Sherman Alexie's world: Two TV interviews

We'll continue to get into Sherman Alexie's world with two television interviews. We'll also look at a couple of his poems, "Poverty of Mirrors" and "What the Orphan Inherits."

In the first TV gig, Alexie talks about stereotypes of Native Americans on Cobert Nation Oct. 28, 2008. He says positive stereotypes can be just as damaging as negative stereotypes ... wonders why New Agers take wolves and eagles and other predators as spirit animals ("my spirit animal is the squirrel"), and trades wisecracks with Steven Cobert (5:18). As usual on Cobert's show, there's more than wisecracking going on. When you've finished laughing, you realize a lot of what he says is true.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sherman Alexie
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On Cobert's show, Alexie explained why American Indians were going to vote for Obama. In January, Timothy Egan of The New York Times visited Indian Country in Arizona and blogged on their joy at Obama's inauguration when, "for once — if only for a January moment — they will feel like they belong."

Next we'll watch an in-depth interview with Enrique Cerna of KCTS-TV Seattle that aired July 11, 2008, on the Conversations at KCTS 9 show. In it he talks about his life, his writing, alcoholism ... and how he broke that cycle in his family. (26:44) One of Alexie's main points, especially now he's writing for younger readers, is what he told his interviewer in Seattle: "What you realize when you talk to young people is that everyone feels like an outsider ... when you're 16, everybody feels like a freak." (I first posted the link to this interview for Monday's class. We didn't get to it, so I'm copying it here for today's class.)



Later. In a talk at Rutgers University-Newark in 2001, Alexie takes on sports mascots, commodification, stereotypes for 53 minutes