Category Archives: Books

Sez I To Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt

Posted on by
2

If you’re a longtime listener to WBAI, you’re probably quite familiar with the name of the late actor, writer, and Radio Free Eireann raconteur, Malachy McCourt. And contrariwise, you may be even more familiar with the name of Malachy’s older brother Frank McCourt, author of the extraordinary memoir Angela’s Ashes and more. But both Frank and Malachy were more than book writers, they both had careers as newspaper and magazine columnists. And now for the first time, a delicious selection of the brothers’ essays have been collected in a new book called Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt. I was happy to speak with the co-editor of that collection, Tom Allon.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Tom Allon on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Reverse Centaurs Kick Back! Cory Doctorow On How Artists Can Fight Back Against AI

Posted on by
Reply
Portrait of Vincent van Gogh sitting with boxing gloves in an artist's studio.
AI portrait of Vincent van Gogh wearing boxing gloves

What are the implications for Artificial Intelligence in art, and what’s the best way to fight it? That’s what Cory Doctorow, author of the new book the Reverse Centaur’s guide to Life After AI, will talk about today. Last week we began a conversation with him where he explained how AI is a stock-driven growth bubble, fueled by tech bros who hype up AI’s ability in order to seduce bosses who have wet dreams of replacing all workers and gaining world-destroying power. However, AI is also a Ponzi scheme scooping up unimaginable amounts of investor money in a bubble that is bound to burst. So now let’s pick up our conversation with Cory Doctorow, as I ask him, should we be worried about AI art?

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear part two of my interview with Cory Doctorow on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Part one can be found here:

The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI

The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI

Posted on by
4

Do you take after that mythological half-human, half-horse creature the centaur, or are you a reverse centaur? In the age of Artificial Intelligence, you’re either one or the other, says our guest today. I was happy to welcome blogger, journalist, science fiction writer, and activist, Cory Doctorow, whose most recent book was Enshittification, here to talk about his new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Cory Doctorow on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Remembering Mitchel Cohen in Spirit and Song

Posted on by
Reply

“This past week, we lost Mitchel Cohen, a passionate radical Marxist activist, thinker, writer, environmentalist, organizer, poet, and Phil Ochs fan, who was seemingly everywhere, connected to everyone on the left, including here on WBAI and Pacifica. It seemed like there was hardly a protest, demonstration, civil disobedience, or conference that he wasn’t a part of in one way or another…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear our remembrance of Mitchel, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Crucible: John Sayles’s New Historical Novel About Henry Ford, Labor and Cars

Posted on by
Reply

“John Sayles, filmmaker and novelist, known especially for his labor films, including the celebrated Matewan, has a new novel out. In his latest historical fiction, Crucible, Sayles furthers the story of the struggle of American labor, when organized labor in Michigan took on that force of nature–or better, force of capitalism–Henry Ford…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with John Sayles as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, as heard on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the nation

Bird City: Part 2!

Posted on by
Reply

“Last week we began our delightful conversation with Ryan Goldberg, author of Bird City: Adventures in New York’s Urban Wilds. Ryan talked about how the social and even political structure of New York city has been shaped by, and shaped, New York’s birds from beaches to parks, cemeteries to garbage dumps, airports to salt marshes. We left off our conversation where I had asked Ryan about the New York City so-called celebrity birds that from time to time blow up on social media…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear the continuation of my interview with Ryan Goldberg, author of Bird City: Adventures in New York’s Urban Wilds, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI-FM NYC, WBAI.org, and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

(You can find Part 1 of our conversation here)

Bird City

Posted on by
3

“When most New Yorkers look up they see skyscrapers, but award winning journalist Ryan Goldberg sees birds. In fact, he sees birds everywhere: New York City beaches, parks, cemeteries, even garbage landfills–and discovers how  birds help tell the social, cultural and even political story of our city…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Ryan Goldberg, author of Bird City: Adventures in New York’s Urban Wilds, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI-FM NYC, WBAI.org, and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

(You can find Part 2 of our conversation here)

“Something That Was Once Potentially Good”

Posted on by
Reply

How do you write fiction in a world that is perhaps post-fiction? When the horrors of the present world outstrip what our imaginations imagine? Arts Express favorite, Luke O’Neil, author of Welcome to Hell World and A Creature Wanting Form, writes stories that are full of the pain of men and women–but mostly men–who are trying to figure out how to deal with the helplessness and terror that make a mockery out of any John Wayne or Ernest Hemingway definition of manhood.

