Archive for the ‘radio’ Category

Time and Space Defied Once Again

Posted on: December 4th, 2009 by admin No Comments

We humans get accustomed to new realities so quickly, it can be frightening sometimes.

I was thinking about this during the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Here was this thing that had defined our lives for decades after World War Two. I spent my junior year in France convinced I’d be incinerated by a nuclear bomb. And then, suddenly, the defining reality was gone literally overnight.

And within a couple of days we already became accustomed to our new life we were living utterly devoid of fear.

Every once in a while I am reminded of what a sea change has taken place in the very, very recent past. Here is the interview I did on Thursday, December 3, with Ellen Rocco and Chris Robinson, for the program Readers & Writers on North Country Public Radio. An interview that was conducted live on local radio – in other words, at a specific time in a specific place.


And now, barring disaster, anyone can listen to it at any time, wherever they want on the planet.

I’ll Be on the Radio – Where the Winds Hit Heavy on the Borderline

Posted on: December 2nd, 2009 by admin No Comments

I’m looking forward to being back on the air again at North Country Public Radio. The Next Big Thing enjoyed a happy home on this sweet little (big, actually!) network of stations in upstate New York. I’ll be interviewed about FROM SQUARE ONE on the book show Readers & Writers Thursday, December 3, from 7 to 8pm. NCPR’s live stream can be heard from anywhere on Earth by clicking here.

Of course now I can’t get this out of my head:

[dailymotion id=x2z34]

Pandora: Still Unleashing All the Evils of the World

Posted on: October 18th, 2009 by admin 4 Comments

Rob Walker teases out much of what’s wrong with Pandora in the New York Times Magazine < http://bit.ly/hdUhV > (including, as I discovered a few months ago, the astonishing absence of Fela Kuti).

What struck me from the beginning, when Pandora made its debut in 2005, was that they picked the wrong metaphor. Music Genome Project makes a promise on which it can’t deliver. At least not yet.

The genome is what shows us how much humans are more or less the same as Fleischmann’s yeast, even though you’d never know it by looking at us.

By extension, cracking the music genome would explain why some people are drawn both to Beethoven and to Norah Jones. It would reveal the ways in which apparently different musical phenotypes disguise surprising similarities under the surface.

If you tell Pandora you like Bill Evans, you don’t find yourself eventually listening to Javanese gamelan. Instead, you are treated to yet more white jazz guys from the 1950s and 60s: Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan. Here, the surface similarities disguise a fundamental difference in approach. The Brubeck and Mulligan tracks served up by Pandora are usually active and uptempo – and they punch a hole in the quiet introspection I seek in Bill Evans.

The new media landscape offers much to love, but Pandora represents a step backward. Those of us who grew up listening to FM radio looked to the DJs to expose us to things we never knew existed. The Internet makes it too easy to block out things you think you don’t like. There: I discovered a genomic link between Pandora and Fox News.

I keep looking online for a new generation of curators willing to shape the public’s taste because they have confidence in their own. Where are those people?

Live, from Labastide-Esparbairenque, France, It’s Tuesday Morning!

Posted on: August 17th, 2009 by admin No Comments

In other words, thanks to Skype, I’ll be appearing on blogtalkradio (http://bit.ly/1EfsMt) at 9am ET.

Two for Two

Posted on: July 17th, 2009 by admin No Comments

Once again, minutes before the scheduled start of a bookstore event, violent weather strikes. I am trying not to take it personally.

The first time it happened, at RJ Julia in Madison, CT, turnout was slim – there was a tornado warning, for Pete’s sake! – and I do not have a local circle of friends in that area.

Last night, however, playing for the home crowd, not only friends but total strangers packed the Lenox Bookstore. The interview on WAMC’s Roundtable seemed to do the trick.

While at the Bookstore, I learned from proprietor Matt Tannenbaum about this review of FROM SQUARE ONE, in the Kenyon Review.

