Sharon Waxman | Live on Sound Authors

February 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors! I’ve got four great author guests on the show today. My first guest will be award winning journalist Sharon Waxman. She’ll be speaking to us about her latest book called Loot: The Battle over stolen treasures of the ancient world and later on in the show we’ll talk to Jocelyn Crowley, who has a book called Defiant Dads: Fathers rights activists in America and there’s an author called Karen Brody and her latest book is called Birth and at the end of the show, we’ll speak to musician Dan Goldman who has truly gorgeous songs. But my first guest, it’s my special honor to welcome Sharon Waxman. She’s written a wonderful book called Loot: The battle over the stolen treasures of the ancient world. Beautiful inside and out this book. Welcome to the show Sharon Waxman.

Sharon Waxman: Hi, thanks for having me.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about how this book started for you.

Sharon Waxman: Oh this book well you know I’m actually better known to my readers as someone who’s written about Hollywood a lot in the past decades plus, but before that I was a foreign correspondent for about ten years and for particularly interested in the ancient world and the middle east. Living in Los Angeles where I do there were a lot of headlines that at one point started to emerge as problems getting ###, which is based here and Italy and Greece, demanding antiquities be returned from the museum.

Then I started hearing from friends; I used to have long-distance relationships in Egypt and the chief archaeologist of Egypt was telling me he had started this campaign to get the return of major treasures from western museums like the Bust of Nefertiti, which is in Berlin and the Rosetta stone which is in London at the British museum. I started putting the pieces together thinking there’s some broader trend going on here, what is it all about? Why are all of these smaller countries challenging big countries like the United States or France and England to get these things back? Then I started realizing that its part of a bigger picture that’s going on in the world, which is people, smaller countries taking control of their cultural heritage and taking possession of their cultural identity and wanting the return of these treasures as part of that.

So I decided to explore that question as a journalist, just to take that journey back in time to countries where pieces are now residing and where it was taken from and it was really fascinating. I learned about these amazing characters in the 19th century and I also learned a lot of stuff that I had kind of taken for granted. For example, I never knew how the Rosetta Stone got to the British museum or how the bust of Nefertiti came to be in Berlin. In fact I didn’t really know how the great treasures or even how the collections of ancient treasures even originated at the great museums. So all of it was a great learning journey for me and if readers are interested in learning about that I think they’ll like that journey back.

Dr. Kent: Its almost its not too far a departure from your Hollywood reporting because all of us love talking about these ancient treasures in Egypt and since we were small children we’ve seen it in cartoons and documentaries. How did your passion start for all of this?

Sharon Waxman: For the ancient world?

Dr. Kent: Yes.

Sharon Waxman: Well I think probably going to museums as a kid. I grew up in Cleveland and there was a really great collection of antiquities and art too in the Cleveland Museum of Art by the way which is not a major character in the book but does happen to be one of the museums in the crosshairs of countries like Italy and Greece. In fact they just made a deal to give 13 pieces back from their collection, so this is a trend that’s going on and its affecting our museums. It’s absolutely true that as a young person, which I guess I’m not anymore, it was going after college to the Louvre and discovering these amazing treasures helped really peak my curiosity in archaeology and the ancient world and ancient civilizations.

Dr. Kent: So let’s talk about the politics of this right away because I don’t think all that many folks are familiar with the battles that have gone back and forth and the legal aspect. You talk about what’s the law surrounding it. How long does it have to be gone and all that stuff?

Sharon Waxman: Well there aren’t really laws that govern who took what, when and what’s the right thing to do. That’s part of the reason why it’s a free for all right now and why as you say it really does become political very quickly. There are local laws in each country for example, the curator, the former curator of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Marian True, is on trial today in Rome under Italian law for fraud and for receiving stolen goods. So it’s actually a criminal trial. You’re talking about a Harvard educated PhD in Greek and Roman civilization who for 24 years collected antiquities as chief curator of the antiquities department at the Getty and its not like she was stealing for herself, she was collecting for the museum.

That is the person who is now on trial for fraud and criminal possession in Rome under Italian law. So there is a problem that you have a ### law and you can have a politically motivated prosecution because this is certainly politically motivated in the case of Italy and the Getty. In fact they told me and you can see in the book what they say is what they really wanted was to get their stuff back but the Getty wouldn’t give it so they undertook this prosecution of the Getty curator. The thing about it is my first instinct was to say the west stole all these things, they should give them back it would be the just thing to do, but as I investigated I found its really more complicated than that and raises so many questions.

