Jonathan Safran Foer Answers Your FIPS Internship Questions

Inspired by our comrades at Gawker, FIPS went in search of our own literary giant to fill our open internship spot. Thanks to the misuse and manipulation of childhood friendships, we scored big: Jonathan Safran Foer, wunderkind of the American literary scene, spent the morning of Bagel Monday interning at the FIPS Park Slope office! We didn't have much busywork for him to attend to, so the Everything is Illuminated author spent most of the morning responding to your email.

Again, apologies for the last-minute notice: FIPS is new and we had to take him when we could get him! It was beyond charitable of him to volunteer in the first place- Special thanks to everyone who took time out of their weekend to send in questions for JSF!

Here's the cream of the crop:

LauraBeans: "How do you feel about The Guardian's recent coinage of the term Schadenfoer?"

JSF: Consider a dormouse. He occupies a silent corner of a vast barn, dwelling beneath the radar of the other barnyard animals. He hardly surfaces except to sprint from bale to bale while the other creatures sleep. The other animals, innately, know the dormouse is present, but his presence is not felt so much as imagined. Without his exposure, the confirmation of his being, the other animals are left to conceive his likeness through their own immersions; The Guardian are a bunch of jerkoffs.

SashimiPimp: Why do you think it seems to be so hip to hate you? Aren't you just an author? Is it all just jealousy?

JSF: My Uncle Eli used to espouse three somewhat differing aphorisms regarding the derivation of emotional intensity. The first was that within each of us, there is a capacity to be each other. Not in a Dionysian sense, but really and truly to step into the shoes of everyone around us. Faced with the realities of those who are tangential to our extended existence, we take on the differences between ourselves in the form of longing, desire, and even rage. I can't remember the other two. It's jealousy; they're a bunch of jerkoffs.

BaconBlitz: Which is your favorite Chinese restaurant in the slope, and what do you normally order?

JSF: We like Red Hot. Their General Tao's Chicken is sublime.

BenedictA: Congrats on being a new father! How is parenthood treating you so far - is it what you expected?

JSF: It's sublime. Last night at two in the morning, baby awakes and looks around unsure, calls for my wife but not me and I think, what plan does nature make for me while my wife is at the helm of my child's life? That crying, those tears, sobbing heaviness like war, and love, emotional love, filled with an energy that unleashes itself KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO KA-KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM flooding his room and our hearts with a deluge of what could no longer be held back, when he released into the universe a light so powerful that if it could have been harnessed and utilized, rather than sent forth and wasted, the Germans wouldn't have had a chance.

MtnCliver: How do you feel about the ongoing collapse of the Global Financial System?

JSF: It gives me heavy boots.

Comments

[Anonymous]

@Jonathan Safran Foer: Do you think James Frey is a douche? Would you ever consider challenging him to a proper duel?

[Anonymous]

What's with the General Tso's chicken? Judging from your writing about the meat industry, I thought you were a vegetarian.

[marciamarciamarcia]

never saw this post for some reason - it's hilarious!!

...But not as funny as these two other Anonymous commenters. People are so thick, it's depressing me on this New Years morning.