Transcript - Episode 7: The Slippage Between Image and Subject
Hey, It’s Me
EPISODE # 7
Hosts: Mike Sakasegawa and Rachel Zucker
Transcript by: Leigh Sugar
Transcripts formatted after those from Disability Visibility Project
Please note: transcripts are transcribed directly from recordings of live conversations; as a result, quotes and statements may be approximate and there may be unintended memory errors.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hey, it's me. I wanted to talk to you for our next episode about this Commonplace episode that's coming up, probably not for a few months, or weeks, or I don't even know, with Lois Conner, who was my photography teacher when I was an undergraduate, and she's an amazing photographer, and I wanted you to listen to the audio before I posted on Commonplace for a few reasons.
One, you are my favorite Commonplace listener. I guess I shouldn't say that because other people might be jealous. You are one of my favorite Commonplace listeners. I really, really value the feedback that you give me when you listen to Commonplace and give me feedback. And I was particularly interested to know what you think about this episode because it's with a photographer about photography, and that’s something that we don't talk about as much as we could, given the fact that we both have a history with photography. But also because I'm doing some different things with this episode than I've done with other Commonplace episodes that come straight out of my experience making, Hey, It's Me with you.
So, I'm not really, I mean, if you think it's not good, of course I'm open to hearing that, but that's, it's more, I just, I don't know. I just really wanted to talk to you about it. And I thought it might be interesting to talk about photography and podcasting and, and, you know, all right, talk to you later.
[Music]
RACHEL ZUCKER: Can I say a word of context for myself?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Sure.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I just wanted to say that I am a little distracted right now because I have a family member who is, one of my kids is in the hospital, and that's very stressful. He's okay. And I told you that I really wanted to do this today. And so I'm a little, I'm, I'm not as sharp maybe as I often am, but I'm really grateful to be here. And I was thinking about why I wanted to do this today. I mean, we certainly didn't have to, you would have completely understood. And it's not like our production schedule is so, you know, tight, or something like that, but one of the many reasons to do this today for me, but also to do the podcast together in general, I'm realizing how stabilizing it is for me to have a way to direct my attention to something that's intellectual, that's something I care about, that's something engaging, that's something with someone else. And if it wasn't like officially a podcast, like you and I could have just had a phone conversation, obviously, but there's something about knowing I could do this, that's really helpful to me. So thank you for that.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It is that for me as well. I was thinking about it as well. And I was thinking, you know, if, cause I was thinking about offering to, you know, we don't have to record, we could just have a phone call, but there's something about knowing that we're doing it for a recording and knowing that there's a format… like if we had been on a phone call, I don't think, I think we would have just ended up talking about your situation and we wouldn't have ended up talking about something else that would be more distracting. There's something about working to a format that is kind of oddly freeing
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It's funny that you mentioned the production schedule thing because I wanted, I wanted to bring this up because in the message that you sent me you noted that this audio that you sent me is for a future episode of Commonplace that's going to come out in, the phrase you used was a few months, and this episode that we're recording now, is not going to come out for a couple months, so it's currently, just to give people a peek behind the curtain, it's currently mid-July, and if my calculations are correct, this episode of Hey, It's Me will probably come out at the end of September.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mmmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So there is, I think, a little bit of a question as to which episode will actually come out first.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hmmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: They might be coming out relatively contemporaneously. This one might come out first, that one might come out first. I, we don't know. And I think that's kind of, kind of interesting.
[5:00]
RACHEL ZUCKER: Me too.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So I think that before I say anything else, and before I ask you any questions, I did just want to get it out of the way that I thought that this episode was interesting. And I certainly enjoyed it, and I think that it will make a good episode of Commonplace. But I also, since you're the one that sort of was soliciting feedback from me, I thought that maybe it would be good to first ask you what questions you have for me?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Sure. I mean, the, the format is not so dissimilar from most Commonplace episodes. I often think that they're, that I'm doing more inventive format things than really I am. And it's basically like, oh, does the, is the cold open here, or is it here? Do I, do I break in once, or do I break in twice? So it's not that, you know, inventive or whatever. In part based on some of our conversations at, at on Hey, It's Me, and just, you know, between the two of us, I'm interested in doing less editing for this one than I normally do. And I kind of was interested in what you thought about that. It's very long and I have mixed feelings about that.
I kind of like the feeling that, like, this in some ways is like a real old-style Commonplace conversation. Like, it's just, it goes on and on and on and it's really like, me and her sitting around talking, and I kind of want to maintain that quality, but I don't know if it really is too long and if it really lags too much.
