Notebook on Cities and Culture
By Colin Marshall
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Podcast Description
(Formerly The Marketplace of Ideas.) Colin Marshall sits down for in-depth conversations with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene all around Los Angeles and beyond.
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S1E23: The Music Nerd Ghetto with Hollywood Steve Huey | Colin Marshall sits down in Barnsdall Art Park with Hollywood Steve Huey, writer and media personality, former critic at All Music Guide and host of the web series Yacht Rock. They discuss his introductions to the likes of Michael Jackson, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Barry Manilow; elements of his home state of Michigan, including Big Rapids (not to be confused with Grand Rapids), Ann Arbor, and the urban ruins and $5,000 mansions of Detroit; the All Music Guide's shaping force on his musical consciousness; the lack of a genre equivalent to Yacht Rock today thanks to marketing departments' lack of imagination; great works, like Nirvana's Nevermind, that both found genres and dissolve them; life in the music nerd ghetto within the entertainment capital of the world at the time of bewildering musical (and cinematic and televisual) bounty; acquiring the name "Hollywood Steve" through a one-off gig on Pirates of the Caribbean; how he came to appreciate Barry Manilow, an artist known to some as a byword for bad music; and why guilty pleasures — whether musical ones in the case of Barry Manilow, or urban ones in the case of Los Angeles — are better enjoyed as regular pleasures. (Photo: Sammy Primero) | 5/25/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E22: The Discerning Cosmopolitan Cartographer with Eric Brightwell | Colin Marshall sits down in Silver Lake with Eric Brightwell, proprietor of both Pendersleigh & Sons Cartography, which offers hand-drawn maps of neighborhoods in Los Angeles and beyond (and posts them to Amoeba Music's Amoeblog), and Brightwell, which offers luxury and craft items to the discerning cosmopolitan gentleman. They discuss the days when Silver Lake was Ivanhoe; the distinctively shifting and disputed nature of Los Angeles neighborhoods; the differences between neighborhood mapping by Google Maps, by Yahoo Maps, on subway station walls, and by hand; the unintended Berlin Wall effect of freeway construction; his attracting of angry, all-caps comments from the gangs of Frogtown; longtime Angelenos' lack of awareness about the neighborhoods that surround them, and their need to believe that their own has gone to the dogs; Hollywood's retailers of pimp-geared $169 three-suit deals; how an authenticity jones can ruin your experience of Los Angeles; his discovery of microsubcultures in unexpected places, and the larger fact that no one part of the city is more interesting than any other; Hitler's Pacific Palisades bunker; and the advanced art of entering a neighborhood, exploring it, and documenting it without knowing anything at all going in. (Photo: Fern) | 5/19/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E21: Connoisseur of Silence with Todd Levin | Colin Marshall sits down in Silver Lake with comedian, writer, and comedy writer Todd Levin, who's written for Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, Conan, and the Onion News Network. They discuss using comedy performers as tools; the advantages of being a cipher; deliberately bewildering the audience, listening for reactions beyond laughter, and in the process becoming a connoisseur of silence; the comparative humorous possibilities of Tetley and Bigelow tea bag package copy; the inevitable and healthy decision to stop reading internet feedback on one's work; Conan O'Brien's coxcomb of hair; New York's inherent masochism, and Los Angeles' bus stops full of people who look just about to surrender; the pleasures of New York's crosstown buses and the agonies of its garbage trains; Los Angeles' lack of an excuse for shuffling around in flip-flops; his heightened suspicion of venues that aggressively promise good times, and what aggressive promises of laughter can do to comedy; the ultimately fruitless technique of reliable joke insertion, which reveals an anxiety to hold an audience's attention and in so doing loses that attention; that particular Conan O'Brien brand of delivering silliness and lasting memories at once; and the haunting question of telling which of your actions indicate maturity, and which indicate complacency. (Photo: Lisa Whiteman) | 5/16/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E20: All the Single Ladies with Tony Pierce | Colin Marshall sits down at KPCC headquarters in Pasadena with Tony Pierce, the station's blog editor, former editor at LAist and blog editor at the Los Angeles Times, and author of the Busblog. They discuss the time when he was the only English-language blogger to ride the bus; the longing for Los Angeles that brought him out of the Chicago suburbs; his years in the collegiate Eden of Isla Vista; making like the rich young prince in the bible and selling all his stuff in order to leave San Francisco and come back to Los Angeles; beginning to blog as a way to let all the city's single ladies know he was here; his encounters with different groups of people on different transit lines, and his strategic use of the subway for drinking; how people in Los Angeles can live here for decades without ever bothering to be truly present, and how they might do that in any city in the world; his push, while editing LAist, to tap into as great a variety of voices and experiences as possible; his belief that the Busblog, despite its explosive popularity, never deserved to get known at all; the fixture of Los Angeles literary culture that is the paradoxically positive Charles Bukowski; and how, in all of the Busblog's non-fanciness, he still wants to let the ladies of the world know he's available. | 5/10/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E19: DJing the DJs with Mark "Frosty" McNeill | Colin Marshall sits down in an undisclosed Hollywood-ish location with Mark "Frosty" McNeill, co-founder and creative captain of the internet radio "future roots music" collective Dublab. They discuss founding an internet radio station in 1999, when everything sounded like a tin-can phone; the nature of future roots, where the very old meets the very new, the very traditional meets the very experimental, and everything sounds different yet retains a common undercurrent; Dublab's mission to curate the curators, or "DJ the DJs"; his theory that all art is derivative, especially all music, but in a good way; his days doing gruntwork at USC's classical station, and the roomful of free John Cage, Terry Riley, and Nonesuch albums it afforded him; Dublab's early courtship by the companies of the internet bubble, and the free lunches (and nothing else) this offered; Los Angeles' great advantages of diversity and space, of both the physical and mental varieties; what about music seems to incentivize narrow rather than wide appreciation, and how to get around that without being a pusher man; Secondhand Sureshots, the short documentary he co-directed, and what it says about the importance of repurposing forgotten and obscure sounds; whether and how the dust on a record acts as "seasoning"; and the joy of reconstructing someone's personality by buying their record collection at a thrift store — and how he did just that by giving it a spin on his show Celsius Drop. | 5/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E18: Historic Détente with Andy Bowers | Colin Marshall sits down at NPR West in Culver City with Andy Bowers, Executive Producer of Slate's podcasts and fourth-generation Angeleno. They discuss his status as a "secret Angeleno"; what it takes to introduce microphones into entertaining conversations without things getting tiresome; the difference between podcasts as podcasts and podcasts as imitation radio; discovering the joy of biking in Los Angeles; the city's troubled downtown bike lanes and what they emblematize about local civic projects; what problems arise when you try to get anything accomplished in a city with 88 distinct municipalities; Roger Rabbit, Chinatown, and the allure of mythical Los Angeles malice; whether or not you can really move into a Woody Allen movie; his youth in Los Angeles and his return which converted the city from an adolescent one into an adult one; the various placements and interpretations of Los Angeles' great east-west divide; his time at National Public Radio bureaus in London and Moscow, and the accessibility of those cities' cultural institutions; his time producing Day to Day, and the loss of public radio's old eclecticism; podcasting as radio's skunkworks, especially in this podcasting Mecca of southern California; podcast listeners connecting with hosts even more than with content; and why Stephen Metcalf stirs so many people up, anyway. (Photo: Steve McFarland) | 4/30/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E17: Food, Film, and Frugality with 99-Cent Chef Billy Vasquez | Colin Marshall takes a trip to the 99¢ Only Store and beyond with Billy Vasquez, better known as the 99 Cent Chef. They discuss the store as a prime venue for peoplewatching (whether the people dress in their Sunday best or in pink-striped miniskirts); the appeal of midcentury Googie diner architecture; how he drove out to Venice Beach on the 10 and stayed in Los Angeles for 37 years; the meaty usefulness of both chorizo and soyrizo; asparagus, a product you'd never have found at any 99-cent store a decade ago; 99-cent Italian beer with 99-cent Italian pasta, and 99-cent German beer with 99-cent German chocolate cake-coated marshmallows; ingredient substitution (like cumin for curry powder) as the essential skill of the 99-cent gourmand; the strange allure of Vienna Sausage corn dogs; inventing the only pasta that pays tribute to John Cassavetes; the suicidal possibilities of marshmallow ropes; the delicious possibilities of portobello crab rockefeller; the Banquet-to-Contessa spectrum of frozen dinners; the two-piece 99-cent deal to be had every Tuesday at Popeyes'; the Los Angeles Expo Line as a glorious passageway to places like Earlez Grille, Let's Be Frank, and Chef Marilyn's Soul Food Express, and his adventures at cheap eateries on rail lines past; how his Cajun heritage taught him, with nutria and crayfish, that you can eat anything; his street photography, and the Restaurant Nocturnes video series that came out of it; and all of the fascinating contradictions of Los Angeles, a city both beautiful and tarnished, that just might disappear if you don't water it. | 4/24/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E16: Cavalcade of Marvels with Michael Silverblatt | Colin Marshall sits down in West Hollywood with Michael Silverblatt, host of the literary interview program Bookworm from KCRW in Santa Monica since 1989. They discuss how he's managed to host a book show for so long "in Los Angeles, of all places;" the near-racist tradition of New York writers savaging Los Angeles in the thirties and forties; introducing the likes of Edward St. Aubyn to Angelenos and others well beyond; radio as a dreamlike "mad tea party," whether dreamt in one's car or at one's computer; the band Sparks as American humorists, the writes Krys Lee as an exponent of ethnic writing as both exotic and erotic, and how to recommend both without resorting to anything so uninteresting as opinion; being not a critic, and not a fan, but an omnivorous conversationalist; the lamentable rise of "patented hip taste;" how Terence Malick's Badlands drew him out to Los Angeles from the East Coast; the Angeleno phobia of cultural confrontation; Los Angeles' failure to insist upon or preserve its genius; not driving because you never learned versus not driving because you don't know how to get the money for a car; America as a "cavalcade of marvels;" and the importance of accepting and existing the confusion of an ungraspable whole, whether its the whole of a book, of a film, of an album, or of Los Angeles. | 4/17/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E15: Your Own Pimp and Your Own W***e with Molly McAleer | Colin Marshall walks through Larchmont with Molly McAleer, co-founder of HelloGiggles and writer for CBS' Two Broke Girls. They discuss the definition of internet fame, especially when one's internet debut comes in a photo funneling a beer; whether moving to Los Angeles after graduating from the disappointingly party-free Boston College counts as a betrayal of Boston; her avoidance of the label "humorist," and thus any association with Mark Twain; her time at Defamer, which gave her a "magical" view of Los Angeles, and what she'd say to those who accuse it and every other Gawker site of hastening the decline of western civilization; joining Two Broke Girls at the height of the Whitney Cummings boom; Koreatown, her point of entry into Los Angeles after having lived in a frat house with 32 dudes; aging a thousand years after spending six in Los Angeles; how much of a discount on nail polish counts as a deep discount on nail polish; her struggle to be as popular with her friends as her mom; the resurgence of press-on nails; experiencing utter brokeness in Los Angeles, and getting banned from using Google ads when those friends tried to help her out; cookies aside, the reduced presence of the Girl Scouts, except in cases of high-profile transsexual trouble; her resistance to driving, and her feeling that some people are meant to drive, while others are meant to be driven; the basic tasks of life that somehow never get taught; manicures as the last bastion of personal maintenance; and how hard it is to avoid humblebragging when The Wonder Years' Fred Savage directs your script. | 4/11/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E14: Fathers Chosen and Unchosen with Pico Iyer | Colin Marshall sits down in downtown Los Angeles with Pico Iyer, writer about place — both our dreams of it and its realities. They discuss his new book The Man Within My Head; how best to introduce Graham Greene's The Quiet American to new readers; how he started a book on being a pleasantly bewildered foreigner in Japan and finished a book about Greene, brush fires, and his own father; the roles of fathers both chosen and unchosen; the ultimate unknowability of other people, and the form of intimacy found in accepting that not-knowing; graduating from school into a British Empire twenty years dead; his Fowlerian perspective to Los Angeles' Pyle; England under the burden of too much past, California under the burden of too little, and his inoculation against the excesses of both by having oscillated between them; his return to England in the form of Japan; how Los Angeles anthologizes the world within itself versus how Japan does, and how Los Angeles handles its multiculturalism versus how Toronto does; his distrust of words, and Greene's distrust of everything but words; his father's interaction with the children of the 1960s' Californian counterculture, and Hunter S. Thompson chronicling the collapse of that culture while seeing idealism without ideology; living friends as traveling companions versus dead authors as traveling companions; and Greene as, at once, his predictor, reflector, guide, understander, and anticipator. (Photo: Derek Shapton) | 4/4/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E13: The Trash Compactor of Reality with Scott Jacobson | Colin Marshall sits down in Atwater Village with comedy writer and music video director Scott Jacobson, who has written for programs like The Daily Show, Squidbillies, and Bob's Burgers, and made videos for artists like Nick Lowe, Superchunk, and The National. They discuss the comedic style of George Herriman's Krazy Kat and whether a place exists for it today; expectations, the enemy of comedy; what it means that the likes of Adult Swim and Tim & Eric