Thursday - March 20, 2008

Dinner with Roy Blount, Jr. 

  I got to have dinner with Roy Blount, Jr. on Monday night.  It was a lot of fun.  I've enjoyed him on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me over the last few years.  It seems that show is really starting to take off (at least by Public Radio standards....).  

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Here's the backstory:  My good friend Doug is a math professor at Presbyterian College.  Of course, I am there as well as an Assitant Professor and Assistant Director of IT for Academic Systems (how's that for a pretentious title?!?!?!).  He and I hit it off when I started doing a radio show at the college's radio station, WPCX.  There's a story in and of itself with the radio station....but for another time.

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Nonetheless, Doug was in charge of setting up the Arnold Symposium on campus this year.  The Arnolds were kind enough to endow the Russell program here at PC.  The program was given the task of running symposiums and roundtables, etc. dealing with the media.  in the past we've had such things as War in the Media (on the eve of the Iraq War) amongst others.  The "leader" changes from year to year.  Doug's turn was this year.  He decided on Southern Culture in the Media.  Personally, I think it was the best Arnold Symposium since I've been at PC.

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Roy Blount, Jr. was the keynote speaker this year.  He flew in this past Monday (boy, were his arms tired) - the night before his big speech.  I had called my son earlier in the day to tell him I was having dinner with Roy Blount.  Sam loves the Wait Wait show - so I was hoping to impress him.  I think it impressed him adequately.  Doug invited me along, I think, to help the conversation moving.  Doug was somewhat unsure of himself & nervous about the whole thing...so I was glad to help him out.  besides, as I said, I am a fan of Roy Blount.

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Conversation at dinner included Stephen Pinker, Douglas Hofstadter, the vicerous-ness of speech & language, Vanderbilt University, Clinton/PC football, fried green tomatoes, and No Country for Old Men.  Apparently, Blount's next book is about language....mostly the "sounds" of language - the "humanity" of language.  It seems to be a collection of essays about words starting with each letter of the alphabet.  Sounds cool to me.  That was what led to the Pinker/Hofstadter discussion.  I was glad I had read that stuff!  He said a few things about No Country for Old Men that I thought were interesting.  (I'm in the process of developing the series of biblical metaphors that lept to me every time I saw that film...more about that another time, I suppose...).  His insight (which I hadn't noticed) was that no "sympathetic" character was seen killed on screen.  Interesting....that'll take a bit more time for me to develop in my biblical thing....

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The best thing about dinner, other than spending some time with my friend (which is always nice), was that Mr. Blount was VERY gracious.  I could tell he was absolutely exhausted from the travel.  He was obviously hungry (and it was particularly nice that he was in the mood for some beers!  It made it okay for ME to order, too! - Russell program was paying....), but also obviously tired.  But, to his great credit and to my admiration for him, he was very gracious to sit and actually engage in conversation.  It was wonderful for him to have done that.  I have met "celebritites" who were complete DICKS.  Mr. Blount wasn't.  That was cool.