When Dan Neil casually agrees to do his interview for
AASFE at the piano in the lobby of the convention's
hotel, he sits down and starts playing a little.  It's
an appropriately quirky move from a guy whose column
"800 Words" aims to "find the culture in pop culture"
with typically funny and snarky results.

Neil, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, won the
Pulitzer Prize for his automobile criticisms. In them,
he's called the new Rolls Royce ugly, lamented the
disappearance of the American road song and riffed on
how black music was the best thing to happen to
Cadillac. An expert analyzer and comedic critiquer, he
talks with AASFE about his job:

Q: Criticism is such a subjective practice  -- how do
you establish credibility with your readers?
A: I have to have the record straight. Dates, names,
facts - all of it has to be sound. If I slip up, it
undermines the opinion. If the blogsphere has taught
anything it's that it's easy to pop off an opinion.
But it's harder to make it worth reading.

Q: Sure, but opinions are such a gray area. How do you
convince people what you're saying has any weight?
A: One hard thing you have to learn about this job is
that you have to make your opinions stick. If you
vacillate or hedge it ever works. In your darker
moments you maybe consider that your opinion wasn't
fully together.

Q: Has that happened to you? What do you do in that
moment?
A: If you have time, you back up. If not, you follow
through with your bad swing.

Q: Does criticism have a tinge of narcissism to it? Is
there a fascination with your own voice or opinion?
A: No. It may seem like an opportunity for narcissism,
but actually it's about self-doubt and evaluation.

Q: A lot of times there's a disconnect between what
you as a critic think and what the public thinks. How
do you navigate that?
A: I just drove the brand new Lexus that I didn't
like. I got all these indignant e-mails. And it's
like, well, I've driven every car on the road, I have
really good taste.

Q: What do you drive?
A: A 1960 MGA.

Q: When you get that negative feedback, do you get the
urge to reply back?
A: Oh yeah. I do it and then sometimes I regret it.
But I look at it like I had my shot. If they want to,
have at it.

Q: What about when you really don't like something? Do
you avoid or indulge in the temptation to be really
nasty?
A: I surrender to that temptation as much as possible.
People love a rave or a dig. And if you do it in a
funny way, people love it.