I was happy to speak with Judith Tick, famed musicologist and professor emerita of music history at Northeastern University, and also author of the new biography of Ella Fitzgerald, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to part one of our interview, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation. Next week, we’ll run part two of the interview.
A few weeks ago, I was happy to read a short story on the air titled “Thy Kingdom Come” by Luke O’Neil from his new collection of short fictions called A Creature Wanting Form. If you heard the reading, then you know that Luke O’ Neil is a powerful writer who takes journalistic impulses and turns them into sharp accounts of the present and near future world. I was happy to have Luke on the show as our guest.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview with Luke O’Neil, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Great Balls of Fire and other exultations of exclamatory joy! Hoo-roo and hoo-rah! We made it by the skin of our teeth through one more year of daily posts. I hope they’ve provided some sort of diversion and interest for you. As is my custom, on anniversary day, I post what I feel were my favorite audio pieces of the year. I’ll try to keep the list short this time, a baker’s dozen, so that you can get a chance to sample the ones you missed or re-visit posts that you enjoyed.
Hey Guys, Watch This: Nellie McKay
Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse
John Sayles’s New Novel: Jamie MacGillivray
“Shakespeare Without Tears”: Hamlet and the All-Seeing Surveillance State
Julian Assange In His Own Words
From Approximately Coast To Coast…
The Theater of Three Card Monte
Our End-Of-Year Arts Express Thank You Poem
2nd Chance: Sex, Violence and Bulletproof Vests
The SAG-AFTRA actors strike has now been going since July 14th, more than 3 months without a contract. We’ve heard a lot in the press from both sides about the seemingly intractable negotiations–when there are negotiations–but I thought it could be brought closer to home by talking with someone who our regular listeners know, having done so many wonderful readings and performances on Arts Express, the wonderful actress Mary Murphy.
Click on the triangle or the mp3 link above in order to hear my interview with Mary Murphy as as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
In a geopolitical world where the US is increasingly using every tool of control and coercion it can on other countries, the truth can be deeply hidden. Now a new book titled, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, clearly outlines the ways in which technological and economic choke points, many on U.S land, are being weaponized to pressure the worlds’ foremost powers into complying with America’s interests. I was happy to interview the authors of Underground Empire, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman.
Click on the mp3 link or triangle to hear the interview as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the country.
I’m grateful to Stephanie Schubert, Operations Coordinator of the Pacifica Network, for conducting and publishing this interview she did with me about the recent Arts Express production of To The Lighthouse. At the end of the article, you’ll find a link to our podcast page, if you’d like to hear the production.
Last week we brought you Part 1 of an interview with Jayne Loader, one of the directors of the classic 1982 film documentary called The Atomic Cafe, a darkly comic and horrifying collage of government propaganda clips and popular culture surrounding the development and deployment of US nuclear weapons. In Part 1 we talked about the dropping of the A-bomb and the lies that were told about it. This week, Jayne talks about how she and her co-directors obtained the material and the impact the cold war and nuclear weapons had on American culture from duck and cover drills in schools to the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Here now is Part 2 of my interview with Jayne Loader director of The Atomic Cafe.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Part 1 is here:
Forget about Oppenheimer. The year 1982 saw the release of one of the darkest, most horrific and yes, funniest documentaries ever made. I’m talking about film The Atomic Café which was a head-spinning stew of actual atomic age propaganda of the 1940s fifties and beyond, crafted from government-produced educational and training films, newsreels and advertisements. The film exposed the vast propaganda machine that the US state uses to deceive and market its insane atomic policies. Now it’s in re-release, and I think more relevant than ever, and I was very happy to be speaking today with one of the original directors of The Atomic Café, Jayne Loader.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear Part One of my interview with Jayne Loader as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio show heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Part Two is here:
As you may know, not only are film and tv writers out on strike, but now film and tv actors have joined them. I recently spoke to actor/comedian Jay Potter, who is on the board of the New York local of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ film and television union, to get more clarity about what is happening. In that conversation, fresh from a day on the picket line, Jay spoke about some of the key issues and the wider implications of the current exploitative Wall Street/Hollywood mode of film and series production.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Jay as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Veronica White was a local artist and activist who was full of surprises. In a new short film documentary called Veronica White: A Life in the Key of the Community, her many facets are explored. I was happy to speak with Director Chuck Moss and Executive Producer Julius Hollingsworth about the film.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the conversation as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NY and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
We’ve been putting together a fundraising show for WBAI, Arts Express’s parent radio station, so that’s what we’ve been up to in the last few weeks. We dived deep into the Arts Express archives and put together a fantastic flash drive with some classic interviews done by host Prairie Miller as a donation premium. In order to pitch it, we ran a show last night that contained some excerpts from some of those interviews, which you may enjoy listening to. The show contains pieces of interviews with Queen Latifah, RFK Jr., The Rolling Stones, Isabel Allende, and Mike Africa Jr. Click on the triangle or mp3 link above, in order to hear the program as broadcast last night on WBAI FM NYC.
