mnartists.org: Susannah Schouweiler

Rain Taxi/mnartists.org present: A Pictorial History of Isa Newby Gagarin

Susannah Schouweiler — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 01:39:20 GMT

There’s a kind of sorcery involved when you’re swept away by a good book. If the printed words you encounter on the page sufficiently compel your attention and imagination, the book itself effectively disappears, leaving you and the author alone, mind to mind, embraced by the mutually created space of the unfolding story. The sensory pleasure of handling a book you’ve not yet begun to read augments this experience—the soft brush of fine paper against your fingers as you turn the first page, the satisfying heft of a well-bound volume, the gently abrasive rub of linen on its covers. It lends a physical dimension to the frisson of anticipation for the language between the book’s covers that is perfectly suited to the immediacy of the reading experience.... Click here to read the full-text feature

City Pages: 2012 Artist of the Year (Brian Frink)

Susannah Schouweiler — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 01:26:40 GMT

Knight Arts blog: St. Paul writer

Susannah Schouweiler — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:01:00 GMT

Since July 2011, I've been a regular writer for the Knight Foundation, covering the arts and culture beat in St Paul for their Knight Arts blog.

Various contributions to "Secrets of the City" ("The Rake")

Susannah Schouweiler — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:20:29 GMT

Enclosed is a link to various articles written for The Rake (or, as it's now known, Secrets of the City). Some articles in the archive include: [url=http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/art-market-gather-around-art-and-home]"Art Market: Gather Round Art and Home"[/url] published May 2008 [url=http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/arts-culture/10-000-arts/man-hamburg]"The Man from Hamburg"[/url] published October 2007 [url=http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/arts-culture/10-000-arts/zoom-richard-c-johnson]Zoom In: Richard C. Johnson[/url] [url=http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/10-000-arts-quarterlies/zoom-susan-hensel]Zoom In: Susan Hensel[/url] [url=http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/arts-culture/10-000-arts/zoom-in-michael-thomsen]Zoom In: Michael Thomsen[/url] [url=http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/10-000-arts/zoom-lori-greene]Zoom In: Lori Greene[/url]

City Pages: 2008 Artist of the Year (Shepard Fairey)

Susannah Schouweiler — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:11:40 GMT

A short piece written for City Pages' "Artist of the Year" feature for 2008. [url=http://tcb.citypages.com/2008-12-24/news/shepard-fairey/]Click here to read the article in full on the City Pages website[/url].

MinnPost: "Arts Arena" blog

Susannah Schouweiler — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:43:08 GMT

In addition to serving as mnartists.org's editor, I also write regularly on the visual arts for MinnPost.com.

NOT JUST A GOOD OL' BOY: A Conversation with Roy Blount Jr. (Ruminator, June/July 2005)

Susannah Schouweiler — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:15:36 GMT

[b]NOT JUST A GOOD OL' BOY: A Conversation with Roy Blount Jr.[/b] [i]Interview by Susannah McNeely Schouweiler[/i] Roy Blount, Jr. is a hard man to pin down: he's a writer, a journalist, a sometimes musician with the all-writer band the Rock Bottom Remainders; he's a cruciverbalist, a biographer, a TV and radio personality and, for most of his life, a Southerner living in the Northeast. He puts on a very funny one-man show and tells a mean tall tale. And his publicity photos don't do him justice--in person, you first notice his shock of white hair and ready smile. (He looks uncannily like Phil Donahue--just as distinguished but more comfortably rumpled.) Talking with him feels as easy as shooting the breeze with a neighbor over the fence in July. I chatted with Mr. Blount in this summer 2005 interview about New Orleans, baseball, Krispy Kremes, '60s comedy albums and the value of putting a little embarrassing detail into personal writing. You can read the interview, in full, via the enclosed PDF files. [i]Originally published in the June/July 2005 issue of Ruminator magazine.[/i] (Copyright Susannah Schouweiler. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission of the author.)

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DIRTY WORDS: An Interview with Paul Provenza (Ruminator, October/November 2005)

Susannah Schouweiler — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:03:30 GMT

[b]DIRTY WORDS: The [i]Ruminator[/i] Interview with Paul Provenza[/b] [i]By Susannah McNeely Schouweiler[/i] If you've read anything about comedian Paul Provenza's directorial film debut, [i]The Aristocrats[/i], you've probably heard that the joke at its center--an old vaudeville saw that each comedian stretches into an impossibly raunchy, sexual, scatological tale--is so offensive that the movie had to be released unrated (and was banned from one major theater chain). But the joke--and the filmmaker, an acclaimed stand-up comic who also starred in Northern Exposure and hosted Comedy Central's Comics Only--is about more than swearing and sex. Just after [i]The Aristocrats[/i] was released in 2005, I talked to Provenza about comedy, taboo, art, audiences, and just what the hell people mean when they say "moral values." You can read the interview in full via the enclosed PDF files. [i]Originally published in Ruminator magazine's October/November 2005 issue[/i] (Copyright Susannah Schouweiler. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission of the author.)

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JUST SAY YES: An Interview with Anti-Corporate Pranksters, The Yes Men (Ruminator, January 2005)

Susannah Schouweiler — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:46:01 GMT

