Maya Dardel

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1

- Sure, whatever you

prefer to call it.

The human situation, or

the American nightmare

that's become the

international nightmare,

or love, or extreme

awareness, or,

this interview is live, right?

I'd like to change the

subject 45 degrees,

if you don't mind, um, we

only have a few more minutes.

Okay, right.

I'd like to start a rumor.

With some luck, a few

young writers listen

to this broadcast,

and they can spread

the rumor to their

friends and enemies.

Mm, now, now don't take

this the wrong way.

What I'm about to say

is not a cry for help.

It's not in any way connected

to, or interested in,

the politics of victimhood,

and if anyone receives

it that way, all

the worse for him.

What I'd like to say is,

I'm going to kill myself.

Please don't interrupt me.

I am going to end

the life of Maya Dardel.

My work is in decline.

I, I see no need to birth

a few more mediocre books

and then finally in

my 70s and 80s squirt

out a few more abortions

as embarrassing as,

it's disrespectful

to name names.

The point is, euthanasia.

It's the thing to do.

I don't have any family,

so I'm going to need

an heir and an executor.

So I'm going to be interviewing

youngish writers here,

at my house, in Los

Gatos, California,

for this position, starting now.

Right, right and

the guy I pick gets

my house and my archives

and publishing rights,

all my knickknacks and dishes

and music and books

when I'm gone.

Hm.

So anybody talented and capable

can email me by emailing

the Ithurburn agency.

My agent's name is Lucas

Marcy, Lucas m-a-r-cy.

Mm hmm, yep, Luc's

thrilled, death's lucrative.

Um.

Of course I'm serious.

Don't be narrow-minded.

I want young but professional,

published writers of poetry,

but I'd consider a poetic

novelist or essayist.

Also, also, women

need not apply.

Well because I don't

like women's writing.

Yes.

No, no.

Dickinson yes, some of it.

No, no.

Wolfe was a man.

No, no, George Elliot was a man.

Yes, no.

Sontag, Sontag was

entirely a guy.

I know, I slept with her.

So any of you young

men out there,

if you think you're it,

go ahead and look

up my agent, yes?

- I can show you

my work right now here.

- Leave it on the floor.

I probably should've

had you email me some

of your work before you

drove all the way up here.

- Right, I can, I can send you

some from my phone right now.

- Put that

back. They disgust me.

- Phones?

- Other people's phones.

- Right, totally, no,

I totally understand that.

They're like, other

people's phones.

You know, they touch your ear.

They have like wax on them,

other people's girlfriends'

photos on them.

- Tell me with extreme candor

what you think of your talent.

- Totally, I can.

Talk about that.

Um.

Done.

- What?

- No you just, you

just have to know.

- Know what?

- Do you have

a bathroom I could use?

- I don't like other

people in my bathroom.

- It's cool.

- What do you think of me?

- I love your work, I love

shadow, twenty-seven fold.

- I meant what do you

think of me physically?

- Physically?

- Mm.

- I'm not really, um.

- Be candid, Moses.

- Candid?

- Very.

- I'm not really comfortable.

- Who's comfortable?

Just be honest.

- What, do I think you're

a good-looking woman?

- Yes.

- I mean, yeah.

- But uglier than

women your age.

I'm a good piece of fruit

too long in the fridge.

- That's, isn't that, like.

- But good-looking enough.

At least as I sit here across

from you in what appears

to be some kind of

impenetrable Artemis state,

enough that you're

probably wondering what

it'd be like to

command me, strip me.

- Strip you?

- Men are this kind of machine.

Women my age have

the last outer crust

of our prettiness

left, and that can be

combined with haughtiness

or real superiority.

Until a young man badly wants

to break that outer crust.

He wants to prove this and that

to himself, and

the middle-aged woman.

But you see,

the woman's unwise if she

allows herself to be stripped.

The thing about Artemis is that,

is that her nakedness in

the pool in the woods,

when Actaeon sees her, yes?

- Um, yeah.

- Her nakedness

is not just a myth

about the virginity of maidens.

It's a myth also

about the final,

brittle sex appeal

of older women.

If you were to see me naked,

like Actaeon,

you would have to die.

You're a mature man, correct?

- Yeah.

- You're not one of

these immature fumblers,

one of these boys who

can't find the clitoris?

- Like a, sorry,

a woman's clitoris?

- Come here.

Nearly any experience

is good for a writer.

The same can't be said

for those who don't write.

- Yeah I actually brought

my work, I'd like to show you.

- Come, sit.

- You want me

to sit next to you on the couch?

- Here.

- Here?

- Exactly.

- Okay.

Here?

Okay.

Sorry, I'm.

- Take off my tights.

You're surprisingly

not bad at that.

- Thanks.

- Would you like

to show me your poems?

But first go clean your face.

- Should I just use the sink?

- Mm.

- Okay.

- To save us time why

don't you just show me what

you're certain is your

best work in that binder.

- My best?

- Mm.

You read it to me.

- Holy sh*t, um,

that's the title.

Holy sh*t, this Campbell's soup

is tasty, though

it, come, though.

Holy sh*t this

Campbell's soup is tasty,

though come to think of it,

it tastes like nothing

plus the idea of Warhol with

his super creepy friends,

so many more than I have,

speaking fondly of the times

they all had doing

nothing, doing nothing,

doing nothing, doing nothing,

making a Hamlet sandwich

I have to make for myself,

because I have no friends.

- I'm adjuncting a

composition course

at Hartwick college

in the spring.

That's in New York,

the Catskills, mm,

I got my MFA last year, from

the Iowa writers workshop.

And I'm the editor-in-chief of

a small magazine, a Webzine.

- I went to Iowa.

- Did you?

- Back when everyone smoked

cigarettes and nobody got aids.

- Okay, there

wouldn't be any kind

of legal complications,

would there?

What I mean is, when you,

if you select me.

I'll be far away with an alibi.

I don't mean to be rude,

I just think it's

best to be up front.

You don't expect me to

be here, to help you?

- This is not the process.

- What?

- The process,

it's not the process.

- What's the process?

- First we talk about your work,

and then I, I was probably...

- well that stuff that I sent

you is actually quite old.

I just sent it because it seems

to do well with the

editors of magazines.

I'd like to show you what

I'm writing currently.

- Show me.

- It's uh, it's an epic poem.

Or well, considering that idea.

It's uh, well,

better to show you.

- Cimputer, hmm?

Ever been to the Tate

modern in London?

- No.

- But you've been to

modern art museums.

- Of course.

It seems ironic now,

but I actually wrote my

undergraduate thesis on the

transgressive corporeality

of mannequins and humans

in the early work of -

- imagine three people

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