can thrive in today's world, or if they indeed thrive in it; The Daily Show's rise alongside George W. Bush's, and the trickiness of presenting its voice as the voice of reason; the feeling of finally getting a foothold in New York, and the sense of personal failing that comes from not loving it; whether anyone else misses the obscure cruelty of Craig Kilborn's Daily Show; the "journalistic vamp" and other news filler, up to and including Glenn Beck's moment of popularity; the "trash compactor of reality" that is political coverage, and the solace offered by a Squidbillies or a Bob's Burgers; his childhood love of the divisive Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist; the way critical opinion eventually came to elevate Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck Comics, and the joy of bringing something in "low art," like Hospitality's "Friends of Friends," to the public's attention; using ridiculous contexts to smuggle genuine content; New York's manic energy that insistently pushes you forward; and the phenomenon of "really smart people doing really stupid things" that, championed by the David Lettermans and Conan O'Briens of the world, has risen to prominence in modern comedy. | 3/30/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E12: We Care About Everyone with William Flesch | Colin Marshall sits down in Westwood with William Flesch, professor at Brandeis University and author of Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction. They discuss José Saramago's way with obscure Biblical episodes; literary Darwinism and its discontents; why and how we get concerned with what happens to fictional characters at all; the difference between stories we care about versus stories we don't; how we recommend books, films, and shows to friends, thus caring about how they care about how characters care about one another; Michael Haneke's scary Funny Games viewed with an audience and Michael Haneke's ludicrous Funny Games viewed at home; what's so great about Wittgenstein; the trade-off between humanizing and monsterizing your viliains, as with Hitler in Max and The Boys from Brazil; the perfect biological pitching of Onion's 9/11 headline "Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell"; what makes the 19th-century novels of George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, and William Makepeace Thackeray so gripping; our desire to feel we've misjudged characters; Buffy, Angel, and our bets about liking them; and characterization and reversion to type all the way from Shylock to Stewie Griffin. Download the interview from Notebook on Cities and Culture’s feed here or on iTunes here. | 3/26/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E11: How Serious Are You? with Megan Ganz | Colin Marshall sits down in Larchmont with comedy writer Megan Ganz, who's written for the Onion and Important Things with Demetri Martin, and now writes for NBC's Community. They talk about easing her transition from New York to Los Angeles with the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink; Los Angeles as an unfurnished apartment to New York as a furnished one; her fond memories of aimless subway trips; what we don't know about growing up in Michigan, especially regarding the preparation of vegetables and local pride in Tim Allen; the Onion as something to aspire to in adolescence; the best comedy's tendency to happen naturally, without being in on its own jokes; what one would get wrong by assuming Community, the "show that can get away with anything," represents a model of sitcoms today; her use of the voices of various characters and institutions rather than he own; the comedy gold to be mined from misalignments between tone and content; community college-going as a hobby; and the lingering question that hangs over certain people, places, and operations: "How serious are you?" | 3/22/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E10: A Roomful of Strangers with Wade Major | Colin Marshall sits down in Santa Monica with Wade Major, senior film critic at Boxoffice, co-host of IGN's Digigods, and regular participant on KPCC's Filmweek. They discuss what Sucker Punch represents the coagulation of; whether it is a greater crime for Zack Snyder to make Zack Snyder movies sincerely, or for Zack Snyder to make Zack Snyder movies cynically; the importance of spontaneity, not formula, to creative business; the simultaneous democratization of criticism and of filmmaking itself; the world he emerged out of film school into; his father's career in silent pictures; the philosophical differences between the film schools at USC, UCLA, and CalArts; the possibilities of a new business model for criticism meant to be read after seeing the movie; Pauline Kael's conception of criticism as a means of keeping filmmakers honest; bigtime directors' assumptions that they can't make films about their real passions; The Artist as it taps into both filmmakers' and critics' fears of getting left behind; how without taste, you've lost; feeding off the energy of a roomful of strangers in actual theatrical screenings, and learning something about yourself at the same time; the "dysfunctional family" that is the Los Angeles Film Critics Association; the critic's mandate to move film into a larger cultural context; and the director's mandate to get out into the world and live before ever shooting a frame. (Photo: Kristi Lake) | 3/18/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E9: Suggested User with Alison Agosti | Colin Marshall sits down in Los Feliz with comedy writer, baseball reporter, and Twitter "suggested user" Alison Agosti. They discuss the preferred pronunciation of "Los Feliz"; Rancho Cucamonga's chief industry of teenage pregnancy; how Los Angeles looked while she was growing up in the Inland Empire; the promise of New York as a land of letters, art, and coats; her mass childhood purchase of used Woody Allen tapes, including but not limited to Husbands and Wives; the morning she woke up to 1500 e-mails from Twitter in her inbox; her realization that comedy writing could count as a job; what it takes to get on a Maude team; her struggle to coming up with new ways to write "hit the ball" or to present a narrative in a 2-1 game against the Diamondbacks; her music blog Headphones In; finding humor in the complicated, as unworkable as it can end up in a sketch; raking in the Twitter stars by mentioning eating something weird by yourself; her weariness of apologizing for Los Angeles, a city that doesn't work against you except when you can't find parking; Venice, either the "weirder" or "non-s****y" Santa Monica; how we only children who refuse to network or compete can explain ourselves to actual grown-ups; the appeal of the intelligent, loud, brilliant but unself-aware Woody Allen-type character; what she likes to satirize in herself; playing (but not beating) Ecco the Dolphin on the Sega Genesis; and "the woman-in comedy thing," which turns out not to be a thing at all. (Photo: Philip Eierund) | 3/14/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E8: Can We Talk About Driving? with John Rabe | Colin Marshall sits down in the Los Angeles Central Library's courtyard with John Rabe, host of Off-Ramp, KPCC's weekend pointillist portrait of Southern California. They discuss the merits of recording in a library courtyard and in Cheech Marin's house in Malibu; picking a road in Los Angeles and following it wherever it goes; the troubled history of Cypress Park and the truth about the Isabel Street shooting; the Los Angeles "churn" and the effect of constant neighborhood change on the historical consciousness; the historical bounty to be found in the Los Angeles Public Library's photo collection; the city's rising optimism and falling crime (and its lack of a mob); the McMartin preschool trial; his desire to live in a place with the word "gardens" in its name; his tendency to look ahead, not back, and to move randomly, not in patterns, and how that shapes Off-Ramp's character; his anger at drivers who slow down on the freeway with their brakes; his plan to banish citizens who break the social contract and institute a Waste and Fraud Corruption Lottery to give money to the rest; the lessons of Carmageddon; what makes radio documentaries sustain; and how, if you want to create radio, you should just break out your iPhone (or whatever you have) and record something. (Photo: Karl Rabe) | 3/9/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E7: Geographical Verisimilitude with David Bax | Colin Marshall sits down in North Hollywood with film and television critic David Bax, co-host of the podcasts Battleship Pretension and Previously On. They discuss his fifth-grade shoving match over Ghostbusters; the difference between criticism and the assertion of one's opinions; being a film and television critic while living right near the heart of film and television production; Chicago's advantages as a filmgoing city, including but not limited to the Gene Siskel Film Center; discovering a cinephile community on the bus; St. Louis and other cities' loss of local critics writing with local sensibilities; whether the aspiring critic must first reject working in production; the sharpening of his critical perspectives on formalism and structuralism as revealed by Michael Mann's Public Enemies; if a critic should tell an audience why they like a film, why the audience should like a film, why the audience should pay attention to a film, or simply how a film works; why the internet offers a superior medium for television criticism; what television can do that film can't, and why to watch them differently; whether television shows labor under a corrupting business model; Treme, New Orleans and geographical verisimilitude; the askew real-placeness of many Los Angeles productions; the outdated marketing of television as evidenced by the Whitney billboards that once littered town; how and why to avoid approaching art as commodity; what he would say to those who who don't consider criticism a "real job" (and how he would agree with them); and the necessity of discussing film and television as if for posterity, just as a program like The Sopranos seems to have been created for it. (Photo: Jenny Smith) | 3/6/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E6: Discernment with Tyler Smith | Colin Marshall sits down in North Hollywood at midnight with film critic Tyler Smith, co-host of the podcast Battleship Pretension and host of the podcast More than One Lesson. They discuss the strong associations between diners late at night and talk about movies; his struggle to stay in Chicago and ultimate move to Los Angeles; his choice between screenwriting and film criticism; film criticism's relationship with the kinds of conversations film geeks have; the impulse to start a podcast, and what it took to understand what makes a fascinating film discussion; how to talk to comedians about film, even if they claim not to care about the medium; his return to his old church in Nixa, Missouri to give a lecture about the film industry in Los Angeles; the concept of discernment not just in criticism, but in Christianity; the power and influence some Christian ideas about film ascribe purely to content; Fight Club and the attitude pictures hold to their own content; whether film reflects the personality of its creators or possesses one of its own; and how much one wants to get to know the personality behind a film when that personality happens to be, say, Orson Welles'. | 3/2/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E5: The City in 2D with Glen Creason | Colin Marshall sits down at the Los Angeles Central Library downtown with Map Librarian Glen Creason, author of Los Angeles in Maps. They discuss the point at which Los Angeles becomes not just a place to live but a subject; riding the old Pacific Electric streetcars that prompted the city to grow so large in the firs place; using maps to see the influence of trains, water, the movies, and oil on the city's spread, growing up in the "Leave it to Beaver territory" of South Gate; early Los Angeles-boosters selling the city by employing mapmakers' sleight of hand; downtown's death in the sixties and seventies, and its more recent revival; learning little but having a lot of fun at UCLA during the Summer of Love; when the city "took a breath and reinvented itself," Los Angeles' uniquely dramatic geographical setting; how multiculturalism took hold from the very beginning; what it took to build the Third Street Tunnel; how miracles of civic engineering turned into freeway frustration; the non-disaster of "Carmageddon"; where the water in the Los Angeles River went, and how it remains useful as a navigational aid; the American notion of creating an Eden; whether Los Angeles is, as the posters say, "a world in itself"; former Italian and German communities, and current Indian and Chinese ones; the city's surprising new walkability; whether the "driver's paradise" days of twenty minutes to everywhere really happened at all; becoming the Map Librarian serendipitously; Los Angeles' past of rabbits, gambling ships, and Central Avenue jazz clubs; what happened in Chavez Ravine; how good intentions in Los Angeles' development have often led to reconsideration; how even longtime Angelenos learn from the ways the constant influx of new Angelenos approach the city; and the endless last rites given to Los Angeles that it never quite needs. | 2/28/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E4: Chitlin' Circuit with Eliza Skinner | Colin Marshall sits down at Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood with Eliza Skinner, comedian, musical improviser, comedic rap-battle impresario, writer, and the woman of the one-woman show Eliza Skinner is Shameless. They discuss a Scotsman who left his wife possibly due and possibly not due to what he felt in her onstage spirit; the one-way intimacy of performance; the proper cultivation of one's personal brand; the odd confluence of skills required for the non-career (absent an eccentric billionaire) of musical improvisation, and the fear some have of practicing them; when New York felt like one big "last call"; the apparent ease of performing in Los Angeles as a buoy for the spirit; breaking the shackles of "musical improviser" as an identity; the women of Shameless like Amy and Karen, who compulsively complicate their lives in ways they don't understand; matching mother-daughter breast implants; the lack of female characters who are lovable yet not likable; the fact that nobody, given that everyone plays the hero in their own story, thinks of themselves as an a*****e; the fears of being misunderstood, of foxholes, and of getting stuck in underwater tubes; Tyler Perry, who honed his craft on the theatrical "chitlin' circuit," as the ideal career model; the logistical requirements of setting up freestyle rap battles; and what it takes for RuPaul to deem you "shelarious." (Photo: Tyler Ross) | 2/23/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E3: Family-Guyization with Jordan Morris | Colin Marshall sits down at Fat Dog in West Hollywood with comedian and actor Jordan Morris, co-host of the comedy podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go!, writer on the web series MyMusic, former host of Fuel TV's The Daily Habit, and creator of satirical commercials for "Gamewave" and the "Action Circle." They talk about growing up in Orange County with the solace of ska music; The Simpsons' un-overstatable influence on the current generation of young comedy writers; whether and how "Family-Guyization" is affecting comedic culture; the usefulness of college as "a place to be bad for a while"; how those who move to Los Angeles from other major cities have gone blind to their hometowns' sources of suckiness; the prohibitive cost of a bedazzled T-shirt; what kind of a golden calf Conan O'Brien's show represents for today's comedic minds; "gab podcasts" and