Chants, Songs, Lines

Renata Adler: Here you are working on something for days and days and days and then it’s gone. Forever.

Michael Burkett: No, it totally sucks. I was so bummed.

Adler: Awful. Way, way, way worse.

Burkett: I don't care, whatever.

Adler: That can’t be true.

•••

Burkett: But I think my favorite place to play is San Francisco.

Adler: Well, it used to be one way a young writer made it in New York.

Burkett: And they still laugh, because they're just laughing to show people that they're laughing.

Adler: They really loved it. I laughed.

Burkett: That's what everyone says.

•••

Adler: I used to wonder how many things we all knew in common, everyone, everywhere.

Burkett: It makes you like a circus act, and you're performing for these people.

Adler: What power, accusation, range of meaning, there is in that line. Like Peanuts. Early Peanuts. Garry Trudeau. Early Doonesbury.

Burkett: Oh yeah. And every month I listen to the whole tape, and the songs come together.

Adler: You do. Not multiplication tables, but chants, songs, lines.