[b]JUST SAY YES: An Interview with Anti-Corporate Pranksters, The Yes Men[/b] [i]Interview by Susannah McNeely Schouweiler[/i] The Yes Men, headed by Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, and Bob Spunkmeyer, are behind a number of pranks that have embarrassed news outlets, the World Trade Organization, McDonald's, the George W. Bush presidential campaign, and industrial giants like Dow Chemical. For the last three years, Andy and Mike have been traveling the world giving outrageous lectures and proposals about free trade, the WTO, and multinational corporations to lawyers, industry leaders, and political leaders around the world. And they've done it by passing themselves off as representatives of the WTO; or by posing as Republican campaign workers; or by impersonating a spokesman for Dow Chemical. They've been quoted in newspapers, interviewed on CNBC and the BBC, and have appeared as featured speakers at a number of big industry conferences and free trade policy meetings around the world. In 2004, a book and film were released documenting the Yes Men's exploits; the DVD of the movie is out in February. [i]Ruminator[/i] spoke with the Yes Men's Bob Spunkmeyer about the controversy surrounding some of the tactics and the unintended consequences of their impersonations, about the state of progressive activism, and what the group hopes to achieve . SUSANNAH MCNEELY: It's a pleasure to talk with you. I get the sense that you have quite a pivotal role in the Yes Men, but I'm not quite clear what it is. What do you do for the group? You're listed as an author of the new book; I suppose you must have some hand in the planning and execution of the hijinks. BOB SPUNKMEYER: I'm really just a behind-the scenes character. As you've probably noticed from the book, I don't actually do the hijinks. I help more with the conceptualization, planning and some of the writing. SM: You've been an involved activist for progressive causes for much of your adult life (in gay rights, in South America, the Balkans). Has your other activist experience informed your activities and tactics for the Yes Men? BS: Well, yes, of course. I suppose I've been able to help the others think through some of the consequences. But that's the thing about what the Yes Men do--you can't afford to think the consequences through too much. If you did, you'd never actually do anything. SM: In the beginning, the Yes Men's pranks seem to involve primarily exaggeration and parody of existing corporate or business rhetoric. Then, there was a tactical shift: pretending to be spokesmen for Dow Chemical, you guys went so far as to announce $12 billion in compensation would be awarded to survivors of the chemical leak in Bhopal 20 years ago. Is there a line you feel you shouldn't cross ethically? At what point do you risk hurting the very same people you're trying to help? A lot of affected people in India had high hopes that they'd be getting compensation for their sickness, they must have been incredibly disappointed to find it was all a hoax, a joke. BS: In terms of the Bhopal question, the whole idea of false hopes is a tricky one. Because ultimately, that's a line of argument that would prevent you from ever really doing anything. Why have a demonstration at all then? Wouldn't it get people's hopes up that they might actually make a difference? Won't they be disappointed when they find out their demonstrations and protests didn't do any good? If you follow that line of reasoning, you're left with the idea that any activism is doomed from the beginning. If you take on a foe that's more powerful than you, how can you possibly get the result you want? Why even try? It's just a dead-end argument. You'd never do anything if you operated that way. In fact, all hopes are false until they come true. So the question is, why don't those hopes come true? SM: So if you had to articulate a moral code that underlies the Yes Men's activities, what would it be? BS: I think it's summed up in the idea of "identity correction." Essentially, the idea is that if identity theft is where criminals impersonate honest people, using their personal information, their credit cards, their names and use that information at the honest person's expense, then identity correction is honest individuals assuming big-time criminals' identities (both human and institutional entities doing horrible things at everyone else's expense); they then offer correctives for the public good. So yes, we think of ethical considerations all the time. We try to do things so that it's clear who is the appropriate, intended butt of the joke. At the WTO presentation, the point wasn't to make fun of the particular people attending the meeting; it was the larger organization we were targeting. We're interested in targets that will point out the problems in the existing power structure, and speak truthfully about who that power really serves. We've had opportunities to impersonate people that we've turned down. SM: Can you tell me what kinds of pranks you've turned down? BS: Well, I don't want to be too specific; but we've turned down things where the folks who would be made fun of, or impersonated, are undeserving targets. We wouldn't pull any pranks on them. It's not only articulating how the power structure really works, but also to show people how things might be better. That was the motivation for the Bhopal action: to show them that there's a different world possible. And that if powerful people made the right choices, then things could be solved there, or at least made much better. Things don't have to stay the way they are. SM: If "identity correction" is an exaggeration or parody in order to highlight a truth about how things really are, is the tactical shift to making these "announcements" a kind of super-identity correction, the way you think the WTO or Dow should operate? BS: Yeah, exactly. You should know, we didn't sit down and conceptualize all aspects of identity correction until much later. One thing led to another. I mean, Andy is a very talented computer programmer, with an anarchist-democratic inclination. On a goof, he made some parody websites, and then totally by surprise, started getting speaking invitations. SM: What did you think when those first invitations came in? There had to have been a moment of truth. I mean, there's a big difference between creating a parody website and actually impersonating someone. BS: Well sure; we even describe it in the book. Andy and Mike just didn't think there was any chance they were going to make it through the whole presentation. We even structured the speech so that we got a couple of jokes in there really early, because we were just sure that three paragraphs in, this was gonna be all over. We had no idea that five impersonations later, they'd still be reporting it in the newspaper. SM: What about before Andy and Mike even got to the conference? It's a pretty big leap just to make the decision to get on a plane and go. As a group, did you nearly chicken out? BS: [laughs] Of course. SM: There are a lot of people who might get invited, but it's gotta be a pretty rarefied group who would then say, "you know, that's a good idea. I think I'll go." BS: [laughing again] Well, now you're getting to the special skills of Andy Bichlbaum. Some would say they're special, and some would say they're reckless, and other people might say they are retarded. . .