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.
Nicholson 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 & […]
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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 […]
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MoreMarshall Klimasewiski is most recently the author of Tyrants. This conversation was conducted in front of an audience at McNally Robinson on February 28, 2008. Many thanks to Jessica Stockton Bagnulo for arranging this! Condition of Mr. Segundo: At loggerheads with his master. Author: Marshall Klimasewiski Subjects Discussed: Ballooning as a “fight or flight” impulse, […]
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MoreToby Barlow is the author of Sharp Teeth. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Distrusting of certain types of poetry. Author: Toby Barlow Subjects Discussed: The appeal of free verse, genre distinctions, the concern for lycanthropic physiology, Terry Pratchett, deviating from the rules in the werewolf canon, Brian Francis Slattery’s Spaceman Blues, a hyper-giddy version of the […]
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MoreCharles Baxter is most recently the author of The Soul Thief. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Vengeful towards literary ransackers. Author: Charles Baxter Subjects Discussed: Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, intellectualism and the academic community, reductionist dialogue, being a grad student in the 1970s, Baxter’s recurrent water motif, placing a novel in Buffalo, getting the setting right, […]
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MoreCharles Bock is the author of Beautiful Children. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Reconsidering the last eleven years of his life. Author: Charles Bock Subjects Discussed: Setting a novel in Vegas, writing about a city when living there vs. a more distant approach to learning about the location, Las Vegas and its suburbs as the fastest […]
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MoreAdam Langer is most recently the author of Ellington Boulevard. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Scurrying away from Duke-loving hipsters. Author: Adam Langer Subjects Discussed: Topographical narrative, characters that emerge from the environment, being a “method writer,” dialogue and perspective, the use of quotation marks, writing from the perspective of animals, dog science and memory, coincidences […]
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MoreA.L. Kennedy is most recently the author of Day. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Never mind the Bat. Hubba hubba. Author: A.L. Kennedy Subjects Discussed: The relationship between the style and the voice, active thought vs. the subconscious, accidental religious cues, whether Kennedy consciously writes difficult books, bizarre Monty Python interpretations, William Hartnell, Doctor Who, the […]
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MoreJami Attenberg is most recently the author of The Kept Man. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Seduced by the Church of Tequilology. Author: Jami Attenberg Subjects Discussed: Adam Sternbergh’s grups article, Terri Schiavo, wondering what people do all day long, the donut girls in Greenpoint, donut shops that stick on the brain, pickup artists, describing objects […]
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MoreSue Miller is most recently the author of The Senator’s Wife. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wary of Washington’s workings. Author: Sue Miller Subjects Discussed: Character names, the New Left, Tom Hayden vs. Tom Naughton, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, setting a story in the early Clinton years, Updike’s Terrorist, the reticence of older writers writing about certain […]
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MoreAmy Bloom is most recently the author of Away. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Momentarily replaced by an obnoxious sportscaster filling in. Author: Amy Bloom Subjects Discussed: Opening a novel with a protagonist immersed within the Yiddish Theater, coloring a story with tragedy vs. getting to know a character, the 57 blocks of the Lower East […]
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MoreDave White is the author of When One Man Dies. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Hostile towards Our Young, Roving Correspondent’s inability to spell “Jack Daniel’s” correctly. Author: Dave White Subjects Discussed: John Donne quotes, first names and hangovers, Billy Martin and the Yankees, war veterans, color blindness, Anthony Burgess, first-person and third-person chapters, having an […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 32:38 — 29.9MB)
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