Robert Smiths Slightly Mad Pop Pop Canon Cannon Bang Bang Wake (Interstitial Mix #1)

August 27, 2015 2 comments Article

This is the first of a series of interstitial mixes that will be rolled out as I continue to develop some future projects. What follows is a descent into the contradictions of pop music, initiated by one Robert Smith trapped in the framework of a famous Lionel Richie composition. While the mix is enjoyable on its own terms, there are many hidden associations for those wishing to play along. Interpretations of this madness are, of course, quite welcome in the comments.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 24:48 — 22.7MB)

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Merritt Tierce (BSS #551)

September 25, 2014 No comments Article

There are 2.4 million waiters and waitresses now working in America. Why have our narratives failed to confront the realities of working in a restaurant? Merritt Pierce, author of LOVE ME BACK, joins us to discuss working-class narratives, the male gaze, abortion, and women as second-class citizens. This show also includes a strong critique of 2 BROKE GIRLS and one of the most startling on-air gaffes in Bat Segundo’s history.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 47:26 — 43.6MB)

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The Cultural Redemption of Stefan Zweig: Anthea Bell and George Prochnik (BSS #550)

September 17, 2014 No comments Article

This special two hour episode of The Bat Segundo Show details the life and work of Stefan Zweig in considerable detail. It may be the most epic radio program ever devoted to Stefan Zweig. It includes interviews with translator Anthea Bell and George Prochnik, author of THE IMPOSSIBLE EXILE.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:47:54 — 99.0MB)

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Amanda Vaill (BSS #549)

June 27, 2014 No comments Article

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway headed to Spain to help the Loyalists during the Civil War. Gellhorn was to transform into one of the 20th century’s best war correspondents. Hemingway needed to have his romanticism crushed to write a masterpiece. They are two figures in Amanda Vaill’s HOTEL FLORIDA. This conversation examines how the Civil War changed not only the trajectory of Spain, but the future of world culture.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 54:24 — 50.0MB)

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Mimi Pond (BSS #548)

June 19, 2014 No comments Article

Cartoonist Mimi Pond spent a good chunk of 1978 working as a dishwasher and a waitress in an Oakland diner. Thirty-six years later, she’s collected her experiences in the graphic novel, OVER EASY. This 40 minute conversation examines that experience, looking into the difficulties of accurately portraying that era in a politically correct age and how a crisp glimpse into working-class life is generally more reliable than nostalgia.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 37:26 — 34.3MB)

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Joanna Rakoff (BSS #547)

June 5, 2014 1 comment Article

Joanna Rakoff spent 1996 working as an assistant for Harold Ober Associates, overhearing the likes of J.D. Salinger and Judy Blume talking shop. This 75 minute conversation, which discusses Rakoff’s memoir MY SALINGER YEAR, gets into some of the underlying privilege and protective family dynamics which led Rakoff to get a later start as an adult.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:15:02 — 68.8MB)

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Paula Bomer III (BSS #546)

May 28, 2014 No comments Article

Author Paula Bomer has dedicated her fiction career to staring inside the abyss and seeking the human. We discuss her new short story collection, INSIDE MADELEINE, and discuss everything from Flannery O’Connor’s notion of the grotesque, how sex defines relationships, boarding schools, how modest surrealism can reveal urban identity, and scatological moments in high literature. (The episode’s introduction includes some thoughts on the recent passing of Maya Angelou.)

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:04:25 — 59.1MB)

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Porochista Khakpour II (BSS #545)

May 14, 2014 No comments Article

In this wide-ranging 79 minute conversation, Porochista Khakpour discusses how she fused the romantic with the grotesque for her second novel, THE LAST ILLUSION, birds as an inevitable cultural symbol, growing up as an Iranian immigrant, quirky and pragmatic attitudes to death, Kafka and Kierkegaard, and academics who misinterpret authenticity,

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:18:13 — 71.7MB)

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Nikil Saval (BSS #544)

May 13, 2014 No comments Article

Was there ever an age in which the office provided reasonable security for the worker? Is it possible for the office worker to be given respect and adequate compensation in the 21st century? We talk with Nikil Saval, author of CUBED, to figure out how a system designed to pit office workers against each other went wrong. It turns out that misguided philosophy, austere architectural developments, and a carefully manufactured belief culture against organized labor are all part of a very complicated narrative we all take for granted.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 58:41 — 53.9MB)

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Evie Wyld (BSS #543)

April 29, 2014 No comments Article

Evie Wyld is the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize-winning and Granta 20 author of ALL THE BIRDS, SINGING — a novel that is arguably more alive than most of the dull literary books about flatware and chalices at pretentious dinner parties. Our conversation gets into how work defines even the natural landscape, the relationship between insects and humans, and why kangaroos are quite dangerous.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 46:47 — 43.0MB)

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Yiyun Li II (BSS #542)

April 28, 2014 No comments Article

In this vivacious chat with MacArthur fellow Yiyun Li (and on the occasion of her latest novel KINDER THAN SOLITUDE), we discuss nothing less than the mysteries that humans impose upon the universe, Li’s secret life as an accordion player, why poison is the most passive-aggressive murder technique, how Americans are exacting more care in discussing the uncomfortable, and how storytelling can encourage people to talk about the truth.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 49:36 — 45.5MB)

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Ben Tarnoff (BSS #541)

April 22, 2014 2 comments Article

More than a century after his death, Mark Twain is often portrayed as a jolly and avuncular figure. Yet the truth is that Twain was a savage wit and an incendiary figure, and it took this free-spirited iconoclasm to push expression forward. We talk with Ben Tarnoff, author of THE BOHEMIANS, to discuss how California writers (including Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Ina Coolbrith) defied the East and reinvented American literature during the 1860s.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 54:40 — 50.1MB)

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