125 Beloved Light transcript (Toni Morrison)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

Friend: [00:00:00] This is famous in gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2019, age 88. Her father was a shipyard welder who took such pride in his work that according to many accounts of her life, when he finished a perfect scene, he would write his initials on it where they endured unseen in the skeleton of the ship.

Friend: Wow. That's a fun fact. I think there's something very British about this, like it's Margaret Thatcher, but I know it's not Margaret Thatcher, but this sounds really super British to me.

Michael: It, it does feel seafaring in a way, not Margaret Thatcher. Good guess. After receiving a bachelor's degree from Howard with a major in English and a minor in classics in 1953, she earned a master's in English from Cornell in 1955.

Friend: Wow. I, I want to say Coretta [00:01:00] Scott King, but I know I'm nowhere close on that one. Oh, is it an author? Is it a sci-fi author?

Michael: Not a sci-fi author. In 1958, she married an architect from Jamaica. They were divorced in 1964 in interviews. She rarely spoke of the marriage, though. She intimated that her husband had wanted a traditional 1950s wife and that she could never be.

Friend: Oh my gosh. This is a hard one. I'm gonna go out a limb here. Is this Maya Angelou?

Michael: Not Maya Angelou. Good guess. We've actually did a Maya Angelou episode, but not Maya Angelou. Her novels appeared regularly on the New York Times bestseller list. Were featured multiple times on Oprah Winfrey's television book club, and were the subject of myriad critical studies,

Friend: critical stories.

Tony Morrison, is it Tony Morrison?

Michael: Today's dead celebrity. It's Tony Morrison.

Friend: Oh my God. Oh, that's,

Toni: I used to tell my students, don't settle [00:02:00] for happiness. It's just not good enough. Life has to be about something more than whether you feel good. It has to be about the acquisition of knowledge and the hope for wisdom.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Great. I'm Michael Osborne.

Kiely: And I'm Kylie Walters.

Michael: And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Tony Morrison died 2019, age 88.

Kylie, welcome to Famous and Gravy.

Kiely: Thank you.

Michael: So you and I haven't really known each other that long. Your husband, Ollie and I go way back. We grew up together. He turned you on to Famous and Gravy. He [00:03:00] did. And then the four of us, you, Ollie, Allison, my wife and I all went out to dinner a few weeks ago. And you made the case that we need to do a Tony Morrison episode.

Kiely: Absolutely.

Michael: How did you come to Tony Morrison?

Kiely: Well. I'm almost 46 years old, so of course I grew up with Oprah, and so you couldn't not know about Toni Morrison if you knew about Oprah. Yeah. But it was actually during the pandemic when there were so much racial unrest in the country. And so of course that was starting to come on social media.

And I saw this clip of her on Charlie Rose, and it, it blew my mind when she was talking about race and how it is a construct and yeah, racism is almost like a, a sickness of the mind. And the people that practice it are bereft.

Toni: Don't you understand that The people who do this thing, who practice racism,

Archival: right,

Toni: are bereft.

There is something distorted about the psyche. It's a [00:04:00] huge waste, and it's a corruption and a distortion. It's like, it's a profound neurosis that nobody examines for what it is. It feels crazy. It is crazy. And it has just as much of a deleterious effect on white people as it does black people. I'm not a victim.

I refuse to be one.

Archival: And the victim is the other person who is morally inferior and who, that's

Toni: what, that's a serious

Archival: as to hold onto,

Toni: of course,

Archival: racism. If you have to hold that's a, or his or her own self-esteem and definition,

Toni: if you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees, then you have a serious problem.

And my feeling is white people have a very, very serious problem and they should start thinking about what they can do about it.

Kiely: It still just hits me between the eyes, you know? And I thought, I've gotta know more about this woman. I need to read this woman. So then I started reading her books [00:05:00] in order.

Michael: Wow. And did you read 'em all?

Kiely: I have not finished them all. Because the thing is, when you read Toni Morrison, you have to take a break. Yeah. After you finish a book.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kiely: I'm reading jazz currently,

Michael: so I love how, honestly late you came to her, because that's a little bit how I'm coming to her too.

Right. I did not read her in high school or in college. I was never assigned to Tony Morrison books. No. Um, even though I think that they are assigned a lot, but I remember in the dinner we had a few weeks ago mm-hmm. You talking about her in a way that I'm like, oh, this is a true fan. Somebody who has like absolutely come, come upon her.

And all of this actually got me thinking about. The expertise of Famous and Gravy in a way like this has been a challenge with this show from the beginning is why us? Who are we to be coming on this? I

Kiely: absolutely,

Michael: and I know, and I'm, I think, you know, look, we're two white southerners, right? Right. Who are we to be talking about the biography of Tony Morrison?

And I think honoring somebody's legacy is a part of any show. Mm-hmm. It's [00:06:00] definitely part of ours, but. Really what we do here is not have special claim to biographical information. We're working with biographical information that everybody else has. It's more a question of how somebody's accomplishments and their life story weave together in a way that teach us about ourselves.

The expertise of Famous Andra is in the perspective and is in the question, not in the access to information, because I am not a Tony Morrison scholar. You

Kiely: neither am I. Yeah. I don't proclaim to be, but I will say if I'm responsible for anybody else picking up one of her novels, because I talked about it on a podcast, I think that's fantastic.

Michael: Okay.

Kiely: Yeah.

Michael: Well, let's just do this then. All right. Okay. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary, Tony Morrison. The Nobel Laureate in literature whose bestselling work explored black identity in America, and in particular the often crushing experience of black women through luminous and Cant Story prose resembling that of no other writer [00:07:00] in English died on Monday in the Bronx.

She was 88. Okay.

Kiely: What are your initial reactions? It has to be Wow.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: I mean, it has to be. Wow. And you know, bless whoever wrote this that had to write about. Toni Morrison because her writing was so incredible. You know, of course you have to include that. She's a Nobel laureate and she did explore black identity in America, and it was particularly typically women.

So, you know, covers the bases. It's okay.

Michael: Oh, you sound middling on this.

Kiely: I mean, the only way that it could have been good is if she wrote it, which I guess isn't an option.

Michael: Uh, I love that you're coming to this with high expectations. I'm okay. Let's, let's take it apart here.

Kiely: Okay.

Michael: Yes. Nobel Laureate in literature is important.

Black identity in America and, uh, crushing experience of black women, I think is interesting and true. Often that's a theme of her books. The phrase that, where I think they are trying [00:08:00] to go for it is through Luminous Incantatory Pro. So I had to look up Incantatory, it says of, or like a chant or incantation.

It can also describe something that produces a magical hypnotic or spell binding effect, similar to an incantation or a magical chant that I liked. Here's what I think is working in this first line of the obit. I really like, especially Ter, I looked it up, incantatory prose because I do think that there is a magical quality and then that they say of no other writer in English, they are trying to say.

One of one that, that she accomplished something and that she is somebody who is incomparable and is singular in terms of contribution. In that way, I'm like, okay, wow. I know what they're trying to do. The kind of question is, do they accomplish it? And you seem like maybe not.

