Adam Gopnik: Charlie Ravioli - The Moth

Summary

The Moth Podcast: Adam Gopnik – “Charlie Ravioli”

Release Date: November 13, 2012

Introduction

In the episode titled “Charlie Ravioli,” renowned New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik shares a heartfelt and introspective story that intertwines family dynamics, the essence of New York City, and the imaginative world of childhood. Told live in 2010 at the Mothball, Adam’s narrative delves deep into personal experiences, offering listeners a blend of humor, poignancy, and profound insights.

Dedications and Inspirations

Adam begins by dedicating his story to two significant figures in his life:

His Daughter, Olivia: An 11-year-old who not only inspires the story but also serves as its check and balance. Adam affectionately mentions, “Olivia… is a very grown-up and beautiful girl. And she’s given me permission to tell this story” (01:37).
Calvin Trillin: A literary influence whose writings about New York family life in the 1970s inspired many, including Adam and his family, to move to the city. “Because it was Trillin, really, who back in the 1970s wrote all of these wonderful pieces about family life in New York,” Adam reflects (01:37).

Moving Back to New York City

After spending several years abroad in France, Adam and his wife Martha decided to return to New York City around the year 2000. Their primary motivation was to provide their children with the unique childhood experiences that New York offers, contrasting them with less vibrant environments like Paris. Adam shares:

“We wanted our children to have not the experience that kids have growing up in Paris… We wanted them to have that kind of light-footed, spring-hearted sense of ownership that New York children seem to us to have” (01:37).

The Tragedy and Doubt

Shortly after their return, a significant tragedy struck the city—implied to be the events of September 11, 2001. This incident cast a long shadow over their lives, making them question whether New York was still the right place to raise their family. Amidst this uncertainty, Olivia introduced them to her imaginary friend, Charlie Ravioli.

Introducing Charlie Ravioli

Olivia, then three years old, created an imaginary friend named Charlie Ravioli. Initially, Charlie seemed like a quintessential Manhattan character:

Residence: “the corner of Lexington and Madison” (05:15)
Lifestyle: Lives on “grilled chicken and water” – a nod to the stereotypical New York diet.

However, Charlie’s defining trait was his perpetual busyness. Olivia frequently reported interactions with him that always ended abruptly, leaving her wanting more connection.

The Unusual Nature of Charlie

Adam’s wife, Martha, noticed something peculiar about Charlie’s interactions:

“We realized that she had invented an imaginary friend who was always too busy to play with her” (06:45).

This anomaly prompted Adam to consult his sister, a developmental psychologist, who reassured him that while imaginary friends are common, Charlie’s perpetual busyness was unusual. “Her imaginary friend growing up in Manhattan would be always too busy, would be a creature of interrupted occasions,” his sister explained (09:20).

The Evolving Story of Charlie Ravioli

As time progressed, Olivia's interactions with Charlie became more elaborate:

Adventures: She released animals from the zoo, drove taxis, and even entertained at nightclubs while searching for Charlie.
Metaphor for New York: Charlie embodied the “spirit of attainment” and the endless possibilities that the city represents. Adam muses, “Ravioli was also her hero, her demigod, her fictional version of the endless possibilities in New York” (12:30).

Reflections on Family and City

Through Olivia’s imaginary friend, Adam and Martha found solace and understanding about their love for New York. Despite contemplating a move away due to the tragedy and the ensuing uncertainty, Olivia’s bond with Charlie reaffirmed their desire to stay. Adam concludes:

“When I was being bombarded with real estate literature from Connecticut… I knew that we could stay in New York because I understood that all we really wanted from this city… was to go on bumping into Charlie Ravioli as long and as often as we possibly can” (14:00).

Notable Quotes

Adam Gopnik on Olivia’s Permissible Storytelling: “She’s given me permission to tell this story” (01:37).
Sister’s Insight on Imaginary Friends: “That’s completely normal… If they live on mountaintops, they have imaginary friends who are made of clouds” (08:10).
Adam on Charlie’s Symbolism: “Ravioli was also her hero, her demigod, her fictional version of the endless possibilities in New York” (12:30).

Conclusion

Adam Gopnik’s “Charlie Ravioli” is a touching exploration of how children’s imaginations mirror and make sense of the adult world around them. Through Olivia’s interactions with her busy imaginary friend, Adam and Martha find reaffirmation of their choice to embrace the dynamic, ever-evolving spirit of New York City. This story not only highlights the intrinsic connection between family and place but also underscores the resilience and hope that define both.

About Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik is a celebrated staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of several insightful books, including Paris to the Moon and The Table Comes Family, France and the Meaning of Food. His storytelling prowess is further showcased in his book Through the Children’s Gate, which features a chapter on Charlie Ravioli.

Supporting The Moth

As a nonprofit organization, The Moth thrives on community support. Consider contributing to keep these powerful stories alive by visiting themost.org or becoming a member to support future storytelling endeavors.

