WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.620 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're tackling 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:06.960 someone who's less like a single academic or 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:11.019 artist and maybe more like a, well, a force of 00:00:11.019 --> 00:00:13.900 nature. Someone almost designed to shake up how 00:00:13.900 --> 00:00:16.140 we think about disciplines. Definitely. I mean, 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:18.640 try to picture this. One person who's a distinguished 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:21.600 professor teaching high level English lit. Okay. 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:24.760 And also painting with a style clearly influenced 00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:27.079 by Andy Warhol. Right. And writing this really 00:00:27.079 --> 00:00:29.960 experimental poetry using a method he actually 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:32.659 calls trance writing. It sounds impossible, but 00:00:32.659 --> 00:00:35.140 that's Wayne Kostenbaum, born 1958. He's this 00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:39.039 incredibly prolific intellectual, and his whole 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.259 career seems built on just refusing to accept 00:00:41.259 --> 00:00:43.539 those neat little boxes between art forms. Yeah, 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:45.179 absolutely. So what we've done is pulled together 00:00:45.179 --> 00:00:47.659 everything we could find, academic papers, biographical 00:00:47.659 --> 00:00:49.719 details, you know, the usual suspects to give 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:51.719 you a kind of shortcut, a way into understanding 00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:53.960 this really unique, sometimes pretty complex 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.479 cultural critic. And our goal here, our mission, 00:00:57.539 --> 00:01:00.189 if you like, is to quickly synthesize. Well, 00:01:00.250 --> 00:01:02.750 maybe not quickly, but synthesize his, what, 00:01:02.770 --> 00:01:05.930 20 plus books, his academic work, his art. Yeah. 00:01:06.049 --> 00:01:08.849 And really focus on that key idea about his work. 00:01:08.969 --> 00:01:11.730 The idea being how he just, quote, obliterates 00:01:11.730 --> 00:01:15.250 any vestigial divide between play and thought. 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:17.560 That's a great line someone wrote about him. 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:20.099 It really is. And he does it across every single 00:01:20.099 --> 00:01:22.840 genre he touches. And look, if you need proof 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:25.900 that this genre obliteration isn't just him being 00:01:25.900 --> 00:01:28.340 provocative for the sake of it, but that it's 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:30.500 actually seen as profoundly significant, well, 00:01:30.540 --> 00:01:32.040 you just have to look at the recognition he's 00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:34.459 received. Like the American Academy of Arts and 00:01:34.459 --> 00:01:37.659 Letters Award in literature he got in 2020. That's 00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:39.959 a huge deal. It absolutely is. And that award, 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:42.299 it signals more than just, you know, a single 00:01:42.299 --> 00:01:44.659 achievement. Yeah. It points to his endurance. 00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:48.079 cultural impact over time. You really can't pigeonhole 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:51.120 his work easily. And yet these major institutions, 00:01:51.319 --> 00:01:53.299 the ones dedicated to sort of preserving serious 00:01:53.299 --> 00:01:57.060 literature, they recognize him as, well, essential. 00:01:57.359 --> 00:01:59.900 That's the paradox, isn't it? Yeah, it is. He 00:01:59.900 --> 00:02:03.120 operates right at that intersection of like high 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:07.379 theory, serious academic thought, but also camp. 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:10.460 And the deeply personal. It's that mix, that 00:02:10.460 --> 00:02:11.960 synthesis that we're going to try and unpack 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:14.099 today. OK, so where do we start? Maybe with the 00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:16.060 foundations, because you need that grounding 00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:18.439 to understand how he gets away with being so 00:02:18.439 --> 00:02:22.039 spectacularly unconventional later. Exactly. 00:02:22.039 --> 00:02:24.180 You need the establishment credentials before 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:25.919 you can properly dismantle the establishment. 00:02:26.039 --> 00:02:28.180 Right. So let's unpack that foundation. Yeah. 00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:32.389 If you look at his origins. The commitment to 00:02:32.389 --> 00:02:35.229 intellectual rigor, it's really clear from the 00:02:35.229 --> 00:02:37.810 start. Tostenbaum, born and raised in San Jose, 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:41.150 California. But his family life, it sounds like 00:02:41.150 --> 00:02:43.270 it was just steeped in writing and philosophy. 00:02:43.449 --> 00:02:46.449 Oh, completely. This wasn't just like a casual 00:02:46.449 --> 00:02:49.169 hobby in the house. His mother, Phyllis Kostenbaum, 00:02:49.270 --> 00:02:51.710 she was a respected writer herself. And his father, 00:02:51.789 --> 00:02:54.330 Peter Kostenbaum, was a leadership consultant, 00:02:54.469 --> 00:02:56.610 but also a philosopher. So you've got this blend 00:02:56.610 --> 00:02:59.349 right there in the household. The creative internal 00:02:59.349 --> 00:03:02.409 focus of writing. Yeah. And then the more structured, 00:03:02.530 --> 00:03:05.490 outward facing analysis of philosophical thinking 00:03:05.490 --> 00:03:08.090 and consulting, it feels like that environment 00:03:08.090 --> 00:03:11.110 set a baseline where, you know, the subjective, 00:03:11.270 --> 00:03:13.150 the personal and the really rigorous could always 00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:15.449 coexist. It wasn't an either thing. That makes 00:03:15.449 --> 00:03:18.569 sense. And his academic path, I mean, just confirms 00:03:18.569 --> 00:03:21.669 he started out as a very serious, you could say, 00:03:21.710 --> 00:03:24.169 traditional scholar. Totally. He did the whole 00:03:24.169 --> 00:03:26.409 academic trifecta, as you called it earlier, 00:03:26.610 --> 00:03:29.650 a B .A. from Harvard. Right. Then an M .A. from 00:03:29.650 --> 00:03:31.710 the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, which is 00:03:31.710 --> 00:03:34.050 known for being incredibly focused on the actual 00:03:34.050 --> 00:03:36.949 craft, the mechanics of writing. OK, so deep 00:03:36.949 --> 00:03:38.789 into the practice. Deep into practice. And then 00:03:38.789 --> 00:03:42.030 finally, the Ph .D. from Princeton. So, you know, 00:03:42.030 --> 00:03:45.030 top tier institutions all the way. And this context 00:03:45.030 --> 00:03:47.370 is really important, isn't it? Because he wasn't 00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:50.710 just, say, a poet who sometimes write criticism 00:03:50.710 --> 00:03:53.530 or a critic who dabbled in poetry. a treat. Exactly. 