June 20, 2003

Today is the day to wish Brooke Weinstein a happy birthday, wherever she is.

Want to learn how to pitch to Jane magazine? Read all about it here.

If my interviews were ever to include bibliographies of my research, probably the most commonly occurring citation would come from today's interviewee. You may know him from the Identity Theory, where he conducts thought provoking interviews with some of today's most major forces in literature. Many a time I've checked interviews with folks like Arthur Bradford or Thisbe Nissen to see what I can learn, and I'm often drawn back over to read his Q & A sessions with others, like the fabulous Anthony Lane. Plus, he has led a fascinating life.

The Robert Birnbaum Interview: Slightly Less Than Twenty Questions. Maybe.

Tell us how you began working with Identity Theory and conducting interviews.
I began my "interviews" in earnest, in 1990, just after I sold my magazine, STUFF to the [owner of] Boston Phoenix and I stayed on as its publisher/ editor/creative director. Before that I had done the occasional interview, perhaps a handful, with people like photographer Robert Frank, director Terry Gilliam, and composer Anthony Braxton. In 1990 I began to do at least one interview a week and continued to do so for the next eight years and beyond.

As far as my affiliation with Identity Theory goes, ID theory founder enfant terrible Matt Borondy whose intelligence and moral sensibility might make him unemployable in this creepy brave new world, came to me about three years ago and we developed a very pure creative relationship via e mail (he being in Austin TX at the time and me in Boston) I never even talked on the phone with him. In fact, I hadn't met him until March of this year. Happily, that did not spoil our working relationship though I suspect his visit was motivated by his wanting to meet my dog Rosie.

The obvious great benefit of web publishing is that one is not required to write to fit-the length of my conversations is not affected by page counts or paper costs but simply by my judgment of the value of the content. Also, somewhere along the line I realized that I was less interested in the traditional Q & A , which at its best is a useful academic exercise, than a free -wheeling conversation.

What's your formula for a good interview?
Drink a lot of water? Use good equipment? Bring my dog Rosie along? Seriously, no conscious formula, but my practice is to read the book written by my co-conversationalist and to pay attention to the conversation. And, I avoid lit-crit digressions (that my good friend Mike says since I don't possess anyway, therefore that's a lucky thing) if I can help it.

Do you normally conduct your interviews online? In person? Over the phone? What's your preferred method and why?
All my talks are done in person. Because I am interested in a dialogue, I want the person I am taking with to engage with me. I strive for the creation of something that on the page/screen feels Iike two people talking and thinking. I suppose that is possible on the telephone or via e-mail but those media wouldn't be fun for me (partly because they emphasize self-centrality. So, I am not about to fix something that isn't, for me, broken.

How do you normally research your subjects?
I read the books (a practice I am told is becoming more popular with interviewers). I look at about fifteen websites and weblogs every day and I do a cursory search on Google to see if something unusual shakes loose. I also keep in mind that I only talk with some one for an hour and it is not necessary to cover everything. There is, I think, such a thing as trying to cover too much ground. The truth of this is especially clear to me when I talk with someone the second and third and fourth time, as I have sometimes done and will continue to do…

What are your favorite kinds of questions to ask? With more established authors, do you feel uncomfortable asking questions that are more off the cuff, or not writing-related?
My favorite questions are only discovered retrospectively. Like when someone says, "No one ever asked that before" or "I never thought about that." and they then go on to say something wonderful. Frank Conroy (who I have had the pleasure of talking with twice) includes a story about his interviewing Keith Jarrett in his collection Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On: Observations Then and Now. Jarrett talks about sitting down at the piano as he begins a performance and trying to clear his mind of any musical thoughts. I try for the same kind of clarity when sitting down to talk.

I have also found that in an active dialogue something is triggered that makes the specificity of the questions less important. For example, I asked Donna Tartt jokingly what her favorite color was and she had a thoughtful and (for her) a revealing answer. I am pleased that I never know where a talk is going to go.

