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Nintendo game developers Ken’ichiro Ashida and Shigeru Miyamoto talk about how the Wii was developed. “The consensus was that power isn’t everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles can’t coexist. It’s like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction.”
Interview with novelist James Ellroy. “I do not follow contemporary politics. I live in a vacuum. I don’t read books. I don’t read newspapers. I do not own a TV set or a cellphone or a computer. I spend my evenings alone, usually lying in the dark talking to women who aren’t in the room with me.” Ellroy also knows his place in the world: “I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime writer who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what Tolstoy is to the Russian novel and what Beethoven is to music.”
Ironic Sans has an interview with one of NYC’s quirkiest characters, Louis Klein, a man who has seen over 500 tapings of Saturday Night Live in person, including the very first show. “In the last 27 years I’ve missed 36 shows.”
Great little interview with professional rock, paper, scissors player, Jason Simmons. “The game started long before we actually threw the first throw.” (via sippey)
Transcript of a recent interview of Barack Obama by David Remnick. An 45-minute audio version is also available.
Scott Rosenberg interviews Steven Johnson about The Ghost Map.
Robert Birnbaum interviews Michael Lewis about The Blind Side.
Interview with Cory Arcangel about his new show at Team Gallery. “I made the conscious decision that the viewer shouldn’t have to understand it; it should stand on its own and be beautiful. Anyone can have an art moment with my work, regardless of their technical knowledge.”
Portrait photographer Platon shares some remembrances of shooting famous people. “Bono told Platon that ‘a friend’ had made the rosary he wears. Which friend? Oh, the Pope, of course.” Here’s another interview with Platon. (via conscientious)
Lengthy radio interview with Michael Lewis about The Blind Side. Available in RealAudio and MP3 formats. (thx, steve)
Short Rolling Stone interview with The Wire’s David Simon, part of a longer interview from the magazine. “I thought Katrina was literally America having to pause for a moment and contemplate the other America that somehow, tragically, Americans forgot. It’s like America looking across the chasm saying, ‘Oh, are you still here? Oh, and you’re wet. And you’re angry.’”
Interview with John Hodgman. Funniest computer spokesman/former literary agent/blogger/writer/Daily Show correspondent ever?
Each week at Slate, writer Alex Kotlowitz and Steve James (director of Hoop Dreams) dissect the week’s episode from the fourth season of The Wire. Warning: they are unabashed fans of the show. AOL recently interviewed The Wire creator David Simon. (via dj) Negro Please is posting fourth season episode synopsiseses summaries…here’s 4.2.
Update: Season four of The Wire scored a 98/100 on Metacritic, the highest score for a TV show on the site.
Interview with photographer Michael Wolf, who did the great Architecture of Density and 100x100 projects.
The Guardian has a nice profile/interview of David Remnick. Incidentally, Remnick has a monster 25-page profile of Bill Clinton in this week’s New Yorker…well worth reading if you can track down a copy of the magazine; consider this Q&A with Remnick about the article a tasty snack.
The difficulties of interviewing Bob Dylan. “Dylan is rarely concerned about sounding polite, and he says things, but he sometimes makes them up. He also contradicts himself, answers questions with questions, rambles, gets hostile, goes laconic, and generally bewilders.”
An interview with Steven Soderbergh: “The hardest thing in the world is to be good and clear when creating anything. It’s the hardest thing in the world. It’s really easy to be obscure and elliptical and so fucking hard to be good and clear. It breaks people. Because you don’t often get encouragement to do that, to be good and clear.”
NPR feature on John Sawatsky, ESPN’s interview coach. (thx, doug)
Robert Birnbaum interviews author Sebastian Junger about his new book, Death in Belmont. The interview is a little confusing if you haven’t read the book (or at least a synopsis) but there’s some good stuff in there. “I went to Bosnia with a bunch of notebooks and pens and flew to Zagreb and started. There will always be those young people. And I encourage them. My answer is save up a few thousand bucks and just go.”
Nice interview with Michael Frumin on the occasion of him leaving Eyebeam. “There’s so much data out there, and so little time!”
Great interview with David Remnick, conducted just after he’d taken over at the New Yorker. I love this guy. (via emdashes)
Rebecca Blood posted the interview she did with me for her Bloggers on Blogging series. It’s a nice change of pace to be interviewed about blogging by someone who knows as much or more than I do about it.
Anil Dash interviews Paul Lindner, one of the creators of Gopher and current Six Apart employee. Here’s my recent post on Gopher.
Part two of a conversation between Jesse James Garrett and Steven Johnson. Here’s part one. (thx, kevin)
Jesse James Garrett talks with Steven Johnson about Interface Culture. I know part 2 is coming, but I just want this interview to go on forever. p.s. Dean!
I could read interviews of Errol Morris all day long. “It became obvious that I was never going to be able to knock on the door of someone who’s committed some massive insurance fraud and stick a camera in their face and get them to talk. It’s never going to happen. The best you can expect is getting the shit kicked out of you.”
Robert Birnbaum interviews writer Gay Talese. “Look, if you want to make your living chopping people up, you will find an audience. You will, but it’s not me.”
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