00:03:53.889 --> 00:03:57.069 He trained at the absolute highest level in both 00:03:57.069 --> 00:03:59.750 fields, the academic side, literary theory, and 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:02.150 the practical craft of writing. And it's this 00:04:02.150 --> 00:04:05.090 deep theoretical grounding, I think, that gives 00:04:05.090 --> 00:04:08.750 his later, sometimes more delirious claims their 00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:10.789 actual weight. Because he knows the rules he's 00:04:10.789 --> 00:04:12.629 breaking. Precisely. He knows the game inside 00:04:12.629 --> 00:04:14.569 out, which is why he's so effective when he decides 00:04:14.569 --> 00:04:16.949 to subvert it. And we should also mention the 00:04:16.949 --> 00:04:20.149 Whiting Award he got back in 1994. Ah, yes, for 00:04:20.149 --> 00:04:22.360 emerging writers. Yeah, which wrecked... Recognizes 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:24.660 writers with exceptional promise early on. And 00:04:24.660 --> 00:04:26.920 looking back, that recognition seems incredibly 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:28.699 prescient, doesn't it? Given everything that 00:04:28.699 --> 00:04:32.360 came after. Definitely. But maybe the most transformative 00:04:32.360 --> 00:04:35.319 period wasn't even the structured Ph .D. work 00:04:35.319 --> 00:04:38.600 at Princeton. Hmm. But those years he spent kind 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:41.949 of orbiting it, living nearby, when that. high 00:04:41.949 --> 00:04:44.389 theory brain crashed headlong into this year 00:04:44.389 --> 00:04:46.949 energy and reality of New York City. Oh, absolutely. 00:04:47.189 --> 00:04:49.829 That period, roughly 84 to 88, while he was still 00:04:49.829 --> 00:04:51.610 doing his grad work, that seems to have been 00:04:51.610 --> 00:04:53.589 the real crucible for him. He was living in New 00:04:53.589 --> 00:04:56.029 York City. Right in the thick of it. And he talks 00:04:56.029 --> 00:04:58.449 about this as the time he really discovered things, 00:04:58.610 --> 00:05:01.110 discovered opera, discovered literature in a 00:05:01.110 --> 00:05:03.629 new way, and importantly, discovered gay culture. 00:05:03.990 --> 00:05:07.610 And all this against a pretty intense backdrop, 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:11.120 right? The 1980s in New York. The AIDS crisis, 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:13.980 the art scene booming. Exactly. It was a turbulent, 00:05:14.019 --> 00:05:17.120 explosive time. And importantly, his engagement 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:19.839 wasn't just abstract academic observation from 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:21.860 afar. No, he was in the trenches. He really was. 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:24.100 He started flexing his critical muscles right 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:26.139 there, writing book reviews for these really 00:05:26.139 --> 00:05:28.920 vital, sometimes politically charged publications 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:31.980 like the New York Native and the Village Voice. 00:05:32.100 --> 00:05:34.420 We should pause on those venues, actually. Because 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:37.139 especially in the 80s, they were crucial. Hugely 00:05:37.139 --> 00:05:39.240 significant. The New York native was absolutely 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:41.639 central for the queer community. It gave a platform 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:45.000 to voices and perspectives that, frankly, mainstream 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.019 criticism was often ignoring. It dealt with the 00:05:48.019 --> 00:05:51.899 immediate, often visceral reality of that era. 00:05:52.079 --> 00:05:54.060 And the village voice, well, that was just the 00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:56.399 epicenter of downtown cultural critique, wasn't 00:05:56.399 --> 00:05:59.699 it? It was the nexus. Writing for outlets like 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:02.060 these, it forced him to do something really specific 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:05.079 to synthesize that high theory he was learning 00:06:05.079 --> 00:06:08.019 at Princeton with the immediate, the personal, 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:10.740 the urgent cultural conversations happening right 00:06:10.740 --> 00:06:12.819 then. He had to be relevant. He had to be relevant, 00:06:12.939 --> 00:06:16.939 quick, sharp, witty, grounded in the messy reality 00:06:16.939 --> 00:06:19.600 of the city, even when he was talking about high 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:22.939 art forms like opera. And I think this is really 00:06:22.939 --> 00:06:25.800 where you see the core of his unique voice developing. 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:29.560 That blend of the personal. the accessible, maybe 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:31.980 even a bit campy perspective. Yeah, but applied 00:06:31.980 --> 00:06:34.480 to really serious subjects. That voice was forged 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:37.079 in that. specific time and place, I think. And 00:06:37.079 --> 00:06:39.839 then if you look at where he is now, institutionally, 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:41.920 it almost feels like a deliberate performance 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.680 piece, embodying that refusal to stay in one 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:46.420 lane. It really does. It's a perfect summary 00:06:46.420 --> 00:06:48.759 of his whole approach. So on one hand, you've 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:51.439 got the very serious academic title, Distinguished 00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:53.519 Professor of English, French, and Comparative 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:56.420 Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. And he 00:06:56.420 --> 00:06:58.819 teaches poetry there. A traditional, high -level, 00:06:58.899 --> 00:07:01.529 rigorous boast. Exactly. But then at the same 00:07:01.529 --> 00:07:03.730 time, he's also teaching painting over at Yale 00:07:03.730 --> 00:07:06.370 University. Which is just wild when you think 00:07:06.370 --> 00:07:09.389 about it. He's literally being paid by two of 00:07:09.389 --> 00:07:11.449 the most prestigious universities in the world 00:07:11.449 --> 00:07:15.829 to teach two disciplines, literary studies and 00:07:15.829 --> 00:07:18.949 fine art, that are usually kept totally separate. 00:07:19.029 --> 00:07:21.550 Different departments, different buildings, sometimes 00:07:21.550 --> 00:07:24.610 different philosophies entirely. That whole CUNY 00:07:24.610 --> 00:07:26.870 Yale setup, it's like a living mission statement, 00:07:26.970 --> 00:07:29.430 isn't it? It just reinforces his core identity. 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:32.550 He refuses to partition his own mind or his career. 