Who are some people that you hope to interview before you (or they) die?
A wish list, hmmm. Okay, here goes, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gulliermo Cabrera Infante (again), Cormac McCarthy, Jim Harrison, Toni Morrison, JD Salinger, Ruben Blades, Chris Hitchens (again), Elmore Leonard (again), Phil Jackson, David Foster Wallace (again), Gary Fisketjon, Michael Freed, Alice Munro, Antonya Nelson,John Edgar Widman (again),Ann Louise Bardach, Eduardo Galeano (again), Phillip Roth, Howard Zinn (again) Barbara Ehrenreich (again), Richard Powers, Thom McGuane (again), Richard Russo (again), Yohji Yamamoto…

Who are your favorite kinds of people to interview? Authors? Complete strangers?
Out of habit I talk regularly and frequently to writers. Mostly because my favorite activity is reading. And if I have to generalize, most writers I have talked to are articulate and smart. The truth is I will talk with anyone who wants to converse. I am of the belief that every one has a story to tell.

Who have been some of your favorite subjects?
I have had a life long fascination with Cuba. Other than that I suppose I have a kind of grasshopper mind that will jump from the history of soul music, to baseball, to Haitian history, to industrial design, to mid 20th century photography, to thrillers set in the Louisiana bayou, to the biography of Isaac Newton.

If you were interviewing an established interviewer, what's one question you'd ask?
This must be the trick question. The only people that even come close to the "established interviewer" category that I would be interested in talking with are Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart.

The usual suspects are not particularly appealing to me. In fact, I think Barbara Walters is silly and Diane Sawyer is a viper. I did once stumble cross Charlie Rose talking with Henri Cartier-Bresson and it was quite wonderful. Since it was on location I have inferred that Charley under the hot lights transmogrifies into a less-than -appealing TV personality.

As to what I would ask Messrs. Olbermann and Stewart, something along the lines of, "How's it going?"

Now answer that question, please. Hah! Free question.
"It's going well. My kid is good, My dog is good. It's all good"

You've spent time in Cuba. I occasionally read articles about how Cuba is 'coming back,' as a good place to visit, and these portraits are painted of the 1940's, with guys in those white linen shirts and capirinhas and whatnot. Is any of that accurate?
Well, caipirinhas are Brazilian as far as I know But then I drink my rum straight so I have no expertise in mixed drinks.

Cuba is a complicated story. As a factor in my life it seems in retrospect that this beautiful and culturally and historically rich place was a good place to escape the nightmare landscape of my heritage as the son of Holocaust haunted parents. And so for me Cuba never went away, nor do I think it has been far from the fevered imagination of the rest of the world.

Consider that in 1748 the three greatest cities in the New World were Mexico City, Lima and Havana. And that from Thomas Jefferson on the United States has had a predatory interest in Cuba and that the Spanish-American-Cuban War was supposed to be about Cuban independence (at least so thought some Cubans) not about making Cuba a de facto colony of the United States. Cuba is, of course, only the most blatant case (well there is the creation of Panama) of American Imperial policy in the Caribbean Basin. But I won't bore you with more on this except to say that Cuba is both a catalyst and the context for great narratives (one has just to think of Julian Schnabel's movie about Cuban writer Reinaldo Areinas, Before Night Falls or Graham Greene's novel, Our Man in Havana or the ongoing tragicomedy of the Cuban Revolution or listen to Chucho Valdes' extraordinary use of all 88 keys on the piano).

So yes, Cuba is a good place to visit.

Tell us about your blog; what are you blogging, and why? It seems like you're already pretty busy.
First, I think the word 'blog' is aesthetically unpleasing so even if I were engaging in such an activity I would come up with different word that didn't sound like some kind of projectile emitting. I know a reader's progress is listed as a web log on Identity theory but that is just a label of convenience. I am busy so it also provides a balancing out of my attentions. My literary dialogues are time consuming and satisfying and the frequently stimulate things that I want to explore further.

a reader's progress allows me to indulge my joy of writing, semi publicly. It is a receptacle of musings and random thoughts that I put into play to see what happens. Writing it (regularly) also establishes a kind of discipline that keeps me in touch with real time. Which can be a concern when you don't watch television or have a so-called day job.

