Wow! This reading was just fascinating. The familiarity Ira Glass puts across in his interviews is all over these pages. My favorite part of this reading is the tone Glass takes towards interviewing. He goes with a plan of information to get and some points to ask about, but allows for flexibility. Life is unpredictable and so are people; it's great that he recognizes someone's story may turn out differently-and probably more compelling-than you expect. His idea of the interviewer sharing one of their own stories is pretty intuitive as well. Trust and comfort are key to any interview. If someone feels comfortable around you, and senses at least a level of mutual trust, they will be more willing to share thoughts and feelings that maybe haven't been before.
The ability of radio/audio art in and of itself to accomplish this is intriguing as well. When suggesting a "tour" of the event being discussed and a present-tense reliving to go along with it, he puts this as a visual interpretation. If someone took a video of Jackie going to her kitchen and talking about how she was shot at there, it would probably feel less real than her detailed description of it and the images it conjures in our heads. In the other case, we have already been provided with a visual, and her voice alone can evoke the fear of that situation. Sound art of bullets whooshing/glass breaking added to her voice could even further entrench the living images in our minds.
Another idea I'm getting from this article (kind of indirectly) is that interviewing anyone and getting an amazing story out of it is possible. As humans, everyone is unique and has their own experiences and perspectives on those events. But an interviewer can use the common qualities: desire to be affirmed, need to be listened to, and drive to be better-to talk with a stranger and find something surprising.
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