Corwin Manufacturing Company

Transcription

Gabriel: So good afternoon. I'm Gabriel Stricker, Director of Communications and Public Affairs here at Google and I'd like to welcome all of you who are here and who are tuning in to our latest Authors@Google installment of "Behind the Wheel of a Bookmobile." "Behind the Wheel of a Bookmobile" is really, uh -- and if you can see it here is a quixotic journey that was conceived by the renaissance man Tom Corwin who purchased a classic bookmobile, stocked it with thousands of books, and is about to drive it across the country, uh, along with a series of notable authors including Dave Eggers, Michael Pollan, Tom Robbins, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, and many others. Tom actually has two here with him today, the acclaimed author Jane Ganahl and author and Emmy-winning actor Peter Coyote as well. And after today's talk Tom is going to be interviewing some people, uh, who will be giving him comments about their reflections on books and -- and bookmobiles and certainly if you guys have any thoughts on that you're welcome to talk to Tom and his crew. But without further ado, let me introduce and welcome back to the Googleplex the author, producer, musician, and dog whisperer, Tom Corwin. [Applause] Tom: Hello. Thanks for coming. So, umm, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the evolution of this project and then, uh, get Peter and Jane up and hopefully maybe we can all participate in a conversation. Umm, so I -- I would say what one thing that I feel strongly about in life is sort of following the muse and it has led me some unusual places, none more unusual than this. Umm, but just as a matter of introduction I'm primarily a musician and music producer in this life and these are, uh, some of the projects I've worked on and, uh, and then at some point I actually wrote an e-mail which beckoned to become a book -- something I had never considered doing before, publishing a book -- umm, but it sort of happened, I followed it, and that turned into two books, "Mr. Fooster" and, umm, "Mostly Bob" and, umm, and then I was at dinner one night with a friend of mine named Peter Laufer and he shared this idea he had to, uh, extend his personal library in his house which was just overflowing by buying a bookmobile and he sits down at dinner, he has this ad with him and he says, you know, I found it -- I had this idea and I found this bookmobile for sale online and, uh, I got all excited about it and then found out that it was actually too big to fit in my backyard. And I just got -- I just sort of lit up and got all excited about the bookmobile and by the end of dinner had actually come up with this concept of having authors drive it across the country and interviewing readers about the books that have touched their lives and I became so possessed by it I haven't stopped yet. I actually went to Gurnee, Illinois, where this bookmobile was actually in service until about eight months ago and, uh, purchased this bookmobile. And, umm, so then while we were there, of course, the project started. I -- it had to interview the bookmobile librarians who had driven this bookmobile for the last 18 years and hear some of their stories and -- which are really powerful and I found out not only is the bookmobile itself, you know, really important vehicle of enlightenment and transformation but there's some magic that happens between bookmobile librarians and, uh, and the people who patronize them. Like, they really feel a connection to a sense -- and a sense of purpose which is moving. Umm, this is Audrey, who drove my bookmobile for 18 years and was pretty sentimental about its leaving the premises. Umm, so then I started calling and actually some authors and the first author I called happened to be, uh, a friend of mine named Peter Coyote and I said, Pete, I have this crazy idea, you know, what do you think? And he said, that is fabulous. Sign me up. And, umm, so that was just this wonderful confirmation and -- and I continued making calls and then I -- my friend Jane Ganahl, who founded Litquake, San Francisco literary festival, sort of climbed on, has been an amazing supporter, has really helped with a lot of outreach which has, you know, led to these -- this amazing list of authors who've signed on to be part of it. So I, uh -- I then proceeded to sort of do a launch event, uh, at the American Library Association convention and I brought a film crew there and we invited people onto the bookmobile and we did this christening. Uh, what this photo misses is the first swing of the champagne bottle which just sorta clunked on the bumper without breaking. A great moment. But -- and so we shot for the day and it was quite lovely and at the end of the day, uh, the cameras are all put away and, uh, this man walks up to me and says, you know, I saw your bookmobile from the floor of the convention. It looks just like the one from my childhood. Would it be okay if I stepped on? And I said, you know, of course, and I motioned to the camera man, this looks like this is an interview. He said, you know, everything's put away, it's out in the car. >> I couldn't go to the public -- Tom: Excuse me. And so I pulled