the rapidly diminishing viability thereof; the temptation to pander to your audience, whichever audience your medium determines you have; whether working at an "action sports" channel made for a living hell; how and why fifteen-year-olds maintain their alienness to non-fifteen-year-olds; and how best to satirize the troubled relationship some hardcore gamers have with human sexuality. (Photo: Pat Weir) | 2/21/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E2: "Graduate Education" with David L. Ulin | Colin Marshall sits down at the La Brea Tar Pits with David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times book critic, editor of the anthologies Writing Los Angeles, Another City, and Cape Cod Noir, and author of The Myth of Solid Ground, The Lost Art of Reading, and the upcoming novella Labyrinth. They talk about his attitude as a young New Yorker moving to Los Angeles; his approach to everything in life through the filter of books; his "graduate education" writing for the mythologized oasis of writerly cool that was the Los Angeles Reader; the importance of competition in print journalism; criticism as the search for the most important questions; how to talk about a city that doesn't know how to talk about itself; how to have a coherent conversation about a city that resists coherent conversation; the "sacred ordinariness" of Los Angeles; how literature of exile became literature of place; ersatz public and protected pseudo-urban space; whether the city will feel the same ten years from now; whether we'll still have what architectural critic Reyner Banham described as an "autopia" ten years from now; how narrative offers our only hope of meaning, yet only offers meaning up to a point; and what happens when our narratives go bad, assuming we notice. (Photo: Noah Ulin) | 2/17/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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S1E1: Shinin' with DC Pierson | Colin Marshall sits down in Hollywood with comedian, actor, and novelist DC Pierson, man behind the one-man show DC Pierson is Bad at Girls, one-third of the Mystery Team of Mystery Team, and the author of The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To. They talk about innate, unchanging age; teenage blogging; Daria; the compulsion to read criticism; moving to Los Angeles from New York; avoiding falling into the standard complaint-driven narratives of young New York writers who move to Los Angeles; whether and how Los Angeles is shinin'; the mysteries surrounding how many Hollywood residents earn their income; building things rather than tearing things down; becoming the butt of your own jokes; blogging one's first hundred days in Los Angeles; and the inherent criminality of existing in one's twenties. (Photo: Zac Wolf) | 2/13/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Fifth preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture | A fifth brief preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture, the new in-depth, face-to-face interview show with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene coming February 2012. | 2/2/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Fourth preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture (Kickstarter fund drive going on now!) | A fourth brief preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture, the new in-depth, face-to-face interview show with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene coming February 2012 — after a Kickstarter fund drive going on now. For each $250 raised over the funding goal, the first season will have an additional episode produced | 1/30/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Third preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture | A third brief preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture, the new in-depth, face-to-face interview show with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene coming February 2012 — after a Kickstarter fund drive beginning January 26. | 1/25/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Second preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture | A second brief preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture, the new in-depth, face-to-face interview show with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene coming February 2012 — after a Kickstarter fund drive beginning January 26. | 1/19/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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First preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture | A brief preview of Notebook on Cities and Culture, the new in-depth, face-to-face interview show with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene coming February 2012. (With maybe a Kickstarter funding campaign beforehand. I don't know yet.) | 1/16/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Hello 2012, goodbye Marketplace of Ideas | Colin Marshall makes an announcement on the end of The Marketplace of the Ideas and the future of cutural conversation of the depth you demand. | 1/11/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Sound, food, performance, Japan, and the world city: multi-disciplinary artist Alan Nakagawa | Colin Marshall talks to Alan Nakagawa; sound artist; visual artist; installation artist; founding member of Los Angeles' long-running, multi-disciplinary, multi-ethnic, soon-to-be-dissolved arts collective Collage Ensemble; director of the experimental music Ear Meal webcast; L.A. Metro public art executive; member of Otonomiyaki, the Southern California Soundscape Ensemble and Ear Diorama Ear; and very serious eater indeed. | 12/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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In Mexico City with David Lida | Recorded on location in Mexico City, Colin Marshall talks to David Lida, author of First Stop in the New World, Las llaves de la ciudad, Travel Advisory: Stories of Mexico, and the blog Mostly Mexico City. A native New Yorker, Lida moved to Mexico City in 1990 — a year considered by many to have been the megalopolis' absolute nadir in terms of crime, crowding, and pollution — and hasn't looked back, becoming the best-known English-language chronicler of el Distrito Federal in the 21st century. | 11/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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To come to terms in L.A.: Slake founding editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly | Colin Marshall talks to Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, founding editors of the new Los Angeles literary journal Slake. The magazine, which has just released its third issue, combines fiction, poetry, essays, reportage, photography, and several different kinds of visual art into a regular exploration of Los Angeles from every angle — and an exploration of the rest of the world from a Los Angeles angle. | 11/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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When Cold War cinema began: film critic J. Hoberman | Colin Marshall talks to J. Hoberman, senior film critic at The Village Voice and author of books on such cinematic subjects as 8mm and Super 8 pictures, Dennis Hopper, the 1960s, midnight movies, and Yiddish tradition. In his latest title, An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War, he examines the American decade from 1946 to 1956, a time of "cavalry Westerns, apocalyptic sci-fi flicks, and biblical spectaculars, atomic tests on live TV, God talks on the radio, and Joe McCarthy bracketed with Marilyn Monroe." | 10/14/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Who is César Aira?: translators Chris Andrews, Katherine Silver, and Rosalie Knecht | Colin Marshall talks to Chris Andrews, Katherine Silver, and Rosalie Knecht, English translators of the Argentine novelist César Aira, whom some readers in the Anglosphere are now finding as exciting as Borges. Despite having published over fifty books since 1975, Aira has only recently broken into English with novels such as An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, How I Became a Nun, Ghosts, The Literary Conference, and the new The Seamstress and the Wind that showcase his ability to balance the fine-grained observational detail of with outlandish fantasy and the methodical work habits and genre sensibilities of a mainstream author with the experimentalism and caprice of the avant-garde. | 9/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Black dog, disgust, or watery house: Peter Toohey, scholar of boredom | Colin Marshall talks to Peter Toohey, professor of Greek and Roman studies at the University of Calgary and author of Boredom: a Lively History. You don't need to keep your finger on the pulse of the contemporary scene to realize how important a subject boredom has become. We've all felt the emotion often — or at least we all think we feel it often. But we've also long felt the absence of a serious exploration of boredom, one that drills down to its true nature. Could Toohey have explained what we're experiencing when we experience boredom and why? | 9/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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To Japan by cow: Nick "Momus" Currie, musician, writer, and artist | Colin Marshall talks to musician, writer, and artist Nick Currie, also known as Momus. Having recently relocated from Berlin to Osaka, he returns to the program to discuss his brand new book Solution 214-238: The Book of Japans. The novel follows up his previous book Solution 11-167: The Book of Scotlands with a similarly humorous exercise in social geography but one within a richer narrative framework — a narrative framework that pits twelve Japan "experts" against twelve Japan "idiots" — dealing with issues of imagination versus experience, monoculture versus diversity, and foreign versus future. | 8/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The world dreamed but not judged: traveler and writer Pico Iyer | Colin Marshall talks to essayist, novelist, traveler, and "global soul" Pico Iyer. Since Video Night in Kathmandu, his journey through the rapidly changing Asia of the mid-1980s, Iyer has told us all about what it feels like and what it means to exist in and pass through places from Atlanta to Kyoto to Asunción to Pyongyang. Having been born to an Indian family and grown up equally between England and Santa Barbara, California, he both embodies and tirelessly describes the hybridized, cross-pollinated, geographically conversational world culture in which we all find ourselves. | 8/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The surreal life of Mexico City: bilingual bicultural binational journalist Daniel Hernandez | Colin Marshall talks to Daniel Hernandez, bilingual bicultural binational journalist, blogger at Intersections, and author of Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the 21st Century. In 2007, the Mexican-American Hernandez moved to Mexico City to explore its spirit of adventure, its multitude of youthful subcultures, its undercurrent of chaos, and its sheer day-to-day surrealism. His first book collects pieces on Mexico City subjects as far-ranging as fashion parties, kidnappings, original punk rock, death, cellphone-thieving transsexuals, a particularly intense native sauna, and the "emo riots" of 2008. | 8/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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We have ham radios: Merlin Mann on media, fear, and caring about what you make | Colin Marshall talks to Merlin Mann, thinker, writer, and speaker on time, attention, and creative work. Following up on his June 2009 visit, he's back on the show to talk about a great many things, not least his new podcast Back to Work with Dan Benjamin, a program about productivity, communication, barriers, constraints, tools — and, nearly always, fear. The conversation also ventures into other, unusually personal topics, including dealing with entrepreneurs, trying not to hate the internet, and having one hundred dollars in the bank. | 7/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Trial, error, and economics: Tim Harford, Undercover Economist | Colin Marshall talks to Tim Harford, also known as the Undercover Economist. He wrote the book of the same name as well as The Logic of Life and now Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure. In this latest book, Harford examines the value of numerous small-scale experiments — numerous enough to try many different things, and small-scale enough to fail without serious consequence — in business, technology, medicine, finance, climate change, and even his own life and career. | 7/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The modern decorative hermit: novelist Steve Himmer | Colin Marshall talks to Steve Himmer, editor of the webjournal Necessary Fiction and author of the novel The Bee-Loud Glade, wherein an eccentric millionaire named Crane picks Finch, a former corporate blogger, out of a rapidly deepening post-firing squalor. Finch finds himself in a very particular future on Crane's intricately landscaped grounds: employed as a decorative hermit, he must do little more than eat, sleep, meditate, and accomplish occasional (if sometimes inexplicable) Crane-assigned tasks. As it turns out, this suit's Finch's sensibilities just fine, even when Crane's corporate empire begins to crumble. | 7/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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A dozen years of particularly gripping cinema: film critic Dave Kehr | Colin Marshall talks to Dave Kehr, former film critic at the Chicago Reader and Chicago Tribune and current DVD columnist for the New York Times. In his first collection, When Movies Mattered: Reviews from a Transformative Decade, he brings together his writings on some of the finest films and filmmakers of the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, including Jean-Luc Godard, Manoel de Oliveira, Blake Edwards, and Albert Brooks. | 6/28/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The literary in-between: translator Susan Bernofsky | Colin Marshall talks to Susan Bernofsky, author, scholar, and translator of such German-language writers as the Swiss Robert Walser, the Japanese Yoko Tawada, and the German Jenny Erpenbeck. New Directions recently released a strong lot of Bernofsky-translated books from Walser, including the novels The Assistant and The Tanners, as well as Microscripts, a collection of short, hard-to-categorize works originally written in a one- to two-millimeter-high pencil script of Walser's own devising. | 6/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Portland noir: filmmaker Aaron Katz | Colin Marshall talks to Aaron Katz, director of such films as Dance Party USA, Quiet City, and the new Cold Weather. Continuing his established tradition of examining the sphere of urban twentysomethings who aren't quite sure how their lives got to this point or where they're going next with a strikingly aestheticizing gaze, Katz incorporates a near-Sherlock Holmesian plot into his latest film. His central characters, a Portland ice-factory worker, his DJ buddy, and his sister, find themselves embroiled in a forbiddingly seedy mystery when a girl goes missing and it falls to them to find her. | 6/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Boredom, the vital subject of our time: novelist Lee Rourke | Colin Marshall talks to Lee Rourke, literary critic, contributing editor at 3:AM Magazine, and author of the story collection Everyday and the novel The Canal, winner of the Guardian's 2010 Not the Booker Prize. A book ostensibly about boredom, The Canal also illustrates, within a brief span of literary time, how boredom isn't really boring — or even how boredom isn't really boredom as we usually conveive of it when we actually sit down