But if there’s a way to do it well, that’s the kind of music I’d like to make. I’m not convinced that music works for spurring the kind of public awakening that he spurs through nonfiction. I spend a lot of time thinking about what the song equivalent of a Michael Pollan article would be, or the album equivalent of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The passages where he waxes rhapsodic about cooking or gardening are some of the loveliest bits of prose I’ve read. His writing has a translucent quality-I feel like I’m effortlessly absorbing new knowledge-but it’s beautifully personal, too. “I spend a lot of time thinking about what the song equivalent of a Michael Pollan article would be.” His is journalism of the highest order: well researched, thoughtfully explored, distilled into great storytelling (the corn plant domesticated us?) and pithy insights (“Eat food. And it’s not because he guilt-tripped or shocked me into it-he made me fall in love. I’ve changed how I think about my relationship to food because of his writing. Whose work has recently fed your creativity ? I recently started a second career, so apparently I think Frederick should be gathering grain as well as colors… But when the other mice tell him he’s a poet and he blushes, takes a bow, and says “I know it”-I’m trying to do that too. How does the little twerp get away with not contributing to the food supply? Why does he wait until everyone’s cold and miserable and nagging him to share whatever he’s been up to? Who does he think he is? When I crossed paths again with Frederick a few years ago, I was in my early 30s and questioning the legitimacy of my creative life, so I had a totally different reading of the story. (I also remember deciding one day that it was a coloring book, so my family’s copy has a lot of green scribbles in it.) I loved how this mouse would gather sun rays and colors to conjure up later through words. My parents would read it to me when I was about three years old. What was the first literature that had a profound impact on you? I’m always aiming for that state of blissful experimentation. In my best moments now, that’s still how it feels.
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