Stuart Leavenworth is editorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee. Before talking with poet laureate Philip Levine about democracy in America today, he sat down in the Zócalo green room to champion editorial cartoonists, hate on people who rub together their chopsticks, and compare working in a newsroom to working in a restaurant kitchen.
Q. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
A. You’re really going to ask me how many pairs of shoes I own? I think probably about 12. That includes boots.
Q. You apprenticed at a restaurant for five months in 2009. What does working in a newsroom have in common with working at a restaurant kitchen?
A. Deadlines. Having to cut things. Having to maintain high standards under brutal conditions. Collaboration. Stress. And ultimately they’re rewarding at the end of the day if you do a good job.
Q. What scares you?
A. I would say certainly the direction our industry is going scares me. The economic conditions of our country scare me. There’s a lot that scares me. I could talk about this for a while …
Q. Who taught you how to swim, and where did you learn?
A. Ultimately my mother did. But there was somebody who also gave me swim lessons at a pretty early age, but I don’t remember their name. I learned at Fig Garden Swim and Racquet Club in Fresno.
Q. What provokes you to honk your horn?
A. Usually somebody failing to go through a green light because they’re on their cell phone. Or texting.
Q. Did you have any pets as a kid?
A. Yes-dogs. Three of them were named “Chance,” which was probably bad luck. Two of them got hit by cars.
Q. What’s hanging on your living room walls?
A. My wife’s photos of eerie landscapes along Highway 50 across the U.S.
Q. What’s underrated?
A. Editorial cartoonists.
Q. Do you have any pet peeves?
A. When people go to Japanese restaurants and they take their balsa wood chopsticks and they rub them together. That’s more than a pet peeve: It absolutely drives me up the wall. [I do that …] I used to live in Japan; I never saw anybody do that in Japan.
Q. Whose talent would you like to have?
A. Other than Philip Levine? Segovia. He was an amazing guitarist.
*Photo by Dalton Runberg.