People voted into city Council Nobody quit. Theyre all still friends. And that is something that i think is very much important now to find an alternative to improve democracy. Because violence is an alternative. And i think there is a universal need that lets take this negativity to turn into something positive. It could be called the pool party. [laughter] for the clown party or what about the happy party . Host the party has continued the people that remain in office from that same election but now they call it a Bright Future . Yes. But that is no more and those who continued with politics they merged into one Political Party that is called Bright Future and is now the second or Third LargestPolitical Party in iceland. Because technically it is not a Political Party because because i do something to color something a ended is the combination of anarchism. But it is not democratic. [laughter] what do you mean . Were only a group of 20 people. Hint people ask me how can i join . I say it is not possible. You cannot do it that you could help a poor person or the old lady across the street. Because that is the spirit. Host you also advocates direct digital democracy. What is that . We implemented of software called best of reykjavik in reapplied a budget to its where the citizens can come up with ideas. And we are bound to the process with those it is that get the most votes through the system. So if Bay City Council member comes up with the idea it is processed from the exact same way. And that party is in my mind like it intervention into a dysfunctional circumstance. Like an intervention a dysfunction of family from outside and stays with the family for a period of time to help the family out to get them to talk together and when it is over that person does not become part of the family even though Everybody Loves him or her in bet like that person to say to become part of the family that is not how would is. This person has to leave. [laughter] and they see that part ds the intervention. So if we were to continue to do a second term it would be something different. My job was done. I did what i felt was my duty to do. Host would you do it again . Guest i dont know. I am not sure. I dont know. Host last question before we open to the audience. How does comedy fits into all this seems to be the core of your being that led you to acting and other things and even the politics comedy for me is say magnificent aspect of the human intelligence. And in my opinion humor is what comes closest to free will. [laughter] so i think we should try to use its twohour if advantage as much as possible in and at least in my country humor has been culturally look down on as a lack of intelligence and the more you smile but mia experience i have always felt my humor and optimism has helped. It has helped me to overcome obstacles and has saved me many times to see the funny side of it. And it has been a self healing process. Lake the cities that you mentioned that became enormously popular in nicely and then i am dealing with my father. And you would not recognize him. [laughter] a and it was on the bbc now online. If you just said i like this show what it a completely different person. [laughter] it does not even look like you i would not recognize the physical resemblance. Guest it is like being bad guy. I was him more or less three year four years. Host was your dad still around . Did you recognize it . Yes. [laughter] he does it she did not talk about it but he said we had scenes from my family from my family in this series. And it was more than just him. So it was not brutally just him. He became many other characters and sometimes i would shave my head from here to here. It looked like one i could take off the costume. Then i realized when i was brushing my teeth sometimes as a part of history. And i would snap into the character with the family and sometimes my wife would snap that me snap out of it. [laughter] because i would just turn into him like he would just takeover. Host an amazing performance. You should watch a. Do you feel your end with the as an actor understanding helps with politics to negotiate what you needed to do as a politician to get things done . That has helped me a lot to play different characters to emphasize it empathize with them. And even if i had a troublesome relationship with my father i would empathize with him because he had a very hard life. And so and i would say meinhold experience as a comedian helped me enormously as a politician to go up on a stage that i dont know how it will react to me. And that is the same with politics. And have you say in english to reach for the clouds . You could sense it and see it in peoples eyes and you read in the clouds successfully as a politician. And i realized for what was going on. Were you surprised by the interest of the interest that reykjavik if there is the possibility of an american and gnarr . Guest i was surprised how well the book has been received a and how inspirational man is my story. There is of very good chance of up party in the u. S. Probably not on a rational level and it would not surprise me in this city for this is like the jury to. I think that could have a party. And i see signs i have been in contact with people in germany those who are interested to set up a party so we tend to think big the the opportunity to think small and i like to see our party as the first of mont the dinosaurs. Aho maybe not from the dinosaurs but i feel a wave. Were is a true sense the people feeling tired. That want politics to change. People want to receive more empathy and maybe more cooperation because politics always cooperated. That means we dont get what we need. So i am very optimistic and i think maybe i could write another book, emmanuel with an explanation. Last question. Hello. To the dinosaurs chasing gin any way with the way they regard you or they watch you implement your policies . Im sorry. The dinosaur politician. Did they start to watch the wires . [laughter] what did they learn from you . Yes. Is in many ways. And with the social democrats he has a speech in parliament he said i had changed politics