SHERMAN ALEXIE

"Being blasphemous, profane, poetic, ridiculous, and funny is what makes us human."

—Sherman Alexie

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Sherman was all of those things and more this evening, when he spoke at the Pioneer Park Pavilion as part of Banned Books Week. He used coarse and vulgar language at times. He told personal self-effacing stories. All of this was a way of cutting through the bullshit that we build around ourselves as barriers to keep others away, to keep others defined as the Other.

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It seems weird to refer to Sherman as Mr. Alexie, especially with the confessional tone he set during his talk, so "Sherman" it is.

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Sherman challenged everyone present. He took on liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, whites and Indians, Christian fundamentalists and vegans. He questioned our cultural assumptions about sexuality and violence. He spoke truths. Oftentimes, those truths brought the audience of 350 or so gathered to a place of complete and uncomfortable silence.

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Sherman wondered about how ideas in a book could rattle someone to the point that they would feel threatened by it and then move to have it removed from a library.

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Sherman wove personal tales and family tales and cultural tales into and around astonishment at how fearful we can be about books and ideas that we don't understand because of our own ignorance and naivete and biases.

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Sherman spoke about overcoming his own demons of depression and poverty and abuse through books. He read to become something more than an object: a someone.

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Sherman talked about exploring the world, exploring worlds, through the pages of books.

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Sherman summed all of the above with one powerful sentence: "I push and push and push myself and, likewise, I push and push and push my audiences."

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As I laughed and squirmed and reflected and laughed some more, I thought of how wonderful it was to have this man challenging us by speaking truths. It felt like a good sermon, except that it was "blasphemous, profane, poetic, ridiculous, and funny." It felt like the words of a modern-day prophet, of one willing to speak truth to help us save ourselves from ourselves, to allow us to learn from his mistakes and missteps and misfortunes (and from our own).

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Sherman spoke for eighty minutes to a crowd that laughed and lingered upon his every word. Then he signed books.

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Even signing books, he was generous and challenging. He smiled and cajoled and conversed. He took pictures with those who asked.

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As I waited in line, I was given a Post-It note and a pen, in order that I could write down what I wanted him to sign in my copy of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. I asked him to include the final sentence of the book because it summed up the story as well as the stories of the evening (and his hope for the future).

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Sherman looked at the Post-It note and said, "That's one of my favorite lines from the book." I replied that it was mine as well.

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"To Troy: We didn't keep score. Sherman Alexie."