Ever since I came in contact with this post, I have been a massive enthusiast of Pitchfork Reviews Reviews. For a lot of the same reasons I find the website and its author (who uses the nom de plume "David Shapiro") so exciting, it's kind of hard to say exactly what it's all about. I mean, the title of the site isn't even really saying what it's all about, how can I? My hearty suggestion would be that you visit this sort of "best of" collection and try to get a handle on what it's all about for yourself. Or read this nice question and answer that the author was kind enough to do.

I contacted Shapiro when he announced he would be publishing a zine this month to see if I could use that as a reasonable excuse to wrangle him into an appearance on the podcast I do with my roommate Jake. He said he would be happy to correspond but that it would be best to do so by email. Having only the podcast as a means of publishing content, I asked House of Plates if he would be kind enough to find a place for this exchange. Being the generous souls they are, they said they would and so here we are. If you find his answers interesting at all, maybe consider purchasing the zine? I think you might like it.

1.) What thing do you most wish you had the time to blog about but haven't?

I wish I'd had more time to blog about going to parties and interviewing celebrities.

I hope it grows to such a great size that it makes the financial establishment and the government uncomfortable enough to do something. The 23-year-old in Benghazi is experiencing the same hopelessness as the one in Rome smashing a bank building, in Athens throwing rocks, in New York tweeting from the media area at OWS.

The post I'm referring to is one where he makes the point that people currently leaving good colleges with solid educations are increasingly facing a situation where they have less and less of the employment and financial certainties of someone in our position 15 years ago and that chill wave might really appeal to someone in that situation.

5.) What is your favorite book? Or at least, what is one book you liked enough for it to be in the running for your favorite?

I loved Tao Lin's Richard Yates.

6.) Based on the reactions you posted in the update to the most recent post about Ian Cohen, based on reading some of the comments and based on a quick Google search of "pitchfork reviews reviews," I'm surprised by how much criticism you have directed your way. Given the excited, introspective nature of what your posts, that bewildered me. What is your reaction to people's negative responses to your work? How do you deal with them? Do you think there's something you do that makes these responses more common? And I guess the fact you started out criticizing other people's work made everyone a little on guard about it, but a) you don't do that much anymore and b) I'm no expert on the comments sections of your posts, but I was taken aback by how many people went out of their way to wish ill of you in the comments to "fuck tha world" and that post has nothing at all to do with calling out pitchfork reviewers.

The internet is a pervasively cynical and negative environment, a lot of my own writing included -- I'm more surprised about the positive response. The negative comments on "fuck tha world" were prompted because a big financial news blog linked to it and drew the eyes of thousands middle-aged money managers. But karma is getting them back for those negative comments now, you know, with the global economy grinding to a halt.

This made a lot of sense, to hear the financial blog angle. I was always kind of bothered by a) the tone of the responses to a really pouring-your-heart-out-type post and b) the fact that so many of those negative responses were from people who seemed to have some knowledge of credit default swaps.

7.) Why did you take down the post about Tom, the bike enthusiast who lived in your building? What is usually your thought process when you take something down?

I just thought it was mediocre at best, done out of obligation to post that day. I can't believe someone remembers it... There's enough mediocre shit floating around for me to only wanna put out my favorite stuff.

I'm referring to a post he had written about a guy who he had a nodding relation to because of their shared enthusiasm for bikes. Then one day the guy dies and his wife says he fell off his bike and hit his head. Then later he finds out that the guy was so into bikes because he was a drug dealer who did most of his business by bike delivery and that he was murdered by a rival drug dealer.

8.) I know you've mentioned being private about some of the details of yourself (like your real name) being motivated by not wanting to stir up trouble with your employer. Is there a situation that would come to be where you would be comfortable with revealing your name, where you went to school, etc? In general, it seems like you kind of lean to revealing less about yourself. Is that an element of your personality or is it mainly employer motivated?

You can piece together where I went to school if you read a lot of my writing, but I won't be publishing my name and hopefully nobody else will be either. I think I'm protective of a lot of biographical details too, beside my name, which is hard to realize because I guess my writing seems pretty personally revelatory.

I felt like I had a good idea of where he went to school when I read this post.

9.) Do you see a time where you're posting on PRR as often as you did before the screenplay opportunity entered your life? Have your creative talents been diverted from the blog in such a way that you'll probably never have the time to focus on the blog the same way again?

I think everyday PRR is a time that has come and gone in my life, and I'm nostalgic about it, but it's a project that was made under pretty bizarre circumstances that I don't think I could ever get back to. I'll still write, just not with that fervor. Makes me sad to think about.

I am also sad about this. But not too much because it's his life and he should be able to do what he wants with it, and I don't/shouldn't really have a say and to express too much of a sentiment would seem to lose sight of that.