A kiss or a taste? That was the first question Paul Lieberman put to the audience when he opened his lecture on April 22. Lieberman, an award-winning writer and editor for the Los Angeles Times, was the third visitor for the liberal arts lecture series Art of the Mind at Arnold Hall.
“My wife will tell you sometimes when I encounter people who have a dog after a moment of chitchat I ask them this question. If Fluffy comes up and licks your nose, is that a kiss or a taste?” said Lieberman.
After years of covering historical events and interviewing countless celebrities, Lieberman knows more than most that people have their stock stories. The tales of their lives that people rehearse and deem worthy of sharing. However, journalist are not there for the stock stories, they are there to “find the person behind the words,” as Lieberman puts it.
Often when Lieberman would be conducting an interview actresses would bring in their dogs. In order to get a better sense of who they were, he got into the habit of asking them, “is it a kiss or a taste?”
“The answer tells you all you need to know about a person. There are two kinds of people in the world: kiss people and taste people,” said Lieberman. “Is the dog loving on you, or tasting the salt in your sweat? Is the world a benevolent place or predatory?”
Over the years, Lieberman has become a sort of celebrity himself. “I made my name as a young journalist looking for social injustices. I spearheaded massive investigations, some here in Georgia years ago,” said Lieberman.
“I helped send people to jail and they deserved it. I later found a different reward in entertaining people. It is wonderful to earn your living doing either.” Lieberman is referring to his book “Gangster Squad” that was adapted into a movie starring actors Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
During the lecture Lieberman shared some of the stock stories of his career. He discussed how he was on Broadway when the north tower fell during 9/11; how he covered the stories of the Las Angeles riots in 1992 and the Northridge earthquake two years later; and how he has interviewed people like Arthur Miller, Paul Newman and multiple presidents. He even touched on his early career, when he was writing stories about organized crime, the mafia and the hospital killer.
Lieberman’s stock stories are more impressive than most. He is a writer with a wealth of experiences, but who’s the man behind the words? After meeting countless people who believe the world is made of wolfs, and watching building being torn apart, what kind of person can you become? Lieberman ends the lecture by answering his own question. A kiss or a taste?
“I am a kiss person. You can argue with me… but to me it is going to be a kiss.”