00:07:32.750 --> 00:07:34.629 He just flows between them. He flows between 00:07:34.629 --> 00:07:39.250 the theoretical demands of analyzing poetry and 00:07:39.250 --> 00:07:41.589 the immediate material physical demands of making 00:07:41.589 --> 00:07:44.389 visual art. And in doing so, he kind of forces 00:07:44.389 --> 00:07:47.550 the institutions themselves to recognize the 00:07:47.550 --> 00:07:49.910 validity of this cross -disciplinary way of being. 00:07:49.970 --> 00:07:51.910 It's like the ultimate act of professional genre 00:07:51.910 --> 00:07:56.500 obliteration. Okay, so let's get into the actual 00:07:56.500 --> 00:07:58.360 work, the output, because this is where that 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:00.360 whole philosophy really comes alive, right? You 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:02.620 mentioned that quote earlier from Stefania Heim 00:08:02.620 --> 00:08:05.199 in the Boston Review. Yeah, it's such a perfect 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.480 description. She said his work obliterates any 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:09.560 vestigial divide we might hold on to between 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:12.339 play and thought. Obliterates. It's such a strong 00:08:12.339 --> 00:08:14.879 verb. Not just ignores the divide, but actively 00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:17.740 destroys it. Exactly. And she also said he celebrates 00:08:17.740 --> 00:08:21.040 and broadcasts risky joys and joyful risks, which 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:23.459 I think is key. It gives him this license somehow 00:08:23.459 --> 00:08:27.339 to explore really subjective stuff, queer experience, 00:08:27.660 --> 00:08:31.120 messy personal feelings, but using the tools, 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:34.100 the high standards of Siri. academic inquiry. 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:36.159 It's like personalized critical theory almost. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:39.240 Okay, so let's dive into some specifics. We're 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:41.480 better to start than the book that really put 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:43.940 him on the map critically. The Queen's Throat, 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:47.659 Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire 00:08:47.659 --> 00:08:50.899 came out in 1993. Right, and the subject on the 00:08:50.899 --> 00:08:53.399 surface seems pretty straightforward, trying 00:08:53.399 --> 00:08:55.679 to understand that well -known, often intense 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:58.299 connection between gay men and opera, especially 00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:00.980 the figure of the diva. But the way he analyzes 00:09:00.980 --> 00:09:03.299 it is anything but straightforward. Not at all. 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:05.940 The book uses opera more as a lens than just 00:09:05.940 --> 00:09:09.080 a topic. You know, he digs into how opera with 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:13.299 all its like huge emotions, its repression, its. 00:09:13.789 --> 00:09:16.450 spectacular way of staging suffering and desire, 00:09:16.669 --> 00:09:19.210 how all that acts as a kind of psychic space, 00:09:19.350 --> 00:09:22.049 a container for aspects of queer experience, 00:09:22.210 --> 00:09:24.750 particularly maybe the experience of being closeted. 00:09:24.830 --> 00:09:28.529 The sheer drama of opera mirrors the internal 00:09:28.529 --> 00:09:31.929 drama society sometimes forces on people. So 00:09:31.929 --> 00:09:34.009 it goes beyond just saying, oh, gay men like 00:09:34.009 --> 00:09:36.610 opera. He found a deeper critical insight there. 00:09:36.730 --> 00:09:39.250 He did. His conclusion was that this relationship, 00:09:39.490 --> 00:09:42.029 this affinity between gay men and divas, it tells 00:09:42.029 --> 00:09:44.149 us just as much about opera itself, about its 00:09:44.149 --> 00:09:46.370 built -in questions around performance, masculinity, 00:09:46.669 --> 00:09:49.309 spectacle, what constitutes too much emotion 00:09:49.309 --> 00:09:51.889 as it does about homosexuality or gay identity. 00:09:52.110 --> 00:09:54.149 He's really probing those fundamental questions 00:09:54.149 --> 00:09:56.389 about how culture shapes our desires and then 00:09:56.389 --> 00:09:59.169 how our desires in turn shape how we read culture. 00:09:59.289 --> 00:10:00.730 Like diva worship, for instance. Yeah. It's not 00:10:00.730 --> 00:10:03.529 just like... No, he frames it as more like identification. 00:10:03.929 --> 00:10:06.389 It's about watching someone perform these incredibly 00:10:06.389 --> 00:10:10.429 heightened emotions, emotions that might be forbidden 00:10:10.429 --> 00:10:13.809 or impossible to express in everyday life. And 00:10:13.809 --> 00:10:17.669 the risky joy here, I think, was the intellectual 00:10:17.669 --> 00:10:20.429 risk he took. Oh, so? Well, fusing that high 00:10:20.429 --> 00:10:23.389 formal analysis of opera with these intensely 00:10:23.389 --> 00:10:26.870 personal, subjective, often quite campy cultural 00:10:26.870 --> 00:10:30.490 interpretations, that combination felt pre -revolutionary. 00:10:32.329 --> 00:10:34.970 Okay, let's jump forward quite a bit to 2011. 00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:37.519 He shifts gears pretty dramatically, doesn't 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:40.080 he? Takes on this huge abstract feeling that 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:42.539 everyone experiences, but hardly anyone dares 00:10:42.539 --> 00:10:45.259 to analyze so directly. Yeah. Humiliation. The 00:10:45.259 --> 00:10:46.740 book is just called Humiliation. Yeah, it's a 00:10:46.740 --> 00:10:48.980 brilliant move because humiliation is maybe the 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:51.259 ultimate subjective, intensely personal feeling, 00:10:51.340 --> 00:10:53.500 right? But Kostenbaum approaches it with that 00:10:53.500 --> 00:10:56.240 same critical rigor. He treats it like a cultural 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:58.500 phenomenon that actually deserves scholarly attention. 00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:01.980 How does he do that? He manages to analyze the 00:11:01.980 --> 00:11:06.070 shame, the vulnerability, the... sometimes absurdity 00:11:06.070 --> 00:11:09.269 of being humiliated. And he weaves together personal 00:11:09.269 --> 00:11:11.889 anecdotes, moments where he felt humiliated with 00:11:11.889 --> 00:11:15.370 this broader cultural commentary about. power 00:11:15.370 --> 00:11:18.669 exposure social dynamics and the reception really 00:11:18.669 --> 00:11:21.210 highlighted that unique tone he strikes didn't 00:11:21.210 --> 00:11:23.649 it remember the quote from john waters oh yeah 00:11:23.649 --> 00:11:26.149 the filmmaker john waters himself a master of 00:11:26.149 --> 00:11:28.690 blending camp and critique he called humiliation 00:11:28.690 --> 00:11:31.250 the funniest smartest most heartbreaking yet 00:11:31.250 --> 00:11:33.549 powerful book i've read in a long time funny 00:11:33.549 --> 00:11:35.990 and heartbreaking about public shame That really 00:11:35.990 --> 00:11:38.490 is Kostenbaum's sweet spot, isn't it? It perfectly 00:11:38.490 --> 00:11:40.990 captures it. And typically, he didn't just stop 00:11:40.990 --> 00:11:43.070 with the book itself. The promotion, the way 00:11:43.070 --> 00:11:45.509 he presented it, became part of the whole analysis. 