Director interview: David Hoffman for Sputnik Mania

by John P. Meyer

What do Stephen King and Hillary Clinton have in common? (I mean, aside from their mutual interest in fiction writing.) Listen up.

Producer/director David Hoffman brings Sputnik Mania, his new documentary film project, to Dallas next week where it will make its North Texas premiere at the Frontiers of Flight Museum on Oct. 4. Kind of fitting, because The UN has designated the seven-day period beginning on that date as World Space Week - probably because Oct. 4 marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. Kind of an incidental Moebius strip setup.

Interview with director/producer David Hoffman

Mr. Hoffman spoke with me on the phone this morning (Sept. 25) from his home in Santa Cruz, CA. He's also recording an interview today with CBS that will air on their Sunday morning program this weekend. But why wait 'til Sunday? You can get the lowdown on that high-flying chunk of Soviet space chrome right now, just by cueing up the appended audio file.

[A brief confessionary digression: the miscue I'm conversing about with David at the start of the audio involves my confusion about the time differential between Texas and the west coast. For some brain-damaged reason I got it in my head that we were two hours BEHIND California folks instead of two hours AHEAD of them. So I'd originally phoned David at 9 a.m. Texas time believing it was 11 a.m. in Santa Cruz - when in fact he was probably still enjoying his first mimosa of the day out on the veranda overlooking the swaying mango trees, or whatever exotic vegetation it is that grows on the verge of Santa Cruz verandas; I'll never know for sure because his answering machine fielded the call.]