In addition to that, of course I traveled to the countries that were where the ancient world was; Egypt, Turkey and one of the stories I tell in the book is how Turkey through the Metropolitan Museum a law suit actually sued under American law the Metropolitan Museum of New York in the 1980s to get these golden treasures back from the time of King Crisis. You know the phrase he’s as rich as Crisis so there really was a King Crisis and he was very rich of course and they were very skilled in making gold and silver back in the time we’re talking going back 2500 years. That civilization is now completely gone but its in Turkey so Turkey found out that the Met had bought illegally dug up and smuggled gold and silver pieces and sued and got them back. Then I went and found out that in 2006 a hoardist called the Lydian Hoarde was stolen from a museum in Turkey where they didn’t have security cameras and they didn’t take care of it and let anybody visit it.

So the question arises is the right thing to do, certainly its not right to buy illegally dug up things because it ruins archaeological sites and kills our common heritage, but is it always the right thing to give it back if that country cant take care of what they have.

Dr. Kent: I spent a little time in Cairo and went to the Cairo Museum and I was astonished that the wall is just plastered with things and I had no idea what I was looking at.

Sharon Waxman: Yeah, exactly. That place is a relic in and of itself, it’s amazing. their trying to build a new museum; trying to raise money to build a state of the art museum outside of the pyramids, but it is astonishing. I’m sure some of your listeners have been to Egypt and if they’ve been to Egypt they’ve been to the Cairo Museum and you can see that the lettering on the typewriters looks like it was done in 1902 and it was. The labeling is there; the museum was built in 1900 so it’s a great example of colonial architecture and stuff goes missing. I could go on but its all in the book.

Dr. Kent: I heard that they even stored mummies in the hallway for awhile for some reason.

Sharon Waxman: Things are stored not only in the hallway but one of the things I tell in the book because I had lost who your listeners if they’ve seen anything about Egypt they’ve seen this guy. He’s an Indiana Jones type character, you know he wears the Indiana Jones hat; he’s always very charismatic and is really trying to drag Egypt into the 21st century so he has a team of people building a computer database because they have no proper inventory of what they even have. But what I discovered when I went to the museum and lots of people were doing the inventory were students who were volunteering from France and England and America, but on this little team of people on the left off in this very sweaty corner of the museum.

I found that there was another rival project going on underneath the building which I also went to visit, which is funded by the Japanese to do the same thing. So there’s bureaucracy, politics, and I went and asked why are there two projects duplicating one another’s work? They said, well it’s true that there are but we are going to take this out to the new museum when it opens. It kind of highlights a bit of chaotic and Byzantine and a hard job to take a country like Egypt which has so many issues; poverty being a main one, and try to bring it to a state of the art museum. They have so much, they have far more monuments and statues and mummies than even a wealthy country would have trouble taking care of all of that.

Dr. Kent: Now I’m curious, I’d like to talk a little about your background. I did read that you learned both Hebrew and Arabic. I’m also an Arabic speaker.

Sharon Waxman: Oh cool; we could conduct the interview in Arabic. You might lose all your listeners, they might not like that.

Dr. Kent: Yeah, I don’t think the transcriptionist would be happy with me! How have all of your life paths crossed in your latest project?

Sharon Waxman: In my latest project? Are you referring to the book?

Dr. Kent: The book and whatever else you’re working on.

Sharon Waxman: My latest project is actually a news site, a news organization which took me back into Hollywood and that was launched a week ago and is called thewrap.com, which is a play on “that’s a wrap” and that’s taken me back out of the world of cultural politics where I’ve gone to and I’m not sure that all the strands of my life do meet. I’ve been a newspaper journalist for 20 some years and you may know and your listeners may know that newspapers are in deep trouble financially at the moment and we’re trying to create a new kind of digital news organization that’s still professional journalism.

Dr. Kent: I’m looking at one of your latest articles that says exclusive, Bale says his F-bombs were justified.

Sharon Waxman: Oh where did you find that on Google?

Dr. Kent: No I found it on your thewrap.com site.

Sharon Waxman: On the site, right, so we got a big story today, the studio is rising, the studio is falling, deals are falling through the Oscars are coming.

Dr. Kent: I’m curious about this whole Christian Bale thing and all of the celebrity things that end up being pitched to major networks and coming through CNN and all that. How does all of that happen?

Sharon Waxman: How do celebrities get on major networks?

Dr. Kent: There’s a lot of people that have meltdowns, how does this particular story about Bale get front page?

Sharon Waxman: Well that’s one of the things that we’re really focused on in the wrap because nobody’s really chronicling and the web has changed our culture; that’s too broad a statement but how it has just I’m sure nobody’s reporting on that in the Hollywood arena basically because that’s exactly what happened is you had this A-list star Christian Bale who had a long moment of indiscretion on the set of his movie but that happened nine months ago! Just because somebody released the audio of that, it was the seed that was in his microphone. He was miked as an actor, got out on the internet and within 24 hours the guy went from being a hero, the Dark Knight into being the subject of ridicule and satire and poor moral judgment.

