An Evening with Sherman Alexie
Apr. 24th, 2008 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielSo I worked in Royal today and that was actually pretty busy. I only resorted to crosswords and sudoku for a little while. As soon as school got out, holy moly, it got busy. I mean, it usually does. But today I was helping a man on the computer and had my back turned for, like, five minutes. When I went to go back to my desk, there was a mountain of material. It was crazy.
And then I locked the door ten minutes early because I had places to be. Namely Wenatchee to see Sherman Alexie at the convention center. And I am so happy Mom and I went. He was funny and clever and engaging, interesting and charismatic. I think you could definitely tell he was experienced with stand-up, as Shannon reminds me. It was fantastic.
A couple of specific things I remember:
- He talked about 9/11 and how suddenly you could be safe with a Native American and how there will never be any Native American terrorists. This, he said, just illustrated their "amazing epic ability to forgive your white asses."
- During the little Q&A session someone asked about explaining eastern Washington to people around the world which led him to talking about how he considers himself a liberal libertarian and how he grew up with Democrats and Republicans and they all generally get along out here because they're all generally the same. Which led to him carrying some homophobia into his adult life and then entering the art world where "everyone is gay" and "those of us who are straight pretend to be a little gay" just to fit in. It was funny, and he was definitely trying to get a point across.
(At one point he stopped and looked around the room and said, "I just realized that all of the Democrats in Wenatchee are in this room right now.")
He actually then ended up ranting a bit about homophobia and how the worst homophobes also tend to be the ugliest people, followed by his Quasimodo impersonation, which was hilarious. And true, in my own experience.
And that led to talking about how the government trying to take away basic personal choice, personal make-up. Independent responsibility. ("First they'll go after gay people. Then ugly people. Then everyone will get we're in trouble." Basically.) He spoke about how conservatives are always pushing independent responsibility on him and then telling him that gay people threaten his marriage. "Gay men to not threaten my marriage. Two gay men walking down the street do not threaten my marriage. Gay men catered my marriage."
- A few generations from now we'll all be ethnically ambiguous (I don't think he used "ambiguous," but I can't remember what the word was). "There will be a few pockets of Indians and white people wondering where everyone went. They'll be surrounded by beige."
- Being an "ironic Indian immigrant who likes alliteration." Because Indians were "the first people here and the last people in."
The whole thing was thought-provoking and hilarious. There are other bits - funny bits - that I could type out, but they'd lose something because of the way he presents things. And after having read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and hearing him speak tonight, I can really see why some people wouldn't like him, why they'd have problems with the ideas he presents and the issues he tackles and how straight-forward he is in challenging some notions in this strangely mixed Democrat/Republican area of eastern Washington (where we all still get along anyway). But I think he's great.
And then I locked the door ten minutes early because I had places to be. Namely Wenatchee to see Sherman Alexie at the convention center. And I am so happy Mom and I went. He was funny and clever and engaging, interesting and charismatic. I think you could definitely tell he was experienced with stand-up, as Shannon reminds me. It was fantastic.
A couple of specific things I remember:
- He talked about 9/11 and how suddenly you could be safe with a Native American and how there will never be any Native American terrorists. This, he said, just illustrated their "amazing epic ability to forgive your white asses."
- During the little Q&A session someone asked about explaining eastern Washington to people around the world which led him to talking about how he considers himself a liberal libertarian and how he grew up with Democrats and Republicans and they all generally get along out here because they're all generally the same. Which led to him carrying some homophobia into his adult life and then entering the art world where "everyone is gay" and "those of us who are straight pretend to be a little gay" just to fit in. It was funny, and he was definitely trying to get a point across.
(At one point he stopped and looked around the room and said, "I just realized that all of the Democrats in Wenatchee are in this room right now.")
He actually then ended up ranting a bit about homophobia and how the worst homophobes also tend to be the ugliest people, followed by his Quasimodo impersonation, which was hilarious. And true, in my own experience.
And that led to talking about how the government trying to take away basic personal choice, personal make-up. Independent responsibility. ("First they'll go after gay people. Then ugly people. Then everyone will get we're in trouble." Basically.) He spoke about how conservatives are always pushing independent responsibility on him and then telling him that gay people threaten his marriage. "Gay men to not threaten my marriage. Two gay men walking down the street do not threaten my marriage. Gay men catered my marriage."
- A few generations from now we'll all be ethnically ambiguous (I don't think he used "ambiguous," but I can't remember what the word was). "There will be a few pockets of Indians and white people wondering where everyone went. They'll be surrounded by beige."
- Being an "ironic Indian immigrant who likes alliteration." Because Indians were "the first people here and the last people in."
The whole thing was thought-provoking and hilarious. There are other bits - funny bits - that I could type out, but they'd lose something because of the way he presents things. And after having read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and hearing him speak tonight, I can really see why some people wouldn't like him, why they'd have problems with the ideas he presents and the issues he tackles and how straight-forward he is in challenging some notions in this strangely mixed Democrat/Republican area of eastern Washington (where we all still get along anyway). But I think he's great.
