Video of a recent interview of Al
Video of a recent interview of Al Gore by Charlie Rose at the 92nd St. Y. 57 minutes.
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kottke.org posts about interviews
Jonathan Rauch on politics, journalism, and mistakes
This recent interview of journalist Jonathan Rauch is full of good stuff. On bad predictions and making mistakes:
Everybody makes [mistakes]; it’s par for the course. What I have learned is not to be too sure I’m right. The world is much more surprising than we give it credit for. That’s part of my political philosophy, my philosophy of life. That’s really fundamental to it: Trial and error is really the only thing in life that works ultimately over the long term. Journalism is like that, too, so we need to be honest about our mistakes. We often aren’t enough. Everybody makes mistakes. And we need to be a little bit cautious about making predictions.
On real journalism vs. opinion:
There’s a very talented, hard-working press corps and, of course, it represents only a small fraction of the people who are doing [journalism]. I think all the major newspapers are doing it well. Not a single one is doing it badly, the ones that are committing resources to it. The larger fraction are the parasites, the bloggers, commentators, opinionizers — I don’t exempt myself — who are feeding off of the real news that the press is providing. That larger sort of commentariat is not doing a very good job.
The future of real journalism:
What I worry about is what everyone in my business worries about: Who’s going to fund the real reporting? The magazine and newspaper business was a cross-subsidy. You had the advertising, particularly classified, and you had a local market, which subsidized the gathering of news. That model is breaking down because the bundle is breaking into pieces and it’s hard to see in the long run who funds the kind of large-scale news reporting operations that the major papers have run if the advertising is all going online and if people can all get the news for free at Yahoo.
On extremism in American politics:
The [political] system has been rigged by partisan activists to their advantage. They participate in primaries. General elections don’t matter because they’ve gerrymandered the congressional districts. They have the advantages of energy and being single-minded and they use these wedge issues which they’re very good at and which both sides conspire in using in order to marginalize the middle. The result of that is the turnout among moderates and independents is down; turnout on the extremes is up. The parties are increasingly sorted by ideology so that all the liberals are in one party and all the conservatives are in another. That is a new development in American history.
On getting out of the way of a story:
I’m not a fan of the idea that the journalist and the journalist’s attitude should be front and center. I think that a good journalist’s duty is to get out of the way. The hardest thing about journalism — the hardest thing, a much higher art than being clever — is just to get out of the way, to show the leader of the world as the reader would see it if the reader were there. Just to be eyes and ears. Calvin Trillin, another writer I greatly admired who steered me towards journalism, once said that getting himself out of his stories was like taking off a very tight shirt in a very small phone booth. He’s right.
And lots more…I recommend reading the entire thing, especially the exchange between Rauch and the interviewer about personal political identities that was too long/difficult to excerpt here. Much more from Rauch here.
Great interview with Hendrik Hertzberg, who writes
Great interview with Hendrik Hertzberg, who writes about politics for the New Yorker. “The quality of our members of Congress is lower than similar bodies in Europe. I don’t think the moral qualities are lower, but in terms of experience and expertise and knowledge of the world, they’re much lower. And it’s lower because the geographic basis for advancement is qualitatively different than any other field. Imagine if our music industry were geographically based, if hits were proportioned by district. Or literature or business…”
Longish detailed interview with Chris Ware about
Longish detailed interview with Chris Ware about comics, which he calls “the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them”.
Nice in-depth interview with Steven Johnson about his books.
Nice in-depth interview with Steven Johnson about his books.
Interview with Gretchen Ludwig about her dressing
Interview with Gretchen Ludwig about her dressing room photography. She started the project after she noticed her anti-advertising, anti-corporation self buying a lot of clothes from big corporations that advertise a lot. “The dressing room is not only a very private space, but it is also a space where consumers make most of their decisions. And it’s also mostly void of extraneous marketing ‘noise.’ You don’t have the trendy atmosphere, you don’t have the pressure of others watching and judging you.”
Interview with New Yorker music critic Alex
Interview with New Yorker music critic Alex Ross about, among other things, his upcoming book on 20th century music. “Why, when paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock go for a hundred million dollars or more on the art market and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, is twentieth-century classical music still considered obscure and difficult? In fact, it’s better known than most people realize. Post-1900 music is all over Hollywood soundtracks, modern jazz, alternative rock.”
An interview with Michael Pollan about The
An interview with Michael Pollan about The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Whereas every chef in the Bay Area is deeply involved in sourcing their food with great care, and they know all their farmers and they go to farms. You still have many chefs in New York whose focus is on technique, on what happens in the kitchen, not on the farm.”
Popular Science has a lengthy interview with
Popular Science has a lengthy interview with Will Wright about Spore, which gets into a bit more detail about the game than I’ve seen elsewhere. See also: Will Wright’s bibliography.
I could read interviews with David Remnick
I could read interviews with David Remnick all day long. “In many ways, the magazine that we’re publishing every week reflects what I want to read or what the people around me - this group of editors - find amusing or deep, or funny, or intelligent or whatever.” (thx, emdashes)
An interview with John Lasseter on how
An interview with John Lasseter on how the Pixarification of Disney is proceeding.
Nice interview with Grant Achatz, owner and
Nice interview with Grant Achatz, owner and chef at Alinea, which many consider to be the best restaurant in America right now.