Not to say that he does not deserve that but it serves as a mirror of what the bloggists here and the web becomes as a collective judgment. That in turn percolates up immediately to the broadcast networks or the big boys of which there are fewer and fewer. It is a real lesson I think in how our culture has changed so profoundly. Just think about it, a set is a very private place where it’s considered a closed circle of that family. For that to come out in public in this community where I am in Hollywood is a very jarring but it’s the world we live in now.

Dr. Kent: I’m fascinated; now as I’m listening to you and checking out your site at the same time, you’ve got the waxwork and I find it so interesting these days that all these media collide. Books, blogging, and news media all sort of blend into one these days. Where do you think its going?

Sharon Waxman: I think we don’t know exactly where it’s going and that’s what makes for a very exciting time as a journalist to be able to be writing about it and learning and exploring. Stuff is being invented every single day and the kind of changes we’re seeing in the way we communicate and the vehicles that create common glue that holds together as a society. Movies are a big part of that; TV is a big part of that. Newspapers were a part of it but they’re going away so what’s going to replace that is obviously something that’s a conversation, the connection that’s happening on the web but a different kind of communicating and its much more interactive obviously and fluid and instantaneous and global. That to me as a journalist is one of the most fascinating things we can observe and write about but yet we’re also part of that because we are changing too as part of those changes. It’s a really interesting time to be doing what I’m doing, at least for me.

Dr. Kent: Wow. It seems like you always choose the things that you enjoy. Let’s go back to Loot for a minute. Because you’ve covered celebrities and big figures how did you find it chronicling these big figures in all of history here? Being tossed back from country to country.

Sharon Waxman: It was really wonderful. It was like being Indiana Jones as a journalist because the 19th century had; you know what they did in the 19th century? You’re bopping me back and forth but I spent a year mostly by myself in libraries and crawling through tombs and now I’m back in the web world which is completely different. The thing about the people in the 19th century is that they all kept journals. All these guys with these incredible characters; one of whom I write about in the book, this guy Giovanni and he was a circus performer who became an archaeologist at a time when it was being invented.

Archaeology itself only dates back to the 19th century and he kept these amazing diaries of his travels up and down the Nile. He discovered the Abu symbol, these huge statues in Aswan that was a temple built by Ramsey’s and he discovered the entrance to the second pyramid and he really was a circus strongman, that’s how he started. But he was a self taught engineer and inventor and all these guys in the 19th century is part of the people getting educated and they learned how to draw. So they would keep diaries and do sketches of their work. There’s this one amazing character after another that you can read and listen to their own words because they really come to life.

Dr. Kent: When you cover Hollywood, do you also find yourself in a back dusty room of libraries?

Sharon Waxman: No, not at all, I’m at my desk.

Dr. Kent: How do you go about that?

Sharon Waxman: Oh we’re just fielding phone calls, emails, texts from all over but yeah, we do go to the movies occasionally, not often enough.

Dr. Kent: You really tread the line between generations; it’s fascinating. Well there’s many websites online that detail things about this book Loot.

Sharon Waxman: There’s my site which is lootbook.com and all the reviews and commentary are there, discussion about the book and that’s the most gratifying thing is the response from readers who really have embraced the subject and offered up suggestions and thoughts. That was my goal with the book to bring the subject out of the hands of the museum authority and bring it to the wider public because there are solutions to be found to this issue of antiquities that are in a state of war at the moment. But only when more reasonable people, which are those of us who are not primary actors in this thing, there are ways to find to come to solutions that serve all of us and that in fact most of all serve the antiquities themselves so they’re not lost.

Dr. Kent: Absolutely and where can we find out about the antiquities after reading your book?

Sharon Waxman: Well, you can go to lootbook.com, that’s one place where there are resources, there’s lots of resources in the back of the book in the bibliography and I would contact the local museum and get involved in your local museum.

Dr. Kent: And visit Egypt.

Sharon Waxman: Yeah.

Dr. Kent: Now I have another question for you. from my personal experience, when I went down beneath the pyramid like most tourists do in that narrow, narrow tunnel and there’s this sort of empty room at the bottom.

Sharon Waxman: It’s a tomb.

Dr. Kent: What did you feel? You’ve been down there I assume.

Sharon Waxman: I didn’t go down there because I went all the way to the top, which is I think his name was ### tomb at the top. ### And it’s amazing; it’s like being in a modern art gallery, all wax that was floated up the Nile and yeah.

