Redux: Then I Turn On the TV

Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

Gabriel García Márquez.

This week at The Paris Review, we’re thinking about newspapers, newsprint, television sets, and media. Read on for Gabriel García Márquez’s Art of Fiction interview, Peter Mountford’s short story “Pay Attention,” and Anne Waldman’s poem “How to Write.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or take advantage of our new subscription bundle, bringing you four issues of the print magazine, access to our full sixty-seven-year digital archive, and our new TriBeCa tote for only $69 (plus free shipping!).

Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69
Issue no. 82 (Winter 1981)

I’ve always been convinced that my true profession is that of a journalist. What I didn’t like about journalism before were the working conditions. Besides, I had to condition my thoughts and ideas to the interests of the newspaper. Now, after having worked as a novelist, and having achieved financial independence as a novelist, I can really choose the themes that interest me and correspond to my ideas. In any case, I always very much enjoy the chance of doing a great piece of journalism.

Photo: Mysid. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Pay Attention
By Peter Mountford
Issue no. 223 (Winter 2017)

When she returns the following Tuesday, Bertram is watching CNN. There are two screens now: the one that’s right in front of his face and the television that’s been mounted on the wall all along. She sits and mutes the television. “You have more preloaded dialogue for me?”

Photo: Hana Kirana. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How to Write
By Anne Waldman
Issue no. 45 (Winter 1968)

Perhaps I’m kidding myself about
the life I lead

Sometimes I feel I’m dying
like a lot of things I see around me

Then I turn on the TV and understand
that everything must still be moving

Music, for example, and I rush outside
around the corner to a concert

It’s so easy

Everything accessible from where I
happen to live at the moment …

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