Filmmaker, actor, and writer John Sayles captured my imagination ever since his first film, Return of the Secaucus 7. Soon, other great films followed: Brother From Another Planet, Matewan, Eight Men Out, Amigo, and so many others. But of course, John Sayles is not only a filmmaker, but also the author of short stories and novels including Union Dues, Amigo, and Yellow Earth. Now he’s come out with a new novel called Jamie Magillivray: The Renegade’s Journey. I was very happy to speak with John Sayles on the Arts Express radio program.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my interview with John Sayles as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Before there was Covid, before there was Swine flu, there was a then mysterious sickness called Lyme disease. When Lyme disease was first identified in 1975, little did the medical community suspect that soon Lyme disease would become the center of one of the most controversial, divisive, and vicious medical debates in medicine today. A new film called The Quiet Epidemic explores that controversy by focusing on one young girl from Brooklyn and a doctor who refuse to abide by the conventional medical wisdom. I talked with the directors of The Quiet Epidemic, Lindsay Keys and Winslow Crane-Murdoch, for Arts Express radio.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the inteview as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio show on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
What does it take for a writer/actress to perform a play she’s written about prisons, at a prison? And in particular, at one of the most notorious prisons in the country, Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, America’s largest prison-plantation. A new documentary about that performance and its aftermath, titled Angola Do You Hear Us?, has been shortlisted for the Oscar for Documentary Short Subject. I was happy to speak with the director of the film, Cinque Northern, and the playwright/performer, Liza Jessie Peterson.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program today, aired on WBAI -FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
The film is streaming on Paramount +
Why would a man shoot himself in the chest 192 times? In a country that worships guns, explosives, and comic book super heroes, what kind of stories move product? And finally in a country that professes to be deeply Christian and compassionate is there a second chance for all of us—even the worst among us? All this and more are explored in a really intriguing documentary called 2nd Chance. I was happy to talk to the director of 2nd Chance, Ramin Bahrani.
To hear the interview as broadcast today on the Arts Express program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation, click on the triangle or mp3 link above.
Well time flies when you’re having fun, and here we are at the 8th iteration of the Shalblog Industries® (division of Axlotl International) daily blog anniversary. As is our wont on such occasions (and who wouldn’t want to wont on such an occasion?) herewith a list of some of our favorite radio work of the past year that you may have missed.
Lady Buds: Six Women Underground Cannabis Growers
“They’re Worse Than You Thought And More Evil Than You Thought”
How to Tell A Story In One Sentence
Advice For The Ethically Challenged
“A Spectre is Haunting Europe…”
“I Feel Drunk All The Time” : The Poems of Kenneth Patchen
Taken For Granted: Overcoming Underwriting
A Public Service: A Guide For Whistleblowers
The twists and turns of the last three years add up to several lifetimes. But somehow, with all of Covid’s initial attendant panic, fear and isolation, and the major film studios shut down, filmmaker and writer Peter Hedges decided to make a film during the very heart of the pandemic. The result was a unique film project called The Same Storm, the interlocking stories of some two dozen characters facing life as the world turned upside down. I was very happy to be talking with the creator of The Same Storm, Peter Hedges.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with director Peter Hedges as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
As wars rage all around us, one war, WW II, still stands as the exemplar for the Good War. But is that a useful or accurate designation? And if not, why does that view still have such an outsized influence in the national discourse? I spoke with David Swanson who has written a book called Leaving World War II Behind which challenges the notion of WWII as the Good War.
