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News in Washington I'm to Iran 2 House committees are debating a Republican plan to overhaul the nation's health insurance system the bill is designed to replace the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare N.P.R.'s Allison Kojak reports the hearings began in contention Democrats and Republicans both tried to make their case in their short opening statement Democrats saying that the bill would take people's health care away from them and Republicans saying they needed to fix Obamacare but things devolved really quickly into bickering over every little thing how long their statements could be how many amendments they could offer and even whether the bill should be read aloud in the chamber the Republican proposal would eliminate the requirement that people health insurance and buy health insurance it would replace federal subsidies with tax credits it would also allow insurance companies to charge extra to people let their insurance lapse the Senate is asking the Justice Department to turn over any documentation supporting President Trump's claim of being wiretapped by President Obama N.P.R.'s David Welner reports the request comes from the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees the Justice Department's criminal division the 2 senators South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse acknowledged that President Trump wants the congressional intelligence committees to investigate whether the Obama administration abuse that's executive branch powers but they say their judicial Subcommittee on Crime and terrorism is more appropriate since it oversees the Justice Department division that obtains warrants for wiretaps that requesting copies of any warrant applications or court orders related to wiretaps of trump his campaign or Trump Tower they say they take any abuse of wiretapping authorities quote very seriously but would also be alarmed if a court had found enough evidence of criminal activity or contact with a foreign power to issue such warrants David Wohl n.p.r. News Washington the u.s. Based aid group Mercy Corps says. The Turkish government has revoked its permission to carry out Syrian aid operations through its territory N.P.R.'s Allison Hughes reports that decision could cut off half a 1000000 Syrians from help Mercy Corps says the withdrawal of its very just ration forces and immediate shutdown of cross border operations the Us based aid group has carried out one of the largest aid mission in Syria for the past 5 years delivering emergency assistance like food and shelter to hundreds of thousands of people each month Mercy Corps says it is seeking dialogue with the Turkish authorities to resume operations as soon as possible Turkey launched its own military offensive in Syria last summer and it's consolidated control over the border town of joint outposts including through the direct provision of lecture City News and p.r. News favorite right before the close on Wall Street the Nasdaq was up 3 points and the Dow was down 68 You're listening to n.p.r. News from Washington from k.q.e.d. News I'm Paul lan core North Bay Congressman Mike Thompson says the new Republican health care bill is moving through Congress way too fast Thompson a Democrat sits on the House Ways and Means Committee which right now is debating the bill called the American Health Care Act Thompson emphasize that the Congressional Budget Office has yet to provide financial estimates of the proposal I can't understand why it is were insistent on having this hearing today without the information before us to make sure that we can cast the best approach for the people that we represent the budget office is expected to release its report next week Republicans hope to pass the bill out of Congress before they recess in April San Francisco's police commission is scheduled to get an update this evening on a new effort to deploy psychologist to calls involving mental illness the pilot program involves 5 newly hired clinicians who will advise police officers on the scene. Angelica almeda is the Department of Public Health Director of outpatient treatment she says the clinicians may also bring a dose of prevention beyond a critical incident we want to make sure that we are preventing any future and students from happening so want to be able to plug individuals into our already robust system of care that they may not otherwise have tapped into previously made and police officials are hopeful the program will reduce the more than 4000 calls San Francisco police respond to every month involving people in psychiatric crisis for more Bay area coverage you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter on Paul and Corey k.q.e.d. News thank you Paul support comes from Cal Performances presenting Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater March 14th through the 19th that Zellerbach all Cal Performances dot org Support for n.p.r. Today comes from the Walton Family Foundation working to prepare all students for a lifetime of opportunity by ensuring access to high quality k. Through 12 choices more information is available at Walton k. 12 dot org And by the listeners of k.q.e.d. Mostly sunny this afternoon with highs today from the low sixty's to the low seventy's when I westerly winds between 5 and 20 miles per hour and looking ahead toward tonight we'll see mostly clear skies this evening they'll become partly cloudy later we're expecting overnight lows from the mid forty's to the low fifty's with northwesterly winds between 10 and 20 miles per hour. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross My guess most an homage has written a novel about immigration that was described in The New York Times as creating a fictional world that captures perils of the world we live in now with wars like the one in Syria turning cities into war zones with political crises warp speed technological changes and growing tensions between nativists and migrants the novel is about a young couple in a city slowly being overtaken by militants and extremists beheadings are becoming common the city isn't named but it resembles Lahore Pakistan where Hammad lives the novel examines the difficulty of knowing when it's time to flee how it feels to leave family behind and what it's like to arrive in another country that's hostile to immigrants most an homage was born in the war Pakistan but spent part of his childhood in California where his father was studying at Stanford Hammad returned to the u.s. To study at Princeton and Harvard Law School he lived in New York in his twenty's and London in his thirty's but moved back to Lou who are with his wife to raise their children his other novels include The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia His new novel is called Exit West most intimate Welcome back to Fresh Air You had no way of knowing that the publication of your novel about migration would coincide with President Trump's 2nd version of an executive order blocking migrants from several Muslim majority countries do you think your novel addresses that ban without mentioning it by name in the sense yes because the ban is about trying to. Determine you know who belongs and who doesn't belong in a place above all of course it also has the effect of restricting certain people's movements and in some cases like refugees with potentially deadly effect but above all it's about who has the right to move and who doesn't have the right to move and I think that when we take the long view. The notion that some people are deemed you know less worthy of being able to move to not have the right to cross borders over time that's going to seem to us as outmoded and as as unfair really as racial discrimination or other kinds of discrimination so so yes the book does address the bad without specifically addressing about I'm really interested in hearing what the discussion is like in Pakistan now about trans anti immigrant policies the discussion both among your friends and family but also in the press. Well my 7 year old daughter was frightened that I was going to America and she had come to New York with me and my wife and our other child our son in August we stayed for a month and she loved it and if you asked her and perhaps September her favorite place in the world she might have said New York but when I was coming to America just now from Pakistan she was saying you know Bob I don't go and among the 7 year olds in her class there's a fear that there's this person out there she knows his name is Trump and she thinks that he hates Muslims that he is not nice to women that. In a sense that he's a villain and and I think that sentiment at the level of a child because she could probably name no other international political figure. That's that's becoming quite widespread the notion that there's a person who is the head of the most powerful country in the world who dislikes so many people around the world and naturally that that creates a sense of resentment and dismay there's a fair among a lot of Americans that trans policies will radicalize people and radicalize Muslims who might otherwise be very pro-American supportive of of American values do you see any evidence of that. Well. I think the there perhaps 2 parts to it outside of America there are many people myself included who championed values that in some senses could be thought of as traditionally American the idea that everybody is equal that the rights of women and men should be the same that there should be no discrimination on religious or sexual orientation that. Democracy and rule of law and due process are the ways in which society should govern themselves and minorities should be cared for. These In a way are values that America has championed internationally not exclusively of course America has a mixed history but I think for many people around the world the sense is that they've lost an ally that this very powerful force that used to speak for these things is now silent and that's the different from radicalization at the same time I think radicalization works in a slightly different way when people particularly young people and especially young men can't imagine themselves as heroes in narratives that they construct for themselves they look to be heroes in some other way so young men in America let's say Muslim background only a tiny tiny minority so small as to be almost 0 are likely to ever commit terrorist acts but what goes through the mind of somebody like that you know very often if you look at the kinds of communications that they're getting in an ISIS recruiting video that the videos that you know that one hears of radicalizing them these are like action movies and so in the sense it's that by closing off the idea that young Muslims and critically young Muslim men can be American heroes it increases the chance that they'll try to be some other kind of hero and that I think is entirely counterproductive. Let's talk about your novel exit West which is about a young man and a young woman who kind of fall in love in Pakistan and eventually decide when I should say Pakistan it's an unnamed country that Islam is modeled on Pakistan because that's where you live. But anyways they they kind of fall in love or they think they've fallen in love and slowly things in their country start to get to the point where it's becoming increasingly dangerous to live there and the question is always in the background how do you know when it's time to leave and then the novel things start changing