Smash Notes
How Did Michael Lewis Find Michael Oher for the Blind Side? · Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Author Michael Lewis (‘The Big Short’) Pulls Back the Curtain

“The Trump administration was betting that if they broke the law fast enough,” writes Michael Lewis, “the law would never catch up to them.”On the heels of his new book, Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State, the bestselling author of Moneyball and The Big Short returns to the show. We discuss how watching Trump’s 2017 inauguration inspired The Fifth Risk…

People

Notes

  1. How Did Michael Lewis Pitch Trump's Second Term? at 7:35

    Michael Lewis says he has no interest in writing the same book twice. Full answer

  2. Why Did Michael Lewis Turn Blocker Into a Compliment? at 10:33

    Michael Lewis says the people Elon Musk called blockers were doing their job beautifully. Full answer

  3. Why Do Federal Civil Servants Stay for Less Pay? at 14:06

    Michael Lewis says dedicated federal civil servants are not anomalies. Full answer

  4. Why Does Michael Lewis Say Cutting Two Trillion From the Deficit Was Impossible? at 25:29

    Michael Lewis says the stated goal is to cut the deficit by two trillion dollars out of a seven trillion dollar deficit. Full answer

  5. Was Michael Lewis Too Close to Sam Bankman-Fried? at 46:43

    Sam Fragoso asked about Going Infinite and the early assault on the Sam Bankman-Fried book. Full answer

  6. Why Did Michael Lewis Wait Until Sam Bankman-Fried Was in Jail? at 49:57

    Sam Fragoso said critics attacked how Michael Lewis does the job. Lewis says the attack is dumb. The job is to get to know the person. Full answer

  7. How Does Michael Lewis Get Close Enough to Draw Someone? at 51:39

    Sam Fragoso read from the New York Times Magazine essay Michael Lewis wrote in 1999, after writing about his friend John McCain. The essay is I Liked a Pol. Full answer

  8. How Did Michael Lewis Find Michael Oher for the Blind Side? at 56:46

    Sam Fragoso asked about the controversy around The Blind Side and Michael Oher, the football player who lived with Sean Tuohy in a conservatorship. Full answer

  9. Did the Tuohys Steal Michael Oher's Movie Money? at 1:00:12

    Five years ago, Michael Lewis says, Michael Oher called wanting more money from the book and time on the road to talk about it. Lewis called Sean Tuohy. Full answer

  10. What Is the Blind Side About? at 1:04:24

    Sam Fragoso asked why Michael Oher pressed for the money, given that Lewis had gotten to know him. Full answer

  11. Why Does Michael Lewis Put the Reader Ahead of the Subject? at 1:06:14

    Michael Lewis says time with a subject is not a little time. It is eighteen months, or whatever the book takes, and then he moves on. Full answer

  12. Why Did Berkeley Resist Fire-resistant Homes? at 1:16:51

    Michael Lewis says wooden fences running through a community are the way fire moves from house to house. Full answer

  13. Can a Crisis Make People Bounce Back? at 1:18:14

    Michael Lewis says the part of the book about living together is not only about Trump. Trump is both a cause and a symptom. Full answer

  14. How Does Michael Lewis Keep His Daughter Present? at 1:23:25

    Michael Lewis says the way to make something useful of his daughter's death is to keep her present. Full answer

  15. Why Does Michael Lewis Say the IRS Could Not Fix a Water Fountain? at 1:29:55

    Michael Lewis says the water fountain was more like the Internal Revenue Service's technology, and a lot of what remained of the US government, than like the… Full answer

Related notes

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.