On to Brooklyn!

From the Roundtable Today on WAMC

Posted on: July 15th, 2009 by admin No Comments

I was interviewed by Ian Pickus, who gave me lots of room to give a sense of what I tried to do in the book.

Here’s one clip.

Here’s another.

And yet another.

By the way, there’s an update to report since the interview was taped. The Atlantic apparently has not read my book and has announced it will no longer run Cox & Rathvon’s outstanding Puzzler, even online. You can read the Times story here.

Radio Radio

Posted on: June 29th, 2009 by admin No Comments

On Tuesday, June 30, I’ll appear on New Hampshire Public Radio talk show Word of Mouth, which is hosted by the lovely and amazing Virginia Prescott. The segment is scheduled from 12:43 to 12:51pm ET. This is not a typo.

Then, the next day (July 1) I’ll be on for a whole hour, taking calls and everything, on WHYY’s outstanding Radio Times. That’s from 11am to 12 noon ET.

For updates about future appearances on air, watch this space.

On the Radio

Posted on: June 22nd, 2009 by admin 3 Comments

Today:

The Leonard Lopate Show, 12:40-1pm ET

Then, in the evening (News willing), an interview with Melissa Block on All Things Considered

[updated update: These things are always highly subject to change, even at the last second, but the All Things Considered interview is now scheduled for today at 4:20pm ET - and every two hours thereafter.]

Back Where I Came From

Posted on: June 16th, 2009 by admin No Comments

I jumped from commercial to public radio 25 years ago when I took a job as a board operator in Hartford, Connecticut. The station’s star interviewer then was Faith Middleton. She still is. Yesterday Faith did an interview with me, and it’s scheduled to air today. Of course, you never know with these things – there’s always the possibility of being bumped to a later date. This link will take you to her show.

Not That I Condone Violence

Posted on: June 15th, 2009 by admin No Comments

but …

among my major regrets in life, one is that we did not act a little more like the Iranian people after our own presidential disaster in 2000.

I did try to stir up outrage with the hope of organized protest. To this day, I can’t shake the memory of a left-leaning colleague who counseled me, condescendingly, that it was important to “move on.”

Such terrible advice. And hindsight is not required to know it. At the time, even, that line from Yeats replayed itself in my head like a stuck record. I wish the poet were alive today so that I could argue with him: if they truly were the “best,” then they wouldn’t lack all conviction, would they?

As the 2002 midterm elections approached, it was time to vote again, and for the life of me I couldn’t see the point of it. Unless all votes are counted, the exercise is empty.

The weekend before election day, I tried to argue my case to former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. (Click here and then fast forward to 1:39 to skip past the show intro and listen to the interview. Sorry, but WNYC still requires RealPlayer.)

I bring this up again now to set the record straight. The governor characterized my position this way: “I [Dean] didn’t get what I want when I vote, so why should I vote? They’re not really listening to me.”

I can’t remember what happened next in the raw, unedited interview. There are two possibilities. The first is that I wasn’t quick enough on my feet to press the point. The second is that I did press the point but a producer took it out, thinking it unimportant, and I wasn’t hovering closely enough to make sure it was left in.

What needed to be said next was this: “No, Governor. That’s not it at all. Actually, in November of 2000, we didn’t have enough information about George Bush to hate him yet. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about compassionate conservatism. It has nothing to do with what I want. The disaster was that when all the votes were counted, the American people had voted the other way. When all the votes were counted—and this point has never sunk in, perhaps because it’s too horrifying to contemplate—Gore had won not only the popular vote but also the Electoral College. I would shut up about it if Bush had really been the candidate America wanted in 2000.”

Of course, then came the 2004 election, which rendered me speechless. But that’s another matter.

One thing the governor said seems alive again in light of Iranians’ response to their election results. He said: “This is a system that rewards involvement and punishes aloofness.” I hope to have a chance in my lifetime to witness if that is true.