And then, I don't know, I was just, I kind of wanted to share it with you also because, I, I don't know, I thought that this one was going to be terrible [laughs]. Like, I really, and I, and I keep having this feeling, recently, with Commonplace where I'm like, this is the worst Commonplace episode ever. And I've had this with, Hey, It's Me too. Like there's something happening for me where I'm getting very discouraged and very down. And then I will re-listen to audio that I recorded, because I recorded this in December, and this one was hard for me to piece back together because I recorded, I think, over four hours of audio, which was not something I should ever do again, although there's something really interesting to me… I'm thinking of using the part of the audio that I'm not including in the Commonplace episode, which is the part where we're talking and I'm just recording on the backup iPhone - Lois knows that I'm doing that, I'm not like, you know, recording without her permission or consent or anything - but I'm thinking of using part of that conversation where we're just talking about, you know, my family and social stuff and we're, we're eating lunch. So it's not really usable in terms of the podcast, but I'm, I'm thinking of using part of that in my novel. And that's also really interesting.
And then the other reason I was kind of, two other reasons I was really excited to share it with you was because it's about photography. And then also because, noticing, I really noticed the differences in my vocal register between the parts that I'm recording kind of for the podcast and then like, not necessarily for the podcast, but with Lois, and that's something you and I talk about a lot. And I was just kind of interested in that. So I don't know. Are those questions? They're not really questions [laughs].
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I, you know, I was thinking a little bit about how the editing is a little looser in terms of the rhythm of it and how, it didn't really occur to me to think about that most of the time. And I don't think I would think about it except for the fact that I spend so much time editing our specific voices.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So, the average Commonplace listener is not going to do that. And it's also funny to me to the like thing, any kind of insecurity about the length of the episode, because like David puts out two and a half hour episodes all the time. Like most of his episodes are in excess of two hours, and he's put ones out that are longer than three hours. And people love it! So I don't know why you should feel weird that this one is a little longer than normal for a Commonplace episode, you know -
[10:00]
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, I guess the question is, does it warrant it? Does the content, you know, like, if it's not, because I could, I could make a shorter version of this.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: What I will say is that the parts of it that are the most interesting to me are, are all after that first break. So the first break happens at about 80 minutes, and the most interesting parts to me are all after that. And I think the reasons that it becomes more interesting to me after that point are twofold.
One is that you become a greater part of like, you participate more in the conversation rather than just asking questions. And the other thing is that things get a lot more sort of abstract after that point, rather than in the first like hour or so you're mostly asking questions about her bio.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I think that for people who don't know who she is or why she's important to you, that that is, that's sort of very important table setting. But just for me personally, and I don't think most listeners are like this, but for me personally, bio tends to be the sort of least interesting part of an interview, you know.
And I kind of feel like it's that way for you, too which was kind of interesting to me because you're saying you notice the difference in your vocal register between the parts that are definitely for the show and the parts that are maybe not for the show, I didn't notice a difference in your vocal register as much as I noticed a difference in your sort of energy in the conversation between the bio portions of the interview and the second portion of the interview, where I think that you, and this is something we've talked about before, you, on Commonplace, you come to different people differently, and in particular, I always notice a big difference between the way that you show up in an interview when it is somebody who you look up to and who is older than you, uh, versus someone who is younger than you, and it's not that you don't admire them or their work. I think that most of the people, probably all of the people that you have on Commonplace, you admire for one reason or another, it doesn't feel condescending ever. It's just that there is a different, you have a different energy when you're talking to someone that you look up to who is older than you and who is in, you know, maybe more of a mentor position to you, versus the way that you talk to people who are younger than you, who are looking at you that way, you know, I find that really interesting.
You know, like, I feel like, especially in the first part of the interview, you have a much more deferential energy in this. You are way quieter than you often are in Commonplace interviews, and just sort of, your questions are very short and they're very open ended and broad, and you then just let her go for long periods of time. And I think that her story is interesting, especially, you know, considering not just herself, but how she interfaces with the world of photography, you know, in like the seventies and eighties, for example, um, how she interfaces with the world of visual art, how she, you know, the different really famous people that she talks about that were either her mentors or her colleagues.
I think that anybody who has any awareness of the history of documentary or fine art photography in that period is going to recognize those names and really, you know, those are points of connection that really, I think, orient her position in that world to anyone who's familiar with it. And that's really interesting. But, it's really different from how you usually talk to people on Commonplace. And I thought that was really interesting.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. You know, it's so interesting that you're saying this. When I re-listened, I, you know, I finally figured out how to line up all the audio because I had audio in different places on my phone and, you know, in my recorder and different parts of it, I just saved it in this completely bizarre way. So it took me a little while to get it all, you know, into a listenable format. And when I finally did that, and I just kind of started, often what I do is I'll get it all set up in Hindenburg and then I'll export an MP3 to myself. And then I'll listen to the MP3 before I do any editing or anything like that while I walk the dog in the morning.
