Reihan Salam was the rare Zócalo guest who wasn’t stumped by a single question. The Atlantic associate editor and writer spoke as easily about his vast shirt collection and his dreams of a migration to Mexico as about how to reform the Republican Party.
Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. I like the way euphonia sounds, I don’t know what it means though. So, maybe rhombus.
Q. When are you most creative?
A. Around 11 a.m. A little bit after I wake up and have some kind of food, usually nuts.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. I spend an inappropriate amount of money on shirts.
Q. What worries you the most?
A. When I see people who I think lead fulfilling lives, who do work they value and have rewarding relationships, they seem like weird people, they seem weirdly at peace with themselves. That whole project of being at peace worries me, ironically.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. When the economy started to collapse, I had this fantasy of immigrating to Mexico and becoming Mexican. I don’t speak Spanish, but I got into that. I’d go and never be heard from again. I’d like to go to a pretty place, that’s kind of close to the ocean and doesn’t have an intense bug situation.
Q. Whose talent would you like to have?
A. My best friend is a professor at the University of Chicago, his name’s Jesse Shapiro. We all turn to him for advice because he’s tremendously analytical. I would love that intense logical reasoning power.
Q. What’s your fondest childhood memory?
A. I remember riding around on a yellow tricycle that said “The Incredible Hulk” on it and I had an “Incredible Hulk” visor.
Q. Who’s your favorite Beatle and why?
A. Ringo. He was offbeat, kind of ugly, and he did his own thing. He really cared about traditional Indian music. He used his broad popularity to try to cultivate something.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
Probably my shirts.
Q. What’s your favorite season?
A. Fall, the beginning of fall when it’s still a little warm.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’ve love to have a beer with?
A. I actually don’t drink beer…. Lee Kwan Yew. I’d drink beer just to meet with him. Even 10.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.