Author Court Carney on Art, Culture and Memory

Join Court Carney, PhD, as he delves into how culture informs myth and memory

Leveraging his experiences writing "Reckoning with the Devil" (LSU Press 2024,) the artwork of Bob Dylan, personal anecdotes and professional expertise from his peers, Court gives insights into his creative inspiration, collective motivations, what he's reading now, and where to see art in Houston, Kansas City and beyond.

Listen to the episode to learn Court's best advice on assessing cultural history, how personal memories can inform creative work, and Court's experiences as a cultural historian.
 
"Reckoning with the Devil," by Court Carney is available for purchase on Amazon and through LSU Press. Learn more about Court on his website.

Call/Response: Writers on Art & Artists on Literature is produced by K.Co Press.

Connect with us online at www.kcopress.com, on Instagram @kcopress or on Facebook at kcoarts.

Transcript

Stephanie: You're listening to Call and Response with K. Co Press, conversations with writers on art and artists on literature. I'm Stephanie Khattak.
 
Historian Court Carney is professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, where he teaches courses on Black history and American cultural history. His expertise includes Bob Dylan, early jazz, and the intersection of music and memory. His latest book, Reckoning with the Devil, Nathan Bedford Forrest in Myth and Memory, is out now from LSU Press.

Thanks for being here today, Court. Tell me about your work.

Court Carney: Great. Thank you for having me. Yeah, you you certainly got the big picture of it. Well, the, the book you just mentioned came out just a couple of months ago. So that's sort of like, still in my brain more than other things. And it is a book on Civil War memory. looking at one particular person and how he sort of helps explore the various ways that Civil War memory gets created and broken down and, and all of that.

So when you say Civil War, I think most people are going to think this is a military history. I do play with military history, but first and foremost, I am a cultural historian by trade. My first book was on jazz in the twenties. This book, which has been long in the making is on the Civil War, and how the Civil War reverberates throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. But I think that these things actually have a lot in common in the way people make sense of the past, the way people make sense of the present through art, through art forms, through history, through stories, through monuments, statues—all this stuff sort of connects to this idea of cultural history, cultural scholarship, the way you kind of interact with each other.

So in other words, when we look at Civil War memory, we're basically kind of looking at groups of people trying to make sense of themselves within this kind of larger map, and they do that through cultural forms, and it could be something really uplifting and cool, like jazz music, or it could be something very densely packed, like a Civil War statue, but it's still...it's people sort of making sense of themselves within the dialogue of the past and the present.

Stephanie: You write about how perceptions of Nathan Bedford Forrest have shifted over the years, and how his life and impact have been mythologized in the larger context of the Civil War. And so, as Bedford's story is one that continues to evolve even up to the present day, can you talk about the collective inclination to hold up a central figure to reflect the changing times around them?

Court Carney: Yeah, I think this is an interesting concept, and part of it for me is that it starts in a particular place. So most of the Forrest story, or a lot of the Forrest story, deals with Memphis. And so, when we look at Civil War memory, in its largest sense is this dialogue between the past and the present and how we kind of make sense of ourselves looking forward, et cetera.

But if you're looking at it in a more specific place, a more specific sense, you've got Memphis. And, Memphis is a space where, white people in Memphis were trying to make sense of their own loss and their own sort of sense of self. And so they use Forrest, who was not born in Memphis, but he becomes a big part of the Memphis story. He helps represent what they think is kind of the best sides of themselves. So in this case, it's one person sort of representing the whole and for, again, you have to be very careful here, but for white Memphis, and oftentimes a very particular segment of white Memphis you're looking at someone who sort of speaks to loss. The lost cause, as we call it. We'll talk about people sort of making sense of the Civil War, but also the sense of civic pride. And for them, say in 1905 when the statue goes up in Memphis, he's sort of the epitome of what they see as kind of a masculine figure of, you know, a protector, of a warrior and that changes across the landscape and it changes across the book and it changes how we look at it.

But, I think that is one way of how this one person can kind of crystallize these things. On the flip side, from the scholarly perspective, this one person helps sort of represent these moments in time that we can kind of trace. So as a historian, we can look at 1905. We can look at the 1950s. We can look at 1978, when another
monument goes up. We can look at nineteen-nineties when another monument goes up, and there's one person allows us this kind of framework to look at it.