[14:45]
And one of the things that I, I just, I was so surprised and delighted, because I expected it to be terrible and unusable, was that first 80 minutes where really, she's telling the story of her life, and you're right that that's not normally kind of the rhythm and the scope and the style of the podcast so much, it's like so much more of a, I like it to be more of a conversation. My experience in listening to it though, was so pleasant. And there was a part of me that was like, why don't I always do this? Why don't I always just say, tell me the story of your life, and just sit there and listen? And I, I just, I felt like as I was listening to it, that I was really listening to her, as opposed to how I sometimes feel when I'm listening to an episode of Commonplace as I'm in the midst of producing it, which is that I'm listening and I'm thinking, like, did I do a good job? You know, I was just like, oh, her life is so interesting. And these were things about her that I really didn't know. And like stuff about the UN, like I vaguely had heard, you know, that she'd worked at the UN, but like, as I was listening to her talk about, you know, then I did this and then I did this and, I was just like, hot damn, like, even like, even though she was important to me, she's just important and interesting, as I was listening, and I feel like most of the Commonplace episodes, and I have like mixed feelings about this, are kind of like more about how the person is interesting to me, either in the moment of the conversation, or historically and then in the moment of the conversation, and this one felt like a departure in that sense where I just was letting her talk and you know, it's interesting for me to hear you say like, that you're a little bit less interested in that, because certainly, as I've been making this episode, there's a part of me that's like, my new style will be just anybody who comes on the show, I'll just be like, tell me the story of your life. And then I will just finally shut up and stop talking. And like, this is the way they should all be. The other person should talk, you know, 90 percent of the time. But you're, you're saying like, maybe not.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Well, I think that, you know, and this is something that I've said to you in a number of different contexts about a number of different projects, it should be whatever you want it to be, right, which what you want it to be and what you need it to be may not be the same thing as what your audience wants and needs it to be. And of course the audience is more than one person, so not everybody in the audience wants and needs the same things. You and I and David have had a lot of conversations about each of our shows, about what is the through line, what keeps people coming back. And I know David and I have both told you that we like it when you are in the episode more. We, that you, and I've told you this in a number of different scenarios, there are things that I very consciously in crafting Keep the Channel Open and, and in Keep the Channel Open’s evolution are things that I took from Commonplace that were things that either were like, I like this and I want to do this also, or like, oh, this, because she's doing this, I feel permission to do this.
There are things about Between the Covers that I've also taken, there are things about WTF that I took, there are lots of different things, things from the Poetry Gods, things from the Poet Salon, where in figuring out what I want to do with Keep the Channel Open I've looked to other what other people are doing and I think that one of the things that I've always found really amazing about Commonplace is the way that you can show up in the interview in the conversation and it never, I know you're not gonna believe me when I say this, but it doesn't feel selfish to me, you know?
There are other literary podcasts out there, some of whom, you know, like people interview David sometimes about about interviewing and things like that. I was actually just listening to a podcast where he was a guest, and they were interviewing him about this stuff and he name checks certain other podcasters, he name checked some of the same ones when he was on Keep the Channel Open the first time, and some of these people are people that like, I cannot stand listening to their show because I just feel like you are making this whole thing about you. You are making this whole thing, like, I do not give a fuck what you think. I want you to ask this and this. You have this guest on. I want you to ask them questions, right? But with Commonplace, I have never felt like that. I've always felt like the way that you bring yourself into the conversation is very generative.
[20:00]
And it is, it doesn't feel like you're showing off. It feels like you are giving something of yourself in order to establish some kind of rapport. And I've always felt that not all of your guests respond to that in maybe the way that you might want some of them, you know, like we talked about before, like Carl Phillips, for example, is a little bit more guarded. He's always a little bit more guarded in interviews. But I think that by and large, it's something that most of your guests do respond to well. And I think that it was really interesting the way that Lois responded to that here, in the second portion of the conversation.
The other thing that was really interesting to me was to be listening to a show that isn't this show, where the other side of the conversation isn't me, and feeling like the two of them want to have different conversations right now [laughs]. And that's really interesting to me. But that was really something that for me, like I really sort of honed in on, like, this is, this is fascinating to me, this, and I think it bears on, especially because, you know, when, when you give someone the opportunity to talk about themselves, they're going to present themselves in a certain way.
And it, the way that she shows up in the interview is different when she's just like, teah, you know, I'm, I'm, what do I want to tell you about my, my life story, versus like, once you start getting a little bit more abstract, the tenor of the conversation changes a little bit. It doesn't feel disrespectful, but I can feel you kind of feeling each other out a little bit more in the second half. And that's really interesting to me. It's interesting to me both like on an intellectual level, the things that you were discussing, it's also interesting to me on an interpersonal level, you know what I mean?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Interpersonal in terms again of the power dynamics between me and Lois? Or is part of what you're saying that -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Power dynamics is part of it, it's not the whole thing. It's like the way that the two of you are interacting as two people, you know, and power dynamics is part of that. Your personal history is part of that. What each of you want to talk about is part of that. How each of you think about both like photography specifically and art in general is interesting. How the two of you are thinking about ethics is interesting.