and face it, as does the book's protagonist, who one day walks out of his office job and never walks back. | 6/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Literary auteurhood: Geoff Dyer, writer and intellectual gatecrasher | Colin Marshall talks to Geoff Dyer, the "intellectual gatecrasher" who has written, in addition to several novels, books on photography, World War I, jazz, John Berger, travel, and D.H. Lawrence. His essays turn out to cover an even wider span of subjects than his books, and his latest collection Otherwise Known as the Human Condition includes pieces on Susan Sontag, Def Leppard, Ian McEwan, avoiding real jobs, Richard Avedon, Editions of Contemporary Music, W.G. Sebald, growing up an only child, and the search for the perfect donut and cappuccino. | 5/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Michel de Montaigne's examined life, re-examined | Colin Marshall talks to Sarah Bakewell, author of biographies on Jorgen Jorgenson, Margaret Caroline Rudd, and, most recently, the 16th-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne. How to Live, or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer examines the life of a man whose life you'd have thought was already pretty damned well examined. More remains to learn, it turns out, even after Montaigne himself wrote three volumes of personal essays which have attained over 400 years of success and counting. Bakewell finds a man who, despite revealing no end of personal detail and disclosing no end of his own opinions, paraxodically becomes near-universally relatable to the reading public across the world and through time. Yet could he have achieved this not in spite of his essays' specificity, but because of it? | 5/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You got arthouse film in my experimental literature!: novelist Jeffrey Deshell | Colin Marshall talks to Jeffrey DeShell, associate professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder and author of Arthouse, a novel that takes the form, structure, and aesthetic of each of its chapters from famous films like Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, Bela Tarr's Satantango, Arthur Ripley's Branded to Kill, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, and Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt. DeShell's protagonist, a "failed fortysomething film studies academic," lives through a story among the meth-dealing toughs of Pueblo, Colorado that pulls him through not the events, not the settings, but the very substance of the cinematic art of these and other classics of the "arthouse" theater. | 5/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The original king of conversation: David Susskind biographer Stephen Battaglio | Colin Marshall talks to Stephen Battaglio, business editor at TV Guide magazine and author of David Susskind: A Televised Life, the first biography of the pioneering talk show host and producer of both television and film. With his firm Talent Associates Ltd., Susskind made his name with live shows like East Side/West Side, movies like Raisin in the Sun, and theater productions for television like Death of a Salesman. All throughout The David Susskind Show's near-thirty-year tun, Susskind engaged in relaxed, incisive, long-form conversation with a vast array of luminaries from business, politics, entertainment, and the arts, virtually creating the evening television talk show form as audiences knew it at its peak. | 4/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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David Markson is not a tragedy: Françoise Palleau-Papin studies an uncompromising novelist | Colin Marshall talks to Françoise Palleau-Papin, teacher of American literature at the Sorbonne Nouvelle and author of This is Not a Tragedy: The Works of David Markson. The book comes as the first study of its length of all of the late Markson's novels, a body of work which includes such early detective "entertainments" as Epitaph for a Tramp and Miss Doll, Go Home, such intermediate and comparatively traditional yet still exuberantly inventive books as Going Down and Springer's Progress, and the final five novels for which readers know him best. Running from Wittgenstein's Mistress to The Last Novel, these brief but deep excursions into isolated creative minds showcased Markson's unmatched skills at shaping facts and ideas from art, philosophy, literature, and history into narratives like no other writer has ever written. | 4/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Gape into the void: cartoonist and entrepreneur Hugh MacLeod | Colin Marshall talks to cartoonist and entrepreneur Hugh MacLeod. At Gapingvoid.com, MacLeod showcases his business card-sized works of art that strike several particularly tricky balances at once: between light and dark, between abstraction and representation, and between inspirational optimism and stark, abyss-gazing confrontation with the human condition. His cartoons have thus gained a following with not only artists, but marketers, entrepreneurs, job-haters, and many more variants of humanity besides. In his latest book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination, MacLeod combines cartoons with writing on subjects like giving artistic gifts, ditching your unsatisfactory life, waking others up, and getting woken up. | 4/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The quest for seriousness, trammeled by idiocy: philosopher-novelist Lars Iyer | Colin Marshall talks to novelist and philosopher Lars Iyer, author the blog Spurious and the new novel Spurious. In both the blog and the book, the philosophers Lars and W. discuss their favorite artists and writers — Franz Kafka, Andrei Tarkovsky, Maurice Blanchot, Béla Tarr — and what they see as their own pathetic inability to live up to their collective example. As Lars deals with a dampness problem ever encroaching on his apartment, W. berates him with a seemingly endless series of insults that takes friendly verbal abuse to a high art form. | 3/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Toro y Moi y moi: Chaz Bundick's experimental pop | Colin Marshall talks to Chaz Bundick, founding member and frontman of the experimental pop project Toro y Moi. Last year, Bundick introduced Toro y Moi to the world with the electronic, relatively sample-heavy solo album Causers of This. Now he darts all the way across the spectrum of the project's sound with Underneath the Pine, a record influenced by late-seventies R&B, film scores, and the unexpected purchase of a bargain-priced Fender Rhodes. | 3/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The reader's best time ever: The Millions founding editor C. Max Magee | Colin Marshall talks to C. Max Magee, founding editor of literary web magazine The Millions. With Jeff Martin, he’s co-edited The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, a collection of essays from such luminaries as Ander Monson, Reif Larsen, Michael Paul Mason, Jonathan Lethem, and David Gates about the next iteration of their medium, what the reading audience of today best engages with, and the relationship between the ever-evolving industrial capacity of text distribution and the artistic forms to which it gives rise. | 3/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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In search of lost modernism: novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici | Colin Marshall talks to Gabriel Josipovici, author of many novels and critical essays involved with the aesthetics and techniques of modernism. In his latest book, What Ever Happened to Modernism?, he traces modernism’s roots further back in history than perhaps any other scholar of modernism has done before. It’s all in the service of the titular question, which expresses a deep concern of anyone who enjoys modernist works today: how and why has the Western world so largely ignored the excitement and potential of modernist art, that is, art conscious of its own limits and responsibilities? | 2/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The consummate cinephile: Jonathan Rosenbaum on the changing film culture | Colin Marshall talks to Jonathan Rosenbaum, former Chicago Reader film critic, advocate of international cinema, and author of books on Orson Welles, Abbas Kiarostami, and Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. In his latest, Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia: Film Culture in Transition, he examines the way serious engagement with film has changed over the decades, what new experiences it has brought to enthusiasts and critics, and what possibilities it has opened for cinematic artists. | 2/20/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Adventures in modern fiction: The Quarterly Conversation editor Scott Esposito | Colin Marshall talks to critic Scott Esposito, blogger at Conversational Reading, editor of The Quarterly Conversation, and marketing coordinator at the Center for the Art of Translation. A lover and promoter of today’s most interesting fiction, Esposito writes about fiction at the intersection of the experimental and the international. This conversation took place at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ 2011 conference in Washington, D.C. | 2/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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From Ernst Lubitsch to Bill Murray: Saul Austerlitz on American film comedy | Colin Marshall talks to cultural journalist Saul Austerlitz, author of Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes and, most recently, Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy, which examines the careers of beloved U.S. comedy icons like Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers as well as more cultishly comedic figures like Albert Brooks as well as filmmakers not normally associated directly with comedy, like Robert Altman and the Coen brothers. | 2/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The friendliest experimental music in L.A.: Lucky Dragons' Luke Fischbeck | Colin Marshall talks to Luke Fischbeck, founder of Los Angeles experimental music group, art-creation unit, and engine of community Lucky Dragons at the 2011 Art Los Angeles Contemporary international art fair in Santa Monica. Alongside collaborator Sarah Rara, Fischbeck performs with conventional instruments, unconventional instruments, video, improvisation, incompatible technologies, and audience collaboration. The Wire calls their music "a celebration of ancient shared memory and introspective spirituality." Lucky Dragons perform at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum on Thursday, February 3 at 7:00 p.m. | 1/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Podcasting philosophically: Philosophy Bites' David Edmonds | Colin Marshall talks to David Edmonds, co-host with Nigel Warburton of the popular philosophy podcast Philosophy Bites. Edmonds and Warburton have also collaborated on a new book, Philosophy Bites: 25 Philosophers on 25 Intriguing Subjects. The text features conversations from the podcast, including Peter Singer on animal rights, Alain de Botton on architecture, Adrian Moore on infinity, and Barry Smith on wine. | 1/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The rise of Korean cinema: film critic Darcy Paquet | Colin Marshall talks to Darcy Paquet, film critic and author of New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves. Since 1999, Paquet has maintained the web site Koreanfilm.org as the premiere destination for Anglophone lovers of Korean cinema, which has experienced an unprecedented explosion of creativity and artistry since the beginning of the decade. In his book and on his site, Paquet discusses such vital Korean filmmakers as Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Memories of Murder), Hong Sang-soo (Woman is the Future of Man, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors), Kim Ki-duk (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring, 3-Iron), and Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Joint Security Area). | 1/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Staying literarily immersed: book critic David L. Ulin | Colin Marshall talks to book critic and former Los Angeles Times book editor David L. Ulin. He’s also the editor of several anthologies of Los Angeles writing and the author of The Myth of Solid Ground. His latest book The Lost Art of Reading examines changes in his own and others’ style of engagement with books in the age of fragmented attention, always-flowing information sources, and countless outlets for on-demand media. | 1/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The aesthetic lens: design philosopher Leonard Koren | Colin Marshall talks to design philosopher, bookmaker, and man of aesthetics Leonard Koren. In addition to publishing WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing in the 1970s and providing consultancy on certain aesthetic matters, he’s created books like Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, How to Rake Leaves, and Undesigning the Bath. He takes on the very meaning of the term “aesthetics” in his latest title, Which “Aesthetics” Do You Mean?: Ten Definitions. | 12/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Getting between language, technology, art, and philosophy: artist/philosopher Jonathon Keats | Colin Marshall talks to conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats. In addition to his well-known projects like selling his thoughts, creating pornography for plants, and genetically engineering god, Keats writes about language for Wired magazine. His new book, Virtual Words: Language from the Edge of Science and Technology, collects his examinations of neologisms both failed and successful from our age, including qubit, crowdsourcing and bacn. | 12/17/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Failures, fiascos, and secret successes: A.V. Club critic Nathan Rabin | Colin Marshall talks to Nathan Rabin, head writer at The A.V. Club, the cultural magazine published by The Onion. There, he began a regular feature called My Year of Flops, in which he spent a year writing up movies that performed poorly at the box office and with critics, categorizing each as a “Failure”, “Fiasco”, or “Secret Success”. He continued the feature after a year, and has now collected pieces on Last Action Hero, Ishtar, Battlefield Earth, and more into My Year of Flops: One Man’s Journey Deep into the Heart of Cinematic Failure. | 12/12/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Trailing the honorable "Chinese" detective: Charlie Chan scholar Yunte Huang | Colin Marshall talks to Yunte Huang, poet, professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, and author of Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History. In the book, Huang combines a personal narrative of his research into American literature’s most beloved (and loathed) Chinese detective with the stories of E.D. Biggers, the writer who invented Charlie Chan, and Chang Apana, the real-life Chinese detective on the Honolulu Police whose exploits inspired him. | 12/5/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Our symbiosis with technology: Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly | Colin Marshall talks to Kevin Kelly, co-founder of and “Senior Maverick” at Wired magazine. In addition to his copious online writing on technology and culture, he’s published such books as New Rules for the New Economy and Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, the Economic World. His latest book, What Technology Wants, explores the nature of what he calls the “technium”, that is, technology itself, considered as one big organism which grows, changes, and definitely wants something. | 11/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Against (wrongheaded) reading: literature professor and psychotherapist Mikita Brottman | Colin Marshall talks to literature professor, psychotherapist, and cultural critic Mikita Brottman, author of The Solitary Vice: Against Reading. In the book, Brottman challenges a host of conventional wisdom and received ideas about the value of reading, especially the reading of "high" literature. This mission takes her through examinations of both her own history with reading and the nature of such species of the printed word as the gothic novel, the true-crime paperback, and the celebrity confessional. | 11/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Capturing the image of capturing the sound: documentarian Nicholas Sherman on field recordist Gordon Hempton | Colin Marshall talks to documentary filmmaker Nicholas Sherman, director of Soundtracker: A Portrait of Gordon Hempton. Hempton, one of the world’s best-known field recordists, has dedicated his life to traveling the United States and the world to create “sound portraits” of distinctive places. In Soundtracker, Sherman follows Hempton’s road trip in his 1964 VW bus which becomes a quest to capture the sounds of a train and a songbird together. | 10/29/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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For adventurous cinema, whether making or watching: film critic David Sterritt | Colin Marshall talks to film critic David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics and former longtime critic at the Christian Science Monitor. Sterritt’s books, from titles on Jean-Luc Godard and Alfred Hitchcock to more recent ones on B-movies and even the television sitcom The Honeymooners, reveal cinematic interests that stretch from the avant-garde to the long and widely beloved to the ostensibly (but perhaps not actually) disposable. | 10/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Southern California's radio pointillist: Off-Ramp host John Rabe | Colin Marshall talks to John Rabe, longtime public radio personality and host of KPCC’s Off-Ramp, a weekly examination of Southern California and especially Los Angeles. The show’s interviews and field pieces provide, as Rabe puts it, a “pointillist” aural portrait of the city and its surrounding half-state, highlighting some of the most interesting people, places, and things there without attempting the futile task of precisely representing the massive amount and constantly changing composition of Southern California culture. | 10/1/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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MOI + CAF: SonicSENSE and the 2010 Call for Entries | A regular collaboration between The Marketplace of Ideas and the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum begins. Colin Marshall first talks with Barney Haynes and Jennifer Parker, professors at the California College of the Arts and UC Santa Cruz, respectively, and the creators of SonicSENSE, an expandable and evolving site for art, culture, new technologies, digital media, collaboration and participation. They’ll be performing at CAF’s Forum Lounge series on Thursday, October 7. Then, Colin Marshall talks with CAF assistant curator and development manager Valerie Velazquez about the gallery’s current exhibition, the 2010 Call for Entries, featuring work from Graham Bury, Alejandro Casazi, Madelaine Frezza, Christine Morla, and Shane Tolbert. | 9/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Changing yourself by doing it yourself: Boing Boing co-founder Mark Frauenfelder | Colin Marshall talks to Mark Frauenfelder, editor of Make magazine and co-founder the zine which has become the massively popular blog Boing Boing. His latest book, Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World, is the story of his quest to fully customize his life by building, maintaining, and operating as much as possible with his own hands: hacking his espresso machine, making his own sauerkraut, building cigar-box guitars, brewing his own kombucha, and carving his own spoons, to name only a few of his eclectic set of pursuits. | 9/17/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Life as invention: blogger/entrepreneur/non-conformist Chris Guillebeau | Colin Marshall talks to blogger, entrepreneur, and liver of the unconventional life Chris Guillebeau. Having written his blog The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel for “a small army of remarkable people” since 2008, he’s now the author of a book which expands on his ideas and experiences, The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World. | 9/9/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Personal aesthetics and internet culture: Put This On creators Jesse Thorn and Adam Lisagor | Colin Marshall talks to Jesse Thorn and Adam Lisagor, creators of the new men’s style web series and blog Put This On, which explore all facets of the art of “dressing like a grown-up.” Thorn is also the host of Public Radio International’s The Sound of Young America as well as the comedy podcast Jordan Jesse Go; Lisagor is also a co-host and producer of the comedy podcast You Look Nice Today. | 9/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Authenticity and the last Jew on Earth: novelist Joshua Cohen | Colin Marshall talks to novelist Joshua Cohen, author of Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto, A Heaven of Others, and now Witz. The new book follows the cross-country (and international, and possibly even interplanetary) journey of Benjamin Israelien, born with a beard and glasses, already nearly a grown man. After a Biblical plague on Christmas Even 1999, Benjamin becomes the last Jew on Earth. He’s first celebrated, then marketed, then turned upon. | 8/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The cinephile's conversation in new media: Battleship Pretension hosts Tyler Smith and David Bax | Colin Marshall talks to Tyler Smith and David Bax, hosts of the film podcast Battleship Pretension. For over three years, Smith and Bax have explored on the show all aspects of cinema history, cinema appreciation, cinema technique, and cinema criticism, doing so with the freewheeling, humorous sensibility of the best late-night film school conversations. | 8/20/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Transcending the eighties: Wang Chung lead singer Jack Hues | Colin Marshall talks to Jack Hues, lead singer and, alongside Nick Feldman, primary collaborator of the rock group Wang Chung. Throughout the 1980s, Wang Chung released such albums as Points on the Curve, Mosaic, and The Warmer Side of Cool, as well as the soundtrack to William Friedkin’s film To Live and Die in L.A.. Now they’re back recording and touring again, having recently completed one U.S. tour and about to launch another in support of their new double EP, Abducted by the 80s. | 8/12/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Cultural critic Greil Marcus: Van Morrison's moments of disbelief | Colin Marshall talks to music journalist, critic, and observer of America Greil Marcus. Though they span countless subjects, Marcus’ past books have been rooted in examinations of icons like Bob Dylan, the Sex Pistols, Elvis Presley, and Bill Clinton. In his latest release, When that Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison, he takes on the Irish singer-songwriter’s vast, varied catalogue, documenting his own responses to Morrison’s music as well as the far-flung cultural and psychological resonances it sets off. | 8/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Historian of the novel Steven Moore: in search of history's most innovative fiction | Colin Marshall talks to Steven Moore, author, critic, former managing editor of Dalkey Archive Press and the Review of Contemporary Fiction. In his latest book, the first volume of The Novel: An Alternative History, Moore traces the development of long, adventurous fiction from its origin to the year 1600, paying special attention to unusual works that make innovative use of language. | 7/30/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Latin American fiction translator Suzanne Jill Levine: the Borges behind the fiction | Colin Marshall talks to Suzanne Jill Levine, noted translator of creative, innovative, adventurous Latin American Fiction from authors like Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Severo Sarduy, and Manuel Puig. She’s also a professor at UCSB and the general editor and co-translator of Penguin Classics’ five new volumes of nonfiction and poetry from widely respected Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges: On Writing, On Mysticism, On Argentina, The Sonnets, and Poems of the Night. Her own book The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction has been recently reissued by Dalkey Archive. | 7/23/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Five days with David Foster Wallace: author and journalist David Lipsky | Colin Marshall talks to David Lipsky, contributing editor at Rolling Stone and author of Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace. Crafted out of transcripts of a five day-long conversation between Lipsky and Wallace on the tail end of the publicity tour for Wallace’s breakthrough novel Infinite Jest, the book reveals facets of the beloved author that have never before been seen publicly. | 7/15/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Experimental poet Tan Lin: ambiently breaking reading conventions | Colin Marshall talks to Tan Lin, professor of English and creative writing at New Jersey City University and author of the books Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, BlipSoak01 and Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource). His latest book, Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking, uses its form to escape the notions, conventions and structures of the traditional reading experience. Tan Lin’s Tumblr Tan Lin’s books: Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe (New American Poetry), Blipsoak01, Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource), Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking: [AIRPORT NOVEL MUSICAL POEM PAINTING FILM PHOTO HALLUCINATION LANDSCAPE] (Wesleyan Poetry) Technology/business/culture writer Nicholas Carr (1959 - ) Architect Rem Koolhaas (1944 - ) Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker’s Joy of Cooking Tan Lin’s BOMB Magazine interview 7 Controlled Vocabularies, Lulu edition Writer David Shields (1956 - ) and Reality Hunger: A Manifesto David Shields on The Marketplace of Ideas Jonathan Beller’s The Cinematic Mode of Production: Attention Economy and the Society of the Spectacle (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture) | 6/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Sonic curator David Toop: the sound of silent art | David Toop is a composer of sound, writer about sound, curator of sound and research fellow at the London College of Communication. His works in text include Ocean of Sound, Exotica, Haunted Weather and the Rap Attack books. His latest is Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener, which explores the sound of silent art. David Toop’s web site David Toop’s books, Rap Attack, No. 3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop, Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds, Exotica, Haunted Weather: Music, Silence and Memory (Five Star Fiction S.) and Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the ListenerAmerican writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870)Oren Peli’s film Paranormal Activity (2009)Dutch painter Nicholaes Maes and his Eavesdropper paintingsIrish painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992)English novelist Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951)Scottish novelist John Buchan (1875-1940)English writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)Irish writer James Joyce and his novel Ulysses (1882-1941)Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)German electronic band Kratfwerk | 6/21/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Experimental novelist Todd Shimoda: seeking mono no aware in and with literary art | Colin Marshall talks to novelist Todd Shimoda, author of 365 Views of Mt. Fuji, The Fourth Treasure and now Oh!: A Mystery of Mono No Aware. Shimoda calls his stories “somewhat experimental, post-modernish, dealing with Asian or Asian-American themes to some degree, but also broad questions of existence,” or “philosophical mysteries.” His latest novel documents an embodies a search for the elusive Japanese literary concept of mono no aware. Persons/places/works/sites referenced in this interview, in the order mentioned Todd and L.J.C. Shimoda's web site, Shimodaworks Todd Shimoda's novels: 365 Views of Mt. Fuji: Algorithms of the Floating World, The Fourth Treasure and Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware' The literary concept of mono no aware Novelist Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) Novelist Kobo Abe (1924-1993) Novelist Albert Camus (1913-1960) Albert Camus' The Stranger (Everyman's Library) The Japanese concept of ikigai, or the worth of living Chin Music Press Kobo Abe's The Ruined Map: A Novel An excerpt of Todd Shimoda's Ruined Map sequel-in-progess, Why Ghosts Appear | 6/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Buddhist atheist Stephen Batchelor: the road to "belief" | Colin Marshall talks to Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies founder Stephen Batchelor, author on, scholar of and educator about Buddhist topics. His latest book, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, recounts his journey from young spiritual seeker to devoted monk to questioning student to holder of the complex hybrid of principles and practices he has achieved today. This personal narrative builds upon and provides a background to his famously controversial Buddhism Without Beliefs. | 6/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Filmmaker Andrew Bujalski: the cinema of recontextualized relationships | Colin Marshall talks to Andrew Bujalski, the young director of the films Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax, which is newly available on DVD. Though Bujalski’s funny, realistic movies are often considered by critics to be of a similar genius to other independently-produced pictures of the 2000s focusing on the personal relationships of twentysomethings, they possess an intellect and an aesthetic all their own. | 5/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Creative Nonfiction editor Lee Gutkind: Living it is writing it is living it | Colin Marshall talks to Lee Gutkind, founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction, the premiere journal of the eponymous genre of writing that combines the literary techniques of fiction with the reality of life itself. With its spring 2010 issue, it’s undergone a radical revision in look, feel and sensibility, shifting from academic journal to wider-interest magazine. He’s also the author of many books that fall under the creative nonfiction heading, exploring subjects like baseball, transplant surgeries and robotics. His latest, the father-son memoir Truckin’ with Sam: A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin’ and Rollin’, On the Road, comes out this summer. | 5/20/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On breaking form and genre boundaries with David Shields | Colin Marshall talks to David Shields, professor of English at the University of Washington and author of fiction, nonfiction and various hybrids thereof about sports, autobiography, celebrity and death. His new book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, uses collage writing to challenge preconceived ideas about form and genre in art, especially as they pertain to literature. Shields advocates disregarding these hardened constraints, a move which will allow art to use