slowly it's tolerable at 1st and then then a turning point is the 1st time that a person you know is killed and you're right in time of violence there is always that 1st acquaintance or intimate of ours who when they are touched makes what had seemed like a bad dream suddenly Iveson rating the real and for these 2 people one of the things that makes the danger real is that they know a middle aged local man who ran a small side business who was beheaded with a separated knife to enhance his pain then his body was strung up by one ankle from an electricity pole so was there a 1st person for you who who you know who was touched by the violence of the Taliban in Pakistan. Well not necessarily by the Taliban but certainly by by extremists. The 1st person that I knew personally that I can think of in this moment I had lunch with the governor of our province and he was the husband of my mother in law's best friend and he had been campaigning to remove or change the country's blasphemy law which he argued was being used to victimize religious minorities particularly Christians and this is an unpopular position among you know certain strands of the religious right in Pakistan. And his own bodyguard assassinated him and you know I remember meeting his family and coming for the funeral and this is a person was alive and speaking you know the day before and then the day later when they later was gone. It was it was incredible shock it's always a shock when somebody dies but in this case really it marked a change it felt real and and also he was pointing out that you know so often people say well. You know why don't most films you know speak out and why don't they and I think people who say that have no idea what's going on in countries like Pakistan where there are thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people millions speaking out and in the case of my family friend people who risk their lives to stand up for the rights of Christian minorities in Pakistan and in fact I've been to the funeral of somebody who who did that so it was enormously jarring and and shocking. And also a reminder that many good people around the world are willing to risk everything to live inside a decent society. What do you think your profile in Pakistan is. It's hard to say I mean I my books are read by young people in Pakistan and in particular on university campuses when I go many young people live read them. I'm perhaps most likely to be recognised if I go anywhere in the world it's in Lahore across your places in Pakistan there's an interesting phenomenon in the 1st 50 years of Pakistan's history perhaps a 1000000 students graduated from university that entire time now there's about a 1000000 students enrolled in university in Pakistan other words instead of a few 1000 or tens of thousands a year there's hundreds of thousands who graduate every year and many of these young people. Read novels because in the novels not just of not just my novels but the novels of many other Pakistani writers they encounter ideas notions ways of thinking about the world thing about their society that are different and and fiction functions in in a counter-cultural way as it does in America if you and certainly as it did in the sixty's and. And so. I would say I feel engaged with young people in Pakistan but that said it's still a small minority that reads novels literary fiction but but it isn't necessarily a small minority of wealthy elite in the city of Lahore it can often be and I often do mean that literary festival of students who've written about 12 hours from a very small town just to hear some of their favorite writers come and speak. We were talking a couple of minutes ago about people you know who have been assassinated or killed or or wounded by militants in Pakistan in your novel exit west there's a reference to how as things get more overtaken by the militants that funerals have become smaller and more rushed affairs because of the fighting Has that begun to happen in Pakistan. No I mean well it depends I guess the short answer I think what's very important is you know novels function and the power of novels function because of their stories and so and so the the themes that we're discussing here of course are layered into the book but but they are encountered in the specific context of these 2 people and and I think it's important to highlight that because . Say the now the are 2 main characters living in the city which is a lot like Lahore initially the city where I live in Pakistan and it begins to become much more fraught say the now the are navigating their world and they're 2 different people now the has left her family lives on her own is not particularly religious say that is very close to Stanley lives with his parents has a strong spiritual side and and as the city begin to change around them many of the things that they take for granted in their in their day to day life. Like being able to surf the Internet on their phones being able to score we do or order loosening genic mushrooms via courier service listen to music go out and hang out in restaurants these things begin to fall away and and funerals which is what you just mentioned those do begin to change that. For them as people are more more frightened of public space and more and more retreating into the private worlds even the act of saying goodbye that if you know represents becomes very different and people are frightened to come and fight and come to funerals that even even expressing one's respects to those who have passed isn't enough to get people into the public space and and in Lahore where I live. There are perhaps some of the beginning elements of this but it hasn't. Down the path the city hasn't if you're just joining us my guest is writer most