So I think it works both in the sense of how people kind of make sense of themselves. But, also as from a from a scholarly perspective, it helps sort of bound the story. It kind of frames the story in a way where we meet Forrest early on in the book. It's kind of a biographical sketch, and then you get to see how Forrest kind of hits these different moments throughout the book. The 20th century into the 21st century.

Stephanie: Monuments (or statues) of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and even his remains have been flash points in recent years. Can you talk a bit about how art, in this case, individual statues, can function as this type of symbol? And also, what is the impact when the voice of the people is listened to or not?

Court Carney: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when I started this project, which is a long time ago—the seeds of this project go back to the 1990s when I was in graduate school. And there was a time there, a time then where memory studies (and memory studies has kind of a long, long history,) but memory studies and American history certainly sort of crystallized.

And I think in the 1990s, you had this moment when when when memory studies were kind of in vogue again (or maybe not vogue again) but maybe being looked at in kind of a different, unique way.

And so, my Master 's thesis was sort of touching that period. And my point is that a lot of the work being done was from visual artists or art history.

You saw a lot of work from philosophers and art historians looking at it in this very particular way. And, that's not always the case with memory studies, but in this particular time, I think it was. So, I remember reading a lot about sort of, Theoretical approaches to monument building and stuff. That's not necessarily the track I followed personally, but I do think that intellectually there is a way of looking at it from an artistic perspective. That's one answer.

The other answer that's sort of contradictory is that with the Memphis statue in particular, I had a great deal of archival material which connected the city of Memphis to the artist.

So I'm seeing the back and forth literally between the artist who's saying it needs to look like this and the Memphis sort of committee that's like, well, we're worried about money. We're worried about this. We're worried about that. And then you have the sculptor who's like, well, I'm worried about what's it going to look like in terms of proportion, in terms of the size, because he actually wanted it bigger than they wanted to pay for it.

So he's thinking from an artistic perspective solely, and he's building monuments in the north throughout. So he's sort of like, "I'm a monument builder." So I think that's one way of kind of looking at it. If I'm touching on the question correctly. But then later on art keeps becoming a thread because you have not just sculptures, but paintings. You have a lot of painters in the mid-century who are making these sort icon-driven portraits. You also then have the sculpture, the statue that most people know of Forrest, which is the wild looking one south of Nashville, which is no longer with us. It was destroyed. But the man who made that was deeply connected to the art scene of Nashville in the 1950s. And I think one of the interesting parts of the book for me was kind of realizing that he was someone who was an artist in the broad sense of the word, but also a trained artist. He was writing columns in the Nashville newspaper about exhibits coming to town and all sorts of stuff.

But he was also very much this segregationist sort of racist, and this kind of this collision of (the artist implying) like, "I'm an artist, but I'm also this rabid segregationist." That story is really kind of curious. So art kind of plays in all of these points, but the way the art is created and the way the arts reflected back, I think is really interesting.

Stephanie: And so, often the the words sculpture and statue are used interchangeably. What is the difference between the two and how can understanding this difference help the viewer assess the art?

Court Carney: The answer that I would give to something like that would be the abstraction, right? That a sculpture can be abstract, and a story of abstraction where then a statue is trying to be some sort of concrete personification of something. But having said that, where I come in too, is that like, well, it's all abstraction, right? It's all abstraction of some version of the story. And with Forrest, what I'm dealing mostly with are, are pieces of art or artworks or art forms that are trying in some way to create reality. Truth. "Big T" truth or reality. And so, a lot of the stuff with, like, the 1905 statue, is based around his own artifacts. So they're trying to get like, this is the placement. This is what he looked like. We have images that we can then create out of that. In the 1950s and 60s, when you see the rise of paintings, it's a much more romantic impression, but it's basically trying to say, here is a person that we can know, we can see.

The wild statue, I never know what adjective to use—the Nashville statue, is not so much that. I think the Nashville statue is very much in the sculptural abstract realm because it's giving you sort of a fever dream of what someone looked like. And it's not meant to be anything like that at all. It's supposed to be this kind of this  piece of power rather than this is who he was.

And I think, this is interesting, right? I think that the story of Forrest during his lifetime, when he's alive, he's very aware of his image. He's very aware of how he's seen. He's very careful in terms of how he comes across as like, scary, basically. And he's using his image openly and sort of in a modernist tradition. Even though he dies in the 1870s, he's like, I'm aware of this. I want journalists to use this in a way.

And I think that's really kind of fascinating.

