Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens
-
0:09 - 0:14I'm Craig and with a group
of beautiful friends that I love, -
0:14 - 0:19and at this moment miss very much,
I run a small bookshop -
0:19 - 0:23in the town of Oia, on the island
of Santorini in the south of Greece. -
0:23 - 0:31And we do philosophy books,
and we do some Greek history -
0:31 - 0:35and general non fiction,
we do travel logs and journals. -
0:35 - 0:43We print our own books once in a while and
we celebrate tzatziki at every opportunity, -
0:43 - 0:48and we feed it to people
on our terrace until they explode. -
0:48 - 0:51We have readings
in the evenings in the shop -
0:51 - 0:55and we make bonfires
on the terrace at night. -
0:56 - 1:03But mostly we specialize in fiction.
-
1:03 - 1:05When the rare occasion does come,
-
1:05 - 1:08that someone offers to give me money
in exchange for a book and I perk up, -
1:08 - 1:13they're generally putting a story
on the table and saying "I'd like this" -
1:13 - 1:19and then more often than not,
they'll ask "What are you doing here?", -
1:19 - 1:23"Who are you?" and sometimes
they'll ask "Do you take dollars?" -
1:23 - 1:26or "Where are your copies
of 'Fifty shades of grey'?" -
1:26 - 1:28(Laughter)
-
1:28 - 1:30(Greek): Bullshit
-
1:30 - 1:37(Laughter)
(Applause) -
1:37 - 1:41And if I am in the mood
and if I've had a glass of wine -
1:41 - 1:48or I'll offer a glass of wine
to the customer and we'll sit down and, -
1:48 - 1:51I'll tell them a little bit of stories.
-
1:51 - 1:57And over the years we've had a thousand
tellings of the story over and over. -
1:57 - 1:59And people come
and ask for our nativity story -
1:59 - 2:04and we have a thousand alternations of it,
and to keep us awake and alert, -
2:04 - 2:08and keep our muscle taught,
sometimes, we'll, just for fun, -
2:08 - 2:12throw in little twists on the truth,
to see what we can slip by a customer -
2:12 - 2:15that we're probably
never gonna see again. -
2:15 - 2:18So I'll tell them that I was born
in Mississippi instead of Tennessee, -
2:18 - 2:21or I'll tell them that I got to college
on a basketball scholarship -
2:21 - 2:28or I'll tell them that I was one of the
founders of Facebook and watch them shake. -
2:30 - 2:34And I mean, this is what we do,
-
2:34 - 2:39our stock and trade, honestly 75%
and more of our day is spent -
2:39 - 2:44selling and telling
stories at the bookshop. -
2:45 - 2:49And so, when I was invited here,
I had actually to spin and tell our story. -
2:49 - 2:52I had to actually think for a minute,
because I wanted to make sure -
2:52 - 2:56that I didn't mess up,
get the facts wrong. -
2:57 - 2:59After a while, you start to dissociate yourself
-
2:59 - 3:03and the story becomes something
that you weren't even there. -
3:03 - 3:06You remember it more
as a story that you've told, -
3:06 - 3:08than a story that you've actually lived.
-
3:08 - 3:13So I came back to this instant
and then I thought OK, -
3:13 - 3:17I should probably tell something
much more proximate to the truth here. -
3:17 - 3:20But then I realized,
probably the quickest way -
3:20 - 3:23to quickly tell that would be to base it
-
3:23 - 3:26on the most important lies
that we encountered, -
3:26 - 3:30and that we told ourselves
to make this bookshop happen. -
3:30 - 3:33So indulge me for a couple of minutes,
-
3:33 - 3:40and I'll give you the quick story of how
we did this or are doing this so far. -
3:41 - 3:43The way that I'll set it up, so yeah,
-
3:43 - 3:46we start printing these books
in the back room of the shop, -
3:46 - 3:52just on our own as a little money maker
on the side to make ends meet, -
3:52 - 3:53because we've always wanted to do it.
-
3:53 - 3:56And so we were looking at old titles
in the public domain -
3:56 - 4:01of favourite authors of ours,
and one of the fellows in our crew, -
4:01 - 4:06Chris Bloomfield, that's Bloomfield
with two O's he wanted me to mention, -
4:06 - 4:10Chris Bloomfield came across this
old essay that this very handsome man, -
4:10 - 4:16Mark Twain, wrote for a speech competition
in Connecticut back in the 1880s I believe. -
4:16 - 4:20He did not win the prize,
but it's a beautiful little essay. -
4:20 - 4:23And there is this one little part of it
that I'll just launch off of it -
4:23 - 4:24and if you want to read along with me,
it says, -
4:24 - 4:27"Lying is universal. We all do it."
