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Interview by Ellen Kanner
Good news. Despite the predictions of mystics and crackpots, James Finn Garner says the world is not going to end in the year 2000. After exhaustive research, Garner, dangerous humorist, author of politically correct fairy tales and his new book, Apocalypse Wow: A Memoir for the End of Time has determined "the world will get older, it'll spin a little bit more and have more people on it." That's all? That's all, says Garner from his office in Chicago. "I think we're really pretty full of ourselves when we say we're the last generation -- and if I'm wrong, I'll eat my words."
Despite his reassurances, Garner admits signs pointing to the decline of civilization are everywhere. Apocalypse Wow cites the recent spate of physical catastrophes and the fact that Sonny Bono was elected to congress. Twice.
Thank goodness, then for Apocalypse Wow, which boldly explores new age and ancient tomes, prophets and prophet wannabes. No means of divination is too drastic for Garner. Or too smelly. His favorite way to predict the future is scarpomancy, which, the book explains "allows a psychic to interpret another's character by examining a person's old shoes." Not stuff for the fainthearted, but as Garner warns in his book, "This quest is not for the timid, the conventional, or the easily offended. The end of the world ain't no walk in the park."
Garner always imagined the apocalypse "with God on one end and we'd be at the other end, kind of like Woodstock."
Clearly, no subject is sacred for the author who turned to writing after a significant stint at stand-up comedy.
A nice, bright if smart-alecky kid from Detroit, Garner grew up "to be everything my mother taught me not to be -- flip and irreverent. I have the most fun with the friends I used to perform with. We don't have to tell each other, oh, I'm kidding, oh, I'm serious and that's refreshing. I've pissed off a few feminists in Minnesota and a few college kids in Johns Hopkins in Baltimore," he admits, but that's his style. "I like to go into it with a purpose. I like humor that rearranges the way we think, that knocks the barnacles off how we hold ourselves in daily life."
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