Jason Blitman: 0:32

Hello. Welcome back to gaze reading. I'm your host, Jason Blitman. And for those of you who are new, welcome. If you have joined us on gays reading before. Welcome back. Thank you for joining us again. new this season, we are on YouTube. So you can watch as well as listen to every conversation that I have with these incredible authors. you can like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you give us a five star review, it is so, so, so helpful for other book lovers to find us. Because of the algorithm. Uh, and you can follow us on social media at gaze reading on Instagram. We are doing a new giveaway every single week, exclusively on Instagram. So make sure to check us out there. And on today's show, I'm so excited to have Danzy Senna. Who's here to talk to us about her new book, colored television, which was just named this month. Good morning, America book, club pack, uh, and her publisher Riverhead created a really cool Spotify playlist for the book that I'm putting the link to. In the show notes. I listened to it all last night and it's super fun. Um, also in our show notes, you could find the bookshop.org link. Every book that we talk about on the show. Uh, can be found for sale on our bookshop.org page. And if you're unfamiliar with bookshop.org, it is a fantastic website. Uh, where you can buy books and support your local indie bookstores through that website. And on today's episode, we have a fantastic guest gay reader in Jonathan Adler, the designer who I'm sure you've all seen his death been in his stores. And not only does he share the books that he's reading right now, but he also gives us tips. For our bookshelves at home. Something that I announced on the last episode, is that I am starting a nonprofit to amplify LGBTQ plus voices. That is currently called outspoken, and you'll be able to know more soon, but if you want to check out we are outspoken.org. You can put in your email address and we'll shoot you an email. As soon as there is more to share. All right. I think those are all the things. Welcome to gaze reading Danzy, Senna. This is such a non sequitur, are you a musical theater fan by any chance?

Danzy Senna: 2:55

am actually, and both of my kids are really into musical theater. So they were the ones who got me into it. And. We're about to go see, um, strange loop together. And my husband is not into musical theater. So it's just always me and my two sons like going

Jason Blitman: 3:13

That's so cute. Well, this is so random, but you, you sort of look like a musical theater performer. And it's like kind of freaking me out. Her name is Eden Espinoza. She's incredible. She's

Danzy Senna: 3:27

got to look her up.

Jason Blitman: 3:28

on Broadway. She just starred in a musical on Broadway. She's, she's amazing. very talented

Danzy Senna: 3:33

Great. So I'm, uh, it's a doffle ganger. I like it.

Jason Blitman: 3:37

it's giving doppelganger. but I love that you're about to go see strange loop. I loved that

Danzy Senna: 3:42

Yeah, no, I have read it in print weirdly for very complicated reasons. And I've never seen it except little clips of it. So I'm so excited. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 3:52

no, it's, it's, uh, very interesting. I look forward to hearing what you think. Um, but we're not here to talk about a strange loop. Welcome to Gays Reading. We're here to talk to you about colored television. Your exciting new book. I don't know if you can see all my,

Danzy Senna: 4:07

god. I love seeing that. I love a reader who does that.

Jason Blitman: 4:11

Some of them are things to talk to you about, and some of them are things for me to just like, have in my mind for the rest of my life. And not talk

Danzy Senna: 4:20

laugh about.

Jason Blitman: 4:23

Laugh about slash reflect upon.

Danzy Senna: 4:26

Oh good.

Jason Blitman: 4:27

I was shocked. Oops. to feel the like, summer thriller that it was to me. I was like, that is not what I was

Danzy Senna: 4:36

Oh I'm so glad. My goal in life is always to make a novel that's not a thriller feel like a thriller. Like where there are no dead bodies, but like you get the suspense feeling. So that makes me so happy.

Jason Blitman: 4:50

exactly what it was. I was like on the edge of my seat. I sort of wanted to throw up the whole time.

Danzy Senna: 4:57

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 4:58

But like, not in a bad way.

Danzy Senna: 4:59

that's so good. That makes me very happy.

Jason Blitman: 5:02

Oh, good. For our listeners who have not had a chance to read it yet. What would you say the elevator pitch is for the book?

Danzy Senna: 5:10

I would say it's about a failed novelist who tries very hard to sort of sell out and maybe doesn't quite get what she wants out of that experience. She tries to create the greatest, biracial comedy of all time in television and move into TV, and it all goes terribly wrong, but in a interesting and entertaining way, I hope. And we get to sort of see what she's gives away through the process of trying to elevate her family out of the kind of trenches of the artistic, not quite middle class poverty that they're living in. Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 5:53

Speaking of not quite middle class poverty, there's a Not quite tip tip that you give in the book, which is befriend super rich people so that you can house it for them. And I was like, oh, that's genius.

Danzy Senna: 6:06

Yes. No, you become their interesting, artistic friend who didn't sell out and then they eventually always go away as they do in this book. they always take a year away. And they need someone to watch their stuff. So Jane and her family are those friends and they've been living off this for years where they're always the sub letter or the house sitter for their rich friend. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 6:29

You need those friends too,

Danzy Senna: 6:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 6:32

it's nice to have friends who can watch your things.

Danzy Senna: 6:34

Except maybe they don't do it so well. Jane crosses some boundaries while she's house sitting for her rich friend, you

Jason Blitman: 6:41

well, you don't know that going into it. So as the friend, you think that it's gonna be a positive experience.

Danzy Senna: 6:48

The wine,

Jason Blitman: 6:49

something that comes up in the book is Jane's students, because she's a professor. Well, she's a professor in quotation marks. We'll all call her a professor.

Danzy Senna: 6:59

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 7:02

She assigns her students, a story that's written in second person and they're frustrated and upset and offended because they weren't consulted about being the protagonist of that story.

Danzy Senna: 7:15

To be in the second person. Laughter.

Jason Blitman: 7:17

Right, well and something that you just said, it made me think about, and that moment in the story too, made me realize that none of us have consented to be the protagonist in our story.

Danzy Senna: 7:28

right. Oh, right. In our live

Jason Blitman: 7:31

In our life. Right, right, right.

Danzy Senna: 7:33

it's the first thing that happens to you when you're born into a life you didn't consent to.

Jason Blitman: 7:38

We did not consent to this! And it's like, what the hell's going on? And I, and that really made me think about that, and I was like, wait a minute, none of us are consenting to this. We all just sort of landed here.