an homage his new novel is called exit west it's about migration we're going to take a short break and then we'll be right back READY READY READY. This is. Joining us my guest is novelist. His new novel is called Exit west and it's about a couple a young couple from an unnamed very much like Pakistan. Where Muslim Hammad lives and they decide that things have gotten so bad the militants have made so many moves restricting freedom that they need to migrate so it's about. Their experiences in the city. And the countries they go to. And I. Grew up in both Pakistan and the u.s. He spent his twenty's in the u.s. And. Pakistan. One of the decisions that this couple has to make is no really want to leave but should they leave even though. Father isn't going to go with them. And I think that's something that must be very difficult for all people who become immigrants are you saying goodbye to your family who's staying behind you saying goodbye to them forever and one of the reasons why the father decides to stay behind in this unnamed city and not emigrate is that his wife the main character's mother was shot in the head and killed by a stray bullet and so I'd like you to read. A short excerpt from your novel about the father's decision to stay behind and his encouragement of his son to leave say that I asked why his father was doing this what could possibly make him want to stay and said Father said Your mother is here Sayed said Mother's gone his father said not for me. And this was true in a way Sade's mother was not gone for him saves mother was not gone for sage father not entirely and it would have been difficult for said Father to leave the place where he had spent a life with her difficult not to be able to visit her grave each day and he would not wish to do this he preferred to abide in a sense in the past for the past offered more to him but Sates father was thinking also of the future even though he did not say this to save for he feared that if he had said this to his son that his son might not go and he knew above all else that his son must go and what he did not say was that he had come to that point in a parent's life when if a flood arrives one knows one must let go of one's child contrary to all the instincts one had when one is younger because holding on can no longer offer the child protection it can only pull the child down and threaten them with drowning for the child is now stronger than the parent and the circumstances are such that the utmost of strength is required what made you think about this about how sometimes things get to a point were not for the child to survive they have to separate from their parent that the child the parent can no longer protect the child that the parent is actually holding the child back and might lead to the child drowning or in this case need to the child being stuck in a city that is doomed. Living in a place like Pakistan very often you meet people who are migrating abroad and sometimes you'll ask their parents you know you didn't try to stop them like why didn't you say don't go on this you stay with me and you know people say well it's best for them they have to go and parents you know take on that that sadness because because they know it's better for their children if they if they leave and so for me it was born partly out of my own sense of sorrow if I had to leave Pakistan again and my parents are getting older now what it would feel like to leave them behind and also thinking about my own children how would I feel if they were older and they decided no they couldn't live where I was and move abroad and so for say that. Particular sayed. The amount. The power of what is driving him to leave imagine how strong that has to be for someone to let go of their parent and imagine how frightened a parent has to be for what awaits their child to say you know it's Ok we won't be part of each other's day to day lives but you must leave in your novel when your main characters migrate they basically slip through portals through doors and are immediately in another country. So. It's a kind of like magical touch to your novel but it's also it seems like a very convenient device for a novelist because you have to get them like visas and put them on like a boat or a plane and have them pass through customs you know and you don't have to deal with any of that in the narrative and you can keep it really lean and like absolutely there's certainly in other countries that one of your reasons for doing it that way yeah I mean partly I feel the doors kind of already exist they are a representation of a technological reality we already live inside we can open up our computers and Skype with someone and we see them it's like looking through a window or we can surf the Internet to our phones it's like a cautious this is far away or we can step through an airplane door and be in another corner a few hours away so technology feels to me like the doors sort of already exist at least emotionally but in the novel it was important to me to focus on what makes someone want to leave. Which is all of their life before migration and what happens to them in the new place which is the life after migration which is something that every human being participates in the part of the story that often gets emphasized how did you cross the Atlantic or how did you cross the Pacific or how did you cross the Mediterranean in a little boat which capsized and people died that is a very dramatic and horrific in some cases part of the story but it's a tiny moment usually in the in the time in the emotional journey. I want to focus on the on the more human and lasting stories of say the not the what happens before you move and what happens after the doors allowed me to focus on parts of the migration narrative that often get deemphasized the other thing of course is the doors allow the world to change very quickly so the next century of 2 migration that are likely to happen on planet earth in the novel occurs in just a year or 2 my guest is most an homage to his new novel is called Exit west we'll talk more after a break and Kevin Whitehead will pay tribute to the Dutch composer and pianist mission Mengelberg who died last Friday there's one recording in particular that you really have to hear I'm pretty sure you've never heard anything quite like it I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. The Neubauer Family Foundation supports w.h.y. Weiss fresh air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. 