[laughs] I mean, we just did the first presentation, then we did the second, and, after a while we started thinking, well, what are we really doing? Where's this all going? And that's when we came up with the idea of identity correction. But that was a long time after all these actions were put together, as opportunities came up, in a piecemeal way. There's not a grand scheme. The Yes Men is basically just a group of friends rolling with the punches and trying to do the right thing. Mostly, I think it's really important that we have fun, because the world is a pretty sad place right now. And really, a lot of activism isn't fun. SM: And I guess it's a little preachy sometimes too. BS: Yeah, a lot of activism is boring; it's preachy. You know, you go to marches now, and they're so dull. They rarely accomplish anything at all. And they have such a history! I mean, when workers were marching at the turn of the century, demanding bread in Russia, that was a classic worker's march. Then, a march had consequence. If there were thousands of workers marching in the street, it meant that they might tear the presidential palace down, or that there would probably be a riot. But now, so much of what we do in the progressive movement is done by rote. And the Yes Men are fun. We have a great time, and I think people respond to that. SM: Do you think that's why you've been successful at not just getting coverage, but also public support and sympathy? BS: Absolutely. People think it's fun to watch, and we keep trying to tell them, it's even more fun to do. [laughs] SM: Are you still getting queries on gatt.org and dowethics.com (the fake websites)? BS: Oh yeah. In fact, Andy's in the middle of some really interesting correspondence right now. I can't really tell you anything more about it; but, yes, the offers are still coming in. SM: What will you do if, like Michael Moore, Andy just becomes so recognizable that people can't be fooled and start to turn him away? BS: That kind of success is just unimaginable. I hope that happens. If it were, it would mean that our pranks had hit targets of several orders of magnitude higher than anything we've achieved so far. But again, none of this happened by plan. We didn't set out to do anything big. Andy didn't get the computer programming job on SimCopter for the purpose of hacking the game. He took the job because he needed a job. He just hacked the game because he got bored. SM: I have to say though, that those speeches are so articulate and fully-thought out--it doesn't seem like something you put together piecemeal or in a halfbaked way. Somebody took a lot of care with those. BS: You can see in the movie Andy and Mike spending sleepless night after sleepless night putting those speeches together. They worked really hard on them. [laughs] SM: I saw on the Yes Men web site a vague reference to funding you've gotten from "various arts organizations," and I'd love to know what those are. Have you gotten grant money? BS: We had a secret slush fund set up by the old KGB. And... SM: Come on, are you gonna be cagey? BS: Okay, actually we were getting financed by Saddam Hussein. . . [laughs] Here's the thing: almost everything we've done requires little or no money. We have frequent flier accounts, and friends all over the world who let us sleep on their couches. Setting up a web site is free. All the big Yes Men successes hardly cost a penny. As we've gotten better known for our activities, we've gotten some grant money. But the weird thing is, all of those grant-funded projects fizzled. Something about having a budget, planning it all out. It just didn't work. SM: I guess it gets to be like a real job once you're given official funding, not as free or spontaneous. BS: Yeah. It's funny. This kind of activism doesn't cost much. The Yes Men's most successful actions haven't cost a penny. All you really need is free time (which all of us are fortunate enough to have); for much of what we've done you'd need a rudimentary knowledge of HTML; you need an internet connection, a sense of humor, and you can't be too intimidated by legal authorities. That's really all it requires. That's not to say that if people were to offer us lots of money we'd turn it down, but [laughs] we have yet to figure out what to really do with money. It hasn't been helpful so far. SM: On your web site you've got a feedback form, where people can post their own Yes Men-style hijinks. Do you worry about whether these folks won't adhere to the same kind of ethical code you have for yourselves? BS: No, not really. You know, the world is full of hoaxes. Yes Men-style hoaxes are really pretty trivial compared to the hoax that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now, there's a hoax; there's a media stunt. Or, what about the media stunt claiming that the Social Security system is about to collapse and needs to be privatized? I mean, that's a massive hoax still underway. Half the stuff that's in the media is a hoax. So the idea that democratic and egalitarian-minded people, when they're engaged in Yes Men-style activities, might do something wrong and step on somebody's toes. . .I suppose it's a concern, but let's get real here. We're talking about tiny, resourceless nobodies taking on the powerful institutions in the history of the planet. So is there a big concern that these little nobodies are going to do something terrible? No. That's a wildly out of proportion worry. SM: Has anyone sent you news of a Yes Men-inspired hoax that sticks out in your mind? Do you have a favorite? BS: Well, Voteauction.com [a parody web site that claimed to be selling votes in an cBay-like auction] was really good. And the fact that even state Attorneys General didn't get it, that it was a joke. . .it's disturbing to think they found it plausible. It just shows how close things are to that already--that it doesn't seem that out of line to buy votes. SM: Isn't that the amazing thing about the responses the Yes Men parodies have gotten all along? Hardly anyone realized those presentations were jokes. It's stunning how far the audiences would follow Andy down the path of these ridiculous ideas without balking, let alone realizing he was an imposter. BS: It amazes me to think that Andy is photographed for a big newspaper, in that gold spandex suit," with a huge phallus sewn on, and that the reporters and newspaper editors still bought that he was a WTO representative. I mean, that had to get past the people at the conference, the journalist, the photographer; that picture got taken back to the newspaper, and the editor would've had to look at it and say, "Ahhh, that's reasonable. Let's print it." So many people seemed to find it reasonable to assume that it's something the WTO might do. That's just extraordinary. SM: Do you really think they bought it? Or is there a polite discomfort, a sort of "let's pretend the guy's not naked" kind of thing going on? Or were they just not really paying attention to the speakers? BS: Well, Andy said at one point that he thought that for the people at the conference, the possibility that the representative from the WTO might be an imposter was just so off the radar, it might be easier to believe the WTO delegate just went nuts on the airplane. [lots of laughing] And once the prank's out there, we have no control over how it gets reported. SM: Has a story ever gotten away from you, or done something you wish it hadn't? BS: Well, the Bhopal thing was pretty hard. We hadn't anticipated that it would be shown in news organizations all over India, or for as long as it was. . . But it's fine, because in spite of all the criticism we've gotten about raising false hopes for the victims, the chemical leak happened twenty years ago, and there's very little pressure left on Dow to do anything about compensation or clean-up. It's the twentieth anniversary of the leak this year, and it wasn't getting much attention. It'll get even less on the twenty-first anniversary, or the twenty-second. At least what we did put some pressure on Dow and got the situation in Bhopal back in the public's attention. That's a good thing. SM: How is the Yes Men organization structured? BS: It's not organized in any way, shape or form. [laughs] SM: So it's purely democratic? Or anarchist? BS: I wouldn't call it democratic [laughs]. Chaotic would be a better word. That's for sure. SM: Well then, in your fondest hopes, what do you hope the lasting consequence of the Yes Men might be? When the publicity dies down and corporate embarrassment from your pranks fade, what do you hope might last? BS: I wish there was going to be a lasting impact. I wish we had a big plan that outlined step by step: we're going to do this and then this, and then this is how the world is going to change. But we don't. SM: So you don't see yourselves as a movement? BS: Nah. No--that's way grandiose. It's just that we're living in a world where the bad guys are consistently winning, and it's really hard to see the way it all works together. And those on the left are having a difficult time articulating a vision for how things might be different. Everybody's just feeling their way forward. In that context, we're just a group of friends with a funny, odd way of doing that; we're feeling our way forward in this just like everyone else. This [the Yes Men and the hijinks] just inadvertently landed in our laps. It's not that what we're doing is the most profound political thing ever. [laughs] I wish we had something to do that was more effective--that was good enough to actually result in Dow Chemicals compensating the Bhopal victims and cleaning up that mess. But do I have a better idea