Dispatch from an Interview
January 24, 2008
Ten minutes after a laughing conversation about experiences decapitating small mammals, the scientist and I entered into journalistic no-man’s land. He says to me that the university should be very proud about the research he’s been doing; and that I should write that.
Later in the day, walking in the blustery uptown winds across West End Avenue, a friend asks me what’s wrong with that? In longer pieces, he says, you should have the ability to get into things like that.
Like saying someone “should’’ do something?
There are key words that can tip you off. Should. What a troublesome little word. Should. It drips with anticipation. You shouldn’t have sex before marriage. You shouldn’t kill people. You shouldn’t do drugs. You shouldn’t go out on the hot summer street unless draped head to toe in black fabric. Should is a judgment word. The author is applying some external structure of value, within which the object ought to be compelled to commit to action.
In short, “should’’ equals editorial.
And this, I explained to my friend as we now boarded the 86th Street cross town bus, is why I can’t put it in my article.
It’s a funny thing, the way everything can change in an interview in a matter of a few words. For forty-five minutes I was making friends with this guy, sharing lab experiences, agreeing about science-y type things. And then, in a sentence, it’s shattered. That camaraderie, gone. Poof. It is the recognition that the line is still there, indelible, waiting to be approached, touched, punctured. The interview subject is, after all the chatter, acrimony, flirting, or sympathy, still a subject. Critical distance applies, perhaps more than ever. It is when the journalist is at once the most and least human; completely interested, entirely detached.
You can’t teach this shit.
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