Evan Knapp Doesn't Wanna Talk About Himself
(but he'd really like it if I did.)
Christian De Matteo
as Interviewed by Evan Knapp
as Compiled by Christian De Matteo
(Originally written to accompany Evan’s appearance on TalkAboutItFriday Podcast, found here.)
[Evan Knapp, author of Where There is Movement and memoirist (that part's important for this next part), didn't feel like writing about himself (see?). I offered to conduct an interview. "What if," said Evan, "I interview you... about me." Brilliant and just his kind of nutty. What follows here is a drastic distillation of what transpired, drops of insanity altered and reorganized muchly from an ungainly and digressive deluge we enjoyed way too much. If you enjoy rudderless banter, you are welcome to listen to the entire, stutter and chortle filled delight right at the bottom of this article. Here, however, I do believe you’ll find Evan Knapp, author and damn fine human being just fine.]
EK: First question: how much does [my book] suck?
CDM: Uhhm, this is supposed to be a short interview, right?
EK: Ha! What’s your elevator pitch for Where There is Movement?
CDM: Okay – not on the spot at all here – it’s the story of a young man who runs away from home to follow his dreams of becoming a dancer through the strangest corners of Weird 80s Portland.
EK: That was… awesome. Okay, but, how do you feel about it?
CDM: I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love you. I’ve been honored to be part of this and honored to be getting interviewed by you so you don’t have to do a bio.
EK: You’re a total word-nerd, an English professor, my English professor. Actually, I thought I was going to get kicked out of school with the first paper I wrote for you because it had so many sexual innuendos in it. Do you remember that?
CDM: I do. I had no idea, lo these many years later, we would still be working together and certainly no idea you would be the almost bullying reason I started Tellworthy Creative Writing Services. I’m looking at my files right now and my first essay from you is from July 25th, 2011.
EK: Holy fuck, 9 years ago?
CDM: [Reading] “It has been part of the human condition for millennia. Odeipus…” misspelled by the way, “and Jocasta, Zeus and Harrah, Makenzie Phillips and her Dad, with daggers we stare at incest.”
EK: Makenzie Phillips? I totally put Makenzie Phillips in a paper for school?
CDM: And her DAD! By the way, the title of this is “Oedipus Oh Oedipus Oh Have You Judged Oedipus, Oedipus The Inbreeding Monarch.” I have so many files of your writing. I have your next 6 books on my computer.
EK: DAH! Mmmhmm, hah hah, you’re funny.
CDM: Dude, I really do! If you were a rock star and I was the leeching spouse who broke up the band and you dropped dead, I would be able to make money off you for a really long time.
EK: Nice! You said to me once my writing comes out the way it does because of my love of the rules and my love of breaking the rules. Do you remember that?
CDM: Very clearly. It’s the perfect explanation of you. An artist is a student, an explorer, and a vandal. And that’s what you are. You’re always looking to learn something, understand it and then just walk all over it, celebrating it by abusing it. You see the beauty of why things work the way they work and it’s almost like you want to shout their versatility to the sky by using them differently. “Yeah, I know you don’t think the arm should bend this far but watch what happens when it does!” I love it.
[I then tell a story Evan writing the end of Where There Is Movement, inspiring and worth a listen, but for the sake of “brevity,” I’ll finish here with just the crux.]
CDM: … [The ending is] abrupt and genius in all the right ways but it doesn’t feel like you’re missing anything. Because this is again Evan, the student, the explorer, the vandal. He figured out how a book ending is supposed to work and then turned it on its head. It’s more the sledgehammer to the chest than the big event even was – but the sledgehammer somehow knocks you upward, into the sky. It’s magnificent. And that’s Evan, and that’s how Evan writes and finally the answer to what do I think of this book: I frikin’ love it. I’m you’re professor who became your friend who is a complete and total fan.
EK: A FAN! WOO!
CDM: And here I am looking at all this stuff you have yet to put out.
EK: Okay, well I’ve got some work to do, but one thing at a time, bud, right? There’s a pandemic, I think.
CDM: Which means writin’ time.
EK: Is that what it means?
CDM: YES. Well, not for me. For me it means three screaming children tearing the house apart. But for you it’s writin’ time![And when he does, folks, whoa-boy. Keep an eye on Evan Knapp.]