Kiely: Well, I mean, I guess it's an obituary, so maybe I shouldn't expect this, but there's no real soul to this.

That is true. I mean, she would [00:09:00] often, um, get disgruntled with people saying that her writing was difficult. She would say, you know, I don't use words you've never heard before, but she would say, you have to surrender to the writing. And so in that way saying that it's like an incantation. I mean, it is when you read it, you go somewhere else and you do have to surrender to it.

And it's almost like when you're reading it and then you put the book down, you have to come back to the world.

Michael: Well, so what is this missing for you? I mean, where are you? Like, it's okay. It wasn't written

by

Kiely: I by just want more soul. I dunno. I just want more style.

Michael: I don't know how you get that in there, I think is the question in a single sentence.

Okay. It's lacking soul. Is that accomplishable in the first line of Nobit? Do you think that there is a lack of vocabulary, a sentence structure, a way of positioning things as something that could have and should have been said to get at this idea of soul in a different way? Yeah. There

Kiely: was this, there's there was a style about [00:10:00] her and a wisdom, you know,

Michael: wisdom's a good word.

Kiely: Grandeur.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, those are all words you could have considered, including here. Wisdom grandeur, they hint at it. Luminous and territory prose doesn't quite get at that. Even if they say that no other writer in English,

Kiely: it's hard. I think she did create her own language and her own style, and she is unique.

She's singular. Yeah. And so it's hard to fill those shoes to write for the writer.

Michael: All right. You know what, I'm tired of dancing around. Right.

Kiely: What's

Michael: your score? I'm

Kiely: curious. I'm giving like a five.

Michael: Well, it's pretty low. I know, I, I, no, I think that's fair. I mean, I, the bar is high here. Yeah. And that's your point.

What this is also lacking in a way is the story of her, and which I think is more interesting than this first line of obit would lead you to believe. And I do think that what she does. Better than anybody else is represent a certain perspective and they attempted to capture that here. Mm-hmm. But I can understand a [00:11:00] five.

I was going seven. I like it. I don't love it. I think it is lacking a certain intrigue and soulfulness. I had initially an eight, but you talked me down, so, uh, I'll get

Archival: down to a seven.

Michael: All right, let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you here, Kylie and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived.

I would love for you to kick us off. What's your thing, number one, Kylie?

Kiely: Well, I put imposter syndrome. Tony suffered too. She did not actually call herself a writer until after her third novel Song of Solomon. And before that she had been an editor, she had been a teacher. She didn't really. Feel comfortable, fully saying I'm a writer.

She would say, I'm an editor who writes, or I'm a teacher who writes. Yeah. And then the third novel she finally owned and really fully embodied and that's what, when she stopped editing, she stopped doing anything else. And she took the leap into just solely being a writer

Michael: and identifying as a writer. Yes.

Writer and calling [00:12:00] herself a writer. Yeah. I love that. She is, at times described as a late bloomer,

Archival: but you were fairly late starting to write yourself. Yes. Now why? What made you start you off writing?

Toni: I think the situation was one. In which my back was really up against the wall. I was recently divorced.

I had small children, I had a new job. I lived in a small city. Then that part of the company was in a place that was strange to me, and I knew that the company was gonna move to New York City. So I didn't make any friends because I thought I would leave them soon. In short, I was miserable. Absolutely. And even though I had a lot of responsibilities, it's amazing how much time there is.

When you're unhappy,

Michael: an idea that goes alongside imposter syndrome for me is late to the party. You know, that I'm supposed to have been, if I was going to accomplish great things, I'm supposed to have been, um, gifted with certain things. I was supposed to have shown that talent at an early young. I was supposed to be somehow blessed or something and not necessarily earned.

[00:13:00] I love all stories of late bloomers. I think that's a real theme of famous and gravy is that we're never done and what we are becoming and who we are becoming is still yet to be shown yet to be seen. Right. And I love that that's true about her.

Kiely: Yes. I mean, like I've already said, I'm middle aged and I still am wondering what my great thing is going to be.

Watching people like her, I see that so much of the rich material comes around this period of time in people's lives.

Michael: Yeah. I I hear that a lot actually. Like it's in our forties that we really kind mm-hmm. Come into fruition. And that I, I don't know that that's always true, but I do think that there is the right combination of experience, physical vitality, and a sense of like how time works, you know, and whether or not we are behind on anything.

I mean, I gotta say this. Imposter syndrome thing relates very much to my thing number two, uh, 'cause I wanted to actually draw attention to the fact that she was an editor before she was a writer. So, I mean, just to get this out. [00:14:00] So she, you know, grew up in Ohio, was well educated. She really liked the way she talks about her time at Howard.

She was at Random House as an editor from 1967 to 1983. She was the first black woman senior editor in the fiction department. That was when she started writing and that was her first book, bluest Eye. She actually like bribed some of the typists at Random House. Yes. Some with Carrot cake to like get them to type her book.

And some of her work as an editor is incredible. She edited the bio autobiographies of Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis and Andrew Young. Her contribution as an editor during that time is amazing, but I actually really like that she was an editor because I think that she has an incredible grasp of story structure and like how story works and how narrative works.

One of the ways in which this really clicked for me when I was doing the research is how she talked about each of her books starts with a question, is a driving question, and the one that really pops for me is, is her first book, the Bluest Eye, [00:15:00] where there's about a story about a young black girl who wants to.

Like praise for Oh, how you can actually, yeah.

Kiely: Well, her question was, she had a friend, you know, also Black, who had said, I don't, you know, and they were talking about God and her friend said, I don't believe in God because I've been praying for blue eyes for two years and I still haven't gotten them. And, and it, the question was, where do, where does self children self-loathing come from?

Yeah. Where does self-loathing come from?

Michael: I think that is such a fascinating question to

Kiely: ask. Huge question.

Michael: And I think I, I think in a way it motivates a lot of her work. But I also think that something I'm obsessed with is self-love. That's something that I am not good at practicing. And it was actually somebody in 12 Steps who got me thinking about self-love and how I practice that in my life.

But she's like backing up a step with that question, which is. If, if, if self-love is something you struggle with, you need to ask yourself, where does self-loathing come from? Mm-hmm. This is [00:16:00] a major theme of her work in terms of how we get stories planted in our heads, right. That teach us to hate ourselves, and

Kiely: particularly for African Americans, right?

'cause every Christmas, the big gift that everybody wants is a blue-eyed blonde doll. And you're given that every year. And this is what's beautiful, right? You know, this is what is considered beautiful and you're not it. Right. You know? Right. And so I think that bigger thing of what society is telling us, and even the character in the bluest eye, I mean, she was abused by.

Her family, right By her neighbors, by society. And so I mean this question of of self-love and value and worth. And it's interesting because, you know, going back to that first question of imposter syndrome and once she got it though, I mean that's something that I really admire about her.

Michael: It's wisdom, right?

She is a great storyteller because [00:17:00] she is a student of story. And I think that that came from her years as working as, I think part of it came from her years as working as an editor at Random House. And it's something I think about a lot in my work, you know, with clients who come to me and say, I want to have a podcast.