00:11:45.769 --> 00:11:47.850 That's the web series? Exactly. He created this 00:11:47.850 --> 00:11:50.649 online video series called Dear Wayne, I've Been 00:11:50.649 --> 00:11:53.149 Humiliated, where people could write in with 00:11:53.149 --> 00:11:54.889 their own stories. The New York Observer called 00:11:54.889 --> 00:11:56.990 it the mother of all book trailers, which was 00:11:56.990 --> 00:12:00.330 hilarious. That's brilliant. And it really cements 00:12:00.330 --> 00:12:02.629 that strategy you mentioned, the critical work 00:12:02.629 --> 00:12:06.100 and the playful multimedia. way he presents it 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:08.440 are just two sides of the same coin. Totally. 00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:11.940 The book is the theory, you could say, and the 00:12:11.940 --> 00:12:14.179 trailer, the web series, is the performance of 00:12:14.179 --> 00:12:16.379 the theory. It's all integrated. OK, this seems 00:12:16.379 --> 00:12:18.340 like the perfect point to bring up the book that 00:12:18.340 --> 00:12:21.279 maybe pushed the boundaries of his delirious 00:12:21.279 --> 00:12:24.279 scholarship the furthest. The Anatomy of Harpo 00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:28.200 Marx from 2012. Oh, boy. Yeah. Harpo Marx. I 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:30.970 mean, taking a silent film comedian. Someone 00:12:30.970 --> 00:12:33.029 who communicates mostly with honking horns and 00:12:33.029 --> 00:12:35.850 wild physical comedy and giving him this incredibly 00:12:35.850 --> 00:12:38.470 dense theoretical treatment, usually reserved 00:12:38.470 --> 00:12:40.750 for, I don't know, Shakespeare or Joyce. It was 00:12:40.750 --> 00:12:43.049 bound to cause a stir. And it did. The reviews 00:12:43.049 --> 00:12:45.289 were just all over the place, completely polarized, 00:12:45.389 --> 00:12:48.129 which honestly is often a pretty good sign that 00:12:48.129 --> 00:12:50.129 Kussenbaum's hit a nerve. So what was the positive 00:12:50.129 --> 00:12:53.649 take? Well, you had genuine high praise. Brian 00:12:53.649 --> 00:12:55.549 Dillon, for instance, called it charming and 00:12:55.549 --> 00:12:58.490 rigorous and significantly an excellent example 00:12:58.490 --> 00:13:01.269 of a kind of delirious scholarship. Delirious 00:13:01.269 --> 00:13:04.070 scholarship. That phrase just nails it, doesn't 00:13:04.070 --> 00:13:06.669 it? It's perfect. It captures the whole method 00:13:06.669 --> 00:13:09.690 using the tools of serious academic inquiry, 00:13:09.809 --> 00:13:11.850 but applying them to subject matter that seems 00:13:11.850 --> 00:13:15.490 almost designed to induce, well, delirium or 00:13:15.490 --> 00:13:17.629 absurdity. But then there were the critiques. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:20.960 And they really highlight just how far he's willing 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.399 to push those theoretical limits. Big time. Saul 00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:26.759 Osterlitz, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:30.440 basically felt Kostenbaum sexualizes Harpo beyond 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:33.259 all recognition. And there was that one specific 00:13:33.259 --> 00:13:35.620 line that everyone seemed to quote. Ah, yes. 00:13:35.659 --> 00:13:38.299 The anus line. Osterlitz cited it. It's where 00:13:38.299 --> 00:13:41.679 Kostenbaum posits quite seriously that courtesy 00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:44.720 of the anus, we can imagine Marxist style a path 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:47.730 away from family and state. I mean. Wow. That's 00:13:47.730 --> 00:13:49.429 the flashpoint for the whole controversy right 00:13:49.429 --> 00:13:51.870 there. It absolutely is. But you have to understand 00:13:51.870 --> 00:13:55.090 that sentence as maybe barmy, as it sounds on 00:13:55.090 --> 00:13:58.289 the surface, it's a deliberate critical provocation. 00:13:58.330 --> 00:14:01.009 He's plugging into specific theoretical frameworks, 00:14:01.210 --> 00:14:04.789 psychoanalysis, queer theory. He's taking Harpo, 00:14:04.970 --> 00:14:06.830 the silent comedian who's constantly resisting 00:14:06.830 --> 00:14:09.850 normal speech, normal gender roles, normal social 00:14:09.850 --> 00:14:12.809 behavior, and reading his physical comedy, his 00:14:12.809 --> 00:14:16.570 body, as a kind of radical political text. In 00:14:16.570 --> 00:14:18.769 queer theory and psychoanalysis, the anus is 00:14:18.769 --> 00:14:20.950 often discussed as a site that resists normative 00:14:20.950 --> 00:14:23.129 reproduction, traditional family structures, 00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:26.750 state control hence, a potential path away from 00:14:26.750 --> 00:14:29.639 family and state. So he's arguing that Harpo's 00:14:29.639 --> 00:14:33.019 silent anarchic body embodies this theoretical 00:14:33.019 --> 00:14:35.500 concept. And essentially, yes. He's making the 00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:38.080 argument that no subject, not even a seemingly 00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:41.519 silly silent comedian, is too frivolous to bear 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:43.740 the weight of really radical critical theory 00:14:43.740 --> 00:14:46.139 if you apply the right lens or maybe the wrong 00:14:46.139 --> 00:14:48.340 lens in the most productive way. So the apparent 00:14:48.340 --> 00:14:50.919 absurdity isn't a bug. It's a feature. It's a 00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:53.460 calculated theoretical move. That's exactly it. 00:14:53.559 --> 00:14:55.559 And critics like Joe Queenan, even when they 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:58.139 were clearly frustrated by it, kind of... inadvertently 00:14:58.139 --> 00:15:01.259 hit on Kostenbaum's genius. Queenan wrote that 00:15:01.259 --> 00:15:04.000 Kostenbaum peppers his story with just enough 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:06.679 tidbits of fascinating information that readers 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:09.080 may fleetingly overlook the fact that his theories 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:12.059 are barmy. But the barmy theories are the point. 00:15:12.259 --> 00:15:14.700 They force you, the reader, to question your 00:15:14.700 --> 00:15:17.700 own assumptions about what counts as a serious 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.899 academic subject, what deserves deep theoretical 00:15:20.899 --> 00:15:24.179 attention. Okay, beyond these really... deep 00:15:24.179 --> 00:15:27.100 focus monographs. He's also produced a massive 00:15:27.100 --> 00:15:29.460 amount of work in essays, right? Covering a huge 00:15:29.460 --> 00:15:31.919 range. Oh, absolutely. His essays tackle pretty 00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:34.100 much everything. Celebrity culture, classical 00:15:34.100 --> 00:15:36.919 music, contemporary art, literature, aesthetics. 00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:41.039 His critical gaze seems restless. And the collections 00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:43.179 themselves have these great provocative titles. 