my, uh, flip camera out of my pocket and handed it to the camera man and he stands behind me and, uh, Ralph Eubanks begins to tell me how growing up in Mississippi he was not allowed on the bookmobile -- excuse me, was not allowed in the library as a black man, as a black child but he was allowed on the bookmobile. >> So I couldn't go to the public library in my town but I could go to the bookmobile and it was a white driver of -- white driver and librarian as a pair and they came to my house and it didn't matter to them what color we were but we could get books and we read. I still remember getting "Across Five Aprils" about the Civil War, I got "Johnny Tremain", "Lad a Dog". We'd sit there and kinda sit in the corner in the back and flip through the books and my sister's on the floor of the bookmobile deciding which books we were going to get. And if they didn't have something, we would -- they would recommend books to us and they'd say, well, we'll bring it the next time we come. And I'd sit in the backyard, under a big shade tree and read those books. It absolutely shaped me in a powerful way. It -- it showed me that -- that reading could take you places, you know, very far away. It was a very remote rural place so I'm -- I mean, I'd take these trips in these books. Being a reader really helped me become a writer and it was a bookmobile that played a big role in it. Tom: So, uh, the punch line is that Ralph Eubanks not only grew up to be a writer but he is currently the Director of Publishing for the Library of Congress. So it was really, uh, quite amazing, the bookmobile's role in his life. So, you know, the idea is to hit the road and interview readers and authors behind the wheel of the bookmobile. So I picked up the bookmobile in Chicago and drove it back to San Francisco in October. I just wanna touch on a few of those, uh, moments that happened along the way. This is a good one. [Laughing] Tom: Umm, and then, you know, I always believed that part of the -- the ark of this story, which will have to prove itself in the telling and -- or in the making is that, you know, we're gonna -- there's gonna be bumps along the way and, umm, this is not one of them, actually. This is actually a story of one of the people I interviewed along the way, a guy named Rob Goldhor, who had just returned from Afghanistan and he spoke to me about how a friend of his who was a graduate student at Brown just sort of took it upon themselves to collect books from friends and send them to him at the base and that he sort of inadvertently became the base librarian, and, uh, and how books really were this amazing, you know, touch point to home and how powerful that was. And I interviewed Rob on the bookmobile and he was so eloquent about the -- the importance of -- of reading, you know, in the middle of a desert and how that really became a thing that kept him grounded and connected. And, umm, that interview is on the web site if you, uh, if you take a look at bookmobiletravels.com. So now we get on to the travails. I decided to -- I was thinking, hey, yeah, we'll cross the continental divide fresh outta Boulder and I got about 35 minutes up the grade and the bookmobile just completely overheated and I was, uh, amused to find out when I pulled over and opened the hood that I was actually at Buffalo Bill's grave site. So it made for a great -- great shot at which point we had to renegotiate -- re-navigate our route and, uh, pick the lower country for the route home. We hit blizzards and then we came to the salt flats and I thought, ah. I don't know if you've ever been to the salt flats but I hadn't and they are spectacularly beautiful and I was just thinking and I thought how great it would be to get photographs of the bookmobile on the salt flats. And I really -- I just couldn't contain myself so I literally drove up over the sidewalk and down into the salt flats with the bookmobile and got some pretty photos which was awesome and some -- some great footage of the bookmobile disappearing into the white horizon. And then of course on the way out the plot thickened and the bookmobile sunk into the sand on the periphery of the salt flats and, umm -- which turned into, uh, the most amazing scene -- which you'll see in the movie. Stay tuned -- where, you know, the first tow truck comes and hitched up its winch and when it turned on the winch instead of the bookmobile coming to the tow truck, the tow truck comes to the bookmobile. Then they go home and come up with the next machine and we end up with the mud cat. [Laughing] Tom: And meanwhile there is, you know, great characters who are showing up, uh, the truck drivers who were stopping at the rest stop were standing with their arms crossed 'cause we were the best show in town at the -- at that rest stop and the, uh, tow truck driver and just wonderful characters including this man who ended up being our savior, uh, in orchestrating sort of -- as an orchestra conductor telling two tow trucks, me, and my camera person what to do to sort of finally angle us out of that shot -- that spot. Umm, and, you know, everybody we run into of course we -- we try to interview and this guy was a wonderful sort of soft spoken cowboy and. Umm, and