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Interview with David Remnick about the revitalization of the New Yorker and what exactly it is that makes that magazine unique. “My principle in the magazine - and I am not being arrogant - is that I don’t lose sleep trying to figure what the reader wants. I don’t do surveys. I don’t check the mood of the consumers. I do what I want, what interests me and a small group of editors that influences the way of the magazine.” (thx, george)
Interview with the BBC’s David Frost on his move to Al Jazeera International, a new 24-hour news station. I don’t get why Solomon is so rude in these interviews, particularly when her able subjects handle her “tough” questions with such ease.
Robert Birnbaum interviews physicist Lisa Randall about string theory and science popularizers.
The Onion interviews Stephen Colbert. “It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.”
Nice interview with Josh “Shake” Schachter about del.icio.us. “I would not say [that I am an] entrepreneur - the enterprise of the thing was always dragged along by the thing itself.”
Short (and a wee bit hostile) inteview with Daniel Dennett. “Nerve cells are very complicated mechanical systems. You take enough of those, and you put them together, and you get a soul.”
Update: This article appears to have dropped behind Nerve’s paywall. Sorry about that.
Gothamist interview with my friend Lisa Whiteman about her photography. Lisa is one of the most thoughtful people I know and it shows in this interview.
If Mike Wallace could question GW Bush, he would ask him: “What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel …. Why do you think they nominated you?”
eGullet recently interviewed author Michael Ruhlman and he had this to say about what he liked about working in a professional kitchen:
You can’t lie in a kitchen — that’s what I like most about it. You’re either ready or you’re not, you’re either clean or you’re a mess. You’re either good or you’re bad. You can’t lie. If you lie, it’s obvious. If your food’s not ready, then it’s not ready. If you’re in the weeds, its clear to everybody — you can’t say that you aren’t. So I love that aspect of it. I love the immediacy of it, the vitality of it.
I’ve worked in a number of different places over the years and the ones I ended up liking the least were the places that allowed people (myself included) to hide. Some companies just have way too many people for the amount of available work. Other times, particular employees have a certain status within the organization that allows them to determine their own schedules and projects. Deadlines are often malleable, meaning that work can pushed off. Inexperienced or nontechnical managers might not have a clue how long a task should take a programmer…budgeting 2 weeks for a six-hour task that seems hard buys one a lot of blog-surfing time. Companies with coasting employees are everything a kitchen isn’t; they just feel slow, wasteful, lifeless, and eventually they suck the life out of you too.
AIGA Voice has an interview with Peter Morville about his new book, Ambient Findability. A question from the interview that everyone responsible for a web site should be asking themselves (emphasis mine): “Can [people] find your content, products and services despite your website?” Love that.
Profile of architect Renzo Piano. “People are starting to understand that the real challenge of the next 30 years is to turn peripheries [i.e. suburbs] into cities. The peripheries are the cities that will be. Or not. Or will never be.”
A just-concluded eGullet conversation with Ruth Reichl, currently editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and former food critic for The New York Times.
Interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros, Zelda, etc.
Short Chris Ware interview in the Guardian. When’s he going to cheer up?
Interview with Jeff Bezos on Amazon’s current activities. “We have always tried to be very clear with people that we are an appropriate company only for long-term-oriented investors.”
Wonderful interview of Milton Glaser by Chip Kidd from a couple of years ago. Touches on his iconic I [heart] NY logo, the updated version (which the NY Commerce Dept. tried to sue him for), and the economics of design. (via df)
Interview with Boards of Canada on the eve of the release of their new album, The Campfire Headphase. Their Geogaddi is one of my favorite albums of the last 20 years. (thx, lots of people)
PingMag interviews designer Stefan Sagmeister about his work.
Interview with Sidney Frank, the guy who brought Jagermeister to the US in a big way and sold his Grey Goose vodka brand to Bacardi for more than $2 billion.
The NY Times Magazine has launched The Funny Pages, their comics+ section. PDFs of the comics are available online…here’s the first Chris Ware strip. They’re also podcasting and the first episode is an interview with Ware by John Hodgman, assisted by organist and radio-man Jonathan Coulton.
Interview with Hayao Miyazaki about Howl’s Moving Castle and his films in general.
Quick interview with Bobby Henderson, Prophet of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Designboom interview with designer/citizen Milton Glaser. Glaser is responsible for one of my favorite sayings: just enough is more.
Long interview of Jane Jacobs by James Kunstler. I think it may be time to read The Death and Life of Great American Cities again.
Interview with the fellows from skinnyCorp. Half of my current wardrobe is from Threadless and I haven’t had occasion to wear my nifty Naked & Angry tie yet.
Interview with Frans de Waal about his work with primate behavior and politics. “I call the human species the most bipolar ape, meaning that we go beyond chimps in our violence, which is systematic and often results in thousands of dead, and we go beyond the bonobo in our empathy and love for others, so that human altruism is truly remarkable.”
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