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:46.200 They do, like cleavage, essays on sex, stars, 00:15:46.259 --> 00:15:49.659 and aesthetics, or my 1980s and other essays 00:15:49.659 --> 00:15:52.960 and figure it out. Essays. These titles alone 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:55.139 show you he sees high culture and pop culture, 00:15:55.220 --> 00:15:57.980 or even celebrity culture, as equally valid fields 00:15:57.980 --> 00:16:00.419 for serious, nuanced thinking. He'll analyze 00:16:00.419 --> 00:16:02.879 the aesthetic meaning of a celebrity's cleavage. 00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:05.379 Yeah, or a pop star's public meltdown. With the 00:16:05.379 --> 00:16:07.059 same kind of theoretical intensity he brings 00:16:07.059 --> 00:16:10.240 to an opera libretto or a complex poem. Exactly. 00:16:10.360 --> 00:16:12.059 And then there are the other key non -fiction 00:16:12.059 --> 00:16:14.799 books that solidify his role as this major interpreter 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:17.840 of modern icons. His monograph on Andy Warhol, 00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:20.320 for instance. And that seminal book, Jack... 00:16:21.889 --> 00:16:25.370 Yes. The Jackie book is brilliant because he 00:16:25.370 --> 00:16:27.710 doesn't treat Jackie Kennedy Onassis just as 00:16:27.710 --> 00:16:30.590 a person to be biographized. He treats her as 00:16:30.590 --> 00:16:33.769 a cultural text, a kind of screen onto which 00:16:33.769 --> 00:16:36.409 America projected all its complex desires and 00:16:36.409 --> 00:16:39.750 anxieties about things like style, money, tragedy, 00:16:39.909 --> 00:16:43.870 resilience, image itself. So combining that work 00:16:43.870 --> 00:16:46.370 on icons with his other critical books like Double 00:16:46.370 --> 00:16:49.350 Talk, The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration. 00:16:49.370 --> 00:16:51.710 Right. Which looks at the intense relationships 00:16:51.710 --> 00:16:54.259 between male writers. You just get this picture 00:16:54.259 --> 00:16:58.200 of staggering. intellectual output, but with 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:02.159 a real consistency in his approach to high -level 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:04.220 cultural theory. Now, while all that critical 00:17:04.220 --> 00:17:06.759 work kind of defines his public persona as this 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:10.200 intellectual powerhouse, his poetry offers a 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:12.299 different window. It really shows an evolution 00:17:12.299 --> 00:17:14.720 in his relationship with language itself. He 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:17.339 moves from this intense engagement with literary 00:17:17.339 --> 00:17:19.539 tradition all the way to some pretty radical 00:17:19.539 --> 00:17:22.039 experimentation later on. And what's fascinating, 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:24.319 connecting back to what we just discussed, is 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:26.960 that the same person writing those barmy theories 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:30.299 about harpo marks actually started his poetry 00:17:30.299 --> 00:17:33.809 career with incredible structural control. Totally. 00:17:33.890 --> 00:17:37.990 His very first book of poems, Ode to Anna Moffo 00:17:37.990 --> 00:17:39.910 and Other Poems, named after an opera singer, 00:17:40.049 --> 00:17:42.250 naturally. Of course. That was mostly written 00:17:42.250 --> 00:17:44.470 in things like syllabic verse and other really 00:17:44.470 --> 00:17:47.430 fixed traditional forms. It shows that mastery 00:17:47.430 --> 00:17:49.470 of craft we talked about from his Hopkins training. 00:17:49.750 --> 00:17:52.529 And David Baker, who reviewed that collection 00:17:52.529 --> 00:17:55.390 for Poetry Magazine, he picked up on this tension 00:17:55.390 --> 00:17:58.349 early on. What did he say? He noted that Kostenbaum 00:17:58.349 --> 00:18:00.990 was, quote, willing to exert the pressures of 00:18:00.990 --> 00:18:03.740 traditional formality. So he embraces the rules. 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.200 Right. Yet he is also likely to let the voice 00:18:06.200 --> 00:18:09.259 and experience of a poem grate against his own 00:18:09.259 --> 00:18:11.619 formal gestures. Ah, that's interesting. That 00:18:11.619 --> 00:18:13.480 friction, the personal voice kind of pushing 00:18:13.480 --> 00:18:15.980 against the constraints of the form. That sounds 00:18:15.980 --> 00:18:18.480 like the energy of his early work. Exactly. And 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:20.700 he proved he could go back to that intense rigor 00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:22.839 whenever he wanted to. His book -length poem, 00:18:23.059 --> 00:18:26.220 Model Homes. Oh, yeah. The Otava Rima one. The 00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:28.529 Otava Rima one. For anyone listening who isn't 00:18:28.529 --> 00:18:31.970 familiar, Ottavarina is this incredibly demanding 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:35.430 classical Italian verse form. Yeah. Eight line 00:18:35.430 --> 00:18:38.990 stanzas, usually iambic pentameter with a really 00:18:38.990 --> 00:18:43.309 specific rhyme scheme. A, B, B, B, A, B, C, C. 00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:46.430 Think epic poetry, Byron, that kind of thing. 00:18:46.589 --> 00:18:48.890 So to write an entire book in that structure. 00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:52.390 That takes serious technical chops and stamina. 00:18:52.549 --> 00:18:54.890 It's like the ultimate proof of his foundational 00:18:54.890 --> 00:18:56.829 seriousness, isn't it? It really is. It's like 00:18:56.829 --> 00:18:58.650 saying, look, I can do this perfectly traditional 00:18:58.650 --> 00:19:01.569 thing at the highest level, which, again, gives 00:19:01.569 --> 00:19:03.589 him more license to break the rules later. And 00:19:03.589 --> 00:19:05.950 break them he does. The real revolution in his 00:19:05.950 --> 00:19:08.430 poetry comes later with works where he fully 00:19:08.430 --> 00:19:10.789 embraces that riskier side, the play side of 00:19:10.789 --> 00:19:12.529 the play and thought idea. We're talking about 00:19:12.529 --> 00:19:14.549 books like The Pink Trance Notebooks and Camp 00:19:14.549 --> 00:19:17.049 Marmalade. Right. These are pure experiments 00:19:17.049 --> 00:19:19.880 in what he himself calls transfer. writing. Trans 00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:21.799 writing. What does that actually mean in practice? 00:19:22.019 --> 00:19:24.039 Well, it seems to be the poetic equivalent of 00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:26.119 that delirious scholarship we saw with Harpo 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:28.759 Marx. Coast and Bound describes it as a kind 00:19:28.759 --> 00:19:31.299 of automatic writing process. Like the surrealists? 