He's really playing the media in a way that you don't see that many people doing during that period, in his position. And I think that the story of, well...I guess, if you're expecting statue, statue, statue, all of a sudden you read this kind of like, well... here's this erotic literature based around the book. My mother read the book and she texted me and said that she never would have imagined her her son writing pornography! And I was like, well, that's...that's not the blurb on the book, but I think there's something about that where his own body, the way he looks and the way that sort of becomes enticing to certain people, is a big part of the story because he becomes very sexualized. That is one way of looking at it. But, also when you look at descriptions of him during the Civil War and you look at descriptions after, his body, his size, his height his strength, his prowess, and all things are embedded. And, some of this is the heroic literature, and some of it is very much like, this is someone who is exciting people in ways that maybe they're not quite assured of, but there's like this allure that happens. With all the darkness within his story, with all the racism, and all the death, and the bloodshed, and the violence, there's also this other piece that I think is magnetic. I don't think if all that wasn't there, I think his magnetism would probably have been reduced in some way.

But because it is all there, it allows this this stronger orbit, I suppose, a stronger gravitation.

Stephanie: Changing the subject a little bit. I understand that you're also a Bob Dylan expert. Can you tell us a little about that and how you got there?

Court Carney: Well it's much more fun. I lived with Forrest for a long time, and there's a lot of great things about (that). That book is something that I'm very proud of. And it's a book that I have a lot of deep feelings for. But it's also a book that you're writing thinking, "this is really heavy." When I was writing the book about jazz, you're dealing with some terrible things, but you're also dealing with like, well, how do we describe this sound?

That sort of creates new molecular pathways or whatever new neural pathways in the brain. And so the Dylan material has been kind of a long story. It's stuff that I've kind of always been interested in his music obviously long term, but also just as a scholar sort of figuring out different things, I've been involved with this teaching group related to Woody Guthrie, and that's been a big path forward on this, and (also) how do we talk about folk music in the classroom? How do we talk about folk music outside the classroom? How do we talk about protest music? How do we use someone from the thirties and forties in a way that sort of crystallizes? I keep using that term, but kind of helps shape current music.

And, Dylan plays into that and so the scholarly story is kind of windy, but ultimately a good friend of mine and I did a co-edited a collection of essays about a year and a half ago that came out. We've been growing a really beautiful group of scholars (in subjects) related to Dylan and interested in Dylan. And there's some people there that are just doing so much—so much amazing work! And we were really happy to kind of bring that together. We're doing another book that we're working on right now, kind of another collection of essays, looking at a different side of Dylan (and) figuring out ways forward where we maybe can expand the conversation of whatever small ways exist.

Dylan's interesting because there's tons of stuff on him, and there's tons of books on him, but there's always this other kind of fun path. And like, a lot of our friends are just really wonderful! Some of them are professors and, and scholars, and some of them are not in academia, and they just are a really wonderful group of people to work with.

So, on that level, it's just that—it's about what's fun. The idea of joy, the idea of what brings you joy and what brings you any sort of life is just these kind of moments when you can have a shared language with people who also love the stuff that you love. And so who knows where that's going to go. I'm working on a book project in the largest sense that's going to be Dylan related and also kind of fusing that with memory and music and looking at sort of a way of how basically, kind of then taking everything I've been talking about into another direction with Dylan kind of at the center of it.

But, now I'm just sort of playing with these smaller ideas again of like, well, what, what rings true right now? And there's something about that, right? Like if you're reading a novel or if you're listening to music that really moves you or seeing a piece of art that really moves you, it really moves you. That's something that I'm sort of diving into in terms of how do you express that writing in a way that with Forrest, it was never really the point. The point was more, how do you deal with this really tragic knot of circumstances and be true to it and be true to the people harmed by it and be true to the people who are affected and impacted by it, but also kind of tell this other story of how it was built and be true to that side, too.
And, ultimately that was in my mind, hopefully, successful.

And now it's like, well, how do we go back to this period of vulnerability and art and maybe, maybe dealing with something that drives other senses rather than, you know, our worst impulses.

Stephanie: I understand. And can you talk to us a little about Bob Dylan's visual art? How do you think it connects to his music or musical journey?

Court Carney: I think what's fascinating about Dylan's visual art is personally, I was very slow to it. You know, there's a really famous set of stories in the '70s where he goes off and kind of trains with a painter. And I always thought that was kind of interesting and some of his artwork has been part of his album art.

