I thought it might be fun to get Frank on the phone and talk to him about the week's events, which is something that we really can't prepare for, because things are changing so fast, and the outrageous events pile up so quickly that it's hard to keep track of the lies, the truths, the lies about the truths and the truths about the lies. When I scheduled the interview, I must admit, I told him it was conditional on the phones still working. Anyone who remembers the recent outage in northern California when the lines were deliberately cut will know that's no given. (And note that there was never really a satisfactory explantion given for what could well have been an act of terrorism.) You can hear my conversation with Thomas Frank, covering recent events (phone lines permitting) by following the link to the MP3 audio file.
10-01-09: A 2009 Interview With Richard E. Cytowic, M.D. : 'Wednesday is Indigo Blue'
Yes, the second I saw even the title of 1993's 'The Man Who Tasted Shapes' by Richard E. Cytowic, M.D., I knew I had to have the book. The very concept of synesthesia sounded like something out of a science fiction novel. Hearing colors and tasting shapes? It's the very definition of alien.
Cytowic has returned to the subject this year with 'Wednesday is Indigo Blue,' co-written by David Eagleman, author of 'Sum.' When 'The Man Who Tasted Shapes' was released. the idea of synesthesia sounded pretty good to me. Who wouldn’t want to taste shapes or hear colors? But that sort of phenomenon was very hard to document, since it relied on subjective interpretation — until recently. I talked to Cytowic about the ironically changing perception of this perceptual disorder, which, with the advent of brain scanning techniques has become much better understood. We also talked about the cultural perceptions of synesthesia, a disorder that can foster creativity. Is it then truly a disorder? In a science fiction novel, it might be perceived as a precursor to an evolutionary leap; in a comic book, it might be something that one of the X-Men can do. You can hear my conversation with Richard E. Cytowic, M. D., by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
09-30-09: A 2009 Interview with Nick Douglas
"Some of the people in this book are cashiers, college students, homemakers, and they can all be as funny for one sentence as Shakespeare or Dorothy Parker." — Nick Douglas
Nick Douglas will surprise the hell out of you. I frankly did not know what I'd have to say to the editor of 'Twitter Wit,' but it turns out we had quite a bit to talk about and that, as I had hoped, there was quite a bit of very interesting literary thought that can be wrapped around messages of 140 characters or less.
The messages may be 140 characters or less, but the number of characters you can encounter on Twitter, and in print via 'Twitter Wit' are practically endless. Douglas may be young but he's a seasoned Silicon Valley insider who did his time at Valleywag before striking out on his own with 'Twitter Wit.'
I was definitely apprehensive, because while I enjoyed the book, it is, after all, pretty much a book of one-line jokes by writers other than Douglas himself. But as we talked about the process of putting together this book and the implications of the limitations of Twitter, my deliberate ignorance about Twitter (simply put, it's read or tweet, and I go with read) bounced off Douglas' deep knowledge thereof in a most entertaining manner. Instrumental in setting up this interview were the folks over at Booksmith, Christin Evans and Praveen Madan, who went so far as to make their house available for the recording. You can hear our conversation on the future of literature consisting of writing less than 140 characters by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
09-29-09: A 2009 Interview with Jacqueline Winspear : Author of the Maisie Dobbs Series
"It's heartbreaking; you see photographs of this young lad, he's 13 and he's going off to war..." — Jacqueline Winspear
Sometimes, all you need to do is to listen. I met Jackie Winspear at the Book Passage Mystery Conference, and all it took was about a minute of listening to her speak to know, to absolutely know why she was a writer. Her voice was precise and so strong. The stories she told were as well.
I sat down and talked with Winspear about the world of her Maisie Dobbs novels, set in the aftermath of World War One. She evoked not just her research but that world, in the stories she told of combing through archives, of her understanding that she might be the first person to see a particular letter from a soldier in fifty, sixty, eighty years. Like most Americans, I know a bit about WWI; the heroism and the horror, to be sure. But Winspear managed to evoke not just heroes and horrors, but the people in a manner that made them like people I might have met, that turned abstraction in humanity. All in that perfect, powerful voice, which you can hear by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
09-28-09: A 2009 Interview With Karen Armstrong
"At the center of religious life, for all these faiths, was compassion." — Karen Armstrong
As much as I am inclined to distrust organized religion, I still find it a fascination subject to read about. Back in 2006, I read Karen Armstrong's 'The Great Transformation,' an engrossing history of the beginnings of religion. Her latest book, 'The Case for God,' is even more pertinent for these troubled times when religion is such a divisive issue. As I read the book and her elegant, intelligent language unpacked ideas, I could literally feel my ability to think being challenged and changed.
I spoke with Karen Armstrong at KQED studios in San Francisco, on a brilliant autumn afternoon. I had looked a bit into her background and her autobiography 'Up the Spiral Staircase,' and we started at the beginning of her spiritual journey. I wouldn't exactly call her books spiritual, though they explore the ideas of spirituality. Armstrong is a woman with a strong inclination towards logos, which she uses to explore the world of mythos. She's smart and intuitive and utterly compelling. You can hear our conversation by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Mary Robinette Kowal Reads "Evil Robot Monkey" at SF in SF on April 20, 2013 : "...not that there's anything remotely Regency about evil robot monkeys..."
05-06-13: Commentary : Glennon Doyle Melton Suggests 'Carry On, Warrior' : Fighting for Life in the Too Much Information Age
05-04-13: Commentary : Reasons Not to Leave the House, Reality Check : The Truth Hurts Edition: 'Down the Up Escalator' by Barbara Garson, 'The Wolf and the Watchman' by Scott C. Johnson,'The Book of Woe' by Gary Greenberg, 'Confessions of a Sociopath' by M. E. Thomas
05-01-13: Commentary : Mario Guslandi Reviews An Emporium of Automata by DP Watt : "...from the bizarre to the grotesque, from the baroque to the uncanny..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : : Rick Klaw Reads at SF in SF on April 20, 2013 : "...those are the kind of people that don't get work anymore..."
04-29-13: Commentary : Ben Katchor Catalogues 'Hand Drying in America' : Subversive Cities of the Heart
04-27-13: Commentary : Mark Morris Introduces 'Toady' : A New World of Horror
Agony Column Podcast News Report : : Thomas Frank from The Easy Chair and Harper's Magazine: TV's DC Fantasies : "... basically, everyone is corrupt ..."
04-22-13: Commentary : Danielle Trussoni Maps 'Angelopolis' : The Afterlife of Angels
04-17-13: Commentary : How Not to Leave the House : Reach for the Recycling
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Matt Richtel, Sophie Littlefield and Terry Bisson at SF in SF on February 9, 2013 : "You cannot do this all day long." Sophie Littlefield
04-16-13: Commentary : Stephen Kessler 'Scratch Pegasus' : Lens of Language
04-08-13: Commentary : Ruth Ozeki Clocks 'A Tale for the Time Being' : Reading is the Future
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2013 Interview with Ruth Ozeki : "...through the act of writing, she would somehow conjure the reader into being..."
I thought it might be fun to get Frank on the phone and talk to him about the week's events, which is something that we really can't prepare for, because things are changing so fast, and the outrageous events pile up so quickly that it's hard to keep track of the lies, the truths, the lies about the truths and the truths about the lies. When I scheduled the interview, I must admit, I told him it was conditional on the phones still working. Anyone who remembers 
