This is part 2 of our conversation with artist, revolutionary and Young Lord, Carlito Rovira.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to part 2, as broadcast yesterday on Arts Express, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
You can find part 1 here:
What makes a person become an artist? Are they born or are they made? And what is the purpose of art? Our guest yesterday has very definite views about these and other questions, and I was happy to be talking with a man whose portraits are filled with meaning, artist, revolutionary and member of the Young Lords, Carlos “Carlito” Rovira.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview with Carlito, as broadcast on Arts Express radio yesterday on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
And you can find Part 2 here:
If you feel like us, that our concerns in this election cycle have been stuffed into the washer and hung up to dry, and that the elections are a senseless distraction, take heart. Mary Murphy and myself have come to the rescue. We perform three short pieces by the great Caitlin Johnstone, and they’re the the last segments you’ll ever need to hear again about the the so-called elections. Halleluljah.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the segment as broadcast on Arts Express this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
One of the most volatile issues facing the US electorate this year concerns so-called open borders. Despite whatever rhetoric may be coming from the two major US political parties, their basic positions are the same—they see open borders as a threat to the country. But is any of the fearmongering true? My guest on Arts Express is a journalist and translator who writes for the Arizona Luminaria, John Washington. He has written a compelling new book called The Case for Open Borders.
Click on the grey triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with John Washington as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
It was just announced that Julian Assange has been granted a plea deal that will allow him to plead guilty to one charge and be freed from Belmarsh prison and come home to Australia.
Given the massive terrible propaganda assault against Assange by the US government, a government caught committing war crimes in video footage that Wikileaks had released, and the government’s attempt to smear, silence, and murder Assange, it’s more important than ever to really understand what Assange was doing and the important message he had.
In lieu of this very important news, I am re-posting a piece I put together a little less than two years ago consisting of passages from Assange’s speeches and writings, read by a cast of WBAI and Arts Express friends. Click on the title below to hear the piece.
Our conversation about how the US economy really works, with Stephanie Kelton and Maren Poitras of the documentary Finding The Money, continues.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Part One can be heard by clicking here
What if everything you thought you knew about the way the US economy works was wrong? I mean everything: the national debt, the role of taxes, even what money is. Now a new documentary Finding The Money challenges the story that we’ve all heard about how the national debt is out of control. The film flips the narrative on its head, challenging the arguments of those who say we can’t afford social spending. I was happy to have on Arts Express filmmaker Maren Poitras, and also one of the major subjects of Finding the Money, economist and former advisor to Bernie Sanders, Stephanie Kelton.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear part one of the interview as broadcast last night on the Arts Express program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Part Two is here:
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government was determined to showcase US culture to the world as proof of capitalism’s superiority as an economic system. And so in 1964, the US government embarked on a daring plan to make artist Robert Rauschenberg the winner of the Grand Prize at The Venice Art Biennale, the world’s most influential art exhibition. A new film documentary, Taking Venice, gives us an inside look at how the Biennale was manipulated, and more than that, a look at the enigma that was Robert Rauschenberg.
I was happy to interview the director of Taking Venice, and an art critic in her own right, Amei Wallach. Click on the small triangle above or the mp3 link to hear the interview as broadcast on Pacifica affiliate stations across the nation.
This week, it’s 460 years since the birth of Shakespeare, and since we are living in what can only be termed apocalyptic times, it might be fitting to take a look at the most apocalyptic of Shakespeare’s plays, King Lear. Let’s call this episode of my continuing series,“Shakespeare Without Tears,” King Lear: Apocalypse Now.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my commentary as broadcast today on WBAI-FM and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Asian-American photographer Corky Lee used to carry a business card with him which read, “Corky Lee the undisputed, unofficial Asian-American photographer laureate.” And undisputed, was right: his fifty plus years of documenting Asian-American life in photographs, and his knack for being in the right place at the right time, made him a cultural hero to millions of Asian Americans, particularly in New York City.
A recent film documentary about Corky Lee, called Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story is now in release, and I was happy to have as our guest on Arts Express radio, the director of Photographic Justice, Jennifer Takaki.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Jennifer Takaki as heard on the Arts Express radio program, broadcast today on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
In which I talk about Douglas Rushkoff’s brilliant but frustrating book about how tech is leading us to a dehumanized society.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my commentary as heard on the Arts Express radio program today, broadcast on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
My guest, Doug Kari, author of The Berman Murders, looks back at a double murder from more than 35 years ago and takes the reader through an international labyrinth of deceit and crime that leads to the killer—who, by the way, has never been prosecuted for those murders. I was happy to be talking with journalist and lawyer Doug Kari, author of The Berman Murders.
Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to listen to the interview as heard today on the Arts Express radio program, broadcast on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Hey, it’s National Noodle Month! Who knew? Anyway you can listen to my review of A Short History of Spaghetti With Tomato Sauce, as heard today on Arts Express radio on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation, by clicking on the triangle or mp3 link above.
One thing that Hollywood and Wall Street have in common is that their core businesses are based on illusions, money and lies. My guest has been intimately involved with both worlds and has recently written a page-turning memoir called RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. I was happy to talk with author Robert Kerbeck.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio show, heard on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
We’ve featured the work of the revolutionary fiction writer Manuel Tiago on Arts Express several times with dramatic readings from some of his short stories. Those stories are a part of an eight book cycle about the 40 year fight against the Portuguese fascists from the 1930s to the 70s. That series has recently come to completion with the publication of the last book to be translated into English, titled Until Tomorrow, Comrades. I was happy to speak with Eric Gordon, the translator of the series.
Click on the gray triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Wherein we review Jim Feast’s mash-up historical murder mystery novel that features Karl and Eleanor Marx, in league with a 16 year old Sherlock Holmes!
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the review as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program today, heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
This is part two of my interview with Judith Tick, musicologist and author of the new biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald. In this part, we talk about Ella’s relationship with her producer Norman Granz, the songbooks, and her later years.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
You can hear part one here:
Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, Part One
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.
And here is part two of the interview:
If there’s anything that defines today’s political era, it is the amount of pure BS that is spouted and accepted every day. One of my favorite writers who cuts through all that is Australian based Caitlin Johnstone. With a sharp eye and a sharp tongue and a sharp pen she states the obvious, but forbidden, that the emperor has no clothes.
Here are two poems of hers written within the last year that I particularly like. The first is called “In Times Like These” which is self-explanatory, and the second is called “Thank You for Your Service,” written on the occasion of the death of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of the two poems, as broadcast yesterday on Arts Express radio on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation,
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.
Some years ago I had the privilege of reading on the air a selection from author Luke O’Neil’s terrific collection of essays called Welcome to Hell World. Now Luke has come out with a new collection of short fiction pieces called A Creature Wanting Form, published by OR Press. This new collection is a kind of perfect companion for the current ashes in the air. I thought the best way for you to get the flavor of the book was for me to read one of the stories from the book, a piece called “Thy Kingdom Come.”
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the story as performed on the Arts Express radio program, broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
I find that as the world seems ever more bleak, I enjoy turning to the poetry of Mary Oliver. Her poems of disappointment, hope, and eventual learning from the natural world can get me through to the next day.
Here then is Arts Express favorite, actress Mary Murphy, superbly voicing a selection of poems by Mary Oliver.
Click on the mp3 link or arrow above to hear the poems as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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.
