Live from n.p.r. News in Washington Stevens the u.s. Defense Department says the security situation in Syria remains complex 2 days after a u.s. Special forces operation led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakar Dotty and P.R.'s Winsor Johnston has more defense secretary Marc as per says u.s. Forces will maintain a presence in northern Syria for the time being in order to protect the oil fields from being seized by ISIS Esper was asked whether that means the number of troops in the region will actually be going up at the end that day we will be sending troops home that's the president made a commitment to do that but in the meantime we're going to reinforce and make some other moves to ensure that we can accomplish that mission of securing the oil fields in order to deny him access to ISIS as for says Turkey is still responsible for what he calls its unwarranted incursion into northern Syria Turkish backed forces attacked the region just days after President Trump announced he was withdrawing u.s. Troops Winsor Johnston n.p.r. News Washington Pacific Gas and Electric says its equipment may be responsible for nearly the cold wildfires still raging in northern California Sonoma County the so-called Kinkaid fire prompted mandatory power outages and evacuations for most of the county be Janie says the blaze is just 15 percent contained and winds are expected to pick up again Tuesday evening another fire broke out in Southern California today along a freeway in Brentwood it's threatening several large homes and parts of the Getty museum complex record in North Carolina has struck down the state's district maps for Congress as being extreme partisan gerrymander Jeff to be area of member station to be a u.n.c. Has more another round of redistricting is almost certainly coming to North Carolina a panel of 3 state judges block North Carolina's congressional district maps from being used in 2020 it means that fresh u.s. House maps for the 13 seats from North Carolina will have to be drawn in short. Order this is the same 3 judge panel that struck down or legislative boundaries earlier this year for being extreme partisan gerrymander shift to Birir and Raleigh those parent company alphabet says its quarterly profits fell sharply after it boosted spending on marketing and research and development details from n.p.r. Shannon bombed out of its share price fell about 2 percent on Monday after the company said profits of $7000000000.00 of what investors were expecting the company hired more than $6000.00 new employees in the last 3 months sending its costs higher it also knocked down the value of some of its investments in startups by $1500000000.00 Google sites are among the most visited on the Internet and its quarterly sales rose 20 percent to $40500000000.00 But sales are growing more slowly than they used to as Google maxes out the number of ads it can show on search pages and as it has pulled back and running ads on some contentious You Tube videos Shannon band and p.r. News San Francisco this is n.p.r. News Good evening is it all for I'm Dave wire with k.c.a.l. You news the wind is diminishing inventor and Los Angeles counties and a red flag warning for high fire danger expired at 6 pm but nearly $9000.00 Southern California Edison customers in Ventura County are still without power because a precautionary power shutoffs. Reports that well the wind is so siding now and even stronger events predicted for the middle of the week Meteorologists say the next Santa Ana wind event could be one of the stronger ones of the season we could see strong winds starting tomorrow night all the way into Thursday the most powerful wind is once again expected for Ventura and Los Angeles counties peaking in the 50 to 70 mile an hour range it could also mean more intentional power outages more than $80000.00 customers in Ventura County are already on notice they could lose power as part of the efforts to prevent power lines from sparking brush fires Santa Barbara and sand was a bespoke counties currently aren't on the list for potential shut up even though there weren't big fire events in Ventura County today many of the county firefighters were still busy 5 trucks priest. North to help with Northern California's fires and 15 are helping with the Getty fire in Los Angeles plants around. You knew a brush fire created a scare for the Calabasas area this morning and jam traffic on highway want to one between Los Angeles and Ventura counties the old fire started around 9 am on the southbound side of the one to what near the Las Vegas entertainer l.a. In Ventura County firefighters stopped the blaze at around 10 acres and by 10 30 am or in mop up mode no homes were damaged No word yet on the cause of the fire it's going to be even easier for travelers on the central and south coast to get to the Midwest United Airlines is going to launch new nonstop service from Santa Barbara to Chicago beginning June 4th United will offer a flight which leaves Chicago at 745 a night and arrives at Santa Barbara airport at 10 30 pm then the airline will have a red eye return flight that leaves Santa Barbara at 11 20 pm and arrive at Chicago's O'Hare airport at 5 20 am the next day the new service will make it easier for people traveling to Europe because Chicago is a major United hub Santa Barbara airport currently has 6 airlines providing daily service a number of airlines have added new flights in the last year timed out is 8 o 6 on key c.l.u. Support for n.p.r. Comes from the little market offering artisan made goods and home decor with the commitments of fair trade and nonprofit founded by women to empower female artists and marginalized communities around the world more at the Little Market dot com and the any case the foundation. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross before Prince died he started writing a memoir he wanted a writing partner he could open up to after rejecting several high profile names he settled on my guest Dan pipe and bring who was definitely not famous pipe and bring was a 29 year old editor of the literary magazine Paris Review just a few months after their 1st meeting Prince died of an opioid overdose on April 21st 2016 Prince had left behind the pages he'd already written about his childhood in adolescence in Minneapolis unable to complete the memoir pipe and bring plan to write with Prince pipe and bring fashion the book into something else it includes the chapters Prince had already written as well as an essay by pipe and bring about working with Prince princes handwritten lyrics to some of his songs some photos of Prince and images of things pipe and bring found in the vaults at Paisley Park Prince's compound the book which is edited by pipe and bring has the title Prince had planned to give his memoir The Beautiful Ones it's named after the song pipe and bring describes as one of the most naked aching songs in Prince's catalog let's start with that song. To. Bring to. You. Dan pipe and bring welcome to Fresh Air thank you Terry that this book is great I'm really glad that you were able to put out what you were able to put out past you Miss Lee Prince was always so a lip tickle about his life why did he want to write a memoir. That is of course the question on everyone's minds and something that I was so curious about myself when I 1st went out there to meet him and I think there were a few things kind of on his mind I do think he was maybe aware of the fact that he was growing older of his mortality of his legacy and I think he was. Bringing renewed attention to the role that his parents and his past had played and in shaping his psychology and in forming his creative identity and I think that he saw a book as a chance to explore those ideas with some depth that maybe would not be available to him in music. And you know that toward the end of his life he was also sort of experiencing a 2nd act as as an activist and he was very politically aware where maybe once he had not been he was a huge supporter of the black lives matter movement when Freddie Gray was murdered by police in Baltimore prince went and played a show there and he even wrote a song called Baltimore that was really kind of most straight ahead protest song and his catalog and I think he saw Having lived through so many political crises and having developed such sharp ideas about how to thrive as an African-American creative in America that he saw the memoir as a way to to really address that with more candor than would be possible and his music in your list of reasons why he wanted to write a memoir One of them was growing awareness of his mortality friends of his were falling ill do you think that was one of the reasons why he was more aware of his mortality. Absolutely and I think he was someone who was always very aware of what his musical peer group was doing and I think Michael Jackson's death had really affected him greatly he and I talked a lot about Michael as he would call him who was an only Michael never Michael Jackson and I think the loss of someone who had always been framed as his kind of chief rival and someone with whom Prince certainly kind of sparred on the charts and musically and with whom he had a kind of contentious but very fruitful relationship I think the death of someone like that could only weigh on him in ways conscious and subconscious so I think there was certainly. More thought that he was giving too to what it meant to be leaving this earth what he would be behind How did you get to even addition. For being a princess collaborator on his memoir. Yeah it's a wonderful and exceptionally unlikely story that begins in New York in November of 2015 when I went out for a drink with my literary agent Dan Kirsan of i.c.m. And he let it slip almost haphazardly that he was working on putting together a book by prints and as soon as he saw my face I think he knew he had made a grave mistake because it lit up like a Christmas tree and I practically grabbed him across the table and said You know I need to be a part of this I had been a Prince fan for so many years by then and he made it clear Dan did were to dance that I was never going to get this job I was 29 years old I was an editor at the Paris Review at the time not something the prince was likely to be familiar with and most glaringly I had never written a book which I think is usually fairly disqualifying in these things just looking Yes for a level of expertise so Dan did not mince words he said that I was never going to get this job but that he would as a favor put me on a list of potential collaborators for prints you wrote an essay explaining why you wanted to be that person prince chose to collaborate with him. Right he read the essay and asked to meet with you so before we get to his critique of your essay set the scene you set the scene for us for your 1st meeting with Prince. Yes it was I believe January 29th 2016 so winter in Minneapolis and it was after dark when I when I finally arrived at Paisley Park I had had only about a. Days notice that I would be going there at all so I had submitted this statement I think on a Wednesday night and by Friday morning I knew that I was going to be out there and then sure enough there I was the prince's chauffeur Kim Pratt was driving me up to Paisley Park which is in Chanhassen about 40 minutes maybe out of out of Minneapolis fairly unremarkable suburb and to see Paisley Park from the outside I think you could drive right past it without ever knowing about the wonders that take place within its walls it really looks very anonymous like an office park or a place where they make some sort of plastic products or something and there were purple sconces lighting it up I remember as we pulled up and because we had been working Dan and I with with Prince's aides throughout this process I was under the impression that one of them would be attending the meeting with me and that turned out not to be the case when I got out of the car and approached the front door of Paisley Park Prince was there alone ready to shake my hand and introduce him to self to say Hi Dan I'm Prince so you had written an essay explaining why you wanted to collaborate with Prince and he. Critiqued your essay and it's a really interesting critique like you wrote that when you listened to Prince for the 1st time you felt like you were breaking the law and yet the song you were listening to was if I was your girlfriend so that's right let's hear just a little bit of that and that they will talk about why you felt like you were breaking. Down the forgotten. Publisher best place. To. Take. A bit of this playing. This to a ski. School . That was Prince singing of his song if I was your girlfriend I guess standpipe and bring is the editor of the new prince memoir So Dan why did that song when you 1st heard it the 1st time you heard Prince Why did it make you feel like you were breaking the law. Yeah I remember this vividly I was I think 16 years old I had just gotten my driver's license and this was in rural Baltimore County where I grew up I was driving around alone for one of the 1st times ever and that in itself is kind of in a licit feeling and at the time I was really listening to a lot of classic rock and jazz and things like that