so I invited him on and he was looking at books and I said, you know, can you tell me, is there a book that you remember from your childhood that was, you know, especially powerful that's had some meaning in your life? And he said, yep. Still got it in the truck. And I was like, yes, you know? So what -- what book is that? He said, the Bible. And, uh, I was just great. I mean, that's true for of course a lot of people. I mean, that's absolutely true what an amazing book that is and -- and I said, are there other books that you like to read? And he goes, yep. I really like Stephen King. So, umm, you know, he took a Stephen King novel when he left and he was just amazing and he was so generous and so helpful and, you know, there had been a lot of great characters along the way and it's -- it's been really fun already, you know, in the preliminary journey to hear these personal stories and how books have really been the catalyst for change in people's lives and -- and for staying connected to themselves and being exposed to a world that's a lot bigger than the one that they live in. So that's the essence of "Behind the Wheel of a Bookmobile" and, umm, now I'm gonna invite, uh, Jane Ganahl, the fabulous author and founder of Litquake, the San Francisco literary festival, and Peter Coyote up to the front of the room and we're just gonna invite everybody really to participate in a conversation about sort of how storytelling and literature is sort of in the -- inexorably connected to community and these things really are powerful anchor points. So thank you. [Applause] Jane: I thought we could start -- can you hear me -- but that's okay. I thought we would start talking about storytelling and how, umm, the one thing that -- the common thread that seems to run through all the aspects of bookmobile was storytelling. We're filming this for a documentary and we were having authors come on board to tell their stories to readers and we're asking readers to tell their stories to authors. And I guess my question is, why do you think storytelling is still so important and so relevant in 2010? Tom: Uh, I think that, you know, stories are really largely what connect us. I mean, there's something very powerful about story, umm, as a means for getting insight into someone else's life in a nonintrusive way and a story is powerful and -- and has incredible depth and it's not challenging to listen to a story. And I think, you know, I'm -- one of the things I'm especially excited about in this project is really the readers' stories. You know, I'm very interested in the authors' stories of course as well but I'm really interested in the human story and how books and literature are our catalyst for experience. And I think, umm, you know, hearing from readers and connecting authors and readers on their common love of story has the power to move us all in new directions. Pete: I'll tell you a really short story. A really well-known old Jewish actor checks himself into an old-age home and the first night he's there he dresses in a tuxedo and he puts on his best shirt and he decides to go down check the action. He goes down in the lobby and he sees a really elegant lady, late 70s early 80s, and he sidles up to her and he says, young lady, do you know who I am? She looks him up and down, she says, ask the desk clerk. He'll tell you. >> Oh! Pete: Perfect story; right? Sets up expectations, sets a scene, you get a character and then the rug's pulled out from under you and you see the essential ambivalence in a really simple situation. I actually think that storytelling is part of our DNA, that stories are part of information transfer about what human hardware is about and that the way we make sense of the world is by telling stories and communicating and there's no culture on earth that doesn't and the technology is not really adding anything to the storytelling. It's just changing the medium. So every movie, every novel, every music video, every successful song is just a -- a different mechanism for basically transmitting something about what it feels like to be alive and I think that you can't be human and not do that. Jane: Umm, those of you who don't know Peter Coyote very well wouldn't know that -- I don't think it's working but whatever. It's fine. Umm, he -- Pete was a very act -- is a very active on the political side, too, and I think there's a correlation sort of talking about our own personal experiences via Twitter, today I had a really good day versus what he does which is forward frequently, almost close to a daily basis from time to time, things that he finds interesting about the world and stories that you should know about and, uh, to me that's sort of a different kind of storytelling. It's like, this is what I think you should know about because this is important to me in my -- in my universe. So I guess that's the digital version of -- of storytelling and, uh, and high-tech -- Pete: And it has a shadow and we gotta talk about the shadow. Umm, the -- a virtual community doesn't bring you soup when you're sick and a virtual community doesn't bury you when you die and one of the things I've actually just stopped about a month ago I went to a long -- week-long zen