The NPR Interview Day

November 13, 2003

Ah, yes. Interviews. They’re the single most effective way to learn the habits of successful people. A few interesting people lend themselves for interviews in today’s articles.

Plump author and NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater gives his round perspective to Marilyn Wann in an interview for Fat! So?, an advocacy magazine for overweight people. Pinkwater relates his experiences as a lifetime fat man and also delves into his experiences as an author. In the article, he describes his dieting experiences as child: “The doctor would speak, usually to my mother, not to me, saying, ‘Put him on a diet.’ He'd hand her a printed diet. And then we'd go to lunch where, of course, she indulged me in anything I wanted, including banana cream cake.”

Interview number two concerns another NPR figure, or should I say “figures,” Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of the radio program Car Talk. The two brothers tell their collective story on Fresh Air, an NPR news magazine. Tom and Ray explain their start in 1973 with the Good News Garage, a do-it-yourself mechanic’s station in Cambridge, MA and chart their rise to radio stardom. They discuss the 1977 start of their local automotive radio program on WBUR which was later picked up by NPR for national syndication. Car Talk is now carried on more than 400 public radio stations across the country with legions of dedicated listeners.

Interviews are often a useful and interesting tool to learn about figures which shape the world in which we all live. Today’s interviews should prove to be interesting, if not useful, considering that these subjects don’t exactly fall into the “shape the world” category.
 

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