The Interview Project

The Interview Project is a series of interviews with average everyday Americans in their home space. David Lynch and team took a road trip around America to meet people, to simply talk and get to know new faces.   The next writing project for the club requires you to choose one of the interviews, one of the people, and create a character sketch. Write about who they are, how they came to be there, where they are going. Try to be creative, create a scene, other supporting characters who observe the subject, and interesting objects in the space. I am excited to see which interview draws each of you in.


http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/www/#/all-episodes

Prince Akim Robert Johnson

Prince Akim: Robert

I have been trying to sleep for several hours now. After a hellish night of waitressing I know that I should be exhausted but I can't seem to shake my thoughts. I got up and started cleaning the house, thus awakening my particularly groggy and cute mother, so I decided I should figure out another way to tire myself out.

For those of you who write extensively during the school year you may feel overwhelmed by the semester and begin the summer holiday feeling that all you have to write with, or about, is vapid. But maybe that lack of writing creeps up on you, and all those things left unexplored, unexpressed throw themselves in a tumult around your mind, like mine did tonight, and scream "It's time!" As soon as I started to write tonight, at 1:00 in the morning, I felt tranquility again in a way that only writing can induce.

If anyone of you would like to write during the summer but are unsure what to write about, I am going to make a weekly summer writing prompt (if not more frequent) and post it to this blog. Tonight's prompt is about Prince Akim Robert Johnson. I have been making a documentary this summer about homelessness in Denver, Colorado. I met Prince Akim outside a coffeehouse called The Network in Denver. It is a place where homeless men and women can come and sit down and have a free cup of coffee. When one is homeless, you are kicked out of the shelters at 7:00 in the morning and cannot return for twelve hours. For many, there are few places to just sit. To be. The network is a place where, if one is not doing drugs, and not disturbing the peace, one can simply sit down and remain undisturbed.

I didn't realize how much our interview with Prince Akim had disturbed me until I began writing tonight.  It was the combination of his insanity and his evident clarity that shook me. He spoke about the law, Moses and geometry in a single sentence leaving his speech disjointed and impossible to understand. However, even though nothing he said was in order, none of his ideas were complete, and he often stopped mid-sentence as if he had forgotten everything he had said before, you could sense his intelligence. I could tell that he had once been a very, very smart man. And as he unfolded several bandanas to reveal court documents and several feathers, tenderly, with the look of a man handling a small and fragile animal, I realized how unsteady life is. Things can change in a day. This man was as lonely and crazy as a person can be, introducing himself as a U.N Crown Dynasty official, but he kept everything he used to be in carefully folded fabric. He carries those pristine handkerchiefs in his backpack every where he goes. I have absolutely no idea how Robert, or Prince as he calls himself, came to be at the Network Tuesday morning, but his person confirmed what I have been thinking for a while. Life is not stagnant. There is no "grown up," or established or finished, no completion. Things can change in a day.

For today, tonight, or this week, I think it would be great if you could write either about the reality of  Prince Akim sitting on the porch of the network on Tuesday morning with coffee in his hands, or the reality of U.N Crown Dynasty official Prince Akim fighting to return the land stolen from the Native Americans. You could simply write a scene at the coffeehouse, or if Prince Akim doesn't inspire you, the  following picture/man named Kent (pictured on his bicycle) might do the trick. Last but not least, you could write a piece that illustrates that "Things can change in a day." (Things can change in a day is a phrase often repeated in the book God of Small Things.)

If you would like to share what you write please send me an email at cliffsm@lakeforest.edu.
If you need some musical inspiration, here is what was working for me tonight: