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.
Javier Calvo is the author of Wonderful World. Mara Faye Lethem is the translator. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Considering the unseen cantaloupe. Guests: Javier Calvo and Mara Faye Lethem Subjects Discussed: The pleasures and challenges of having an in-house translator, Pandora in the Congo, the paucity of foreign writers published in America, the frequent use […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 40:32 — 37.1MB)
MoreArthur Phillips is most recently the author of The Song is You. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Reconsidering the playlists and those who play him. Author: Arthur Phillips Subjects Discussed: Characters who are enslaved to culture, partisan positions in relation to hoarding facts, being in denial about larger arguments within novels, Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature, aesthetic […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 49:46 — 45.6MB)
MoreSarah Waters is most recently the author of The Little Stranger. To listen to our previous interview with Sarah Waters, check out The Bat Segundo Show #37. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Creeping into the dark shadows of fabricated identities. Author: Sarah Waters Subjects Discussed: Research involving poltergeists, country doctors, and other topics, lingering interests from […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 29:51 — 27.3MB)
MoreMichelle Goldberg is most recently the author of The Means of Reproduction. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wondering if there’s any fate in what we make. Author: Michelle Goldberg Subjects Discussed: Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, the proper response to reproductive rights issues, the damage of hyperbolic predictions, European birth rates, parental leave and working mothers, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 49:12 — 45.1MB)
MoreNelson George is most recently the author of City Kid. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Drowning in the inevitable tide of gentrification. Author: Nelson George Subjects Discussed: George’s thoughts on Fort Greene, gentrification, black artists and real estate, the inevitable nature of change, finding a balance between the personal and the artistic, artistic arrogance, on not […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 41:20 — 37.8MB)
MoreBlake Bailey is most recently the author of Cheever and the editor of the two-volume John Cheever set recently issued by Library of America. Subjects Discussed: Eponymous titles, Cheever as a brand name, whether literary biographies are needed, contending with Updike’s review, the hard things that Cheever said about Updike, the literary biography as a […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 44:58 — 41.2MB)
MoreAtom Egoyan is most recently the writer and director of Adoration, which opens in limited release on May 8, 2009. He is also a very friendly and interesting Canadian who does not bite people, but who somehow frightens the MPAA. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Pondering whether he is adored. Guest: Atom Egoyan Subjects Discussed: Scenes […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 29:12 — 26.7MB)
MoreJohn Wray is most recently the author of Lowboy. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Searching for those who will listen to him in the subway. Author: John Wray Subjects Discussed: The ABAB narrative of Lowboy, mirroring schizophrenia within a narrative structure, a sane perspective that assists the reader, subway details, Franz Kafka’s Amerika, real vs. imaginary […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 34:14 — 31.3MB)
MoreAlex Rivera is the director and co-writer of Sleep Dealer, which is scheduled for limited release on April 17, 2009. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Hoping to avoid Morpheus’s maquiladoras. Guest: Alex Rivera Subjects Discussed: David Riker’s La Ciudad, splitting screenwriting/directing duties, the collaboration process, the dynamics of globalization, labor and New World Order, the importance […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 26:08 — 23.9MB)
MoreLaura Lippman is most recently the author of Life Sentences. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Frightened of sleazy and opportunistic biographers. Author: Laura Lippman Subjects Discussed: Cassandra Fallows vs. Kathryn Harrison, writers with peculiar personalities, the memoir dictating the memoirist, Hegelian synthesis, the Quarter Pounder and Proustian comparisons, philosophical modifiers, the inauthentic self, stereotypes of NPR […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 58:49 — 53.9MB)
MoreCarl Wilson is the author of Let’s Talk About Love and reports indicate that he is loved, in turn, by the actor James Franco. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Evading the pomp and circumstance of cultural taxonomies. Author: Carl Wilson Subjects Discussed: Celine Dion and incompatible tastes, Elliott Smith, the questioning of canonical knowledge, Paul Valery’s […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 44:38 — 40.9MB)
MoreEsther Rots is the writer, director, editor, and producer of is most recently the director of Can Go Through Skin. Dan Geesin is the sound designer and music composer of the film. The film is presently playing at the New Directors/New Films series, which is running between March 25 and April 5 at MOMA and […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 27:12 — 24.9MB)
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