The Bat Segundo Show was a long-running cultural radio program devoted to quirky and very thorough long-form interviews with contemporary authors, idiosyncratic thinkers, and other assorted artists. Guests included David Lynch, Octavia Butler, John Waters, John Updike, Stephen Fry, Marilynne Robinson, Karen Russell, Weird Al Yankovic, Robert A. Caro, and more than 500 others. There was also a program called Follow Your Ears, which was a thematic investigative counterpart, in which I pursued a specific subject through several angles. The entire archive of what I did from 2005 to 2014 is included here.
Christian Bauman is most recently the author of In Hoboken. Condition of the Show: Contending with contentious Midtown diners. Author: Christian Bauman Subjects Discussed: Defining a rock and roll novel, writing an ensemble novel with Hoboken as a character, references to paper storms and 9/11, chronological foreshadowing, using real-life Hoboken locations vs. invented locations, the […]
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MoreFiona Maazel is the author of Last, Last Chance. [LISTENING NOTE! Please note that this show contains numerous grinding noises. We have endeavored to remove as many of these as possible, and reduce the noise where possible. Alas, SOME aural residue remains.] Condition of the Show: Considering the niceties of superplagues. Author: Fiona Maazel Subjects […]
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MoreEd Park is most recently the author of Personal Days. Condition of the Show: Plagued by brutal downsizing. Author: Ed Park Subjects Discussed: Literary people named Ed, writing Personal Days and using vacation days while employed at the Voice, counting words written per day, B.S. Johnson, Jonathan Coe’s Like a Fiery Elephant, Harry Stephen Keeler, […]
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MoreCynthia Ozick is most recently the author of Dictation. Condition of the Show: Overtaken by a tyrannical dictator. Author: Cynthia Ozick Subjects Discussed: Balancing two authors, two secretaries and other stylistic repetitions that evoke typewriters in “Dictation,” purloining language from Henry James and Joseph Conrad’s letters, Henry James’s “forgotten umbrella,” “Literary Entrails,” parallels between the […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 48:21 — 44.3MB)
MoreTobias Wolff is most recently the author of Our Story Begins. Condition of the Show: Speculating upon Mr. Wolff’s unknown powers. Author: Tobias Wolff Subjects Discussed: Writing first-person stories that don’t seem like first-person stories, the use of the word “I,” contemporary short stories and therapy sessions, fiction and narcissism, William Trevor, knowing the lay […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 35:03 — 32.1MB)
MoreSarah Hall is most recently the author of Daughters of the North (published in the UK as The Carhullan Army). Condition of the Show: Remaining optimistic about a dystopian future. Author: Sarah Hall Subjects Discussed: Daughters of the North vs. The Carhullan Army, writing books that aren’t set in the present day, concern for environmental […]
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MoreMark Sarvas is the author of Harry, Revised. Condition of Show: Concerned with revision. Author: Mark Sarvas Subjects Discussed: Harry Rent and Arthur Dent, James Wood’s How Fiction Works, character names, Jean Cocteau, Tod Goldberg and fucktard, serendipitous phone calls, Harry’s level of hypocrisy, Deconstructing Harry, how screenplay experience tied into novel writing, human inconsistencies, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 48:14 — 44.2MB)
MoreNicholson Baker is most recently the author of Human Smoke. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Deceased. Author: Nicholson Baker Subjects Discussed: Baker’s antipathy for placing the date at the top of an entry, the blogginess of A Box of Matches and Human Smoke, the discrepancy between what Baker remembered and what Updike wrote in U & […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:12:48 — 66.6MB)
MoreRichard Price is most recently the author of Lush Life. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Caught in a crime scene. Author: Richard Price Subjects Discussed: Setting a novel on the Lower East Side, tenement houses turned into tenement museums, juxtaposing a struggling Boho actor against the Old World, real estate as violence, gentrification, people who don’t […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 36:35 — 33.5MB)
MoreJennifer Weiner is most recently the author of Certain Girls. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding literary desegregation. Author: Jennifer Weiner Subjects Discussed: The similarities between Good in Bed and Certain Girls, how to quantify the past, text as a responsive medium, an embedded critique of chick lit, being embarrassed by your mother, making Cannie more […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 30:41 — 28.1MB)
MoreElizabeth Crane is most recently the author of You Must Be This Happy to Enter. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Failing to understand why so many people are happy. Author: Elizabeth Crane Subjects Discussed: The unwarranted stigma behind the exclamation mark, what it means to be happy, zombies and reality TV, Max Brooks’s World War Z, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 31:15 — 28.6MB)
MoreLydia Millet is most recently the author of How the Dead Dream. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Battling upholders of decency. Author: Lydia Millet Subjects Discussed: The “nation” of ideology, empathy as an endangered species, graying hair color compared against graying landscape, obnoxious cell phones, subconsciousness vs. the innate design of a novel, the life cycle […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 33:34 — 30.7MB)
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