Google is a haven for red herrings. For example:
In 2003, (back when they introduced Heather O’Neill as the author of Two Eyes Are You Sleeping, rather than Lullabies for Little Criminals) This American Life ran the show “The Other Man,” which in the last act featured a story by Heather O’Neill and Jonathan Goldstein about Arizona’s initial distaste for “Johnny.” Here’s the blurb:
Act Three. Mr. Fun.
Jonathan Goldstein and Heather O’Neill tell the true story of what happens when a person tries to intrude on a idyllic family of two, one of whom loves him, one of whom does not. For the first few years Jonathan knew Heather, her daughter Arizona was not very fond of him. For a long time he was nineteenth on Arizona’s list of favorite people — behind the neighbor’s dog and the plumber. Jonathan Goldstein is the author of the book, Lenny Bruce is Dead. Heather O’Neill’s is the author of Two Eyes Are You Sleeping, a book of poetry. (15 minutes)
Some of my favorite highlights:
More JG and HO history. They were “introduced by friends” at a bar, where JG was impressed by how fast Hettie drank beer and she was impressed with how JG was wearing glasses with only one arm. “You look like a cartoon doctor from the side.”
Also, it notes that he had a job teaching magic to kids after school. Which means that the stuff in the Wiretap episode “Everyday Magic,” is founded in a bit of truth.
Jonathan described Zouzou as “a muppet baby Joe Pesci.”
Also, Heather notes Jonathan’s anal retentiveness in this episode, describing his housekeeping tips as “bourgeois” (i.e. not putting your clothes on the line at midnight, cleaning the crisper, and not allowing Zouzou to run through the hall naked in his boots).
Also there’s a part where Jonathan refuses to bring Zouzou’s burger up to the counter for the third time to ask for more pickles and she throws a tantrum. That sounds totally like Jonathan Goldstein’s character on Wiretap. JG (the real JG) is quite fond of the word “acquiesce” and I’m sure the first two times he was simply doing so at Hettie’s bidding. But JG the character is also extremely passive and non-confrontational and would be extremely distressed at the prospect of inconveniencing a Burger King employee for his own sake (see: “Far Away Places” where Gregor advises that JG adopt a Brooklyn accent in order to get more respect).
Anyway, of course they end up friends in the end, but this is a very entertaining and illuminating piece from 5 years ago. It’s always interesting to hear the Wiretap gang on TAL because they are always more candid and less outrageous. Not that I’d want them to be that way on Wiretap (in fact, that’s what makes Wiretap entertaining…the outrageous lies) but its always a treat to peek behind the curtain.
Hello!
I’m assuming that this week’s episode is akin to a re-enactment on Unsolved Mysteries. Although its billed as salvaged tape a la Blair Witch Project, I’m pretty sure this is all re-creation. It has the exact same audio “texture” as Wiretap and I think I doubt that JG had the chops he does now back when he was a neophyte. Plus, JG’s parents appear as the voices of random loonies and goonies at Dragon’s Throat.
Also, Gregor appears, playing himself – Jonathan Goldstein’s pre-med roommate. Not sure if that really happened or not.
Jonathan mentions the term “Hi-Bye Friends” in the episode which you may remember from “Allure of the Mean Friend” episode from This American Life.
Also, in the credits he mentions Heather O’Neill and “dog scratchings” which is absolutely baffling to me. I emailed CBC about it but we’ll see if they have any explanation. Zackary Clark appears as a voice as does some guy with a confounding last name which I won’t even attempt to spell (sounds like Bez-moe-gus).
Anyway, tune in – one big fat 20 minute act of gonzo journalism, Goldstein-style.
Because Heather O’Neill won the Canada Reads competition in 2007, her novel has been garnering quite a bit of media stir. Lucky for us, this means tons of behind-the-scenes news pieces and interviews. Here’s your definitive guide to what’s out there on the Internet on O’Neill:
Highlight:
About.com: You started as a poet, with your book, “Two Eyes Are You Sleeping.” Did you make a transition to fiction at some point, or had you always written both? In what ways does your background as a poet influence your prose?
