mostly women writers and talking about writing and creativity and works very funny. But Caroline interviews imagines an interview with ***** Brice. He was funny.

JOHN

Oh, yeah, yeah, terrific. Terrific. Yes.

GINA

And and wants to ask the question that we all everybody who is. Not tall and blonde, and has you know pepsin and teeth that you could read a book by the light of. Not that I'm bitter, but for us to know. Do you are women who are funny? I mean, she's asking this nicely in this imaging conversation with progress. Is it like, are women who are not? Prep. Is that why you become funny? You know, isn't the well your girl because you're not pretty, girl. You're not sweet girl. So be called Funny Girl because you have to create your own category because you don't fit into the other categories. And so a lot of the the writers here take like Queen. Maybe that they they take.

Speaker

Right, right.

GINA

The images that we have of women and say they asked the question again, how did you become this? How did you handle this? What did you do with it? You know, what did your family think of you? You know, are there regrets? People ask, you know, why do you have any regrets about this? Like, you know, in the Marilyn Monroe to you?

Speaker

Ohh yeah.

GINA

Judah Burrell writing about a young writer who has had trouble since she talks about writing to Sylvia Plath. You know, how did you decide? Like that day you couldn't. On anymore. So a lot of them are funny, but I would say that all of them have, again, they're they're they're starters for conversation in the way that sourdough is the starter for.

JOHN

Yes.

GINA

Sour like it you. Know you. You need something to to get things going. And so I figured that this.

Speaker

Yes.

GINA

Yeah. This collection will, I mean my dream for it is so that it'll start conversations. But that that everybody can have fun reading this, and it counts as like getting an education. I feel like I could give people continuing education credits if they read the book, you know, give them a.

JOHN

I was just going to say that it's so full of delights and you meet so many people that maybe you don't know very much about, you know, and and that's a probably a mistake of our culture that we don't know more about. Faye Weldon, you know, or Margaret of Nevada.

GINA

At.

JOHN

You know. Ohh I love it. I have to tell you I love it when the interlocutor says to her. So what do you what do you say about this notion that you single handedly invented troubadour? Poetry.

GINA

Wow. People want to know it's what the inquiring minds want to know.

JOHN

Yes, it's. It's what you're gonna ask.

DON

Yes, exactly.

JOHN

If the if she's in your bedroom, yeah.

DON

Plus the. Yeah, the you're right. There is a lot of education and there there's an essay about the woman who was the librarian in Los Angeles.

GINA

Right. Yeah, it's Nicole. Caterina. Yeah, absolutely.

JOHN

So great, so great.

DON

And and and and and the fact that when they renovated the. She was in the 1800s when they renovated the building in 1968. I guess they they dedicated a a room to her and then the next time the building was that renovated, that room was gone and her name is completely vanished, which is, which is terrible.

GINA

Right, your name is.

Speaker

Right.

GINA

No, it, but it's. It's again that you know what does fame do? It goes in waves. It even in itself. You know that you have the idea that it's supposed to make you immortal and you know that's not even not even if you would ship it in your lifetime. I mean you don't get to say what that is, but I love the idea that thank you for bringing up.

JOHN

Right.

GINA

Both Joan Rivers and say Welton say Weldon was an author a couple of years ago. She was my fairy godmother. I didn't know her. I just knew her work and when I decided I'd had a couple of different jobs, I had gone to different places and I decided finally to do my PhD at the City University of New York and which was on 42nd St. which is where my family thought I was going to end up. But I wrote to Fay Weldon threw. I'd loved her novels where I lived in England. I was a student at Cambridge University. And I came across her just by chance. And her books were everywhere in the 80s and. And I wrote you. Through publishers saying, you know, dear Miss Weldon, I. I you know, I I. Doubt this will ever reach you or something. This was on airmail paper.

JOHN

Of course, the little tissue we eat. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

GINA

So it was like onion skin.

JOHN

You can still get it. You can still send an airmail letter. You can. Yeah, but well, no. I because I like to drive people crazy by forcing them to try to open one of those things, cause it doesn't work.

DON

Why would you, John? Exactly, exactly, or or drive somebody crazy by trying to ride on it without. Poking through the yeah anyway. Anyway, go ahead.

JOHN

Going back to our. Guest.

GINA

But so I wrote the thing and really expected nothing. And I said, you know, this is not to ask for permission. I said this is just, you know, I will not be asking to dig up your manuscripts. You know, you buried in the yard. I just want to let you know I'm. And about 3 weeks. Leader to my. Astonishment. I'm living on the Lower East Side. I'm in a basement apartment. I'm moving on. Nothing. And again it's airmail envelope back, and I still have the letter. And I said, dear Gina Barreca, by all means dig up the garden. You can keep the manuscripts. We shall plant bulbs. I was like, Oh my God. And so I was teachers with adjunct at Queens College while I was going to school, and I invited her and they had money for sneakers in those days. And and she had never done a reading in the states. And her publishers and her agent said she doesn't. Have that big. An audience US audience as like I I can. I can show you differently and that's where I learned to Penn stuff out because it was on phase behalf. It was much easier, although they were getting skills. I then used when my own book starts come out. And they was always really proud to blurb those. She really was my fairy godmother, and we patched the 350 person auditorium, the Queens College. There were people standing outside to get in. She wrote the opening episodes of upstairs, downstairs, right.

