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.
Authors: Derik Badman and Jordan Stump Condition of Mr. Segundo: Gone, relieved not to be involved with Bolsheviks. Subjects Discussed: French humor, Jacques Tati, how Stump translates, comic beats, auctorial tone and linguistics, the pros and cons of long sentences, the benefits of reading aloud, translating Verne vs. translating Touissaint, why translators get a bad […]
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MoreGuests: Chad Post, Dennis Loy Johnson, Laura Kellner, Judith Recke, Eleanor Herman, David Ulin, Cary Goldstein, and Eli Horowitz. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Resistant to party atmospheres, stumbling around for dubious wisdom. Subjects Discussed: Reading the World, multiple badges and Chad Post’s doppelganger, a few unexpected reasons to be a bookseller, torture taxis, minor speculation […]
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MoreGuests: Carolyn Kellogg, Steve Saladino, Megan Sullivan, Amanda Darling, Kassia Kroszer, Kirk Biglione, Ron Hogan, Brian Murray, Michelle Wildgen, Mike Webster, Joseph Wortenva, Laurel Snyder and Delia Falconer. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Believing he may have hit the worst point in his life. Subjects Discussed: Dubious podcasting panels, marketing terminology, fisting, Tyler Cowen’s essay, bookstore […]
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MoreAuthors: Carrie A.A. Frye and Yannick Murphy Condition of Mr. Segundo: Missing, last seen packing himself into a suitcase at Dulles. Subjects Discussed: To Kill a Mockingbird, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Here They Come as autobiography, bending spoons with your mind, sleepless nights of inspiration, the similarities between surrealism and realism, hot dog […]
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MoreAuthors: Dean Haspiel and Harvey Pekar Condition of Mr. Segundo: Feeling old age, pining for an old flame named Virginia. Subjects Discussed: How Haspiel hooked up with Pekar, the origin of the American Splendor movie, the origin of The Quitter, growing as a storyteller courtesy of “hieroglyphic rants,” paneling, DC Comics scripts vs. Pekar scripts, […]
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More[PRODUCER’S NOTE: Every effort has been made to preserve and process the audio. But keep in mind that the group was in a noisy bar and there were considerable microphones involved, which all picked up some background noise. So for those who protest the din, we note that the ambience clears out a little about […]
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MoreAuthors: Kassia Kroszer and Gina Frangello Condition of Mr. Segundo: Still in the desert, deferring to Mr. Bonasera. Subjects Discussed: Margaret Atwood, violence, Freud’s “Dora” study, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, psychoanalytical theories in the 90s, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, unreliable narrators, epigraphs, the presence of current events, hysteria, Ayn Rand, the influence of […]
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More[NOTE: The Bat Segundo crew is not responsible for the wretched music (in addition to a cleaner that we processed out in part) playing in the background during the interview. We apologize to our listeners for this. But we had to improvise to talk with Ms. Waters as long as possible.] Author: Sarah Waters Condition […]
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MoreAuthors: Gwenda Bond and Jeffrey Ford (LBC nominee, Spring 2006) Condition of Mr. Segundo: Absent, abstaining from Bolshevik operations. Subjects Discussed: On writing a book with “everything but the kitchen sink,” baroque vs. simple language, the influence of Hammett, Glen David Gold’s Carter Beats the Devil, Rex Stout, creative serendipity, eugenics, on “playing it safe” […]
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MoreAuthors: Mark Sarvas and Sheila Heti (LBC nominee, Spring 2006) Condition of Mr. Segundo: Absent, abstaining from Bolshevik operations. Subjects Discussed: Perspectives, on writing an interior novel, research vs. devising Ticknor’s character, passive protagonists, environmental details, ambiguity, anxiety, on digressing from the historical record, masking fears, Ticknor’s ass fetish, writing an “epic” short novel and […]
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MoreAuthor: Tom Tomorrow Condition of Mr. Segundo: Explaining his recent arrest for littering. Subjects Discussed: The relationship between text and image, Moebius strips, clip art, working in digital, color vs. black and white, blogging as help, Warren Ellis, Tom the Dancing Bug, New Yorker cartoons and captions, fonts, the influence of the 1950s, on becoming […]
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