Thanks for listening to Bookworm. I'm host Michael Silverblatt. If there's another podcast that comes from us at KCRW that I really like is the treatment with Elvis Mitchell. I've said it for a long time. Elvis's style of interviewing is like jazz. He orchestrates so many interesting moments and gets people to say such surprising

and interesting things about film, about popular culture. He really knows his subject, and he's

one of the very best in the country. Listen to the treatment. Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tintuberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without good Lord? No, to bird. It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I have as my guests, David Shields and Caleb Powell, who have collaborated on a quarrel.

The quarrel is called, I Think You're Totally Wrong.

What I like about this book is that the two of them, once upon a time, teacher and student, now 20 years later, are going through the problems

that people have been talking about anything, it seems to me, in culture.

The cultural essence is disagreement and the acceptance that we don't come to conclusions, that we

will disagree and assert our right to disagree from the deepest parts of our heart.

Now tell me, 20 years ago, you were his teacher. What led you to approach Caleb?

Caleb was my student 25 years ago. He was a very disagreeable student who loved to argue with me.

About sort of 15 years later, Caleb came to a reading of mine. Then later, I refused to give a

blurb to a book of Caleb's that I liked okay, but not enough to give a blurb to. Caleb wrote a mixed

interview and review of my book, Reality Hunger. I wanted to write a book in which I argued against myself

through someone else. I tried a couple of other people whom I disagreed with so strongly that I

...