Dr. Kent: In your mind can you picture the works of art in those spaces? I know when I was in this tomb I was like man, this is empty I wish I knew what used to be in here.

Sharon Waxman: Either it was empty, or I think the tomb robbers took whatever was in there many years ago and I’m not enough of an Egyptologist although I did learn a great deal from doing this book, but I don’t know if that tomb was full in the same way that the tombs in the Valley of the Kings was filled absolutely chalk a block with furniture and food and like King Tut which was absolutely top to bottom every square inch filled with the belongings of the king. Those might’ve been the same.

Dr. Kent: It’s so much fun thinking about this stuff, just like I’m pretty obsessed with the newest headlines in Hollywood and this book I’ve heard a lot about it. I’m only a few pages into it but I’m psyched to read the rest. It’s called Loot: The battle of the stolen treasures of the ancient world. It’s by Sharon Waxman, thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Sharon Waxman: Thank you and I hope your listeners will check out my new site thewrap.com if they’re interested in intelligent dialogue about what’s going on in Hollywood.

Dr. Kent: Yeah, its good stuff. Thewrap.com. Well thank you so much and have a nice day!

Sharon Waxman: Thanks for having me, see you later.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show will be Jocelyn Crowley who has interviewed more than 150 father’s rights group leaders and she’s got a new book called Defiant Dads: Fathers rights activists in America, so come on back and listen to that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, History, Entertainment, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Amanda Foreman | Award-Winning Author

January 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Amanda Foreman [17:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What a great honor to speak to award-winning author Amanda Foreman! Her memoir The Duchess was just made into a major motion picture called The Duchess, starring Ralph Fiennes and Keira Knightley. More about Amanda Foreman from her website:

Amanda Foreman is the author of the award-wining best-seller, ‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

She is the daughter of Carl Foreman, the oscar-winning screen writer of many film classics including, The Bridge on the River Kwai, High Noon, and The Guns of Navarone.

She was born in London, brought up in Los Angeles, and educated in England. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University in New York.

She received her doctorate in Eighteenth-Century British History from Oxford University in 1998.

‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’ was a number one bestseller in England, and best-seller for many weeks in the United States. It has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish. The book was nominated for several awards and won the Whitbread Prize for Best Biography in 1999.

Since the publication of “Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire”, Amanda Foreman has worked as a presenter on English television and radio. She also writes regularly for newspapers and magazines in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’ has inspired a television documentary, a radio play starting Dame Judi Dench; and a movie, titled ‘The Duchess’, staring Keira Knightly and Ralph Fiennes.

Amanda is currently living in New York with her husband and five children.

She has been working on her second book for the past eight years. Called, ‘A World on Fire’ the book tells the remarkable story of the British men and women who volunteered their services during the American Civil War.
It is almost finished and will be published by Random House in 2009.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Fiction, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Interview with Norma J. Watts | Sound Authors Radio

January 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors! My next guest on the show is Norma J. Watts. She’s the author of The Art of Baby Nameology, Explore the Deeper Meaning of Names for your Baby. But its more exciting than just that, she’s also an expert in saying what names mean. So lets start out, what do you think my name means; Kent Gustavson?

Norma J. Watts: Oh hi Kent.

Dr. Kent: How are you?

Norma J. Watts: Oh I’m good. I just work with the first name. I found that there are some studies that they run the whole name. They study the middle name, the last name, all of it and with women they drive you crazy; they get married several times and their maiden name and this name. I’ve just based the Art of Nameology on the first name because of the point is that when we meet someone, we just know their first name and that says a lot about us so that is what this basic study is all about. And your name Kent is there’s a hidden seven in the beginning of your name if we add the K and the E together so this tells me that you’re either spiritual or scientific but this is hidden, not everybody knows but you have an inner search for knowledge. Having to do with scientific or spiritual. A Kent could be a person who studies the bible or a Kabala or possibly you study the stock market or a handicap horse racing, you may be into because there’s a science in that. But somebody with the name Kent or with the first two letters together, there’s a hidden step in there, so there’s something you like to study.

Dr. Kent: I’m certainly a little obsessed with not horse racing, but definitely interested in the bible and science and all sorts of things. What does it mean to take a name that parents gave a child and then find deeper meaning within it? How does that work exactly?

Norma J. Watts: When we’re born, our names are drawn to us subconsciously at birth and that name has the energy of our personality. So of course it reveals our personality really. To a person like me and to people who study names like I do we have a little bit more inside knowledge of what that persons about.