But I never really was all that "running down the road" to see the other stuff. But I have a friend of mine, her name's Laura Tensher, and she runs a really wonderful podcast on sort of cool Dylan stuff. And she has been really keen on on giving more space to the visual art. And I think really through her, I was like, "Oh, there really is something going on there!"

For me, what I find interesting about the art is how this is only a piece of what he does, but this idea where he finds these films, or he's watching, he's clearly watching a film that he loves, or he's back to the other story, that reminding, remembering a story of a film he likes.

And then he paints these scenes that are not really facsimiles of the movie scene, but are close enough to be like, oh, well, that's from such and such. And there's another wonderful, just kind of brilliant person out there who is able to see all these references. And he talks about on his site all the time—Scott Wormuth. And it's like, this really fascinating way of like this comes from this movie, this comes from this movie... the two of them together have a knowledge base I don't have. But, what I really like about it is that, one example I'll use is that there's a film from the 90s called "Lone Star," which is a very early, very.. VERY early Matthew McConaughey film. And the late Kris Kristofferson is in it. And  it's a John Sayles film. And I really love the film. As someone from Texas, it's a really fascinating look at South Texas. It's a really fascinating look at myth and memory and everything else that I find interesting .

But anyway, there's a scene at the end that is quite poignant, we'll say, or we'll say, I don't know anything about the movie, but, there's a scene at the end that's really powerful—it's sort of disturbing, but it's also very powerful. Maybe slightly optimistic, or however you want to look at it. Which I think is the point, the ambiguity. And Dylan happens to then paint this scene, and it's really kind of cool, it's almost as if he's like, well, this is the crux, right?

Stephanie: You're a bit of a multi-hyphenate in terms of art appreciation. So, how does music, visual arts, and writing work together in your daily life, for either your recreation or your work or just your day-to-day routine?

Court Carney: Well, at times more hidden than others. You know, when I was in college, there was like six weeks when I was our art history minor...those six weeks stand out! (No.) I ended up doing other things. I was always a history major, but, there was a weird little moment when I was like, I really, so in other words, there was a moment I had a really...this is a cliche, but I had a really wonderful English teacher in high school who was like, this is what poetry is, what art is.

I grew up in San Antonio. So we'd go to the the McNay and (do) different things and just being just being aware of that at an early age. And it was something that always was interesting, but I never thought it was something I could commit to for whatever reason. And then as I got older, I went to grad school just in history, and it was just like, well, There's this idea that's important to me and important to others. But the idea of like of what, when you need that kind of inspiration, when you're thirsting for that, you know...where do you go?

And I became very, very, very, very interested in different poets and sort of the poetic life and that kind of thing. And that was never part of anything I did day to day. That was never part of my main focus. But it was something that kind of gave me a weird comfort or a kind of a weird sort of interest, that I just sort of connected to differently with art. That's become much more a part of it, and I think that there are fewer places that I find more just engaging than some sort of museum.

And, you know, there's a great meme from "Succession," he's walking into a hotel, he's not in a museum gift shop, but it's just like, I fucking love it in here!  It's just—you know,—I want to go see the postcards and there's postcards and all right here. You know, there's something about that. And I think that's become—I know that sounds so superficial and silly, but it's become something that really drives a large part of my life the last few years to the point where, you know, it's just something that I think is a much more normal part of my life.

There's artists that I used to like, that I kind of then brought back in my life. There are artists that I never really knew about that I now become, I'm just entrenched with. I think that's fascinating. And it's mostly just the amateurish story of like what moves me and what I engage with.

But I think at this point in my life, I think the visual art painting in particular, you know, this whole idea that painting is interesting to me because I can't do it! I've never, you know...I'm (sometimes recreationally using) watercolors, but you know, I'm not a painter. And there's a magic to it that is not magic, right?

And it's the craft of it that I find so wonderfully outside of my reach! Like, it's almost as if I don't want to know how you're able to do some of this stuff, because As as a non-painter, I'm like, well, that's just...I don't mean this in a derogatory, denigrating sense because you can say, well that's just magic! (But) it's not! These are hard working, crafts people, but it's also like, how the fuck do you do this?

You know, like how does this...? How do you...? I mean I get it! I get it. But honestly! Seriously, guys! And so, I think art for me is this sort of... what I find moving, and what I find emotionally connected to. And there's those things that continue to surprise me.

Stephanie: Where do you like to see art in Houston, where you live?

