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.
Sam Lipsyte recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #325. Mr. Lipsyte is most recently the author of The Ask. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Looking to ask someone for something. Author: Sam Lipsyte Subjects Discussed: Milo Burke as the obverse to Home Land‘s Lewis Miner (and common personality qualities), Lipsyte’s early draft of The Ask […]
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MoreMarilyn Johnson is most recently the author of This Book is Overdue! Condition of Mr. Segundo: Hoping to avoid being arrested by Rusty the Bailiff. Author: Marlyn Johnson Subjects Discussed: Why libraries are little regarded by the American public, the preservation of blogs and websites, Josh Greenberg’s efforts at digital preservation, the Firefox extension Zotero, […]
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MoreJustin Taylor is most recently the author of Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Fearful of sanguine book titles. Guest: Justin Taylor Subjects Discussed: Not naming protagonists until well into the stories, dissatisfaction with formality, how characters reveal themselves, gender confusion within “Weekend Away,” Taylor’s aversion to “bright neon signs” […]
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MoreKevin Sampsell is most recently the author of A Common Pornography. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Airing his dirty laundry. Guest: Kevin Sampsell Subjects Discussed: Maintaining an emotional spectrum within the two editions of A Common Pornography, balancing sweet material with darker installments, how the death of Sampsell’s father (and subsequent revelations) altered Sampsell’s perspective, the […]
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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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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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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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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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