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 Berger recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #321. Berger is the cinematographer for The White Ribbon and was, most recently, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. This conversation is related to The Bat Segundo Show #316, in which writer-director Michael Haneke was interviewed. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wondering why so many […]
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MoreSue Grafton is most recently the author of U is for Undertow. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Looking for a man named Snake to help him escape from Santa Teresa. Author: Sue Grafton Subjects Discussed: Kinsey Millhone’s early announcement to the readers regarding the bad guys, foreshadowing murder, not writing the same book twice, the ethics […]
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MoreGail Godwin is most recently the author of Unfinished Desires. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Combating an uncertain relationship with the faith. Author: Gail Godwin Subjects Discussed: A Mother and Two Daughters, allegorical personality change tied into a historical framework, characters who dictate into a tape recorder, sense of time and character motivation, saving up character […]
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MoreKatharine Weber is most recently the author of True Confections. She previously appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #130 with Levi Asher. Ms. Weber and Mr. Asher will be appearing at the Greenlight Bookstore on January 11, 2009 at 7:30 PM. (Please note: The Bat Segundo Show has discovered a rare and rather alarming remix […]
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MoreMichael Haneke is most recently the director of The White Ribbon, which opens in theaters on December 30th. The Bat Segundo Show expresses profuse gratitude and thanks to translator Robert Gray for assisting in this conversation, which is presented here in German and English. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Tying a white ribbon ’round the old […]
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MoreKen 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 […]
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MoreDick Cavett’s column, “Talk Show,” regularly appears at the New York Times. (PROGRAM NOTE: During the course of our conversation, a “Professor Robert Castelli from John Jay College” — who apparently has a background in law enforcement — pushed in Mr. Cavett’s chair, causing Mr. Cavett to accost him. This unusual social moment, which was […]
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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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