Dr. Kent: I have to say I’ve seen a lot of information since that there is a lot to a name. My fiancé, her name is Katarina and when I first heard the name I thought what a beautiful name and then I thought she was a more beautiful person. Not that I didn’t think she was beautiful before but there’s a lot to that; people say oh does it fit with my last name and they’re always thinking about names and you can almost in your head think, oh what would a Kent look like, or what would a Norma J. Watts look like? Talk about perception in the world of certain names.

Norma J. Watts: For example, Katarina, by the way when you said that, I saw she has two T’s in her name, right? And that sort of matches up with your name. Our names can be compatible with other names and the T means dynamic, busy lifestyle. She’s probably always, even when her plate is full, she’s taking on more and usually getting it all done. She’s probably very dynamic.

Dr. Kent: Indeed.

Norma J. Watts: So it does tell what we’re like.

Dr. Kent: Are there people who, I always hear this? People that change their names or for example, my mother, her name is Cynthia and as a kid she was called Cindy. After about 40 years or 45 years of that, she said listen, my name is now Cynthia, nobody calls me Cindy anymore.

Norma J. Watts: I’m seeing a lot of that because I have a blog on Amazon and it’s in a new age section and it’s called Our Names Reveal Our Personalities, I’ll Prove It. I have over 1100 posts and I tell people just tell me your first name and I’ll tell you what it means and invariably people that didn’t like their birth name, when I tell them what it means they actually like it again. To feel that about your birth name and even if you go to a nickname, you end up, you can’t get away from your birth name, you just can’t.

Dr. Kent: Here’s another hard question for you. My father works with undernourished children and abused children and he once worked with kids called Whiskey and Brandy, they were twins. What do you do when you’re named Whiskey from birth?

Norma J. Watts: Oh for heavens sake! That’s sad. Well, I’m thinking that is still their destiny name. The letters in the name give us a definite description of that person’s personality. It’s interesting when you say Whiskey and Brandy; they both have a Y at the end and Y means a lot of freedom. These kids, we’re still going to be like our heredity; there’s heredity in everything and even in nameology when I look at the letters in the name and what the parents’ names are, we inherit certain letters from our parents time and time again. We’ll see that our children have the same letters or similar letters and we want to put those letters in their name and they’re going to inherit certain qualities no matter what.

Dr. Kent: That’s fascinating, my fathers name is Ed and mine is Kent and it does kind of make sense.

Norma J. Watts: Yes, you’ve got his E.

Dr. Kent: What about your name? How do you analyze your own name?

Norma J. Watts: Well I never liked my name, Norma. I thought gosh, that’s such an old name. I really used to be embarrassed about it but since I’ve become a nameologist, I love my name. I love what each letter means. Now, there’s a choice. I could either live on the positive side of my letters or on the negative side of my letters. There’s no bad name, there’s no such thing as a bad name because every letter has a positive and negative side to it and its up to us, whether we’re going to live on the positive or negative side of our letters.

Dr. Kent: One of my favorite songs in history is A Boy Named Sue, where of course the father named his son Sue and the kid is angry, its an angry song and at the end the father says well do whatever you want to me but the reason I named you Sue is because I knew I wasn’t going to be there and that it would make you tough.

Norma J. Watts: The funny song, its interesting that the name Sue, the U is a funny letter. It has a sense of humor. It’s ruled by three in that it’s the natural comedian so that was a really great song in that way.

Dr. Kent: As a nameologist, what do you do everyday?

Norma J. Watts: I have a regular day job that I cant quit and I even have a joke about that on my profile; don’t give up your day job and it has a picture of me at my workplace with my nametag and everything but at night I blog and I keep up a nameology blog and it kind of keeps the spark going, keeps things going and makes me happy.

Dr. Kent: Okay, so how did you get into it? What’s the history of nameology? When you talked about numbers, what do those mean?

Norma J. Watts: I actually as an astrologer, a student of astrology since I was 12 years old, I believe that all metaphysical studies are based on astrology. So it was sort of a branch off of it and it was just sort of natural for me to understand it. I understand all the metaphysical sciences. Its sort of like if you can play piano you can easily learn how to play other instruments because if you have that basic understanding, you understand others as well. It’s the same thing, so that’s why when I picked up a book on it, I right away understood.

There’s two different types of numerology that are studied here in the United States and the west studied the pathagarist [assumed spelling] method which I do as well. It just connected with it right away, I understood it. So I use the Greek mathematician pathagarist method and this method has been around for almost 3,000 years. It’s still hard for me to understand why people don’t see this and why they don’t know our names are as plain as the nose on our face and yet nobody knows that you can tell a lot about a person just by knowing their first name.

Dr. Kent: Right, it’s just like people say there’s that famous phrase, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but as someone in the book industry, you really can.

Norma J. Watts: Yes, I beg to differ!