-
4:27 - 4:30And we can argue that later, but I think
everyone, we're on the same team here. -
4:30 - 4:32"Therefore, the wise thing is for us
to diligently train ourselves -
4:32 - 4:35to lie thoughtfully, juduciously;
to lie with a good object, -
4:35 - 4:39and not an evil one; to lie
for others' advantage, and not our own; -
4:39 - 4:44to lie healingly, charitably, humanely,
not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; -
4:44 - 4:48to lie gracefully and graciously,
not awkwardly and clumsily… -
4:48 - 4:51Then shall we be rid of the rank
pestilent truth that is rotting the land; -
4:51 - 4:55then shall we be great
and good and beautiful." -
4:55 - 4:59And so we looked at each other
and we said "Yeah, we're doing this, yeah." -
4:59 - 5:02(Laughter)
-
5:02 - 5:07So let me tell you a little
about the best lies of all, -
5:07 - 5:11and give you a sense of how
we came to be here from far away. -
5:11 - 5:14I first came to Santorini
by chance, by coincidence, -
5:14 - 5:16got on the first boat out of Pireaus,
-
5:16 - 5:19when I was on holiday
with my friend Oliver. -
5:19 - 5:24This was back in 2002,
we came to this island, we sat down, -
5:24 - 5:28we poured ourselves a glass of wine,
poured some olive oil over some tomatoes, -
5:28 - 5:32and basically sat on our terrace
and stared out -
5:32 - 5:35with our mouths slightly gape
for several days -
5:35 - 5:38and then on about the fourth
or the fifth day we were there, -
5:38 - 5:43we ran out of books to read
and there was no bookshop. -
5:43 - 5:49So, we did some drinking instead.
-
5:49 - 5:52And we were stumbling back
from a restaurant one night -
5:52 - 5:53and I just looked over at Oliver and said,
-
5:53 - 5:57"Oliver, we gotta open a bookshop,
so that nobody else has to do this", -
5:57 - 6:00and he said "That's a great idea,
we'll call it Atlantis books", -
6:00 - 6:04and I said "That's not a very good name,
but we'll worry about that tomorrow." -
6:04 - 6:06And we woke up the next morning
and I said "Bookshop!", -
6:06 - 6:09and he said, "We're sober now",
and I said, "No, no, no, bookshop." -
6:09 - 6:11And so we went back to Athens,
-
6:11 - 6:15we went to the commercial services
office at the Embassy, -
6:15 - 6:17and we met this lady, Eleni,
-
6:17 - 6:20(Laughter)
-
6:20 - 6:25and we said, "Can a couple of Americans
open a bookshop in Greece?" -
6:25 - 6:31and she looked at me and she said
(Greek): "It will be easy". -
6:31 - 6:33(Laughter)
-
6:33 - 6:36It will be easy.
-
6:36 - 6:40You know, you go to the tax office
and they give you a paper with the stamp -
6:40 - 6:42and then you go
to the cash machine store -
6:42 - 6:44and you buy a cash machine
and you put it on your desk. -
6:44 - 6:45And (Greek) here you go,
you are a bookstore. -
6:45 - 6:50and so we said "Great, great"
and it was such a good answer -
6:50 - 6:54and we ran with it so fast that we didn't
even think to ask her a second opinion, -
6:54 - 6:56because when you get an answer
that's that good, -
6:56 - 6:58you're just going to run with it.
-
6:58 - 7:01So we went back and we went about
the business of graduating from university -
7:01 - 7:04and got together
the best people that we knew, -
7:04 - 7:09the most incredible group of friends
and convinced them to come along with us -
7:09 - 7:14and one girl that during that time
I happen to fall in love with, -
7:14 - 7:17and told her that I was going to build her
a bookshop at an island -
7:17 - 7:20in the south of Greece.
-
7:20 - 7:21And she said, "OK, if you do it, I'll come
-
7:21 - 7:23and I'll make orange juice
for you in the mornings", -
7:23 - 7:24and I said, "Great, great."
-
7:24 - 7:28So we got this crew together,
we took a van -
7:28 - 7:31from Cambridge, England, Christmas 2003
-
7:31 - 7:34and we packed up the van
and drove it across the continent -
7:34 - 7:39and across the Alps and down to Greece
and we got to the tax office. -
7:39 - 7:45And they said (Greek):
"It's not going to be easy". -
7:45 - 7:48(Laughter)
(Applause) -
7:48 - 7:53So that's another long and much more
horrifying TED talk to give you, -
7:53 - 7:58all the details on that.