So yeah, all of that stuff where it's like, now this is a little bit less comfortable for both of you, and seeing what comes out of that becomes really compelling to me, I think. And I honestly, I think that is also what makes this show compelling. You know, it was very interesting hearing this other podcast that David was on. It was, David's episode of One Bright Book, and, the hosts actually mention Hey, It's Me and they talk about, Hey, It's Me a little bit and hearing how they think about or how they received the first episode of that show was -
RACHEL ZUCKER: What’d they think? What’d they think?!
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, what, what I thought was really interesting is that the host was like, she described it as hilarious. Which was deeply gratifying and very surprising [laughs]. She also, this was less surprising, but still gratifying, that she was like, she said, she was saying, when the episode starts, you, you're kind of like, what am I listening to? I don't understand what's happening. But then you kind of, get it and you're like, oh, I see what it is. And that was also very interesting to me.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay. That's like my favorite thing in art right there. Like when you don't know what it is and then it comes into focus, so to speak, you know, and you're like, oh, like that's, I love that. Okay. Sorry. Keep going.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Can we, can we talk, I don't know what you want to talk about with this episode, but there were some stuff that was coming up in that episode, in that conversation that you were having with her that I had questions about.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So at one point you were talking about why people believe photographs are real, and sort of the ethics of using someone's image, you know, things like that. And you related that to your own practice of including real people and real situations in your art. And you were also talking, tying that to the, the sort of similarities between recording audio and recording an image.
[25:06]
And you were asking sort of, philosophical questions about the ontology of photography, like about, you know, why do we, like the difference between a photograph of a real person and a painting of that same person, things like that.
And then around the two hour mark, Lois was asking if it's better to record the interview rather than take notes. And one of the things you mentioned was that taking notes and then writing something from those notes would be completely different from sharing the recording. And for you, like in what you were talking about in that moment was, I think related to a little bit related to authenticity, but also more than that, relating to credibility, I think, and that there's something about the fidelity of a recording versus writing it that where it's like, it feels more honest, and it feels like it allows the audience to make up their own mind about what's actually happening rather than if you were to describe it in a written piece.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: The thing that I immediately went to from this is that in your novel, you have transcripts, edited transcripts, but still transcripts of recorded audio. Also, you have included essentially, what is a transcript of, you know, text conversations that you had with, you know, one of the other characters. So there are these things that are the product of a recording in one way or another, even though they have to be translated into written text, they are still the product of a recording.
You also have prose. Like, there are scenes, right, not just, not just transcripts. There are scenes that are either things that the, the Rachel character is thinking about, or scenes where she's talking to someone. And this is something you, you mentioned like something has about your, one of the things about you as a writer is that you have a very good memory, and you're able to remember these scenes that happened and then write about them later. So for example, there are scenes where Rachel is talking to her friend, Erin, and I assume that this is a real conversation that happened, but it is the product of your memory. And then you write about it in exactly the way that you were saying that there's something really, really different about that. And I can't, I can't help tying that together.
RACHEL ZUCKER: For sure. And just to add to that, later in the novel, you haven't, you haven't read these parts yet, but, I knew that I wanted to tell my writing group, who's listening to slash reading this novel as I write it, I knew I wanted to tell them this story that had happened to me in Costa Rica, and so I asked if we could meet an extra time, because I didn't want to take up all of the writing group time with this story. And I said, I wanted to record myself just on my phone telling this story. I then transcribed the, the audio and then put that transcription in the novel, but it's not in there as a transcription. Like I've done so much editing of it and I've added a lot of things and it's in section four of my novel, which is almost entirely conversations. And so it appears as a conversation. Even though it actually came out of a recording so that I could remember the conversation. So some of the conversations are just from my memory, some of them are transcripts and appear as transcripts, some of them appear as conversations, but at some point along the way were actually transcriptions.
So yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm really interested in all of that. There's this poet, he's sort of called a “talk poet,” David Antin. I don't know if I've ever talked to you about him. He's a real like New York staple. I don't know, honestly, if he's still alive. I, I don't know. I think so, but I heard him a few times when I must have been in my 20s when I heard him at Poetry Project and, and he has several books that are called Talk Poems and the books are, so he, what he used to do is get up at a reading, with an idea of what he wanted to talk about.
[29:58]
And he would talk and he would record himself on like audio cassette player. And then the poem, what came out of the talk, I don't know how much editing he did, but this was like very, I was always very interested in that as a process. And that kind of, I mean, it's, it, it's got a little feeling of a monologue, a theatrical monologue. It's got a little feeling of standup comedy. It's got, it's a kind of poetry and they're, they're in sort of prose poem forms. They're not lineated.
