Bookworm on Coffee and a Mike

Not only do you get to hear me ramble, but you can see me, too, since Mike’s gone upscale to video interviews.

Unlike my kids, who grew up in front of the endless videos they shoot of themselves and each other, I did not grow up in a video era. My parents had a movie camera, but it was too expensive to develop the film, so they stopped using it by the time I was about six.

I do not like videos of myself. Indeed, the older I get, the more unnerving I find them because I look more and more like my mother with every passing day. This means that, layered on the uncomfortable feeling I always have when see myself on tape, I also have the weird sense that I’m witnessing my mother rising from the grave.

Still, I love talking with Mike Farris, an up-and-coming interviewer who talks to an amazing mix of people both widely known and moving in more narrow circles. Because Mike is genuinely interested in what people have to say rather than in promoting himself, everyone who talks to him is a great interview. (Check out his home page.)

Having done audio-only videos up until recently, Mike wants to move to video interviews. As noted, I love talking to Mike, so I said “yes” to his request that we do a video of the interview and sort of promised to post the video here. So here’s the video.

(If you prefer audio, you can find the audio interview, one of many I’ve done with this lovely man, here.)

UPDATE: A friend sent me the perfect image for this post:

I try to distance myself from the camera, but I noticed that my hands, which I do use to talk (I’m Jewish, after all), look ginormous.