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Pop Culture
May 24, 2022, 06:28AM

And That’s Capitalist, Too

A 2017 The Believer interview with author Michael Pollan vs. a 2021 The Book Slut interview with author Liz Stratman.

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Michael Pollan: It does, it all comes together, I mean, I think that’s the point.

Liz Stratman: It never gets old. It is divine and I crave it all the time.

Pollan: And it’s invisible to us. It’s the same phenomenon.

Stratman: Oh, man. You will delete most of your early drafts.

Pollan: In part, I think that’s right. And that’s capitalist, too.

•••

Stratman: I miss convincing someone to give something new a try.

Pollan: Right, right. It’s not the only cause of death.

Stratman: Especially in Brooklyn, and especially in Bay Ridge. It takes a long time.

Pollan: Yes, and so why couldn’t you devise machines that could pick, say, the three sisters—corn, beans and squash—a complex polyculture, robotically?

Stratman: Gosh, this is such a great question.

•••

Pollan: Abolition, women’s suffrage, environmentalism, all of them were tagged with the same charge, and all succeeded in bringing substantial positive change.

Stratman: I think this advice is key to having solidarity with other writers and with your own work.

Pollan: Sure. Nice point. Access definitely is an issue.

Stratman: I’m fascinated by other people and constantly eavesdropping, and without that and with no attention span for reading, I was at a loss for where to draw inspiration.

Pollan: But simply by showing that something is possible, that’s very powerful.

Discussion

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