# Sterling HolyWhiteMountain Reads “False Star”  ## About - Author: The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker - Title: Sterling HolyWhiteMountain Reads “False Star” - Tags: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/23f1cfb7-430c-49df-914a-1c7d21e5a218 ## Highlights > The Power of Money in Society Transcript: Speaker 1 Men who believed there was nothing that could not be turned into money. Men who would in fact give their lives for it. Whereas for the grandparents of my grandparents those ones here who first laid eyes on money and had no idea what it was. I imagine they could not understand what these pale men were so loony about. It must have been the way it will be when those little grey people finally land on the White House lawn and let everyone know they have come to introduce a new way of living. ([Time 0:08:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c45acdc0-3044-48d7-8207-17f6806bad51)) --- > Waiting for June in the Cold: A Meeting with Big Man and Wicked-eyed June Transcript: Speaker 1 When we got to June she wasn't ready so I waited at her door in the early cold and blue on my hands. Big Man was reading the paper he had picked up before I got out of bed and he was smoking of course frowning wearing the same blue King Ropes hat he always did. His glasses darkened by the daylight. When June came out she looked kind of rugged. She had real wicked oo see eyes. She could barely open them like she had rolled out of bed only a few minutes before but she was very pretty to me anyway and I told her she looked good and she told me to shut up. It's too early to be talking she said. ([Time 0:10:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6230e6c1-4c0e-4bc7-b026-8774cf6da3fc)) --- > A Brother's Military Photo in the Obituary Transcript: Speaker 1 Was no brituary in the Paradise Tribune that was a typical sort of tribute to the dead but what caught me was the photo they used it was his military photo and he looked so much like June he was the other side of the Indian head nickel from his sister a beautiful face with a chilling distance here was a man you might befriend and treat with respect or hate and do your best to destroy but regardless you would never know what was back there in the cold behind his gaze you would only sense it in the echoes that reach the surface. ([Time 0:17:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2bf66367-5554-47f9-8b9e-26fa262924d5)) --- > A Mysterious Encounter in a Small Parking Lot Transcript: Speaker 1 To destroy but regardless you would never know what was back there in the cold behind his gaze you would only sense it in the echoes that reach the surface. A jerry's used beauties of black Bronco caught my eye and I decided to see what it was all about. Big man pulled into a spot at the empty end of the small lot. Parking so the wind hit the front of the truck head on. It was one of those days when the wind blasted you and everything else within a hundred miles so hard that you felt there was something personal about it before I opened the door and stepped down into what I was certain would be my endless future. ([Time 0:17:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d58fb1e7-c63a-4046-bb7d-5d9c705e255a)) --- > The Meaning Behind Our Cars and Trucks Transcript: Speaker 1 You find yourself at a dealership you are walking into the great American dream. In the old days after the horse had come to us and changed everything forever and we had mastered a not insignificant part of the continent and left the peoples around us with a lot of bad memories and meant everything to have a good war horse. And if you had one you might paint it in such a way that anyone who knew of you could see from quite a ways out that it was your horse. It was you riding into camp and I believe we do the same with our cars and trucks. Then in a subterranean and profound manner the meaning horses once had for us we now find in these vehicles. ([Time 0:24:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fe0a6a21-2dfb-41cf-92c8-47061546e195)) --- > The meaning of horses in the old days and the correlation to cars and trucks Transcript: Speaker 1 In the old days after the horse had come to us and changed everything forever and we had mastered a not insignificant part of the continent and left the peoples around us with a lot of bad memories and meant everything to have a good war horse. And if you had one you might paint it in such a way that anyone who knew of you could see from quite a ways out that it was your horse. It was you riding into camp and I believe we do the same with our cars and trucks. Then in a subterranean and profound manner the meaning horses once had for us we now find in these vehicles. I have long suspected this is why we spend so much time driving around. ([Time 0:24:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8765e612-c612-495d-93c5-9b5fc5c9be1c)) --- > An Encouraging Conversation About High School Sports and Running Transcript: Speaker 1 He was always reading about high school sports, checking to see how the little floor teams were doing. I knocked on the window with a force that surprised me and the past hour it seemed to have become a changed man, the lightning of all the great champions ran through me. He rolled the window down. But you feel like you could do anything right about now he said. Heck yeah I said. I smiled a big smile without even meaning or wanting to. Don't come home to ladies said, there's the ice on the road and some of those river bottoms. I'll do my best I said. That Eagle strikes girl as a hell of a runner. ([Time 0:27:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ef7aae33-be2e-4d9f-b39c-faafa1387a41)) --- > The Truest Loss of My Life Transcript: Speaker 1 He was profoundly black feet in ways I cannot say he understood or that I understand now. Though I can see he was away only black feet have been without quite knowing we are that way. And when I finally lost him I knew that some part of myself I had taken for granted had broken off from the rest of me and been tossed into the great emptiness around us and that somehow this the truest loss of my life had left me both more and less than I was before. With some help from the wind the Bronco's driver's side door bang shut with that hollow metallic thud you hear only in what are now called older cars. ([Time 0:28:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b6c81335-39da-4cbc-80f7-98fe4cd01980)) --- > Appreciating the Sky Transcript: Speaker 1 We walked back to the Bronco under a vast and quickly darkening sky. The western horizon on fire with the last of the day's light I was looking up the whole way. The sky is really beautiful I said. Yeah she said she had her arms crossed. I took a huge bite of pretzel. Are we lucky? I said chewing. How do you mean she said? Like don't you look at the sky and feel lucky I said. Not really she said I'm freezing. Driving down 12th the air coming in the window was very cold and June told me to roll it out but I left it down so she turned the heater on full blast. ([Time 0:29:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/33c7d2b6-162e-403f-8083-8a88465e946f)) --- > Body shaming and fatphobia among women Transcript: Speaker 1 Whenever another girl or an older woman to June that meant anyone passed high school put on a few pounds she would go after them. Fuck she turned into a cow or did you see that one? Oh lay she just got fat or a personal favorite. Oh she just looks like she got into a fight with the pantry and won. Weight and silence and when we were done I pulled out of the parking lot and took us onto the main road and then we were on the ramp and hitting the freeway. ([Time 0:31:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aeee324c-be49-4b8e-8391-70b562cdc09f)) ---