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Oct. 26, 2012
God’s co-writer speaks here
David Javerbaum takes part in a pre-Jewish Book Festival event.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Apparently, God has a scheduling conflict. Otherwise, He would be joining co-author David Javerbaum at the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival pre-event on the afternoon of Nov. 4 to talk about The Last Testament: A Memoir by God.
It’s probably safe to say that God’s writing credits are known – though Javerbaum attributes to Him not just the Bible, but also the Koran, the Book of Mormon and other religious texts. As for Javerbaum, he has written the parody What to Expect When You’re Expected: A Fetus’s Guide to the First Three Trimesters (Spiegel and Grau, 2009) and co-written America: The Book: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (Grand Central Publishing, 2004) and Earth: The Book: A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race (Grand Central Publishing, 2010). He is an award-winning librettist, as well as an award-winning former head writer and executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and he garnered an Emmy nomination for his work as a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman.
“I’m honestly very surprised God approached me to work on this, as I’ve never been particularly religious, and I’m not by nature a rabble-rouser – in fact, I’m almost completely indifferent to rabble,” Javerbaum told the Independent in an e-mail interview about his latest collaborative publication. “Truth be told, I was an agnostic before I met the Lord, and now, having worked with Him for more than two years, I wish I could be an atheist.”
When asked to compare working with Jon Stewart to working with God, Javerbaum said, “Jon Stewart is an awesome boss, collaborator and human being. God is a rotten boss, a selfish collaborator, and not a human being. As for my relationship with God, as I said before, I have never been particularly religious. This is because, as a Jew in the Diaspora, my spiritual beliefs are 100 percent ironic.”
Published by Simon and Schuster in the United States in 2011, The Last Testament pokes fun at religion; mostly Christianity, but also Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and others. It’s a satirical commentary not just on those who have a fundamentalist approach to faith, but to secular (modern) attention spans (readers “whose capacity for following unbroken written narrative hath dwindled to the size of a piece of Jonathan Franzen’s neck stubble”), politics (comparing the Founding Fathers to “the current Tea Party, in that they dress funny”), sports (highlighting the Olympics, “the pageantry of all the nations of the world joining together in peaceful competition as a million armed security personnel hover just off-camera; mythmaking at its finest”) and other topics, ostensibly from God’s perspective.
Perhaps needless to say, the book has caused some controversy, with Wal-Mart, for example, refusing to carry it, and Simon and Schuster UK deciding not to publish the book. About the censorship, Javerbaum said, “I was disappointed that [such decisions were made] on the grounds that it might be too inflammatory. On the plus side, that kind of banning put me in the company of many authors whom I would otherwise not be worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as. My general position on this issue is that, while I fully support free speech, it’s much better to be paid for it.”
As to what motivated Javerbaum to write such a satire, he also responded with humor. “God’s objective was to come clean about the past and present before the imminent end of the world, which is scheduled to take place on Dec. 21, although, as He makes clear, He is willing to push that date forward a few months or years if sales of the book justify the writing of a sequel,” he told the Independent. “As for me, I was shanghaied into the project. I have no interest in being a prophet. Only in making one.”
With respect to projects on the go, it seems that Javerbaum’s musical theatre writing has taken a back seat in recent years.
“It’s true; I have a second life as a musical theatre writer and lyricist,” he said about this aspect of his professional life. “I discovered around college that I had a knack for writing lyrics – I enjoyed, and was facile at, the verbal-engineering process behind the craft. But alas, I was allowed to give up piano lessons as a child. As a result, I don’t play an instrument and can’t compose, but have a very good ear for music, which makes me a great and non-threatening collaborator for composers. And while, yes, this side of my professional life has been put on the back burner in recent years, I am currently developing a project that will put it front and centre once again – only not for theatre. More to come....”
Other future plans?
“I have a number of projects in the hopper but none that I am at liberty to divulge,” said Javerbaum. “I will say that I am co-writing a book with a well-known celebrity author, and writing a one-man show for a well-known comedic actor. I am also collaborating with my wife on a lasagna that we hope to have ready by next Friday at dinnertime.”
David Javerbaum’s talk, Channeling the Almighty, takes place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 4. For tickets ($14) and the entire Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival schedule, visit jccgv.com or the community centre. The festival opens with New York’s Shalom Auslander on Nov. 24, and runs to Nov. 29.
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