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Monday, December 17, 2007

By Ben Fasman + James Hughes

NPR: Remembering Kurt Vonnegut

A world without Kurt Vonnegut? It’s what paperback readers of all ages faced on April 11, 2007. NPR’s collection of Vonnegut interviews is a reminder of how far the galaxy has gone wrong. (JH, Listen Here)

This American Life: "Act V"

This installment of This American Life focused entirely on a production of Hamlet being produced within the walls of a high-security prison in Missouri. It turns out that criminals have damn good insights about staging a play dealing largely with criminal acts. Go figure. Be prepared to be minnowed in Big Hutch's shadow. (BF, Listen Here)

NPR Sports: Frank Deford on the Chicago Cubs

In a year of sports scandals that had us longing for the Black Sox, columnist Frank Deford punctures the nationwide pursuit for redemption pinned on the playoff hopes of Lou Piniella’s Cubs, which, to the devastation of great-grandparents throughout our beloved Chicagoland area, only required the minimum three games. (JH, Listen Here)

Stones Throw Records: J Dilla Tribute

While the Stones Throw podcasts are almost always excellent, the "Thank You, J Dilla, Act 2" segment (2/4/07), masterfully mixed by veteran left coast DJ, J Rocc, is an incredible mix of some of the late, great Dilla's shining moments. (BF, Listen Here)

The Treatment: David Axelrod

Musical mastermind David Axelrod defends the origins of LA music in this interview on The Treatment, punctuated, as always, by the full-bodied laughs of host Elvis Mitchell. (JH, Listen Here)

Mad Decent Podcast

No matter how many bootleg imitators he's spawned across the country — and no matter sick we are of hearing every hipster we know name-check him like he can walk on water — Diplo is nothing if not two things: A). One of the best live DJs we've ever seen and B). A talented musician with an ear for new musical styles cropping up worldwide. Subscribe to the podcast and find out: From Afrika Islam's DJ sets to brilliant cumbia mixes, from Brazilian sound systems to James Brown, Diplo's podcast covers an impressive amount of ground, presented with an earnest respect for the music he's propping up. (BF, Listen Here)

New York Times Book Review: 10 Best Books of 2007

Before the editors appraise the 10 Best Books of 2007, Umberto Eco steals the show in an interview with Rachel Donadio, asserting there’s no difference “between the Sunday New York Times and the Pravda of the old days, because what’s the difference between too much news and not enough news?” (JH, Listen Here)


Stop Smiling: Studs Terkel & Andre Schiffrin

Maybe it's a little weird to be propping ourselves on this list, but the discussion we hosted at the Stop Smiling storefront in Chicago involving two living legends — writer / historian Studs Terkel and his publisher and friend Andre Schiffrin, founder of the New Press — was one of the best talks we heard all year. The enthusiasm Studs shows at 95, coupled with Schiffrin's intelligence, made for an inspiring night. (BF, Listen Here)

Meet the Writers: Martin Amis

Martin Amis grants an on-the-fly interview with Barnes & Noble's Meet the Writers series, offering such starched-collar banter as how to cope with “crawl away and die” book reviews, what his friend Saul Bellow would do and the need to satirize jihad. (JH, Listen Here)


Bookworm: Junot Diaz

In this edition of Bookworm — one of the most earnest, intelligent literary podcasts on the web — host Michael Silverblatt talks to Junot Diaz, author of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (which, were this a Top 10 list of my favorite books, would be at the very top). This talk, more than any other I've heard in recent years, gets to the heart of why books are so important, as well as why some awful books can produce tremendous results, how characters redeem their humanity and what that means to us in reality, and how Oscar Wao engages people beyond the simple words on the page. The interview ends with Silverblatt admitting that Diaz's final talk about learning how to read has just made him cry. (BF, Listen Here)

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago: Peter Schjeldahl

The New Yorker's head art critic comes to Chicago, talks about his love affair with 1967, the decline of poetry and the institutionalization of the art world. (BF, Listen Here)

Bad at Sports: Tony Fitzpatrick & Ruth Lopez

We've admired Tony Fitzpatrick's work and personality for years. This episode of the Chicago art podcast Bad At Sports finds Fitzpatrick and Ruth Lopez, art editor of Time Out Chicago, riffing on the state of the ever-befuddling Windy City art scene. (BF, Listen Here)

NPR: Killer of Sheep

This year, audiences discovered what had long been incubating at UCLA and the Library of Congress: Charles Burnett’s 1978 masterpiece Killer of Sheep. Here NPR traces the origins of the film, from Burnett’s dreams of replicating Renoir to teaching neighborhood kids in South Central how to record sound for his film. (JH, Listen Here)

Public Radio International: Fair Game with Faith Salie

Faith Salie is a Rhodes scholar, holds degrees from Oxford and Harvard, contributes monthly to O, The Oprah Magazine and has appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Sex and the City. She also hosts a radio show, Fair Game with Faith Salie, where she makes fun of everyone from Slash to Henry Waxman. This one sticks out for no reason other than hearing James Lipton describe himself as "mother naked" while doing a comedy bit with Dave Chappelle. It makes us laugh (and grimace) every time we think about it. (BF, Listen Here)

The Clive James Show

In his series for Slate, Australian polymath Clive James — whose book, Cultural Amnesia, was one of the year’s most unforgettable releases — sits down in an eerily infomercial-like set to conduct video bull sessions. Highlights include talks with PJ O’Rourke and Terry Gilliam. (JH)