I missed this somehow, but Nintendo has
I missed this somehow, but Nintendo has an extensive series of interviews up on their site between Nintendo’s president and the Wii development team. A fascinating look at the Wii’s development process. (thx, zacharie)
Interview with Stephen Frears about his film,
Interview with Stephen Frears about his film, The Queen. “Do you think, then, that some of the power of the monarchy derives from its privacy and secrecy, and that as it modernizes — as the people are demanding that it do — it will actually lose some of that power?”
Long audio interview with Michael Lewis by
Long audio interview with Michael Lewis by economist Russ Roberts on “the hidden economics of baseball and football”. “Michael Lewis talks about the economics of sports — the financial and decision-making side of baseball and football — using the insights from his bestselling books on baseball and football: Moneyball and The Blind Side. Along the way he discusses the implications of Moneyball for the movie business and other industries, the peculiar ways that Moneyball influenced the strategies of baseball teams, the corruption of college football, and the challenge and tragedy of kids who live on the streets with little education or prospects for success.”
Interview with Jill Youse, who started the
Interview with Jill Youse, who started the International Breast Milk Project because she has excess breast milk that she wanted to donate to African babies in need. “Breast milk has this fascinating aspect to it. It’s not something you look at in your freezer and say, ‘Mmmm, boy, I’m hungry.’ It’s kind of gross, but it’s also kind of cool, and there’s this element of pride to it. It’s got this ick factor and this awe factor. So I had my baby and I had my breast milk, and I thought that donating seemed like an easy thing that I could do.”
Interview with Dr. Nina Jablonski, student of
Interview with Dr. Nina Jablonski, student of the skin. “[My skin] is my unwritten biography. My skin reminds me that I’m a 53-year-old woman who has smiled and furrowed her brow and, on occasion, worked in the desert sun too long. I enjoy watching my skin change because it’s one of the few parts of my body that I can watch. We can’t view our livers or heart, but this we can.”
Lengthy interview with Steve Jobs from 1995. “I’m
Lengthy interview with Steve Jobs from 1995. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
Nice interview (particularly the last half) with
Nice interview (particularly the last half) with Steven Johnson about his books and “interdisciplinary zeal”. His next book will be about “creativity that will involve the long zoom idea: thinking about creativity that’s not necessarily something that happens between you and your notepad, but everything from the neurons in your brain all the way up to the city you’re thinking in the middle of”…which sounds great.
Interview with Ben Schott, author of the
Interview with Ben Schott, author of the Schott’s Miscellany books. It sounds like we have a lot in common, job-wise. “One of the metaphors of what I do that I like is a sort of curator. Often it’s a question of finding information that might’ve otherwise been undiscovered or neglected or not focused upon. What’s fun — and I think this is one of the great joys of curating — is making juxtapositions.” I liked this bit too: “I think it’s easier to be snarky than it is to be decent. Anything to get a smile. It doesn’t last. And actually, it does date.”
Robert Birnbaum interviews Donald Hall, who was
Update: Newsweek’s Brian Braiker talked with Hall shortly after his appointment (by fax!) in June.
Interview with Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy
Interview with Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy about For Your Consideration and filmmaking in general. Interestingly, they don’t write any dialogue for their films (it’s all ad-libbed) but only do three takes per scene to get it right. “It’s the dialogue aspect of this process where you realize how great, how talented this troupe really is, because they’re able to improvise some amazingly, brilliantly funny lines.”
Interview with Steven Soderbergh, mostly about The
Interview with Steven Soderbergh, mostly about The Good German but also about some upcoming projects. “I think for the most part intellectuals don’t make very good movies. It’s an emotional medium and I think you can really outsmart yourself.” That quote reminds me of something I read on Clusterflock last night: “the giants of the imagination can set the giants of the intellect aquiver”.
Roger Black interviews Luke Hayman, the outgoing
Roger Black interviews Luke Hayman, the outgoing design director of New York magazine.
Nice little interview with Stewart and Caterina
Nice little interview with Stewart and Caterina about how Flickr came about. “George Oates [a Flickr employee] and I would spend 24 hours, seven days a week, greeting every single person who came to the site. We introduced them to people, we chatted with them. This is a social product.”
10 Zen Monkeys has an interview with Gina
10 Zen Monkeys has an interview with Gina Smith about iWoz, her book on Steve Wozniak. “Another misconception that bothered him was the idea that he and Steve Jobs had designed the Apple I and the Apple II together. The sole designer of both those computers was Steve Wozniak. The sole designer.” (thx, david)
Richard Dawkins answers some questions from readers
Richard Dawkins answers some questions from readers of the Independent. “Terrible things have been done in the name of Christ, but all he ever taught was peace and love. What’s wrong with that?”
Wonderful interview with photographer Simon Norfolk on
Wonderful interview with photographer Simon Norfolk on BLDGBLOG. Norfolk photographs landscapes of war, but not just battlefields. “Because quite soon there aren’t going to be guys with guns shooting at each other. We’re quite soon getting to the era of UAVs and stuff. People aren’t even going to know what shot them - and there will be nothing to photograph.”
Fantastic interview with David Simon in Slate.
Fantastic interview with David Simon in Slate. If you’re a fan of The Wire and caught up on season four, I really recommend reading this. When Simon was asked what the show was about, he said: “it’s about the very simple idea that, in this Postmodern world of ours, human beings — all of us — are worth less. We’re worth less every day, despite the fact that some of us are achieving more and more. It’s the triumph of capitalism.”
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