#38: Micro-Interview w/ Jay Lee
By Bilal Bikile
Bilal Bikile (Los Angeles) hits the ring button on FaceTime at his desk following a rush back home after a long day. The phone is answered by Jay Lee (Upstate NY), a law student and literary man, who has taken the time to join an interview upon Bikile’s request. Here, two old friends and shared thinkers have a lasting conversation on many topics, Bikile sipping from a mug of black tea and Lee blowing cigarette smoke into the camera of his iPhone.
The Q&A below is only a small portion of the conversation that took place… Enjoy.
Who is Jay?
Just a regular guy, with the same problems and dreams as everyone else.
East Coast or West Coast?
West Coast all day.
Why?
The sun doesn’t flood you on the East Coast as it does in the West.
Top (Dead) Authors & A Recommendation
Yukio Mishima
“Patriotism” (A short story)
Spring Snow (Novel)
Teresa Hak Kyung Cha
Dictee
Gertrude Stein
Tender Buttons (Objects)
What do you like about Gertrude Stein?
I found Gertrude Stein in college during one of my poetry classes. She was revolutionary in every kind of way. Not just as a woman, but as a writer and in every aspect of her life. I love her unwillingness to compromise, the confidence to be illegible. I think that is very brave as an author whose purpose is to be understood.
Tolstoy
Anna Karenina
Top Living Authors
Fae Myenne Ng
Steer Toward Rock
Banana Yoshimoto
N.P
Mario Vargas Llosa
Conversation in the Cathedral
How often do you read fiction?
It’s the only thing I read.
Current Obsessions?
Tea. I collect the plastic packets they come in too. It serves as a receipt of the time you spend with every cup you drink.
What kinds of tea do you drink?
Gen-mai Cha (Japanese Green Tea with Roasted Rice). Also Bigelow’s Black tea, because it reminds me of my old roommate Alex from Berkeley. He is Russian and would always brew us black tea.
Tell me about the leather jackets. (Jay has a thing for leather jackets.)
When I was a kid, I saw this picture of a double rider perfecto with epaulets and all the trimmings. I remember seeing it and thinking, I need to wear that. I like that leather is primal, ancient, elemental. It has a hereditary quality not only because it’s the body of another living thing granted to you but also because it’s probably the fabric humans have worn the longest, like since we were cavemen. The associations we carry about a leather jacket being a “hand-me-down” from father to son, mother to daughter I guess only adds to that story and feeling.
I love that it is very natural, unlike lots of modern clothes which are usually made of polyester blends and other petrochemicals which are formulated and synthesized in labs.
I also love how two-faced it is. It’s protective of and generous towards the one wearing it, shields them from rain, knives, whatever. It’s noble and self-sacrificial. But to onlookers it’s harsh and unaccommodating, not at all like wool, all soft and inviting. I admire and am attracted to leather because it’s a fabric with personality.
Thoughts on Denim?
I love how local and universal it is. On one hand, denim to me is very Californian and its story is rooted in a specific geography since jeans were created for miners who came to California during the gold rush. That story to me is vainglorious, hard-working, mythic, which are all such American qualities.
But jeans are also worn by everyone. It’s one of America’s best cultural totems, but also its most popular export — jeans, Levi’s — you don’t think about it, but everyone wears it. Whether you’re in Africa, Asia, wherever, whether you’re young, old, gay, it doesn’t matter. Everyone likes jeans. Everyone wears jeans. It’s straight-up cultural dominion. We’re on your ass, literally.
Last country you visited and a good memory from the trip?
The last country I visited was France. I’m not a big sightseeing person. I just go to a place and live there for a bit. When there, I bought this book called The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. (Jay holds the book up to the camera). I had this daily routine where I would wake up, walk for 40 minutes, with no maps or destination in mind, get hungry, find a cafe, and sit there. I’d eat. Drink. Read the book for a couple of hours, get full, go walk, eat, then read again.
I finished the book the last night I was there. I remember I was in a big courtyard with gothic buildings looming behind me. I was smoking while reading. I savored it. When I finished the book, I took the cigarette and burned a hole in the O of “God” on the front cover.
You truly are a writer, Jay. It’s all about the vibe. I respect it.
(Jay laughs.) I have another memory I want to share. When I was in France, it was my first time outside North America, and I remember I was at a café telling the server my order when I realized just how loud my voice was compared to the voices around me. French people only speak loudly enough for the other person to hear. We (Americans) aren’t like that. We just talk over each other. It’s those subtle cultural cues that really make you feel like a foreigner and I felt for the first time how American I was, which was a weird feeling because so much of my life in America is lived in opposition to or at least has friction with the idea that I can ever truly be an American.
Jay’s Philosophy on Change and Discourse
Change
Natural, perpetual, and inevitable.
Discourse
All this chatter needs to stop. Zip it. I don’t know where people find the gall to think I care. Like who gave you the permission to sit here and tell me what you think like I give a sh*t? People are really out here acting like they’re God, talking about oh men are like this, women are like that, life is like this, like who the f*ck do you think you are?
What is your earliest memory?
That is a GREAT question. I’ve been thinking recently, how do I even know about love? It’s not like anyone ever explained it to us. It must come from our parents, if we were lucky enough to be loved by them. So recently I’ve been trying to find my earliest memory of love. The one I have, I don’t remember actually seeing or hearing it, just vague impressions, but I was maybe 1 year old. I was in a small room with a low ceiling and white plaster walls, harsh fluorescent light. Like some jail cell. And somewhere there was a gray Panasonic CD player, playing this song. I don’t remember the song, just a humming and the feeling of a cheap fuzzy sweater and a swaying, side to side. I told my Mom about this memory recently, and she said, “How do you remember that?”
All of it was real. My mom would play music on that CD player and dance with me in our tiny apartment when I was a baby, before I was at an age where I could even form a memory. But somehow I remember this and it is so intimate, so warm, it’s how I know love.
Write a sentence for a novel that takes place in Upstate New York where you live. How would you describe walking down the street in the middle of March?
“Stilted but sure, the cadence of love.”
one time jay and i were writing poems at caroline's by the beach in sd. i was intimidated by the pen game but i wrote a three-liner that's still my favorite
we need this man in Deixis Vol. 2.