right now? Nope. Do you? If you do, I want to hear it. Tell me please [laughs]. I don't see us as movement leaders. Nobody elected us to do anything. But if we have a contribution to make, it's to show that there are cracks in the wall. If you're creative and alert, and not too averse to taking risks, then you can get in those cracks and push around, explore them. You can make them bigger. What will the ultimate consequence be? I don't know; but whatever happens, it'll be better than if we don't do anything. [b]Getting to YES: A Timeline of Yes Men Development[/b] [b]1993:[/b] In college Mike swaps the voiceboxes of a bunch of G.I. Joe dolls and Barbie dolls so that the G.I. Joes say "Math is too hard" and the Barbies warn "Dead men tell no lies." The altered dolls are returned to store shelves with a note urging customers dissatisfied with their dolls to call a "customer service" phone number. When upset kids dial the given number, they find themselves talking with journalists at TV news desks. These same reporters also received a mysterious video (from the "Barbie Liberation Organization") showing the BLO's "gender transformation laboratory" and claiming responsibility for the tampering. The incident was covered by 60 Minutes and in newspapers around the country. [b]1996:[/b] Andy is hired as a computer programmer for the video game [i]SimCopter[/i]. When Andy got bored with programming the officially sanctioned characters of the game, he inserted a few extra: a small army of men, clad only in swimsuits, who periodically popped into the game to shower the player and each other with kisses. When this illicit "feature" was discovered by the company, Andy was promptly fired. News leaked to journalists of the swimsuited, kissing men, and Andy's prank was covered in newspapers around the world including the [i]Wall Street Journal[/i]. [b]1996:[/b] Andy establishes RTMark.com, an anonymous website which encouraged, posted, and claimed to fund activist pranks. Issuing a historically revisionist press release, Andy claimed the computer game prank was RTMark's first success. When Andy got wind of Mike's gender-bending adjustment of the Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls, the two joined forces and began the collaboration that would become the Yes Men. [b]1997:[/b] Andy and Mike perform a number of actions under the auspices of RTMark.com including "World Phone In Sick Day," and an internet assault on the Mexican government's web servers in support of the Zapatistas. [b]1999:[/b] The Yes Men grows to include a number of additional members and behind-the scenes planners like Bob Spunkmeyer. Their first act of "identity correction," involves registering the domain name GWBush.com and setting up a parody web site made to look virtually identical to Bush's real web site, GeorgeWBush.com. The phony web site focuses on Bush's alleged cocaine use, the decline of pollution standards in Texas during his tenure and his business failures in private life. The Yes Men caught the attention (and ire) of George W. Bush, who threatened to sue them for copyright infringement and complained to the Federal Elections Commission about their activities. The Bush campaign then spends lots of money buying up potentially embarrassing domain names. Articles and stories about the Yes Men's web site appear in newspapers and on TV news programs across the country. [b]2000:[/b] A fan purchases rights to the domain name www. GATT.org and suggests that the Yes Men build another parody web site, this time mimicking the internet content put up by the World Trade Organization. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the international trade agreement signed after World War II, was a precursor to the establishment of the WTO (which was formed to implement the terms of GATT). Andy and Mike model the phony www.gatt.org to look roughly identical to the WTO's actual web site, but stuff it with rhetoric about the abuses of "free trade," and its cost to poorer countries and workers around the world. A number of reporters and people surfing for information and contacts within the WTO don't realize that www. gatt.org is a fake, and they contact Andy and Mike, mistakenly assuming they are communicating with spokesmen for the WTO. At the same time, the WTO itself issues a press release condemning the Yes Men's phony web site. The ensuing publicity from the WTO's condemnation of the Yes Men in the press cements the Gatt.org in the public's attention. More people visit www.gatt.org than ever before. The Yes Men set up a similar parody site highlighting what they perceive to be Dow's failure to accept responsibility for the Union Carbide (whose assets Dow acquired) 1984 chemical plant leak in Bhopal, India, called www.dowethics.com. [b]May, 2000:[/b] Andy and Mike begin to accept invitations from trade show organizers, journalists and policymakers to speak as WTO representatives at a variety of industry meetings, international trade conferences and in news interviews. [b]July 2000:[/b] After honing their impersonation skills, the Yes Men make their first national splash when Andy (as WTO spokesman "Granwyth Hulatberi") is interviewed July 19, 2000 about WTO's policies and positions for the Genoa G-8 summit during CNBC's [i]European Marketwrap[/i] program. Though his responses are often ridiculous, even incoherent, CNBC doesn't realize Andy is merely an imposter. [b]2004:[/b] The Yes Men continue on their merry way, releasing a book and film of their exploits, both entitled [i]The Yes Men: The True Story of the End of the World Trade Organization[/i]. The book is available from the Disinformation Company; the documentary, directed by Chris Smith of [i]American Movie[/i] fame, will release on DVD in February. [b]Hijinks Highlights: [/b] [i]The Management Leisure Suit[/i] At a textile conference in Tampere, Finland, Andy presents a speech on globalizing the industry. After giving a long justification for a free-market solution to slavery, Andy goes on to suggest a device that would afford First World managers better control of their Third World "remote labor force." Andy culminates the speech by modeling his prototype: a gold lamé "management leisure suit," adorned with an "employee visualization appendage" screen affixed to the end of a large, inflatable phallic protrusion from the suit. Though he's interviewed and photographed in this gold leotard for a number of newspapers, no one questions his identity as a WTO representative. [i]Let Them Eat "Hamburgers"[/i] At the invitation of a university to speak to business students and faculty, Andy recommends a solution to the problem of hunger in poor parts of the world. The proposal involves feeding poor people "recycled" McDonald's hamburgers, reconstituted from human waste--just, as he claims, like the ones the audience has been given. The college students, not fooled by the slick Powerpoint presentation and illustrations, are the first audience to respond with hostility to one of Andy's proposals. [i]The Death of the WTO[/i] In 2002, Andy is invited to speak on behalf of the WTO at a luncheon given for free-trade policy experts. In an exercise of "super-identity correction," Andy declares that the WTO will disband due to free-trade policy failures and injustices, and even crimes. He also announces the re-establishment of a global trade organization that will be based around the principles articulated in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. Again, no one initially challenges the veracity of Andy's announcement. The real WTO is forced to issue a statement insisting upon their continued existence. [i]Dow Pays[/i] Posing as Dow Chemical company spokesman "Jude Finisterra," Andy announces during a BBC news report that Dow is taking full responsibility for cleaning up the site of the 1984 Bhopal, India chemical leak, which killed thousands of employees and residents, and will provide a $12 billon compensation package for victims of the disaster. The story isn't retracted for over two hours. The report on BBC is aired widely throughout India, as well as in Europe. Those in Bhopal who have been suing for compensation are ecstatic as news spreads of the cash payments to come. Dow issues a press release denying that the company will offer any increase in compensation for those affected by the chemical leak in Bhopal, and further deny that they have any new plans to clean up the plant site. (Copyright Susannah Schouweiler. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission of the author.)

