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" What I appreciate about Radiohead's work - and it's most evident in 'Hail to the Thief' - is how the juxtaposition of narratives on the band's albums somehow creates a sense of wholeness. "
David Means
Band
Sense
Appreciate
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" I'm not sure if a writer should talk about themes. Themes arrive out of the deeper structure and concerns, but to me, the main thing is getting it down right, writing about specific characters in specific predicaments, and finding a way to be true to the story itself, not only in the first burst of draft but in the revision, too. "
David Means
Finding
Story
Writing
" A few days after 9/11, I put the old cassette of 'Born in the U.S.A.,' twisted and worn, on the car deck as I drove past West Point, across the Bear Mountain Bridge, along the Hudson River. It was the perfect moment to hear it. "
David Means
Car
Born
Mountain
" I was an at-home father, taking care of them for seven years when they were babies. I was one of those new-age, at-home dads. "
David Means
Them
Care
Father
" It's better to know your story than not to know. "
David Means
Than
Know
Story
" The short story is kind of a precision tool. It allows me a certain type of freedom to go in and out of the American landscape, without having to commit myself to a full-length novel. I find a lot of novels out there very boring. "
David Means
American
Story
Short
" America turns its back on the mentally ill. It likes to think it doesn't, but it does. "
David Means
Does
America
Likes
" I like landscape, I guess. It's kind of a game to see how you can describe it. "
David Means
See
Like
Landscape
" I love novels, and I read them more than anything, but stories cut in sharp and hard and are able to reveal things in a different way: they're highly charged, a slightly newer form, and inherently more contemporary. "
David Means
More
Love
Hard
" A short story collection can be as exciting as a novel. It is a real complete experience, like when you listen to a real good recording, a Beatles record, and there are so many good songs. "
David Means
Short
You
Experience
" There is this idea of 'north,' and if you're from Michigan and you wandered the Upper Peninsula, you know what it feels like. The sky has a particular vibe, a coldness, stretching into the upper reaches of Canada. "
David Means
Like
Sky
You
" I don't want to be a commentator of my own work. If you've written the story, you've said what you want to say. "
David Means
Said
My Own
Story
" From George Martin's classically inspired production of the Beatles to Peter Gabriel's early solo masterpieces, to Stereolab's beautiful loops and blips, U.K.-based bands have often found a way to squeeze warmth and compassion from the stone-cold - especially now that the tubes are gone - machinery of the recording studio. "
David Means
Compassion
Beautiful
Now
" I think that those moments before a performer plays are the moments when the potential for something to be created may - or may not - arrive. "
David Means
Think
Before
May
" I studied English at the College of Wooster in Ohio, and I did an M.F.A. in Poetry at Columbia. "
David Means
Poetry
Did
Ohio
" Iggy Pop is a pure Michigan product - gritty, smart, but not afraid of looking stupid or foolish. His father was once a high school English teacher. I love Iggy as a physical entity, sinewy, twisty - even in old age - an embodiment of rock and roll history. "
David Means
Teacher
Age
Father
" Vietnam and Iraq are part of the same national trauma and delusion; we folded the war up when Reagan became president and unpacked it with Bush. "
David Means
Vietnam
Up
Trauma
" I don't think you could write fiction or create art unless you are sort of a positive person. "
David Means
You
Create
Art
" I think a good story can do as much as a novel; not the exact same thing, of course, but just as much artistically. They're different beasts, but to tackle an expansive country like the United States, you're either going to write a big novel, or go in to various points on the map and write stories or poems. "
David Means
Story
You
Country
" As a story writer, you have work with sharp but relatively small tools, the picks of metaphor, the shovel blade of images, the trowel of point of view, and then you delicately lift and brush in the revision with love and care knowing that one slip, and you might damage an extremely delicate thing. "
David Means
Love
Care
Small
" There's a huge distance between who I am as a regular person and what takes place in my fiction. "
David Means
I Am
Place
Person
" You don't know what you need when you're a young writer. You can get small slivers of critical input, advice, comments, but if you're deep in the perplexity of your own process, as you should be, sorting it out in your own way, nothing is going to guide you more than small gestures of encouragement. "
David Means
You
Small
Know
" We believe in cures; we're a quick-fix country, and we drive forward, and we eat up what we have extremely fast in terms of natural resources and also ideas and intellectual property. We're kind of wilfully stupid a lot of the time, anti-intellectual. "
David Means
Drive
Believe
Stupid
" A good folk song tells you something you already know, in a form you're already familiar with, on terms that were set down long before you were born - when the country was primarily windblown dust, open wagon trains, and dysfunctional towns like Deadwood. "
David Means
Good
Song
Born
" Every interaction with another person involves a dance of expectation, even when you're just passing someone in the street. Inside those moments - however brief they may be - there is a kind of anticipatory silence. "
David Means
You
Dance
Street
" The more you know about Bob Dylan, the less you know. A truly enigmatic artist, Mr. Dylan's work and life offer vaporous handholds, explanations, and instructions. Attempt to grasp them, and they will only dissipate and re-form into another contexture or idea. "
David Means
Will
Life
Know
" Typically, I spend a lot of time - mostly in the morning - kind of drifting, reading, walking down along the river, looking at photographs, or even driving around. Then, if I'm lucky, I get to work in the early afternoon, one way or another. "
David Means
River
Morning
Time
" I think most short story writers, at one time or another, over the course of several books, naturally skirt near the edge of one genre or another. "
David Means
Story
Short
Over
" I was a kid who was born and raised on Johnny Cash. My father played 'At Folsom Prison' constantly. Cash was the only thing I remember coming from our big, warm stereo console. Even then, I knew Cash was uncool. I knew he was an unhip Republican. "
David Means
Prison
Republican
Remember
" I think all good short stories are about what it means to tell a good story. "
David Means
Good
Story
Stories
" In 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac,' Mr. Yorke's lyrics were often unfathomable, moaned and mumbled and forced beneath the surface of the music. In 'Hail to the Thief,' most but not all of the words can be decoded after a few listens. "
David Means
Music
Thief
Words