The Bat Segundo Show was a long-running cultural radio program devoted to quirky and very thorough long-form interviews with contemporary authors, idiosyncratic thinkers, and other assorted artists. Guests included David Lynch, Octavia Butler, John Waters, John Updike, Stephen Fry, Marilynne Robinson, Karen Russell, Weird Al Yankovic, Robert A. Caro, and more than 500 others. There was also a program called Follow Your Ears, which was a thematic investigative counterpart, in which I pursued a specific subject through several angles. The entire archive of what I did from 2005 to 2014 is included here.
Tobias Wolff is most recently the author of Our Story Begins. Condition of the Show: Speculating upon Mr. Wolff’s unknown powers. Author: Tobias Wolff Subjects Discussed: Writing first-person stories that don’t seem like first-person stories, the use of the word “I,” contemporary short stories and therapy sessions, fiction and narcissism, William Trevor, knowing the lay […]
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MoreDavid Hajdu is most recently the author of The Ten-Cent Plague. Condition of the Show: Dabbling into hidden threats. Author: David Hajdu Subjects Discussed: Hajdu’s approach to journalism, primary sources vs. secondary sources, categories of people to talk with when preparing a book, tracking down people who disappeared, grassroots methods of finding people, changing names, […]
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MoreSarah Hall is most recently the author of Daughters of the North (published in the UK as The Carhullan Army). Condition of the Show: Remaining optimistic about a dystopian future. Author: Sarah Hall Subjects Discussed: Daughters of the North vs. The Carhullan Army, writing books that aren’t set in the present day, concern for environmental […]
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MoreMark Sarvas is the author of Harry, Revised. Condition of Show: Concerned with revision. Author: Mark Sarvas Subjects Discussed: Harry Rent and Arthur Dent, James Wood’s How Fiction Works, character names, Jean Cocteau, Tod Goldberg and fucktard, serendipitous phone calls, Harry’s level of hypocrisy, Deconstructing Harry, how screenplay experience tied into novel writing, human inconsistencies, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 48:14 — 44.2MB)
MoreNicholson Baker is most recently the author of Human Smoke. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Deceased. Author: Nicholson Baker Subjects Discussed: Baker’s antipathy for placing the date at the top of an entry, the blogginess of A Box of Matches and Human Smoke, the discrepancy between what Baker remembered and what Updike wrote in U & […]
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MoreRichard Price is most recently the author of Lush Life. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Caught in a crime scene. Author: Richard Price Subjects Discussed: Setting a novel on the Lower East Side, tenement houses turned into tenement museums, juxtaposing a struggling Boho actor against the Old World, real estate as violence, gentrification, people who don’t […]
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MoreJennifer Weiner is most recently the author of Certain Girls. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding literary desegregation. Author: Jennifer Weiner Subjects Discussed: The similarities between Good in Bed and Certain Girls, how to quantify the past, text as a responsive medium, an embedded critique of chick lit, being embarrassed by your mother, making Cannie more […]
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MoreMichio Kaku is most recently the author of Physics of the Impossible. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Dreaming the impossible dream. Author: Michio Kaku Subjects Discussed: Maximum caps on bandying about theory in physics, relativity and string theory, the Theory of Everything, decoherence and the wave function of the universe, the Large Hadron Collider, detecting sparticles, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 26:48 — 24.5MB)
MoreJennifer 8. Lee is the author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Indignant towards the ungrateful. Author: Jennifer 8. Lee Subjects Discussed: Comparisons between Chinese restaurants and open source software, General Tso’s chicken, fortune cookies and Analects, how frequently fortune cookie companies rotate fortunes, melon patches, making a living as a fortune […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 48:54 — 44.8MB)
MoreElizabeth Crane is most recently the author of You Must Be This Happy to Enter. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Failing to understand why so many people are happy. Author: Elizabeth Crane Subjects Discussed: The unwarranted stigma behind the exclamation mark, what it means to be happy, zombies and reality TV, Max Brooks’s World War Z, […]
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MoreLydia Millet is most recently the author of How the Dead Dream. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Battling upholders of decency. Author: Lydia Millet Subjects Discussed: The “nation” of ideology, empathy as an endangered species, graying hair color compared against graying landscape, obnoxious cell phones, subconsciousness vs. the innate design of a novel, the life cycle […]
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MoreMarshall Klimasewiski is most recently the author of Tyrants. This conversation was conducted in front of an audience at McNally Robinson on February 28, 2008. Many thanks to Jessica Stockton Bagnulo for arranging this! Condition of Mr. Segundo: At loggerheads with his master. Author: Marshall Klimasewiski Subjects Discussed: Ballooning as a “fight or flight” impulse, […]
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