{"id":4206,"date":"2014-10-23T23:06:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T05:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=4206"},"modified":"2014-10-24T16:51:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T22:51:44","slug":"alexie-delivers-rollicking-raucous-speech-at-billings-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/10\/alexie-delivers-rollicking-raucous-speech-at-billings-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexie delivers rollicking, raucous speech at Rocky"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alexie\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Author Sherman Alexie addressed several hundred people on the Rocky Mountain College campus Thursday night.<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s a safe bet that the Skyview High parent who did not want her child to read Sherman Alexie\u2019s \u201cAbsolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian\u201d would not have wanted her child to attend Alexie\u2019s speech in Billings Thursday night.<\/p>\n

The wildly popular author delivered a 65-minute talk and then spent 48 minutes answering, more or less, just three questions from the audience in the gymnasium of Rocky Mountain College\u2019s Fortin Education Center.<\/p>\n

The talk itself was a discursive, relentlessly funny, often profane excursion into all manner of provocative subjects, including masturbation, gay marriage, racism, genocide, politics, education and the power of literature.<\/p>\n

In his opening remarks Alexie advised people not to ask him his opinion about having Indian mascots for sports teams. He said it was a racist, archaic tradition defended only by idiots.<\/p>\n

Given the genocidal policies of the United States, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s the equivalent of Germans having Jewish sports mascots.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there is progress, he said: \u201cThe racist idiots look more like racist idiots\u201d all the time.<\/p>\n

One of the most interesting interludes of the evening was when Alexie engaged a small group of Indian students who came up from Little Big Horn College with their teacher, Luella Brien, a fiction writer herself and formerly a reporter for the Billings Gazette.<\/p>\n

Alexie turned again and again to one student in particular, Leo Goes Ahead, who reminded Alexie of his own brother. He alternately complimented, teased and encouraged Goes Ahead, until the college sophomore was nearly swallowed by his own smile.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Alexie started asking other Crow students for their names and then stood back in wonder at a roll call that he said sounded like a Shakespearean sonnet\u2014Little Owl, Big Medicine, Real Bird and Big Hair among them. His own favorite, Alexie said, was Takes Enemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how many more books I would have sold if my name was Sherman Takes Enemy?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s done all right under his given name. He has published 24 books of fiction and poetry, won a string of prestigious awards and had \u201cThe Absolutely True Diary\u201d translated into 72 languages.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s published in countries I had to look up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Steve Germic, an associate professor of English at Rocky who introduced Alexie, said \u201chis body of work, I submit to you, is the Great American Novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germic was the organizer of the second annual Common Read Program at Rocky, in which nearly all freshmen and many upperclassmen read the same book and discussed it in various classes and disciplines.<\/p>\n

Alexie\u2019s most famous novel was chosen for the Common Read early this year, not long after the Skyview parent objected to having the \u201cThe Absolutely True Diary\u201d on the school\u2019s required reading list. The District 2 School Board ultimately voted to retain the book, which has been the subject of bans and attempted bans almost continuously since it was published in 2007.<\/p>\n

\"Leo\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

During a book-signing after his speech, Alexie posed for a photo with Leo Goes Ahead, a student at Little Big Horn College whom Alexie singled out during his talk.<\/p><\/div>\n

Alexie clearly reveled in the controversy, and he made no attempt to draw in his talons during his speech. He said he suspected that Tea Party Republicans were among the small group of human beings who really did not masturbate. He said protestors ought to attend Tea Party rallies and chant \u201cMasturbate! Masturbate!\u201d at them.<\/p>\n

Then, as if addressing those Tea Partiers, he added, \u201cI\u2019m not saying it\u2019s going to change your politics, but you\u2019ll be a lot more relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said parents object to his book for the same reason they can\u2019t relate to their children, because \u201cwe as parents completely disconnect from who we were as teenagers.\u201d What is worse, he said, adults fail to acknowledge that their befuddlement over romance does not end with their teenage years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been married for 20 years and every once in awhile I look over at my wife and say, \u2018Who the fuck are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That set him off, seemingly spontaneously, on an extended story about \u201calarm sex,\u201d which he said parents with children are forced to fall back on. But when the alarm goes off at 2 a.m., he said, the couple will try in vain to wake up, hitting the snooze button several times before one spouse turns to the other and says, \u201cCan we just hold hands?\u201d<\/p>\n

Which prompted a further observation: \u201cYou people who don\u2019t want gay people to have sex? Let them get married.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the core of his many-layered speech was his recounting of a story from his freshman year at Reardan High School, the same off-reservation school in Washington state attended by Junior, the Spokane Indian narrator of the \u201cThe Absolutely True Diary.\u201d It was a long story, one that was not included in the book, centering on his attempt to court Laurie, a white senior at Reardan High.<\/p>\n

Close to the climax of the story, Alexie offers Laurie a stuffed Eastern bunny with a patch of Pendleton fabric on its belly. He described himself as \u201can Indian boy reaching across hundreds of years of racial, cultural and political divide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so loving and forgiving,\u201d he said, \u201cthat we have forgiven your criminal white asses. It\u2019s like, \u2018Fuck you, Custer. I am not going to judge all white people by your genocidal impulses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That line and many like it elicited all sorts of laughter, from nervous titters and guffaws to what, at one point, Alexie referred to \u201csome loud rez laughter over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trying to summarize a Sherman Alexie story is like trying to do the same with an improv session by the late Robin Williams, but in his closing remarks Alexie said the eternal struggle is group identity vs. self identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you going to be?\u201d he asked his audience. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be happier if it\u2019s your decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odds and Ends<\/strong><\/p>\n

And because Alexie said so many things worth recording Thursday night, here is a random selection:<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0How do we improve schools, on and off the reservation? \u201cYou want amazing teachers? You pay them huge fucking amounts of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0How does he know that? \u201cI grew up poor and now I\u2019m really rich. And money has solved almost all my problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0On looking around the gymnasium at Rocky: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve read in a venue that had Taco Bell advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0In big cities, he said, \u201cpeople generally think I\u2019m half of whatever they are,\u201d and all taxi drivers think he\u2019s from their native country.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0On walking around Billings Thursday morning: \u201cI\u2019d forgotten about that special joy of having white people watching you because you\u2019re Indian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0When he was young, he said, he was \u201cyoung-Indian-boy pretty. When I looked in the mirror I\u2019d go, \u2018Damn, I\u2019m going to masturbate to me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Most white people are so clueless about their European ancestry, he said, that there should be \u201cEuropean cultural awareness\u201d telethons for them, run by Crow Indians.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0In places like Montana, he said, everybody is a minority, or at least treated like one by outside interests. \u201cIf you live in Montana, you\u2019re a rez Indian. Now they\u2019re fracking your ass. You\u2019re going to have an indigenous fracking tumor on your neck and it\u2019s going to sing powwow songs to you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a safe bet that the Skyview High parent who did not want her child to read Sherman Alexie\u2019s \u201cAbsolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian\u201d would not have wanted her child to attend Alexie\u2019s speech in Billings Thursday night. The wildly popular author delivered a 65-minute talk and then spent 48 minutes answering, more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1494,1497,139,333,143,1533],"class_list":["post-4206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-common-read","tag-fortin-education-center","tag-luella-brien","tag-rocky-mountain-college","tag-sherman-alexie","tag-steve-germic-leo-goes-ahead","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}