Now O’Neil has come out with his third collection of short stories called We Had It Coming, published by O/R Books.. We’ve always resonated with his work, but in this new collection especially, O’Neil’s short pieces are to our time what Raymond Carver’s short stories were to his. Stories of the soul and body struggling to make sense of the senseless cages in which capitalism has trapped us.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of “Something That Was Once Potentially Good,” from We Had It Coming, as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

We Did Okay, Kid: Anthony Hopkins

Posted on by
1

“Earlier this year we had the great Al Pacino’s memoirs published, and now we have the new memoir of another great actor available, Anthony Hopkins, who as a child had to hear his schoolmates call him “Elephant Head.”  And while both Pacino and Hopkins grew up in working class circumstances with difficult upbringings, their writing voices, like their acting voices, could not be more different…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above for my commentary on the new Hopkins memoir, We Did Okay, Kid, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio show, heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica stations across the nation.

And The Envelopes, Please…

Posted on by
Reply

For the 11th Annual Shalom Blog Magic Contest, that is. Here are the winners!

  1. Jay Baker
  2. Mike Kamlet
  3. Frank Yuen
  4. Chet Day
  5. Sean-Dylan Riedweg
  6. Richard Hatch
  7. Daniel Terelmes
  8. Ron Soucie
  9. Steve Cobb
  10. Steve Hook

Congratulations to all of the winners, and thanks to those who entered! The world of random numbers can be a fickle mistress, but these ten people have managed to prognosticate with an acumen and foresight that Carnac The Magnificent would be proud of.

Prizes will go out as soon as I hear back from everyone on the above list. (Please, if you haven’t responded to me yet, please check your email and spam folder and get back to me ASAP.)

Happy Holidays all!

Eleventh Annual Shalom Blog Magic Contest

Posted on by
Reply

Once again, In the never-ending battle for shelf place, I’m giving away some very nice magic books. One of them can be yours. Here’s what to do:

Please follow ALL the bolded directions, or I cannot accept your entry. I have generated a list of 10 random whole numbers between 1 and 10,000. Email me, at jshalom@worldshare.net one whole number between 1 and 10,000 that you think might be on the list. Put the word “Contest” in the subject line. Make sure to include your full name (not a company name!) and a current shipping address. One entry only please. If you won a prize last year, please do not enter this year to give others a chance. Do this before the deadline. Deadline is Sunday, November 30th 11:59 PM Pacific Time. That’s it. (Sorry, but due to shipping costs, this is only open to folks who live in the Continental US.) Please follow ALL the bolded directions, or I cannot accept your entry. Prizes will be awarded in December.

Whoever is closest to the first number on my random list gets first prize; whoever is closest to the second number gets second prize, and so on. There will be 10 prizes given out.

First prize is first choice from the terrific grab bag of magic books I’ve put together; second prize is second choice from the grab bag; and third prize, in a parallel, numerically pleasing manner, is third choice from the grab bag, and so on, down to 10th prize gets 10th choice. The items in the grab bag are all commercial magic books at least one of which, I guarantee, you will be very happy to have.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Ensh*ttification

Posted on by
Reply

“Crap, crap crap crap crap. I’m saying crap because that’s the euphemism I’m going to have to use now for the new book by Cory Doctorow whose name will not pass FCC rules, so I’ll just call the book Encrappification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What You Can Do About It, though of course  the real title rhymes with Ensittification. If you’re wondering why everything, especially the internet and Big Tech, which Doctorow primarily focuses on, is in the crapper, this is the book for you…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my commentary as broadcast on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation

The Black Cat

Posted on by
Reply

And now a little Halloween cheer with the short story, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, adapted for Arts Express Radio.

Click on the mp3 link or small triangle above to hear the tale as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

The Last Extinction

Posted on by
Reply

“Among geologists and paleontologists, The Dinosaur Wars have been known as a fearsome conflagration of powerful beings. No, I’m not talking about battles among those long extinct creatures, but among human beings, mostly male, at scientific war in the present day, lined up against a female scientist whose ideas threatened their theories and privilege. And I’m happy to have as our guest today, the woman who has been at the center of this controversy for decades, Dr. Gerta Keller, Professor Emerita at Princeton University, and the author of the new book about her groundbreaking work and discoveries, titled The Last Extinction: The Real Science Behind the Death of the Dinosaurs.“

Click on the mp3 link or small triangle above to listen to my interview with Gerta Keller as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Copaganda Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Last week we began a fascinating discussion with Alec Karakatsanis, author of the recent book called Copaganda. Now, copaganda is the unique form of propaganda that the cops and the rest of what Alec calls the punishment bureaucracy use to convince the public to endlessly fund their corrupt and provenly useless law enforcement institutions. Today we’ll continue our discussion about how copaganda works. Alec tells us that it not only has to do with the sheer number and volume of media scare stories, but also with the careful selection of anecdote.