Dr. Kent: Speaking of your book cover, it’s a beautiful book. It’s been put out by source books and its one of so many baby name books but what’s great about this book is it’s almost like the names have more than just okay, where is this from or whatever. It talks about the strength of the individual and all of that. Did you just go about one name after the other? You just started working?

Norma J. Watts: Oh you mean the name definition section? About 70% of the book is name definitions. I wanted to do the work for the reader so you don’t have to try to mash out what does this name mean. I kind of did that for people. You can look up your own name, you can look up the names of your children or what you’d like to have and it gives a little idea. I had to go with the system, a scientific mathematical system so it could’ve been very repetitive. Most books like this are too repetitive so I really had to dice it up. There’s looking at the power number, the secret numbers, there’s hidden numbers; I had to really tailor and custom fit every single name. I spent a lot of time with this; it took a lot of years to do.

Dr. Kent: It’s a fun book, even for someone who’s not expecting a child. I was paging through it and you can look at every single letter and of course you always flock to your own name first. You read the section and it talks about if the name starts with this letter. It’s a fascinating book. How’s this been doing for you?

Norma J. Watts: It’s been moving along but this type of study hasn’t quite taken off yet. People don’t know, they’re like what is this? It’s a different kind of animal so I think it’s still an unknown thing, just a few people here and there really know about it and its kind of still hasn’t taken off.

Dr. Kent: It’s still catching on.

Norma J. Watts: I hope!

Dr. Kent: When parents name the child, is there something unconscious going on? My parents always say well we named you; my whole name is Kent Samuel Gustavson and they say we named you that because it sounded good together, the rhythm worked. Certain parents then name their children Apple or in the public eye. It’s so interesting how different celebrities are from normal folks, in certain communities people make up names. Talk about all the different kind of names.

Norma J. Watts: Again, our names they vibrate a certain personality so when that parent is thinking, gee, I think I’ll name my child apple, when they’re saying the word apple, those two P’s, they’re seven rule letters. The P has a knowledgeable, commanding first impression and this is the feeling that the mother or whoever is naming the child feels in that child that they’re carrying. They feel that vibration, that personality. Oftentimes, parents will have a name all picked out and right after that baby’s born, just before they put the name on the birth certificate they think, you know what, this looks more like an Ashley, or this is more like a Karen, I think we should go with this. Oftentimes they will change the name and go with what they feel; that vibration of the person’s personality comes out and that’s what they end up using.

Dr. Kent: How about names like my middle name, which is Samuel. How much do you credit to for that one it means in Hebrew one who fears God? How much do you look at etymology? How much does that interest you?

Norma J. Watts: It doesn’t at all. It’s a whole different thing; its apples to oranges. I don’t even look at the middle or last name. I kind of take it into consideration; sometimes a person’s middle or last name I can see some of that in their personality, but the very first name. Nobody calls you Samuel, everybody calls you Kent. That’s the name that I see that I dissect and that I look at and is the nose on your face. To me, this is you. You have a hidden 3 for example too. Some hidden literary talent. Not everybody knows, you probably have some books in the works. There’s some things I can pick out of your name that say this is what this person is about and it helps me know, should I warm up to this person. If there’s a salesperson knocking on the door, a Doris with the O first vowel, oh they’ve got to have kids or pets and I can sell my products with that in mind, you know? So it’s good for everything, not just naming children; you can also get to know the other person that you’re dealing with.

Dr. Kent: What are some popular names these days?

Norma J. Watts: These days I’m seeing a lot of Peyton and Vincent are coming back. I think its funny but recently I’ve been seeing Hunter for a girl and Gunner for a boy and I’m wondering if Governor Palin didn’t have some influence there. Then Ashley is still popular, Jaden, Noah, Taylor and Madison. People put names together like BethAnn and Julissa. They’re putting names together now, especially with the girls.

Dr. Kent: Right and a lot of the older names are kind of coming back.

Norma J. Watts: Yes the vintage names, they’re coming back and I love it.

Dr. Kent: Like Bella and things like that.

Norma J. Watts: Yeah, I think it’s fantastic.

Dr. Kent: Okay so let’s say you do name a child one thing and in college my nickname was Rusty. Does that mean anything about a personality?

Norma J. Watts: Ah-Hah! Yes it does. See it’s interesting, you didn’t lose that T. You had it in Kent and then in Rusty. Rusty has that U first vowel. You were more funny in college, you had a sense of humor, you were probably more talkative and you ruled communications that maybe you did some kind of writing or a lot of writing. The R is kind of I don’t want to say you’re a bully, but it’s a very strong presence. Its very what do you call it? Oh you could have been intimidating to other people with the R up front. And the Y, you needed a lot of freedom. I bet you were pretty wild actually with a name like that.