Court Carney: The two things that are the closest, you have the Menil, which is awesome and amazing. And then the MFAH, the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, which I don't think gets enough credit. We have certain wonderful museums that are towering achievements in this country, but I think the MFA is one of them. I think that it has a sprawl to it. I have a friend who doesn't like it because it has a sprawl. But I think the sprawl is really kind of the beautiful part of it. And there are times when you can go in there...I know I can go in there when no one's really there and you can go to parts of it that are just wildly quiet.

And then there's also just the idea, and this is sort of the non-art part of it, but when you see all of the different types of people who go there, say on a free day, like on Thursday when it's free and they're there as couples and dating, or whatever, and you see all the different groups of people who find that sort of as somewhere they want to spend their time. The MFAH had an exhibit, it's not there right now, by a man I never heard of, a guy named Thomas Demand. And, what I love about this exhibit is that I can't explain it. And, when I do explain it, it sounds like something you never want to see! And, I just found it the most moving thing in the world! But, he makes paper sculpture. Kind of paper sculptures that he then photographs of famous, and I should put in quotes, "historically famous" European mainly, photos.

So what he's doing is creating a representation of a photo that then is made of paper. There's a photograph of Hitler's bunker after there was an assassination attempt on Hitler's life and there's a...there's a fairly... I shouldn't say famous in today's world, but there was a well known photograph at the time of the disarray of the office after it was blown up. He survives that. But then Demand goes and he recreates the office and everything with these, like, this paper, pieces of paper, and then he photographs that. And then he has this really sort of fascinating film of, there's a a ship that was in a huge storm, and you see it going back and forth, and we have, like, the CC cameras filming this.

And this is just a real thing that was on YouTube or whatever, of, like, this passenger ship, and you pivot, and you see all the trash and tables and everything go this way, and then it goes this way. And he recreates that in a short film all out of paper. And again, it's hard to explain it (probably because my own lack of ability,) but it was so fascinating to me!  And then the Menil, which is just, again, something that we don't have access to all the time, the Menil is two things: one, the established piece, is their Cy Twombly gallery, which is a must-see, and it's something that is just present. And you see it, and it's like, how does this ever work? And that's something that I've really kind of gotten into lately. And then, also, just this week, I saw Tacita Dean, an artist who took and again, this sounds really terribly boring to people, but she's basically filming Claes Oldenburg drawing. So Oldenburg, he's probably in his 80s at this time. This is probably from the early twenty-teens. He is just with with some oil pastels and some bits and pieces. He's just drawing some of the stuff he's well known, for like the blueberry pie and stuff.

You hear all the ambient noise from his like Ojo loft or whatever beautiful space he just happens to have. And he's in there and it's just him drawing, and it's 20 minutes of that, and I've seen that probably three times now. And they're just screening it without anything. It's just, you go into the room and they're screening it and you're just... it goes back to the idea of poetry. It goes back to the idea of inspiration. It goes back to the idea of, of watching the creative process, which is so not rare, but it's so rare to see it. You know, it's like when we get to see—as AI driven as parts of it are—but when we get to see the Beatles really coming together and during the "Get Back" sessions, and they're literally together as a group playing music. You know, those are things that you dreamed about seeing when you're a kid. And then to see that, you know, there's something there that lights up the brain for me. And so, to see an artist filming another artist doing exactly what you think they're going to see, which is just that one line like he looks at the piece of paper,he kind of looks at it, and then he makes the one line and then he goes from there.

And I think that that is as moving to me now as watching, you know, John and Ringo give each other a side hug walking out of the control room. There's something about that. I just think it's that we can't take for granted to see. So those pieces, I think, have been really meaningful.

Stephanie: So where are some of your favorite places to see art when you travel?

Court Carney: Here's a recent surprise: I have never in all my life been to Kansas City. Don't know why;Just never been. And Kansas City is amazing! I went to the art museum there, which is a beautiful space. I was there for a conference
and they had a beautiful special thing on the Japanese wave paintings. And so they had kind of the famous Japanese wave paintings, but then, they had these kind of newer, more modern interpretations of it. They had a Lego one, and it was really great that way they did it.

It was just kind of interesting and like, kind of creates the particulate part of the way that you don't think about the waves. And so, I just was like really stunned by that. And their collection is amazing anyway. But then, that special exhibit...