Danzy Senna: 7:49

hadn't thought about that, but that's like an existential level to this problem. It's

Jason Blitman: 7:54

Do you remember I said how some of the things I'm gonna just reflect on for the rest of my life?

Danzy Senna: 7:58

think, yeah, you're a really deep reader. I love that.

Jason Blitman: 8:01

I try to be.

Danzy Senna: 8:03

yeah, no, I have a story collection called You Are Free, and, um, this, the line comes from this woman who's, um, about to get an abortion, and she's chanting to her baby, or the fetus, you are free, because the only sort of state of freedom she can imagine is not having been born. and that, you know, the sort of moment you're born. You become the object of all these projections, and you have a body you didn't Decide on and you have all the sort of information that comes at you about who you are. so that title. Yeah, it's from that idea, which is so interesting that you read in in this as well. I love that

Jason Blitman: 8:45

is so interesting. Speaking of, you know, maybe things we don't have consent over slash control over, there's a big moment in the book that involves, again, a term I will use, is psychic.

Danzy Senna: 8:57

I mean, yeah, Jane, um, consult early in her. She consults a psychic, aka a, um, is he called a racial affinity counselor? Um, trying to remember what he is, but he's a, he's a psychic she finds. He's online, they have a phone relationship, and he tries to tell her who she's going to marry. And. I'm, I'm always interested in the kind of danger of psychic readings because they put all these ideas in your head and how much do you have a choice then about who you're going to be attracted to based on what they say. So if they tell you like, oh, a tall blonde is about to come into your life and then you happen to meet someone and you think you're in love with them, like, would you have been had the psychic not put the time in? idea in your head. And so she, he tells her she's going to, in the next few weeks, um, meet a tall black man. Uh, I think he's from the West Coast. He's wearing a funny shirt and West Coast shoes. And, um, when she meets this guy at a party, she just goes completely off the rails with thinking this is the one and to the point where she marries him.

Jason Blitman: 10:13

Right, because that's, that has been decided.

Danzy Senna: 10:17

and just based on this guy she's never met, who's this very sort of hilarious, grifter, psychic guy. And he's very funny, and like, he says things, but they, you know, you wonder who she would have married had she not. had this reading before this party

Jason Blitman: 10:33

you ever had a psychic reading?

Danzy Senna: 10:34

I've had several, many, many psychic readings. Um, my mother is a poet, but she was also like as a side job, a tarot card reader growing up. And

Jason Blitman: 10:45

a side

Danzy Senna: 10:45

yeah, it was,

Jason Blitman: 10:47

Did you do it at like parties?

Danzy Senna: 10:49

She did it for friends, like people, like a lot of people would come to get my mother to read their tarot cards. And,

Jason Blitman: 10:56

Oh my god.

Danzy Senna: 10:57

and I think at some point she stopped because she felt that it was dangerous. Like she was sort of implying all these things to people about their lives. And she was maybe realized like this was not a good idea. Um, but I've had psychic readings. And. Not exactly like the one in the book, but I've had them, and I've wondered about what they've, how susceptible have I been to those readings. I stopped a long

Jason Blitman: 11:22

multiple. So you clearly have some belief is maybe a strong word I say in quotation marks but there's some, um I don't know, it's like we read our horoscopes, right? Like,

Danzy Senna: 11:33

Yeah. I

Jason Blitman: 11:36

I

Danzy Senna: 11:36

mean, it's more fun than therapy, is the thing. It's just more fun to be a psychic. And, you know, it's less work, there's less, less having to, To look into your own soul, but I, I had one

Jason Blitman: 11:48

and probably cheaper.

Danzy Senna: 11:49

and it's something I share with my sister and my mother and we kind of give each other as gifts. There's this 1 guy that we've been seeing for years. And, um. He's kind of more of a poet than a psychic, but I just, I like the way he interprets the world and describes things. But he told me years ago, um, during like 2020, he said that Trump was not going to win the election, but that his. constituency was going to, had been awakened and was here to stay. And he said, whatever you do, Dan, he said, you're going to think you want to move to the country. You're going to think you want to move to the woods. Whatever you do, do not move to the woods. He was like, stay in a liberal bubble. And like, I haven't moved to the woods, I'm still living in a small neighborhood. And he said, stay near the cities, stay near people. It was like a terrifying reading. Um, and it stuck in my head. So, here I sit. Here I sit in multicultural Mayberry.

Jason Blitman: 12:55

Yes, the dream.

Danzy Senna: 12:58

is alive in multicultural Mayberry. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 13:01

I know you also were a New York to California convert, and we are quite sold on California living.

Danzy Senna: 13:10

good. I love hearing that. I like never look back.

Jason Blitman: 13:14

Yeah, I'm like, I have one tattoo and there's a part of me that's like, I kind of want to get like a California pride tattoo.

Danzy Senna: 13:21

you've become a complete disciple. No, I'm like a cult member about California.

Jason Blitman: 13:27

Oh,

Danzy Senna: 13:27

feel, I feel it's like a huge part of my identity and L. A. and Southern California in particular. Like, the Bay Area is different.

Jason Blitman: 13:36

How long have you been here?

Danzy Senna: 13:38

Um, I've been here for 18 years in L. A. And, um, it's been, you know, great, but I've had a relationship. I went to college up north. Actually in the Bay Area and, um, you know, that was sort of the beginning of my obsession with California and wanting to move here and kind of like, you know, L. A. is a really strange place. It's much more urban and has all these issues, but I find it like, It's such an interesting, enigmatic place to live. Like I'm never stopped being interested in the idea of LA and the reality of it. Cause it's foreign to me. Like if I had moved to London, it would be a lot more familiar to me than moving to California. It's another country in many ways. So.

Jason Blitman: 14:22

Yeah. Right, London is more like New York City

Danzy Senna: 14:25

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 14:26

than,

Danzy Senna: 14:26

Paris is more like New York City. Like this is, I think, I don't know if I have this in the book, but at one point I thought this is the opposite of Europe. There's very few places I could say are the opposite. And this is the opposite.

Jason Blitman: 14:38

Well, which is funny too, because there's so much topography that's very European, right? You know, or like, it feels very Italian, feels very, like there's,

Danzy Senna: 14:51

between houses, you can move from country to country because there's no, we had a friend visit from Paris and she was like, there's, there's no coherence to this You know, there's, what, what decisions were made about this as we're driving through neighborhoods. It was just such chaos. And I was like, Oh, that's maybe why I feel so at home here. Cause it's so chaotic. Just like me.

