First the bad news: Working, the podcast about the creative process that I have co-hosted for Slate since the beginning of the pandemic, is ending. We announced it on this week’s episode, and our final episode will air in September.
The idea behind Working was a simple one: an interview show, focused on process and craft. There are three main components to an interview with an artist: their personal lives, their craft, and the content of the work they make. Most interviews are some form of scalene triangle made from these three topics. Fresh Air begins with the content and gets to the personal and craft through it. WTF starts with the personal and gets to content and craft. We would start with process as our focus, and get to the rest through that. One thing (of many) I learned while doing the show is that interviewing people about craft and process is quite tricky. Most artists wish more people would ask them craft questions but also don’t always know how to discuss it because it’s rarely the main subject of an interview. It’s very easy to talk about creativity in general; translating those generalizations into the lived experience of making something is far more complicated.
I’m not going to lie: this is a huge bummer. I loved doing Working. I loved my co-hosts (June Thomas since the beginning and then, in different eras, Rumaan Alam, Karen Han, Nate Chinen and Ronald Young, Jr.) All of them were inquisitive, generous, and brought something different to their work. We said at the beginning that we weren’t going to do the impartial interviewer thing, and that we would get to pick our own guests, and so each co-host really shaped the show, and it broadened my horizons to listen to their questions and guests. Talking to people from many different creative professions about their work was a joy, and I learned something new every time I sat down at my microphone. This, in turn, made me a far better interviewer than I was when I started. Between my writing work and this podcast I’ve now interviewed hundreds of people, and it is odd to realize that I am now, if not a grizzled veteran, then I am seasoned, like a good crepe pan. The show had also been a source of stability over the past four and a half years, and stability is very important when you’re a freelancer. The hot air balloon of the self needs its tethers.
Now the good news: I still exist! And I still make things. Most recently, I have begun working on a new podcast called Charm Offensive with my old friend and collaborator Dan Kois. The podcast is very simple: We began taping our phone calls as a way of exploring the lost art of calling your friend and catching up. It’s casual, and fun, and chatty. It’s about being a middle aged guys, and about friendships, and being alive in this weird moment in which we find ourselves. We talk about everything from Softball Dads to politics to whatever we’re reading. If you enjoy this newsletter and the other work I do, I think you’ll like it. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. (If that place is the apple podcasts app, go here!)
With Working ending, I’m also planning on writing for this newsletter more often. I have more time, and I find myself sitting here with things to say. So… watch this space!
Until then, here are some of my favorite interviews that I conducted while I did Working. If you’ve never listened to the show, the other piece of good news is that there’s four years of interesting interviews with artists from all walks of life out there for you to listen to:
I spoke to Justin Peck about adapting Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois into an evening-length dance piece currently running on Broadway. Julien Baker and I bonded over a shared love of Liz Phair and talked through Baker’s songwriting process. Michael Abels, the composer of the scores for Jordan Peele’s films talked about the composing for orchestra and cinema. Howard Fine, the acting coach of Austin Butler (among others) talked about this unique and under-discussed aspect of the film industry. Speaking of acting, who doesn’t love a conversation with Succession’s Arian Moayed?! I interviewed my daughter’s favorite band, and if you’re a slate plus subscriber, you’ll get to hear her interview them too. The brothers behind one the weirdest and most influential video games of all time told me about how to create emergent narratives through obsessively detailed world-building. The great Nayland Blake put on a little masterclass in our interview on creativity and capitalism. Johnnie Burn, the sound designer for The Zone of Interest walked me through the process of creating the soundscape for that film. I’m not saying our interview is how he got an Oscar. But I’m not not saying it either. And while we’re talking Oscar-winning films, here’s my interview with the fight choreographers of Everything Everywhere All At Once.
That’s it for now. More soon.
(Oh and PS: This newsletter’s title comes from this song, one of the funniest ever written)