Think Yiddish, Dress British – Wisdom from NPR’s Scott Simon
Craig Elbert — August 23, 2010 @ 4:49 pm
At Bonobos, we’re consistently amazed by our customers. And sometimes, it’s fun to share a bit of their wisdom and accomplishments with the rest of you. We recently caught up with Bonobos customer and award-winning journalist Scott Simon, who expounded on style, travel and general life lessons he’s picked up throughout his career.
Scott is a Peabody-Award-winning journalist for NPR, where he hosts Weekend Edition Saturday. Since joining NPR in 1977, he has reported from all 50 states, covered presidential elections and eight wars. As if that weren’t enough, Scott is also the author of two novels and three non-fiction books (including two on baseball). His latest book is actually due out tomorrow. It is titled Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other and documents the wonderful journey Scott and his wife Caroline went through in adopting their two daughters. It’s already snaring some great reviews.
Scott was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer some of our questions via email.
B: What is it about a career in journalism that originally attracted you?
SS: The chance to see interesting places and meet interesting people—all on somebody else’s dime!
B: When prepping for interviewing others, how much thought do you put into your outfit and presentation? Any style tips you’ve learned over time?
SS: I try to dress well, to respect those I interview, or work with, for that matter. But if I’m interviewing someone who is notably formal, I might try to strike a slightly informal note—a knit tie, or even no tie, but a nice suit or sportcoat—and hope that this encourages some informality. Conversely, if I’m interviewing someone who is unemployed, or otherwise in vexing circumstances, I’ll try to dress in a way that conveys dignity.
And, what my mother told me is quite true: better to be somewhat overdressed than underdressed.
B: How would you define your own fashion style and how does Bonobos fit into it?
SS: I tend to live by advice my father, who was a comedian, gave me: “Think Yiddish, dress British.” I wear a lot of blazers (most fathers of young children do, I’ve found), and simply wearing slacks of a distinctive color with a blue blazer (white or brick red in summer; purple cords in fall and winter) can transform what might otherwise be a pretty predictable uniform into something that looks fresh.
B: You’ve covered the gamut of topics in your career, from bloody civil wars to shifting trends in pop music. Does any individual interview stand-out as either particularly influential or, well, just hilarious?
SS: Influential? Irena Milic, a young girl in Sarajevo during the siege. We profiled Irena and her mixed ethnic family as she was about to turn 16 inside on the outer circle of Hell. Seeing the siege through her eyes—even living it a little through her experience—fundamentally shook up my view of the world. And, made me a novelist (Pretty Birds: Random House, 2005).
Hilarious? Dame Edna—or at least the actor, Barry Humphries, who portrays Dame Edna. He insisted that we interview her, not him, and I still laugh at parts of it. She/he described traveling with her 94 year old gynecologist, Julio Iglesias’ father (who is, in fact, a gynecologist). “Of course his hands to shake a bit. But that’s not altogether a drawback, now is it?”
B: At Bonobos, we occasionally use our blog to give customers tips on traveling – be it finding the perfect bag or determining the packing necessities. As someone who has traveled extensively, often in war-torn areas, do you have any on-the-road advice or indispensable items? A specific toiletry item that once saved your life or something?
SS: No single toiletry item has ever saved my life. But those small, tinfoil packets of Roger & Gallet scents have come close by making me better company around my colleagues, in war zones in which water to bathe can be hard to find.
I do have one legitimate tip: buy a few small travel size toiletries—mouthwash, astringent, toothpaste, anti-perspirant—whenever you find them, and put a few in a plastic shirt bag that you keep in your travel case. Don’t wait until you run out to buy new ones. Chances are, you will run out of something at 2:00 am in Kabul and there’s not a Duane Reed for thousands of miles.
B: Social media – be it amateur blogs, Twitter feeds or user-generated comments – have obviously had a huge impact on media and the field of journalism. How have these tools affected the manner you report a story? How have they affected how you consume media?
SS: Alas, I am as inclined to log into social media sites, most notably Twitter, to read news as I am on any news site. I find that if I follow what I consider the most trustworthy and interesting people and organizations (Wall St. Journal, NYTimes, Variety, badbanana, Stephen Fry, etc.) I get a pretty good personalized overview of the world—before I turn to a news site.
B: Have social media affected how you shop?
SS: Yes, especially things for our children. People post helpful warnings all the time about products that aren’t worth it, clothing that can be bought for less, etc.
B: We consistently strive to be responsive to our customers’ feedback. So we read their product reviews, the comments on our blog and the input they email us. But if we listened to every single piece of social media we’d be pulled in a million different directions. I’d imagine there would be a similar effect if you were to try to react to all the emails, Facebook messages and tweets your coverage gets. In the age of communication overload, how do you productively filter social media while remaining responsive?
SS: I have a completely arbitrary rule: pick 10 for response. Try to make sure that they don’t answer the same question, or make the same point. I find that engaging with this manageable, limited number sharpens the mind.
B: Our CEO along with a number of our Midwestern employees are big Chicago Cub fans. Your first book Home and Away touches on numerous aspects of the Chicago sports scene. In the writing process, which Cub most grabbed your attention or imagination and why?
SS: Well, it’s always an honor to talk to Ernie Banks, who is genuine and genuinely nice. But I was especially touched by Fergie Jenkins. It seems to me that, although he’s in the Hall of Fame, he is comparatively overlooked among great pitchers. But he had 6 consecutive seasons in which he won 20 games or more—nobody does that anymore. And, he was also a great hitter. I liked his analysis of why the Cubs faded in 1969 against the Mets, 
which essentially went: our front line stars were better than theirs. But you get into August and September, you need your reserves to step up, and we just didn’t have a shelf. The Mets were more modern. Baseball had become a 162 game season only a few years before, and Leo had never managed for a longer season. The Cubs were still playing by the 154 game season calendar.
B: Tell us a bit about your upcoming book and how you settled on the topic of adoption.
SS: My wife and I are the parents of two daughters who are adopted from China. They are the glory of our lives, and we believe that adoption is every bit as miraculous as childbirth. We hope that by sharing our stories, and others, people might begin to view adoption as an early option for having a family, not just a last resort.
But first and last, it’s a book of love stories—what makes love not only fire up, but last.