Every story should have a driving question underneath it. That sounds like easy advice. And I think. Like what she does is start with a great question and then find a very compelling narrative with which to go after it. So I love that about her.

Kiely: Yeah.

Michael: All right. So what do you got for number three?

Kiely: Well, I used a quote from Beloved, and it's, you are your best thing, Seth and Paul D says that to Seth.

And the book that really ties into what we've been talking about is like once she got. That's self-worth. The self-love. She owned it. And she would say things like, my life is not interesting, but my mind is interesting.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: You know, I love that. And even when she was talking about the Bluest eye, when she wrote it, she said, I didn't think anybody, a lot of people would read it, [00:18:00] but I knew that it was, the writing was good and it wasn't because she got the approval from outside people a lot.

I mean, she did eventually, but that goes into so many things about her, you know, this idea of her black community and the culture where her best thing, she know, she really wanted to find a place where she could remove the white gaze. Yeah. There was no code switching in her books. Mm-hmm. You know, she would talk about.

Reading books, and she knew that they had been written with what James Baldwin calls like the, the little white man on the shoulder. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and she, because they were explaining things that, that she didn't need explained. And so she really put black life at the center of her novels and she got criticized and questioned about that.

And a lot, I mean, you can watch so many interviews. There's even one interview where you'll see her.

Toni: The question was posed as though it were a desirable thing to do. Right. To write about white people, [00:19:00] or it was more important, uh, and that I was still writing about marginal people. And why don't I come into the mainstream?

Archival: Why aren't you importing too much into the question?

Toni: Maybe. I

Archival: think so.

Toni: Well, what could else, could it be Charlie? What does that question mean? But I mean, if I can say, when are you going to write about black people to a white writer? If that's a legitimate question to a white writer. But it is a legitimate question to me.

I just don't think it is, you know, you have, the glove has to be pulled inside out. If it's, it's, in other words, it's not a literary question. Anybody can go up to an imaginary James Joyce and say, when are you gonna write about what

Kiely: she has had it? Yeah. You know, and she's answered it with so much tolerance so many times and,

Michael: no, but I, but I think the fact that she keeps getting it points to like, you still don't get it.

And, and, and I think that this is such, and actually this dovetails exactly to my thing number [00:20:00] four. But before I go there, I actually wanna hang on this self-love point a minute. Yeah. Is this something you struggle with? How do you do on the self-love front?

Kiely: I think I struggle with it less. Than I used to.

Michael: Okay. What does it mean for you

Kiely: self-love?

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: I think it's knowing that my value is inherent. It's not something that's up for question.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: And I think it's because of a relationship with a higher power. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: Yeah. I mean, that is really what it comes from. Um, it also comes from, I'm a mother. Yeah.

And I'm a wife, but you know, I'm a mother. For me being my best and knowing my value is about being able to be of highest service to the people in my life.

Michael: You know, that's interesting 'cause that's actually also a very much a Toni Morrison point, right? Right. She talks about, um, parenthood being liberating and the way that she understood her role as a mother being like, nobody else can define this for me.

And it gives me so much meaning. And, and I think it actually kind of plays into the late bloomer thing that the way I read her [00:21:00] story is that having become a mother and having found a certain kind of confidence in her own identity, actually was a kind of precursor to her creative output. Right. You know, and her and her integrity in terms of her own point of view,

Kiely: right.

It doesn't matter. Who you are, where you're from. It's not something that you can get from outside sources.

Michael: Right. But this is, well, okay, this leads great to my thing number four. Okay. Let's hear it. Master narrative. I've kind of become obsessed with this term, so she's not the originator of this term, but the way she describes it, I think clarifies what it means.

So this is a term that came up in a documentary about her with Bill Moyers. Mm-hmm. In the mid eighties,

Toni: but she surrendered completely to the so-called master narrative.

Archival: The

Toni: master

Archival: narrative. What is, that's Life.

Toni: No, it's uh, white male life. The master narrative is whatever ideological script that is being imposed by the people in authority [00:22:00] on everybody else.

The master fiction. History, it has a certain point of view. So when these little girls see that the most prized gift that they can get at Christmas time is this little white doll, that's the baster narrative speaking. This is beautiful. This is lovely, and you're not it. So what you do,

Michael: why I love that term.

I think one. The use of the word master here is sort of interesting 'cause it kind of has an echo with slavery. Right? Right. Um, I think that's, that's part of why that term has more import for Tony Morrison. I think that it's, it's related to this idea of implicit bias, but this, I like this framing of it more.

'cause there is a story being told about the world, always about what matters about this question of self-love and validation and where we get it from. We think it's about money. We think it's about material gain. We think it's about fame. And I liked your answer, you know, it's a higher power relationship, which means, which [00:23:00] is sort of harder to access on some level.

It's gotta be internal, but it's also gotta be cultivated outside of the master narrative, right? It's gotta be like arrived at through your own individual relationship with something greater than you. And this is also for me, a big 12 step thing. That whenever I talk about recovery on the pod, I always wanna say I'm not a spokesperson for 12 steps or anything like that.

But there is just so much wisdom that comes out of meetings and the community and I like to bring it to the show. So the way I was thinking about this is my first sponsor had this incredible gift for challenging my narrative. I tell him what was going on with my life. I'd say, you know, my boss is being a total jerk.

And he'd say, well, you know, maybe his marriage is on the rocks. Or maybe you know, he's facing financial difficulty that you don't know about. Or I tell him, you know, things are stressful with my. Wife and he'd say, well, maybe there's, you know, hormonal changes going on that you're not up to speed on. He was just so good.

And at the time I thought it was incantatory. I thought it [00:24:00] was magical the way he would, he would, uh, think about

Kiely: others.

Michael: Yeah. Well that's all he was doing. Yes. Right? That's all he was doing is considering another point of view. Yes. And I, and I think that that's what this idea of master narrative is, is all about, is that we're all caught up in some big fabricated objective story about meaning.

And what is true and what Toni Morrison does in her work and in her interviews is question that and say that narrative, what you perceive to be true. Incomplete. That's not the whole story, right? That's not where we should get validation. And I think she's very pointed on how that operates when it comes to racial relations.

But I think it goes way beyond that. I think it goes to the way that we as individuals, we'll never have a complete grasp of reality, but if we are aware of how a story of authority is being told, then we can crosscheck that against our own inner truth. Because the, the [00:25:00] fundamental thing, and the reason this relates to me for 12 step work is that my story of me.

Is wrong and has always been wrong. And part of the reason I need community and I need connection with a higher power is because I need other people to help me see the incompleteness of that at

Kiely: all. Well, it's called a disease of perception often. Yeah. You know, and I can't change my perception alone in my home.

Michael: Yeah,

Kiely: exactly. You know? But with her, it's like she has some beautiful writing and interviews later in her life, but she's often talked about becoming a whole person. Yeah. And the way you become a whole person is you stop thinking about your little self all the time. And you go out and you do something for somebody else and you're not gonna get anything for it.

Michael: It's not

Kiely: transactional. And it's not transactional. And you know, the thing that you're trying to put back together may not want to be put back together. Mm-hmm. But the whole thing is to think [00:26:00] about other people and to try to help someone. And she has these great, also in her writing and in her interviews, it's like she talks about goodness and, and then evil.

And she talks about how evil is something that it's not very interesting. That's one of her biggest kind of viewpoints about. Things, they're interesting or they're not. Yeah, yeah. And she talks about, you know, evil not being very interesting and that's why it needs a tuxedo and it needs a spotlight and it needs a big show.

Yeah. 'cause it's not actually that interesting. And that being good and being of service to other people is much more interesting and much more difficult.

Michael: I agreed a thousand percent. There's one other thing coming up for me about my first sponsor. He used to say, I have a Forgetter 3000 meaning.

Kiely: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. It was a great phrase. 'cause what you just. Shared. What about being of service being helpful to other people getting out of your own head? I have heard that over and over again. I know it to be a hundred percent true. [00:27:00] I know that the best version of me comes from being the most selfless version of me and the most helpful version of me.

And I need to try to bring that out. And I'm like, great. Okay. Got it. And I walk out the room like, wait, what was that again? It's gone the, forget it. 3000 kicks in. And I'm like, back to being selfish, right? I, this is something I need to be reminded of over and over again. Kind of like this master narrative idea.

I think we get caught up in forms of looking for validation from unhealthy places in money, fame and so forth. And I think that this is also very true as it relates to how I understand whiteness. Like I learn about it through Tony Morrison. I learn about it through friends and through, uh, other stories.

And the fricking forget her 3000 kicks in again, and I gotta learn it over and over again. And I think that that's, that's part of like, it's what I come to realize through the body of her work.

Kiely: Yes. It's in every aspect of our society.

Michael: Exactly. Exactly. I mean,

Kiely: it's set up because it benefits people to be that way.

Yeah. [00:28:00] And so, but the 10, the, the, at the end of the day though, understanding that it has an awful effect on the person that practices it.

Michael: I mean, the truth of the matter is I still operate under it.

Kiely: Sure.

Michael: And I wish I didn't, but first step is awareness. All right. What do you got for number five?

Kiely: Well. I wanted to talk about her being a mother.

Michael: Okay.

Kiely: Because, you know, she has several quotes of saying, uh, she got to this place in her life where she was, you know, really going to be a writer. It was kind of like this line in the sand of I'm no longer an editor, I'm not a teacher, I'm a writer.

Friend: Yeah.

Kiely: And she started, and I think this is also something that comes up for a lot of.

I can speak for women at middle age, you kind of start going, well, what do I really wanna do with my life? And you've kind, you start to peel away the things that are not as useful anymore. And she really did that. And she narrowed it down to, I need to be a mother to my children and I need to write, those are the things I have to [00:29:00] do to survive.

She would get up in the morning and write at 4:00 AM

Michael: I love this. I am so, I so relate to this. Like,

Kiely: yes,

Michael: I wanna wake up early and cram in those hours. 'cause that's what I'm most creative. Absolutely. That's when I'm sharpest. And it's before Absolutely. The day begins. It feels like bonus time.

Kiely: Yes. But for her it was necessary because she was a single mother.

Michael: Yes.

Kiely: Which I also was for seven years. And I think. Single mother is a special superpower. And when she got that job as an editor, that first editing job, she had gone back to Loraine, Ohio and was living with her parents after her divorce. Yeah. And she got that job and she left her children and went up and did the interview in her dad's car, drove her dad's car, you know, like the old mobile or whatever.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I just relate to that so much and the, the fantastic herculean effort mm-hmm. That it takes to become what she became.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: As a single mother. It's just amazing to [00:30:00] me.

Michael: I, I mean, the more we're talking Kylie, the more the word wisdom or some synonym really should have appeared in the first line of the obit.

And I, and the reason I say that is that to hear you talk about her motherhood identity and her identity as a writer, like it's pretty simple actually. And I think that her stripping down priorities into those. It's simple ambitions. Uh, yes, I wanna be a great mother and I wanna be a great writer. There is, for me wisdom and simplicity,

Kiely: and I loved the way she would talk about your children.

Come into the room and you need to show them that you're so happy to see them.

Michael: I've been thinking about this so much.

Toni: You think your affection and your deep love is on display. Mm-hmm. 'cause you're caring for them. It's not When they see you, they see the critical face. Mm-hmm. What's wrong now? Mm-hmm. But then if you let your, as I tried from then on to let your face speak what's in your heart.

Mm-hmm. Because when they walked in the room, I was [00:31:00] glad to see them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's just as small as that.

Michael: They don't know how you feel inside that love is like maybe or maybe not coming out through expression.

Kiely: Her sons, I mean, one, she wrote children's books with one of them and then one of them, he actually passed away from cancer.

Michael: Yeah. I think, wasn't it the same one? S Slade? Mm-hmm.

Kiely: I thought that, yeah, I was sl, yes. And it was. Beautiful to listen to her talk about how do you get through hard times, you know, kind of things. And, and she talks about, you know, uh, you don't survive whole. Yeah. You survive in part, but you have to find something interesting that you respect to do.

We are all. Born, we will all die. Yeah. And in between that time you have to find something interesting that you respect to do with your life. That kind of wisdom that just comes out of her. Um, it's amazing because given the, some of the circumstances of her life, she could have been a totally different person.

Yeah. And that she [00:32:00] found that value in herself and the, it was not. When you listened to her, I mean, she did not question her value, her abilities. She knew that she was a good writer.

Michael: I wholeheartedly agree. But to your thing, number five point, I also like responded to her. It actually, it was less than what she had to say and rather than how she said it in terms of her identity as a mother, and I love that you connected with that.

I'd forgotten that you were a single mom for seven years. Yes. Yeah. So, um, all right, let's recap. So number one, you said imposter syndrome. Tony suffers two. Number two, I said editor before writer number three.

Kiely: You are your best thing, Seth.

Michael: You are your best thing, Seth. Number four, a master narrative and number five, motherhood.

Kiely: Yes.

Michael: Awesome list. Okay, let's take a break. Hey, famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. Our podcast is produced at 14th Street Studios. Over the course of this show, [00:33:00] we have learned that the best podcast don't necessarily require a large budget. Famous and Gravy has been an incredible success story, and we believe it's built on a foundation of strong ideas, smart editing, and knowing your audience.

That's the approach we bring to every project at 14th Street Studios. So if you have an idea for a show that you want to develop or if you wanna sharpen an existing show, send me an email atMichael@famousandgravy.com. Category three. One Love. In this category, Kylie and I will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes Tony Morrison's loving relationships.

First, we will review what we know about the marriages and the kids. So one marriage to Harold Morrison. Uh, they were married in 1958, divorced in 64. Tony was 27 when they got married. 33 when they got divorced. She never married again. Two sons. She raised them largely as a single mother. Let's see, as you mentioned, slate died in 2010 of pancreatic cancer.

Tony spoke [00:34:00] of a lot of profound grief, obviously describing writing as the only way through. There's no public record of other long-term partners. She did describe herself as content and solitude and resistant to the romantic scripts expected of women. She was pretty private overall. Okay, I'll kick us off.