JOHN

I think then she write letters to Alice, didn't she? I mean.

GINA

So there's life on, she wrote. Life and loves her she devil with the terrible movie. But it and that they actually asked me when they were they're making the film in New York. And she said, Gina, I signed a contract.

DON

Right, yeah.

GINA

And it says in the contract that I cannot make any comments about the casting or the direction of the film because they have booked property and I can't say that. But I've been asked by the Times of London to give my opinion on what it's like to have my book adapted by major American. Yeah, she said. What can I say that will not make them take the money back? And I said you could say what Oscar Wilde said because he wasn't allowed on the set of the importance of being earnest while it was in rehearsal because we make too many comments and want. To read changes so. He we say here in the opening night and the director went up to and. Said so, Oscar, what do you think? I said Ohh, it's marvelous. It reminds me of something I once wrote that says there's no liability there. I mean and.

Speaker

Yeah.

DON

That. That's right. Yeah, that's the old Groucho Marx joke where George S Kaufman was standing in the wings while the Marx Brothers were doing one of his plays. And he was talking to another man. And and he he shushed the other man when the other man was in the middle of a sentence. And the man said, what's the matter? He goes, they think I just heard one of my lines.

GINA

Uh-huh. Great. Yeah, it's exactly. It's exactly.

JOHN

So I just want to, I just want to agree with you about Faye. I had the privilege of interviewing her in the early 90s, and when her star was at its zenith and. And just a a picante wise, very incisive conversation. And she's she's that kind of person who is at once everywhere and also sort of below the radar, especially in this country, except she she really she's that thing that we've been talking about about the woman. Who's famous and sort of people start treating her like? Well, of course she's famous, you know. You know.

Speaker

Right.

GINA

Right. No, that was that was always it. I mean, she again she she gave me away at my wedding. My, my. Secretary, which is my.

JOHN

That is so great.

GINA

I mean, she came over. She got the times the New York Times to get her to write about Anita. As they're. I'm coming over. I'll be at the wedding and I'm writing about in jail, so we have a little piece of the night before with the gang and people were still putting up, you know, curtains in the house and getting the house ready. And we're talking about this just So what? Tell me, what do you think about it needing help? And she's taking notes while we're drinking while needing pizza. And because she was a real writer, she wrote about. Everything and. But then when she got divorced from her second marriage. The paparazzi started hanging out like outside her apartment door in London. They started asking, you know, wildly inappropriate and personal questions. They really violated her sense of space. And so that she had to, she had to. Sort of mark. Herself, she would start. She started wearing, not quite like male on my robe, but she started wearing like the queen. The big headscarves and glasses. And this is not as you you said you. Met thing this. Is the most unusual. Booming woman in the world. This was a a very humble and generous and sweetheart of a woman, but she started to make headlines because she, her husband, was divorcing her and he was suing her for Ellen, which he got and then dropped dead. The day the divorce became final. There is a God that everything that they said about writing your novels is.

DON

Well, I'll considerate of him, yes.

GINA

That people would. Say this kind of thing doesn't happen. And yeah, that, she said I. Don't invent. I'm really a journal. Last night.

DON

That's right. I just take a dictation. Exactly.

JOHN

So the book, ladies and gentlemen, is fast. Famous women. It's not just one good read. It's 75 really good reads our our guest, and I hope she'll come back. It has been Gina Barreca. Gina, is this the last of the Fast Women's series? What do you think?

GINA

OK, now this is the question that I'm trying to cope with now because I've got actually another book heavy back in the fall I got another book coming out called Gina. School and this is. Illustrated volume. So there, there are what I learned about life in over all. These years.

DON

And it's almost this most.

JOHN

Glittering 10 pages, ladies and gentlemen, you have.

DON

So if you always wanted to learn how to be Gina, you can do it.

GINA

Absolutely. With this law and or what not to do, I mean. But I have learned not to do which allows me to get to wake up in the morning to keep a job to you. Know I mean all. Of the things that it's like nobody would have thunk this when I first started, but so we'll see. We'll see. It's been a lot of work and this is, you know. With this year. I just want I I just want literacy not to go away. I want oops be read. I want people to keep adding their voices, especially people from the margins.

JOHN

Mm-hmm.

GINA

Know. Who were not. Just foolishly making pronouncements and saying that what they know is all intuitive, that this is, you know that. People who have sort of done their homework have been thoughtful, like you 2 gentlemen who have, you know, make people feel like ideas are important. They're worth talking about and worth getting involved.

JOHN

Well, it's such a wonderful pleasure. It's always a gift to have you. Aboard and I. Hope that you will come back soon. To have another sit down because you're having a a book every three weeks and I think it'll be easy to do that. But no, we want to, we want to have you in the illustrated. Gina comes out because it, you know, thank you very much. Gina Barreca have a a wonderful time and go out and get that book fast, fast. Famous women definitely.

DON

Yeah. Definitely.

GINA

Thank you, my friends. See you soon. Bye.