Jason Blitman: 15:13

controlled chaos, perhaps. Yeah. Oh, that's

Danzy Senna: 15:16

I think Jane says at one point, like, she feels she's never been somewhere where she felt more alone or more free, or she says this is what she feels about LA. you know, I think it can be a lonely place, this landscape. it's the wild west, the sky is really big. There's a kind of space between things, but there's also a lot of freedom in that. And, Yeah. Oh,

Jason Blitman: 15:40

for me, is sort of where New York and L. A. intersect. people that I came across living in New York, people that I've lived with, friends of mine, They moved to New York because they wanted to be a part of the best of the best, and yet, it was also a tremendously lonely place.

Danzy Senna: 15:59

oh, really?

Jason Blitman: 16:00

LA, people move there to like, be in film and TV, to be a part of the best of the best, but it can be a very lonely and isolating place. And I think that's a very similar,

Danzy Senna: 16:10

I think that's true. Yeah. No, and it's a different kind of loneliness. Like, New York, I never, I was seeing people all the time and I couldn't kind of filter the world as well as I can here and here you can really curate like how much you engage with the world and so that's, that's preferable for me as a writer. Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 16:32

Of course. Right. Being able to sort of like, open and close the valve as you need.

Danzy Senna: 16:37

exactly. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 16:38

Versus it like, shoving itself in your face.

Danzy Senna: 16:40

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 16:41

Right.

Danzy Senna: 16:42

I just spent two weeks in New York and it was like, I was like, these people, how do they keep going? Like, The party just never stops and I'm way too, I get overstimulated. Like I, I need to go into like one of those little cocoons or something after that much engagement with the world.

Jason Blitman: 17:02

I know, whenever my husband and I go back, I'm just like, how did I do this for so many years? This is insane.

Danzy Senna: 17:09

you, you got out because I feel like if you want to leave New York and you don't, it can really curdle, like, it can go really bad. It's the Joan Didion goodbye to all that moment that, you know, you've got to listen to that if you're ready to leave. I

Jason Blitman: 17:25

I'm, I cannot wait to see you at the cult meetings. So.

Danzy Senna: 17:29

love that you're as much a disciple as I am. Very few people are.

Jason Blitman: 17:33

So Colored Television is like such an L. A. book, but it's also such an artist book. It's a writer book. So Jane is staying at her friend Brett's house, and she uses his office, and she has this moment of feeling like she's going to be able to finish her novel, um, because of the space, because she can sort of create this like, Call to prayer that she's curated for herself. Do you have that for yourself? Do you have a call to prayer?

Danzy Senna: 17:57

well, I actually write outside of the house in a library, and that's my kind of call to prayer is that I have to feel like the first draft of a novel or story. Um, I really need to be in a very specific place in a specific seat. And I have a little cubicle at this library. It's like a research library. We have to have a special. Allowance to go and, I have 2 friends who work there. So it's like, we have, like, our little coffee clutch but it's, it's for me, you know, signaling that I'm in a specific chair that. turns on that part of my brain. I really feel your life has to get really boring to write a novel because, and that's one of the

Jason Blitman: 18:38

I won't tell your husband or your kids.

Danzy Senna: 18:39

well, LA is, I know that they, they've allowed for a lot of dull moments. Oh, actually they're very exciting. That's part of why I have to leave the house. That's why I have to leave, um, but routine and ritual being sort of really essential to my writing process and, like, not having lunch with friends, only having dinner, like, there are certain things that will kill your novel very quickly and, you know, one of them is like, Being a lady who lunches,

Jason Blitman: 19:09

you ever gotten into a fight with someone who's sitting in your cubicle?

Danzy Senna: 19:13

yeah, well, I once went to the, I usually, it didn't happen. I went there one day and there was a woman sitting in my cubicle who looked like me, except younger and better. And my

Jason Blitman: 19:28

And now she's dead.

Danzy Senna: 19:29

no one's ever seen her again. I waited, she went to the bathroom, but like, that was very disconcerting for me. And

Jason Blitman: 19:36

Oh my god.

Danzy Senna: 19:37

reading and taking notes on like, a novelist. I know, like it was eerie. It was definitely creepy. Like she had come to take my identity. So,

Jason Blitman: 19:48

That is weird.

Danzy Senna: 19:48

but it hasn't happened again, my second novel, I wrote it all the first draft in a year in Brooklyn, going to the same cafe every day in my car. And I had a rule that I could only write scenes forward. I couldn't edit. And I only had two hours on my meter, and I would go to sit at the same table for two hours, and I had to leave it wherever I was, but it really was. a model for how I've written since then. It's kind

Jason Blitman: 20:17

That like, routine thing is very powerful for you.

Danzy Senna: 20:20

yeah, and also creating, a limit on how long you spend with that work so that you're not, it's not this sort of depressive space that just goes on and on. And, and I have children and a job and life and

Jason Blitman: 20:33

right. You have shit

Danzy Senna: 20:34

other things, but like keeping it in its place in a way, it's been increasingly important for

Jason Blitman: 20:39

Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. And you don't, there just isn't time to procrastinate, right?

Danzy Senna: 20:45

yeah, you're like, I got.

Jason Blitman: 20:46

moment to do this thing.

Danzy Senna: 20:48

yeah, I think it's helpful in terms of just the mental illness that can descend on you if you work on a novel. These are ways to fend it off, you know,

Jason Blitman: 20:58

of in line with what you just said, you, again you, Jane talks about how,

Danzy Senna: 21:04

you're gonna get me in trouble.

Jason Blitman: 21:08

Jane talks about how when you, when she goes out on the road to peddle her book and how exhausting that can be, how she has to cultivate a persona in order to persevere, basically. How would you describe your persona when you, when you are like capital A author mode? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Danzy Senna: 21:29

was interesting about New York for me was that I felt I was too much in author mode all the time and I wasn't enough able to be a writer with the quiet private self and and the dreaming self. It's like you're in a dream when you're writing and New York was always waking me up and this is going back to our cult of California where I felt L. A. is just like you're always dreaming here, you're driving and you're dreaming and you're walking and you're dreaming and so this has been much more productive for me as a writer than a movie. New York City. but in terms of the author persona, you know, I think part of my problem maybe is that I don't have a very, I need to sort of get like crazy hairdo or something that will like be like a good caricature if someone was to draw me because I don't sort of have

Jason Blitman: 22:18

What would the caricature be?