Obviously I'm not going to say anything wildly unique other than that, but maybe maybe in the Met, I saw the the Manet/Degas exhibit last year. I know, it's one of these things that has become more of a seeking out. And when you get moved by it. I had the really great pleasure of being in Copenhagen this May, and there's a beautiful museum there called the Louisiana. It's sort of built into this space where you have like these beautiful natural vistas, and then you have a Calder and then you have, you know...it's just really wonderful, and (so was) just being there and getting there, because I had to take a train. I was on the train by myself, and then was kind of going up to you know, another part of of Denmark and then finding my way to this music...these are not challenging things in the day of phones, but just being in present, alone, doing it was part of the process of finding the museum. And then just being there, surrounded by a lot of people kind of looking at the same art. It was one of those places where the art was wonderful and beautiful, but it was also just the just the meta story of being there. But also then, just larger than the sum of its parts, you know? It's just like, this is a really well-curated space. Seattle has a really, really nice curated museum that is smaller in it's function and it's holdings, I guess, in various ways. But they can do some beautiful things in that space.

Stephanie: What are you reading for fun these days?

Court Carney: Who has fun?!

This idea of reading, you know, it's, it's what you do. all the time. It's like, what you do, it's what I do. In January (2024), I made a point to start sort of keeping myself more accountable. I wanted to do more reading that was sort of outside the framework of work.

And I wanted to two things, which are separate, but one was like, I wanted to get back into my jazz head. And so I started trying to figure out a way to listen to a different jazz composition each day or a jazz piece. And sometimes, it wasn't every day, but I've been keeping track of that. That's been this project that sometimes seems too sprawling and overwhelming for me.

But then with the books, I was doing the same kind of thing. I was like, well, what can I do for one month, each month? Just cataloging it. And I just started sort of reading whatever. So it wasn't like, I've got to read this or read that. Some of the stuff has been new and from this year, but a lot of it is just stuff I've had forever and just never read or just was like, I want to get into that.

But there's three books. The three books that I, when you think, what did I read this year that really meant something?

One is, From a few years ago, Helen Macdonald wrote the book "H is for Hawk." "H is for Hawk" is about her kind of learning how to train a hawk. It was the best book I've probably read. I don't know how. It's just a really beautiful book and it's a book that you see everywhere because it's got a really eye-catching cover and "H is for Hawk."

It's kind of in this new memoir style, but I was just blown away by it. It's a book that I just kept thinking about and thinking about and thinking about and thinking about. And so that book just kind of hit my brain in so many different ways. ("Traveling: On the Path of Joanie Mitchell," by Ann Powers is) a more recent one from this year, which I think is getting a lot of... maybe not publicity in the way it could. And I don't mean that in any other way than it's a different book that people expect in a book on Joanie Mitchell, and it's not a biography of Jody Mitchell. It's more of a cultural take on Jody Mitchell. And, it's also very personal book by Powers. It's, it's like her own life is in there. And I was really touched by it.

I don't have a long, long well of Joanie Mitchell knowledge, But going into it, I was just really blown away by how, as an author, as a writer, she was crafting a story that was sort of about Joanie, but also about her in a way that I never felt like it was anything other than just a real, you know, commanding performance.

I mean, she's written, obviously, so many books and so many different pieces. But I think this one sort of is a different world for me. I think this book really meant a lot.

And the other book that meant a lot this year, which is very strange, and it's gonna sound strange, perhaps, and I don't know what to make of it, but I keep going back to it in my brain, is Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye."

I had read... I was kind of in this noir thing in January, which, I know we're (at the time of recording) in "Noir-vember." But in January, I was just reading all the Chandler stuff and then like, you know, all the kind of adjacent "Double Indemnity" and all those different pieces, the Cane books and Hammett and all that kind of stuff.

But Chandler is someone that I had read in the past, but I'd never read "The Long Goodbye." And I read some of his others, and that's not my normal go-to genre. And I read "The Long Goodbye," and I was like, do people... this is what  happens, right? You read a book and you're like, do people realize that this is,
fundamentally, FUNDAMENTALLY amazing?! And everyone's like, yeah, that's a pretty, pretty talented guy! But "The Long Goodbye" in particular, the way it's written and what it's about—I mean, it's just, it's obviously a mystery or whatever, but it's, there's something about that book that I've been going back to in my brain a lot. It just got cooked into it.

And it's just like, well, you know, (some classic) books hit the right time when I was 29. I just finished my PhD. So I was 29 turning 30. And for the first time in my life, I sat down and read "Moby Dick." It was like, well, I know this thing. I'm gonna read "Moby Dick." I never read it before. And I was like, well, this is one of those, again, that was one of those moments where like, guys, did y'all know?