Click on the grey triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with David Swanson on the Arts Express radio program on Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
** Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War: a special extended conversation with veteran union UAW organizer and hellraiser, Jon Melrod
**Little Amal Comes to Brooklyn: Little Amal is a 10-year-old refugee from Syria. She is also a 12-foot puppet who has traveled 5,000 miles across Turkey and Europe and now to Brooklyn, in search of her mother. A photo essay.
** Dennis Broe on Robert Colescott’s Anti-Racist, Anti-Imperialist paintings
and more!
View online here: October 2022 AE MAGAZINE
Get your free email subscription to the Arts Express Magazine, the companion magazine to Arts Express Radio, by sending an email with the word “subscribe” in the subject line to: artsexpresslist@gmail.com
Fewer than 10 years ago, former NSA employee Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the US government’s illegal, unconstitutional, worldwide warrantless surveillance. Throughout history, brave whistleblowers have risked their lives and livelihoods for what they considered the greater good. But what is the cost these whistle blowers pay, and more importantly, how do the successful whistleblowers succeed?
I was happy to talk with author Tim Schwartz who has written a how-to guide for would-be whistle-blowers, uncovering many of the traps and missteps one can fall into, A Public Service: Whistleblowing, Disclosure, and Anonymity.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the conversation with Tim Schwartz as broadcast today on the Arts Express program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
As corporations are making record profits, workers are being squeezed more than ever. But workers are fighting back in surprising ways. Jon Melrod, has been involved as hell raiser and union organizer for decades, ever since his groundbreaking union organizing on the shop floor for the United Auto Workers in the 70s and 1980s. He’s now written a rip-roaring memoir called Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War about his fight to make workers lives better, and I was happy to get the chance to interview him.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Jon Melrod, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
In 1995, the students of a secondary school in Scotland, found out they were the victims of a hoax. Their popular student companion of the previous year, Brandon Lee, turned out not to be who he seemed to be, but an imposter. Now, one of those school students, Jono McLeod, who grew up to be a filmmaker, has made a film that takes that shaggy dog story further yet, as Jono and his former school companions investigate the effect that the student they knew as Brandon Lee had on all of them. And in a virtuoso turn, Alan Cumming plays the camera-shy Brandon.
I was very happy to interview the director of the film, My Old School, Jono McLeod, and its star, Alan Cumming, for Arts Express radio heard on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast today
June is Busting Out All Over! This month:
** Castro’s Spies: Director Gary Lennon phones in from Dublin to talk about his documentary depicting the heroic undercover Cubans infiltrating Miami, known as the Cuban Five.
** Decolonizing Museums: A review of the new book by Shimrit Lee on the service of museums to imperialism
** Lost People, Places and Spaces: Dennis Broe on the international crime novel writing festival in Lyons
and more!!
View online here: June 2022 Arts Express Magazine
For decade after decade, musician and composer Paul Winter has been making beautiful music, blending the sounds of the earth and nature with his signature soprano saxophone. In an extraordinary life filled with adventure and achievement, he has won seven Grammy awards, played for the Kennedys at the White House, and he has been artist in residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City for forty years–and that’s just scratching the surface. I was happy to interview Paul Winter for the Arts Express radio program.
Click on the triangle or MP3 link above to hear the interview with Paul Winter as broadcast on Arts Express on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
A memorable day in any big city child’s upbringing is when they first enter a large museum and experience the wonders of a giant dinosaur, skeleton, or an ancient mummy. But in a new book, Decolonize Museums, our guest Shimrit Lee suggests that maybe museums are not as innocent as they seem…
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Shimrit Lee as broadcast today on the Arts Express program on WBAI and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