Danzy Senna: 22:20

I don't know, like I don't have enough of a, a zany detail about me.

Jason Blitman: 22:25

I do love the big glasses. They're really

Danzy Senna: 22:27

okay. Well, maybe I'll get even bigger ones. I think I need something to make me a persona, a caricature.

Jason Blitman: 22:36

you need to do the opposite. Maybe you need to go get a caricature so that someone else can show you what your thing is.

Danzy Senna: 22:43

I do. I think there should be a job for people to help someone brand themself as an author because I don't have social media. I'm really, from the dark ages in terms of how I live my life. so I haven't done a lot of persona building, but one of the things I actually was exploring in this book was the appeal for me of television writing and film writing, but more even television writing was The idea of being an anonymous writer and just because I get such pleasure out of storytelling and so much pleasure out of writing, but I don't get that much pleasure out of the selling the work and the sort of, you know, this is fun, but I don't get as much fun out of when it comes time to like pedal your wares. And that's a more complicated experience for me. And I kept thinking, well, if I was just in a writer's room, like, Being funny and thinking up cool episodes, I could just reduce writing to this thing that's so, so much more anonymous. And it's less, there's been, you know, I think I also have the complex thing of being a mixed race woman who is, every time I publish a book, that has to be a conversation. And, you know, my work deals with that. Directly, in some ways, that's the material I'm working with, but that is another level of exhaustion that I think like Jonathan Franzen wouldn't have to deal with, I get asked the sort of questions around who I am in a way that's much more, sort of specific to me, than someone else might. So there's some things about being an author that. I could live without, but I love writing novels. So here I sit,

Jason Blitman: 24:25

It's, I mean, and the fact that you even started this conversation by talking about, you know, Uh, in New York, you were, you had to lean into author and you didn't, you weren't able to be writer. And I don't think I've ever thought about it that way. And of course, it makes so much sense that capital A author versus writer are, that's really not the same experience sort of day to day.

Danzy Senna: 24:52

Yeah, and I don't think it's ever been as intense to be an author in terms of what you have to do, um, in terms of social media in particular, like, that is added a whole level of persona building that, um, you know, it didn't exist even when I first started publishing in the 90s when I first wrote, so it's changed a lot.

Jason Blitman: 25:17

Yeah.

Danzy Senna: 25:17

And I really understand the, like, Elena Ferrante thing of just becoming anonymous, because I think that protects you in a certain way. that being out here doesn't.

Jason Blitman: 25:29

and um, do you know Chuck Tingle, the author? he does some YA and some like queer fantasy horror stuff, but his thing is he wears a mask.

Danzy Senna: 25:39

Wow, he literally, not metaphorically,

Jason Blitman: 25:42

no, he has like a, like a pink paper bag that he puts over his head, basically. And like,

Danzy Senna: 25:47

no one's ever seen him.

Jason Blitman: 25:49

no.

Danzy Senna: 25:49

I love that. No, I think that's, I think people are going to have to start getting more creative. That might be my persona, but it's too late. I've, I've messed it up already. So here I sit.

Jason Blitman: 26:01

Well, put the bag over your head with the, with the fun big glasses and then you'll lean into it and it's fine.

Danzy Senna: 26:07

Okay.

Jason Blitman: 26:08

How you're talking about, about the things that authors have, capital a authors have to talk about over and over and over again with their books. You know, I've talked to a lot of authors, I've done a lot of in person author events and, uh, I don't like going to them because they're boring. Books should be accessible and, and shouldn't be stuffy and there shouldn't be these barriers to entry. And, you know, I find it so challenging when, when we, in quotation marks, present books to be this elite, thing. Um, and when you're talking about like process and the themes and the this and the that in the book, then it, unfortunately it does put that barrier to people who really just want a good story.

Danzy Senna: 26:52

Yeah. And I think, you know, that was something I, I, when you were talking about the thriller aspect to my work, like I find that I always want to write the book that I would want to read. And that's would. Draw me in, and those larger ideas have to be entered sideways, and they have, you have to have the pleasure aspect of reading, and I think of reading as, you know, should be sort of a democratic thing, like that it, and the way that television, and, you know, even like prestige television has succeeded in making just such a wide swath of people. enter these stories and feel that these characters are real and really enter the dream. So I want to always have that space where I feel anyone could enter my work and they don't have to have a graduate degree and they don't have to, you know, be coming at it from that level, but they're still going to get something out of it and they're going to have fun on that ride and they're going to, you know, be in on the ride. On the joke, in a sense, you know,

Jason Blitman: 27:57

exactly. I mean, my background is in theater and I would always get in trouble because I'm the one in the room saying, we're just putting on a play. People are dressing up and singing songs, and we're putting on a play. Like, the work can be important, and people can take something from it that can change their life, but the actual work we're doing isn't physically, in the moment, saving lives. And so let's just have a good time.

Danzy Senna: 28:22

no, and I think this book for me, like I was like the most sort of aware that I was like leaning into pleasure and joy in the writing. I was like, I think people need like to laugh a little at this moment in history and to be sort of having a good time in the reading experience and it's there's so much competing with books to that if if you're if you're boring. Nobody's going to want to read you. Don't bore us.

Jason Blitman: 28:48

And, you know, something that Jane is going through in color television, she essentially, I mean not essentially, she is faking it until she makes it. And the joke is on all of us because that's what we do because we don't have a rule book because none of us consented to being the protagonist of the

Danzy Senna: 29:11

Right, exactly. No, she is totally. It's all a You know, kind of a con and and writing a novel is a con. I mean, you're trying to make people believe in people who don't exist. You're trying to make yourself believe in these people. you know, it's like you're you're Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein, you're trying to bring this monster to life. I use that idea in here and, and get a heartbeat and a pulse, you know, make their eyes open. And that's, that's for me, the fun of it. And I, I never think an idea can save a story. Like the story has to be the thing that drives the story and the ideas have to, and, and as the novelist, I often don't even know all the ideas that I'm playing with. And that's how it should be. I sort of let my subconscious do that work and I

Jason Blitman: 29:58

In those two hours, while the meter is running.