We're on the same team here clearly. -
7:58 - 8:01(Laughter)
-
8:01 - 8:03So we gridded our teeth,
and I sort of slouched -
8:03 - 8:07like in that picture
for several months going through -
8:07 - 8:10and, you know, in the meantime
we met the locals and the community. -
8:10 - 8:12We introduced ourselves to them,
-
8:12 - 8:14and we said, "We are going to open
a bookstore" and they believed us, -
8:14 - 8:16and they start treating us
like booksellers. -
8:16 - 8:20And so we found
this hallucination of a building, -
8:20 - 8:24beneath the castle at the edge of town,
this old Venetian castle. -
8:24 - 8:27And we went to the landlord
and we said, "We want this building", -
8:27 - 8:30and he said "I will rent it to you,
but I will charge you way too much, -
8:30 - 8:32and then at the end of the year,
I will kick you out -
8:32 - 8:35so that I can build presidential suites",
-
8:35 - 8:37and we said, "OK, fine, we'll take it,
it's too good to pass out." -
8:37 - 8:40And we're going do such a great job
the first year -
8:40 - 8:42that we're going to melt his heart
-
8:42 - 8:44and it's a wonderful life all over again
and we'll be fine. -
8:44 - 8:47And even if it doesn't work,
if we're going to do it just once off, -
8:47 - 8:50and it's going to die anyhow, this is
the perfect place to have the experiment. -
8:50 - 8:54So, we got this building,
we adopted a dog and a cat, -
8:54 - 8:57we started putting up some shelves,
we started building some tables, -
8:57 - 9:01we got an old fisherman's boat
and put it on the terrace. -
9:01 - 9:05And our friends started coming, because
they heard that we actually had a place. -
9:05 - 9:07And I started writing
their names on the wall -
9:07 - 9:10just so we can keep track
of who is passing through. -
9:10 - 9:15If you can see there, that's just the very
inception of that back in the years. -
9:15 - 9:17And we got things going,
and we were ready to go. -
9:17 - 9:20And by Easter time more and more
of them where coming. -
9:20 - 9:27We had Easter Eve, we were ready to go
and our shop was very nearly there. -
9:27 - 9:29And we were laughing about how
this was really gonna happen -
9:29 - 9:32and that some day we were going
to have beautiful kids, like these, -
9:32 - 9:35and they were going
to run the shop for us. -
9:35 - 9:39And that first summer was glorious
and people came and we had a blast -
9:39 - 9:41and we sold good books.
-
9:41 - 9:46And an old drinking buddy of mine
from Paris, this fellow Jeremy Mercer, -
9:46 - 9:49was asked to write an article
for the Guardian -
9:49 - 9:52about his ten favorite bookshops,
-
9:52 - 9:54and on a lark he put us as his favourite.
-
9:54 - 9:59And it turns out that journalists like
to copy what they read on the internet, -
9:59 - 10:02because soon we saw
ourselves popping up -
10:02 - 10:05on all these other lists
of the ten best bookshops in the world. -
10:05 - 10:08That's the only reason,
because I had this one friend, -
10:08 - 10:10who wrote something in the Guardian,
it comes up -
10:10 - 10:15and that's why everyone believes it.
Turns out we were just lucky. -
10:15 - 10:19(Laughter)
(Applause) -
10:19 - 10:22So, notice that there was
no beautiful girl there, -
10:22 - 10:25because in the time that it took
to raise that money and motivation -
10:25 - 10:29to actually get it going, she had fallen
in love with someone else, -
10:29 - 10:32and got off and I didn't know what to end.
-
10:32 - 10:36We were getting close
to the end of the year, -
10:36 - 10:39we could hear the footsteps
of the landlord, coming closer and closer. -
10:39 - 10:43And we were going to go home,
and then another beautiful girl walked in -
10:42 - 10:45and I just completely forgot about
anybody else who I had ever seen. -
10:45 - 10:48And I said we were going to fight,
we're going to come back. -
10:48 - 10:49We were going to find,
we were going to built another one. -
10:49 - 10:52I'm going to build it for her.
-
10:51 - 10:53She is the one that
I was going to build it for all along. -
10:53 - 10:56(Audience): Bravo!
(Applause) -
10:56 - 10:59And then the landlord
came and kicked us out. -
10:59 - 11:02(Laughter)
-
11:03 - 11:06And the next winter, so over the winter
we found another place, -
11:06 - 11:09that we haven't even noticed
the year before, this little dingy place. -
11:09 - 11:15And we rented that and we started
painting and bashing down walls, -
11:15 - 11:17and deliberating where we're going
to put the new shelves. -
11:17 - 11:19and bashing down more rocks.
