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.
Ken Auletta is most recently the author of Googled and writes the “Annals of Communication” column for The New Yorker. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wondering if his Chinese food takeout history can be Googled. Author: Ken Auletta Subjects Discussed: Clarifying Auletta’s theory of Sergey Brin and Larry Page as “cold engineers,” responding to Nicholson Baker’s […]
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MoreLaurel Snyder is most recently the author of Any Which Wall. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Concerned about walls and their failed sentience throughout the years. Author: Laurel Snyder Subjects Discussed: The extraordinary conditions in which Any Which Wall was written, the flexibility that comes from being a small fish, a writing identity tied to poetry […]
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MoreRebecca Solnit is most recently the author of A Paradise Built in Hell. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Finding hostility within legitimate clarification. Author: Rebecca Solnit Subjects Discussed: William James’s second treatise on pragmatism, the alternative notion which means the same as a preexisting notion, General Funston’s martial response to the 1906 earthquake vs. Pauline Jacobson’s […]
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MoreBrian Evenson is most recently the author of Fugue State and Last Days. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Latching onto toccata. Author: Brian Evenson Subjects Discussed: Knowing when a story concept has legs, ideas that never come to anything, the origins of “A Pursuit,” The Open Curtain, maintaining surprise, text sources vs. personal experience, writing fiction […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 44:56 — 41.1MB)
MoreLawrence Block is most recently the author of Step by Step. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Ruminating upon a life of exquisite indolence. Author: Lawrence Block Subjects Discussed: Step by Step as an anti-memoir, exploring childhood experience in print, randomness and finding connections, writing with a greater degree of freedom, Random Walk, concerns about a limited […]
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MoreMaggie Estep is most recently the author of Alice Fantastic. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Hoping to see Alice at the next opportunity. Author: Maggie Estep Subjects Discussed: Efforts to determine if it’s good to be happy, animals throughout Estep’s work, how love for animals is directly proportional to love for human beings, Of Mice and […]
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MorePhilip Alcabes is most recently the author of Dread. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Attempting to understand the certainty of certain dread, and the dread of dreadful certainty. Author: Philip Alcabes Subjects Discussed: Overstating the three Ps (pandemic, pestilence, and plague), contending with a hypothetical situation involving a Norway rat eating your sandwich for lunch, the […]
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MoreRichard Russo is most recently the author of That Old Cape Magic. He previously appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #152. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Shoving Cape Cod mackerel down his throat. Author: Richard Russo Subjects Discussed: Signs with unusual spacing, drawing from the sign at The Silver Lounge Restaurant in North Falmouth, MA for […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 44:58 — 41.2MB)
MoreJ. Robert Lennon is most recently the author of Castle and Pieces for the Left Hand. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contemplating his surprising longevity after 300 shows. Author: J. Robert Lennon Subjects Discussed: Ending sentences with nouns, how location affects character description, objects and places as the territory of a story, how the land in […]
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MoreDouglas Rushkoff is the author of Life, Inc. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Surprised to discover someone more contentious than he is. Author: Douglas Rushkoff Subjects Discussed: The wage labor system established in Portugal in 1253, Daily Life in Portugal in the Late Middle Ages, whether the day laborer can stand up, children and branding, people […]
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MoreChina Mieville is most recently the author of The City & The City. He previously appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #105. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Searching for the Mieville and the Mieville. Author: China Mieville Subjects Discussed: When The City & The City was written, speculating on the novel’s setting, ratty technology and shambolic […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 46:12 — 42.3MB)
MoreSarah Wendell and Candy Tan appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #296. Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan are most recently the authors of Beyond Heaving Bosoms. They are also the proprietors of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Subjects Discussed; Kathleen Woodwiss’s The Flame and the Flower, the beginnings of original paperback romance, genre respectability, romance’s profitability, […]
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