Goodnight Bush: Q&A WITH THE AUTHORS
Q&A WITH THE AUTHORS
Why Goodnight Bush?
Erich Origen: First, it’s funny—it fits Steve Martin’s definition of funny because you can’t completely explain why.
Gan Golan: It’s also poignant. The book isn’t for children, but it shows how far Bush’s reality is from the reality anyone would want for their children.
EO: At the same time, it lets us look at the last eight years through the eyes of a child. To quote a reviewer, “All of the horror and humor this book evokes is conjured with such naked simplicity, it's hard to imagine a more appropriate historical record for this administration.”
GG: We needed something that didn’t just summarize the last eight years, but served as a visual requiem. Goodnight Bush takes the same techniques that Bush used on us, and applies them to him—endless repetition of simple words and images, changing things when we aren’t looking, repeated reassurance that the things we treasure are intact, and repeatedly reducing a complex world into simple black and white.
EO: In 2000 a lot of people felt we entered an alternate reality that has yet to end. Goodnight Bush represents this alternate reality, and at the same time announces its coming end.
GG: Under Bush, everything familiar to us was subtly distorted until it became almost unrecognizable, leaving us feeling strangely out of place in our own home. The book reflects the absurdity, the tragedy, and the “surreality” of Bush’s legacy all at once. It reverses the spell of the War on Reality, the War on Memory.
EO: Can you repeat that? Again and again, so we never forget it?
Doesn’t Bush’s tragic legacy demand a more sober assessment?
GG: The cultural response to the Bush Administration has been to either make fun of the absurdity, or soberly assess the tragedy. Goodnight Bush does both simultaneously, which requires readers to experience a complex set of emotions and hold two conflicting ideas in their heads.
EO: Something Bush himself probably cannot do.
GG: The court jester has always been the truth-teller. Stephen Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a great political act, obviously made possible by his use of humor.
EO: If he had just stood up and soberly made the same criticisms, he would’ve been tackled by the Secret Service. Any Mel Brooks movie will tell you that, from the dawn of time, humor has been an essential part of history.
GG: And a key tactic for confronting power. The comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is hilarious yet sobering. Goodnight Bush is part of that tradition.
EO: After Hurricane Katrina, people made floats for Carnival with characters from the Army Corps of Engineers, so people could laugh at what almost destroyed them. Goodnight Bush is also made in the spirit of Carnival. We want to help people laugh at the same time they confront their losses.
Is Goodnight Bush cautionary or celebratory?
EO: Both. Between now and November, it’s a bit more cautionary.
GG: Obviously, if McCain is elected, we’ll be continuing much of the same legacy instead of saying goodnight. In that sense our book could be viewed as a kind of rallying cry.
What do you say to fans of Goodnight Moon?
GG: Overwhelmingly, the responses we've received show that the people who love Goodnight Bush the most are the people who love Goodnight Moon. They tell us that it's really the contrast between the dream of Goodnight Moon, and the nightmare of Bush, that makes the parody work so well. The book is greatly appreciated by those who have an intimate understanding of the original, and have read it a thousand times. We know people who've thrown birthday parties and given Goodnight Moon to the children, and Goodnight Bush to the adults.
EO: There's a tendency for drama-seeking interviewers to set up a false dichotomy between Goodnight Moon and Goodnight Bush, and that was the case in our NPR interview.
GG: We think fans of Goodnight Moon should be offended—not by our book, by the reality of what's happened over the last eight years.
Have you heard anything from the descendents of Margaret Wise Brown or Clement Hurd, the authors of Goodnight Moon?
EO: You could say we’ve heard from Clement Hurd, in a roundabout sort of way. Gan drives Clement Hurd’s car.
GG: I bought it used, and it’s a pure coincidence that he was the original owner, but we took it as a pretty clear sign that we were destined to create this parody—Hurd must approve of it in some way. Every time I sit down and a poof of dust billows out from the seat cushions I think, “Wow, there goes a piece of Clement Hurd, one of the greatest illustrators of our time.”
There are no question marks in Goodnight Moon. Why do you add them with Goodnight earth? and Goodnight heir?
EO: The question marks echo the feeling of uncertainty so many people have about just how destructive the aftermath of Bush’s legacy will be. Using “heir” instead of “air” is a way to address a number of issues. The questions also serve as a direct address to the reader, the heir of this legacy: What are you going to do? The book could almost end there.
How do you want people to experience Goodnight Bush?
EO: We’ve been very gratified that reviews of the book have quoted, almost verbatim, some of the goals we laid out for ourselves from the beginning…
The REVIEWS are in: http://www.facebook.com/no
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
PS: We took a cue from FEMA and wrote all the questions for this interview.