in iceland forever. That it will never change back. That will never be allowed to go back. I dont know if that is true. But definitely we have proven that it is possible. Even if we dont agree on everything, we can still communicate in a nonviolent way without oppression to each other. And i think what people say say, as politicians are communicating in a different way. If it is going to last, i dont know. If it is too soon to say. One. Host i will take the last question. There is a question coming back from politics and whether running for mayor or president. Will that happen . There have been many people interested in it. And they need to make up my mind. I am still recovering. [laughter] and i have not come the distance that i need. I am a very responsible person. I tried to be a responsible person. Host you have proven that. Guest and if i feel strongly that it was my responsibility this is your responsibility something that you have to do, i would do it but if i dont sense that i will not do it just to do it only if i feel that responsibility. Because i have been carrying so much responsibility i have been avoiding responsibility for the past one and a half months. I have no responsibility. Empty your mind. [laughter] that is what i am trying to do. To see where i float. Host i will keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, thank you everyone for coming out i want to thank jon gnarr for the book and his career. [applause] [inaudible conversations] had to acquire a book . There are a million ways to do it. One is not often talked about but you come up with an idea and you try to find the perfect writer or the person whos passion matches your ears. That is one way you can make a book have been. Another way is to make sure to talk to agents as much as possible to see what they are enthusiastic about this new wave your hand and hope they will send you a good proposal. Sometimes you cultivate authors that you adore and plant ideas with them and hope over time they come up with a project that they want to spend five or 10 years with to make the great books out of it. Host have you ever read of a newspaper or Magazine Article to think that could be a book . Guest yes. I read an article 10 years ago about shortly in the early 20th century more households in america would be supported by whitman women. That was a giant change. And it made me want to explore the implications for men and women and to marriages and the loving and court shipping and i got a great book air out of it is called the richer sex written by a Washington Post reporter and now at the new America Foundation in washington and it landed on the cover of Time Magazine and generated a huge conversation about how we all need to adjust our lives to the economic new reality if it is good for men and women. It makes couples stronger to live up to their potential. Host one pair of authors that you worked with was nancy and michael of book that q and a program covered and also booktv so what was that process to work on the president s club . Guest i wish i could say i came up with that idea it was brilliant but they had been working on that for quite some time. The dia came to them after they had written a great book on billy graham and they realized the degree to which the president s talked to the expresident s and how much that club shapes the presidency itself and that is what gave them the idea to explore the president s club been a thorough way. A very modern idea because we had to get to the 20th century. And practical reasons for this to be possible but what we found who was presidencys remains stronger sometimes a challenge by people inside the club in what was interesting was you had over one dozen characters who had relationships with each other going to the path of the future. So the big challenge to edit the book was how to structure. If you look at how the book is built, an introduction to keep partnerships all along the way because it helps to keep track of who the characters are and it helps them to move along chronologically without or while honoring history and the relationships as they happened. Host so they write the president s club in and what was your role . What part did you play . Guest essentially to help structure the book to give it architecture to make it so it accessible to the reader to ec to a absorb they forget their multiple characters on stage at once and not feel overwhelmed. My role was to cut i am a big believer if you are bored as an editor there is a good chance your readers will be. My role was to be sure the inside knowledge they had was made completely transparent to the reader so they knew where things came from. But is essentially when you have officers as talented as nancy and michael you get up in the morning and get to work. Host what is your editing process . What do you do when you first get the manuscript . Guest it comes in sections. The first thing you do is leave the office you cannot do serious editing in an office you have to lock yourself somewhere else and completely immerse yourself in the book. There would be times i would leave the book to go and get dinner and still be living in the middle of the Nixon Administration and would want to get back. You want the ability to sink into the story as much as possible to see its beauty and occasionally make it more beautiful. Host do you take a red pen or a pencil . Guest i take a pencil it comes from my days at the editor at the newspaper to move backandforth and get back to them they feel they can look at the notes and absorb them as they would on their own terms. Host another author you have worked with is karl rove. Did he choose you . How did that relationship, out . Guest i had to audition i got a call from my publisher and it was the first book i was asked to edit i was there journalist and he had read up on me and we had politics in common covering him as an editor for many decades. And basically my argument is this is my first job i can not screwed up. It worked. Host is a different working with a personality rather than like nancy or michael who are not as wellknown . Guest every writer have to