My boyfriend and I got into an argument that taxi driving is either the worst or best job in the world. What is it?
One of the worst. The urge to romanticize this occupation is a hold over from a more civilized time. Anyone who could possibly think driving in a big city, for any reason, is attractive either has no nerve endings or is a mutant.

Is the Stuff magazine that you used to work for the same Stuff that's affiliated with Maxim? Tell us about your career there.
No, and in a battle of short fingered vulgarians the Boston Phoenix who owned Stuff magazine prevailed over Dennis Publishing the owners of Stuff , Maxim and Blender in a copyright infringement action which I am told garnered the Phoenix company a settlement.

The sixteen years I published Stuff Magazine, a hip downtown life style tab, were about publishing interesting things and avoiding a formulaic product. Also, I thought it was important to serve readers and editorial contributors and in a graceful way, advertisers. I found that this vision was not shared by my colleagues at the Phoenix . After an eight-year relationship with that organization, I was fired and then when I began working elsewhere I was sued for breaching a non compete contract. After thousands of dollars of legal counsel enrichment my position prevailed in court and I embarked on a new course.

Have you ever considered publishing a compilation of your interviews?
Well, the publication of a book is pretty much in other people's hands. Maybe some incredibly bright acquisitions editor will discover my treasure trove of verbal literary history and will think that it would make a worthy book. You just never know. I do have a book idea that builds on what I have been doing. I guess we'll see what happens.

I am part Ukrainian, while your parents are from the Ukraine. I'm sadly ignorant about Ukrainian culture. What, if anything about your personality comes from Ukrainian influence? Is there anything that's 'stereotypically Ukrainian?'
My Jewish parents were born in Lvov which I believe is in the part of Poland that has been disputed for a number of centuries and depending on who is occupying it includes the Ukraine (see Jonathan Foer's Everything is Illuminated) I was born in Germany. The only thing that comes to mind that is stereotypically Ukrainian is a taste for pogroms.

You were born on the South Side of Chicago and moved to the North Side of Chicago. How did that figure into your baseball allegiances?
My life in Chicago did begin on the South Side but as my parents ascended the middle class ladder and moved north, Wrigley Field was more accessible than Comiskey Park. A field which Joe Queenan has correctly pointed out was a terrible ball park-not to mention it was named after one of the worst owners in baseball history. My Cubs loyalty didn't harden until my teenage years though.

It seems like you are frustrated with many magazines these days, which treat social events as news and generally produce fluff. What are some of your favorite magazines out today? If you could start a(nother) magazine, what would it consist of, and would you grab influences from other periodicals?
I read the New Yorker, The Believer, Harper's and occasionally the Atlantic. I like Smithsonian too. I used to read the New York Observer regularly when Michael Thomas was writing for it.

The fact is I do not think I could start another magazine. I do not have the kind of fire in my belly that would move me to such monomania. A magazine, if you believe in it (and why do it of you don't) is an all consuming thing that requires a lot of activity, public and private. After sixteen years my interest and ability to perform as a media person was most definitely exhausted. Not to be cliched but I think especially in these tasteless times, magazine publishing is a young person's game.

In addition, I am less attuned to and concerned with pop culture. I don't watch television. I don't shop. I marvel at the success of a magazine like Lucky or what people find interesting about Radar or why Tina Brown has any currency at all. And since all the positions of officially accredited iconoclasts seem to be filled I have adopted a kind of Grub Street mentality about journalism…

How does it feel to be the 65th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Who knew? In any case, I am honored when anyone shows interest in what I do. Let's talk again…