I'm interested in improvisation, but I'm also interested in the slippage of recording and of memory and, you know, how heavy-handed things are. And, and as I imagine it, and as it is shaping up to be, like the novel goes from more clear primary sources to a fictive space in which there's less like, everything that's happening is happening kind of within the novel, but it's less collaged, if that makes sense.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It was so interesting to me that you're like, you're having this conversation with her about, about fidelity, about authenticity, about honesty, about allowing the audience to make up their own mind. And all of these things are also at play in exactly the same way as in this book that you're working on.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And I just told you that I, I'm thinking of using part of the audio that I recorded with Lois in the novel. And the reason for that is because I tell Lois the story of my relationship with Michael. And I tell her, you know, in December. And, and so when I heard myself listening back to how I described, you know, my feelings about him at that point, and you know, the relationship and the breakup and all that stuff, I was like, oh, this is actually, I need to put this quote unquote information in the novel. Like there's no point at which the Rachel character says these particular things, or, you know, like I've come to a certain kind of peacefulness or awareness or something at the, by the time I'm speaking to Lois about the relationship, and there's some reason that I don't know how to put that in the novel just out of my mind, or like, speaking to the reader, I only know how to put it in the novel in a triangulated way, in which I'm speaking to Lois, and then I can put that in the novel.
And, you know, I mean, it's, it's similar in a certain way to what's happening right this minute between you and me, right? Like, there's something I need a quote unquote, real audience, a real interlocutor and, and somehow my creative work…
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think that, you know, this sort of bears a little bit and we're talking about prose writing and particularly fiction, one of the things that I'm led to understand is something that often is the subject of a lot of craft discussions and difficulty, especially for new writers, is the question of exposition. ‘Cause like, you need to impart a certain amount of information to the reader. How do you do that in a way that doesn't feel like exposition? And I think it's kind of interesting that it seems like for you that in in some ways that having a real interlocutor in this way is sort of like, that's your way around this problem, or it's like one of your ways around this problem.
There is another thing that I thought was really interesting that you were talking to her about in the same section of the conversation where you said, you were talking about another reason to record rather than write things down is that people show up differently, they behave differently when they know they're being recorded, and specifically when they know they're being recorded in a way that's going to be shared with people.
And obviously that is something that, um, brings me to this podcast and the messages that form the backbone of this podcast and in particular with episode three, which as we are recording, this, is going to be released in a couple of days, and I'm interested to know how people receive that, where, you know, the conceit of that episode is you're sharing a lightly edited version of a message that I sent to you that I had not intended to be public, and how do I, how am I showing up differently in that versus how, you know, how we are when we're nowhere on the mic and now I, I'm tying this conversation you have with Lois to the project that we're working on here and this is all getting, you must be delighted at how meta this is getting.
[35:03]
RACHEL ZUCKER: [Laughs] I am so delighted.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And the, one of the questions that occurred to me as I was listening to that and bringing those two things together of like, here's a part of the conversation you had with her that, that directly ties to craft things that are happening in your novel, and then here's the thing that is directly tied to craft things that are happening in this podcast. And now I'm thinking to myself, is, do you think, Hey, It's Me is an extension of your novel, or the novel, like, is it all part of the same thing for you? Like, you know what I'm saying?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. That's such a, ooh…
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Like I fully expect that there are things that we say in this podcast that are gonna, that if they haven't already, if you haven't already put stuff from the, this podcast into the novel, I've been expecting that you're going to.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But to me, they still felt like separate things, but I'm wondering now if they're not, at least for you. I mean, for me, it can be whatever it is for me, and that doesn't necessarily bear on what it is for you, but now I'm kind of wondering for you.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I haven't thought about this question in this way before, so I'm just making this up as I go along, which seems appropriate for the question. So I'd like to say yes, it's definitely all the same, and no, it's absolutely not, and then give you an example of each.
I'll start with no. One of the things that I'm struggling with right now in the novel is that at a certain point, the narrative clock of the novel needs to end, because the novel needs to end. And I have envisioned kind of what I think might be the end of the novel, not necessarily the ending, but like where it ends. And that's already happened in chronological time. So we are outside of the narrative clock right now of my novel, which has technically already ended. And this makes me concerned, because I am so enmeshed with the character in my novel, namely, Rachel Zucker, and there's so little separation that part of me is like, how will this novel ever end? Like, because there's not, there's not enough, like, separation between my life and all the different things that I'm doing, podcasts, you know, other writing projects, all that stuff, you know, and the novel. And, and part of me was like, when I finish the novel, do I just die? In real life? [Laughs] Like, it's almost like, you know, like all those sci-fi, you know, questions where it's like, you, you know, you get, you, you, you end up in the game and you're like, if you die in the game, you die in real life. That's the one bad thing about being in the game [Laughs]. You know, like part of, I, I do think about these crazy things.