Dr. Kent: Yeah a little bit.

Norma J. Watts: I’m seeing that.

Dr. Kent: Let’s talk about some stars because I think that’s fun for everybody. There are so many names out there that lately its almost like they want to shock the world by naming their children, but maybe that’s not the case, maybe its what they’re feeling.

Norma J. Watts: Well if you think about it, their child is going to be very special like nobody else’s child because they are a child of a celebrity. So right away that kind of makes sense to me that Apple, or Scout, or they come up with Ireland, Suri, Shiloh, and speaking of those names, I made sure I drove my publisher crazy at the very last minute saying oh, we got to get Suri in there and we got to get… I kept going back and putting celebrity’s children’s names in that book.

So if you look in the book, you’re going to see the name Apple, Suri, Shiloh and some others. You also see a lot of multi-cultural or Russian type names, Hungarian. I had a Japanese girl tell me the other day, you know what? My mothers name is in here. I wanted to have a little bit of everything in there. I just wanted to be different.

Dr. Kent: This has been a fun discussion chatting with Norma J. Watts. She’s the author of The Art of Baby Nameology and I really appreciate chatting with you and we’ll stay in touch.

Norma J. Watts: Thank you Kent.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is a New York Times Bestselling author of the Wasted Vigil, a novel by Nadeem Aslam and it’s the winner of the Curiama [assumed spelling] Prize as well. So come on back for that in just one minute.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Spirituality, TRANSCRIPTS, Childrens, Entertainment, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST

Interview with Christopher Tennant | Sound Authors Radio

December 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors! There’s a lot of talk these days about the rich and the poor, Wall Street, the scoundrels and the elite and all sorts of things. There are some television shows on all about the lives of the rich and famous; Gossip Girl is out there for kids and the author of The Official Filthy Rich Handbook is Christopher Tennant and he’s on the show with us today. Welcome to the show.

Christopher Tennant: Hi how ya doing? Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about the lifestyles of the filthy rich in a nutshell here.

Christopher Tennant: Let’s see, it’s the .001 percent of Americans who as you might have read made a ton of money in the last decade basically. There’s always been the rich, but never this sort of filthy rich, which are people with more than well 30 million in liquid assets. And they’ve never had a book; they’ve never had a guidebook in like every exclusive club. Every exclusive club I’ve been to I didn’t see one so I decided to write a book for that. It’s a hysterical tongue in cheek book that is really a cradle to grave guide of how to fit in with the filthy rich.

Sally: This is so funny Christopher. I was reading your website last night and right now I’m actually looking at the heiress and can you tell us a little more about how you came up with the whole idea for how you’re labeling her earrings and her dress. Did you have any sort of models or guides for this particular photograph and picture?

Christopher Tennant: Yeah, basically from my end I’ve been a journalist in New York for about ten years working at page 6 of the New York Post, and a bunch of different New York magazines; New York Magazine and a newspaper called the New York Observer and ran into all of these people. I started thinking there’s a lot of, it’s a subculture like any other subculture. They have their own kind of ways of speaking and dressing and their own social rules that guide how they all behave.

And the official preppy handbook you might remember came out in 1980 and basically the publisher I ended up going with actually published the preppy handbook in 1980 so I got to work with the same designer. The preppy handbook was kind of a first satirical guide and that was about the declining species of the 80s, which was certainly the pop color, glossy, New England preppy. So the format kind of worked for it.

Dr. Kent: The book is amazing. It pops on every page and I’ve got to say I sat there for about an hour just reading page after page when I first picked up the book. It’s fantastically put together. There’s so much information in there, this must have taken you for ever.

Christopher Tennant: It took about a year and a half. It started out being late so I kind of when I was finally done I looked back on it and said oh my god, how did you do that? It was really kind of, I worked at 100 percent true and I wanted it to be 100 percent funny but I settled for 90/80 to be charitable. Yeah, it was just tons and tons of research. All of the information is kind of out there and I did a lot of interviews with a lot of very over privileged people in different parts of the country.

Dr. Kent: This week is a big week in politics along with just the Wall Street stuff and I got to say I’ve been hearing about a lot of really rich folks scrambling a little bit because they know their taxes are going to be going up.

Christopher Tennant: Yeah, they’re just, they seem, the filthy rich are just suffering the same kind of lack of awareness as everyone else. It just seems like the country as a whole everyone is kind of pulling back in anticipation of something really bad happening, which I think is going to be a self fulfilling prophecy. I’ve heard of people canceling their job charters in St. Bart’s over Christmas and all that. It’s those tough decisions but it seems like nobody really knows what’s going to happen so they’re saying oh, maybe its not a good idea to you know go on a three week golf excursion in Scotland this year. Everyone has this wait and see approach. So their obviously doing fine, they’re going to be just fine.