Heather O’Neill: I think there was always something very proselike about my poetry, the same way that I think there is something very poetic about my prose. After my poetry book came out, I entered a creative writing program and all the poetry classes were full so I took a prose class. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was so much easier to get published, too, which helped.
So she started writing prose by default? Gee whiz. That’s kind of how I ended up taking German in college, but mein Deutsch ist absolute Scheiße. It’s kind like how Goldstein ended up with his first Wiretap-esqe piece for This American Life. He told Transom.org:
The next twenty-odd years were uneventful as well as virtually worthless. I completed my public school education and then did a ten-year stint in a telemarketing office. Then one day, my friend Joshua Karpati told me about a phone message that was circulated throughout Columbia University in the early nineties. The message essentially consisted of a Jewish mother telling her Jewish son to go fuck himself. He told me about all the various lives that were touched by this message. I decided to produce a story about it on TAL.
That ended up on the episode “Recordings for Someone” and featured Josh being not-as-shrill-as-Wiretap-Josh and uttering “I diggy-don’t give a rat’s ass.”
Highlight: Just in case you were worried that Heather O’Neill’s childhood was absolutely ghastly, here’s this:
Q: The vivid first-person narration of your novel makes it read more like autobiography than fiction. To what extent did you borrow from your own experiences as a teenager in crafting the world Baby inhabits?
A: The novel isn’t autobiographical. The down and out world of Montreal was the one that I grew up in, though. It’s a world that is composed of what attracted and fascinated me at Baby’s age. Also, like Baby, I didn’t have a mother. I was raised by my father since I was seven years old. So the longing and absence for a mother is something that is in my bones, especially the difficulties of being an adolescent girl without a mother and looking for maternal love in relationships with boys. A lot of the children in the book were inspired by children that I was infatuated with. My dad is very different from Jules. But he’s similar in being eccentric and outrageous, but more in a tough guy kind of way. Like Jules, he tried his best, although his idea of parenting was absurd.
HarperCollins also provides a reading guide, for those of you who want to start a Heather O’Neill coffee clatch.
Lullabies for Little Criminals has an extensive Wikipedia entry, too.
Highlights: List of awards:
A Quill and Quire profile. Written more narrative style and less Q & A.
Highlight: Notes that Zouzou isn’t allowed to read the book and that Hettie has “a soft voice that is impressively smooth, given how many Camels she will smoke in the hour I’m there.” Always nice to know which cigarettes a writer smokes.
Here’s a story in the New York Times. Not an interview, but I found it in my search. It’s called “Almost Home.”
Ohh here’s a good one: TheStar.com has an article which gives us insight on Heather O’Neill and Jonathan Goldstein’s relationship.
O’Neill won a scholarship and graduated from McGill at the age of 20. A short-lived liaison produced a daughter, Arizona, now 12, to whom O’Neill is devoted. They live in Montreal with Jonathan Goldstein, host of CBC Radio’s show WireTap and author of Lenny Bruce Is Dead, a novel.
“I was 22 and he was 26 and we met when we were both reading our poetry at this little bar in Montreal,” she recalls. “He came in soaking wet from the rain and when he read, I thought it was the greatest poetry I’d ever heard. We traded our chapbooks. For years we were each other’s only fans.”
Also, the article mentions Paul Tough, who is interviewed twice by Howard on Wiretap (once in character and once as himself).
This brief article from The Aucklander News noted that Heather O’Neill was on a “celebrity panel” of judges for some kind of poetry slam.
Okay there are a lot more, won’t summarize but here are two more for now:
Sorry for the recent rash of O’Neill related posts, but I just finished the book and well, there’s a lot out there. She recently read at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival and they provided a couple links on her bio:
The Christchurch City Libraries Blog also has an account of the event.
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