Okay. So part of me has thought about Hey, It's Me as a potentially healthy transitional creative object like, Hey, It's Me continues beyond the narrative end of the novel, or the clock of the novel, and so it's important to me that they be separate so that I, I can continue being both the real Rachel Zucker, whatever that is, and the character Rachel Zucker, without time continuing in the novel. Does that make sense? Okay, so that's the no answer. That's the way in which the Hey, It's Me is different from the novel.
The yes answer is, I didn't intend to do this podcast with you to help me write the novel. They started as separate, you know, but what's happening is that I'm learning how to write my novel by writing my novel and also by doing this podcast with you. I mean, I'm also learning how to, all these things about myself and our friendship and Commonplace and all these things, but I'm, it's also helping me learn how to write the novel. So, so they are, very, very connected.
[39:46]
And for sure, I thought to myself that one of the episodes, I get, it's the one where, you know, I got this great message on Slack from Leigh where she said, this is so crazy because I'm transcribing a part of, Hey, It's Me in which you say you might put this transcription, once I do it, into your novel, and I'm like, my head is like spinning around, like how, and so like that really, like, it was so weird to get that message from the transcriber about the, you know, whatever. So I, there was an episode, I think maybe it's the third one. Which is the one that we talk about my novel, the fifth?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Number five.
RACHEL ZUCKER: So that one was like very provocative for me. And I learned a lot about, you know, the novel and my feelings about the novel and all that stuff by doing that one. And also my creative process and all this shit. But I also was like, well, maybe I'll just put the whole transcript in the novel [laughs], you know, so neither one of us is is on the Truman show, you know [laughs], but I, I do have a problem with reality.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So this conversation that we're having right now also, to me, it seems a little bit similar to, in a different direction, the conversation you were trying to have with Lois. There’s point at which you start talking to her about sort of the philosophy, the ontology of photography, right?
For example, like one of the things that you're talking about is the way that people understand the photograph as not being separate from the subject of the photograph of what's depicted in the photograph, right? And that's particularly true when they are the subject of the photograph, which is an important thing to consider, for someone who's working with portraiture as she is, right?
And there's this moment in the conversation where the thing that you're talking to her about, it's kind of a deeply philosophical question. What is a photograph? And not just what is a photograph, but like, how does this object of art exist and function in the world, right? And we can say that like, okay, if a, if a person who is the subject of a portrait doesn't consider that image to be separate from themselves, there is something that's, that's just like, philosophically incorrect about that because the image and the person are two different things.
And yet, my argument has been for many years, that 100 percent of what makes photography an interesting medium in any sense, whether that's artistically or philosophically or as a documentary or legal or whatever, right, is the fact that there is a necessary relationship between the image and the subject, like there, you, that it, that it cannot be separated. At least lens-based photography cannot be separated. And that that inherent relationship is a fraught one. And what I think was really interesting about the conversation that you were trying to have with her, is the way in which she kind of completely rejects it, or, not even that she completely rejects it, it's that she doesn't even really understand the questions that you're asking her.
Like, for example, when she, you're talking about like, a portrait subject saying that this is my image, right? And she says, Well, no, no, no, because the image and the subject are, the image in the is not the same as the person, and the image is my image, because I made the image, right? Which is a real knee-jerk kind of reaction that a lot of photographers, especially old photographers have. And in my opinion, I understand why they're coming from that, especially given the historical context of photography as an art form, especially at that exact moment of history, the 60s, 70s, and 80s, but I don't think that that is a correct, I don't think that's a philosophically complete way to answer that question.
Because yes, you are the person who made the image, and legally, in many ways, it is your image because you, you made it, and you own it, and you own the rights to it, but the way that the image functions in the world, I don't think that you can fully, like it, it's true, a photograph and a person are not the same thing, but also to completely deny that there is a inherent relationship between those things is also, I think, just incorrect. And it's really interesting to me the way that she just kind of refuses to go there with you. Right? Like I, there are several points where I can feel you, you're like trying to ask a question that's maybe a slightly different question or coming at this same idea in a different angle. And she just like, doesn't go there. And in this conversation, I'm asking you, is this podcast the same as your novel?
[45:00]
Is the, are the podcast and the novel the same thing? Are they, is one an extension of the other, and you're not rejecting that premise in the same way that she rejects the premise, but I feel like the way that you're talking about it, there's a resistance to it in some way, or that you're talking about it in us and your perspective on it is a little different from quite what I'm asking that I don't know fully how to articulate but I just think it's really interesting the way in which, when we're close to something, especially at, not just as artists, I mean people do this in lots of ways, but like in the context of art, like I'm an artist, I'm making a thing, I'm real close to the thing that I'm making, and in some ways like, I wonder if it's even possible to fully have that other perspective that you were trying to get her to get at with her work, you know, and she wasn't going there with you. You're much more game for this conversation that I'm trying to have with you than she was. But I wonder if there's some point at which, like, because you're too close to it, that you just can't have that conversation. That's really an interesting question to me. I hope that's not like offensive or bothersome.