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Fran Lebowitz On... (Ruminator, Aug/Sept 2005)

Susannah Schouweiler — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:58:29 GMT

[b]FRAN LEBOWITZ ON...[/b] [i]Interview by Susannah McNeely Schouweiler[/i] This interview with the notoriously reclusive raconteur, humorist, and author, Fran Lebowitz, was published in August 2005 by [i]Ruminator magazine[/i]. The conversation ranges widely, from her stint playing a judge on the TV show [i]Law and Order[/i], to her assessment of the public's intelligence; from the state of public education to bans on smoking. She talks about why she considers herself a "realist" and why she hasn't actually managed to write more books. As you'd expect, Ms. Lebowitz tosses off one-liners and pithy quotables effortlessly throughout--she's a wildly entertaining conversationalist. (Copyright Susannah Schouweiler. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission of the author.)

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My Father the Penguin (Ruminator magazine, January/February 2005)

Susannah Schouweiler — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:44:24 GMT

[b]THE LAST WORD: "My Father the Penguin" by Susannah McNeely (Schouweiler)[/b] I grew up believing the Munsingwear penguin logo was a baby picture of my dad. I believed it when I was three years old; I took it for granted when I was nine, and probably didn't think of it much at all after that. What's worse--it just didn't occur to me to even question the connection between the little penguin and my dad until I was 22. I suppose before then, the Munsingwear-logo-as-Pop's-baby picture just snoozed quietly in my subconscious. You've seen the shirts I'm talking about. Munsingwear makes a variety of those thin knit golf shirts with the stiff collars. They used to be popular weekend playclothes for men my dad's age and, apparently, now with the ironically-inclined hipster, thrift-store-shopping set. I Googled the company recently and was inexplicably saddened to see that Munsingwear isn't in evidence much these days at department stores apart from underwear, socks and Cosby sweaters. I guess they must not be doing a roaring trade on the golf shirts anymore. When I was about 22, I was at the mall with my folks (it must have been winter break from college) and saw a guy walking by, wearing a shirt with the familiar penguin. I immediately called to my dad, "Heeey. What's he doing wearing your baby picture?" Then I had a moment of cognitive dissonance as the yearslong fabric of fatherly lies unraveled. I turned to look at him. He's a quiet man most of the time, soft-spoken and endowed with a dry, eccentric Texan wit and known talent for fabrication. When I looked at him, there was a look of profound satisfaction, of longstanding patience at last rewarded, in the shit-eating grin on his lean face. He'd planted valuable little lie seeds, years ago, tended them through the years with just a bit of food and water; and it gave him great pleasure to finally pick and eat that ripe fruit. Of course, I was appalled at my gullibility (in your twenties you like to think you at last have the world figured out); but I was also a bit awed (not for the first time, unfortunately) at my dad's patience and skill. The Munsingwear penguin, of all things. You've got to applaud his devotion to the pure science of fatherly fiction. Sure, lots of fathers lie to their children, it's one of the perks of parenthood; but I realized in that moment that my own father is one of the elite, a true master of the craft. I think he must have first told me the penguin tale in a preverbal stage of my development. I suspect that was crucial. He never forgot the story, never wavered from it, but (and here's where the genius lives) he didn't beat it into the ground with repetition or pomp either. He was subtle. Thorough. I certainly don't remember a time in my childhood when I wasn't aware of Dad's affiliation with the Munsingwear penguin. The trick of it was so elegantly simple: the penguin was just was one of many things Dad tucked into his bio as I grew up--no different for me than his mother's cedar chest filled with family odds and ends, or his grainy old black and white pictures of nameless ancestors on dusty west Texas cotton farms. It wasn't even particularly noteworthy. Of course there are obvious questions you might pose--Munsingwear isn't exactly uncommon (or wasn't in the '70s when Dad was wearing them all the time); how did I not notice other men wearing these golf shirts and put two and two together? Perhaps you might point out the key vulnerability in his story, the whole penguin thing. And, how did I not question why one would sew a baby picture onto a golf shirt, penguin or no? Again, I say, if it's entered into the family lore soon enough, before the kid has much analytical skill in place, it's not so unreasonable to think such a story might persist (in my case for years) unchallenged. I was simply a victim of Dad's scientific inquiry, his own personal child psychology experiment. Here's another beaut: when I was little he told me that if you walk with a really long, deliberate stride, and if you hop a little bit at just the right time as you do it, you can gradually build momentum (scientifically enhancing those long strides) until leaping buildings and fences doesn't present much of a problem. He claimed it was just a matter of good timing and patient practice. I tried that one out--that was his critical mistake, giving me something I could test on my own. (You needn't bother with your own experiments. I've come to the conclusion it's not such a scientifically sound way to fly, after all.) Today, I called him to see if there were more of his undiscovered deceptions I might still be holding onto. He's newly retired from the railroad, so I happened to catch him on the golf course; he'd just finished his last hole. He laughed innocently, and implied that he'd long since reformed and come clean. But I have my doubts. I've been thinking all this over, and I'm fairly certain I've still got some of those seedlings left to find, more jarring revelations in my future. Try as I might, Pop's not letting me see what's up his sleeve. He's still waiting to see what bears fruit. And so am I. [i]Originally published in the January 2005 issue of Ruminator magazine[/i] (Copyright Susannah Schouweiler. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission of the author.)

image: My Father the Penguin (Ruminator, January 2005)

image: My Father the Penguin (Ruminator, January 2005)