Click the triangle or mp3 link to hear the continuation of our interview with Alec, broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Copaganda

Posted on by
Reply

In a world where narrative control is essential for the ruling class to maintain dominance, one of the main weapons in the class war is media manipulation. As applied to the world of so-called law enforcement, or what our guest today calls the punishment bureaucracy, you get a particularly insidious and dangerous form of propaganda called copaganda. And Copaganda is the name of the highly readable and eye-opening book written by our guest on the show today, public defender, civil rights lawyer and journalist, Alec Karakatsanis.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Alec Karakatsanis, as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Part two is here:

Copaganda Part 2

Return to Fukushima Pt 2

Posted on by
1

Last week we began our conversation with investigative journalist and professor Thomas Bass, author of a new book called Return to Fukushima. We discussed how the explosion of the nuclear reactors at Fukushima Japan in 2011, set off by an earthquake and tsunami, is still an ongoing international danger. We left off last week discussing how on Thomas’s visits to Fukushima he discovered that the radiation levels are still high in Fukushima, particularly for food stuffs that are exported world wide. We left off where I was appalled to learn about the danger from…wait for it…blueberries.

Click on the small traingle or mp3 link above to hear part two of our conversation with Thomas Bass, author of Return to Fukushima as heard on the Arts Express radio program broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Return To Fukushima

Posted on by
Reply

This month, the 80th anniversary of the dropping of US atom bombs on Japan makes us think about more recent man-made atomic disasters. Never mind 9/11, on 3/11, 2011, the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Japan exploded, with not only immediate effect, but long-lasting and far-ranging consequences for all of us, ongoing, still spilling radioactive components into the air and water on a large scale. Investigative Journalist and professor Thomas Bass spoke first-hand with the workers, engineers, politicians and remaining inhabitants of Fukushima to uncover the hidden and often distorted truth. He‘s detailed it all in a stunning book called Return to Fukushima, a great piece of personal reporting. I was happy to have him as my guest this week on the Arts Express radio program.

To hear my conversation with Thomas Bass, as broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country, click on the small triangle or mp3 link above.

Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins

Posted on by
Reply

It seems every generation there is a new upsurge of white supremacy and with that new attempts to justify it in some pseudo-scientific manner. We’ve had some great books in the past such as those by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin laying out the scientific fallacies of those racist justifications. And now with the advances in genetic technology, it’s only natural that we have to update that scientific de-bunking. I was happy to talk with the author of a new book called Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins, Dr. Shoumita Dasgupta.

Click on small triangle or mp3 link to listen to the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Firesign Theatre: Part Two

Posted on by
2

Herein, Part two of our conversation with Jeremy Braddock, author of the book, Firesign.

Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to hear the interview as broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country

Note: Our posting lately has been more sporadic than usual–we hope to be back up to speed in a week or two.

The Ultimate Hidden Truth Of The World

Posted on by
Reply

A posthumous collection of essays by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, who coined the phrase “We are the 99%,” has just come out, and we look into one of its most interesting pieces.

Click on the triangle above or mp3 link to hear my commentary on the book, as heard on the Arts Express radio program this week, broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

The Mockingbird

Posted on by
2

An anti-war story by the great Ambrose Bierce, which I adapted for radio and broadcast yesterday on Arts Express, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to listen.

And The Winners Are…

Posted on by
Reply

Of the 10th Annual Shalom Blog Magic Contest that is,

  1. Leo R.
  2. Roy Mcilwee
  3. Bill Mullins
  4. Vincent Kochetta
  5. Pablo Varela
  6. Jeff Haas
  7. Hugh Ramos
  8. Ted McManus
  9. Edward J. Rhodes
  10. Jacob Johnson

Congratulations to all of the winners, and thanks to those who entered! Your random number choosing ability was truly impressive!

Prizes will go out as soon as I hear back from everyone on the above list. (If you haven’t responded to me yet, please check your email and spam folder and get back to me.)

Happy Holidays all!

Tenth Annual Shalom Blog Magic Contest

Posted on by
Reply

Wow, I never thought I would make it to year ten, but here we are. And so…

In the never-ending battle for shelf place, I’m giving away some very nice magic books. One of them can be yours. Here’s what to do:

Please follow ALL the bolded directions, or I cannot accept your entry. I have generated a list of 10 random whole numbers between 1 and 10,000. Email me, at jshalom@worldshare.net one whole number between 1 and 10,000 that you think might be on the list. Put the word “Contest” in the subject line. Make sure to include your full name (not a company name!) and a shipping address. One entry only please. If you won a prize last year, please do not enter this year to give others a chance. Do this before 9 days from now. Deadline is Saturday, November 30th 11:59 PM Pacific Time. That’s it. (Sorry, but due to shipping costs, this is only open to folks who live in the Continental US.) Please follow ALL the bolded directions, or I cannot accept your entry.

Whoever is closest to the first number on my random list gets first prize; whoever is closest to the second number gets second prize, and so on. There will be 10 prizes given out.

First prize is first choice from the terrific grab bag of magic books I’ve put together; second prize is second choice from the grab bag; and third prize, in a parallel, numerically pleasing manner, is third choice from the grab bag, and so on, down to 10th prize gets 10th choice. The items in the grab bag are all commercial magic books at least one of which, I guarantee, you will be very happy to have.

Looking forward to hearing from you!