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.
Brent Spiner is most recently a producer and performer on the album, Dreamland. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Ducking his head and dodging paranoid crooners. Guest: Brent Spiner Subjects Discussed: Natural reverb, conversational limitations, co-owning a recording studio with Dave Way, being a control freak, the shaky profitability of the music industry, self-distributing a CD through […]
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MoreSarah Manguso is most recently the author of The Two Kinds of Decay. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contemplating fifty-five additional states of decay. Author: Sarah Manguso Subjects Discussed: David Markson, sentences that originate in other formats, fan mail, whether a paragraph is truly a paragraph, problems with typesetting nomenclature, remembering personal moments at 1,000 words […]
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MorePaul Auster is most recently the author of Man in the Dark. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Opening himself up to explanation. Author: Paul Auster Subjects Discussed: Starting a novel from a title, the advance titles contained within The Book of Illusions, the working title of The Music of Chance, Mr. Blank, the relationship between Travels […]
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MorePeter David is most recently the author of Tigerheart. Condition of the Show: Investigating claimed nemeses of Goliath. Author: Peter David Subjects Discussed: On being prolific, producing work quickly, writing stories set in expansive universe, reacting to a universal construct, working with mythos, the Fallen Angel universe, the Star Trek: New Frontier books, Joseph Campbell […]
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MoreSenator Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria are the co-authors of A Political Odyssey. Gravel was a candidate for the 2008 U.S. presidential race. Lauria is an investigative journalist who writes for The Sunday Times. Condition of the Show: Delving into the complexities of the military industrial complex. Authors: Senator Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria. Subjects […]
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MoreSteven Greenhouse is the New York Times labor reporter and the author of The Big Squeeze. Condition of the Show: Reporting upon the darker truths of America. Author: Steven Greenhouse Subjects Discussed: Whether economic factors of the 1970s or Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous maxim caused the current strife between corporations and workers, the social contract that […]
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MoreEd Park is most recently the author of Personal Days. Condition of the Show: Plagued by brutal downsizing. Author: Ed Park Subjects Discussed: Literary people named Ed, writing Personal Days and using vacation days while employed at the Voice, counting words written per day, B.S. Johnson, Jonathan Coe’s Like a Fiery Elephant, Harry Stephen Keeler, […]
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MoreSloane Crosley is the author of I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Condition of the Show: Placing the authors and book titles under too much scrutiny. Author: Sloane Crosley Subjects Discussed: Marie Antoinette, caring about perception, Veganism, the personal essay as a series of impersonations and observations, on being perceived as “nice,” the text as […]
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MoreNew York ComicCon is a rather insane event featuring all manner of comic artists and other assorted individuals. Many thanks to Eric Rosenfield for interview assistance and his laconic pal Phil for moral support and a shoulder to cry on. 1. Mike Pellerito — In this somewhat naughty conversation, Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Managing Editor […]
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MoreElizabeth Crane is most recently the author of You Must Be This Happy to Enter. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Failing to understand why so many people are happy. Author: Elizabeth Crane Subjects Discussed: The unwarranted stigma behind the exclamation mark, what it means to be happy, zombies and reality TV, Max Brooks’s World War Z, […]
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MoreSteve Erickson is most recently the author of Zeroville. He returned to the program for a second conversation with The Bat Segundo Show #447. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Confused by floating point integers. Author: Steve Erickson Subjects Discussed: Approaching a novel with fewer fantastical elements, following the narrative laws of movies, Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, […]
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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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