She often says,

Toni: you know, my little saying is you one person cannot raise a child. Neither can two. You need everybody.

Archival: Yeah,

Toni: you need everybody. You know.

Michael: So I wrote no two persons as my word or phrase, and this has double meaning. One is that there's never another partner that we know about, which I think is noteworthy and a little surprising, and I maybe, I don't know.

Did that, I love that you're making a face here.

Kiely: I am. I know. I wish we had a video of that face.

Michael: I do too, but Well, I mean it, I don't know what to make of it other than I noticed it that there's that quote that was in the quiz about. She was never gonna be a traditional housewife. Right. But I was a [00:35:00] little surprised that there was never another partner, or maybe there was, and we just don't know about it.

But I also, and here's where I'm really going with this. Okay. When she says, no one person can raise a child, no two person, it can take a village. That's what I came back to. And you mentioned this earlier, when she's starting to invest in herself and in her career and in her creativity, she leans on her family.

Her brothers were instrumental in bringing up her sons, and I. Was glad to be reminded of that. I tend to take on too much when it comes to the burden of parenthood, and I know that as being a father to my children. I am a male role model and they are looking at me and they're extracting a lot of information from me and my behavior about how manhood operates in the world.

But it is incomplete. There's also a little bit of the no one person and no two persons quote that, you know, we stigmatize single mothers all the time and [00:36:00] her saying, yeah, it takes not just two, it takes more than two. It, it kind of feels like it's pushing against that. Narrative as well.

Kiely: Well, what I, I mean, of course I have a million opinions about single motherhood and relationships with men and women choosing to be single.

Yeah. And not, I mean, I'm sure she had love interests throughout her life that she decided not to comment on. I mean, she often would say things like, you know, my name is, is Chloe Woolford

Michael: was her given name. She was, because she got the name Tony. 'cause she converted to Catholicism when she was like 12.

And St. Anthony was the name she adopted and her friends called her Tony or

Kiely: something. Yeah. And Morrison was her married name. You know? So

Michael: it's almost like a pseudonym. It's almost like an alter ego.

Kiely: Yeah. And I think there was probably plenty that went on throughout her life that she didn't think was particularly interesting or didn't wanna share with the public.

When she talks about her writing, she will talk about the characters actually talking to her.

Michael: Yeah. She's got an intimacy with her characters

Kiely: and I [00:37:00] think she was so. Devoted to that in a way that is almost like the way some people devote themselves to certain religions. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think, but I'm sure she probably had relationships that she just didn't talk about publicly.

You know, I would imagine.

Michael: I, I'd like to think so, yes. If, if only, if that was important to her.

Kiely: My word that I came up with was whole.

Michael: Hmm. All right. Say more.

Kiely: Because her relationship, especially later in her life, you know, she has a novel called Love, and she would talk about love and

Michael: it's something she brings up in every conversation.

Yes. This just like, this is a omnipresent idea for her.

Kiely: Yes. And I believe that she had a relationship to it that was bigger than the individual

Michael: kind of partner,

Kiely: partner relationship, conventional

Michael: marriage or

Kiely: whatever. It was much bigger than that, I think for her. And that's, that's what I took from her so often was [00:38:00] her talking about, it's just this beautiful part actually in that novel love where she's kind of describing people's relationships with love and kind of the awkward way we fumble through it.

And meanwhile, cherries are turning from green to red.

Toni: Oysters are suffering pearls. And children are catching rain in their mouths, expecting the drops to be cold, but they're not. They're warm and smell like pineapple before they get heavier and heavier, so heavy and fast. They can't be caught one at a time.

Women scatter shielding their hair and men bend low, holding the women's shoulders against their chest. I run two. Finally, I say finally because I do like a good storm. Uh,

Michael: one thing Tony Morrison does really, really well is sort of toggle between inner [00:39:00] life and inner dialogue and inner experience and external environmental mm-hmm.

Outward forces and how they act on us. Yes. And I think this question of companionship and, you know, marriage as an institution mm-hmm. That is very much part of this master narrative story on some level. Relates to how she did or did not experience and understand love. So to hear you say whole is kind of beautiful.

Kiely: Well, it's interesting in like some spiritual traditions, you'll read different scripture and it uses the word, particularly if you look at someone like yoga traditions, they'll use the word perfection often. You're a yoga teacher

Michael: at one

Kiely: point, right? I was. I was.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: So though you, you'll see the word perfect come up often, but it's actually translated as.

Whole. So not all the pieces fit together and everything's just right. And it's all, it's all of it. And so for me, I think of Tony when I, like when I'm [00:40:00] read her books and her characters. I mean, even if you look at, you know, particularly like Seth, I mean all of her characters were so flawed.

Michael: Yeah. Right.

Kiely: Zula, you know, Simla slept with her best friend's husband. Right. But there is always this undercurrent of love in it, and I think that's why you carried on this journey and this deep place when you read her novels. But there's this undercurrent of love to me, always in her writing.

Michael: Fantastic. Okay. Let's move on Category four, net worth.

In this category, we write down our numbers ahead of time. We'll talk a little bit about our reasoning. We'll then look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. And finally, we'll place Toni Morrison on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard. All right. I don't think this woman is all about money, but I think that she did okay.

Idea I couldn't get out of my head is that if you are an author, the best. Placement, the best earned media would be Oprah's Book Club.

Kiely: Right.

Michael: And she got on there four times. And a movie. [00:41:00] And a movie. And Beloved, which Oprah was like, I wanna place at it. Right.

Kiely: I know. It was

Michael: just like,

Kiely: I mean,

Michael: that had to be lucrative.

I don't think she's in it for the money by any stretch of the imagination. There was a story, uh, about her time at Random House where there were promotions that she didn't get. And she's like, wait a second. I I, I deserve one too. I'm

Kiely: head of household you

Michael: god damn right. Just

Kiely: like you.

Michael: Yeah. And she

Kiely: love that story.

Michael: And then, and, and she got paid for it. So I do think that she is forthcoming about Yes. Um, asking for, you know, what is she, what she deserve. She knew

Kiely: her value.

Michael: She knew her value. That's the way to put it. So I skewed a little higher, but I also think authors only do so well. So, uh,

Kiely: oh. See, I was re I may have been a little bit too hopeful in my guess.

Okay.

Michael: So we'll

Kiely: see.

Michael: Maybe. All right. So Kylie Walters wrote down. 20 million.

Kiely: You wrote down 20 million too.

Michael: Okay. And the actual net worth for Tony Morrison. Oh, this would be so many. Estimated to be 20 million.

Kiely: Yes.

Michael: This is a first on Famous and [00:42:00] Gravy. Uh, we never guessed the same number and we definitely never get it right.

Like three cherries just came up on the slot machine. Amazing. I'll also tell you what else is amazing is who else has $20 million on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard? So at, uh, $20 million, she's in the 64th percentile. Also at the $20 million dinner table is Richard Simmons. Stephen Hawking.

Betty Ford. Oh my god. James Garner, curly Neil, the Harlem Globe Trotter, Maurice Sineck, Gary Sling, Tom Wolfe, gene Wilder, Eddie Money, Sidney Poitier, Rodney Dangerfield, and Leslie Nielsen.