00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:34.579 Sort of, yeah. Writing very fast. deliberately 00:19:34.579 --> 00:19:37.400 not revising, trying to bypass that internal 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:40.119 critic or editor we all have. The aim is just 00:19:40.119 --> 00:19:42.779 to let the language pour out. Unfiltered. Unfiltered, 00:19:42.819 --> 00:19:45.059 yeah. Unrestricted by the usual expectations 00:19:45.059 --> 00:19:48.619 of, like, clear themes or logical syntax or narrative 00:19:48.619 --> 00:19:50.920 coherence. The Paris Review had a good description 00:19:50.920 --> 00:19:54.819 saying it allows language to move freely. But 00:19:54.819 --> 00:19:57.240 mechanically... If he's writing without revision, 00:19:57.500 --> 00:19:59.400 what does that actually produce and why is that 00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:01.859 method important to his overall philosophy? Well, 00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:04.220 what it produces is essentially raw process. 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:07.480 The text becomes a document of thought, emotion, 00:20:07.799 --> 00:20:09.920 aesthetic association happening in real time, 00:20:10.099 --> 00:20:12.960 unedited. It often works through sound, through 00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:15.160 leaps of association rather than straightforward 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:17.980 logic. So the complete opposite of the painstaking 00:20:17.980 --> 00:20:21.619 precision needed for Otavarima. Exactly. It represents 00:20:21.619 --> 00:20:24.579 maybe the total obliteration of that gap between 00:20:24.579 --> 00:20:26.829 the spontaneous impulse of the mind and the finished 00:20:26.829 --> 00:20:30.630 polished artistic object it values the flow over 00:20:30.630 --> 00:20:32.670 the finish and the books themselves even look 00:20:32.670 --> 00:20:34.769 different right yeah They do. Publishers Weekly 00:20:34.769 --> 00:20:36.549 described the Pink Trance notebooks perfectly, 00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:39.210 saying, it looks and feels like the cut and paste 00:20:39.210 --> 00:20:41.529 fragments of a journal. So an embrace of the 00:20:41.529 --> 00:20:44.470 fragmentary, the collage, the immediate. Precisely. 00:20:44.470 --> 00:20:47.190 The aesthetic value is found in that sense of 00:20:47.190 --> 00:20:49.609 imperfection, maybe, and the speed of thought 00:20:49.609 --> 00:20:52.190 captured on the page. And you see this restlessness, 00:20:52.329 --> 00:20:54.369 this need to keep moving, and his shifts across 00:20:54.369 --> 00:20:56.769 narrative forms, too. He hasn't just stuck to 00:20:56.769 --> 00:20:59.349 poetry and criticism. No, not at all. He's published 00:20:59.349 --> 00:21:02.670 fiction as well. There's Moira Warfay in Egg's 00:21:02.670 --> 00:21:04.410 Moira. Mortis, which later got reprinted under 00:21:04.410 --> 00:21:07.069 the title Circus, and another novel called Hotel 00:21:07.069 --> 00:21:09.450 Theory. And then most recently, another shift 00:21:09.450 --> 00:21:12.890 again, moving towards even shorter, more stylized 00:21:12.890 --> 00:21:16.650 allegorical forms with his 2021 collection, The 00:21:16.650 --> 00:21:20.099 Cheerful Scapegoat. Right. It's like this constant 00:21:20.099 --> 00:21:22.740 quest for the right container for his ideas at 00:21:22.740 --> 00:21:24.660 any given moment. As soon as he seems to have 00:21:24.660 --> 00:21:27.099 mastered one genre or pushed it to its limit, 00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:30.099 he jumps into a new one. It's relentless. OK, 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:32.319 so now we really cross the line, don't we? We 00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:35.779 move completely beyond analyzing culture and 00:21:35.779 --> 00:21:38.470 aesthetics through writing. and into him actually 00:21:38.470 --> 00:21:41.910 creating visual art and performance pieces. This 00:21:41.910 --> 00:21:44.450 is where the theory and the philosophy get physical, 00:21:44.650 --> 00:21:47.289 get enacted. And this move into painting, it's 00:21:47.289 --> 00:21:49.569 actually relatively recent in his long career, 00:21:49.609 --> 00:21:51.849 isn't it? It started around 2005? That's right. 00:21:51.990 --> 00:21:54.799 And the origin story is just... Classic Kostenbaum. 00:21:54.900 --> 00:21:56.700 It wasn't like he just woke up one day and decided 00:21:56.700 --> 00:21:59.759 to paint. The critical thinking came first, literally. 00:22:00.119 --> 00:22:02.579 Oh, so? He apparently started painting right 00:22:02.579 --> 00:22:04.859 after he finished writing an essay for a museum 00:22:04.859 --> 00:22:07.900 show. The exhibition was called Contemporary 00:22:07.900 --> 00:22:11.180 Erotic Drawing, held at the Aldrich Museum. So 00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:13.039 writing about drawing made him want to draw? 00:22:13.220 --> 00:22:15.779 Or paint, yeah. It's as if the act of critically 00:22:15.779 --> 00:22:18.240 engaging with the subject unlocked the creative 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:21.079 impulse in him. It made the act of making visual 00:22:21.079 --> 00:22:23.700 art feel kind of necessary. unavoidable even. 00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:26.000 And right away, his style connected back to those 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:28.220 themes we've seen in his writing, pop culture, 00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.380 celebrity, the idea of reproduction or copies. 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:34.599 Definitely. Ella Kuhn, writing in Art News, pointed 00:22:34.599 --> 00:22:36.599 out that his early paintings were figurative. 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:39.140 They depicted things, people, and crucially, 00:22:39.200 --> 00:22:42.380 were explicitly influenced by Warhol. Warhol 00:22:42.380 --> 00:22:45.720 again. So he's adopting the visual language of 00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.500 one of the key cultural icons he'd already analyzed 00:22:48.500 --> 00:22:51.079 so deeply in his writing. Exactly. The critic 00:22:51.079 --> 00:22:53.640 becomes the practitioner using the master's tools. 00:22:53.900 --> 00:22:55.819 Let's talk about his technique for a minute because 00:22:55.819 --> 00:22:58.039 it sounds like it mirrors that immediacy we saw 00:22:58.039 --> 00:23:01.180 in the trance writing. He uses a specific monoprint 00:23:01.180 --> 00:23:03.579 technique. Yes, the monoprint is really key to 00:23:03.579 --> 00:23:05.680 understanding the look and feel of his paintings. 00:23:05.980 --> 00:23:09.579 A monoprint basically is a single unique print. 00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:12.859 You prepare a surface, ink it, maybe draw into 00:23:12.859 --> 00:23:15.259 it, and then take just one impression onto paper. 00:23:15.400 --> 00:23:17.180 You can't make an identical second one. Okay, 00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:19.599 so each one is unique. Right. And Kostenbaum 00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:22.319 used this technique often to trace images of 00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:24.519 male nudes figures he'd originally drawn from 00:23:24.519 --> 00:23:27.690 life onto a dark, usually black background. Why 00:23:27.690 --> 00:23:29.630 the monoprint, do you think? What does that process 00:23:29.630 --> 00:23:33.029 offer him? Well, it forces that unique immediacy, 00:23:33.049 --> 00:23:35.609 that singularity. It reflects the spontaneity, 00:23:35.609 --> 00:23:37.930 maybe, of the trance writing. The image feels 00:23:37.930 --> 00:23:40.829 raw, transferred quickly, and it's one of a kind. 00:23:40.990 --> 00:23:43.950 It prioritizes that moment of creation over slow, 00:23:44.130 --> 00:23:47.130 layered revision or perfection. And the subject 00:23:47.130 --> 00:23:50.529 matter, the male nude, captured in this raw, 00:23:50.769 --> 00:23:54.099 immediate way. It feeds directly back into all 00:23:54.099 --> 00:23:57.160 his critical work on queer identity, desire, 00:23:57.579 --> 00:24:01.079 the body as a site of meaning or spectacle. All 00:24:01.079 --> 00:24:03.660 the stuff he explored way back in the queen's 00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:06.299 throat, just in a different medium now. And we 00:24:06.299 --> 00:24:08.660 should stress this isn't just a professor's weekend 00:24:08.660 --> 00:24:11.299 hobby. Yeah. He's exhibited this work quite seriously. 