retreat and one of the things I resolved to do was to stop forwarding all my e-mails because I was not doing the essential work that I can really do which was finish a political book. I was sending everybody else's literature around. And one of the reasons that I wrote this book is I wrote it for my son's generation who's about 25 now and I was comparing and contrasting the last three months of Lyndon Johnson's term as President with the last three months of George Bush's term as President and Lyndon Johnson was rendered completely impotent. He could not do anything and George Bush was making mischief, according to my definition, up to his very last day in office and the big difference was that there was no generation of young people out in the streets. We were blogging, we were Googling, we were writing our opinions, and that that had somehow taken on the space that collective action used to take and somehow the shadow side, to me, of the computer is that we're not out in the streets and we're not basically saying, this is an unacceptable narrative of the United States. This is not the story we signed on for and we're not gonna tell it and we're not gonna tolerate it. I just wanted to really say that at Google. >> [Laughing] Jane: That's not exactly like biting the hand of the people who gave us these burritos but -- Pete: But it's all of us. I use computers, too. Jane: Right. Pete: I mean, Google didn't invent this problem but it is a cultural problem that we've fragmented community and we're all in our houses or we're all at our computers and we're not shoulder-to-shoulder out in the streets anymore. Jane: Absolutely. Umm, speaking of high-technology, maybe you could speak a little, Tom, to -- I know you can already see that the shelves are stocked with books. You're also talking about maybe doing some kind of technology set-up inside so that when you go from town to town that people could actually read books online or what are you still thinking of for that? Tom: Well, umm, I just love the idea of this wonderful analog vehicle, you know, telling a story about literature, you know, as it exists in contemporary times which absolutely includes digital publishing. And, umm, so I'm interested in including digital publishing, representing it as well, on the bookmobile and additionally, you know, of course we'll be posting as we go, and blogging, and posting the most poignant moments in short clips on the web site so people can follow along and, uh, and the stories, you know, live, you know, in the immediate moment as we travel across the country. Jane: And why take back roads? I mean, is it -- is it as simple as we don't wanna get stuck on the freeways driving or is there something about going through back roads communities that have their own culture and their own voices and connecting with authors in these small towns? I mean, what -- why did you make that choice? Tom: I mean, I think that, you know, it -- it's the best opportunity for good storytelling and I think that there's, you know, there's more individuation and there's more small communities that have voice, and story and identity that, you know, we can touch into by taking a back roads route that will be different than if we take an interstate and stop in major cities along the way. Umm, it's just not as diverse a journey across America and really not really necessarily as representative of the diversity of culture that exists in the United States. Jane: And I know your hope is to take some authors along with you but also to connect with authors along the way. Tom: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, umm, right now, our author list is very Bay Area-centric. There definitely are also other authors along the way but because my community is the Bay Area that was where I started making calls. Umm, and some of those interviews will happen in the Bay Area and others will fly in but a very important part of the journey is -- is the regional stories and so we definitely will be, uh, picking up authors regionally as we pass through their areas and inviting 'em on the bookmobile to drive a segment and tell -- talk to us about books and their -- the place they live and how those things intercept. Jane: What has surprised me as I have contacted some of these authors myself is, umm, many -- as you say, many of them are urban, you know, San Francisco Bay Area people and, uh, you know, you talk to somebody like Andrew Sean Greer, whose book, "Max Tivoli", was, like, the No. 1 choice of book clubs in 2006 or something. Huge literary guy. His first question was, well, I'll go if I can drive the bookmobile and they all have this crazy thing for bookmobiles and there's a wonderful, wonderful video of Daniel Handler, AKA Lemony Snicket, on the web site where he talks about the importance of bookmobiles and how he -- he literally became a writer because of libraries and bookmobiles. So, umm -- and on that -- I did have a question in there. Umm, why famous authors? Is it -- is it partly to kind of draw attention to the project but also because I think -- is it -- is it because people find it really interesting to hear authors who have made it talk about how they made it and -- and what books meant