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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 design director of New York magazine.
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 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 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 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. 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.”
Two interviewers for The Onion AV Club talk about how they prepare for doing interviews. “First, I think about what I might ask subjects if I were at a party with them, just making conversation. Then I read as many interviews as I can find with the subject, so I can avoid asking questions that have been asked a thousand times, and steer around the pat answers.”
Long but great NPR interview with Ed Burns, writer and producer of The Wire. We just finished season 4 last night and it took the stuffing right out of me. I haven’t been this depressed for months. (thx to the several people who recommended this)
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)
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