Timestamps

00:00 - 01:08: Advertisements and introductions
01:37: Adam Gopnik begins his story
05:15: Description of Charlie Ravioli’s character
06:45: Recognition of Charlie’s unusual busyness
08:10: Consultation with Adam’s sister on imaginary friends
12:30: Reflection on Charlie as a symbol of New York’s spirit
14:00: Adam concludes his narrative

Transcript

Rosetta Stone Advertiser (0:00)

As we approach the end of the year, I'm thinking about the next. Next year is the year I finally make my Spanish better than my 9 year olds. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language that you want to learn. I can't wait to use Rosetta Stone and finally speak better than my 9 year old who's been learning Spanish in his own way. Rosetta Stone is the trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. Spok, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, I could go on fast language acquisition. Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations, so you can really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. The Moth listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stones lifetime membership for 50% off, visit rosettastone.com moth that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com moth today.

Dan Kennedy (1:08)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is supported by makers 46 Handcrafted Bourbon. More online@facebook.com makers 46 makers 46 Bourbon Whiskey, 47% alcohol by volume, distilled in Loretto, Kentucky, reminds listeners to drink responsibly. This week's story by Adam Gopnik was told live at the mothball in 2010. Here's Adam.

Adam Gopnik (1:37)

Thank you. The story I want to tell you tonight is actually sort of dedicated to a couple of people. One is to my wonderful daughter Olivia, who's sitting with me tonight, who's 11 years old and a very grown up and beautiful girl. And she's given me permission to tell this story, though she's policing it and is the fact checking department as well. And the other person is the special honoree tonight, Calvin Trillin. Because it was Trillin, really, who back in the 1970s wrote all of these wonderful pieces about family life in New York. They convinced all of us in Milwaukee and New Mexico and in Canada in my case, that New York would be a wonderful place to come and make a family, raise a family. And so we all came and we ruined the city by our arrival as we all poured in. And Trillin was the magnet who drew us. We came and then we left. My wife and I left New York for some several years. We lived abroad, we lived in France, and we decided we would come home just 10 years ago in the year 2000. For a lot of reasons, but essentially because we wanted to see our children grow up here in New York City. We wanted them to have not the experience that kids have growing up in Paris where every child at 4:30 when school is finished looks like a Democrat. They look completely beaten and depressed and kind of dog eared and enormous circles under their eyes. And they've been beaten and abused for the last nine hours and they have no idea how to respond to the force of unappeasable authority at every moment. We wanted them to have that kind of light footed, spring hearted sense of ownership that New York children seem to us to have. So we came back to be in New York so that they would have a childhood in New York, so that they would be able to be part of New York. And then of course, we had just come back when the greatest tragedy in the city's history happened. And a long shadow spread out over every life, and I think maybe particularly over the lives of parents with small children, as we wondered if we should stay in New York, if New York was the right place for us to be and the right place really for us to bring up our children. And it was just about at that moment when we were all full of doubt, as I suspect many of you were as well. And my wife Martha would put on my pillow night after night, brochures from real estate in Connecticut and houses in New Jersey, and even things clipped from the paper about the farthest reaches of Brooklyn. It was just at about that time that my daughter Olivia, who was three then, told us that she had an imaginary friend. And that this imaginary friend's name was Charlie Ravioli. And at first, Charlie Ravioli seemed like a terrifically attractive Manhattan kind of character. He lived at the corner of Lexington and Madison, which seemed like a great neighborhood. And he lived, Olivia explained, on grilled chicken and water, sort of like a fashion model or an imaginary friend. And it was a great New York diet. We knew a lot of people who lived on exactly that. But then something a little disturbing or a little concerning began to happen. Olivia would be on her cell phone, you know, we gave her one of those toy cell phones that they had then. And. And she would be talking on it and we would hear her say, hello, Wavioli. Wavioli. Okay, call me when you get in. And she would hang it up and she would turn to us and say, I always get his machine. And we realized that she had invented an imaginary friend who was always too busy to play with her. She had an invisible playmate whose salient characteristic was that he was too busy to play. And she would come every night to the table at dinner, and everyone would recite the things that had happened through the day. And we turn to Olivia, and she'd say, oh, I bumped into Charlie Ravioli today. We grabbed a cappuccino, but then he had to run. Or she'd say, I bumped into Charlie Ravioli today. She would say, we got into a taxi, but then he had a meeting, so he had to go. Turned out Charlie was working in television in those years. That's how Olivier explained it. But she actually would say, he's working on a television. And we can never figure out if he was a talk show host, sort of like Charlie Rose, or if he was a guy in the electronics business with a little repair shop someplace in Queens. But that was what Ravioli did, and he was always too busy to play with her. Now, I should explain, of course, that Olivia, at that moment in her life, had no life where she was bumping into people, had no life where she was grabbing cappuccinos. She was simply kind of expressing and imitating the world that she heard all around her, and particularly that she heard from her mother. Every night when we would come to the table and I would say to her mother, how was your day? And her mother would say, oh, you know, it was one of those days. You know, I bumped into Meg downtown, and we grabbed a coffee, but