Later That Same Life

November 8, 2015 5:45 PM

56-year-old (Peter) Stoney Emshwiller is interviewed by his own 18-year-old self from the year 1977. In the late 70s teenaged Stoney Emshwiller filmed several hours of himself pretending to interview his future self. Emshwiller went on to be an actor, novelist, editor, filmmaker and artist. Recently he released a sizzle reel - still on its way to being a longer film - of his older self answering some of those questions. Poignant and funny, this concept reminds us that the closest any of us can get to time traveling is still through the magic of recorded media.
posted by NorthernLite (16 comments total)

Reminds me of this.
posted by HuronBob at 5:48 PM on November 8, 2015 [13 favorites]

That was delightful.
posted by Fizz at 6:40 PM on November 8, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is brilliant! So clever at merely 18 to (presumably) think ahead and film a variety of reactions/responses. What a treat it must be for the 56 year old (and I love that they are both wearing age ID badges so you know which is which) to have solid material to work with. Thanks for posting!
posted by Beti at 6:47 PM on November 8, 2015

I almost sort of wish he made more of an effort to blend the two very different recording qualities, but perhaps he still intends to, since this is a work in progress. Also, I really wish I had thought of this during my 90s VHS camcorder phase.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:52 PM on November 8, 2015

Worth pointing out that he comes from an auspicious family of artists. His dad was Ed Emshwiller , an experimental filmmaker and one of the greatest golden-age SF illustrators and his mom Carol Emshwiller is an award winning science fiction writer.
posted by octothorpe at 7:22 PM on November 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

I was old school—wrote my future self a letter from 1985.

Seventeen year-old me would find every single detail of my life at 47 confusing, disappointing, enraging, or just sad, but seventeen year-olds are, almost to a person, preening narcissistic assholes with too much invested in fashionable attempts to appear cool to people who don't matter and without the faintest hint about bigger things in the world, and there's a depth to joy and contentment in mundane things at this age that he'd have shrugged off out of ignorance.

Seventeen year-old me would find the fact that I own and rather enjoy a huge American pickup truck with a V8 and work in the construction trade absolutely incomprehensible in light of his plans, but he's the asshole who stuck me with a degree in poetry and a huge head start at neverending credit card debt.

I'm pretty sure, if I could write to him in 1985, he'd ask, with a furrowed brow, "What the fuck is a bear?"
posted by sonascope at 7:33 PM on November 8, 2015 [22 favorites]

Oh, I know him irl--he usually works as a set dresser. tHanks for this!
posted by Ideefixe at 7:40 PM on November 8, 2015

I look forward to seeing this completed, hopefully with better sound quality for the 38 year old stuff - it was a bit muddy.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:13 PM on November 8, 2015

Great idea, I'm betting that it turned out much better than the 18 year old could have ever guessed. I mean unless he did, in which case he invented the SGC2C/Daily Show fake interview schtick, in which case it goes from great to genius.
posted by mcrandello at 12:45 AM on November 9, 2015

And after watching HuronBob's link, I wonder if this is a thing that was suggested in a trade magazine or filmmaking book from way back? That's eerily similar, and it doesn't appear that either person could have possibly cribbed off the other in filming the younger-self sequences.
posted by mcrandello at 1:08 AM on November 9, 2015

Nothing in the video is particularly specific, so I don't find the similarities so eerie. The idea of doing this is unusual I guess, but once you've made the decision to do it there's going to be a lot of questions and responses that are similar.

I'd have liked to see a genuine series of questions from the 18 year old/answers from the 56 year old and less attempts to make it humorous.
posted by trif at 3:53 AM on November 9, 2015

It's fun to do this over shorter periods, too. I regularly post letters to myself in one year using MS Calendar and am often surprised at how much I got wrong in so little time.
posted by Mogur at 4:46 AM on November 9, 2015

How clever!

He's hiding the fact of his time travel by pretending he filmed himself in the past!
posted by clvrmnky at 5:42 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's fun to do this over shorter periods, too. I regularly post letters to myself in one year using MS Calendar and am often surprised at how much I got wrong in so little time.

I bet that if more people did this we'd hear "Where do you see yourself is X years?" get asked a lot less in job interviews.
posted by VTX at 6:51 AM on November 9, 2015

I would definitely like to see this.

I would also definitely like to have Stoney Emshwiller over for dinner and become his friend forever.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 AM on November 9, 2015

Also reminds me of David Byrne interviews David Byrne
posted by gnidan at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2015