| |
one on one with Sherman Alexie, Regents' Distinguished Alumnus
The following conversation with Sherman Alexie was held October 10, 2003, the day he received the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award. Prior to the ceremony, Alexie and ask. magazine editor Gary Lindsey sat down for a conversation in the Thompson Hall conference room.
| ask. |
What question are you asked most often? |
| SA |
“How do you feel about casinos?” White people ask that question all the time, and I thought it was unjustified, but I’ve come to the realization now that Indian identity is all about whether you have a casino or whether you’re going to get one soon. Most people, especially non-Indians who don’t like tribal sovereignty, should be celebrating casinos because it means Indians have finally, completely, and totally assimilated into capitalism. We’ve given up. We’re waving the flag. We are you now. |
| |
|
| ask. |
Have you known people with the attributes of the characters you write about, or are they fabricated? |
| SA |
I’ve known a lot of half-nuts people—my family, me. So yes, I’ve known people like that. |
| |
|
| ask. |
Do you have a philosophy of life? |
| SA |
(after a pause) No. |
| |
|
| ask. |
I wish we could capture that face! |
| SA |
I… um… (another long pause) No. I believe… I’m so suspicious of people, even people with great ideas. So, admire the art, be suspicious of the artist. How’s that one? Admire the thought, be suspicious of the thinker? |
| |
|
| ask. |
What, more than anything else, do you and Diane hope you can instill in your sons as they become men? |
| SA |
Oh God (laughs). I just hope I’m good enough so that they don’t write memoirs about me later. You know, an underrated quality in the world is politeness. On a stage, I’m a rude bastard. In a public setting, I’m a rude bastard. But in day-to-day life, I believe in politeness. I believe in Miss Manners. I believe in Emily Post. Especially for men and young men. I do a lot of work with young people, and there’s just a lot of crassness and rudeness. So, if I can instill in my sons a real sense of old-fashioned manners in their dealings with the world, that would be great. |
| |
|
| ask. |
If you had a month, no obligations, no e-mail, no appearances, no impending contracts or deals, how would you spend the time? |
| SA |
Writing. Playing basketball. You know, I pretty much have the life I want. I hang out with my family, I write and play basketball. |
| |
|
| ask. |
What’s a typical day at your house? |
| SA |
A typical day, when I’m not writing hard core, we wake up, get the boys ready for school. They go off to school, and I drink coffee and read the newspaper. I get four of them. I prefer four slightly different variations of the lies. Then I go to the office and check mail, check snail mail, surf the Internet. Go have lunch, often with Diane, often not. Come back. Surf the Internet a little more. Write a little bit. Go home when the kids get home. Play for a few hours. When they go to bed, I start writing. Depending how intense it is, I can write ‘til dawn. |
| |
|
| ask. |
You mention an office. In my mind, I had you working at home. |
| SA |
No, I have an office. It’s a fabulous life, being an artist, and the more successful you get, the fewer boundaries there are between your professional and personal life. One way to enforce some boundaries is to get the office, so that’s what we did. It’s about five minutes from our house. And I also have someone who works for me, Christy, and she’s great. She’s a Washington State alumna. We met here. We lived in the apartments right down the hill from here. |
| |
|
| ask. |
Let’s run through this list: poet, author, screenwriter, film director, standup comedian. Is there anything you are dying to add to the list? |
| SA |
Phlebotomist (laughs). |
| |
|
| ask. |
Don’t look at me when you say that! |
| SA |
Amateur phlebotomist (laughs). That’s one of the strangest compliments I’ve ever received. A phlebotomist told me, “You have the most beautiful blood I’ve ever seen.” I don’t know. I’m thinking about stage plays. I’ve learned through the actors I worked with on Fancydancing that my approach is much more theatrical than cinematic. |
| |
|
| ask. |
Speaking of doing something new, was there ever any nervousness about trying something new, like film directing? |
| SA |
Oh, of course. You always feel that way. In my experience, there are pretty much two kinds of writers, those who love everything they do and those who can’t stand it, and I’m in the “can’t stand it” camp. I often hate what I’m doing as I do it. I’m still driven to do it. I have a very antagonistic relationship with my art. I’m always struck by those thoughts, “I can’t do this,” “I’m no good at this,” “I’m clueless.” |
| |
|
| ask. |
I opened New Yorker magazine, and there you are…an invited speaker at the New Yorker Festival. |
| SA |
That’s the pinnacle. That’s John Cheeverville. I’m happy to be a visitor in John Cheeverville. My whole life is this sort of very quiet miracle. One of the things I say is, “I’m living this huge and epic life, and most people don’t even realize it.” I do an occasional political column for The Stranger, which is the Commie, gay rag in Seattle. I get lots of hate mail. It’s really fun. One piece of low-key hate mail came recently and called me “the liberal elite.” I wrote back and said, “Do you know I grew up on a reservation? I didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was 7. I went to a farm-town high school where I was president of the Future Farmers of America. I castrated a sheep with my teeth. I judged meat.” (laughs) I haven’t heard from him. |
| |
|
| ask. |
What do you think you got out of Washington State University? |
| SA |
I struggled here through serious lack of diversity. I was a double minority, a Native American and a liberal. That was difficult, but I don’t measure the institution by that, I measure it by what worked for me—Alex Kuo, Joan Burbick, Sue Armitage, LeRoy Ashby, and the friends I made here from all over the state, all over the country, all over the world. You come to college to find your tribe. My real tribe are people who love books. What I learned here is the love of books and how to read. I’m not who I am without this place. |
WORTHY OF NOTE
Sherman Alexie received standing ovations both when he was introduced and when he concluded his public reading and remarks.
Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian, grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, about 50 miles northwest of Spokane. He received his B.A. in American studies from Washington State University in Pullman in 1994. Two of his poetry collections, The Business of Fancydancing and I Would Steal Horses, were published just one year after leaving WSU. (Alexie completed his studies in 1991; his degree was conferred in 1994.)
Alexie’s poetry books include One Stick Song (2000), The Man Who Loves Salmon (1998), The Summer of Black Widows (1996), Water Flowing Home (1995), Old Shirts and New Skins (1993), First Indian on the Moon (1993), I Would Steal Horses (1992), and The Business of Fancydancing (1992).
He is also the author of several novels and collections of short fiction, including his latest, Ten Little Indians (2003); The Toughest Indian in the World (2000); Indian Killer (1996); Reservation Blues (1994), which won the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award; and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), which received a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and is now required reading on many college campuses.
In 1999, the New Yorker named Alexie one of the top writers for the new millennium, listing him among “20 Writers for the 21st Century” in its Summer Fiction Edition. Alexie’s other honors include poetry fellowships from the Washington State Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, and Sundance Film Festival awards.
Known as a poet and writer, Alexie made his debut as a screenwriter with the script for the movie Smoke Signals, based on a story from his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Smoke Signals was honored with two awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. The Business of Fancydancing, which is now available on DVD, marks Alexie’s directorial debut and won awards last year at several film festivals, including Victoria, San Francisco, and Durango.
Alexie told the crowd in Bryan Hall that he wore a Bigfoot T-shirt to honor the memory of Grover Krantz, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology, and the numerous times Alexie had engaged Krantz in conversations about Sasquatch. Krantz died in 2002.
For more about Sherman Alexie, visit www.shermanalexie.com. |
|
|
|