Kiely: Wow, that's amazing.

Michael: Is that not like the best dinner table of all time? Oh, that sounds fantastic. I love that Tony Morrison is here.

This is so good. That's great. So good.

Kiely: I'm so happy that she did well.

Michael: I'm so happy she did well too. Well done, Tony. All right. Next category, category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers.

Kiely: Yes. And proud we are of [00:43:00] all of them.

Michael: In this category, leach choose a trophy, an award, a cameo, and impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.

Kiely: Well. So I had come up with her friendship with Fran Liebowitz. She edited Fran. And there's some fantastic interviews with the two of them and it shows kind of a softer, funnier, not quite so elevated version of Tony. But I do think you can't get past this without talking about the fact that she was the first female African American Nobel laureate.

Michael: Yes.

Kiely: And I just, why would you pass that up?

Michael: Well, and, and the way that is a noteworthy accomplishment for a few reasons. 'cause this is what, 1993. Or something like that.

Kiely: Yes. I mean, I think she wrote Beloved in 88 and then yeah, she received the prize in 93.

Michael: But there was a growing chorus of people saying, this woman is not getting the recognition she deserves.

That whoever is handing out whatever kind of awards [00:44:00] is not seeing just how profound, important, noteworthy, you know, like what the accomplishment is here.

Kiely: The black literary community really showed up for her around the Pulitzer, even Beloved is what she received the Pulitzer for. Right? And then she received the Nobel Prize in literature.

But I also love the story of listening to the people that, her friends that she invited and how they. Took time, and this is a Fran Litz story went with her, you know? Yeah. And they took time to pick out her outfits. And it just, I love that she loved the experience and really like, dipped into it and enjoyed it.

Michael: Oh. When I saw this, I was like, that's how you win an award. Yes. You know, you own it a little bit. Right. I think she's like the right balance of proud and humble

Archival: winning the Nobel Prize. What did that mean to you?

Toni: Well, I felt very, uh, we as though I, I felt very representative, I really did.

Archival: Of patriotic

Toni: Oh.

Of

Archival: [00:45:00] American letters. And

Toni: I did, I felt very Ohioan.

Archival: Mm-hmm.

Toni: I felt very African American. I felt women had won. I really thought I, and as a matter of fact, I said, we've won. I said that on the phone a couple of times when people call me. Yeah, we won. Did they graduate me? I said we won.

Kiely: And she was at Princeton teaching.

Yeah. Which, when they called her,

Michael: that's, uh, that actually segues into my Lebowski. Do you know about the parking spot?

Kiely: No.

Michael: Okay. So

Kiely: this is God. Yeah.

Michael: It's, I, well, so she had a parking spot at Tony Morrison's parking spot at Princeton. It was a reserve parking space. It said Tony Morrison reserved, she jokingly called it the best perk of the job, and it became kind of a local legend, and it was later turned into an informal campus landmark.

And so in 2022, the university literally dedicated a bench beside that parking spot in her memory. I love that. It's small, right? I think there's other things, buildings that are named Afro, but I, I [00:46:00] think this was something I learned when I did the podcast, the Black Women of Amherst, what we name.

Buildings, what we name landmarks matters. This is how we do history. Right? Right. And, and we need people to say, what is that building? What is that bench? And why is that noteworthy? Because there's always a story underneath it and this is how we write and rewrite history, you know? Um, so I just love that she's got a bench on Princeton next to a parking spot.

It's on one hand, so trivial and another hand. So like. True. So that was my little baky. That's good. All right, let's take one more break.

Okay. Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of Tony Morrison's mouth, or was said about her. This was impossible. Um, oh yeah. I mean, right. I had a very hard time coming up with one, so I'm gonna go with two. [00:47:00] And it's basically things we've already talked about this, uh, hearkens back to and may have even been said in that Charlie Rose interview, if you're going to hold someone down, you're gonna have to hold on by the other end of the chain.

You are confined by your own repression. Yes. Beautiful. And it's a, it's a hard idea if you are the. Oppressor or if you are in the category of people who are complicit in oppression and you don't realize it, that it is actually holding back your own freedom, your own sense of self. I was in a meeting for a different project I work on related to child welfare, which is, I, I don't know how much you know about child welfare, but the racism throughout the foster care system is profound.

And I got into a conversation with a man who does a lot of DEI work and, and I was talking about self-loathing and I struggle with self-love and I struggle to not beat myself up. And he said to me, you need to ask yourself who told you that story? And I love that question, where do these stories come from [00:48:00] and how do they hold us back?

So that was something I got out of this quote. The other quote I had is, in this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. I thought that was kind of funny, but also kind of like. Huh? Yeah,

Kiely: Dom. Yeah.

Michael: Everybody else has to hyphenate. Like that actually sums up a lot because 'cause a hyphen is a qualifier.

A hyphen is a a something something American.

Kiely: Right,

Michael: right. Otherwise, you're talking about white. And that is a, I think a code, a signal of how mm-hmm. The master narrative operates. Okay. What did you have for a quote?

Kiely: Well, now I'm thinking about, and now I have two, so you can, I

Michael: think it's okay. We can make

Kiely: an extension.

It's hard not to. Yeah. Yeah. But I think when she says, if you can only be tall when someone else is on their knees, then you have a problem.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: Oh, she's so good. And then the one that I love so much is from Song of Solomon. Mm. And so I brought it with me because there's a little bit of context to it and uh, the [00:49:00] two main characters that are are milkman and guitar.

Are their names. Mm. And and this is this, I don't know if this is my favorite of her novels, but it is a top three for me. I'll just read it says, how come I can't fly no better than a chicken milk man ass? Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that shit.

Wanna fly? You've gotta give up the shit that weighs you down. And so the quote is, when a fly, you've gotta give up the shit that weighs you down. But I love that. It's, the context of it is vanity, you know? And it goes back to her talking about how you become a whole person is that you stop worrying about your little self.

And am I pretty? That doesn't matter.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: And if you wanna fly, you've gotta give up the shit that weighs you down. And it's, you know, it's, it's pointless,

Michael: but it's our attachments. Have you ever come across, drop the Rock? I read that book.

Kiely: I've heard the phrase, I haven't read the book.

Michael: It's a book. It's not, it's not uh, 12 step sanctioned literature, but people in 12 Steps bring it up all the time.[00:50:00]

Yeah. It's worth a read. I've got a copy, I'll give

Kiely: it to you. But it's all, I mean, talking about our attachments to our negative thoughts about ourselves. Yes. Or our, it's like, or

Michael: inadequacies

Kiely: our shortcoming. See how we are not measuring up. Yes. And you gotta let it go. And that's I think one of the things, to go back to 12 step language, my sponsor.

Was talking to me about needing to get through the stuff that I was struggling with so that I could show up to be the best person that I might, and it, it's being who my higher power would have me be.

Michael: Yeah. The better version of you.

Kiely: And I have to give up that shit. Yeah. That's weighing me down so that fly I can show up fully and fly.

And that's being of service.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: And she did that in spades.