more of and become more like life itself. | 5/5/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The crushed electronica and narrative dance of RedBlack | Colin Marshall talks to two of the creators of RedBlack, the avant-garde concert event that caps off Primavera 2010, UCSB’s festival of contemporary arts and digital media. The free performance, whose doors open at the UCen Hub at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, April 30, presents new compositions of “crushed electronica” combined with a new piece of narrative dance. Ron Sedgwick is the director of RedBlack as well as a PhD candidate at UCSB, and Abby Linton is RedBlack’s choreographer as well as a senior dance major at UCSB. | 4/29/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On John Cage and 4'33" with composer, educator and new-music journalist Kyle Gann | Colin Marshall talks to musicologist, writer, microtonal composer and educator Kyle Gann, author of No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4′33″. The former new music critic at the Village Voice, Gann turns his eye and ear in the book to Cage’s most well-known composition, four minutes and 33 seconds in which no notes are played. Famous and infamous in equal measure, 4′33″ has been variously considered a work of genius, a game-changing musical revelation and a charlatan’s publicity stunt. | 4/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the films of Michael Haneke with Peter Brunette | Colin Marshall talks to Peter Brunette, Reynolds Professor of Film Studies and director of the Film Studies program at Wake Forest University. The author of books on such beloved filmmakers as Michelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar-Wai and Roberto Rossellini, Brunette has now written a book on Austrian cinematic provocateur Michael Haneke. The latest published entry in the University of Illinois Press’ “Contemporary Film Directors” series, Michael Haneke examines in depth the art of and the ideas behind the auteur’s theatrical releases, from late-1980s and early-1990s works such as The Seventh Continent and Benny’s Video through his newest and best-known pictures Caché and The White Ribbon. | 4/14/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Thinker, writer, and "Agent of Change" Seth Godin | Colin Marshall talks to speaker, writer, blogger and entrepreneur Seth Godin. Having already built a large body of published work on the nature of ideas, how they’re conceived, how they’re spread and how they’re executed, Godin has expanded his intellectual purview with his new book Linchpin. Extending the thoughts and observations he applied to marketing in books like Purple Cow and All Marketers are Liars, his latest work examines how individual human beings, not corporations or organizations, can most fruitfully practice their art in the transforming information economy. | 4/1/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Chris Bohn, editor of The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music | Colin Marshall talks to Chris Bohn, editor of London-based monthly music magazine The Wire. Subtitled “Adventures in Modern Music”, the magazine has covered the alternative, the underground, the experimental, the avant-garde and the generally non-mainstream since 1982, featuring a span of artists from Ornette Coleman to Björk to David Sylvian to Jim O’Rourke to field recordists like Lee Patterson to emerging Chinese sounds artists like Yun Jun. The magazine is also well known as a rarity in its industry for both its profitability and its loyal, growing readership. | 3/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On Romantic music, poetry and philosophy with James Donelan | Colin Marshall talks to James Donelan, lecturer and Program Coordinator in the English department and College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He's also the author of Poetry and the Romantic Musical Aesthetic a study of composer Ludwig van Beethoven, poet William Wordsworth, philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and poet/philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin and what their work reveals about the development of the idea of the autonomous mind and its interaction with the external world, especially its works of art. | 3/18/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll on time's arrow | Colin Marshall talks to Sean Carroll, theoretical cosmologist specializing in dark energy and special relativity at the California Institute of Technology and blogger at Cosmic Variance. In his new book, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Carroll explores possible answers to the question, “Why does time always move forward, never backward?” Addressing the issue necessitates drawing from various domains of physics, going all the way back to the origin of the universe. | 2/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the North Korean worldview with B.R. Myers | Colin Marshall talks to Brian Reynolds Myers, contributing editor to the Atlantic and professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea. In his new book, The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters, Myers examines North Korean propaganda meant for both internal and external consumption and through it constructs the closed country’s view of itself, its relationship to other countries and the Kim dynasty that has controlled it for 60 years. This approach reveals not a Stalinist ideology but one closer to Nazi Germany’s in its prioritization of the military and fixation on racial purity and a threatening outside world. | 2/18/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Musician, artist, journalist and ex-blogger Nick Currie, a.k.a Momus | Colin Marshall talks to Nick Currie, better known as Momus. Since the mid-1980s he has led parallel careers in music (with 21 albums out so far), prose, art and journalism, exploring the nexuses between them while traveling the world and examining his favorite cultures. He has most recently turned toward traditional ink-and-paper publishing with two volumes, The Book of Jokes and The Book of Scotlands. Since 2004, he has written the blog Click Opera on his life, work and art adventures, which he closed on February 10, the eve of his 50th birthday. | 2/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the cinema of Errol Morris with journalist and curator Livia Bloom | Colin Marshall talks to cinematic journalist and curator Livia Bloom, editor of Errol Morris: Interviews, a compilation of conversations with the nonfiction filmmaker behind such movies as Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War. The book, which includes two interviews conducted by Bloom herself as well as other notable film writers like Paul Cronin and Roger Ebert, reveals a directorial mind filled with curiosity, love of truth and real or imagined misanthropy. | 2/7/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Economist, rationalist and blogger Robin Hanson | Colin Marshall talks to Robin Hanson, professor of economics at George Mason University, research associate at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute and chief scientist at Consensus Point. He’s also the thinker behind Overcoming Bias, a popular blog about issues of honesty, signaling, disagreement, forecasting and the far future, around which a large rationality-centric community has developed on the internet. “Flicking through Robin’s thoughts,” says the Observer, “you start to feel the ground shifting beneath you.” | 1/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On advertising, marketing and narrative with Rob Walker | Colin Marshall talks to Rob Walker, observer of advertising and marketing in all their forms. Author of the New York Times‘ “Consumed” column and the book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, Walker is also the co-creator of the “Significant Objects” project, an experiment wherein various authors and media personalities craft fictional stories to accompany everyday objects found at thrift stores. The objects are then auctioned off, revealing the value-adding effects of narrative. | 1/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Economist Steven Landsburg takes on philosophy | Colin Marshall talks to Steven E. Landsburg, professor of economics at the University of Rochester, Slate's "Everyday Economics" columnist and author of The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics. A pioneer in the popular-economics genre with his 1993 book The Armchair Economist, Landsburg now focuses his quantitative mind on issues of epistemology, ontology, morality and otherwise that have heretofore remained mostly untouched by such analysis. | 1/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the Middle Ages with Chris Wickham | Colin Marshall talks to Chris Wickham, Chichele Professor of Medieval History at Oxford University, Fellow of All Souls College and author of The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000, the latest in Penguin’s sprawling History of Europe series. Wickham integrates textual and architectual evidence to craft a new, fascinatingly detailed historical experience of the era beginning at the decline of the Roman Empire and ending at the rise of European nations as we know them today. Eschewing both teleology and grand narratives, Wickham presents the Middle Ages not as a mere stepping stone to modernity but as a fascinating period in and of itself. | 12/17/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Mayan Cycle composer Jeremy Haladyna | Colin Marshall talks to Jeremy Haladyna, director of UCSB’s Ensemble for Contemporary Music and composer of the sprawling 28-piece-and-counting Mayan Cycle. Drawing upon over twenty years of research and exploration, Haladyna has translated countless concepts from Mayan thought, art and architecture into music that counts strings, flutes, scratch turntables and even sampled paper towel dispensers among its sonic components. An album of selections from the Mayan Cycle is now available from Innova Recordings. | 11/16/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Documentarian of documentarians Pepita Ferrari | Colin Marshall talks to Pepita Ferrari, director of Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary. The first documentary film to concentrate specifically on documentary filmmaking, Capturing Reality features conversations with the likes of Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, Nick Broomfield, Albert Maysles, Scott Hicks and Molly Dineen about such important issues in the genre as interviewing, editing, the line between fact and fiction, the evolutionary possibilities of individual projects and the effect of a filmmaker's presence. | 10/29/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the badness of the legal profession with The Philadelphia Lawyer | Colin Marshall talks to The Philadelphia Lawyer, author of both the web site of the same name and the book The Happy Hour is For Amateurs: A Lost Decade in the World’s Worst Profession, which is now out in paperback. Combining Kafka-like tales of the gamesmanship and pedantry of the legal profession with vivid accounts of the intense debauchery required to counterbalance all that wasted time in the office, The Philadelphia Lawyer’s web presence has attracted a large, devoted audience of disaffected litigators, suspicious law students and dedicated bacchanalists alike. His book brings the distinctive sensibility of his much-e-mailed stories into long-form narrative. | 10/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Laurie Brown and Andy Sheppard of CBC Radio 2's The Signal | Colin Marshall talks to Laurie Brown and Andy Sheppard, host and producer, respectively, of The Signal on CBC Radio 2. Since debuting in March of 2007, the program has evolved to provide a highly distinctive listening experience that offers two skillfully-curated hours of late-night contemporary music to listeners across Canada — and, via the internet, the world — that’s neither predictable nor easily genrefiable. Brown accompanies Sheppard’s unusual sonic selections with commentary that’s long impressed fans with its friendliness, intimacy and wealth of odd stories. | 10/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Comic artist and comic journalist Peter Bagge | Colin Marshall talks to Peter Bagge, the comic artist behind the beloved series Hate as well as Apocalypse Nerd, Neat Stuff and Sweatshop. His new book, Everybody is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations, collects his stories originally written for the libertarian magazine Reason, works of comic journalism on such subjects as the Iraq war, gun control, the “War on Drugs” and Amtrak. | 10/8/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Treeless Mountain director So Yong Kim | Colin Marshall talks to So Yong Kim, director of In Between Days, winner of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize for Independent Vision, and more recently Treeless Mountain, which is now available on DVD. The story of two very young sisters in Seoul left with their distant aunt while their mother searches for their absent father, the film belongs solidly to the realist tradition while evoking the scale, perspective and feel of childhood. The New York Times‘ A.O. Scott calls Treeless Mountain one of the “vital, urgent and timely” vanguard members of the new genre of “neo-neorealism.” | 10/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the craft of freeform radio with WFMU's Ken Freedman | Colin Marshall talks to Ken Freedman, general manager of Jersey City’s WFMU, the longest-running freeform radio station in the United States. Since the mid-1980s, Freedman and his staff have made WFMU’s name a byword for the modern freeform sensibility with a combination of, among other factors, early adoption of new distribution technology, avoidance of identity politics and pure, unadulterated unpredictability. | 9/24/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On French cuisine's decline with Michael Steinberger | Colin Marshall talks to longtime Slate wine columnist Michael Steinberger, author of Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine and the End of France. An ardent culinary Francophile in earlier decades, Steinberger has, along with much of the rest of the food world, come to realize that a malaise has fallen upon the cuisine that once led the world in taste, artistry, experience and sophistication. Steinberger’s book chronicles the history of French food, the recent developments that have forced it to face tough competition from countries like Spain and the United States and the importance of such things as the legality of lait cru cheese, the effects of viticultural subsidies and the fall of the once-almighty Michelin guide. | 9/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left with Trevor Dann, Patrick Humphries and Peter Hogan | Colin Marshall talks to three music writers who have written books on English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, whose debut album Five Leaves Left originally shipped on September 1, 1969. Joining the conversation to celebrate the record’s fortieth anniversary are Trevor Dann, former head of BBC Music Entertainment and author of Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake; Patrick Humphries, noted biographer of musicians and author of Nick Drake: The Biography, the very first book on the man; and Peter Hogan, author of Nick Drake: The Complete Guide to His Music and an enthusiast of Drake’s music from the very beginning. | 9/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On religion and falsity with Joel Grus | A conversation about religion and falsity with Joel Grus, humorist, atheist and author of Your Religion is False. | 8/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen on personal economies | A conversation with Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University and