Portions of Interviews with the Unknown (various) “what bugged me most was the way that the Unknown ended up driving a wedge between us.” “yeah, he was like that, he would dive headlong into things, sometimes it would work out, sometimes he would end up with a head injury.” “were plenty of days when it stopped being fun enough to continue.” “and then it was a success more or less and we should have stopped that day.” “who knows maybe he’s addressing the UN. I stopped caring a long time ago.” “if you see that bastard tell him he owes me fifty bucks and a fifth of Bookers.” “no there was never any infidelity in that sense though each of those two had it in them.” “why is it that everyone wants to ask me about the beverage thing? Buttermilk coats the stomach.” “when the truth was that each of us was in the midst of a kind of drying-out period during most of that time.” “I can’t believe he ended up in the clergy, after all of that.” “yeah, nobody believed he was real until his byline started popping up in Wired. Even then, a lot of people thought it was part of an elaborate Unknown hoax.” “sometimes I wonder about Z. Last I heard he had some kind of civil service job in Southern California. Sorting mail, I think.” “she ended up going back into the law after they got married. Intellectual property. Did a lot of work for Dirk’s Internet company. Before it went bust.” “it was like he got addicted to it, and he couldn’t stop, couldn’t move forward or go back.” “without a spiritual component, you may as well be snorting cocaine. I’m not sure if he ever caught on to that.” “finally, I consider him a fake, essentially. Loud talker but when it came to the writing he just wasn’t there.” “once it started getting taken seriously that opened up all sorts of problems.” “could see it coming. They didn’t realize that it takes real effort to stay young.” “myth. And we were consciously doing that. The irony is that the part everyone thinks was made up, about the magic mushrooms and the LSD and the 36 hour bourbon binge, was absolutely true.” “catharsis, yeah, I could buy that. It was like the Unknown came at this critical vacuum time for each of us in a different way.” “had to. Somebody finally needed to burst that bubble.” “of sheer idiocy. Of course no agent would touch it.” “and he was insane. Then, lo and behold, there it is, just like he said. He did it again. But that doesn’t change the fact that he was insane, even destructive.” “the worst of times. Who are we to whine about that? Jesus, do you know how many people were getting slaughtered in Eastern Europe? in the Middle East? right down the street?” “it got to be too much, nothing but picnics in Urbana. So I unsubscribed.” “couldn’t tell what was bullshit and what was sincere.” “should have gone on that tour in Australia. That would have been fun.”