Sally: I’d love to know in terms of you working with your publisher and editor, how much input did you have and how much editorial control did you have to give up? Were you involved in picking the photographs of the models? Were you involved with a lot of it?

Christopher Tennant: I actually did, yes. The design was really a collaborative effort and I was involved in every step. I recluded people for the photo shoots and it was really a back and forth effort. Because there are so many pieces in it, I think there’s over 300 little pieces of independent boxes or little charts or whatever so I would kind of map out what the chapter would look like and the designer would go into it and we’d go back and forth.

Sally: It’s just a great job. As somebody that did my own book I just want to say it’s great.

Christopher Tennant: Thanks, they really wanted to kill me by the end of it. They gave me a lot of rope because it was this sort of seminal book for me. I always wanted to write a book like that and I think its pitch perfect satire so that was kind of hanging over me. I wanted to produce something that was at least as good as that so I was really, we didn’t speak for a few weeks after the book was done, they were like okay crazy person go away.

Dr. Kent: Were these models or were they people playing the part?

Christopher Tennant: Half of them are friends of mine and the other half are people that work in publishing companies.

Dr. Kent: How about you? Did you model the filthy rich on yourself?

Christopher Tennant: No, not at all. For better or for worse, no.

Dr. Kent: Is that your goal with this book and all the rest to become on of these filthy rich?

Christopher Tennant: It’s got to sell an awful lot of copies because it’s only $11.95. So 100 million copies might put me up there. If I had known what I was getting into from the beginning because it really took from cradle to grave to cover everything. So I would go around and talk to people at parties or read something and go wait we have to mention that. There would always be something. Or ooh, there’s this picnic boat, this boat made by Hinckley and its 36 feet long and costs $750,000 and John Kerry has one and all these people have one. And it was like no, I didn’t know about the Hinckley boat. So then all these little kind of bits of information was tossed at me from different research excursions and I would add it in. I really did want to be all inclusive.

Dr. Kent: The book is called The Official Filthy Rich Handbook. It’s really something that all Americans, especially middle class Americans have to read. It’s about the lives of the filthy rich and how to get there by Christopher Tennant. It’s a beautiful tongue in cheek satire, I love it, we both love it. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Christopher Tennant: Well thank you, so much. It’s at Barnes, Borders and Amazon and I have a website filthyrichhandbook.com.

Sally: By the way congratulations for being number three today in the sociology class at Amazon. I’m very impressed with your ranking so good job.

Christopher Tennant: Thanks, yeah I was worried about the total economic implosion but we’re hanging on. But its still fun to read even if you’re hurting for cash.

Dr. Kent: Thanks so much and have a wonderful day.

Christopher Tennant: You too man.

Dr. Kent: Right after the break we’re going to have book marketing strategist Warren Whitlock, legendary book marketing fellow and he’s going to be twittering at the same time as he’s talking with us on the show and I’m twittering here as well. Come on back for Warren Whitlock.

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, Comics, Entertainment, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Christopher Tennant | Rich & Famous

December 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Christopher Tennant [9:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Interviewing Christopher was a blast. His take on the lifestyles of the rich and famous is riveting. Pick up his book! An invitation to the book from his website:

WELCOME TO THE CLUB

Remember when having a couple million dollars meant something?

Neither do we.

Particularly when we recall (with just the slightest of tingles) that over 30,000 Americans are now sitting on at least thirty times that.

This crew includes every entry on the Forbes 400 (who, at last count, were worth a combined $1.54 trillion, more than all the money held in commercial U.S. banks) right on down to that guy back in B-school who first told you what a hedge fund was.

They’re not all famous, or even well known, but these 30,000 do have much in common. Relative to the average citizen, they can travel where they want, live where they want, do what they want, and even screw who they want—both for business and for pleasure. Their money allows them to be truly free, and isn’t that what our forefathers were getting at?

But, as we’ve been told so many times, freedom has its price. In the case of the aforementioned 30,000, it’s the tyranny of too many options. St. Barts or St. Moritz? Gulfstream or Boeing? Where to build your private golf course—or did you want a polo field? With all those wealth managers incessantly ringing you up, should you consider counter-surveillance measures?

We’re exhausted just thinking about it.

We call this tippity-top tier the Filthy Rich. As you’ll soon learn, you don’t need to earn or inherit more money than you already have to join their ranks. You just need to try a little harder.

Maybe a lot harder.

—Christopher Tennant

Posted by admin | Filed Under Comics, Entertainment, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

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