Great interview. So sad to think Vonnegut doesn’t have that much time left; his mind is still just as sharp and vibrant as ever. Talks a lot about the American public school system. Definitely makes you remember how proudly subversive he’s been for so many years and the amazing life he’s lived — a former soldier. Highly recommend giving this a listen.
Category Archives: Podcasts
KCRW’s Bookworm: Jorie Graham.
Maybe not the best choice for the El ride home: the soothing dulcet sounds of Michael Silverblatt and poet Jorie Graham, combined with the rhythm of the train…I could barely keep my eyes open!
That said, Graham did have a lot of interesting things to say about living in the NOW. About finding a way to get through it: life, the poem, etc. Not waiting for things to change, for it to be the perfect situation…
Either she said stuff about that or I dreamed it, who can say.
Wait, Wait…May 14th edition.
Tom Hanks was the celebrity guest and he was really hilarious (and I’m not even that big a Hanks’ fan!). They spent a bit more time on the introductory interview with him than they normally do, involving lots of sass about some of his less ‘intellectual’, shall we say, movies. Really funny. The bits about Marlon Brando were also pretty hilarious.
Also loved the drunk monkeys segment. Monkeys! Drinking! Toooooo funny. I think the female commentator was Paula Poundstone. “From the number of monkeys I’ve reached out to…” She was a riot.
Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Was interested to see you could get this on iTunes as an “audible book” although frankly it’s a podcast.
Thought the first half was hilarious. Second half was hard to listen to b/c apparently he was showing a video he had made (which obviously I could not SEE) and it was harder to follow what was happening.
Really stuck it to Bush and Cheney. Good on ya, SC.
KEXP at SXSW: Billy Bragg (4/7)
Billy Bragg is a riot. Proudly refers to himself as a “polemical songwriter” and points out “my politics are mostly based on mischief.” Is getting some of his thunder stolen by James Blunt, as he’s no longer the only former soldier: “He was an officer in the Royal Armed Corps; I was [just] a trooper!” Asked if he will ever go into politics: “I just look awful in a suit and tie…I look like a bank robber!” Lots of fun to hear his banter. He’s the Pete Seeger of our time. He and Woody Guthrie, some of whose lyrics he has put to music post Woody’s death.
KCRW’s Bookworm: Walter Kirn.
Discussing Kirn’s novel “Mission to America”, which takes people living in a boonies Montana “cult” out into real world 2005. Not necessarily something I’d want to read, but very interesting discussion of those “types” of “religions” (mormonism, scientology, christian science, jehovah witness, seventh day adventists, etc.), and a feeling of nostalgia for 19th-century ideas we, as a culture, have “grown out of.”
America seems to be about this ceaseless business of coming up with crackpot ways to comfort itself.
The book sounds really funny. Also Charles Portis and his book “Masters of Atlantis” which they discuss as an influence. Both sound like a riot. Altho the Portis book I read a while ago (“The Dog of the South”) was more mildly humorous than drop dead funny.
It is dangerous to listen to these podcasts, they just add more, more and more things to my “possibilities” list and that list, and the pile of unread books, are both already deep enough.
But, man, I could definitely fall asleep to the sound of Michael Silverblatt’s voice.
KEXP at SXSW: Drive by Truckers (4/6)
I have been wondering about this band for a while since I saw them recommended on Que Sera Sera once and I’ve gotten some good albums from her recommendations (Bishop Allen, for one).
They’re like a crazy combination of CSNY, the Allman Brothers and the Eagles. This isn’t music I could listen to every day, but boy is there ever a time and a place for it…Midsummer rain storm, sitting on the porch with some spiked lemonade…This would be PERFECT.
Hilariously, the emcee really started to slip into a Southern accent while interviewing these guys.
You should talk southern around me when I’m drunk; I can really turn it on!
KEXP: The Stills (5/5)
Live performances are always hit or miss. I thought they sounded like crap here although the emcee (I think her name is Nancy something?) kept telling them they sounded fantastic. I’ve heard alot about how their new album is like a completely different band. Hearing this, I would tend to believe it.
I didn’t love their entire first album, but I did outright LOVE the song “Love and Death” (…love and death are always on my mind…). I probably won’t buy the new one.
Wait, Wait…May 7th edition
The Mayor of Washington was pretty entertaining.
The female panelist was obviously a crazed conservative as she claimed that at the correspondent’s dinner the President was actually funny (if by funny you mean “stupid as ever”, then yes) and Colbert wasn’t.
I’ve watched the Colbert clip quite a few times. It is damn funny if you haven’t been brainwashed by the Bushwhackers.
KCRW’s Bookworm: Octavia Butler.
This was recorded before she died and focuses mainly on her last novel “Fledgling”, a new take on vampires. Although I have not read anything of hers, I really enjoyed listening to what issues she’s interested in exploring in her writing in general and the way in which she came around to writing this novel specifically. (The review on Amazon rhetorically asks: “How many of our happy relationships involve a degree of dominance or dependence that we can’t acknowledge?”) But, man, this book sounds NUTS. (In a good way.)
Beyond exploring Butler’s oeuvre, thinking about this type of book in general really makes me want to reread old stuff like Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, which I haven’t read since…the early 90s sometime I think, in grad school.