"Rad Talk" is a new column running on The Emma Edition, for 2013. In this column I interview creative people who make my life all the more rad and whose work I think deserves a wider audience. I’ll be giving them a forum to speak on things they may never been asked in a typical interview. Today I am featuring one of my all-time favorite writers, Lesley Arfin. I couldn't be more excited about this one, guys! A new interview is posted on Fridays.
Image courtesy of Cafe con Lesley
Q: How did first get interested in writing? Was it the moment you wrote your first diary entry?
A: "Probably very soon after that. I was always a big reader
so once I started writing; it was like a key fitting into a lock."
Q: What interests you about advice
columns, specifically? What is the best advice you’d give to a girl of the
Tumblr Generation?
A: “I am not interested in advice columns. I liked writing
"Ask Barf" for Street Carnage
because it seemed like a natural evolution from Dear Diary. I totally can't remember what the best advice, or
really any advice I gave anyone. I think that's a question for someone who
actually took my advice!”
Q: I
love reading your writing from the Missbehave era… it’s all so honest and
colloquial and sometimes I wonder if you are really reading my own diaries. I
know that’s not what you do now, but I personally hope to become an editor
someday myself. So, I am interested, how did you get involved with Missbehave? What did you learn most from
that whole experience?
A: “Missbehave was
so much fun during the short time I was there. The reason for my hiring was
Samantha Moeller who owned the magazine. She's a little pixie Peter Pan
badass-troublemaker genius girl. I think the most crucial lesson I learned from
that job was that I didn't want to be an editor and to always show up early to
work.”
Q: What fascinates me about you is that
you don’t cap-off at one job title. You put yourself into all these different
varying projects: from authoring Dear Diary to DJing to keeping up all of those blogs. Is that something you do
so you won’t get bored/ something you’re conscious of?
A: “It's only something I do so I don't go broke! I think
that's sort of the me of the past though. I definitely no longer DJ and I
rarely blog. I like to think of my title as simply just a writer. I don't think
I could ever truly commit myself to just one genre.”
Image courtesy of Cafe con Lesley
Q: You, seemingly out of anyone else from the Girls cast, have received the most flack from the media about the show’s portrayal of race. That really bugged me, because Girls has always been about taking an accurate snapshot of 20-somethings in Brooklyn. Why would you just throw in diversity for the sake of it? Who goes to a Tyler Perry movie and complains that there aren’t enough white people?
A: “Well I got a lot of flack because I made a sarcastic and
flippant comment about the movie Precious,
which I love by the way, and do feel represented in, which was the point I was
trying to make. I felt with Girls that
you didn't need to be a certain color, race, gender, or creed to identify with
the feelings that the characters were having but I guess some other people felt
differently. I think it was ultimately a good lesson for me to have because I
have been so careless about the things I've said in the past, never thinking
that anyone actually cared or was listening. I'm also schooled by the early Vice generation, which was sort of like
a punk rock MAD magazine, super anti-PC and anarchistic, which we idealized as
twentysomethings, but now that I'm in my 30s, I sadly need to act like a
grown-up and take responsibility for my actions.”
Q:
Not only are you working on Girls, but you also started working on
MTV’s Awkward. The two offer very
different perspectives on young people. What attracts you to working with a
young age bracket?
A: “Well Awkward
is teenagers and Girls is 20s, so they're different. It honestly has nothing to
do with the age bracket except maybe that my reference points are sharper since
I've been-there-done-that kinda thing. I wanted to work on Awkward because I LOVED the show and was a huge fan. I begged
Lauren Iungerich to hire me and she did. That lady knows how to write one hell
of a TV show.”
Image courtesy of Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin
Q:
In Dear Diary, you reflect on your experiences in high school. Since writing the
book have you kept in touch with any past friends/boyfriends/enemies that make
an appearance?
A: “Of course! If anything the book made me closer to a lot
of those people I had lost touch with. Everyone who participated in the book
was such a good sport about the whole thing.”
Q: What was one of your
most "awkward" high school experiences?