RACHEL ZUCKER: It is not offensive. It is blowing my fucking mind. Like it's really intense right now. Okay, so -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Because you, I mean you, you have thought so much about the ethics of like making this kind of art, right? Like, and you, you've written lectures and essays and all of this stuff and thought about it and made art about it as well, right? Like, I know this is something you've thought really deeply about. I guess the question that I'm having isn't so much necessarily, in my case, it's, I'm not necessarily asking the question about the ethics of it. I'm not necessarily asking the question about, how does the object of art live in the world? It's, I'm almost, again, more asking that sort of ontological question.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yes.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And in the same way that for you, you asked her an ethical question about the ethics of, of portrait making, and she responds in a really practical way, right? Like, yeah, if you're, you do need to think about ethics and you need to think about these things beforehand, but that's not addressing the philosophical question at all. Right?
RACHEL ZUCKER: You're a hundred percent right. And I think that, you know, in my life, I think it's generational. I think there's some other things that are happening there as well, including whether or not someone has children or not, I think that's, that's, I, at least in my very small sample size, anecdotal sense, Wayne Koestenbaum, who was also a professor of mine at Yale, the same time that Lois was, has also responded to these like never-ending obsessive questions from me about like, is it okay to do this? Is it okay to write this? Is it, what are the ethical ramifications of this? And, you know, not to oversimplify or put words in his mouth, but he's, he's has responded to me over the years, the same way Lois was responding to me, you know, with a very kind of categorical confident, like, well, they're different. You know, you take a picture of someone, it's not them. It's a picture. It's your picture.
I do not, I, I, I, there's something that's, that's, that I, I keep asking these two people and people with that kind of opinion the same question because there's something that I, that I, like to hear when they tell me that in that, in that way, in that clear way. But part of why I keep asking them and looking for that answer is I don't agree with them at all! [Laughs]. And I, I'm just like, what would it be like to, to, to be that sure that like, cause I don't feel sure at all. In fact, I feel completely the opposite. And so that that's really interesting.
I, I agree with you. And I also want to acknowledge, like, I want to re-answer the question, is this the same as your novel? Yes, it is the same. From the perspective that my creative work is about self presentation and presentation of others, and what gives the work energy for me is the slippage between image and subject, and the not knowing, and the conflation, and the murky… I, I don't think, and I, and, and you and I have talked about this a little bit before, I think a lot of this has to do for me with early childhood experiences of not really having my life kind of mirrored back to me in certain ways, and that has resulted in a lot of doubt for me about the difference between reality and narrative. And narration and what's real and what's a story.
[50:18]
It is not in my nature or my temperament or my psychology to have a have clarity about the separation between these two things, and there's some psychological damage around that, but you could also just say, like, that's what fuels my creative work. You know, you don't have to think of it from a pathology point of view. So, you know, not only is it, is it a clarity and a confidence that Lois has that I don't agree with, you know, but it's also, you know, for her, her creative work doesn't come, is not all bound up in, in, in that question. But mine is.
And so, yeah, like, that's why, that's why I keep, you know, coming back to wanting to talk about the podcast that we're making as we're making it. And I'm interested in content and I'm very interested in structure and having a structure and having a format. And this goes back to the beginning of this conversation, like the way in which that's stabilizing and soothing and protective and, and a good constraint that allows us to kind of, you know, wander.
But ultimately, I'm always going to be bringing it back to, wow, but we're actually making a podcast right this minute. You and me! What are we doing? This is so weird and trippy. What's going to happen next? Is it okay that we're doing this? Who's listening to this? Why do we even think someone's listening to this? [Laughs]. Like, I, I can't, I don't know. Yeah. And I'm doing that in my novel. And I do that in my poems. And I do that in my critical work. And I do that in the podcast. And like, that seems to be, and also I do that in my life. And I don't know the edges between my crit my creative work and the rest of my life. You know, like, I don't, I don't know. So yes, there's no difference between this podcast and my novel.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Laughs] I don't think that there, that it's possible to make some kind of like a simple declarative answer about things like this, right? Like, but I find the question interesting and I find it I think that the attempt to answer the question and even being able to sit with like a multiplicity of answers is a valuable exercise, you know?