Kinky Friedman--Author, Cowboy, Singer...Governor? (Ruminator, April/May 2005)

Susannah Schouweiler — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:38:35 GMT

[b]"KINKY FRIEDMAN: Author, Cowboy, Singer...Governor?"[/b] [i]Interview by Susannah McNeely (Schouweiler)[/i] Richard Friedman was born near Palestine, Texas to an educated middle-class Jewish family. He'll tell you that's why he never made it as a country singer--he just didn't have the same "opportunities" for a fruitful career in country music afforded to those with troubled, impoverished childhoods. In college a roommate dubbed him "Kinky" for his mess of curly hair and the moniker stuck. Inspired by Kennedy, Kinky Friedman joined the Peace Corps in the late-'60s and served in Borneo, where he's claimed his primary accomplishment was to introduce the Frisbee to the natives, which they used to make their lips big. When he returned to the States, he had a brief but celebrated career writing and performing irreverent country songs with his band (Kinky Friedman and His Texas Jewboys) like "They Ain't Making Jews like Jesus Anymore" and "The Ballad of Charles Whitman," eventually even touring with Bob Dylan. Though the band developed a cult following, The Texas Jewboys' star faded by the late-'70s, and in the mid-'80s Kinky began a successful second career as a mystery novelist; his well-loved, hilarious mysteries feature a band of misfits called the Village Irregulars led by a hardboiled, politically incorrect detective (with whom Kinky shares his name and quick tongue) who solves murders and tosses off one-liners with equal ease. He's one of the few authors who can count both President Bush and President Clinton among his fans. His newest, and final, installment in the series, [i]Ten Little New Yorkers[/i], has just been released. He's an enterprising philanthropist. Taking cues from Paul Newman, he's tried his hand at life as a food impresario--offering proceeds from sales of Kinky Friedman Private Stock salsa to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch situated on his property and partnering with Farouk Shami to sell Holy Land olive oil, with all the profits going to fund summer camps for Palestinian and Israeli children to get together. At 60 years old, Friedman has stopped writing novels, and in early February he announced that he was making a bid for the office of Governor of Texas. His politics have grown more complicated--he's not easily pinned to the Left or the Right, no longer the child who cried over Adlai Stevenson's loss. [i]Ruminator[/i] spent some time recently talking with Friedman about his run for governor, the role of outsider candidates like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, and about restoring the cowboy to a place of honor in Texas. [b]Susannah McNeely:[/b] I seem to remember a year or so ago in a television interview, you said that at 60 you wanted nothing more or less than to be the Salsa King of Texas. And after your bid for Justice of the Peace in '86, you said you were leaving "that worthless tar baby that is politics" to the young people. What happened that changed your mind and prompted you to run for governor of Texas? [b]Kinky Friedman:[/b] Nothing changed my mind, that's still correct. This is not a political campaign. It's a spiritual one--a spiritual calling. [b]SM:[/b] What do you want to do? [b]KF:[/b] I want to change the face of politics here in Texas, and I don't want to do it politically. Just like Arnold, I want to get rid of the career politicians. And once we do that, I'm going to get the Californians out of Texas. [b]SM:[/b] [laughs] So you've got a big problem with Californians in Texas these days? [b]KF:[/b] It's part of my "anti-wussification" campaign. [b]SM:[/b] What is it that you think has become wussy about Texas? [b]KF:[/b] I think all of America has become wussified, and Texas is the last stand against wussification. [b]SM:[/b] How so? [b]KF:[/b] Well, you've got people falling all over themselves to apologize for saying "Merry Christmas" for instance. That's a good example. It's political correctness gone awry. Smoking regulations are strangling the live music scene in Austin, the live music capital of the world. Another example is prayer in schools: people are afraid of even nondenominational prayer in schools, and I say, what's wrong with a kid believing in something? And now it's the cowboy, the word's being used derogatorily; and I think that's wrong. [b]SM:[/b] How do you think "cowboy" has been used pejoratively? [b]KF:[/b] By Europeans, by some Americans . . . maybe it's because of George W., maybe not. It's been used that way to mean a loose cannon or a bully. But a cowboy has never been that. A cowboy has always stood up for the little people. He's always been a knight out of time, beloved by all the children of the world. I want to preserve the cowboy as he really is. I want to take us back to a time when the cowboys all sang and the horses were smart. I'm gonna beat this wussification, if I've got to do it one wuss at a time. [b]SM:[/b] As a spiritual leader of Texas, restoring the faith in the way things ought to be? [b]KF: [/b]That's right, I'm looking to do spiritual lifting instead of heavy lifting. That's what I'd do as governor. [b]SM:[/b] So does this idea of the honorable cowboy have anything to do with why you threw your support behind President Bush in this last election? You did, didn't you? [b]KF:[/b] Yes. I did in this last election, but I didn't vote for him the first time. [b]SM:[/b] Who did you vote for in 2000? [b]KF:[/b] I voted for Gore then. I was conflicted. . .but I was not for Bush that time. Since then, though, we've become friends. And that's what's changed things. [b]SM:][/b] So it's your friendship with him that's changed your mind about having him as president more than his specific political positions? [b]KF:[/b] Well, actually, I agree with most of his political positions overseas, his foreign policy. On domestic issues, I'm more in line with the Democrats. I basically think he played a poor hand well after September 11. What he's been doing in the Near East and in the Middle East, he's handling that well, I think. [b]SM:[/b] As an independent candidate running for office, if you get elected how will you get things done? Jesse Ventura won the bid for governor here in Minnesota, but once in office, he had a hell of a time getting much through the legislature. Part of that may have been related to his own confrontational way of dealing with people, but part had to do with a lack of political capital and allies in the legislature. How are you going to overcome those sorts of difficulties to get things done? [b]KF:[/b] Well, you can't get stuff done by going through the Texas legislature, anyway. We're only safe when they're out of session. I've said before, about Jesse, that he's really inspiring because he believed that the guy with the most money shouldn't always win--that elected office shouldn't just go to the highest bidder. What Jesse didn't realize is that wrestling is for real, and it's politics that are fixed. And if it's fixed, I want nothing to do with it. Imagine a governor with no strings attached, nobody owns him, totally untainted by politics. Imagine a state where musicians run the government instead of politicians, with a lot of young people involved. That might really work. Arnold's beginning to do the same thing in California. The real issue is whether we can knock down this windmill of politics as usual. If we can, we'll make the lone star shine again in Texas. [b]SM:[/b] But the comparison with Arnold