Month: May 2009

Kathleen Collins (BSS #290)

Kathleen Collins is most recently the author of Watching What We Eat. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contending with traumatic cooking show associations. Author: Kathleen Collins Subjects Discussed: Understandable fears of Rachael Ray, shifting from the extremes of quiet 1940s home economists to Food Network bombast, Graham Kerr and The Galloping Gourmet, Julia Child’s charisma, the […]

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Javier Calvo and Mara Faye Lethem (BSS #289)

Javier Calvo is the author of Wonderful World. Mara Faye Lethem is the translator. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Considering the unseen cantaloupe. Guests: Javier Calvo and Mara Faye Lethem Subjects Discussed: The pleasures and challenges of having an in-house translator, Pandora in the Congo, the paucity of foreign writers published in America, the frequent use […]

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Arthur Phillips (BSS #288)

Arthur Phillips is most recently the author of The Song is You. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Reconsidering the playlists and those who play him. Author: Arthur Phillips Subjects Discussed: Characters who are enslaved to culture, partisan positions in relation to hoarding facts, being in denial about larger arguments within novels, Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature, aesthetic […]

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Sarah Waters II (BSS #287)

Sarah Waters is most recently the author of The Little Stranger. To listen to our previous interview with Sarah Waters, check out The Bat Segundo Show #37. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Creeping into the dark shadows of fabricated identities. Author: Sarah Waters Subjects Discussed: Research involving poltergeists, country doctors, and other topics, lingering interests from […]

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Michelle Goldberg (BSS #286)

Michelle Goldberg is most recently the author of The Means of Reproduction. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wondering if there’s any fate in what we make. Author: Michelle Goldberg Subjects Discussed: Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, the proper response to reproductive rights issues, the damage of hyperbolic predictions, European birth rates, parental leave and working mothers, […]

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Nelson George (BSS #285)

Nelson George is most recently the author of City Kid. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Drowning in the inevitable tide of gentrification. Author: Nelson George Subjects Discussed: George’s thoughts on Fort Greene, gentrification, black artists and real estate, the inevitable nature of change, finding a balance between the personal and the artistic, artistic arrogance, on not […]

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Blake Bailey (BSS #284)

Blake Bailey is most recently the author of Cheever and the editor of the two-volume John Cheever set recently issued by Library of America. Subjects Discussed: Eponymous titles, Cheever as a brand name, whether literary biographies are needed, contending with Updike’s review, the hard things that Cheever said about Updike, the literary biography as a […]

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Atom Egoyan (BSS #283)

Atom Egoyan is most recently the writer and director of Adoration, which opens in limited release on May 8, 2009. He is also a very friendly and interesting Canadian who does not bite people, but who somehow frightens the MPAA. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Pondering whether he is adored. Guest: Atom Egoyan Subjects Discussed: Scenes […]

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John Wray (BSS #282)

John Wray is most recently the author of Lowboy. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Searching for those who will listen to him in the subway. Author: John Wray Subjects Discussed: The ABAB narrative of Lowboy, mirroring schizophrenia within a narrative structure, a sane perspective that assists the reader, subway details, Franz Kafka’s Amerika, real vs. imaginary […]

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