Danzy Senna: 30:01

parking ticket. I do that work. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 30:04

And Jane. I think, you know, all of us find faking it till you make it to be a little, overwhelming and perhaps unrealistic, but Jane sort of gets joy out of being able to play pretend. and it made me think about when, is pretend no longer pretend? When is faking it till you make it no longer faking it? Or are you always thinking it? Hmm.

Danzy Senna: 30:33

I mean, I've had that question in my work for a long time, um, because my first novel was about sort of a character who has to pass as white and she's doing it thinking it's just to get a certain thing for her and her mother, but she wonders at what point over the years and years she has to do this, does she actually become white? with Jane, it's coming out in this other way of like, At what point will she kind of be able to fake her way into the middle class, the bourgeois class of television writers? And will she sort of convince this producer that she can make this show? And, um, and she's also lying to her husband. He thinks she's still a highbrow novelist in that room that she goes to and she's not working on that novel at all. so she's, she's involved in multiple deceptions. And that for me, deception is like the lifeblood of fiction, like the lie that makes the story go. The more lies you can pile up, the better when you're writing. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 31:34

That's a really interesting concept. So you've just been lying to us for, you know, 280 pages.

Danzy Senna: 31:39

Yeah. I mean, it's

Jason Blitman: 31:41

that's true.

Danzy Senna: 31:42

Yeah, it is.

Jason Blitman: 31:44

that world.

Danzy Senna: 31:45

And if you're not lying and you're trying to write a novel and you're basing it too much on your own life, then you end up hitting a wall. And I, you know, I think if you're writing about, say, a woman who is your mother and everything about this character is your mother, you're going to be limited in the fiction you create because you're either going to be too angry at your mother and trying to get revenge on your mother, or you're going to be too loyal to your mother. But either way, that's not about the story on the page. So you want to kind of find a place where you don't feel this is your mother anymore and the story can begin to take over. and not your own petty gripes or your past traumas, but something else happens in that process, which I call like fictive distance where you find this distance from the character. And I had to do that with this book because, you know, she's a writer in LA, she's got the same racial mix as me. She's married to a creative person and has two children. And, and I had to sort of find my way toward who is this character who's not me. And that was really where the story started to come to life.

Jason Blitman: 32:52

there's a piece of advice that Jane gives to one of her students that, of course, I didn't write down.

Danzy Senna: 32:58

Make it worse?

Jason Blitman: 32:59

Make it worse, right. And, and I felt you doing that throughout the book in a, in a fun, meta, exciting way. I was like, Oh my God, Danzy like went there and, and we really taking us to these extremes in a satirical, but also like real life sort of way.

Danzy Senna: 33:23

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 33:25

and you know, it's, it had me thinking like, is Hollywood in on this joke? Cause we all know that this is how things function and it's satirical in quotation marks, but this is also real.

Danzy Senna: 33:35

It was kind of another Wednesday in Hollywood. I feel, yeah, I don't think it was, it's funny, it's satirical. Like, there's definitely social, sort of, comedy going on in my, in my head. always. Like it's definitely comedic. but I think I'm never sure if I'm actually writing satire because especially when you're living in Hollywood, because it's already so over the top and yeah, like I, I don't know if it's possible to satirize it,

Jason Blitman: 34:05

Right. I was like, is she making it worse or is she just telling the truth?

Danzy Senna: 34:09

or making it better maybe.

Jason Blitman: 34:11

Right. Right. Seriously.

Danzy Senna: 34:12

there's, there's that line I'm always looking for, but I definitely, with my students, if they turn in a story, and they've been sort of protecting their characters too much, because that's the other thing that can happen if you're not writing Characters that aren't you. You protect them too much. You know, I do say that to them. Make it worse. Like, what's a bad thing that can happen to you? Because I'm bored. Like, something bad has got to happen. There's got to be a problem. Or why

Jason Blitman: 34:39

And then it's fun to watch them climb out of that.

Danzy Senna: 34:42

Or not. But like,

Jason Blitman: 34:43

Or not, but at least there's something

Danzy Senna: 34:45

is pleasurable. That's the thing. In fiction it's pleasurable. In real life, not so

Jason Blitman: 34:51

Well, that's why, like I said earlier on, it made me want to throw up, but not in a

Danzy Senna: 34:55

In a good way, in a good way.

Jason Blitman: 34:58

Right, exactly. You said earlier, so much of your writing is about race. Everybody talks to you about race. You feel like you have to explain yourself and talk about yourself in all of these conversations. We don't need to go down those paths. There were a couple of things in the book that I really resonated with. And as Gays Reading, I think, really resonated with me in particular. One thing, the idea of representation in art deemed a commercial success so rarely depicts minorities as just living.

Danzy Senna: 35:32

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 35:33

I,

Danzy Senna: 35:34

gay, characters too. Yeah, any marginalized

Jason Blitman: 35:37

any marginalized as just being. Right? And I really, it, I've been so moved reading and consuming queer content of just like romances or like people falling in love and then that's sort of it. But so much queer content is coming out trauma, dying of AIDS, parental trauma, trauma, lots of trauma. And the concept of sort of someone who looks different than A run of the mill, cis, straight, white person

Danzy Senna: 36:16

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 36:17

has to go through some trauma in order for that art to be successful, and you putting that on the page really meant something to me.

Danzy Senna: 36:26

That's great because it's funny. I think even though everything you're saying is totally resonating. I think people, whatever I write, they're always going to read it as being Even when you don't write that story, they're going to read that story into it. And for me, Jane is not conflicted about her biracial identity at all. She's trying to make money off of it. She's trying to grift off of her racial identity, but she's not conflicted. She's just trying to make some money. And the money issue is the much more, sort of, driving force in her life than any kind of other issue.

Jason Blitman: 37:03

hmm.

Danzy Senna: 37:04

and between tragic mulatto thing. Like, she's just like, how can I spin this to get us a house in multicultural Mayberry? And I think, you know, there's that line between You're not trying to write a cis white character, straight male character, like the race and the gender and all these things will come into the story, but they're not going to be, they're the geography of the story. They're not the plot of the story. And that always is a really big difference for me is the people in my story are usually black and biracial. And, you know, there's fewer and fewer white characters. In the story, centered in the story, but the people are these things and so race is part of the humor. It's part of the landscape. It's part of the way they see the world, but it's, it's not the plot. It's not the central conflict here.