doesn't really hold up. He's embraced within the Republican fold, even if he started as an upstart candidate. He's got plenty of allies in the party he can rely on for help in getting his ideas implemented as policy. You don't have that party support. [b]KF: [/b]Well, yeah, Arnold's a Republican. But the thing that's similar is that Arnold won when Californians decided to vote for an outsider, unencumbered by politics, rather than politics as usual. That's the real issue. He didn't take a stand on hardly any issues. [b]SM:[/b] [laughing] Well, I suppose that's true. [b]KF:[/b] But that's fine, because the paramount issue is an idea whose time has come, that's strong enough to defeat any army on earth. People were damned tired of Gray Davis and what he represented. Our governor is a lot like Gray Davis, but without the personality. [laughs] He's more interested in ironing his shirt than he is in ironing out the problems of Texas: his big issue is should he or should he not wear French cuffs. [b]SM:[/b] These general principles you're offering may suffice for now, but you've got two years of campaigning ahead of you before the election. At some point, people are going to want to know some of the substance behind what you plan to do if elected. [b]KF:[/b] They already know. I'll answer anything about any issue you want to talk about, if I know something about it. If I don't, I'm not afraid to admit it and say, "read my lips: I don't know." [b]SM:[/b] Okay, then. Give me the most important elements of your platform. [b]KF:[/b] Let's start with education. I want to make sure no teacher is left behind. I'll establish a Texas Peace Corps, bringing retired people back into service for their community, people that have a lot of love and a lot of skill. I'd ask them to help out with art and music, the things that have been stripped out of public education. I don't want Texas to be 49th in funding public education. [b]SM: [/b]If you want ambitious education reform, that's going to cost a lot of money. I've read that you'd want to legalize casino gambling in Texas, using the tax proceeds from that to cover the cost of funding education. Is that your plan? [b]KF:[/b] Yes, I would legalize casino gambling in Texas to help generate money that might pay for education. But I also wouldn't waste the money we already have. Even if there were billions of extra dollars, if you gave them to this current governor he wouldn't help education, really. He'd put that money in all the wrong places: building stadiums, on computers, on more parking lots. When you think the problem with education is all about financial and technological shortfalls, you're making a mistake, because the problem is human. The answer is to go out and find that great teacher, the one that changes lives; and when we find him or her, we place them in our under-resourced schools where they're most needed. And then we need to listen to that person when we make policy; learn from him or her--bring them to Austin or bring Austin to them. In other words, money may buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail. [b]SM:[/b] After you've successfully recruited good teachers and allocated them around the state to underserved areas, you may still find that you need money to pay them and keep the schools running. You'd have to work with the legislature, wouldn't you, to get that money flowing toward these educational programs? How would you convince the politicians to work with you? [b]KF: [/b]The way you do that is the same way that Arnold's doing it: you inspire the people, make it the centerpiece of your table when you talk to them; you shine a light in the darkness and let everybody know about what you need to do. Right now, our governor is more worried about lagging behind Kansas in technology access for our schools than he is about the fact that we're lagging far behind nearly everyone in terms of child poverty and funding for education. That's the much larger issue. Right now, the only states we beat on child poverty are Arkansas, New Mexico and West Virginia--these are some of the poorest states in the nation. I mean, Mississippi is ahead of us in all these areas. It's ridiculous. If you're lagging behind Mississippi, you've got a problem--especially a state like Texas. And I don't want Texas to rank first in executions. Two thousand years ago we executed an innocent man, Jesus Christ--my question is, what have we learned in two thousand years? Actually, people may have learned quite a bit since then, but the government hasn't learned a thing. Texas, right now, is very close to executing an innocent man. [b]SM:[/b] Max Soffar? You've written about his case, I think. [b]KF: [/b]That's right. I'll be speaking to Max tonight, and we'll find out soon if he's going to get a retrial. If he gets a new trial, you're going to see that he's been railroaded. I believe Max to be innocent, and an increasing number of law enforcement officials are coming to believe the same thing. Recently released notes from the first trial indicate that even the prosecutor has serious doubts about Max's guilt, but if the system makes a mistake, it covers it up. That's the problem, the system covers its mistakes to avoid embarrassment. Texas doesn't even have the option of sentencing someone to life without parole: here it's only inject or eject. [b]SM: [/b]Given your qualms about how the death penalty is being used, are there any circumstances under which you would be comfortable with it? As the system is in Texas now? [b]KF: [/b]Yes. I'm not anti-death penalty, but I'm damn sure anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed. It's not going to happen on my watch. [b]SM: [/b]Practically speaking, how would you change the system so that you could have both? [b]KF:[/b] The first thing I'd do is establish a board of people who could knowledgeably oversee the way the death penalty is used. And I'd want to see, the way they've done in Illinois, if we have people currently on death row that don't belong there. [b]SM: [/b]It still sounds like you're trying to have it both ways. Would you impose a moratorium on the death penalty while you and your board figure out what reform is needed? [b]KF:[/b] I don't know. I'll have to see what we find out about those people currently facing execution; but, yes, probably. [b]SM:[/b] There is a rich tradition of support for the death penalty in Texas. Do you think you'll have public support for this kind of measure? [b]KF:[/b] Yep, that's true--a lot of people in Texas are very much in favor of the death penalty. But there may not be as many pro-death penalty people as you might think. Things aren't always what they seem. In Texas, you've got a lot of people who hunt and who love guns; but you've got even more people that love animals. They just haven't spoken up or realized that they can vote in enough numbers to make things happen. [b]SM:[/b] How do you feel about gun control? You wrote a column a while back in [i]Texas Monthly[/i] about why you don't hunt, didn'tyou? [b]KF:[/b] I'm not anti-hunting, I just don't hunt. As far as gun control goes, in Texas the conceal-and-carry law is working really well; it's cut crime and I think George W. did good with that one. I don't think he did well with the death penalty--I'm not as confident as he is that innocent men haven't been killed. [b]SM:[/b] When you imagine the voter you're most likely to resonate with--who do you have in mind? What's important to them? [b]KF:[/b] Well, I think one thing's really resonating with those voters--they're tired of the choice between plastic or paper in their elected