to them? Tom: You know, I think to me that -- that choice is about -- it's a lot about bringing eyes to the subject and it's also -- it's -- as much I am interested in talking to those authors about their books I'm much more interested, and I think the, you know, people who will be interested in paying -- watching will be interested in knowing who's inspired these people. I mean, who -- what authors, what reading, what life experiences have inspired them to do what they do and maybe, you know, influenced their lives in meaningful ways or changed their personal mythology? And, umm, I think those personal stories it's just, it's a way of connecting people with something really important through people they're interested in. And also I feel like there's a power in connecting authors and the readers in their common love of books. I'm -- I'm really, uh, you know, not looking to create a celebrity platform as much as create an opportunity for the readers and the authors to connect and I think that that's part of what authors are drawn to about the project. You know, it's sort of down -- it's walking the street. It's really talking to your readers and connecting in a meaningful way instead of, uh, when you do an author event I think there's not as much opportunity to connect in a -- on a mutual level, you know, across the table. Jane: Umm, as the director of the Litquake festival every year we have some kind of, uh -- and it's ten years old now -- every year we've had some kind of event around memoirs and it's always packed and there is something very, very compelling that people just are really drawn to memoirs and because it's the ultimate imprint sharing of your experience and Pete and I have both written one and, uh, I found it harrowing and rewarding team, uh, maybe Pete can talk about why he felt compelled to put his life -- tell his own story in print form. Pete: Well, one of the things I did with my book was make the decision not to make it about my life but to make it about a decade, to make it, uh, about the people that I shared it with. Umm, it's hard to sit out and say I'm of such stellar importance that you should sit down and read 385 pages about me. I know Jane didn't do that either. So the truth of it is that the dividing lines between self and everything around you are semi permeable and I wanted to write about the 60s because after Reagan became President, umm, a kind of collective decision was made that, uh, one generation of active, engaged students was enough and there was a conscious decision made to define the 60s as a failure and they sent all that youthful energy into the stock market. And, umm, I wanted to tell the story for my children, umm, in my words so that it wasn?t misdefined and I wanted them to know something about some of the luminous beings that I ran around with and how seriously people dedicated themselves to change for, you know, change that was not gonna make them rich or famous but that was gonna make life, umm, perhaps gentler or easier or fairer or -- for a lot of other people. So there was nothing to do but write the book. Jane: [Laughing] That's funny. I've never heard anybody say that. I just had to do it or nothing else to do but write it and it's a fabulous book, too. Peter Coyote's a hell of a writer. What about giving away books, Tom? What's that all about? Are you going to ask people to swap your favorite books or just hand them book and ask them to talk about their favorite book? Are you bribing them with something? Tom: No, Jane. Jane: [Laughing] Tom: The idea is that we're giving away books -- we're not just giving away books, giving away a book in exchange for an interview so that there's an exchange so that people when we pull into a town and we open the doors of the bookmobile and we invite people on, if they are inclined to share a story, they can take a book, any book they like from the bookmobile. And I just feel like there's something, uh, there's -- there's something very nice in the exchange, in the idea of exchange. Umm, you give me a story, I give you a book and I just feel like there's -- there's just some -- some inherent poetry in that and it also is nice to be exchanging with people and be able to give something away and to see what they take and -- and hopefully provide a launching point for something new, some new perspective for them, you know, ideally. I'm hoping that people will take books that are a challenge for them or something they haven't experienced before. Jane: Uh, I will say that, you know, early in this campaign, if you will call it that, when I was sort of new and hearing about what Tom was doing and he went to Chicago to get the bookmobile and, umm, it's not that I had my doubts that this was a good idea. I always thought it was a fantastic idea but it wasn't until he e-mailed me and said, you have to see this video of Ralph Eubanks that I got today. Then I watched it and I just -- oh, I actually cried. In fact I cried again watching it this time and I thought, this is why this project is so beautiful and this is -- this is why it has to -- has to happen. Pete: And Ralph Eubanks and I both mentioned the same book on the ride down here. Jane: Which book? Pete: "Lad the