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This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross let's get back to my interview with most and Hammad author of the new novel exit west about a young couple whose city is slowly overtaken by extremists the novel is about how you know when it's time to flee and what it's like to become an immigrant in a country that's hostile to immigrants the fictional city this couple is from resembles Lahore Pakistan where most of Hammad was born and lives today he spent part of his childhood in the u.s. And returned to study at Princeton and Harvard Law School he spent his twenty's in New York his thirty's in London and returned to Pakistan with his wife to raise their children his other novels include moths smoke and the Reluctant Fundamentalist a question that's raised in the novel about your main characters which I be interested in hearing your affections about in a new country do you share this bond with migrants from other countries or only with migrants from your country you know like yes Nancy example of like when I'm in another city far away and I find myself sitting next to somebody from my neighborhood in Philadelphia it's like wow we have so much in common We're from the same neighborhood or from the same city whereas if I run into them in the neighborhood they're just a stranger to me it doesn't mean a thing. You know sometimes we're looking for somebody we can connect with on the basis of a shared past or or tradition or experience and so finding that you're sitting next to someone very much like you in terms of where they come from is enormously reassuring I think sometimes feeling that you've been marginalized opens you up to the realization that in their own lives almost everyone experiences marginalization the kind of foreigner sets and that has in my fiction in particular in particular later fiction. Made me. Investigate and explore the idea that we are all united in this that every human being migrates through time that that place we grew up with in our childhood is gone when we were in our fifty's and sixty's and seventy's you can live in the same city your entire life and still be completely a foreigner when you step out in your old age on to the street and and that is the basis I think for asserting a kind of shared human experience so whereas. If you'd asked me this 25 years ago would I say international people are my class and I probably would have said yes but no I quite enjoy meeting people who haven't moved don't feel at all international and recognizing an enormous shared experience that they also have with me. I'd like to talk with you a little bit about prayer and in your novel the male protagonist said after emigrating from the country that he's from which seems very much like Pakistan he goes to several countries and at this point in the novel he's in Marin in California and he finds himself praying more and this is a period in his life you know he's cut off from his parents because his mother was killed by a stray bullet His father didn't want to emigrate because he wanted to be able to visit the grave and to live in the past where he felt more comfortable so please read this paragraph where say say it is praying and thinking about his parents now though in Marin say they prayed even more several times a day and he prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way . When he prayed he touched his parents who could not otherwise be touched and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose a parent all of us every man and woman and boy and girl and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us and this loss unites humanity unites every human being the temporary nature of our being this and our shared sorrow the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another and out of this said felt it might be possible in the face of death to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world and so we prayed as a lament as a consolation and as a hope. Can I ask how prayer in your life has changed over the years. You know I my own take on this is I too feel that the personal matters like religion and spirituality are all things that I really discuss only with intimates I think it's in a way like sexuality something where it touches upon something very private but I can say that around me as I see people praying and I think about the power of it and I belong to a family where some people pray and are very religious and some are not religious at all. What I've come to recognize is that for many people there is enormous power. To be found in prayer and that doesn't mean necessarily that we should all be religious or that a particular religious tradition is the right tradition but that for some people it does do something that helps them navigate the experience of loss the experience of getting older the experience of facing their own mortality and say it's character I wanted to articulate that articulate some of the beauty that I saw in prayer and people around me who turn