Entries tagged as ‘interviews’
Before you ask Mike Daisey’s opinion on a subject, make sure you’re sure you want to know! (I am, and I do.)
Remember when I wrote that Daisey, raconteurius nonpariculus, was “one of the most imaginative and entrancing talkers in America”? Dude, I was totally right. Daisey generously gave me an hour of his time, and he had way more interesting things to say than I could possibly use in my preview of The Last Cargo Cult, his latest solo show at Woolly Mammoth.
After the jump, luxuriate in the cogent and persuasive glow of a few more of those glorious “lucid, flowing paragraphs” I mentioned, which Daisey freestyled live and uncut into my iPod one week ago.
Enjoy. I’m seeing the show tonight. Can’t wait. (more…)
Categories: shameless self-promotion · theatre
Tagged: Woolly Mammoth, economics, interviews, Mike Daisey, theater, imagination
I spoke with the the great novelist and essayist Nick Hornby about a month ago, just prior to his swing through Our Nation’s Capitol to promote his swell new novel Juliet, Naked, which we discussed at some length. His other current release, the film An Education, for which he wrote the screenplay, opens here in DC at the Landmark E Street Cinema tomorrow. I haven’t seen it yet, but the great and good Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and At the Movies tells me it’s “awfully charming.”
Herewith, the second part of our conversation, wherein we discuss his thoughts on the movies derived from his books, favorite music of the moment, and wither The Believer. (more…)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: About a Boy, adaptation, An Education, cinema, drama, High Fidelity, interviews, Nick Hornby, screenwriting
Mike Birbiglia, dressed for success.
Mike Birbiglia remembers when the room was a lot smaller. He’s headlining Saturday night at the Warner Theatre, where he’ll tell some stories he’s considering for inclusion in his next one-man show. But he cut his teeth at the DC Improv in the late 90s, while a student at Georgetown University. By the time he was 25, he’d done the The Late Show with David Letterman and had his first album and Comedy Central special.
Birbiglia’s act grew more distinct and involving a couple of years ago, when he began to segue from traditional stand-up into more personal storytelling. (more…)
Categories: DCist · shameless self-promotion
Tagged: The Moth, storytelling, This American Life, interviews, DCist, comedy, Mike Birbiglia
Nancy Updike photo of Ira Glass appropriated from This American Life's marvelous website.
It’s not every day you get to talk with one of your heroes for half an hour. I interviewed Ira Glass 16 months ago for this thing. Presented here for the first time is the (mostly) complete transcript from which that piece was excerpted, albeit still edited to excise boring and/or redundant material. 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Ira Glass began his public radio career as an intern at NPR in DC in 1978. But it was This American Life, the Peabody, duPont-Columbia, and Edward R. Murrow Award-winning weekly story anthology — mostly nonfiction, but with some fiction, too — he created in 1995 that’s made him famous, at least among public radio listeners. (more…)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: bonus audio, genius, interviews, Ira Glass, journalism, Pubic Radio International, This American Life
Jeff Tweedy maintains that Wilco is a collaborative enterprise, though he's the man who wears the hat.
I conducted this interview with Jeff Tweedy on June 17. It was excerpted for a “Conversations” box that appeared in the Paper of Record on Sunday, July 5. Here’s the interview in something close to its entirety, albeit lightly edited for clarity. It’s up on Post Rock, too. Wilco are at Wolf Trap tonight with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.
There are bands that have sold more records during the past decade than Wilco, but few have been the subject of more discussion among rock’s cognoscenti. Guided by the songs and voice of Jeff Tweedy, 41, every Wilco album since 1996’s Being There, (with the arguable exception of 2007’s Sky Blue Sky) has explored new subjects, textures, and song structures.
(more…)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: bonus audio, Conversations, interviews, Jeff Tweedy, music, Washington Post, wilco
I’ve never been a big fan of Ron Howard’s films, though the word on his upcoming adaptation of Peter Morgan’s fine history play Frost/Nixon is that it’s good. If you can afford it, though, I heartily endorse the touring production of the play I reviewed for DCist. It’s at the Kennedy Center through Sunday night.
Categories: DCist · theatre
Tagged: David Frost, impeachment, interviews, Peter Morgan, politics, Richard Nixon, United States Constituion