Dog". Jane: "Lad a Dog". Pete: I said, "Lad of Sunnybrook Farm" which was another one in the series but it's funny how you remember those early books. Jane: Yeah. And there's -- if you haven't been on the web site I encourage you to go on it to see the others -- the young man, Rob Goldhor, who served in Afghanistan talked about how Doug Peacock's "Walking It Off", which was fairly well-known book about the Vietnam era, once he got back from Afghanistan and lifted him up because he was -- you know, it was a pretty difficult situation and how that saved him -- I mean, every single -- there aren't too many videos up now but every single one that is a glowing reason for doing this project and why we're all so excited to get it start -- get it going. Umm, documentary. You're -- one thing that gets a little bit lost in all this is that you're filming everything for an eventually doc -- an eventual documentary and what do you hope to do with that? Tom: Well, umm, you know, I hope to screen it in theaters and I also think that it has, you know, a lot of potential longer life in film screening programs in the libraries across the United States and there are a lot of -- there's, you know, a lot of targeted audiences interested in these stories. So, umm, exactly how it will be marketed, you know, I can't say exactly at this point since it's a long process and we're at the beginning of it but certainly -- and I also think at this time in terms of distribution and movies and the reality of it, umm, theatrical life is not the main venue for -- for documentaries anymore. And, uh, and certainly, you know, there's a -- there's the television venue and also there's, you know, relevant institutions like libraries for instance for this film that would be, you know, would be great screening opportunities. Jane: And how do you plan to keep getting your books re-stocked? I mean -- Tom: That -- that hasn't seemed to be a challenge. Friends of the Library organizations have offered to donate books and they exist across the United States, publishers are very, uh, generous with books and libraries have been incredibly generous and anxious to contribute. So, umm, and there's also an organization called "First Book" which is a great nonprofit that, uh -- with a literacy outreach mission that has, uh, central depositories of books that they collect from publishers 'cause they identified that one of the key contributions to illiteracy in this country is actually just access to books. It's hard to imagine that when you live in a city but I guess in rural areas it's just, you know, access to books is really an issue. So, umm, they collect books from publishers and they distribute them through nonprofits across the United States. So they have offered, also to replenish to bookmobile as we cross the country. Jane: Sounds like that's not gonna be a problem for you. Perhaps gas will be more of a problem than books. Pete: Well, he'll just watch his diet. [Laughing] Jane: Eat burritos every day. Uh, maybe I wanna talk just a little bit more about books and how they can make bridges between people that ordinarily wouldn't have anything in common with each other. I was sort of touched by your conversing with the cowboy, I forgot what you said his name was, and the book that changed his life was "the Bible" and, uh, and he also likes Stephen King and yet, uh, you know, the -- the communion between you two was very probable. I mean, probably his life could not be any more different than yours but, uh, I think that's part of the beauty of book -- book lovers that sort of can bond over. Tom: Honestly, I mean, that's one of the things I am most excited about relative to this project is the opportunity to connect people who wouldn't otherwise necessarily be exposed to each other. 'Cause I think at the heart of these stories, umm, some of the stories that we've collected already and a lot of the stories that we're certain to collect is a point of connection, you know, and there are -- I mean, even in communities that have a high degree of literacy, I mean, there are -- there are stories relative to books and reading that I think will touch us all, will touch the most literate of us and to create an opportunity for us to witness each other around this topic that we're all curious about, books and literature is -- is to me the most exciting aspect of the project. Pete: I have, uh, 56 cartons of books and they're in cartons right now because I built a little office for myself outside of my house and I gave my wife my office and she tore down my floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and I hadn't anticipated that part. So I've got all these books in cardboard boxes -- numbered boxes. And there's another aspect of books that people don't really talk about which is your book collection is a kind of way of understanding your own mind and seeing it organized. So when you're sitting in a room and the walls are lined with books and your eyes fall on -- this is gonna sound terribly like pandering but it's not -- the title is like a little Google search. So you see these single sentences and each time you -- you get the title, you're reminded of the subject matter and you're reminded of all the