to that. Even you wrote about that one when you travel to India which is has a very large Muslim population but it has a larger Hindu population don't have that right that thing to population is larger Yes Yeah so when you go there to speak or to do a reading you have to check in at each police station in the police station of each city before you make an appearance is that because you're Muslim. Well that's because in Pakistan because you don't understand right Ok even if you travel on a British passport let's say or you know if you're if you're connected to Pakistan in a way given the history of animosity between India and Pakistan it's reciprocal I mean Indians have to go similar things in Pakistan it's not that only India does it to Pakistanis. And it sometimes would be very strange so I might arrive in a hotel for a book launch in the hotel manager would come up and say Oh I've read one of your books and I really like that I'm so glad you're here and then 2 hours later I'm off in a police station you know waiting and then I'm on t.v. It's a very sort of strange thing. But it's happened to me in America as well you know there are some times when I seem to be you know always selected for random security searches at airports or stopped you know flying in and taken to 2nd inspection in question for hours and then on that same trip I might be having a conversation with you or giving a reading in New York or even you know giving a talk you know at some u.s. Government you know school foreign service or something like that and. It's very strange because. You experience both the idea that people want to hear what you have to say and you're being welcomed as an artist and at the same time you belong to a suspect class where there's a suspicion that really deep down you're a terrorist and these 2 things seem how can they possibly co-exist and they don't it's just that incoherent and in India in particular that incoherence comes across . Very strongly if you're a Pakistani writer you carry a copy of one of your books around so you can say hey this is me I do although I have to say I usually don't carry a copy of the Russian fundamentalist. Right The Reluctant Fundamentalist as one of your novels that was also made into a film that would give maybe the wrong cue to whoever was looking at it yes I mean it's quite funny because you know sometimes they'll stop at the airport and say oh what do you do I'm a writer I really want to be written oh I've written multiple books well your most recent one. The Reluctant Fundamentalist you know and it's a memoir. That is a troubling but but I'll tell you this you know in I really do believe that people surprise you and one of the powerful things about novels is that they're about characters and those characters lived their lives but so were the people you meet at airports you know I've met immigration officers and I've said you said you know I wrote this novel that I can fundamentalist and somebody looks at me and you're thinking it's not going to go well but they'll say you know my kid wants to do an m.f.a. And I don't know if it's a good idea it's a lot of money what do you think and you want to bring a 15 minute conversation about the writing life and values and pros and cons and if m.f.a. Programs so. I'm often surprised. That You Know You Encounter all types of humanity and and very often there are some very decent people who don't stereotype even when you might in your own mind have stereotyped them to think that they will . My guest is most an homage His new novel about immigrants is called Exit west we'll talk more after a break this is Fresh Air. Support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Member stations and from Progressive Insurance with insurance for cars home both motorcycles R.V.'s and commercial vehicles at 1800 progressive and progressive dot com and from indeedy dot com used by over 3000000 businesses for hiring where business owners and h.r. Professionals can post a job openings then review candidates take notes and schedule interviews from an online dashboard learn more at Indeed dot com. This is Fresh Air My guest is most an homage His new novel exit West is about a couple who flee their country after it's taken over by extremists they become immigrants in countries hostile to immigrants Ahmed was born and lives in the horror Pakistan but is also lived in the us and London on the dust jacket of your new book there's a photo an author photo and you have a pretty short beard and if you don't mind my asking Is the beard because you're better off with one if you live in Pakistan or because you like the style of it. No I don't think it makes any difference if you have a beard city like a whore I mean if some people it's a signifier of different kinds of religious things for me it's never been that. You know I'm pretty close to bold and so. Helps offset is the only hairstyle I can really pull off but but I am often clean shaven I think you know for me it's not that signified what's interesting to me though is although the beard isn't a signifier of that to me other people very often think that it is and so people in America might react differently you know border agents might react differently the guys at airport security won't react differently and people in Pakistan sometimes react differently so a beard is something that is almost like a mirror to the viewer when someone sees you wearing a beard they're seeing something in their own imagination because still me whether I beat it up so the beard could be a positive in Pakistan and a negative in the u.s. Particularly at an airport yeah or did the way around so for example some in some contacts in Pakistan to be a beard is negative depend and in some context in America maybe a beard is positive