In movies

Some students from the Education Video Center came to interview me today for a documentary they're making on teenagers and religion. I'd left my office door open so they could set up (I had to be at a meeting) so had no idea how serious they are about their craft until I opened the door and found there was hardly room to squeeze in. My office was crowded with no fewer than four students, two supervisors, and the interviewer!Several lights from different angles, one of those big round reflectors, camera on tripod, and a microphone I had to string under my shirt and clip (which reminded me of that scene in "Singin' in the rain"). They'd even moved some of the books around behind my chair for effect.

The interviewer, whose name was (I think) Vadim, asked one good tough question after another, and I had a ball fielding them. What did I think about religious terrorism, like that just now in Mumbai? Did I think religion was the cause of more good or more bad? Did I think religion was a cause of war? Did I think religion could contribute to peace? What did I think about religion and teenagers? Did I think people were biologically disposed to religion, or could we live without it? Whew! We'll see if any of my answers - expansive but not digressive - can be edited down to something useful for them. (I also fear I didn't keep my gaze focused in his direction as I was told to.) But it certainly was fun playing the professor on TV for half an hour!