founding blogger of Marginal Revolution. Cowen's new book is Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World. | 8/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On recorded music's history with Greg Milner | A conversation with Greg Milner, who's written music and technology journalism for Spin, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Slate, Salon and Wired. His new book, Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, tracing the evolution of music's capture from Edison cylinders to vinyl albums to waveform synthesis. | 7/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On Shohei Imamura with The Criterion Collection's Kim Hendrickson | A conversation about the early works of filmmaker Shohei Imamura, who brought an entirely new irreverent aesthetic and sociological sensibility to the 1960s Japanese film scene, with Kim Hendrickson, executive producer at The Criterion Collection and producer of their new box set Pigs, Pimps and Prostitutes: Three Films by Shohei Imamura. | 7/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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FORA.tv founder Brian Gruber | A conversation about bringing intelligent video to the internet with Brian Gruber, founder and executive chairman of FORA.tv, the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates from the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences. | 7/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Traveler and journalist Lawrence Osborne on Bangkok | A conversation with novelist, journalist, memoirist and traveler Lawrence Osborne, author, most recently, of Bangkok Days. | 7/16/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On Brian Eno with David Sheppard | A conversation about rock music's foremost intellectual "non-musician." producer and cultural theorist with David Sheppard, author of On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno. | 7/9/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On Hume and Rousseau's quarrel with John T. Scott | A conversation about the dissolution of the friendship between two very different philosophers with John T. Scott, professor of political science at the University of California, Davis and co-author with Robert Zaretsky of The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume and the Limits of Human Understanding. | 7/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Philosophical journalist Alain de Botton | A conversation with Alain de Botton, author of fiction, nonfiction, journalism and various hybrids thereof. Following treatises on Proust, philosophy, travel and architecture, de Botton's newest book of "philosophical journalism" is The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. | 6/24/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the vinyl LP with Travis Elborough | A conversation about the rise, fall and rise of the long-playing album format both technologically and artistically with journalist Travis Elborough, author of The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again. | 6/18/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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43Folders founder Merlin Mann | A conversation with writer, speaker, blogger and student of the creative mind Merlin Mann. In 2004, Mann founded 43Folders, a blog and community focused on tips, tricks, tools and techniques designed to improve one's productivity, and in late 2008, he took the site in a new direction, toward the habits and thoughts of humanity's best creators and what can be learned from examining them. | 6/11/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On publishing with Richard Eoin Nash | Part three of our ongoing series of conversations about the future of books and reading, this time with publishing consultant Richard Eoin Nash. Nash ran the widely-acclaimed Soft Skull Press between 2001 and March of this year. | 6/4/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Author and screenwriter Jon Raymond | A conversation with Jon Raymond, editor at Plazm magazine and author of the novel The Half-Life and the new short story collection Livability. With filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, Raymond co-adapted two of Livability's short stories into the critically-acclaimed feature films Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy. | 5/27/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Podcaster, blogger, critic and intellectual shock jock Edward Champion | A conversation with Edward Champion, critic, host and producer of the cultural interview podcast The Bat Segundo Show, blogger behind Reluctant Habits and all-around "intellectual shock jock". | 5/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani | A conversation with filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, director of Man Push Cart, Chop Shop and the new Goodbye Solo. Roger Ebert calls Bahrani "the new great American director." | 5/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Electro-acoustic musician Ethan Rose | A conversation about using old technology to craft modern sounds with electro-acoustic musician Ethan Rose, whose newest album Oaks was recorded with a vintage 1920s Wurlitzer organ found in the skating rink at Portland's Oaks Park. Two tracks from the record are included in this broadcast. | 5/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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ZBS Foundation president Thomas Lopez | A conversation about creating radio fiction and humorously raising consciousness with Thomas Lopez, founder and president of the ZBS Foundation. This broadcast contains excerpts from the ZBS productions Dreams of the Amazon, Ruby and Two Minute Film Noir. | 4/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Electronic musician Tim Hecker | A conversation about iterative creative processes, building music in layers and the history of loud sound with electronic musician Tim Hecker, whose latest album is An Imaginary Country, from which two tracks are featured in this broadcast. | 4/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Denis Dutton on aesthetics and evolution | A conversation about aesthetics and evolutionary biology with Denis Dutton, professor of the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury, founding editor of Arts & Letters Daily and author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution. | 4/16/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Novelist and journalist Ian Buruma | A conversation with novelist, journalist, documentarian and Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College Ian Buruma. His latest book is The China Lover, a historical novel examining the life and career of Manchurian-born Japanese actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi through the eyes of three different narrators. | 4/8/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Sound artist Lawrence English | A conversation about appreciating the seasons, collecting international field recordings and turning others on to sound art with composer, multimedia artist, critic and ROOM40 label head Lawrence English. Two tracks from English's latest record, A Colour for Autumn, are included in this broadcast. | 4/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Bookworm host Michael Silverblatt | A conversation about reading, writing and radio with Michael Silverblatt, who has hosted KCRW's Bookworm, the beloved forum for the discussion of fiction and poetry on public radio, for twenty years. [Marketplace of Ideas home] | 3/18/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Jesse Thorn, host of The Sound of Young America | A conversation about the craft of interviewing and the state of public radio today with Jesse Thorn, host and producer of Public Radio International's The Sound of Young America as well as the principal of podcasting empire Maximumfun.org. | 3/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Jonathan Gottschall on science and the humanities | A conversation about what's wrong with literary studies and a possible way forward with Jonathan Gottschall, English instructor at Washington and Jefferson College and author of Science, Literature and a New Humanities. | 2/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Physicist and anthropologist Gregory Cochran on human evolution | A conversation with physicist and University of Utah adjunct professor of anthropology Gregory Cochran, co-author with Henry Harpending of The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution. | 2/19/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Science journalist Jonah Lehrer on decisionmaking | A conversation about the organic basis of decisionmaking with Jonah Lehrer, editor-at-large at Seed magazine and author of How We Decide. | 2/11/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On gardens and broadcasting with Robert Harrison | A conversation about what gardens say about human nature, what's missing from mainstream radio and the place of the humanities with Robert Harrison, Rosina Pierotti Professor of Italian Literature at Stanford University and host of KZSU's Entitled Opinions. His latest book is Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition. | 1/29/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Mathematician Keith Devlin on probability | A conversation about the genesis of probability theory with mathematician Keith Devlin, author of The Unfinished Game: Pascal, Fermat and the Seventeenth-Century Letter that Made the World Modern. | 1/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Writer and cultural polymath Clive James | A conversation about having fun with poetry, providing an alternative to academia and hosting television programs from one's own home with writer and "cultural polymath" Clive James, author of Opal Sunset: Selected Poems 1958-2008. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 1/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On the Great Books with Alex Beam | A conversation about knowledge, commerce and the Western canon with novelist and journalist Alex Beam, author of A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books. | 12/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On David Hume with Simon Blackburn | A conversation about the greatest British philosopher of all time with Simon Blackburn, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University and the University of North Carolina and author of How to Read Hume. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 12/1/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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On Margaret Thatcher with Claire Berlinski | A conversation about Margaret Thatcher, the most controversial British Prime Minister of the 20th century, with Claire Berlinski, author of There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 11/25/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Physicist Alan Sokal | A conversation about intellectual rigor and intellectual confusion with New York University physicist Alan Sokal, the man behind the "Sokal Hoax" and author of Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 11/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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146 |
On art markets with Don Thompson | A conversation about art markets with Don Thompson, professor emeritus of marketing at York University's Schulich School of Business and author of The $12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 11/7/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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147 |
On possible futures with David Friedman | A conversation about what's next for humanity with David Friedman, professor of law at Santa Clara University and author of the classic work of 20th-century political philosophy The Machinery of Freedom. In his new book, Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World, Friedman explores the law, the economics and the very sensory experience of a host of possible futures through the technologies likely to shape them, including universal surveillance, e-cash, designer kids, advanced encryption and nanotechnology. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 10/20/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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148 |
On Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with auto journalist Mark Richardson | A conversation about technology, philosophy and a beloved American motorcycle journey with Mark Richardson, auto and motorcycle editor of the Toronto Star and author of Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 10/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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149 |
Political statistician Andrew Gelman | A conversation about demographics, punditry and American voting with Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics at Columbia University and author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 10/8/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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150 |
Wine educator and blogger Tyler "Dr. Vino" Colman | A conversation about the red tape of viticulture, huge followings in Japan and Cabernet uprisings in the streets of Indianapolis with wine educator and blogger Tyler Colman, known in the blogosphere as "Dr. Vino", author of Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists and Mobsters Influence the Wines We Drink. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 9/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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151 |
New Yorker book critic James Wood | A conversation about the workings of the novel, the world between journalism and academia and literary versus religious belief with James Wood, book critic for the New Yorker and author of How Fiction Works. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 9/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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152 |
Charles Murray on American education | A conversation about what's wrong with American education's priorities and how to fix them with the American Enterprise Institute's Charles Murray, author of Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 9/6/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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153 |
Mathematical journalist Brian Hayes | A conversation about econophysics, generating genuine randomness and the rise of blogs with mathematical journalist and blogger Brian Hayes, author of Group Theory in the Bedroom. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 8/27/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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154 |
Reading the OED with Ammon Shea | A conversation about the dictionary-reader's ultimate challenge, all 21,730 pages of the Oxford English Dictionary, with Ammon Shea, author of Reading the OED. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 8/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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155 |
Novelist and former CBC film critic David Gilmour | A conversation about one man, one son, and one D.I.Y. film school with novelist and former CBC film critic David Gilmour, author of The Film Club: A Memoir. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 8/11/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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156 |
Tom McCarthy on Tintin | A conversation about art, criticism, literature, philosophy, and a certain Belgian boy reporter with novelist Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder and Tintin and the Secret of Literature. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 7/23/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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157 |
