RR Interviews: Zan McQuade of the Cincinnati Anthology (Pt. 2)

ZM:

John Curley's baseball photo was a concession, but it was a great photo. I was worried my view of Cincinnati through the lens of baseball would overcrowd the book. Like I said before, I think it's a great way to view the city, but not everyone has that view or might understand that view

CS:

Understood.

ZM:

But I had to make the cover Red.

CS:

Something I thought, if you can handle a mild critique, is that there was a LOT of OTR.

ZM:

Yeah, it was something I was aware of in the final edits. But I do feel like it reflects how it actually feels to live here: OTR is kind of what everyone is focused on right now.

CS:

Everyone things that the city was at its best the moment they arrived or the moment before they arrived, and the city's gone downhill since.

So as you said, OTR is the focus, so how OTR has changed allows people to demonstrate that they were here "before" it changed, and therefore liked Cincinnati more then.

("before" in quotes because, well, before what? Before ~you~ is the silent reply)

(~you~ being the general second person, not Ms. McQuade)

ZM:

I feel like people might get bit by something the moment they get here (and that can also be when they were born here).

That's pretty true, though I think that it's good that people are finding personal attachment to the city and judging their experience based around that. I think without that personal attachment, your experience in a city doesn't really matter as much.

CS:

Definitely.

ZM:

Rebecca Morgan Frank's piece is beautiful, but she ultimately left this city without loving it because she never found her personal connection to it.

CS:

Oh yeah! I felt emotional about that one, which is always nice. I was weirdly defensive, but also completely understanding.

ZM:

That was another favorite of mine, because her criticisms of this city were so accurate. Those of us who love it defend it so fiercely that we sometimes drive people away.  I could see a lot of those things that happened to her potentially happening to me if I didn't throw myself headfirst into this city with a love that might never be returned.

It's a hard city to crack if you're ambivalent about it. But I decided I would find all the things I loved passionately about it, or even the things I didn't necessarily love, but found deeply fascinating, and that was the way I could be a part of it.

CS:

I was really impressed by Sarah Wessler's piece. I was very, very, ready to dislike it, and came away recommending it to my mom by the end.

ZM:

Hers was great. Like you said, there was a lot of OTR in the book, but the pieces that are in there about OTR are some of the strongest.  She had a really great approach: both analytical and personal. I really liked that. I think those of us who live here have a hard time with the analytical approach sometimes.

CS:

Another article I really liked was Alex Schutte's about belongingness and identity in Cincinnati. It reminded me of a prospect the Reds have, El'Hajj Muhammad.

ZM:

You have to hear Alex read his out loud some time. He performs it even better than it reads in the book.

I saw El'Hajj at Redsfest a few years ago, and followed him on Twitter for a while.

CS:

His twitter avatar was a picture I took in Billings for a while.

I told him this when I saw him this summer at a game. He was...kinda weirded out.

"Ok...cool man..." -- El'Hajj Muhammad

ZM:

What about the two reminded you of each other?

CS:

Muhammad is maybe going to be a bullpen arm. Which would be awesome because good for him! I have his autograph!

But also, man I would not want to be him when he's a guy named El'Hajj Muhammad blowing an 8th-inning lead. Cincinnati can't really shake the idea that there's only a certain type of True Cincinnatian, and this really discomfits me. I really love the brick buildings, pilsner beer, and Zinzinnati identity of the city...but know that that will never be me and don't know if I have the strength/ability to change it.

ZM:

Though what I find interesting is that I lived in New York for 11 years, and I think people in Cincinnati are more similar to each other across race lines than they are in New York. But there's something written in our history that makes it so glaring and so touchy, but for really important reasons.

CS:

I looooove when New York publications do their "wow look how racist the midwest is" and it's like...really guys?

Wait, what do you mean by important reasons?

ZM:

I really wanted this discussion to be a part of this book because I think that race issues are an important part of this city's history and an important part of our now-story. What's happening in OTR can't be untied from race, any more than it could have in 2001, or in 1876.