officials. They're really tired of politicians who don't really get anything done that doesn't serve their own interests. If the Democrats get a good idea, the Republicans shoot it down. If Republicans get a good idea, the Democrats kill it. All they care about are their parties. Me, I care about Texas. [b]SM:[/b] Are you in agreement with Ralph Nader then? Are you suggesting that there aren't really any differences between the parties? [b]KF:[/b] Well, there's a lot of insider scheming that we're all tired of. Nader, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan--maybe none of them should have been President, but certainly, their ideas should be heard. And the parties are doing everything in their power to keep independents from being heard right here in the Lone Star State; the established political parties in Texas are making it almost impossible for anyone to do what Nader, Buchanan and Perot have done. We haven't had an independent candidate successfully run for governor since 1859. It's a classic battle of money against ideas. The last time around, the winner in the Texas governor's race spent over $100 million. $100 million worth of negative attack ads and media coverage to get a job that pays only $100,000. Now since I'm thinking in terms of this being a "spiritual campaign," do you think Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King would do that? They all died broke, right? Would Jesus have paid $100 million to buy an election? I don't think they would. Those guys were independent. [b]SM:[/b] But you're a guy that shrewdly uses PR, too. You may not have to spend $100 million to do it, but I can't help but notice that your announcement to run for governor just happens to coincide nicely with the release of your new mystery novel. [b]KF:[/b] Well, that's pretty accidental. And besides, this is going to be my last novel for reasons that will be become apparent to anyone who reads it. I figure literature's loss is politics' gain. I'm glad to be done with the series, really. [b]SM: [/b]You've been doing this series nearly 20 years. I suppose that's a long time to spend developing just one character with a pretty limited formula? [b]KF:[/b] Seventeen books total. It's incredible, really. Now, if I were John Grisham or Tom Clancy, maybe I'd keep them going; it might be worth it. But I'm not in that mainstream category, and you know, I don't have a lot of respect for the mainstream anyway. I think they're going to be pretty irrelevant in the future; more people are going to be reading me than will be reading Clancy or Grisham, in the same way that more people read Bukowski now than read Harold Robbins. [b]SM:[/b] I have a question for you about [i]Ten Little New Yorkers[/i]. I've noticed in the last few books, especially in this one, that there's a lot of melancholy and self doubt plaguing your namesake character. And you've commented a couple of times recently that you're "a serious guy that nobody takes seriously." Are you beginning to feel trapped in this larger-than-life, wisecracking cowboy persona? [b]KF:[/b] Well, the problem with the mystery field is it's as deep as it is narrow. There are parts of the formula you can't get away from, that keep it limited and trite: the bodies in the library, the usual suspects, that kind of thing. The interesting part of it isn't cheap, dog-eared death; the interesting part is life, and the detective wondering if there's life before death. Maybe I'm going through some soul searching too. After all, I'm 60 years old--but I read at the 62-yearold level. I think about things a little differently now than I did before. [b]SM:[/b] Is this why you decided to run for governor now? You've joked about it in your [i]Texas Monthly[/i] column for a couple of years, but it's quite another matter to commit to seriously running for office. Was there one specific thing that prompted you to do it? [b]KF: [/b]I think there was. . . I was stranded, clutching on the side of a cliff for almost 48 hours in Cabo San Lucas five or six years ago. I was on vacation, and I got hit by a freak wave as I was walking on the beach one night that threw me up against the cliff. I thought I was going to die. And I was stranded on this cliff and it was pitch black; I was dehydrated, and I thought no one would find me. This was a private beach, with really expensive luxury homes--Sly Stallone lives there, people like that--and no one would ever think something bad could happen there. That same night a 16-year-old boy was caught in a similar riptide, along the same stretch of beach, and died. I was eventually rescued. While I was on the cliffside, I kept thinking that there's got to be more to life than being a Ronald Reagan pitchman, you know? And I thought, if I live through this, I'm going to do something that might have more meaning, that might help people achieve their own dreams, like I've been able to achieve mine. [b]SM:[/b] But why now? Did something in particular get under your skin, make you angry? [b]KF: [/b]You know, I'm not really even running against the current governor. I'm running against the whole damn system--it's corrupt, it's inefficient and it's soulless. We've let these people run the show for a long time now, and the results have been dreadful. Now let's see if somebody else can do it better. I mean, arguably, Texas should be the most influential state, a leader; New York, California and Texas. I think the cowboy is the greatest export the U.S. and Texas have sent to other countries. I mean, if you go overseas the cowboy is what everyone knows and responds to--little kids, old people. They love the cowboy everywhere: in Iraq, Vietnam, South Africa. And Texas is the place they want to visit when they come to America; they're not looking to go to New Jersey. [b]SM: [/b]What is it about the cowboy that you think resonates so much? And what does the cowboy signify for you? [b]KF:[/b] It means to be able to ride, to shoot straight and to tell the truth. It's the opposite of being political--it's common sense. It's about finding that beautiful place above politics where things get done. [b]SM:[/b] Do you think that when people enter the voting booth that a person's character is more important than his/her policy stance? [b]KF:[/b] I think both are important. I've already told you a lot more about my policy stance than either Arnold or Jesse ever came forth with. This is a chance to vote for somebody, not against anyone. Like I've said, I'm not running against the governor; I'm voting to change the whole system. It's a spiritual campaign against the status quo. It's going to be really difficult to win as an independent candidate, but I want to be every man's horse in this race and every woman's horse in this race. I'm not running to place--I'm running to win. It doesn't really mean anything if a Democrat or a Republican wins in Texas, but if an Independent wins--that'll send a shiver up the spine of every career politician in the country. What a great thing to happen! Talk about sending a message. That would do it. It'll be up to the people of Texas. They're the only ones I'm listening to anyway. My fellow Texans are my heart; they'll hear the same things I've told you, and they'll never have to wonder what I'm about. They know that they, Texans all over the world wherever they may be, are my only special interest group. (Copyright Susannah Schouweiler. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission of the author.)

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image: Kinky Friedman interview

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