and I was a drummer so I really poor drum machines I thought that they were that they had no place in music but then this song came on the radio I think it was on Telson university radio if I was your girlfriend and in the song Prince is singing under the persona that he called Camille so he was speeding his voice up in addition to singing in a falsetto he had spent the tape up so his voice sounded even more feminine and high pitched and then there's all these various theories synthesizers on there and of course the drum machine playing this very eerie. Bare backbeat and Prince on that song is singing really from the perspective of a woman but as a man who wants to be a woman so that he can be closer to his partner and get the access psychologically to her that he feels he's denied by by virtue of his masculinity I had just never heard anything so psycho sexually frank I don't think it was really a hunting but beautiful song it made me feel just sort of strange I think combined with the fact that I was out there on the road by myself it just seemed like something that was almost too intimate to be hearing when you wrote that you felt like you were breaking the law Prince objected to that he told you he objected to that your 1st meeting what was his objection he thought that his music was not at all lawbreaking but it was completely harmonious and when he told me this we were sitting across from each other in his conference room and kind of perfect silence and we were surrounded by candles and there was kind of a sense of harmony in the place Paisley Park really felt like a sanctuary or a cocoon I could see that I had offended him or misread him and I worried he'd flown me all the way out there just to say that but to his mind lawbreaking music would be something more like Led Zeppelin or something I guess bluesy or more dissonant and he felt that he was always trying to make music that was in accordance with the law that was that was that had a harmony that elevated it to to suit his more religious side to you know so he really resisted the idea that he was in any way a law breaker yet he told you he writes in harmony and he always lives in harmony Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more if you're just joining us my guest is Dan pipe and bring and the new book that he edited and wrote the opening essay in this called Prince the beautiful ones We'll be right back this is Fresh Air. Time on the New York radio hour I'll talk with Jason block the producer of get out and a new crop of horror films that reflect the scariest parts of real life we all read get out we came to our Monday meeting we said this is I think we like this I think it's good but it's definitely definitely no one has seen it before that's next time on The New Yorker radio Monday night between 9 and 10 on k.c. Oh you. This is Fresh Air Let's get back to my interview with Dan pipe and bring and he was supposed to be collaborating with Prince Prince at actually chosen him to collaborate Prince's memoir prince died shortly after they agreed to do the book so Dan edited a new book called Prince the beautiful ones and it stands personal essay about Prince it's the pages Prince had written before he died that he meant to be included in the memoir and there's also a lot of ex song lyrics and photos and of those things collected from Paisley Park . If you actually raised about a lot of people who had written about him with their use of the word magical or alchemy to describe his music did you use either of those words in your essay Yes I definitely use some variant of magical and maybe alchemy too and also transfigure which was a further word that he resisted because very very particular Festus ideas about which words belonged in his orbit and particularly a word like transfigure which of course has a very strong literal religious connotation and he felt that he could not apply that to his kind of secular music it would be wrong it would be a violation of the proper order of things and magic he had the most memorable objection to he said that funk is the opposite of magic funk is about rules and he pointed to all the work that went into his music that there was really no magic in it it was it was a labor a labor of love for the labor nonetheless and that he had to learn to play all of these $27.00 instruments that he played on his 1st album that he had to learn how to mix them how to master them how to program the drum machine and that funk was about rules and I would come to see once I learned about his parents that that kind of discipline side really came a lot from his father he also thought that you know magic or magical those were Michael words not Prince words that's right he said when he was driving me back to the hotel in his car he looked over and said you know really think carefully about which words you would use because magical is not one that I would use to describe me that is Michael's word he thought that Michael Jackson's music had this kind of magic and I think he's right about that if you listen to something on Thriller there is a kind of storybook quality to it more fairy tale vibe something magical that doesn't quite show up that much in Prince's own cattle. Why do you think prince chose you to be his collaborator for his memoir that's of course something that I'll always wonder about in true prince fashion he he never kind of leveled his gaze at me and said Dan this is why it's you he left me only sort of fragments and clues one I think really goes back to that idea of diction of words he said to me at one point you know you know a lot more words than I do and that's of course very flattering but I don't really think it was true he was very well spoken and he had a talent for Nilo just him he would invent words like normality and o r m a l a I that's one that shows up in his book but I think he wanted someone who shared his kind of playful sense of language and his a his desire to experiment with a book he didn't want someone who was going to be all judging him for wanting to break the mold of the memoir or trying to fit him in a template you know I think if there was any advantage to the kind of guilelessness that I brought to our conversations it was that it let me listen to him very openly and without judgment and he writes at one point it's much easier to open up with your pen if someone isn't judging you for what you're doing where was Prince musically when you started working with him on his memoir. He had just launched a solo tour I believe the 1st one of his career called piano and a microphone where he was going to perform at various kind of smaller v