Chloe Caldwell and Emily Talk: On Being A Fan Of Yourself
Chloe and Emily gchatted twice about writing and books and a lot of other stuff. This is an edited version of their conversations.
Emily: Tell me what yours are first and I’ll tell you what my tabs are.
Chloe: Oh god. Okay. Mariah Carey “Obsessed” on Youtube, my HW event, Twitter, Sheila Heti interview on Vice, my statcounter, spotify, that’s it.
Emily: Not bad! I have gcal, a google doc called WEDDING $$ (horrorshow), another doc called Wedding Guest List, a Trello board with the card Ship Emily Books September Issue open, and Twitter. However Twitter is preceded by a (6), which shows how recently I have looked at it.
Chloe: We should put the tabs in the interview, i think.
Emily: Well, we have to, because I only have till 11 and then I have to call the wedding DJ.
Chloe: I imagine it will be a dance-y wedding.
Emily: I’m actually a terrible dancer.
Chloe: I think most writers are? But I don’t know why I say that.
Emily: Because we are cerebral and unconnected to our bodies? Idk i’m not those things really. I live in my body, it’s just not good at dancing
Chloe: Yeah, I feel connected to my body. But I accidentally always snap my fingers when i dance
Emily: And like, waggle! Ha!
Chloe: I know. Think I got it from my mom.
Emily: I can actually dance better in karaoke situations.
Chloe: Interesting. The thing i like about dancing is mostly the singing. i only like dancing to songs I can yell lyrics to.
Emily: My favorite thing to do in private room karaoke is wait til things are in full swing, then put on Like A Prayer, turn off all the lights, and make everyone stand up and dance and sing to it. People go full like revival tent rolling around on the ground in this situation
Chloe: I need an album recommendation, preferably a woman.
Emily: Do you like emo singer songwriters? Or, like, crazy lady singer songwriters?
Chloe: What does that mean, emo? I like Grimes.
Emily: Not like the music genre, like melodramatic.
Chloe: Yes, of course!
Emily: I remembered recently how much I love Martha Wainwright and I don’t really know anyone else who’s into her.
Chloe: I AM!
Emily: Oh good!!!!
Chloe: No one else likes her! Oh my god, In interviews they are always like, “so how does it feel to be less musical than your brother”
Emily: She’s way better than he is! WAY better. Like, he’s fine, whatever.
Chloe: She is like finding a gem. My parents love her parents.
Emily: I love fucked up families that all do the same thing
Chloe: Do you like sharon van etten?
Emily: I don’t really know her
Chloe: I love her a lot, highly recommend her albums “Tramp” and “Are We There”
Emily: Ooh ok. Come Home to Mama was Martha’s recent-est album.
Chloe: I’ll give it a listen today, cool.
Emily: I will likewise with Sharon. Are you a good singer?
Chloe: i studied voice for years, I am ok. Then I gave it up, started to feel embarrassed about it I think. My dad and brother are musicians but I never learned, feelings of inferiority i think.
Emily: My dad just recently started writing songs.
Chloe: Yeah? Any good?
Emily: They’re real songs, but i can’t tell if they’re good because I’m just like AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (dies of embarrassment)
Chloe: Wonder if that’s how they feel about our writing?
Emily: I was just thinking that! It’s the closest I’ve ever come to really having a taste of my own medicine. Although once I saw a draft of something Keith was working on where the narrator described an ex as the prettiest woman he’d ever had sex with. It took a while to get over that. I mean … “it’s fiction” but …
Chloe: Oh god.
Emily: RIGHT?
Chloe: I read through an ex’s stuff and he had written how he wasn’t attracted to me at first but later fell in love with me and felt bad about it. I was mortified, but kept reading.
Emily: Well sure, what could be more fascinating? It’s like a bad review times a thousand
Chloe: Honestly, I think it’s good in some ways to see that stuff. It humbled me.
Emily: I don’t want to be humbled! I don’t think I need humbling. I think if anything I am TOO HUMBLE!
Chloe: Hmm this is interesting. I see both sides, like I am too humble and not humble enough, depends on how much coffee I have had. Or alcohol.
Emily: A big obstacle women writers put in their own way is not being like “I’m a genius and the shit, everything I do is golden,” which is the default setting of so many mediocre dudes.
Chloe: True. I feel, to an extent, like don’t have that obstacle.
Emily I mean, I’d say "be more Kanye” except obviously what fuels Kanye is profound insecurity, which is what makes him so sympathetic.
Chloe: The thing I feel most secure about is my writing identity.
Emily: Yeah, you’re a fan of yourself. I like that about you.
Chloe: I get so sick of women not championing themselves, putting themselves down. What other women writers do you think are fans of themselves?
Emily: And not, like, fans in a defensive overcompensate-y way?
Chloe: Right. Like, genuine.
Emily: I’m really struggling to think of one. Colette? Heh.
Chloe: Ha!
Emily: Oh, well, lesbians. Ann Rower is a fan of herself
Chloe: Idk who that is.
Emily: Wuuuuuut. Chloe!!