Jason Blitman: 37:58

Right. And, and, and it'll be interesting. I'm very curious to talk to other people because I know that immediately, uh, there is this white fragility where people are going to be like, this is a book about race. And it, I, it made me understand things in a way that I didn't before. And I was like, this is a book about art and power and wealth discrepancy and so many things where, you know, as you said, Jane is sort of using. Her race, her mixed race to sort of create this fantasy for herself, um, and that's what it's about. And so, um, yeah, I'm excited for people to sort of dig into that in a different

Danzy Senna: 38:37

but I love, yeah, what you're talking about because I do think it's something that I have so many, you know, students of different backgrounds and different marginalized identities, queer, trans, you know, Latinx, all sorts of backgrounds, but I think all of us have that same, you know, issue that comes up when we're creating art. And that is, you know, and that's why I try to really write toward, in terms of audience, toward the smallest, most intimate circle. I don't think outside of my little bubble of early readers and family and people who are really, don't require that translating and understand the joke on the most sort of deep inside baseball level. Cause that sort of protects it from me. Stepping outside of myself and doing that other work, and it's a trick because ultimately you have to deal with that outside world, but while I'm writing, I try to create, and it's easier in California to do that, to go back to our cult,

Jason Blitman: 39:38

hmm. Mm

Danzy Senna: 39:39

that bubble in you, because you're just in your car and you're just walking to your door, you know.

Jason Blitman: 39:47

Right, one other thing I want to ask you about is, is Jane talks about her inciting incident in her life, and how getting a phone call really changed her life. what was yours? what was that thing that sort of made you who you are today?

Danzy Senna: 40:05

Oh, um, an inciting incident. I mean, so

Jason Blitman: 40:11

have to do this for myself usually, it's for my

Danzy Senna: 40:13

I know, I know, I mean, there are so many inciting incidents for various trajectories we go into. But I think what my 1st thought when you asked me that was, my failures have been the inciting incidents and those failures that at the moment feel like a crushing blow. They kind of open up some other door for you that you didn't expect. And I think of both. I went into college trying to be pre med, and my first semester I failed, profoundly failed my chemistry and math, and it was like, okay, I guess I'm just going to study literature and, um, go back to the

Jason Blitman: 40:54

The Child of the Poet, right?

Danzy Senna: 40:57

And, um, you know, and then I think about I, I still didn't want to be a creative writer and I went to work for Newsweek right after college when there were still magazines and I worked in Midtown at a magazine as a fact checker and I was probably the worst fact checker they'd ever had. And I was like, maybe I'm actually a fiction writer because it sounds true and therefore I believe it's true. And so I think then I started to write fiction on the side and I think of all these moments that like, I tried something else and failed as being the thing that incited the really positive trajectory. which isn't, isn't true. always how we think about failure, but

Jason Blitman: 41:36

No, but it's a nice reminder.

Danzy Senna: 41:37

yeah, if you kind of look for what's, what's the opportunity that this failure is opening up for you, it's a space it's creating for you. Every novel, you know, you have to be willing to fail to do any creative work, like that's part of the, the job is to fail, like Samuel Beckett says, fail better, you know, and you're just, you have the perfect idea of the novel you're trying to write. then sort of the real novel happens on the way to writing that. And so you have to be willing to just kind of keep allowing those other surprises to happen on the way.

Jason Blitman: 42:11

Yeah. Was there something that happened during the process of writing color television that comes to mind?

Danzy Senna: 42:16

Um, well, the pandemic happened about a hundred pages into this and I put it in a drawer for two years. So that was not a good, I, I literally had started this. I was on fire. I was writing this book and two years, I, I, my kids were home and, Everything was falling apart. And, um, I was so worried when I went back to it that I wouldn't be able to get that sort of fire again. And I actually think that some of the things I was doing in those first 100 pages, I saw clearly the other way to do this. Um, when I came back to it and, At least this is what I'm telling myself, that it's a better book because of that break, because I couldn't quite find the fictional distance on it until I had some time to let it percolate.

Jason Blitman: 43:02

I talk to authors all the time who have, who are like on deadline and there's no wiggle room and if they had some more time, the things they feel like they'd be able to do with it. So that's, I mean, I think that's a terrific example of a failure during this book. I mean, well, you know, not a failure on your part per se, but like it was a huge roadblock,

Danzy Senna: 43:22

obstacle. Yeah, for real.

Jason Blitman: 43:24

obstacle, right?

Danzy Senna: 43:25

Yeah, and I'm sure there's like a lot

Jason Blitman: 43:28

the book we have today.

Danzy Senna: 43:29

and I think there's a lot of you know if you write things that are as I've said like too close to you still and then you Don't see where this character is different from you how things can go differently That's where you know what I what I got out of that two years with that distance.

Jason Blitman: 43:45

Yeah. CoolD. Danz Senna, thank you so much for being here today. Everyone go get your copy of Colored Television. It's, juicy and delicious and, Thought provoking and a joyful, thoughtful experience to read. And I can't wait for everyone to check it out.

Danzy Senna: 44:03

Thank you so much.

Jason Blitman: 44:04

Have fun on your, on your author tour, putting on your, your big glasses.

Danzy Senna: 44:08

I'm going to I'm getting bigger

Jason Blitman: 44:10

Yes, thanks Danzy.

Danzy Senna: 44:12

you

Jason Blitman: 44:13

you are my first guest gay reader who I haven't made out with, who I don't share a with. Um, my, I guess I could say yet, right? Life short. Um,

Jonathan Adler: 44:29

sesh is still early.

Jason Blitman: 44:30

the sesh is early. who knows?

Jonathan Adler: 44:32

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 44:33

my husband was my first guest gay reader. And today's guest gay reader for our listeners, you might know him from his bright colors, his bold patterns, his giant pills might be a hard pill to swallow. And what Katie Couric says, vases covered in breasts. But what I would call. boob vases or boob lamps. The one and only Jonathan Adler. Welcome to Gays Reading. Well, which is hilarious. I didn't even know that when I reached out about you coming on the show. and I, was like, okay, this is a guy who If anything, he has beautiful bookshelves and he's, he's designed beautiful book ends, but then you go on in interviews to talk about how you used to not be a fan of magical realism in fiction. You've written books. You've talked in interviews about reading Stefan Zweig novels. I'm like, oh, Jonathan Adler is a capital R reader. Hmm. Yes.

