Alex+Mann

=Hello by Alex Mann=

toc

Hello all you outlaws and trouble makers. I was reading aboutyour adventures at the mall and it sounds like fun. Kakali invited me to login here and make a few of my own comments. I thought that was kind of a cool idea, seeing as how all of you have been commenting on myself and Dr. Bhattacharya. Well, let's see. It's been about a month since I sat down with Dr. Bhattacharya to do those interviews.

As I was reading through your reflections on the different interview styles, I noticed alot of interesting points. I think the most salient one was the person who commented that I seemed more at ease during the last interview, but that could possibly be as much attributed to it being the final interview, or that I was sitting on a sofa instead of a chair, as to the actual style of the interview. Excellent point.There could have been a lot of variables that influenced the way I answered including time of day, my mood at the time, whether or not I was hungry, or craving a cigarette, or whatever. I think I might have said something about being Alex one day and someone completely different the next, and I think that was sort of the thing I was getting at. How are you going to get the true essence of a person when that essence is constantly shifting because of so many different factors? The best you can hope for is a snapshot of that place and time.

"I wonder if KB and Alex discussed the definition of ‘essence’before beginning the interviews. I wonder if a common definition would steer them toward the same goal. In the interviews, I question whether‘process’ and ‘essence’ is synonymous. If they had the same definition of the goal of the interview, I think they would come to a similar understanding of the meaning of Alex’s essence of creativewriting."

No, there wasn't really any discussion about essence prior tothe interviews, or really any discussion regarding the interviews at all that wasn't 'caught on tape' as they say. The only thing I was told was that we would do a series of interviews about my writing. However I am passingly familiar with existentialism as well as postmodernism, although I wouldn't claim to be an expert in either theoretical framework. While I lean towards the existentialist side ofthings, Dr.Bhattacharya seems to be more aligned with a post-modern perspective. Maybe they aren't contrary to eachother. In post-modernism,essence is permanently deferred, and cannot be nailed down. The basic premise of existentialism is that existence preceeds essence, or that there is no essence except that which we create. Perhaps a synthesis of the two as it concerns the interviews, would be that you would be looking for whatever the essence of writing is that I have created for myself. What does the essence of writing look like to me in my own personal space and time and context? How have I chosen to nail it down for myself, although it may not be the same for anyone else, or even myself today as it was a month ago in Memphis. OK, enough philosophy, let's talk about the interviews.

=**Phenomenological Interview**=

I question whether the process and the essence is synonymous too.When Dr. Bhattacharya told me she was trying to get at the essence of writing, I told her that I didn't believe we had talked about it yet.I imagine that if I had been given that information beforehand I might have answered differently. As it was, the interview went on for another 20 minutes after she ended it the first time. To me, it seemed like she was "fishing" for something or other but I had no idea what it was. Perhaps the essence of writing might be distilled in the analysis stage, perhaps not. Coming from a background in English, that might be fun. I imagine it to be like trying to find the meaning or theme of a poem or novel. What's he really saying here? How can Idecipher this? What's the point?

I guess I'd also add that I don't believe the photo elicitations really got to the essence of me as a writer either. It may have worked for another person in another context, but I remember sitting downand writing those elicitations, and I would sort of talk a little about the picture, and then find some way to tie it into my writing, or writing in general. I mean, I knew I was supposed to be writing about writing, but the photos I took didn't necessarily elicit thoughts of writing so much as the act of writing did. What I did find, though, was that in my writing for the photo elcitations my mind became focused on the subject of writing, and that kind of prepared me for the interviews.

=Feminist Interview=

I don't care much for the term "feminism", but that's mostly becauseno one has really been able to nail it down for me (the post-ies rejoice).I've heard it described as female empowerment, grrrl power, feminazism, humanism in drag (I like that one, but Dr. Bhattacharya will gladly refute it for you if you have a couple of hours to kill), women'slib,equal rights, and all sorts of different things. Everyone seems to have a different notion of what feminism is supposed to be about.

That said, this was my favourite interview. As many, or I think all of you pointed out, I was most relaxed here, and the tone of the interview was very friendly and conversational. I did find the couch more comfortable than the chair, and I had a cup of coffee as well,which is always a good thing. Kakali started off the interview with a joke, and was just much more personable than she had been in the phenomenological interview where she was mostly just asking questionsand letting me ramble on for 5 minutes at a time.

I think the questions that were asked here were eliciting answers from me that were closer to getting at the essence of writing than the previous interviews. We talked about the professional vs hobbyist writer, we talked about the writer as God, we talked about the creation of characters, and critics. And I could interact with Kakali as the interviewer, she shared some of her stories with me, and I could ask her questions. Someone mentioned power-sharing and that seems like an excellent term for it.

One interesting thing Kakali mentions towards the end of theinterview, is when she acknowledges that she has a different frame of reference for looking at my writing than I did. She talks about the bathtubs and blowtorches characters and who she didn't like, and wouldn't choose to hang out with. Which is fair enough, but she doesn't dismiss me, or judge me on the fact that I did hang around these people.There wasn't any value attached to one lifestyle over another, just that there were different spaces in life that people occupy. That might just be something that intrigued me personally about the interview.You'd probably know better than me whether it was based in a theoretical framework. I thought it was a nice moment, though, when it could have not gone very well at all.

One person asked how I felt about Kakali's participation inthe interview. It was good to get her perspective on her own writing experiences as sort of establishing a common ground between us.It was good for developing rapport. I suppose it also for her to check her understanding of what I was saying by comparing it to her own similar personal experiences. By doing that I would guess that it was a way to get an agreement or confirmation from me that she understood what I was saying, as well as just sharing her own stories.

=In-Depth Interview=

Ha! 4 questions, half an hour, I really do tend to ramble sometimes. Here we are back to the question and answer thing. I didn'treally notice much difference between this style of interview or any of the other styles of interview until after I'd been reading all of your comments on it. And even after reviewing myself on the website, itseems pretty similar to me as a participant (someone called mean 'informant'? I haven't ratted on anyone. haha).

So I guess the thing to do is ask the right questions. The questionson the In-Depth interview seemed more focused. In the first interview,it seemed like not only was I expected to answer the question, but before answering, I had to interpret the question in whatever way I chose to do so. So the answers could have been all over the place, because in the questions, there was a huge lattitude for interpretation of the question. What does she want to know? I suppose I could have asked for clarification looking back, but I didn't.

OK, so I guess that's my own comments on the videos. I've been interested in what you all have to say about them too, even though the spotlight of the reflections is more on Dr. Bhattacharya than myself. I'll keep looking at this website from time to time. So if you've got any questions for me, as to what the interview process was like as a participant feel free to ask, and I'll try to answer whatever questions you've got. Hopefully it will help you when you to get the participant's perspective as well when you get around to doing your own interviews.

So that's it for now. Best of luck to Dr. Bhattacharya and the whole class.

Take care,

Alex