A: “I was a Freshman right? And at that time all the punks, hippies, metal kids, skaters, et al. hung out together. We just called ourselves "alternative." We were sitting in a circle and this dude was playing Helter Skelter on the guitar and I think I was so excited that I actually knew the words that I belted it out, full singing voice style. It was really weird.”
Q: If you could be more like any character on TV right now, who would it be and why?
A: “I was a Freshman right? And at that time all the punks, hippies, metal kids, skaters, et al. hung out together. We just called ourselves "alternative." We were sitting in a circle and this dude was playing Helter Skelter on the guitar and I think I was so excited that I actually knew the words that I belted it out, full singing voice style. It was really weird.”
Q: If you could be more like any character on TV right now, who would it be and why?
A: “I would be
Khaleesi aka Daenerys
Targaryen from Game of Thrones because even in the wake of
despair and desperation she remains brave and confident. She has so much faith
she makes having faith look easy. And she's the mother of dragons, nbd.”
Q: What is the biggest regret you had in your
adolescence?
A: “Not getting in touch with my psychic abilities.”
Q: I recently
co-founded a website called The Do Not Enter Diaries, devoted to telling the
stories of teenagers through their bedrooms. What was your bedroom like as a
teenager?
A: “My bedroom was my sanctuary. I had a weird flood on my
bedroom floor so my carpet was uneven and bumpy but I was always laying on
floor making mix tapes, writing, drawing, etc. I had a huge Lemonheads poster
and a huge Beastie Boys poster. I had the Sassy cover that Juliana Hatfield was
on and a picture from Reality Bites. Very 90's. My furniture was wood and my
color scheme was different shades of mint green: so chic. When I was a senior I
was allowed to have a TV in my room. The TV was really small but the remote was
a tiny little replica of the TV. Awesome much? I also had my own phone line and
a pink and turquoise Swatch phone.”
Q: I loved your “I Never Go Out Blog.” I am sad it died. Can I assume since its defunct, you go
out now? What’s your ideal staycation?
“Ha no way! I still never go out, I just got lazy and didn't
feel like uploading pictures all the time. I should start it up again. I should
do a blog called I'm Really Lazy. My ideal staycation is a rainy day and a
delicious book that's no less than 800 pages long. All meals delivered
promptly. At night, friends over for movies and jokes.”
Q: On the topic of blogs, Let’s talk about Real 90's. I was born in 1995. Therefore, Real 90’s to me means
Tomagotchi games and The Rugrats. Oh, and candy choker necklaces. Those were
big in my playdate circle… How do you feel about the interpretation of 1990’s
that’s been revivified in fashion/art/music comelately?
A: “Well, White Lightning aka Elizabeth Spiridakis and I
started the blog because we were so annoyed with all these younger kids being
obsessed with our 90s and totally romanticizing it and getting it wrong. We
were working in an office together at the time so it was a good distraction.
Plus we were both kinda unemployed. Now Elizabeth is the art director at Bon
Appetit and I'm in LA so it got sort of hard to maintain. We both felt
territorial over our 90's, now I don't think we care as much. We just kinda roll
our eyes.”
Image of Lesley's New York apartment via Cafe con Lesley
Q: I keep up with a lot of your work; I always still cherish the words you’ve written on living in New York. Are you in LA now? If so, how do you think living in New York has shaped your experiences?
“I am in LA now, yes. New York is where I am from so I don't
know how it's shaped my experiences exactly, only because I can't imagine
having lived any other way. New York is a city for the young and it's a city
for the rich. At this moment I am neither of those things but as soon as I get
young again, I'll be moving back.”
Image of Lelsey's needlepoint courtesy of Cafe con Lesley
Q: Lastly, I watched
your video about needlepoint for Opening Ceremony's The Hobbyist series. Do you have any other rad hobbies you want to
share?
“Besides Needlepoint and reading I also enjoy buying stuff
and hanging out with animals and going to the diner with my friends. I also
love singing and dancing. I like talking. I like listening to the radio.”
To learn more about the latest with Lesley Arfin, check out
her main website, here.
Follow me on Twitter @emmaedition
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