Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky Read Free Book Online Page A

pressure and expectation
far
in excess of anything the real world could place on you. Taking money for something up front brings that pressure back. And I don’t want it. There’s a real—I really enjoy a sense of
play
when I’m doin’ it. And um, the nice thingabout teaching is that, I feel like teaching is my livelihood. And
this
I do—and it’s found money if I get any money for it.
    And that’s not ’cause I’m this great guy, who thinks money is the root of all evil. It’s just: I’m now thirty-four. And I’ve discovered there are mind-sets that cause me incredible pain, and there are mind-sets that cause me less pain. And I just, um, it may be true that I could get a lot of money if I took an advance now. And I will eat my liver out, if it turns out that this was the chance to do it, and I’m now gonna miss it. But if I do it, I am buying myself a pack of trouble. That I just—and that pain, that pain, I fear that pain more than I want the money. And that’s why I’m not gonna take an advance.
    [Here’s how I will come to think of this: he voyaged out, trying to protect himself, to become what was necessary short-term, to get his aim long-term, which was not to be affected. And it’s the motor, tension, and reward in his work: the not-being-affected, not being sootily touched. It’s the sensitive-person story, though to play it now you have to be willing to show a little dirty, a little porny (“I would like to get laid offa this”) side too. The whole thing about trying to regulate himself, to produce a temporary self he could be comfortable and function in. Very squeezed parameters, somehow.]
    Still: there’s foreign sales, different markets, etc
.
    Foreign sales: I think I got $2,000 for
Girl
in Japanese.
    It’ll be very different in this case. Don’t play innocent with me
.
    I play a certain number of games. I will not play faux innocent with you, and I’m not. The stuff that I do, um, I’m used to, um, not making a whole lot of money on. If I make a whole lot of money on the foreign sales of this, I’ll be pleased. Nobody’s given me that indication yet.
    Film sale? Probably unfilmable …
    Which maybe will make it rather easier to take money for it. Knowingthat I will never have to see the artifact itself. Unless it’s like one of these forty-eight-hour Warholian, bring-a-catheter-to-the-theater experimental things. But of course you wouldn’t get any money for that, either. No, I would take that money and run for the hills. Because no, that dudn’t cost me anything inside.
    [A reformed person: trained himself out of most standard hungers. As it turns out, the film rights are sold about six months later.]
    Agent—Bonnie—will want you to: Cooler heads will prevail
.
    It’ll be interesting to see whether you’re right or not. I’m not gonna sit here and say—you’re trying to goad me into some vow, “I will never ever ever ever.” And then I’ll look like a
dick
if I do. But I would be pretty surprised.
    [This remains chess: as if I’m trying to trick him into castling prematurely.]
    I’m not trying to goad you into anything …
    If they said, “Here’s this advance, you now have the rest of the your life, we don’t care if we ever get this book,” I would take it. I’m not gonna take it on a deadline.
    But if?
    We’ll see.
    Five years?
    We’ll see.
    NPR: On the show, you said you saw yourself as “A combination of being incredibly shy, and being an egomaniac, too”?
    I think I said “exhibitionist, also.”
    But exhibitionist too?
    Yeah.
    Meaning?
    Well, I think being shy basically means being self-absorbed to the extent that it makes it difficult to be around other people. For instance, if I’m hanging out with
you
, I can’t even tell whether I like you or not, because I’m too worried about whether you like me. It’s stressful and unpleasant or whatever. And I have elements of that shyness in me.
    And yet at the same time, I mean it’s sort of like the