The New York Times local online section for Fort Greene/Clinton Hill has a feature called Local Locals, in which Myryah Irby stops people on the street and asks them a few questions. Her husband takes a photo. The questions are superb. She jumps from “why are you raising money for cancer at a sidewalk sale” to “how many times have you been in love” and people go with it, they answer her. And she rolls into another question. I couldn’t stop reading these.
In this one she talks to Diane Davis, a borderline homeless transgender HIV positive person, who says at one point that she needs to get her life together. It’s the kind of comment people make as an aside, and most interviewers would let pass. But Irby follows up by asking directly, What do you think you need to do in order to get yourself together? And Davis answers. I would love to see a video of her interviewing people, she must have perfect presence and tone to get them to open up to these questions.
Becca is walking with a cane, and when Irby asks why she gets a hilarious story about an attempt at pole dance aerobics on the subway. Marcelino draws her feet, and as her last question she asks, What question should I ask? He says, Why am I drawing your feet? Pictured at top is Squire, a formerly famous jazz musician who knows everybody.
Each one of these people has a wild history ranging from high level education to stories about the projects. It’s interviewing at its best.
Here’s another example, with Karl, which generated a lot of animosity in the comments from New Yorkers who apparently just wanted restaurant information. It tells you how unused to raw interviews readers are that they balk at these sorts of questions, and consider them unimportant (in a column whose sole stated purpose is to interviews locals). But this, how good is this?
When was the last time you cried?
That’s how you start the interview?
Well the editor of this blog suggested I go beyond the obvious questions.
So that’s a real question?
You can skip whichever questions you’d rather not answer. (Long pause.) OK then, my husband came up with this hypothetical gem: Would you rather have no fingers and no toes, or a penis for a nose?
That’s a really hard one. I’m going to go with the penis nose. It’s more, rather than less. And maybe the girls really like it. It might help me!
Tags: ideas about the future of media, ideas about writing well