Chloe: Uh oh.
Emily: Do you read ebooks? I’ll send you her books.
Chloe: Thanks. So was it YOU that tweeted that thing about probably always liking females that society does not like?
Emily: Yes, I think it was when I was getting really into Kim Kardashian Hollywood.
Chloe: I know almost NOTHING about the kardashians.
Emily: I was really inspired by this: http://kfan.tumblr.com/post/93306792864/response-to-bustles-31-questions-about-kim-kardashian You totally don’t have to. I basically don’t but I’m interested in how if a lot of people dismiss a woman and really want to be on record as being not a fan I’m intrigued. i mean, this leads me down bad paths sometimes …
Chloe: Why?
Emily: It’s hard to tell sometimes whether you’re just fascinated by someone’s terribleness. On the other hand, female terribleness often has something legit and cool in it.
Chloe: Elizabeth Wurtzel for example?
Emily: I think she’s great. I totally get why people find her irritating. But she does too, I think.
Chloe: More, now, again of hers is my fave.
Emily: It’s my fave too. It’s the best one.
Chloe: Plucking the leg hairs! On ritalin!
Emily: (typing simultaneously) Dude, the compulsive leg hair plucking.
Chloe: What is it about that?
Emily: Well there are a lot of sort of glossy addict memoirs. But that shit is not glamorous. Anyway, this is like … a very large q that goes to the heart of my whole gestalt, and basically there is no answer. I feel like it’s my duty somehow to celebrate women’s grosser darker weirder aspects cause everyone has gross dark weird aspects.
Chloe: Yeah me too.
Emily: You know, the kind of thing that’s like “my trauma, in a neat narrative arc with just the right amount of self-exposure and some kind of neat conclusion”
Chloe: Yeah, a tied bow at the end.
Emily: I hate that stuff very, very much, and i get that really sad anger a lot when people love it. I mean, so many people love it. Maybe they legit don’t know something else exists.
Chloe I think it’s hard for people to come up with endings for essays?
Emily: I think they aren’t exposed to good things often enough, or are sort of accepting of critical judgments unquestioningly. Even smart people or like, you know, culturally aware people are like “oh, that got a bad review in The New York Times” and it’s like … yes, because Michiko Kakutani is a hack loon. Anyway. What are you reading right now, and why?
Chloe: i am reading the magic barrel that you sent me and it’s taking me FORever. Idk why. It’s hard for me to read graphic novels. I am also reading SITA by kate millett. i am reading it b/c a publisher told me it reminded her of Women. I sent you a photo.
Emily: Oh yes! amazing cover
Chloe: and then I am dipping into “the untethered soul” of my roommate’s because, you know, it’s good for the soul. And trying out Veronica by Mary Gaitskill to see if I want to bring it on tour. The end.
Emily: oh wow Veronica
Chloe: it reminds me of Friendship?
Emily: I love that book but feel too fragile to handle Mary Gaitskill right now.
Chloe: Really? Yeah, Bad Behavior scared the shit outta me.
Emily: It’s this amazing combo of stuff you’d rather not think about and also she’s such a good writer that you’re like “why do I bother.” One of my sort of turning points in falling for Keith or being open to it, anyway
Chloe: ooh im excited for this story
Emily: was when, for weird reasons, we went to his dad’s house in Cape Cod for our 3rd date, and his dad and his family were on vacation and the neighbor who was housesitting became scared of the dog. so we … drove? in a car? memory a little vague here to Cape Cod together (how did we have a car? whatever) even though we barely knew each other. and we both realized in the car at the same time that we were thinking of that short story of hers the sort of awkward disastrous S&M weekend
Chloe: No way!!!!! i love that. ok what are you reading and why?
Emily: Besides twitter? Um
Chloe: Lol yes
Emily: Oh, actually, I am in the middle of a long novel that I’m loving I picked it up cause I was on a panel at the brooklyn book festival with its author not thinking it would be "my thing”
Chloe: what’s it about
Emily: It’s about a 30ish failed photojournalist who has to move back in w her parents temporarily bc her dad has brain cancer and they’re 1st gen Indian immigrants living in Arizona and it skips back and forth in time a lot explaining their family’s whole thing very well done and none of the usual mfa padding
Chloe: cool. are you gonna finish it? author’s first book?
Emily: omg I can’t wait to finish it i’m gonna finish it on the bus today i hope i’m on p 337 of 498 it seems possible i’m going to delete twitter from my phone and try to abstain from it all weekend something v gross is happening right now and i don’t want to participate
Chloe: you ARE?!
Emily: it makes me angry and not in a productive way
Chloe: do you read “self help” ?
Emily: oh like the genre? i have enjoyed it when i’ve read it but i typically do not Working For You Is Killing Me is my fave self-help book. I also like Kelly Cutrone’s masterfully ghostwritten memoir self help book If You Have To Cry Go Outside.
Chloe: Now i feel self conscious about being a fan of myself.
Emily: Hmm, a true fan of herself wouldn’t feel self-conscious about it.
