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Another Contender in the Room

2019-09-10 · letter vlog · John · 3:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing (also: Pop culture, Personal life) · mode: Announcements

In a love letter to his wife Sarah, John recalls their two-person book club and the Human Stain passage about 'another contender in the room', credits her with making art essential to him and shaping his work, and promotes her forthcoming book You Are an Artist.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John's story about Sarah: the two-person book club, The Human Stain's 'contender in the room', 16 years of shared work and the first-date line in Looking for Alaska

  • ★★ John tells how, before they dated, he and Sarah had a two-person book club; discussing Philip Roth's The Human Stain at her Chicago apartment, they found they'd highlighted the same passage. — 00:00:00 · Sarah Urist Green, Chicago (city) · also in: Getting Personal about Getting Personal

  • ★★ Philip Roth (quoted): The passage both highlighted in The Human Stain: the pleasure is not in owning the person but in having another contender in the room with you. — 00:00:00

    “The pleasure is this, having another contender in the room with you.”

  • ★★ John says he always knew Sarah was smarter than him but has aimed to be a contender in the room with her; for 16 years they have read each other's writing and challenged each other's ideas. — 00:00:29 · Sarah Urist Green

  • ★★★ John says Sarah's thinking about art, love and how to make things has shaped his whole professional life so deeply that their work is impossible to disentangle. — 00:00:29 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ John recalls that on their first date Sarah said 'imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia', which he promptly put into Looking for Alaska and still thinks is the book's best line. — 00:00:29 · Sarah Urist Green, Looking for Alaska (novel)

00:00:58 — How Sarah taught John that art is essential: what art is, and art that cracks him open (Pettibon, imagined maps)

  • ★★ John says he has read and helped edit Sarah's writing, including the wall labels she wrote as a museum curator and the Art Assignment videos she now writes for her PBS Digital series. — 00:00:58 · Sarah Urist Green, The Art Assignment
  • ★★ John says he didn't like art when he met Sarah, or didn't yet know he did; she is very good at helping people see what is useful, interesting and transformative about making and looking at art. — 00:00:58 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★★ John says art is not only old masters' portraits or the billionaires who collect them as tax shelters: it is people throughout history trying to express what it felt like to be alive, what they valued, or how to shift values. — 00:01:27 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ John says Sarah has helped him find art not just interesting but essential, because every once in a while art just cracks him open. — 00:01:27 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ John says a Raymond Pettibon painting, when he first saw it, ended up taking over his novel Turtles All the Way Down. — 00:01:27 · Turtles All the Way Down

00:01:56 — Sarah's book You Are an Artist: her earlier books, what it contains, what John learned, pre-order and April 14th release

  • ★★ John says seeing some imagined maps inspired much of his novel Paper Towns. — 00:01:56 · Paper Towns
  • ★★★ John says other people's creative work fuels yours and vice versa, something he learned from Sarah. — 00:01:56 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★★ John announces that Sarah is publishing a book called You Are an Artist, so many more people are about to learn from her. — 00:01:56 · Sarah Urist Green, You Are an Artist
  • ★★ John notes it isn't Sarah's first book: as a museum curator she co-wrote Andy Warhol Enterprises and edited a book about graphite; this one is for a much broader audience. — 00:01:56 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★★ John says anyone interested in making stuff or understanding how it gets made will love the book because, as its title says, you are an artist whether you know it yet or not. — 00:02:26 · You Are an Artist
  • ★★ John says the book gathers assignments Sarah commissioned from artists for The Art Assignment plus many new assignments and essays on how contemporary artists work. — 00:02:26 · You Are an Artist, The Art Assignment, Sarah Urist Green
  • ★ John says the first thing he learned from the book is that it's probably harder to support someone writing a book than to write one. (playful, hedged) — 00:02:26
  • ★★ John says the book taught him much about art and how life-giving the act of creation is for humans. — 00:02:26 · You Are an Artist
  • ★★★ John, calling himself the carnival barker Sarah married, says You Are an Artist will help you see the world in new ways and maybe change your life, with a phenomenal cover and colour illustrations. — 00:02:55 · You Are an Artist, Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★★ John says You Are an Artist is available for pre-order now wherever you get books and comes out on April 14th. — 00:02:55 · You Are an Artist

00:03:24 — Thanks and congratulations to Sarah; sign-off

  • ★★ John thanks Sarah for being a contender in the room with him, congratulates her on the book and says she still astonishes him, maybe especially after all these years. — 00:03:24 · Sarah Urist Green

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Sarah Urist Green · You Are an Artist

Also: People: Raymond Pettibon

Projects: The Art Assignment

Works: Andy Warhol Enterprises · Looking for Alaska (novel) · Paper Towns · The Human Stain · Turtles All the Way Down

Organizations: PBS Digital Studios

Places: Chicago (city)

Only in the description or credits: Philip Roth

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