Interview with Rob Walker, Writer

2. Can you tell which of these projects you are particularly proud of?

I’m not too sure I’m proud but I’m happy with where the column stands now, it’s in its third year. When I pass that marker it will be the longest full time job I ever had. I was worried about the sustainability of the column but I’ve got over that now.

3. Where was the last longest job?

At Slate where I wrote a column on advertising for three years.

4. Where do you get your inspiration for the column?

I’m always on the look out for ideas. It’s beyond just knowing about a product or a service: I make an effort to be surprised. I like things that aren’t quite tuned in right. A few weeks ago I did a column on this coating that allows gun owners to customize their guns. So I’m sitting here now still surrounded by gun magazines. It’s the sort of thing that a typical New Yorker won’t know about, and probably wouldn’t get covered in a New York publication. That’s why I got excited about the idea when I came across it.

So, I seek surprise. I guess we’re all looking for novelty. If find something and I run and tell my wife and she looks interested, then I know I might have found something.

5. What human factors drive inspiration?

Inspiration is such a funny word. I see what I do as such a trade that I have to get on and do it even when I don’t feel inspired. I still have to deliver.

The hardest thing in the world is to look for ideas. Sometimes I deliberately go to places like Williamsburg and look at all the stores — but this never really works. It’s best to be open-minded when you are around people. I want to meet people who aren’t the kinds of people you would think I’d want to meet. You have to be careful with hanging with the usual suspects, as they all seem to know all the same stuff.

6. Do you think it’s important to be inspired?

So you’ve got me thinking about inspiration now. Here’s one more thing that’s definitely inspiring, and that’s people who beat the odds.

Some of these examples will date me I guess but I remember when “Stranger Than Paradise” and “She’s Gotta Have It” came out, and those were really inspirational pieces of culture because in both cases, at the time, the odds were just so against them, they just seemed so unlikely. I don’t just mean that they were non-mainstream, but they were also not what is today referred to as “on trend.” Laurie Anderson was a huge hero of mine, particularly the United States Live moment. Shepard Fairey, as he built up Obey Giant. Sleater Kinney. Chris Ware. Spiegelman’s Maus. Giant Robot. The magazine No Depression. I would also include The Blue Man Group, which might sound strange given that now they’re so familiar, but really, what they were doing when they started was so strange and unlikely, it’s just amazing that they’ve become what they’ve become.

I pick those examples partly because they’re now familiar, but for example I’m also quite inspired by lots of other less-familiar figures and entities, like Eleni Mandell or — here’s an interesting one, Garrett County Press, which I’m certain you’ve never heard of. It’s the independent press that published a book of mine called Letters From New Orleans. That makes it a self-serving pick, maybe, but I really am inspired by independent presses like them, and was very happy to work with them. That book happened to come out prior to Katrina. But about a month after Katrina, the head of GC Press was involved in making the New Orleans Book Fair happen, and I went, it was an incredible experience, it was a bunch of indie publishers who were all doing things they really believed in, and knew perfectly well that not only would they not get any “mainstream media attention,” they would also not get any trend-setting blogger attention, if you know what I mean. It was a really great event, and truly inspiring: It’s important sometimes to remember how rewarding it is to do something purely because you believe in it, even if chances of it “succeeding” [by some conventional standard] are remote-to-hopeless.

Now, all of that is probably more relevant to my side projects than to the more mainstream work that I do for, say, The New York Times Magazine. But it inspires me when I’m working on those more widely-seen projects, too, because it’s easy, I think, to get worried about, “Should I make the column more X or Y, would that make it popular?” and really, it’s good from time to time to think of these people and perhaps draw some inspiration.

Finally, I shouldn’t have to say this because it’s screamingly obvious: But of course I’m not putting myself on the same level of the people above, as I’m not and never will be, but they inspire me just the same. And others too of course, who I’m forgetting right now. …

Thank You

Consumed

Letters From New Orleans