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Pop Culture
Mar 01, 2024, 06:27AM

Oh, Yeah, Sold Out

A 2023 Downbeat Magazine interview with musician/composer Wayne Shorter vs. a 1994 Hogan’s Alley interview with cartoonist Lynn Johnston. 

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Lynn Johnston: When you’re very young, you often find yourself completely devoted to something, whether it’s Elvis Presley or a father figure or whatever.

Wayne Shorter: Yes, but does the water take the shape that the fish makes, or does the fish make the shape that the water takes?

Johnston: [laughter] I had about six to eight months.

Shorter: The footsteps disappeared, and I went and got my taxi.

Johnston: It’s like Ann Landers telling people to watch their babies around toilets, because they can drown.

•••

Shorter: That night we went to a restaurant and all these little soldiers, walking around with machine guns, they knew who we were, but knew we were Americans.

Johnston: They wanted to take me out to lunch, but I went back to the hotel andswear to Godgot physically ill.

Shorter: So they seem to think it’s a doorway into something. [gruff-voiced Miles impression] No, this is another hallway, unvisited.

Johnston: Then they would look around and think, “Well, it’s got a leaky faucet, a mother who yells at you, crumbs on the floor,” and the magic was gone.

Shorter: Oh, yeah, sold out.

•••

Johnston: I think you bring unhappiness on yourself, because if you don’t like yourself very much, you allow yourself to be influenced by people who reinforce that.

Shorter: Optimistic chaos is a term Frank Gehry came up with.

Johnston: He never leaves the property, but he does have free roam of the bush, and who knows?

Shorter: He’d been standing against the wall unnoticed.

Johnston: That’s something new people aren’t prepared for.

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