then I had a cell phone message from Emily, but we couldn't connect, so we came back uptown and, you know, on and on and on. A whole history of miscommunication that had enveloped eight hours. And Olivia was taking that in. She had one person in her life who was out there in the world. Her older brother Luke was exactly five years older than she is to the day, which tells you more than you really want to know. And every day at the end of the day, they would sit down together for cookies and milk. When Luke came back from school, after Olivia had spent a day at the Central Park Zoo, taking naps, doing the things that three year olds do, and she would say, luca, how was your day? And he would say, okay, Luke, did the teacher like your essay? Yeah, I guess. Luke, what did you have for lunch? A sandwich, I guess. Luke, how was my day? The basic rhythm of man and woman gets set at about the ages of 7 and 2 and never alters throughout a lifetime. Well, Charlie Ravioli seemed to us like such a strange character that I decided I would call. I have five sisters. I have five sisters. When the moths would come on. They all have PhDs. They all teach in university somewhere or other. When the moths used to come onto our porch, they would dissect them and figure out exactly what genus that they belong to. And one of my sisters is a developmental psychologist out in Berkeley. And I called her up because it seemed a little strange to me to have an imaginary friend who was always too busy to play with you. And I wondered if this was, like, something that came up a lot in the psychological literature. So I called her and said, listen, my daughter Olivia has got this imaginary friend, but she's always trying to connect with him. Never can. Always too busy to play with her. And she said, oh, that's completely normal. That's completely normal. Because children make their imaginary friends out of whatever experience they have at hand. If they're living on mountaintops, they have imaginary friends who are made of clouds. If they live by the seashore, their imaginary friends are waves. So what could be more normal than that? Her imaginary friend growing up in Manhattan would be always too busy, would be a creature of interrupted occasions, of constantly occluded connections. Makes perfect sense. The kids understand that these imaginary friends are fictional. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. So I told my wife that, and I said, we have nothing to worry about. Completely normal. Every child in New York has a busy imaginary friend. So it seemed that this was going to be okay. But then a new character arrived in the story. We would listen to Olivia talking on her little cell phone, and we heard her talking to someone called Laurie, someone called Laurie. She would say, hello, Laurie. Hello, Is Ravioli there? No? Okay. And at first we thought. At first we thought, you see, that Laurie was sort of the Linda Tripp of the whole Ravioli operation, that she was the person you spoke to when Ravioli was ignoring you, the big creep that he obviously was. And you sort of confided in Linda Tripp that she was recording your conversations and so on. But then we listened more carefully, and we realized who Laurie really was. Laurie was Ravioli's assistant. She was Charlie Ravioli's assistant. She was the person on the phone who tells you, I'm sorry, Mr. Ravioli is in a meeting. He'll try and get back to you as soon as he can. And Martha turned to me and said, this is wrong. This is really wrong. I don't know. I'm not a child psychologist, but I know that imaginary friends should not have assistants. They should not have agents. They should not have personal trainers. Imaginary friends should not have people. They should play with the child who imagined them, that is their role in life, not to be surrounded by an entourage who prevents the child who thought them up in the first place from ever actually playing with them. So I called my sister and said, ravioli has an assistant who's answering his phone now. Would you describe this as normal? And she said, this never occurs in the psychological literature. And I said, oh, so you think we should look into it? And she said, no, I think you should move. But then something very strange, something very interesting began to happen. Olivia didn't seem to get any closer to Charlie Ravioli. She didn't seem to come any nearer to actually having the play dates and the good times with him that it seemed to us that she deserved. But every day she would report to us at the end of the day that she had gone out into the world in search of Charlie Ravioli, and something amazing had happened to her. She had gone out looking for Charlie Ravioli and she had ended up in the zoo, and she had released all the animals from the zoo and they had had a dance. She'd gone out looking for Charlie Ravioli. She came home and told us one day, about a day, of course, when she spent it entirely inside, watching Caillou on television and taking a nap. She had gone out in search of Charlie Ravioli on the streets of Manhattan, and the taxi driver had had a heart attack, and she'd gotten into the front seat of the taxi and driven through the city throughout the day. She'd gone looking for Charlie Ravioli downtown somewhere, and she had ended up telling jokes at a nightclub with a microphone. And we realized that Charlie Ravioli, for her, was truly the prince of the city. He was the prince of our disorder. He was the representative of the spirit of New York, which is always the spirit of attainment. It's always the spirit of the thing that lies before us, is always the place that we haven't quite got to yet, but we'll get to someday. Ravioli wasn't, we realized, just an incarnation of the insane busyness and misconnections she saw around us. He was also her hero, her demigod, her fictional version of the endless possibilities in New York, which always lay just around the corner and on the other side of a cappuccino. And so in those years when we were all asking ourselves, should we leave New York? Should we go out of New York? When I was being bombarded with real estate literature from Connecticut, where all writers go and become alcoholics and write bad autobiographical plays, I knew. I knew that we could stay in New York because I understood that all we really wanted from this city and I could say to my wife whenever she suggested that we leave, all we wanted was, was to go on bumping into Charlie Ravioli as long and as often as we possibly can. Thank you so much.