Michael: Yeah. Uh, I gotta ask a question where I forget. Are you from Houston or Abilene?

Kiely: I'm from Houston.

Michael: All right. Like there's a lot of progressive themes.

Kiely: Yeah.

Michael: Is that your family of origin? No. I'm just curious. Okay. [00:51:00] I didn't think so. I mean, you, I'm, I'm, I'm curious how you came to progressive ideas.

Kiely: I mean, I don't wanna make this

Michael: show political

Kiely: or anything like that. No. I mean, it's impossible not to, to some degree with Tony because she was, I don't wanna say she's political because I think it's bigger than that. It's about humanity.

Michael: Well, yes, but the way race operates in American politics and what she's speaking to, it's, it is, like you said, a little hard to avoid.

Kiely: No, I was raised in Houston and. Due respect to my family. I mean, they were raised in West Texas, so they grew up with different values, but I was raised in one of the most diverse cities in the country. Yeah. And so I had,

Michael: people don't realize that about Houston. Houston

Kiely: is truly melting pot. It's incredible, amazing culture.

And yes, food and international especially, this is what comes with the oil industry. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So, but it also came from this sense of almost rebellion, you know, it was like it started in that tiny little, it's

Michael: called Spite, right?

Kiely: Yeah. It started in [00:52:00] that tiny little space. Yeah. And then. To use Tony's word.

It was more interesting.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks. I was curious. Yeah. Uh, that's helpful. All right. Next category, category seven, man in the Mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question, did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence.

Verse self-judgment. So I wrote Yes, with an exclamation point. Yes. She likes her reflection. I, you know, this thing about companionship and partner, you know mm-hmm. Had me thinking a, a little bit, but she's so down to earth in interviews. Mm-hmm. She's, so, I, I think that there's just so much, like self love and self-compassion and self-actualization is such a theme of her work and her creative output and her biography that this was not a complicated question for me.

Mm-hmm. Because I think she understood. At some point. I, I, I'm certain that in earlier parts of her life, there was a certain amount of self-loathing and self-judgment and how a, a, a narrative operated on her. I think that [00:53:00] she found her way out of that. And that's why this is such an emphatic Yes. But the question of life partner had me casting a little bit of doubt, but basically I'm an emphatic Yes.

Kiely: Yes. I mean, it was, what I actually admire about her so much is her self-assuredness and her knowing and there wasn't a self-doubt about her work. Yeah. She knew it was good and I would be remiss if I didn't bring up, I, I was thinking about this 'cause I was like, you know, black woman in America, it's not inherent.

This

Michael: is not

Kiely: an country to be a black woman in. Those are message that she's getting from, that's not her, the master narrative in America.

Michael: Right. From the entertainment industry, from media, from, you know, from institutions.

Kiely: And so I thought so much about her father. And, you know, she talks about her father having

Michael: not trusting white people,

Kiely: did not like white people.

Michael: He like wouldn't let him in the house.

Kiely: And so she had that kind of underneath growing up [00:54:00] all throughout her life. And so I think her father did not embrace the idea that African Americans were less than.

Michael: Right.

Kiely: I mean, she talks about how silly she, and it is silly that she would walk in and whites only, and I can't drink from this water fountain.

And

Michael: well, and that, but that was something that she didn't encounter until like college in DC Right. Because she actually grew up in an integrated school. Right. Like I, I thought it was actually sort

Kiely: of community was Italians and people from all walks of life. Right. And all different races. And so for her, she laughs when she talks about it, which I think is wonderful because it is laughable.

It's crazy.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and, and does deserve. A certain kind of pathetic ridicule.

Kiely: Yes.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: I mean, bless their heart to be Texan about it,

Michael: right? Yeah. It's such a trigger word. If anybody says bless anything, I'm like, oh gosh, here we go. All right, let's move on. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis.

This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. I [00:55:00] read a New York Times article where they said she is most at home in the kitchen. That's the best place to talk to her. I wanna have a cup of coffee and cook carrot cake. She apparently made incredible carrot cake. I've got a bad sweet tooth, but I'm also something of a baker in the family.

Whenever anybody wants sweets, the kids and I go into the kitchen. My chocolate chip cookies are exceptional. I don't have a great carrot cake recipe and I want to have one, and I. Think that would be a great setting with her because I think she'd be loose and she'd be sort of relaxed and forthcoming, and it would be the right kind of environment with which to sort of slip into whatever the kind of conversation we may have.

I think the thing I would most want to talk to her about is story and story structure. I think this idea that we've been talking about throughout the conversation of the master narrative is interesting. I think it absolutely relates to her being a student of story as an editor and as a storyteller herself.

I think it. It relates to [00:56:00] me in a big way around my, honestly, my spiritual journey and my recovery is that I know that I have a certain script running in my head. I have a certain story that my mind is trying to tell me all the time that is incomplete, inaccurate, and at times even harmful. I feel like what we need as humans are tools to question that story, and that may be through community, that may be through certain kinds of spiritual practice.

That may be through meditation and prayer. But I wanna learn more about her tools and I wanna learn more about the mechanics of story, kind of what she looks for. I don't think that there's a recipe, and I know I'm in the kitchen. I don't think there's a recipe here, but I do think that she is also fundamentally a teacher.

I mean, she was at Princeton for years and years and you know, had a home in academia. So that's the setting I imagine. I just wanna talk about story structure while we make carrot cake. What about you? What'd you have here?

Kiely: Well, she talks about her early morning [00:57:00] time when she's writing.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: And I've seen her house in the documentary that you mentioned.

Mm-hmm. And I imagine that she's got a writing room. Where she looks out over the Hudson at four o'clock in the morning.

Michael: Yeah.

Kiely: I wanna go sit in that space with her with a cup of coffee. Yeah. Because it feels spiritual. Yeah. It feels like she's channeling something. I wanna experience that. It feels presumptuous to say that I could go sit in that room with her.

No, but that's the

Michael: thing we get to imagine in

Kiely: this category. Yeah. And I, I mean, everything feels presumptuous talking about Toni Morrison a little bit, but I, I wanna go be in that space with her where, you know, she talks about it as being hers. It's where she is in her element and at her best. And I just kind of wanna sit in that spiritual space with her.

Michael: Are you an early morning person or a late night person, or do you have an opinion on this?

Kiely: Um, I'm not a morning person. I mean, well, it depends. You ask my husband.

Michael: Yeah. [00:58:00] What would I always say to this

Kiely: question? You always say, oh, because, but I'm always looking for a space to be alone.

Michael: Hmm.

Kiely: I have five people in my house.

Yeah. And that's what I loved about that. I'm almost getting teary-eyed thinking about that is her space. It's hers, it belongs to her. It's nobody's asking her for anything. Nobody's expecting anything of her. It's where she creates.

Toni: Yeah.

Kiely: And rather I'm a morning or a night person, depends on when can I get that space to myself.

Toni: Sure, yeah.

Kiely: You know? Yeah. 'cause most of my day is being of service and so I, uh, when I can just be alone. I'm really related to that.

Michael: Yeah, me too. Okay. I think we've arrived category nine, the Vander beak named after James Vander Beak, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life. In that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.