Jonathan Adler: 45:49

pretentious. And, I ain't that. But, not saying just saying. I kinda, you know, I, I pretend to be a, a, a, Fluffy and superficial designer. Um, but I'm actually sort of a, um, brooding, pessimistic, like Eastern European, um, Jewish intellectual. Like my husband always says that I'm sort of a frothy mix of like a light, fluffy pop starlet, like Ariana Grande and, um, Franz Kafka. So he calls me Ariana Kafka and that's kind of who I am.

Jason Blitman: 46:24

And we'll get to what you call him in a second, but Jonathan Adler, what are you reading right now?

Jonathan Adler: 46:30

right now. It's funny. You say that like this morning I actually just finished Long Island Compromise by Taffy Ackner which have you read it yet?

Jason Blitman: 46:41

Not yet. No,

Jonathan Adler: 46:43

You

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 46:43

will.

Jason Blitman: 46:44

it. She turned down the podcast, so I haven't yet, but I will. read it.

Jonathan Adler: 46:48

hate that. Like, I hate when you have personal with somebody because it kind of fucks up their oeuvre, but it's an

Jason Blitman: 46:55

I will say it's not personal beef and the reality is, is that I just need to prioritize the people who are on the podcast. So that's, that's all it is. It's not beef. It's not beef. But I'm grateful that you, also said ova on today's episode because you've said it. in other things. and all I wanted to do is hear you say that word. Oh

Jonathan Adler: 47:17

to what we were just saying. I actually just started All Fours by Miranda July, which has been sort of like, I think the book of the summer for some, but I have resisted reading it because in a, like, probably like 20 years ago. A friend of mine was like dating some guy and he left her for Miranda July. So I've had total, I've never met her, she has no idea who I am, like there's no, nothing. But I've always had this sort of vestigial feeling. Like beef with her. And then I was like, wait, this is ridiculous. I've never met this one. I'm sure she's lovely. This all happened 20 years ago. And I bet the guy who broke up with my friend was right. Um, you know, sometimes, yeah, I think he probably, I think Miranda July actually is probably just better than my friend. So he made the right call. It's sort of like when my mommy was, um, was working. New York at Vogue, in the fifties, she was writing people are talking about at Vogue and she got fired and replaced by Joan Didion. And I'm like, well, they were right.

Jason Blitman: 48:18

Yeah. But the amount of beef that you're racking up with literary figures.

Jonathan Adler: 48:23

I know, like, I should have beef with Joan Didion, but being a great, great person with a very charitable heart. I'm open to Didion, and now I find myself open to Miranda July. yeah, no beef.

Jason Blitman: 48:35

Good for you. Do we know if the guy is still with Miranda July? We don't know.

Jonathan Adler: 48:38

I don't think so. This all happened like so many centuries ago, and I doubt my friend would even like remember, but it's just sort of one of those things that's like just, you know, a nagging little detail in It's sort of, it's in the back my brain somewhere, but I'm moving past it.

Jason Blitman: 48:55

Amazing. I was just talking to the author Danzy Senna on this episode earlier, about her book Colored Television, and we talk a lot about sort of faking it till you make it, and how that's like a thing that we sort of all have to do in real life, and something you have said is that there's a version of design Is that, do you think that that's like what decorating is is decorating like faking it till you make it? Right,

Jonathan Adler: 49:23

is I think that's the lesson of adulthood is that nothing is real. there are no, you know, there's no, no experts. It's all kind of just a bunch of kids putting on a show. yeah, nothing's real. So we're all faking it until we make it. That's just kind of life. And, you know,

Jason Blitman: 49:40

It is the thing I, I am shocked by the most as I get older. I'm just like, oh, we're, nobody actually has an answer. And it's scary. Like, even when you go to the doctor, you're like, wait a minute, you don't actually have all the answers like I thought you did.

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 49:54

Literally, nobody knows what they're doing. And, you know, luckily I have sort of a bit of, um, Intellectual hubris. So I think I always know what I'm doing. Um, and you know, I think at this point you have to, even in like a medical sit, you have to be an advocate and chances are you might actually have a better idea than the doctor, him or herself because you know, you just might.

Jason Blitman: 50:22

There's also the committing to it. If you sort of commit to the thing,

Jonathan Adler: 50:28

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 50:28

of believe it, right? Right.

Jonathan Adler: 50:30

That helps. Yeah. I think though, I always struggle to sell myself in a serious way. Cause I find that super embarrassing. Like people who take themselves super seriously. I find mortifying. You know, like, I think you should always be extremely self deprecating, and that doesn't exactly, like, you don't really want a doctor who's self deprecating. doesn't inspire confidence, but I find it's more, I find that being self deprecating rather than grandiose is infinitely more charming, so that's kind of how I roll.

Jason Blitman: 51:06

Doctor, lawyer, maybe anything else can be self deprecating, but those two things, like, I really need them to be serious. You have said in some of your other interviews, you got your hands on clay for the first time at 12. We talk again with Danzy Senna about her inciting incident for sort of her life, becoming a writer. You were at summer camp. You got your hands on clay. But what got you to the clay?

Jonathan Adler: 51:31

to be honest, it was the super duper hot pottery counselor he was an Adonis and I was like, yes, I will take your class and then I'm not gonna say that I Really? You know, suddenly just fell for Clay and forgot all about him. But it was a, you know, I had space in my heart for the Counselor and for the Clay. Um, and the

Jason Blitman: 51:52

That actually was his

Jonathan Adler: 51:53

the

Jason Blitman: 51:53

name.

Jonathan Adler: 51:54

yeah, if only,

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 51:56

um,

Jonathan Adler: 51:56

the Counselor is now just like distant, fond memory, but the Clay remains in my heart.

Jason Blitman: 52:03

Yes, but without that counselor, you would not be who you are today. So let's give a little thank you to, uh, Not Clay Counselor Clay.

Jonathan Adler: 52:12

Yeah, thank you, hot, not Clay Counselor guy.

Jason Blitman: 52:15

I'm obsessed. okay, so we've talked about what you have just read, what you're currently reading. What is your current quick read? What is your hot take? What are you confessing about? What are You complaining about these days?

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 52:27

obviously my husband always,

Jason Blitman: 52:29

listen, I knew very little about you prior to preparing for today and the thing that I think I relate to you the most is your frustration with your husband and how Slyman does things and then does them so freaking well and you're in turn your smear campaign no longer is successful.