I also think that what you mentioned before,  the "certain type of true Cincinnatian," is a bit real, but also a bit of a false construct. I think if you talked to most Cincinnatians, none of them would fit that bill

CS:

Of course

ZM:

So it's kind of like we all have this hanging over our heads, this idea of Zinzinnati or whatever, when really we're already way beyond that. Which is a huge part of what I wanted to get across in this book, and why I think there needs to be another book, because no way could you get all the types of Cincinnatians in 200 pages.

Michael Wilson's Price Hill Portraits get into that a bit I think

CS:

/sends letter to Anne Trubeck about an An2hology.

ZM:

Yes! Do! OOr just get lots of your friends to buy this one

CS:

The geology of Cincinnati! That was also an incredible read (and great to lead off, also: the mountains come first)

ZM:

I had to start with Polk's piece about the hills. I feel like all of us feel the hills more than anything.

CS:

So I have a final question. It's not from the book, but I really like your line "I pity heterosexual boys who are into baseball." http://zanmcquade.com/blog/2012/6/27/some-feelings-about-baseball.html

ZM:

Oh my god, how can this be your last question? I will now talk for an hour about being a female baseball fan.

But thank you

CS:

Because SBNation is a sports blog for The Target Demographic of Straight White Males, and therefore, I love pointing out that non-straight- non-white, non-males are also baseball fans.

ZM:

And it's true! I do! I feel so lucky coming to baseball from an entirely non-heterosexual male position. I can introduce you to plenty of female baseball fans...and I don't just mean the Mrs. Vottos. I am not the first female baseball fan there ever was. Sometimes it feels that way, but I'm being disrespectful to Doris Kearns Goodwin if no one else if I say that.

CS:

I have to deal with the fact that ads to see a nipple slip gif will be right below this interview on the page.

ZM:

Well, sometimes women like to see those too.

Iust as long as you never put a "ladies' corner" on Red Reporter, we're good.

Decorated in pink with sequins....that stuff gets me, but to each her own.

I wish this for heterosexual men: the ability to see the artistry of the game, the beauty and ballet in the pitch, the emotion that goes beyond a win or a loss and can be felt in every twitch of the catcher's glove.

That's what I wish for the menfolk. It makes baseball so much better... but perhaps I'm unfairly assuming they already don't see that!

CS:

Ehh, I wonder too. Do you ever feel like this substrate of couchbound bros is sustaining your own appreciation of Cueto's followthru or Bruce's armflap? Because I do.

ZM:

These dudes have taught me so much about baseball. I knew nothing of how to talk about the sport, and I once walked into a room full of guys after I'd been to a game asking me if Brandon Phillips went "oh for four" and I had no idea what that meant.

That sounds incredibly naïve, but there is something to be said for having a dudely hand to guide you through the basics.

CS:

You're way kinder than me.

ZM:

You have to talk with someone in initials to be a real fan, don't you?

CS:

Oh hell no, I'm not that sort of fan. I just like all the new weirdnesses in baseball.

The way you talk about it makes it seem like there's this infrastructure to the game: oh-for-four, a changeup, first-to-third that's how we do it in Cincinnati.

ZM:

I kind of love that.  And fear it, but it makes me want to keep learning. I think baseball has its own language, for sure, which depending on who you're talking to, can sound like all sorts of different experiences.

CS:

Alongside the infrastructure is the balleticness, as you said (but in better English)...

ZM:

...there are definitely the Episcopalian-type recitations.

CS:

So what's your rite?

ZM:

You have both the talk, which makes it sound mechanical, and the silent prayer, which is where you have your visions or whatever makes it beautiful to you.

Do you really want to know my whole routine? Because I totally have one

A beer at Moerlein before the game. A MadTree inside, chicken & waffles in the early innings. Someone will inevitably bring pistachios, and I'll have my scorebook, and several different colored pencils for scoring.

I hate sitting in the same section more than a few times in a row. I'd probably be happiest out in the bleachers, where you can't see the jumbotron: feels more like real baseball out there. You get to watch the outfielders picking grass instead of someone choosing which Skyline dish the baseball is under.

CS:

This is all making me incredibly nostalgic.

ZM:

Not to make you feel bad, but you need to get back here. I've never loved this city more than I do at baseball games.

CS:

I feel the same way.