So here, Kylie and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Tony Morrison lived. [00:59:00] Let's talk about the counter arguments first. Why would you not want this life? What point is James trying to make when he says, I don't want your life. I don't know if this is a reach or not. I, I think that look, to be born a black woman in America is not an easy starting position because you're not part of the mainstream master narrative, and you are not optimized for all the supposed benefits that mainstream America offers.

I don't know. That seems like kind of a weak argument. And as a white man in America, I think that there's other ways in which that actually is harmful, and I think she's very good about pointing that out. So I don't really like that as part of the counter argument. I, you know, and I, I think we've already kind of talked about the fact that she chose to be single for most of her life.

I don't know that I have enough information either way to know or see that that was any kind of deficiency for her, or a place where there was a lack [01:00:00] of fulfillment. But I'm grasping here like, you know what, what else goes into the, I don't want your life counterargument here.

Kiely: The only thing, yes, I want her life.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It

Kiely: sounds fantastic. Yeah. I mean, the only thing in her life. Because I don't see, well, the only thing that I wouldn't, I don't wanna experience is losing a child.

Michael: Yeah,

Kiely: right. So profound a loss that I, I wouldn't, that's the only thing that I can

Michael: No, no, no. I'm glad he brought it up. 'cause we kind of didn't talk about it and there's only so much to say about it.

He was a, an adult man. It was pancreatic cancer and it was 2010, so it was, you know, eight or nine years before her own death. I don't want to experience that either. I think it, that still qualifies as the number one biggest fear in my life. I think absolute that, and I think that'll always be true. I will say for somebody who was private, Tony Morrison and who did not talk about her family life all that [01:01:00] much.

The way she talked about that in saying initially she had a hard time bringing herself back to writing, and then she thought, what would he want for me? He would be angry at me if I were not writing. Circled back to this idea of self-love and self-affirmation through creativity and through creative output in a way that I thought was a model for how we need to grieve.

If we have to grieve, I don't want that, obviously, but again, I was impressed with her Yes. Around what she went through. All right, then let's get more specific. You said a second ago, I, I want this life. Absolutely. I'll start with the, uh, a recurring theme of the show. Self-love matters a lot, Kylie, and I think it is the, in some ways, the grand project of the human condition and how we experienced that.

I think you spoke to it earlier, and I think you and I agree on this, a lot of it's being of service and not being transactional about being of service, you know, being of [01:02:00] service because that brings out the best side of us and that connects us with a power greater than ourselves, however you define that.

And I think that that's extremely present in Toni Morrison's life. And that's the reason, number one, why I would want her life. I don't know what to add to that.

Kiely: Oh my gosh. I want her ability to write

Michael: well. Yeah. Okay.

Kiely: I mean to just,

Michael: yeah.

Kiely: Sit,

Michael: do write.

Kiely: No, I would like to, I would love to be a writer and to be a professional student.

I mean, and to, to be in a university setting. I mean, that's like my dream. Yeah. And to be able to go to a university every day and teach, and that's one of my things that's, I'm so glad we're having this conversation because I read her books and then I go, oh my God, I wish I was in a class with like a bunch of 20 year olds so I could talk about this book that I just finished.

It's incredible. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so,

Michael: no, I think we have to create those communities ourselves in our adult life. Oh yeah. But I totally relate. I mean, I worked at university for many years, right. And showing up at a [01:03:00] university campus is it, that is a great building to walk into every day. Yeah. You know, there's inspiration.

There is a, a life of the mind. You said it earlier, one of the things that I love about her, she's like, look, my life's boring. Like, the events of where I go is not that interesting, but

Kiely: my mind is interesting,

Michael: but mind is interesting and I think, God, what a healthy attitude to have towards your own mind.

To say, my mind is interesting, interesting and not dangerous. Mm-hmm. And not like. Harmful. It's interesting, you know,

Kiely: it's not a bad neighborhood.

Michael: Right, right, exactly. Um,

Kiely: well, no, she, that's, that's really the way, her ability to take in the information that everybody is taking in and then to process it and then make something beautiful out of it the way that she did.

And also, I often will grab her book of like her speeches and her short stories. And so sometimes when I'm wondering about how to think about [01:04:00] something, I'll pick up that book and read what she wrote. And I mean, her speech when she received the Nobel Prize is mind blowing.

Michael: Yeah. I,

Kiely: that's the time. And it's so.

Applicable to our current times. So her mind and the way that she was able to distill things down and bring wisdom and bring meaning to see things from this very specific perspective that she had.

Michael: Yeah,

Kiely: just amazing.

Michael: I mean, these are variations on a theme, but you said something in there about being a student, and this relates to my point about her being a student of story curiosity.

Curiosity is I think, really interwoven with this idea of self-compassion and self-love. She was a student of her culture, her world, her country, her identity. And I feel like to the extent that you have a yearning to be back on the university campus, I think that that's what that's about. And I think we all have to find that.

I think we all have to find our center of gravity and our locus for curiosity.

Kiely: Well, the world is moving so fast and [01:05:00] we're taking in so much more information than we're evolved to take in. And the idea. Of sitting down and really considering and thinking about, rather than just responding and reacting and dah, dah, dah, you gotta go so fast.

Yeah. It's like taking time to be considered.

Michael: Okay. What I hear in that is reflection. So if I were to sort of summarize why you want this life, I think that there is wisdom and self-love and compassion. I think that there is liberation and curiosity and I think that there is also freedom and independence in a commitment to self-reflection.

And I see all of those things, not to mention one hell of a legacy.

Kiely: Absolutely.

Michael: So with that, James VanDerBeek, I'm Tony Morrison and you want my life.

Before we close, if you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying our show, and if you have your phone in your hand, please take a moment to share it with a friend. We want to grow our podcast one [01:06:00] listener at a time. All right, Kylie, speed round plugs for past shows. If people enjoyed this episode of Tony Morrison, what else might they check out from the famous and Gravy archives?

Kiely: I think my favorite is the Anthony Bourdain episode.

Michael: Yeah, thank you.

Kiely: I loved that episode.

Michael: Tough one, but I did too. It's a, uh, heavy episode, but I'm proud of it. Episode one 19. Hungry Ghost, Anthony Bourdain. I'm gonna plug Richard Simmons one 18 Frizzy Fitness. I just think that like he was such a character.

I dismissed as kind of silly, you know, the Afro had me like looking beyond him and his whole demeanor, but I also think that his message of self-love and self-compassion really reminds me of this conversation. So, uh, episode one 18, frizzy Fitness. I can't believe we called it that. All right. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy.

His first wife said, quote, if you listen to his songs, there's a lot of loneliness there. I don't think he ever really got how much people loved him. End quote, Aw, [01:07:00]

Friend: I'm thinking Country. When I think about sad songs. I got my guitar and I'm on the Prairie and I'm sad with my dog.

Michael: Finally, famous and Gravy listeners, we love hearing from you.

If you wanna reach out with a comment, a question, or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng Gravy is created by AM Kippur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to Kylie Walters for a guest hosting.

This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with assistance from Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks. See you next time.