Mark Trainer

So here's one of those things I cheer myself up by rereading now and then. 

The literary interview is traditionally a minefield of agonizing pretensions for both the interviewer and interviewee--authors get to wax bombastic about the mystic well from which they draw their inspiration, and their interlocutors allow themselves gassy questions about the author's place, as they see it, in the literary firmament.

In 2005, Bookslut published this interview with poet Richard Hell (of Voidoids fame) by Adam Travis.  While the interview itself is worthwhile reading, Hell's annotations of Travis' introduction are the real draw.  Hell comes out swinging at--what seems to me, at least--a fairly representative example of the interview intro.

My wife and I can still get a laugh from each other paraphrasing Hell's salvo in response to Travis' opening line:

     If Richard Hell had died fifteen years ago he would only be remembered for his essential contribution to the beginnings of punk rock in New York in the 1970s. No small feat, I’d say.  You would? You'd say? You would say? You'd say both those things? You? Mr. Adam Travis?

And infinite credit must be given to Adam Travis for having the stones to publish the interview with Hell's comments intact.