(This podcast is part of our National Book Awards coverage for 2007, in which five bloggers are attempting various journalistic experiments using unusual technological methods. For more posts and other tomfoolery, keep checking under this category.)
People on This Podcast: Jonathan Franzen
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© 2007, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.
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You two share exactly the same voice. What gives? Are you and Jonathan Franzen the same person?
Wow. That was David Brent-level awkward.
I’m scared to listen now.
the interviewer sounds like a fool…..not funny and meaningless……surprised franzen bothered to try to engage…..
I can understand why he reacted the way he did. Ed, you do sound kind of manic.
I agree, the interviewer does sound like a fool. I hope he isn’t really a fool.
Good Kirk, meet evil Kirk.
It reminded me of the overactive pre-awards show interviewers when they bombard actors with quesitons devoid of context. I don’t think Ed was being mean, or not intentionally so, but in Franzen’s shoes, when someone out of the blue asks about something unrelated to the evening at hand, I think it’d be a little jarring.
Yeah, I’ve gotta go with manic, I’m afraid.
Third vote here for manic. Franzen sounded like he had a stick stuck somewhere, though.
Why would Franzen want to accept a friend invitation from what in this clip sounds like the voice of spam?
The conversation started out fairly well. Franzen seemed to handle the first question ok. Asking about Facebook at the NBA event is somewhat out of context but he sounded like he didn’t get too flustered until Ed asked him why he joined Facebook in the first place. At that point things seemed to change abruptly but it’s hard to tell exactly what happened.
Ed – was there some kind of body language/facial expression thing that happened that doesn’t come across on the audio. Because after that question he gets irrational and you do a good job of restraining your desire to go off on him.
That was kinda excruciating.
Ed–do you work for Facebook or something?
Just kidding. I thought the whole blogging at the NBAs was pretty spectacular. The Hitchens interview was especially good. I was going back and forth on my computer from your coverage there to the other NBA (basketball scores)!
Was that Tucker Carlson interviewing? Blech!
[…] Back in April, it was revealed that the galley for James Ellroy’s Blood’s a Rover contained a note asking all of Ellroy’s readers to become his Facebook friend. Well, since Ellroy happened to be at BookExpo America, I decided to ask him about what the nature of this “Facebook friend” relationship entailed. Ellroy promptly placed his arm around my shoulder and gave me his explanation. I think it’s safe to say that Ellroy’s idea of “Facebook friend” is much different from Jonathan Franzen’s. […]