I think there are certainly lots of hipster communities where having a beard makes me look a little bit less like you know middle aged fuddy duddy and there's some place in Pakistan we're having a beard. Certain corporate contacts or social contacts where it's not a bad something you have to navigate so that people don't assume you're a terrorist and and so that people don't assume merry middle aged fuddy duddy. You know it's amazing that the range of places that I can you know Occupy from. Deeply dangerous to so under injuries has to be completely deception lies you know it's a it's a wonderful canvas on which I can live out my different Fishel here experiments it is lucky you have a sense of humor about that there's no other way around it you know I think. Life is too short to go around being continually you know angry about being seen in this way but that said. The anger is useful too because when things about the world upset you that is really a fertile feeling to channel into fiction and to put out into books. In the part of your novel where your main characters are still living in the unnamed country that's being overtaken by militants. They realize that the meaning of Windows has changed the window which used to be like a great view something wonderful to have in your home now and it was really dangerous because it's the place through which bullets can pass shattered glass itself can become like shards that are dangerous and wound you and you write a window had become a border through which death west possibly most likely to come. What made you think about that about how Windows can become really dangerous in a dangerous area. Well that had to do with a friend of mine who was living in Lahore and there was a bomb blast not far from his house and blew the windows in and you know his. Wife was asleep and the glass flew over the bed hit the wall and sort of fell down on to her so if you woke you know she woke to the blast into this sort of glass falling on her but had she been standing she would likely have been very badly lacerated and and in that realization you know we think of a bomb blast as being something that kills people right you know by but the truth is a pressure wave that's very strange things to glass and Mark attack friends many of my friends in the heart actually architects you know they would often say things like well if it was invented today the glass window wouldn't be allowed in any structure just not safe. So I guess you could say that one has brushed up against the reality of that in Pakistan and there are many people in public places that install blast resistant film on glass windows to make them safer do you worry about the glass in your children's bedrooms. Yeah I mean. I do think about those things but try to think about them too often there's. Every parent wherever you live in the world. There are fears that we have for our children what happened to me drop them off to school what happens you know when they're making their way home what happened to me not with them and this particular fear that you've mentioned is part of that and in a way every parent is sort of dependent on the benevolence of the society around them to take care of their children and we get these reminders that maybe doesn't as benevolent as we'd like but we're sort of helpless in the face of that and that's for me a call to engage and to be sort of politically active because society requires each of us to intervene. Just to be the way we want to be. So one might question how do you deal with anxiety. I think that. We live in a world and this is something which living in Pakistan perhaps has taught me and you know we live in a world where there is a constant feed from social media the news etc of things that can scare us. And we've become we've become so anxious because human beings are meant are designed to be sensitized to dangerous stuff you know you get a bad reviews a writer you remember it for 10 years you get 100 good reviews you forget them all you say hello to 100 people in the city and it doesn't mean anything to you one racist comment passes by and 6 with you a decade. We keep the negative stuff because it's the negative stuff that's going to you know potentially kill us that fit in the water maybe it is a shock that yellow thing behind a tree maybe it is alive you need to be scared but contemporary culture in Pakistan just like in America is continuously hitting us with scary stuff and so we are utterly anxious I think that it's very important to resist that anxiety to think of ways of resisting the constant inflow of negative. Feelings. Not to become the politicization result but to actually work actively to bring into being an optimistic future and for me writing books and being you know someone who's a politically active is part of that is is I don't want to be anxious on my day to day life I want to try to imagine a future I'd like to live in and then write books and do things that in my own small way make it more likely that future will come to exist I wish you success with that thank you so much for talking with us thank you Terry most in home its new novel is called Exit west after we take a short break Kevin Whitehead will have a remembrance of the Dutch composer and pianist Misha Mengelberg This is Fresh Air 1st fault. Has put together today is community calendar will take a look at that now starting with Book Passage in Sausalito welcoming Sylvia Winstead with her coffee table book last worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area and conversation with Malcolm our goal on this will be tonight at 6 at $100.00 Bay Street in downtown Sausalito this event is free Robb a theater welcomes vocalist Dean as a Raven harvest a 1000000 Romano performing songs of home and