stuff you got about it and the meeting of the author's mind and it's there and books are an artifact. They're not electronic. You can pick it up, you can take it with you, you can fold it stick it in your back pocket, take it with you to the john. It's a very, very, very sophisticated medium and we tend to think of it as primitive but in terms of diversity it's actually kinda better than my Google. The batteries don't wear out, you know, I don't need radio reception. It's like -- so there is -- there's just this tried and true and simplified technology that the world has taken to its bosom and that we've somehow created identities in relationship to and I know that I walk around in my house feeling sort of like half a person because my books are not on the wall. Tom: You know, that just makes me think about this other point that I think is interesting and it's also perhaps part of the inspiration for this project which is, you know, I am sort of a tech guy. I mean, I love technology but I am concerned about the impact our technological society is having on us. I'm concerned, uh, that we don't have as much time in our own heads without the distraction of something electronic around us, I'm concerned about the loss of introspection which I think is really a tangible loss. And I love technology but I can tell you personally I'm very aware I have much less time in my own head with my -- with my own thoughts. And, umm, and I hope that the bookmobile and these stories can, uh, you know, will inspire people and remind people to -- to connect to these points. I mean, books are -- one of the wonderful things about them is they are points of reflection and they are opportunities for introspection and relation -- relating to our own thoughts in reflection to someone else's thoughts. And, umm, you know, I think that it's a really unexamined territory, what this price is that we're paying for our love of technology. Jane: Are there any questions? Does anybody have any questions for -- for Tom, or Pete, or me? Otherwise we'll just keep yakking up here. Do you have a question? Sure. >> [Pause] Jane: And by the way -- Pete: The shortest distance between two-points. >> [Laughing] >> So as we have these expert story tellers on stage and it's a subject that came up a little earlier, this is probably a very simple and basic question but I thought a lot about, you know, what makes a good story teller because obviously everyone wants to share their experiences and some people are a little better at it than others. Umm, what -- what is it in the people you've talked to so far in your professional experiences of the people you know, what are the qualities that make someone a good story teller? 'Cause some folks could take the most incredible instance and turn it into something quite boring whereas other people can turn the story of two folks at a -- in a -- in an old folks' home and make it sound interesting. Thanks. Tom: I think Pete's gonna have the best answer to that question somehow. But, you know, to me, honesty is a great quality of good storytelling and for me, when I feel that there's something genuine happening and it's not wandering too far away from its essence, then that's incredibly captivating. Pete? Pete: I completely agree that I think the first engaging thing is authenticity. But then, within that, umm, I think details. You know, kind of -- some people have a sense for what detail is going to spring. Like the story that I told you. It really makes a difference to know that the guy dressed up in a tuxedo, and he had a hat and he had a bow tie because you get a visual impression of his grandiosity and so then he's coming in like this high-status guy and so when the woman scans him up and down she trumps his status and you get that through the details. So I think that -- that good writing is always concrete -- good story telling is always concrete and you don't overload people with details. Some people have an instinctive sense of what detail is required to sell the story and what isn't. So between authenticity and details. Pete: Yeah. Jane: Well, I just -- I guess we're wrapping up here so I wanna thank Google for having us. In fact, Tom. Tom: Thank Google. Pete: Thank you, Google. Tom: Umm, it's a pleasure to be here. It's fun to be up here with Jane and Pete, two of my very favorite people and, umm, I wanna say -- I guess now we're gonna have -- some people are gonna come take a tour on the bookmobile which is parked outside. Also just to let people know that, uh, the web site for the project is bookmobiletravels.com and we are fund raising and, uh, it looks like we're maybe a third towards our budget but we welcome any ideas or contributions about, uh, you know, fund raising and contributions to the fund raising. There is a way to contribute on the site. It is a non profit. And, umm, thanks to Google, thanks to Ann, thanks to Gabe. Pleasure. Pete: I have a question. Since Google is both a noun and a verb, you know, Google is a place and it's also a verb, is one ever Googled? Pete: Can you say "I've been Googled"? You can? Okay. Will I know it? [Laughing] Pete: Oh, that's right. Oh, good. See -- [Laughing] Gabriel: Thank you so much. Pete: Thanks. [Applause]