I have a habit, a habit of talking to people that I barely know, usualy in the oddest places, but also the common ones; the taxi, the train, the bus, on the street, in a cafe, etc. So over the years I’ve gotten to hear quite a few stories, and some especially interesting ones in the latter period where I’ve lived in Nørrebro.
That has made me think that I might need to start collecting these stories in some way, and maybe putting them together in some sort of compilation. It could be a book, I’m not quite sure if it’s the right medium.
What do you think? Would you care reading (or hearing, seeing, whatever medium) stories about everyday people that I’ve met? If the idea is a bit too abstract, please let me know and I’ll try and elaborate some more.
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I’d be curious to know if there’s some kind of theme running through these stories that makes them so appealing to you.
03.03.08 (d.m.y) at 6:39 pm (CET) | KarsI think both blog, book and podcast would be viable (or a combination of them all:
05.03.08 (d.m.y) at 6:19 pm (CET) | Pål1) meet people and talk to them while recording the conversations.
2) Do a writeup of the conversation and publish it on your blog along with the original podcast (or maybe an edited version)
3) When you have xx number of stories, you compile them into a book with all the podcasts along it on CD.
4) Don’t forget to take pictures/portraits of the people you talk to so that your stories get faces and presence.
Wonderful input, thanks and please keep it coming.
Kars: I might want to find a theme (or maybe not) for this project, but usually I just have a habit of talking to everyone more than anyone else. For instance I have this taxi driver in Copenhagen that I drive with a lot since I had a wonderful conversation with him once, I now have met his family and all. But the theme here could really just be around people, giving people some insight into all kinds of groups, be that minorities in both ethnographic and professional context.
Pål: Great, that’s some good ideas. One thing that I might just have a slight problem with would be the podcasting part, since I think that would seriously change how the stories evolve and what kinds of things people would tell me if it felt more like an “interview”. I want to keep it on the personal level, where you sort of get to know people, what their background is and why they are doing what they are doing. I really want to keep it as a conversation, but maybe that is possible in some way, I just don’t know how.
06.03.08 (d.m.y) at 2:06 am (CET) | Jacob BøtterYou are right that adding a recording device to the conversation will inevitably add some level of formalization. I suggested recording (and podcasting) as I would have a hard time doing a detailed writeup on a conversation I had without some sort of technical aid. …but that may also depend on the length of the stories you want to write.
Then again, I don’t know if your idea is to do a detailed writeup. Maybe your conversations could be starting points for inspired writeups that transcend into fiction?
06.03.08 (d.m.y) at 5:39 pm (CET) | PålIt made me think of Derek Powazek’s “San Francisco Stories” - http://www.sfstories.com
07.03.08 (d.m.y) at 9:14 am (CET) | DigitalMads