So did this, did this conversation go in the direction that you were thinking that it was going to go when you sent me this? [Laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: No, but I've, I'm, I really enjoyed it. I mean, you know, I love the attention. It's taken me a really long time and a lot of therapy to admit that I like attention.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think that almost everybody needs that, you know, I mean, there are ways in which having attention paid to me is the worst possible thing. And I think it is for you too.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yep.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But also like, there are certain qualities of attention that like, I think everybody just… I think it's kind of a basic human need, you know.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I know, but I just spent so much time feeling ashamed of that, you know, and I'm and I'm starting to just like not have the energy for the shame part of it. Like, so just the idea that you would listen to that extremely long audio, and that you would show up, and we could talk about it, is so gratifying and so pleasurable for me. And it's really, it's really about the attention more than the, the nature of the feedback or the kinds of questions or exactly where it went. That said, I'm very interested in where it went. Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Really, when we say we like attention, I think what we, what we really mean by that is that we, we want to be loved. And if there is something, I think there are many things that Commonplace and Keep the Channel Open and Between the Covers, I think there are several things that they have in common, that all three have in common. But I think one of the things that they have in common that is one of the most potent parts about it, is that the guests on each of our shows find the experience to be gratifying because of the quality of attention paid by the host, that whether it is you, the way you show up in an interview, like all three of us are, are gonna have a focus on the work, and we're going to have intelligent questions that about the work that demonstrate, I really paid a lot of attention to this, right?
[55:24]
But like, the way that you show up in an interview where you're so willing to give of yourself to the conversation that is, that in combination with the fact that you're you're giving this attention that it's like, in a way, it is saying to that person, I love you, right? Um, I love your work. Therefore, I love you.
When David has a question that's like 6 minutes long, right? You know, and, you know, he used to be really self conscious about those, those long questions. But what has come out over time is that people tend to really like those questions for a number of reasons, like how they, how they function to kind of move past the bullshit and get past the easy answer, but also how they demonstrate that he has been thinking really hard and has put in a lot of work. David preps more for his interviews than either of us does, you know, and the, that becomes really apparent in the quality of his questions where, and then, and the, the guest is going to be like, wow, you really put a lot of time and effort into formulating this question. You're paying attention in a way that very few other people do, right? And that is something that like, again, ultimately, it is about a way of saying, I love you.
I'm too close to my emotional self and what I need to do in a podcast, in a, in an interview to be able to say exactly what it is that I'm doing to provide that experience. But I know that I have provided that experience to at least some of my guests because they've told me that, not in the words of love, but of just saying like how gratifying it is to them, in much the same way you just did, how gratifying it is that someone cared enough to give that much of their time and energy and attention to this thing that they spent all of their time and energy and attention on.
That's something like at the end of the day, I think all of us want to be loved. And if what we do in the world is creative, that, that, that loving the work, engaging with the work, I mean, it's, it's a really important part of that, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: I love what you're saying. I think it's extremely true for me. I'm not sure that this is 100 percent right, but I think that, and I've said this to you before, but I think I do want to be loved. And that's where the attention, you know, that's that that's right. But there's something else, or at least the way I understand it is, I want to feel real. And there's something about the attention that I have needed, and I think I might be coming out of this finally at 52, like coming into a point in my life where I can sustain my own sense of reality without an audience, without another, without feeling seen, but that's new for me. It's not just about feeling loved. It's, it's as if I don't really exist without an audience and, you know, and, and attention being the currency of audience in some way.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. I relate to that.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I want to ask you, yeah, I want to ask you one question. I, I kind of feel like we're at a good stopping point, but I just want to ask one question right now, which is, I feel like, uh, we're a throuple on this, uh, podcast with David, but he never shows up. And, but we talk about him. And you know, you're like, like, you just sort of said all three of us before you even said explicitly that you were talking about David Naimon. And I, do you think that we should invite David on Hey, It's Me? Do you think we should have one episode where David joins us as a guest?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think that we should definitely consider it. I don't know what, what the right answer is right off the top of my head, but I think that it's certainly an interesting idea. I think he would be so uncomfortable [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh my God. That makes me so happy.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Laughs] You know, he's going to listen to this too.
[1:00:00]
I wonder if we'll invite him before he's able to hear this.
RACHEL ZUCKER: We should, we should. What if we don't invite him as a guest? [Laughs]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: What does that even mean?
RACHEL ZUCKER: I don't really know.. I don't know, but we we don't have any guests here. It's just us chatting. This is what I would like to do and you can think about it. I think we should ask him to pick some kind of content and to leave us a message. He, you know, we'll tell him what to do. And then, and then we'll, we'll, we'll come on. There's no, there's no host. There's no guests. There's just discomfort, which I clearly enjoy [laughs]. There's just discomfort for you and David and pleasure for me.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Laughs]. All right.
RACHEL ZUCKER: All right. Tagline here.
[Music]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You’ve been listening to Hey, It’s Me with Rachel Zucker and Mike Sakasegawa.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hey, it's me is a production of Rachel Zucker and Likewise Media.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Editing on this episode is by Mike Sakasegawa. Music is by Podington Bear, and transcription help is by Leigh Sugar.
RACHEL ZUCKER: You can find more information about the show, including contact information and transcripts, at heyitsmepodcast.com.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: If you'd like to hear more from us, you can find Rachel's other show, Commonplace, at Commonplace.today.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And you can find Mike's other show, Keep the Channel Open, at keepthechannelopen.com. Thanks for spending this time with us.
Take care.