00:24:11.500 --> 00:24:14.019 Oh, absolutely. He's had solo shows at really 00:24:14.019 --> 00:24:16.759 significant contemporary art venues, places like 00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:18.660 White Columns in New York, the Art Museum at 00:24:18.660 --> 00:24:20.880 the University of Kentucky, 356 Mission in L 00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:23.680 .A. The serious art world takes this work seriously. 00:24:23.980 --> 00:24:27.220 It's recognized as a valid parallel artistic 00:24:27.220 --> 00:24:29.920 practice. And the performance side doesn't stop 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:32.460 with visual art. He also stepped into music and 00:24:32.460 --> 00:24:34.660 performance art itself. He released a record. 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:36.880 Yeah, his first piano and vocal record called 00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:39.859 Lounge Act. It came out in 2017 on Ugly Duckling 00:24:39.859 --> 00:24:42.039 Press Records, which is primarily a poetry quest, 00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:45.039 interestingly enough. Lounge Act. I mean, that 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:48.119 title alone is perfect Kostenbaum, isn't it? 00:24:48.180 --> 00:24:52.000 It suggests that blend of high art, serious vocal 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:55.279 performance, piano composition, the kind of camp, 00:24:55.339 --> 00:24:58.380 maybe slightly faded, aesthetic, the lounge singer. 00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:00.960 It's spot on. And this connects directly back 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:03.599 to his lifelong critical fascination with opera, 00:25:03.779 --> 00:25:07.180 classical music and the whole theatricality of 00:25:07.180 --> 00:25:09.119 identity and performance. And he performs this 00:25:09.119 --> 00:25:11.059 material live. He does. He's performed these 00:25:11.059 --> 00:25:13.140 kind of combined pieces featuring his music, 00:25:13.259 --> 00:25:15.660 maybe visual projections of his art, readings 00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:17.859 from his texts at major cutting edge cultural 00:25:17.859 --> 00:25:20.279 institutions, places like the Kitchen in New 00:25:20.279 --> 00:25:23.660 York, Red Cat in L .A., even the Center Pompidou 00:25:23.660 --> 00:25:26.319 in Paris and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 00:25:26.700 --> 00:25:29.089 Wow. Those are major. contemporary art veneers. 00:25:29.170 --> 00:25:30.970 They really are. They validate his performance 00:25:30.970 --> 00:25:33.329 work as sophisticated, high -level contemporary 00:25:33.329 --> 00:25:36.230 art, not just a literary reading with some music 00:25:36.230 --> 00:25:38.509 tacked on. And then, to bring it all full circle, 00:25:38.670 --> 00:25:41.369 he actually worked as a librettist for an opera. 00:25:41.589 --> 00:25:45.029 Yes. The opera Jackie O. He wrote the words The 00:25:45.029 --> 00:25:47.890 Libretto. So he took one of those cultural icons 00:25:47.890 --> 00:25:50.049 he'd spent so much time critically interpreting 00:25:50.049 --> 00:25:53.269 and provided the text for her story to be told 00:25:53.269 --> 00:25:56.109 in that ultimate high -drama, high -art form 00:25:56.109 --> 00:25:59.519 he loves. opera it's amazing how it all connects 00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:01.779 if you try to link up all these different disciplines 00:26:01.779 --> 00:26:04.279 he works in yeah that's the real brilliance isn't 00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:07.039 it how cohesive the underlying vision feels despite 00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:10.079 the incredibly disparate mediums his critical 00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:13.119 thinking about aesthetics about celebrity about 00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:17.259 icons like warhol and jackie o It directly fuels 00:26:17.259 --> 00:26:19.480 the subjects and even the styles of his painting 00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:21.660 and his performances. The critic and the artist 00:26:21.660 --> 00:26:23.920 aren't separate entities. They're locked in this 00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:26.220 constant, really productive conversation within 00:26:26.220 --> 00:26:29.059 the same person. He kind of proves through his 00:26:29.059 --> 00:26:31.279 own career that maybe the deepest way to understand 00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:34.079 something, whether it's opera or Harpel Marx's 00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:37.200 comedy or the painted nude body, is to actually 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:39.240 get your hands dirty and participate in making 00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:41.539 it yourself. So to really get a handle on the 00:26:41.539 --> 00:26:43.519 sheer scale of what he's done and the sustained 00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:45.559 quality of it, maybe we should quickly recap. 00:26:45.609 --> 00:26:47.869 the scope of his recognition and just the volume 00:26:47.869 --> 00:26:50.309 of work we're talking about. He shows this consistent 00:26:50.309 --> 00:26:53.329 influence over decades, right? Absolutely. The 00:26:53.329 --> 00:26:56.170 awards alone tell a story of real staying power. 00:26:56.809 --> 00:26:58.990 You've got the Guggenheim Fellowship, really 00:26:58.990 --> 00:27:02.589 prestigious, just in 2023. That American Academy 00:27:02.589 --> 00:27:04.569 of Arts and Letters Award in Literature in 2020 00:27:04.569 --> 00:27:07.109 we mentioned earlier. Go back further, the Whiting 00:27:07.109 --> 00:27:10.769 Award in 94. And even earlier, the Discovery 00:27:10.769 --> 00:27:13.390 of the Nation Poetry Award way back in 1989. 00:27:13.650 --> 00:27:16.029 This isn't someone who just had one big moment. 00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:18.529 It shows his challenging work has become kind 00:27:18.529 --> 00:27:20.609 of fundamental to the conversation in contemporary 00:27:20.609 --> 00:27:23.289 arts and letters. Okay. So for you listening, 00:27:23.390 --> 00:27:25.130 if you're now intrigued and want to actually 00:27:25.130 --> 00:27:27.490 dive into reading Coast and Balm, let's try to 00:27:27.490 --> 00:27:29.650 give a quick structured overview of the key works 00:27:29.650 --> 00:27:32.069 we've touched on, maybe grouping them by the 00:27:32.069 --> 00:27:34.970 genres he loves to blur. Good idea. So under 00:27:34.970 --> 00:27:37.720 poetry, you'd want to look at the contrast. with 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:40.619 that early, rigorous, formal mastery you see 00:27:40.619 --> 00:27:43.099 in books like Ode to Animalfo or that incredible 00:27:43.099 --> 00:27:45.859 feat Model Homes, the one written entirely in 00:27:45.859 --> 00:27:47.440 a Tava Remer. It's a traditional foundation. 