"Interview Me!"

True Ancestor, the AmbivaBro, was the first in our pod to come across this blog game/meme where you ask another blogger, blogfriend or total stranger, to interview you -- the questions being entirely at the interviewer's discretion (though the interviewee has the right to take a pass on one or more of them). Here are David's answers to questions fromRobin.

Danny Miller (I'm not linking to him yet for a reason -- but I will in a minute), more than just a podmate, apparently a long-lost member of the GottBlog family, asked David to interview him. Here are Danny's answers to David's questions. There was some confusion about where the answers were supposed to be posted. David posted Danny's, but it turns out we're supposed to post our answers on our own blogs. (Stick with me, this does get more interesting.)

I immediately asked Danny to interview me. I knew his questions would be the perfect mixture of can't-help-myself nosiness, neurotic compassion, and entertainment savvy. (All our psyches are studded and mined with pop-culture references, and Danny lives in L.A., is an omnivorous fan, and has mysterious, enviable access to treasure troves of old photos and posters.) Just the kind of questions that are irresistible to answer. How right I was.

I decided to break the rules and ask Danny to post my answers on his blog. For one thing, he'd wished out loud that he could do that, because he was having one of those nothing-to-say days. His posts are real labors of love, and I was happy to give him a rest so he could gather strength for the next one.

Then too, I find these "all about me" memes embarrassing (if also enticing), and posting it somewhere else cuts down on the navel-gazing quotient over here.

Finally, I really think this game is as much about the art of the questions as about the answers. Notice how Danny's questions alternate between probing, serious ones and entertainment-related comic relief -- except that the "escapist," entertainment questions can unexpectedly turn out to be the really emotional ones!

What never occurred to me -- though I should have guessed, as a regular reader of Danny's blog -- is that he would come up with the visuals and song lyrics to my answers!! And so it came as a complete and touching surprise. And he knew exactly what he was doing, because he saved them for the end. Here it is -- a gentle collaboration, an assisted dream. (Danny, have you ever thought of hanging out a shingle as a . . . Hollywoodtherapist? Broadwayanalyst? Popcultshaman? Is there a better word for it -- finding the archetypal images in entertainment that connect with one's own psyche? Freud said dreams were the royal road to the unconscious, but entertainment is the Broad Way!)

- amba

I have already agreed to interview Tamar. I think I'm going to confine myself to one (or at least to one set of questions), because of workload and time constraints. (Who, me?? Yeah . . . ) But the rules of the game are as follows:

1. E-mail the blogger of your choice or leave a comment saying 'interview me please'

2. Your chosen interviewer, if willing, will respond by asking you five questions of his/her choosing (questions should not be racy, rude, too personal or weird).

3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions [unless you want to break the rules like we did].

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. . . .

Comments

[david]

Gosh, I wish it weren't against the rules to be interviewed twice. That would be the very height of blogflogging.

Thanks for flogging my blog, by the way. (Sounds incestuous, in the worst sense of the word. Sorry about that...)

[Tamar]

Ooh, I am rubbing my hands with glee... and will wait patiently for my interview questions. Amba, you let me know where we post the answers - I'm happy with either/or/any/whatever.

Now then David - you are getting me all excited with all this flog-blogging ...