put themselves on the page so it is a process that makes them feel vulnerable. And the job of the editor is essentially to protect them but also make them feel comfortable with what they say. One of the first conversations with carl was you cannot start the book at age 30 you have to start with the pain of your childhood including your mothers suicide, your father of the being the home, he was not your father, and meeting your real father, and is difficult as they are to talk about that it needs to include in it if it is a biography and later he said he was stopped by readers over the childhood stuff because they had experiences like his. But then that seems to be more accessible to people. Host because of your background as a journalist to work on a lot of nonfiction political books . Guest yes. Only nonfiction. Some of the books are not so much political but of brookline afghanistan, veterans, the industry that is the oligarchy and those that involve journalist spending many, many years of their lives digging into some of the issues that we face to make them readable that someone wants to pay hard cover 25 and spend a lot of time. Beth macy and john bassett iii agreed to stay for questions and to sign books after the talk. Note cards have been placed. Every seat, at least the first 200 were placed before we filled in the rest of the room. We will collect questions in baskets just before the q and a starts. At this point i would like to welcome john bassett iii. A [applause] we are looking forward to hearing from you tonight. I would particularly like to welcome many folks who are here from bassett. Thank you for sharing the spotlight in this as well. I could tell you about all the amazing awards beth macy has won for herb writing. Hello, lehman fellow. But the real mark of her life as a journalist stands in a simple question. How many of you remember a specific beth macy story . By a show of hands how many of you remember young selena who made it to harvard with a whole community of Gainsborough Library patriots cheering her on . [applause] best Award Winning story about the somalis band to refugees that were coming to live in our community, where the children were going somewhere that 12 languages were spoken. Her series about teen mothers. Families are navigating, caregiving their elderly loved ones or may be what comes to mind is what you printed out. Now covered in grease stains, and to make the pap smear. This is in 2005. You all remember s o bs, we have a lot of i b be interviewed by beth macy. We were lucky because we knew our story was brought up in good hands. Since 1989, she met her beloved husband tom clanton and now has her two children, she worked for the Roanoke Times telling stories about us. And how much we knew each other. You know journalists are supposed to be objective. Lets credit fellow journalist mary bishop who i think is here tonight. [applause] credit her with telling her it is okay to tell her about the people you are innovating indicate to care about her stories. This is a religious book but it is rife with stories that resonate in this church setting. Stories about real human beings and they their all too human frailties. When they did or didnt treat each other with grace and humility. This book is about who is related to whom and big industry in 1930. Most of all, this book is about what it means to live in communities. Please join me in welcoming beth macy. [applause] i am already cheering up. Not good for you. I am going to read three passages, a little from the beginning and one from the end and the little from the middle which is weird but it is a good way to introduce you and i will start with chapter one which is the tipoff. There is a prologue which precedes it and it is about this watershed moment in 2002 when john and his son why went to china to find who was making this chiefyatt went to china to find who was making this chief chess of the wars. It would then become a Worlds Largest antidumping petition. That comes before this part and this is why i am telling you how i found the story. It sort of is laying out all the threads of the book. I was really driven initially by the question of what happened to all those people in henry county who lost their jobs. Half of the workforce was displaced. Almost 20,000 people and where did they go . What happened to use them. The second question was was there another way it could have been done . A friend of mine who helped me a lot with the book, she lives in washington d. C. It is wonderful. You found this amazing story that goes all the way to china and back and the guy is still alive. [applause] like living history. I am going to read. Once in a reporters career when is very lucky. A person like john bassett iii comes along. This is inspirational. He is a sawdust covered good old boy from rural virginia. A larger than life rule breaker who for more than a decade still almost singlehandedly against the outflow of furniture jobs from america, quote, he is an asshole. I hope that is okay to say in church. [laughter] more than one of his competitors said that. When they heard of his writing a book about globalization using him as the main character of the course of researching this book, over the course of hearing his many lectures and listening to him even made my question is like telling me the same stories over and over, there were times when i agree. I first heard about in the Rocky Mountain, va. Half an hour from my home in roanoke when eating breakfast with my friend and neighbor Joel Shepherd 200 jr. Furniture market, a Rocky MountainRetail Establishment that began for arriving at the same time the import boom hit. As i type i am sitting in a recliner my husband and i still fight over because it is the most comfortable seats in our house. I remembered joel showing it to me, despite what i might have heard, a swarm of High School Wrestler is could in one another on this chair and it would not fall apart. With a Friendly Neighbor discount i got 160. I invited joel to breakfast to pick his brain. I was working on the impact of globalization on southwest Virginia Company towns some articles in