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 52:47

that's the problem in life. Like I, you know, I think the whole reason to get married is to have somebody to blame. Unfortunately my dad died 25 years ago, my, my mom, um, for a while had a boyfriend and then he died and I, I was like, Hey, how are you doing? And she said, no, it's awful. But the, I find the biggest problem is that now I don't have somebody to blame for everything. My slime man and I have been together for 30 years, and of course I blame him for everything, but the truth of the matter is, made a huge mistake, and my mother, my mother made a similar mistake. My mom always said that my dad, he made the mistake of marrying somebody who was brilliant and of unimpeachable character, and kind of there was just nothing she could say wrong about him, and I History repeats itself. I have made the mistake of marrying somebody who's brilliant and who is of unimpeachable character, um, and likable and charming and just better than me. And so it's sort of, it leads to just every day I feel, you know, Less than. He makes me feel less than. Um, and, you know, to anybody listening, like, the lesson is do not marry someone of unimpeachable character who's very talented. It's

Jason Blitman: 54:05

It's so annoying It's so frustrating. So I'm, I'm here for you. I'm obsessed with how much of a reader you are. Is there something that anyone, that you would recommend to someone who's looking to maybe spice up their bookshelves that they should add to their shelf? What makes a gorgeous bookshelf?

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 54:23

Oh! That's the eternal question. Uh,

Jason Blitman: 54:27

Mm

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 54:28

an evolving question as well, because bookshelves used to be for books. Remember them? you know, and, it's not, it's not only that people have gotten dumber and less literate, although that's a. Big part of it. It's that we've also all gone virtual. Like I read on my iPad. often like to support my local bookstore, I will buy a book and then download it. So I double dip, but just because I feel guilty, so bookshelves now are, are, As much for display as they are from books. Like they used to, they used to tell the story of your life. I grew up in a house that was groaning with books. And you're probably too young to know this, but there used to be probably in everybody's house, like this one shelf where there was a dictionary that was like on sort of a slanted,

Jason Blitman: 55:14

Yeah.

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 55:15

thingy, and the, you would just go to it all, yeah, stand thingy, um, and you would just go to it, like, all day, every day. Because you couldn't just, like, kind of put your finger on the thingamajig and let the, uh, lookup function happen. So, you know, it, and I think, actually, Looking things up in a dictionary probably was a little more effective and lodged it in your brain more effectively than digital solutions. Anyway, whatever, the bookshelf conundrum. really Bookshelves have now become Sort of the, uh Case study in composition. Uh, you know, they're, they're very not unlike an Instagram thing. They're You have a very clear and discreet space to work with and you look at it, dead on and it's really, Playing with your bookshelf is a great way to hone your compositional skills. course the basics of arrangement are, power of odd numbers. So, you know, if you, you sh I, I always like to have sort of a rhythm of books, some stacked, some upright, um, perhaps an objet on, um, You can always think about, uh, repetition as a display strategy. You can think about, uh, the power of odd numbers, like grouping objet in odd numbers. Um, and symmetry. So bookshelves are, are, actually, there's no right answer, but they're strategies for, uh, And I think one needn't feel guilty about not having a ton of books anymore because In the past if you didn't have a lot of books it would brand you as like a moron And now you can lie and just say you have them all in your iPad when

Jonathan Adler: 57:02

really like a right really you're actually just like a dumb gay who's watching You know some stupid Bravo series the whole time

Jason Blitman: 57:09

And everyone could buy, they could buy an objet at tarjay or at jonathanadler. com. There's a fantastic artist Trevor Wayne, who is Palm Springs biggest Jonathan Adler distributor, not distributor, but he has, uh, he sells the most Jonathan Adler things

Jonathan Adler: 57:26

Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course. Yay.

Jason Blitman: 57:30

lovely. Thank you so much for being here, for being a guest gay reader. I'm obsessed that we don't ever think of you perhaps as a reader first, but you are, you're very much a reader. We love.

Jonathan Adler: 57:40

very much so you're speaking of Wayne, you just mentioned Wayne. I just have two other book recs, um, from

Jason Blitman: 57:45

Yes, please.

Jonathan Adler: 57:47

the winner by Teddy Wayne is, uh, amazing. Have you not read it? I don't know. It should be like the book on everyone's Everyone should be talking about it. It's. Shut up. Um, it is sort of like, The Winner by Teddy Wayne. It's sort of like The Graduate meets The Talented Mr. Ripley, I would say. And then, um, I got so into Teddy Wayne book. He's a brilliant writer. Um, and I then read his previous book which is called Loner, which is kind of like a, it's sort of a stalker kind of vibe, but he's like a literary, he writes literary fiction, I would say. Um, accessible literary fiction, and Loner is fantastic as well. So, two books by Teddy Wayne, The Winner and Loner. You're welcome.

Jason Blitman: 58:38

Thriller, suspense, crime fiction, coming of age story. Fantastic. Highly recommend All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. Falls in that. It would be on the same shelf in the bookstore, so you'd probably

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 58:50

I'm listening. All right.

Jason Blitman: 58:52

Fantastic. Jonathan Adler, thank you for being here.

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 58:55

Uh, thank you so

Jason Blitman: 58:56

we like find you somewhere? Where can people find you? On the social meds?

jonathan-guest358_1_08-19-2024_143633: 59:00

com. Yeah. On the social meds, which is like, you know, it's my company social media. I'm sort of like, um, I'm just a lurker on social media, but you know, so you can see all my, um, my corporate social media stuff at jonathanadler on all the platforms and of course, jonathanadler. com and any of my many retail establishments. And check me out, bitches.

Jason Blitman: 59:24

And this is a very important note for our listeners. If you taught pottery at a summer camp a bit of years ago, Please. Apple Farm, please email Email hello at GaysReading. com, we wanna, we need to know, was your name Clay, can we connect you back to Jonathan, bring it all full circle. Thank you so much, Nancy and Jonathan for being here next week, you do not want to miss it. We have one of the hottest authors and one of the hottest books of the fall and the guest gay reader. So handsome can currently be seen in a sold out Broadway show. If you have any guesses, feel free to shoot me a note at hello@gaysreading.com you don't want to miss it like it. Subscribe, follow us at reading and see you next week. Bye.