Ten years later, I did the same thing with Cervantes. It was like, guys. I don't know... It's pretty good! And now you're like, you know... did y'all know that Raymond Chandler wrote, and weirdly, like, he's good at it? It's like, yeah, where have you been? It's like yeah! So, I think they're, you know, I don't, I don't do well with like fun, like off, off limits fun.

I think that's my own brain, the way it works. But this is the fun version of, for me, and the fun version of me is at least not stuff that I would necessarily write about.

Stephanie: Where can we learn more about your work?

Court Carney: Ah, pondering the orb. I do have a website. So courtcarney.com. It's, it's fascinating. You're going to love it. It's got a CV. It's got a couple of pictures that probably are not as professional as I need to be. So there's that. I know everything is melting down and I was never on a lot of the other sites, but, I still like Instagram. Instagram is one that people can follow me on. I don't know what you're going to get out of it, but you're going to see every month a picture of the books I read. There's that. You're going to see that. You're going to see a list of the jazz records I listen to. I just, I kind of, if there's a space online that doesn't seem completely horribly amiss. It's there.

Stephanie: Okay. And where can we purchase your latest book, or any of your books?

Court Carney: Well, I hate to say it, Amazon. I was talking to the (University) Press about it and I was like, do you want me to start funneling people to you? And of course, anything that's local or smaller is always great, because the local, smaller. bookstores, that's always great. But I was talking to the Press and the Press said, straight up, we need the numbers that move the needle. The way the needle moves on Amazon just exists for them too.

So I just send people to Amazon. I know there's a really great way of talking and dealing with independent bookstores and that kind of stuff. But with a university press book, that's a little troublesome sometimes, cause they can't always get into places like, you know some of the larger ones and then yeah, it's just sort of the the nature of the game right now.
 
Stephanie: Is there anything else that you'd like to add that I haven't asked you about today?

Court Carney: Oh, I don't know. I think there's a moment right now—I think there's a moment for me personally. I think there's a moment maybe as a form of society or a piece of society, but I feel really moved the last few months of being sort of more engaged with things that sort of are, you know, kind of help you bridge that gap between you know, the vulnerability of the brain and then emotion and then something that kind of maybe moves that in some way.

And I don't know what's where this is going to go, but I feel like there's like sort of like a tidal shift, you know, before I even saw that wave exhibit in Kansas City. I was talking about this idea of the way, but how that becomes such a profound image of like constancy, but change and all, you know, whatever you want to talk about.

And I think that then, you know, being asked to talk to you about some of these, these issues, it's all right there. It's kind of like you know, part of this is sort of when you get into the middle part of your life or whatever, yeah. Talk about whatever beautiful phrase Dante uses that I remember this idea of like, maybe it's time to sort of reassess what drives you. And maybe not what drives you, but what kind of is there.

And I think that maybe putting a bit more of the thumb on the scale toward art or stuff that you don't really know as well is always good. And this idea of learning something is always good, of course. You know, I'll never be a painter, because I refuse to be bad at something. But, there is something there of like, well, this is something that I really want to, you know, sort of lean into it. I think leaning into this moment of maybe being or writing in a way that's maybe a little bit different than what academia always applauds. I think that's something that's interesting. I just, I don't know, I think there's something going on right now. For me and for a lot of people, it's like, well, maybe it's time to sort of reassess sort of directions and plans.

So I think this conversation hit right in the middle of that.

Stephanie: I noticed that, as I was reading your book, for (such ) an academic title, I feel like you write so well. I'm not an academic, you know, I don't have advanced degrees or any of that. But I thought it was very accessible to people who were not necessarily in academia. It's easy to understand and it was really enjoyable.
And so, to your point about writing kind of outside of that, I do think you do that really well already too.

Court Carney: Well, I really appreciate that. That was really the things I thought going into like, I wanted to write something that was maybe a little bit different than people are expecting. The other thing, too, is that I mean, I'm not gonna put these words on you, but I tried to be funny. There's some funny stuff!

It's a very dark book, but I think there's something about that, like taking what you can do or have done in the past and then say, well, maybe there's another way of looking at that. And I know that there's a lot of things, especially with music and memory and stuff that I want to explore, and it's kind of like, well, maybe, maybe that this is a time and a chance to do that in a way that maybe I wouldn't have done or been fearful of five years ago or 10 years ago.

Now, maybe. Maybe it's the moment.