Artscience impresario David Edwards | A conversation about science, aesthetics and the crossing of disciplinary boundaries with David Edwards, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard, author of Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation, and founder of Le Laboratoire. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 7/16/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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158 |
War Nerd Gary Brecher | A conversation about asymmetrical warfare, Red Dawn and the Hmong in Fresno with Gary Brecher, “War Nerd” columnist from The eXile. [download show] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 7/1/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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159 |
Literary blogger Maud Newton | A conversation about the rise of cultural blogs, using one’s own life as novel source material and the genius of Rupert Thomson with literary blogger Maud Newton, founder of MaudNewton.com. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 6/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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160 |
Novelist, essayist and poet Alexander Theroux | A conversation about the encyclopedic novel, female creativity and Rush Limbaugh with novelist, essayist and poet Alexander Theroux, author of Laura Warholic; or, The Sexual Intellectual. [download] [MOI home] [MOI archive] | 6/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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161 |
Kevin Smokler and Dave Weich | Part two of our special series on the future of books and reading: conversations with writer, thinker, entrepreneur and maker of mischief Kevin Smokler [site] and Dave Weich, director of marketing and development at Portland, Oregon's Powell's Books. | 6/8/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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162 |
Graphic designer and novelist Chip Kidd | A conversation about art school, the Milgram Experient and Andres Serrano photos as bible covers with graphic designer and novelist Chip Kidd, the man responsible for countless bestselling (and some not-quite-bestselling) book jackets. His new novel is The Learners: The Book After The Cheese Monkeys. | 5/29/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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163 |
Daniel Menaker and Odile Isralson, Titlepage | Part one of a special Marketplace of Ideas series on the future of books and reading: conversations with Daniel Menaker and Odile Isralson, host and executive producer of Titlepage, the first book-themed internet TV show. | 5/23/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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164 |
Arts & Letters Daily's Denis Dutton | A conversation about the climate change debate, the evolutionary psychology of art and bad academic writing with Denis Dutton [site], founder of Arts & Letters Daily and editor of Philosophy and Literature. | 5/2/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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165 |
NPR's Peter Sagal | A conversation about swinging, eating, strip clubs, lying, gambling, consumption and pornography with Peter Sagal, host of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me and author of The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them). | 4/24/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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166 |
Urban theorist Richard Florida | A conversation about personality, innovation and openness in cities and "mega-regions" with urban theorist Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and Who's Your City? | 4/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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167 |
Experimental philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah | A conversation about experimental philosophy with Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and author of Experiments in Ethics. | 4/4/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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168 |
Japan expert John Nathan (part two) | The second part of a conversation about life in film and literature in Japan and America with translator, filmmaker and Japan expert John Nathan, author of Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere. | 3/27/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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169 |
Japan expert John Nathan (part one) | The first part of a conversation about life in film and literature in Japan and America with translator, filmmaker and Japan expert John Nathan, author of Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere. | 3/27/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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170 |
Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak | A conversation about the art of engineering, the value of jokes and the nuisance of spam with Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and author of iWoz: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. | 3/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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171 |
The Marketplace of Ideas live in Los Angeles | It's The Marketplace of Ideas live in Los Angeles! Come bid farewell to Dutton's Brentwood Books and watch a live taping of The Marketplace of Ideas, featuring a conversation with Mark Sarvas, noted Elegant Variation blogger and author of the upcoming novel Harry, Revised. This all happens on Saturday March 29th at 12:00 noon. Dutton's is located at 11975 San Vicente Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA. | 3/22/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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172 |
Undercover economist Tim Harford | A conversation about speed-dating, the advantages of city life and the fun economists are having with "Undercover Economist" Tim Harford, author of The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World. | 3/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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173 |
Comic artist Peter Bagge | A conversation about Generation X, penciling techniques and libertarianism with Peter Bagge, creator of Hate and Apocalypse Nerd. | 3/6/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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174 |
On globalization with Pietra Rivoli | A conversation about Texan cotton-growing, Chinese manufacturing and African entrepreneurship with Pietra Rivoli, Georgetown business professor and author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy. | 2/28/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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175 |
Essayist, film writer, novelist and poet Phillip Lopate | A conversation about education, urbanism and Abbas Kiarostami with essayist, novelist, poet and film writer Phillip Lopate. | 2/21/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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176 |
On book reviewing with Gail Pool | A conversation with Gail Pool, author of Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America. | 2/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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177 |
Skeptic Michael Shermer | A conversation about economics, evolutionary biology and Ayn Rand with Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics. | 2/7/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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178 |
On early modern science and poetry with Angus Fletcher | A conversation about the interplay between early modern science and poetry with Angus Fletcher, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York Graduate School and author of Time, Space and Motion in the Age of Shakespeare. | 2/2/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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179 |
Deep historian Daniel Lord Smail | A conversation about bridging the gap between history and prehistory with Daniel Lord Smail, professor of history at Harvard University and author of On Deep History and the Brain. | 1/25/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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180 |
Economist and blogger Tyler Cowen | A conversation about using incentives, eating ethnic food and becoming a cultural billionaire with Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University and blogger at Marginal Revolution. | 1/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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181 |
Los Angeles Times Book Review editor David L. Ulin | A conversation about publishing, book criticism and LA literary culture with David L. Ulin, editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. | 1/11/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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182 |
Science journalist Jonah Lehrer | A conversation about literature, the human brain and umami with Jonah Lehrer, editor-at-large at Seed magazine and author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist. | 1/3/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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183 |
Novelist Joshua Henkin | A conversation about college towns, the importance of story and MFA programs with novelist Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony. | 12/28/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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184 |
The Smart Set editor Jason Wilson | A conversation about online journalism, travel writing and H.L. Mencken with Jason Wilson, editor of The Smart Set from Drexel University and The Best American Travel Writing series. | 12/21/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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185 |
Evolutionary biologist David P. Barash | A conversation about consciousness, free will and toilet training with David P. Barash, professor of psychology at the University of Washington and author of Natural Selections: Selfish Altruists, Honest Liars and Other Realities of Evolution. | 12/14/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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186 |
Law professor and economist Ian Ayres | A conversation about the revolution in decisionmaking brought about by large-scale quantitative analysis with Yale law professor and economist Ian Ayres, author of Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart. | 12/7/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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187 |
On political division with David Starkey | A conversation about voting one way and living in a place that votes another with David Starkey, poet, playwright, professor of English at Santa Barbara City College and editor of Living Blue in the Red States. | 12/7/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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188 |
On 20 years of The Closing of the American Mind with Roger Kimball | A conversation about Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind on the 20th anniversary of its publication with Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion. | 12/1/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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189 |
On Barry Goldwater with CC Goldwater | A conversation about Barry Goldwater with CC Goldwater, the 1964 presidential candidate's granddaughter and producer of the new film Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater. | 11/21/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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190 |
Something Awful editor Zack Parsons | A conversation about ridiculous military hardware and highly un-epic science fiction with Zack Parsons, editor at the popular humor site Something Awful and author of My Tank is Fight!: Deranged Inventions of World War II. | 11/16/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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191 |
1960s radical Cathy Wilkerson | A conversation about the 1960s with Cathy Wilkerson, former member of Students for a Democratic Society and Weatherman, whose new book is Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. | 11/16/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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192 |
On human rights with Lynn Hunt | A conversation about the very definition of a powerful idea with Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History at UCLA and former president of the American Historical Association. Her latest book is Inventing Human Rights: A History. | 11/9/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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193 |
Bookslut founder Jessa Crispin | A conversation about food writing, Lost Girls and the disappointing DVD of David Lynch's Lost Highway with Jessa Crispin, founder and editor of Chicago-based literary webzine and blog Bookslut. | 11/2/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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194 |
Wine journalist George M. Taber | A conversation about that most revered of all beverages and the devices that close our bottles of it with George M. Taber, wine journalist and former business editor of Time magazine. His new book is To Cork or Not to Cork: The Billion-Dollar Battle for the Bottle. | 10/26/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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195 |
Entrepreneur and blogger Ben Casnocha | A conversation about optimism, eternal studenthood and funny conservatives with entrepreneur and author Ben Casnocha. His most recent book is My Start-Up Life. | 10/19/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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196 |
Spy-fi novelist Josh Conviser | A conversation about hybridizing genres, using future technology and reading Dwell magazine with Josh Conviser, author of Echelon and Empyre. | 10/13/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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197 |
Litblogger and novelist Mark Sarvas | A conversation about book criticism, the Los Angeles Literary scene and Michiko Kakutani with Mark Sarvas, author of popular weblog The Elegant Variation. Harry, Revised, his first novel, hits shelves in May 2008. | 10/11/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 197 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
One of the best podcasts out there.
The simplest way to explain The Marketplace of Ideas is by saying that it's basically like Charlie Rose in podcast form. The host, Colin Marshall is a rarity like Rose, in that he's throughly interested in each of his 100+ guests and is able to spawn a natural yet intelligent conversation with them. The show is true to its name, there are wide variety of people here and they are all fascinating in some way or another. There are authors, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, artists, journalists, historians and scientists on the Marketplace'. Though you may only heard of a few of them, after listening to an episode you'll likely be inspired to look into them further.
A thoughtful and listenable program.
Local public radio done well. Insightful guests, thoughtful host. Worth your time.
Always illuminating
Colin invites interesting guests and asks insightful questions. Stimulating conversations about culture and the life of the mind; what more could you ask for in a podcast.