Erich Origen: First, it’s funny—it fits Steve Martin’s definition of funny because you can’t completely explain why.
Gan Golan: It’s also poignant. The book isn’t for children, but it shows how far Bush’s reality is from the reality anyone would want for their children.
EO: At the same time, it lets us look at the last eight years through the eyes of a child. To quote a reviewer, “All of the horror and humor this book evokes is conjured with such naked simplicity, it's hard to imagine a more appropriate historical record for this administration.”
GG: We needed something that didn’t just summarize the last eight years, but served as a visual requiem. Goodnight Bush takes the same techniques that Bush used on us, and applies them to him—endless repetition of simple words and images, changing things when we aren’t looking, repeated reassurance that the things we treasure are intact, and repeatedly reducing a complex world into simple black and white.
EO: In 2000 a lot of people felt we entered an alternate reality that has yet to end. Goodnight Bush represents this alternate reality, and at the same time announces its coming end.
GG: Under Bush, everything familiar to us was subtly distorted until it became almost unrecognizable, leaving us feeling strangely out of place in our own home. The book reflects the absurdity, the tragedy, and the “surreality” of Bush’s legacy all at once. It reverses the spell of the War on Reality, the War on Memory.
EO: Can you repeat that? Again and again, so we never forget it?
Doesn’t Bush’s tragic legacy demand a more sober assessment?
GG: The cultural response to the Bush Administration has been to either make fun of the absurdity, or soberly assess the tragedy. Goodnight Bush does both simultaneously, which requires readers to experience a complex set of emotions and hold two conflicting ideas in their heads.
EO: Something Bush himself probably cannot do.
GG: The court jester has always been the truth-teller. Stephen Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a great political act, obviously made possible by his use of humor.
EO: If he had just stood up and soberly made the same criticisms, he would’ve been tackled by the Secret Service. Any Mel Brooks movie will tell you that, from the dawn of time, humor has been an essential part of history.
GG: And a key tactic for confronting power. The comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is hilarious yet sobering. Goodnight Bush is part of that tradition.
EO: After Hurricane Katrina, people made floats for Carnival with characters from the Army Corps of Engineers, so people could laugh at what almost destroyed them. Goodnight Bush is also made in the spirit of Carnival. We want to help people laugh at the same time they confront their losses.
Is Goodnight Bush cautionary or celebratory?
EO: Both. Between now and November, it’s a bit more cautionary.
GG: Obviously, if McCain is elected, we’ll be continuing much of the same legacy instead of saying goodnight. In that sense our book could be viewed as a kind of rallying cry.
What do you say to fans of Goodnight Moon?
GG: Overwhelmingly, the responses we've received show that the people who love Goodnight Bush the most are the people who love Goodnight Moon. They tell us that it's really the contrast between the dream of Goodnight Moon, and the nightmare of Bush, that makes the parody work so well. The book is greatly appreciated by those who have an intimate understanding of the original, and have read it a thousand times. We know people who've thrown birthday parties and given Goodnight Moon to the children, and Goodnight Bush to the adults.
EO: There's a tendency for drama-seeking interviewers to set up a false dichotomy between Goodnight Moon and Goodnight Bush, and that was the case in our NPR interview.
GG: We think fans of Goodnight Moon should be offended—not by our book, by the reality of what's happened over the last eight years.
Have you heard anything from the descendents of Margaret Wise Brown or Clement Hurd, the authors of Goodnight Moon?
EO: You could say we’ve heard from Clement Hurd, in a roundabout sort of way. Gan drives Clement Hurd’s car.
GG: I bought it used, and it’s a pure coincidence that he was the original owner, but we took it as a pretty clear sign that we were destined to create this parody—Hurd must approve of it in some way. Every time I sit down and a poof of dust billows out from the seat cushions I think, “Wow, there goes a piece of Clement Hurd, one of the greatest illustrators of our time.”
There are no question marks in Goodnight Moon. Why do you add them with Goodnight earth? and Goodnight heir?
EO: The question marks echo the feeling of uncertainty so many people have about just how destructive the aftermath of Bush’s legacy will be. Using “heir” instead of “air” is a way to address a number of issues. The questions also serve as a direct address to the reader, the heir of this legacy: What are you going to do? The book could almost end there.
How do you want people to experience Goodnight Bush?
EO: We’ve been very gratified that reviews of the book have quoted, almost verbatim, some of the goals we laid out for ourselves from the beginning…
The REVIEWS are in: http://www.facebook.com/no
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
PS: We took a cue from FEMA and wrote all the questions for this interview.