-
11:19 - 11:22You have to be ambitious to do
this kind of thing once by hand, -
11:22 - 11:25but you go a little bit crazy
the second time it turns out -
11:25 - 11:31and by Easter year two we had a new shop,
and the books were better, -
11:31 - 11:36and they were more of them
and we sit upon our terrace, -
11:36 - 11:40and we began to cruise,
and we sold our books. -
11:40 - 11:44And we got a new cat
and we put the cat to work and we... -
11:44 - 11:51(Laughter)
(Applause) -
11:51 - 11:56We got a crew to start coming back,
-
11:56 - 11:58and Chris was holding court
in the back room, there he is. -
11:58 - 12:01And we served up some
more tzatziki, as we do. -
12:01 - 12:04And we have more readings
and Chris played his cello. -
12:04 - 12:07And we had bonfires in the evening
and we met new friends. -
12:07 - 12:11And we danced among the bookshelves
in the evenings until the sun came up. -
12:11 - 12:17And we laughed and we argued about
which was the most beautiful bookjacket. -
12:17 - 12:24And we pontificated and we watched
as things got a bit hairier on 2008-2009. -
12:24 - 12:27Since then it's been a series
of us trying to do -
12:27 - 12:29whatever we could creatively
to stay alive, -
12:29 - 12:32as I'm sure many of you can relate.
-
12:32 - 12:34And somehow every year we have
this conversation "Is this the end?" -
12:34 - 12:38And we say "Maybe it is" and the we say
"Well, what can we do?" and we wait. -
12:38 - 12:42I think it's since 2002 when we first
came up with this idea. -
12:42 - 12:46We said "We're just going to run with this
until there is a wall that we bash into", -
12:46 - 12:50and we haven't bashed into it yet.
-
12:50 - 12:52We started printing our own books
in the back room of the shop like I said -
12:52 - 12:57and that's gone larger and
that's helped to supplement where, -
12:57 - 13:00we are figuring any sort of ways
that we can, to streamline our operation, -
13:00 - 13:06to find new and better and more beautiful
and rarer books and it keeps us busy. -
13:06 - 13:12And we're still laughing about maybe
our kids will run it some day. -
13:17 - 13:23So, I would say, that in these days,
if you find yourselves in the situation -
13:23 - 13:26that we're in, it's now
the end of the tourist season -
13:26 - 13:28and I'm looking at the books
and I'm going to go back to Santorini -
13:28 - 13:30in a couple of days,
-
13:30 - 13:33and take a look at where
we are at the end of the year, -
13:33 - 13:34and I'm gonna hold my breath,
-
13:34 - 13:36and hope that we can pay the rent
to get through to next spring. -
13:36 - 13:42And, I believe, I'm gonna tell myself
that we're going to do it. -
13:42 - 13:46We're going to keep lying
gracefully to ourselves, -
13:46 - 13:50and we're going to run
with these graceful lies -
13:50 - 13:53that women like Eleni
are going to keep telling us, -
13:53 - 13:58because if she hadn't lied
to us to our face, -
13:58 - 14:03this would never have happened.
-
14:03 - 14:08So I would say that. Let us lie
gracefully a little bit more -
14:08 - 14:12and watch the people that come
and start to believe your story, -
14:12 - 14:18because that spiral over the years grows
and continues to grow. -
14:18 - 14:27And we had this spiral
that's on the roof of the building, -
14:27 - 14:29and we don't know how we're going
to keep everything underneath, -
14:29 - 14:31but there is fellow Henry David Thoreau,
another handsome man, -
14:31 - 14:36who said "If you build castles in the air,
your work need not be lost; -
14:36 - 14:39that is where they should be.
Now build foundations under them." -
14:39 - 14:44And that's what we're doing and if you
happen to find yourself -
14:44 - 14:50in a magical place, on a magical land,
in some strange and difficult times, -
14:50 - 14:52maybe it's time to believe
a few of those lies, -
14:52 - 14:56maybe it's time to look at those castles
in the air and keep them there, -
14:56 - 14:58and keep building the foundation
under them. -
14:58 - 15:04Because you remember that fellow Oliver,
that came on that first trip with me, -
15:04 - 15:09he actually left out the first year.
-
15:09 - 15:14He met a girl the first year
and he took her home. -
15:14 - 15:19And they went back and they got married
and on the 4th of January 2012, this year, -
15:19 - 15:27eight years to the day, after
we first landed on the island of Santorini... -
15:29 - 15:35There is Oliver and there
is Annie Palmawise, they had a baby. -
15:35 - 15:40So if we can hold on for 18 more years,
she can run the show for us. -
15:40 - 15:43I hope we stick around,
I hope to see you soon. -
15:43 - 15:49(Applause)
- Title:
- Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens
- Description:
-
Craig is the editor of "Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan," published in 2008 by McSweeney's Voice of Witness Series. He divides his time between Santorini and New York, working on the bookstore, the press, other writing projects.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 15:57
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Dimitra Papageorgiou approved English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Chryssa R. Takahashi accepted English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Chryssa R. Takahashi edited English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Chryssa R. Takahashi edited English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Chryssa R. Takahashi edited English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens | ||
Chryssa R. Takahashi edited English subtitles for Artful Lies and Shelves of Fiction: Craig Walzer at TEDxAthens |