Stephanie: Right! And you can kind of touch on... as we've had this conversation about memory and art and creative work...you know...I'm a visual artist as well. And in my own journey, in my own process, I always hear about, when you're first starting out, you go back to these memories.

And I think that's definitely true for me where it's like, you know, family history, family photographs. Can you help me kind of make a connection between, just that creative inclination to like go back and deal with memories through art and then kind of refine it into something different as you maybe get a little bit more experienced or have more, you know, just become more confident with it?

Court Carney: I think when I hear you talk, there's two things. One is profoundly large and that is I'm adopted. And so like family history and stuff. It's all been a part of like a very recent, recent year situation for me. And so that's kind of part of it.

And I said, I started thinking about like, well, how do you connect to these things and what does it mean when you connect to these things, and like the therapeutic journey of figuring out is a big part of it.

The second thing I was thinking of is, is a comment and I wish I could find it.

I've been looking for it recently. It's a really beautiful comment, but it's like this idea that how, how music affects you in a way that maybe other things don't. And, this person was saying, like, he could watch a film seven or eight times each time they'll see something different.

And then maybe more, if it's a film they like, and they'll go, "oh, I didn't see that reference before!" Or, I didn't see that, but I can listen to music, a song, ten-thousand times. And I can go straight back for so many songs of like, where I was when I first heard it, what I was feeling what I (was) doing when bought it. I can remember buying it.

I can remember. It's just that the way that music, at least for me, impacts the brain is like... is like this kind of jolt of like this, this kind of network of layered memories which is why some songs I can't really go back to. And it's also very interesting to me when people don't really listen to music past (a certain) age. They do these studies and some people, a lot of people don't listen to music—new music past like age 20 or something. But like I can, I can trace entire histories just through some of that. You know, there's a lot of things there. I mean, on the flip side. There are songs that can drive me to the most brutal, queasy feelings of nostalgia that I have no real strong connection to.

Like, there's a certain Billy Joel song that if you put it on, I just feel like I'm on a Sunday evening in the worst, most ennui driven day of my childhood. I don't remember what song it was, but that song and that keyboard sound, it's like, well, that's it. That is the sound of just like a queasy... how do you escape from this kind of thing?

And I think that's, that's the beauty for me of music. And then, you know, not  everyone has to connect in the same way. And of course, no one's going to connect the song to the same way, but I think there's something really fascinating about this idea of like, how does that transport you? Like the idea of just transporting you directly sometimes to a space that just drives you nuts.

But going back to the art thing that you were saying too, there's another, there's, there's one particular piece that I should mention, and that is, for me, there's the show "Mad Men," which anybody who knows me knows I talk too much about that, but I think that is something that is sort of plays the same role of music to me. There's like a meta history to me in that show, there's a story of what the show represents in some kind of cursory fashion. But then, it's sort of like, it's one of those pieces of art that sort of like, you just get it in a way. Kind of like a Dylan record or something.

There's something about it that just sort of ignites all these different pieces. And I think when you're dealing with someone who is adopted, where family is not something that is just a given, but it's just kind of a creative thing, then, "Mad Men" is all about the creation of like, how do you create family within that which is one theme. I'm not saying it's the theme, but it's a theme. I think it is a fascinating kind of moment of recognition where you're like, oh, maybe that's one of the reasons I keep going back to it. So in other words, it's not like that drives you going back, but maybe you keep going back because you're driven by this other thing.

I think that song happens to interact with that memory, but that memories are driving you to that song too. So I think there's. There's probably something sort of metaphysical in all of that, too.

Stephanie: All right. That makes sense. 
I think it's important, you know, I think it's good to be able to go deeper into why we like what we like and create what we create. 

Court Carney: Like, when you watch, like, the films of Wes Anderson, who...I love Wes Anderson, I've been seeing a lot of his films on the big screen lately...and it's like—oh—it really is all about adoption in some way. Found brotherhood. I don't have a brother or sister, but like this idea of like, how do you...how do you make sense of how every film is based around some missing parent or something like this?

It's like, well, you know, I love these films because of the visual impact and because of the storytelling, but then, I also love these films...like, "...Tenenbaums" in particular, 'cause it's all about how do you build? How do you build a group of people from different pieces into something that resembles something whole or not whole? You know, that's what it is.

Stephanie: Thanks for listening to this episode of Call & Response with K.Co Press. You can find us online at kcopress.com, on Instagram @kcopress, or on Facebook @kcoarts.