04-19-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 157: Lorrie Moore, 'Bark'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred fifty-seventh episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I seem to be on top of the game, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to stay back up and stumbling.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
The one-hundred fifty-seventh episode is a look at Lorrie Moore and 'Bark.' It's a live perforemance version.
Click image for audio link. Photo by Ralph Elliott Starkweather.
"..we haven't lived up to what people's illusions and dreams are..."
— Michael Katakis
I've done many a tough interview; some were difficult because they required a great deal of specific knowledge gleaned from the reading, some because the reading was emotional and the knowledge was abstract. Sitting down to talk to Michael Katakis about 'A Thousand Shards of Glass' put me in the room where the last interview I had done had included his late wife, Dr. Kris Hardin.
"My True North." It's the title of a piece from 'Words and Pictures,' his book co-written with his wife, about his wife, and that magnetic North acted on us as well. We need ghost stories, I realized, because we live ghost lives. But storytelling has many forms. We do not need characters. The power of Katakis's book is that we are a character in every piece in his book. We're the other half of the conversation.
So yes, Michael and I were a bit haunted, but the man is a monument to the elegance of the words he's written. If, when reading this book, you feel as if it is very shiny, then that's because the author polished it until it was ready. Every removed word changes all the words around it. This is word sculpture as much as it is prose or language.
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Give this interview a listen, and you will hear the power of the spoken voice to complement the written voice. One side reflects the other. The mirror needs a being able to understand its reflection in order to have meaning. Look in the audio mirror by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
04-16-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 156: Michael Katakis, 'A Thousand Shards of Glass'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred fifty-sixth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I'm way behind, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to get back up and stumbling. I have lots of great books in the hopper to review and lots of great interviews to podcast.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
