mini-interview with Ben Tanzer
Ben is someone I’ve known for about ten years now. He’s the author of many books and has many projects running seemingly at all times. Anytime I have the pleasure of talking to him we hit on just the right rhythm in the conversation as though we had never stopped talking from a previous conversation months if not years ago.
Ben Tanzer is the author of several award-winning books, including the recently released novel The Missing, the science fiction novel Orphans, the short story collection UPSTATE, and the essay collections Lost in Space: A Father's Journey There and Back Again and Be Cool - a memoir (sort of).
As is my mini-interview practice, I asked Ben to respond to three to five questions from a total of eight offered.
Take us on a walk through a place that gives you life.
I feel like I can't avoid sucking up to you wherever I land on this answer, which maybe is the best way to start an interview anyway - you know, build connection, find mutual energy, show appreciation. Just know it's not totally intentional either. So, while I can unquestionably share that as a younger person this answer could easily have been Venice Beach - I spent two formative summers in Los Angeles as a adolescent, living away from home, seeing the great movies, like Blade Runner, and reading great books such as Carrie, which I bought at a garage sale for a quarter, and met my first crush at Santa Monica State Beach, it was Venice Beach I loved most, and it was the frenetic energy, grime, freaks, and street art, that lingered. As an older person I could have said the Palm Desert - the barren landscape, the art scene, food, hiking and Joshua Tree. However, it's Provincetown I'll always love first and foremost, especially in the 70s and 80s, when my family first started going - Spiritus Pizza, the Penny Patch, Wellfleet, the Provincetown Inn, the beaches at Herring Cove and Race Point, and all the beautiful people, out late, wandering the streets, celebratory, free, full of joy, and live wire.
What is your dream life (at night, asleep) like?
Not good! Which is to say, I've spent many years, particularly after having children and starting to write - and these things happened fairly closely together, not getting to bed very early - a long time problem, while also getting up way too early, and before my children awoke and before needing to go to work, so I could write and/or run. And much of the time both. My children are older now and I work for myself and I'm getting back to sleeping more and I'm hoping my dream life will improve. Which is really to say I'll have more time to get into deep sleep, sit with my dreams, and wake up in a more relaxed state so I can remember them and write about them in my journal. This is important to me for a couple of reasons. First, my health, I'm suddenly middle-aged, and I do so many things to take care of myself, but sleep hasn't been one of them. Second, I have to believe the more sleep I get the more effective a writer I'll be. And third, I've been revisiting my old journals recently for a new project, and thirty years ago I slept more, and seemingly dreamt more, though I definitely recalled my dreams way more often then and I want to return to that state. I would add I have a long running anxiety dream which repeats and repeats, and it involves driving a car I slowly lose control of. The setting changes, the panic does not, and I'd love to get past that level of anxiety. Any thoughts on how I might do so? That said, I had a dream with Busy Phillips in it the other night, and when I awoke, I didn't remember the details, though I did remember there was joy. So, maybe things are on an upswing.
What project(s) are you working on right now that you're most excited about?
I recently submitted a nonfiction manuscript which is a deep dive into the movie After Hours - though also a rumination on the death, grief, Kafka, Patti Smith, living a creative life, journaling, and The Basketball Diaries, the latter of which I sought to channel by working on the book every day for several months to craft the first draft in real time - sort of auto nonfiction, which may actually just be memoir or diary - and my intent was to capture the kinetic energy, swagger, and flow of The Basketball Diaries. I also drew on journal entries I started writing in the nineties and continued for many years, ultimately abandoning the practice when my children were born and I started getting published - only to return to journaling recently, which I also drew on for this new book. All that, and I interviewed key creatives, journalers, and others who influenced the work, including at least one person I believe you know - and transcripts of those interviews have also been integrated into the book.
How did/does the pandemic change your creative process?
I'm not sure how much the pandemic has changed my creative process in terms of my intention and compulsion to write - I've intended to write every day since I first started twenty plus years ago, however, the pandemic did concentrate it in certain ways. Responding to this question however, also requires me to acknowledge how much I've been rethinking my relationship to writing and being a creative anyway, which has been driven by a long, primarily unintended break between books, as well as the loss of a long-time job and my children moving into adolescence and young adulthood. Is that enough qualifiers? Maybe, but there were a lot of overlapping dynamics occurring at once, pandemic and otherwise. All of which is to say, the pandemic challenged me to ask how I should live and the biggest change is thinking of writing as not something I have to squeeze into my life whenever, however, and instead as an actual part of the ebb and flow of my day in a living and breathing way. I want to see the whole day as something to structure and balance and view through a lens focused on how I get to best enjoy my life moment to moment and feel most productive and effective, not differentiating between work and writing, just seeking to be present at all times. That plus a focus on detaching (and even resolving) myself to the inevitable disappointments of wanting to be a writer who tries to get published and always wants more.
When was and what were the circumstances the last time you experienced transcendence or as close as you feel you can get to transcendence?
Those moments have usually come when I found myself experiencing unexpected awe - the first time I rolled-up to the edge of the Grand Canyon, looked out over St. Peters Square, turned the corner and saw the David, the one time I saw Amber Valletta emerge from a crowd in Greenwich Village, dressed in white, and enveloped in the sun, getting to the top of Angels Landing in Zion National Park or Wheeler Peak in Taos - I thought I knew what was to come, and it was so much more magnificent than I expected, However, the most oddly transcendent moment I recently had was during a very early morning run, something I rarely do anymore now that I have older kids and no office to report to, and as I came down the lakefront the sun started to rise, and these purples and reds were oozing and dripping across the sky, and the song Dear Lord by Joseph Arthur came on my headphones, and I was so absolutely moved by it all. It really was transcendent, and I've experienced little like it before or since.
I'm sorry for the things I've done
I'm sorry for wanting to run
But Dear Lord when you did not come
My faith was born
Bonus question! How did we meet?
My memory of this exists on a variety of levels. First, I kept hearing about Excavation from writers I love, I spotted it at the Strand in NYC, got quite ill with some weird virus that same day, began to get chilled then hallucinate on the train, made it to my in-laws home, fell asleep for like 12 hours and awoke to see the book laying on the floor next to the bed I was in and read it in nearly one sitting, while still ill and spacey, and the whole experience was akin to a fever dream. Though even more than that, it was similar to the first time I read The Basketball Diaries or visited Los Angeles, maybe even saw the David or the sunrise the morning run when I listened to Dear Lord - I was in awe at how alive it felt and how moved and gripped I was. I was low-key obsessed with meeting you after that, though I didn't do anything to make that happen until one day I found myself in a three-way exchange with you on Twitter, and at one point I wrote, if only I could get you on my podcast - This Podcast Will Change Your Life, you replied, you can, and here we are.