00:27:47.759 --> 00:27:50.940 Exactly. And then contrast that immediately with 00:27:50.940 --> 00:27:53.140 the radical freedom and experimentation of his 00:27:53.140 --> 00:27:55.440 trance writing books, like the Pink Trance notebooks 00:27:55.440 --> 00:27:58.220 or Camp Marmalade. Seeing those side by side 00:27:58.220 --> 00:28:00.880 gives you the map of his poetic journey. Okay. 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.049 Then criticism. This is where you find those 00:28:04.049 --> 00:28:06.410 foundational texts that made his name as a public 00:28:06.410 --> 00:28:09.410 intellectual. Right. The absolute must -reads 00:28:09.410 --> 00:28:11.529 are probably the ones tackling those big icons 00:28:11.529 --> 00:28:15.720 and big emotions. The Queen's Throat, his defining 00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:19.339 book on opera and desire. Humiliation, that brilliant 00:28:19.339 --> 00:28:21.940 analysis of a universal difficult feeling. And 00:28:21.940 --> 00:28:24.559 the Harpo Marx book. And yes, the controversial 00:28:24.559 --> 00:28:27.519 but totally essential theoretical firework that 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:29.500 is the anatomy of Harpo Marx. You have to read 00:28:29.500 --> 00:28:32.200 it, even if it makes your head spin. And alongside 00:28:32.200 --> 00:28:34.579 those, the key texts on aesthetics and celebrity. 00:28:35.039 --> 00:28:37.579 Jackie under my skin and maybe his Andy Warhol 00:28:37.579 --> 00:28:40.640 monograph. Oh, and notes on glaze. 18 Photographic 00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:42.799 Investigations is a fascinating later work looking 00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:44.789 at surfaces. and aesthetics. And finally, we 00:28:44.789 --> 00:28:47.210 have the works that kind of defy easy categorization. 00:28:47.430 --> 00:28:50.609 Exactly. His specific forays into fiction with 00:28:50.609 --> 00:28:53.349 novels like Hotel Theory or Circus, his more 00:28:53.349 --> 00:28:56.130 recent turn towards Fables and the Cheerful Scapegoat, 00:28:56.130 --> 00:28:58.630 and of course his contribution to the operatic 00:28:58.630 --> 00:29:01.670 stage as the librettist for Jackie O. It's just 00:29:01.670 --> 00:29:03.930 an immense body of work when you lay it all out 00:29:03.930 --> 00:29:06.640 like that. Spanning visual art. performance, 00:29:06.839 --> 00:29:10.940 criticism, poetry, fiction, fable. It's the collective 00:29:10.940 --> 00:29:14.579 evidence of his lifelong project of genre obliteration. 00:29:14.619 --> 00:29:17.700 It really is. Hashtag out outro. So after all 00:29:17.700 --> 00:29:20.279 that, what does this incredible sprawling output 00:29:20.279 --> 00:29:23.720 really mean for us? How do we synthesize Kostenbaum's 00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:26.420 legacy, his contribution? Well, I think you could 00:29:26.420 --> 00:29:28.720 say he's maybe the preeminent example of a scholar 00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:31.079 who uses the most rigorous tools of academic 00:29:31.079 --> 00:29:34.720 criticism, drawing a lot from queer theory, psychoanalysis, 00:29:34.839 --> 00:29:37.579 literary theory, but uses them to exploit these 00:29:37.579 --> 00:29:40.140 incredibly subjective, sometimes messy aspects 00:29:40.140 --> 00:29:42.619 of popular culture, celebrity and classical art. 00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:45.759 He manages to treat huge, painful emotions like 00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:47.660 humiliation or seemingly lightweight subjects 00:29:47.660 --> 00:29:50.180 like a silent comedian with this amazing combination 00:29:50.180 --> 00:29:52.640 of spectacular wit and really profound, sometimes 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:55.859 unsettling depth. He basically changes the rules 00:29:55.859 --> 00:29:58.420 for what counts as serious critical thinking, 00:29:58.579 --> 00:30:00.819 doesn't he? He fundamentally does. His whole 00:30:00.819 --> 00:30:03.380 career is like this powerful argument that the 00:30:03.380 --> 00:30:06.279 highest forms of intellectual thought often demand 00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:09.380 that you consciously embrace play, that you allow 00:30:09.380 --> 00:30:12.660 for those risky joys, that you sanction delirious 00:30:12.660 --> 00:30:14.740 scholarship. So the lesson for anyone engaged 00:30:14.740 --> 00:30:17.039 in critical thinking is? The lesson seems to 00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:20.730 be, don't be afraid to sound barmy. Don't be 00:30:20.730 --> 00:30:23.369 afraid of risking dismissal if that risk, that 00:30:23.369 --> 00:30:26.490 provocation, might lead you to a genuinely fresh, 00:30:26.730 --> 00:30:30.390 maybe even radical, insight or truth. It immediately 00:30:30.390 --> 00:30:32.710 makes you think about how relevant that method 00:30:32.710 --> 00:30:34.809 is right now. Yeah. I mean, if Kostenbaum used 00:30:34.809 --> 00:30:37.509 figures from the past, like Jackie O or Harpo 00:30:37.509 --> 00:30:40.789 Marx, as these really complex mirrors for the 00:30:40.789 --> 00:30:43.849 desires and anxieties of their time. Yeah. How 00:30:43.849 --> 00:30:45.930 should we be applying that same kind of lens 00:30:45.930 --> 00:30:48.750 to our own contemporary moment, our own culture? 00:30:48.869 --> 00:30:50.329 That's a great question. And maybe that's the 00:30:50.329 --> 00:30:52.230 provocative thought to leave you, the listener, 00:30:52.250 --> 00:30:54.390 with. If the critical mission is partly about 00:30:54.390 --> 00:30:56.769 finding the serious hiding within the seemingly 00:30:56.769 --> 00:30:59.529 frivolous... Finding the Marxist path away from 00:30:59.529 --> 00:31:01.690 family and state, hidden inside the laughter. 00:31:02.190 --> 00:31:05.609 Exactly. Then what current contemporary figure, 00:31:05.730 --> 00:31:08.890 maybe a pop star, a reality TV personality, an 00:31:08.890 --> 00:31:12.029 influencer, some piece of viral media that we 00:31:12.029 --> 00:31:14.710 currently dismiss as just cultural fluff, as 00:31:14.710 --> 00:31:18.309 meaningless. What seemingly shallow thing today 00:31:18.309 --> 00:31:21.329 would actually provide the best subject for a 00:31:21.329 --> 00:31:24.849 really deep, serious, maybe even delirious Kostenbaum 00:31:24.849 --> 00:31:28.089 style critical investigation whose anatomy, which 00:31:28.089 --> 00:31:30.529 cultural phenomenon's anatomy, is just waiting 00:31:30.529 --> 00:31:32.299 to be written by the next. generation of critics 00:31:32.299 --> 00:31:34.740 willing to take that risk. A fantastic challenge 00:31:34.740 --> 00:31:37.339 for the critical, curious minds out there. Thank 00:31:37.339 --> 00:31:39.680 you so much for guiding us through the wonderfully 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:42.720 complex, genre -destroying, fascinating world 00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:45.440 of Wayne Kostenbaum. It was my pleasure. A wild 00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:47.579 ride. It certainly was. And thank you all for 00:31:47.579 --> 00:31:49.380 listening. We'll see you on the next Deep Dive.