longing Mannering International Women's Day is separate formants begins tonight a date at 278124th Street here in San Francisco and tickets are between $15.00 to $20.00 Finally leaving the blues takes its audience on a journey through the private life of blues singer and songwriter Alberta Hunter other preview begins tonight at 8 o'clock at the new conservatory theater 25 Vanasse Avenue in San Francisco and you'll find tickets here to be 25 dollars and up that's a look at the calendar now it's back to Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air Dutch pianist composer and leader of the i.c.p. Orchestra. That in Amsterdam last Friday he was 81 our jazz critic Kevin Whitehead spent 4 years in Amsterdam in the 1990 s. Writing about Mengelberg and his circle of musicians and hearing him when ever he current Kevin has an appreciation. For. 1960 for. The Christmas tree. Was a bundle of paradoxes a conservatory trained composer jazz piano and a seemingly disorganised man who helped Dutch improvisers get government support partly by rebranding improvisation as instant composing. He was a musical an artist who taught classical counterpoint and wrote dozens of catchy melodies that rarely sounded like typical jazz tune. In. And the 1960 s. Misha was one of the pioneers of European improvised means a sort of mutation away from American Free Jazz. But his heroes remain jazz pianists and composers Herbie Nichols with his pick the melodies and short cuts through conventional harmony Felonious Monk with his obstinate keyboard attack and Duke Ellington assembled an orchestrated band of eccentrics. With. The Byrds i.c.p. Orchestra and Duke Ellington's happy go lucky local. Saxophonist Steve Lacy who knew him for decades once said Misha was the head and shoulders of the scene as far as mind power goes he had the conception and he understood monk as well as any musician I know but he's so f. Ing ornery you can't get him to do anything you want to do. Fair enough. Self said I want to poke sticks into the spokes of all wheels even his own. Bird with his i.c.p. Orchestra that stands for instant composers pool that mid-sized band which survives and took off in the 1980 s. When Michelle and his permanent drummer Han Bennink drafted a bunch of young gifted in eager players and made them into one of the world's great and most flexible bands. The show honed their jazz skills by having him play Monk Nichols and Ellington and schooled them in ways to subvert the material to undermine his own role as a composer and leader. And then that subversive influence any doubt through umpteen bands His disciples played in in or out of Holland. Make a bird recorded with numerous Americans including Roswell Rudd George Lewis Anthony Braxton Dave Douglas Gary Peacock and Joey Barron he helped define a Holland skewed perspective on American music alongside his one time collaborator bandleader villan broker and his lifelong friend composer Louis Andreessen. For years some Dutch jazz people decried make America's a charlatan but by the end of his career he was almost a national hero. A quick story in the 70s wife Amy had a parrot who loved her and hated him as a romantic rival This is Mrs version his work as a composer involves singing and whistling to himself 'd and the parrot started heckling him by imitation interfering with this process not to waste this avian hostility the pianist recorded to do what with the bird making in an unwitting collaborator. Years later Louis Andris untaught a graduate composition workshop at Yale. Culture. RINGBACK Critic Kevin Whitehead writes for Point of Departure. And is the author of. The recordings on our blog. Tumblr dot com. Tomorrow on fresh air we'll talk about the vision for remaking America by President Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Justice Department conserve. Who wrote about the ban In Session's working relationship for the New York Times Magazine. After the fact. After the fact. And from Audible offering a selection of audio books across a variety of genres including memoirs mysteries and motivation for listening any time using the article app on smartphones or tablets learn more at Autobytel dot com slash listen let's listen as Julie definition describes how well Bay Area traffic is moving this afternoon and that we have some delays on the Nimitz in Oakland there were 2 separate accidents southbound 80 highstreet they have been cleared by your slow from 9080 down or fruit fail in northbound that's a crawl from Hagan verger up to High Street and the part pavement marker replacement going on a wall ne Creagh 680 southbound at the 24 interchange still in the middle lane there are delays back to Monument and we have a sense of a closure of the Alameda off ramp from southbound 80 due to flooding or k.q.e.d. Thanks Julie her report brought to you by on bound and support for k.q.e.d. Today comes from the current theatre presenting eclipsed by denying Guerrero It's the story of 5 women brought together a made up evil in their homeland of Liberia eclipsed playing March 19th only playing until March 19th only I should say tickets at s.f. Curran dot com our 8 o'clock special tonight is another installment of making Oprah it's easy to look back at the Oprah Winfrey Show and assume its vast success and cultural impact was all pre-ordained Well part 2 of this 3 part series reveals the show's scrappy roots and improbable rise through conversations with not only Oprah Winfrey but the mostly female team that produced her show will bring you're making Oprah tonight from 8 till 9 o'clock with another airing tomorrow morning at 2 all here on k.q.e.d. F.m. 88.5 San Francisco and k.q. Ai f.m. North Island Sacramento it's 2 o'clock. Every 4.
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