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.
Jeffrey Ford is most recently the author of The Shadow Year. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wondering why he isn’t invited to the Bowery Bar. Author: Jeffrey Ford Subjects Discussed: Writing a book representing a congeries of genre, the visceral advantages of not relying upon research, The Shadow Year‘s unnamed year and unnamed narrator, Botch Town […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 57:04 — 52.3MB)
MoreChip Kidd is a book designer and most recently the author of The Learners. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contending with form vs. function. Author: Chip Kidd Subjects Discussed: The origins of the nickname Happy, Death of a Salesman, laundry list homages to White Noise, Daredevil, Himillsy Dodd’s ability to see into the future, lexical blending, […]
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MoreSamantha Hunt is most recently the author of The Invention of Everything Else. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Pining for chambermaids. Author: Samantha Hunt Subjects Discussed: Managing multiple perspectives, working within the limitations of 1943, helpful historical endnotes, Tesla’s tendency to divide things by three, pleasantly misleading metafictional names, using abandoned New York topography in a […]
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MoreToby Barlow is the author of Sharp Teeth. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Distrusting of certain types of poetry. Author: Toby Barlow Subjects Discussed: The appeal of free verse, genre distinctions, the concern for lycanthropic physiology, Terry Pratchett, deviating from the rules in the werewolf canon, Brian Francis Slattery’s Spaceman Blues, a hyper-giddy version of the […]
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MoreSteve Erickson is most recently the author of Zeroville. He returned to the program for a second conversation with The Bat Segundo Show #447. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Confused by floating point integers. Author: Steve Erickson Subjects Discussed: Approaching a novel with fewer fantastical elements, following the narrative laws of movies, Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, […]
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MoreCharles Baxter is most recently the author of The Soul Thief. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Vengeful towards literary ransackers. Author: Charles Baxter Subjects Discussed: Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, intellectualism and the academic community, reductionist dialogue, being a grad student in the 1970s, Baxter’s recurrent water motif, placing a novel in Buffalo, getting the setting right, […]
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MoreCharles Bock is the author of Beautiful Children. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Reconsidering the last eleven years of his life. Author: Charles Bock Subjects Discussed: Setting a novel in Vegas, writing about a city when living there vs. a more distant approach to learning about the location, Las Vegas and its suburbs as the fastest […]
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MoreCharles Burns is the author and illustrator of Black Hole. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding conspiracy theorists. Author: Charles Burns Subjects Discussed: Responding to Vanessa Raney’s comparison between Black Hole and Sartre’s No Exit, anatomical closeups, World War II venereal disease films, intuitive artistic choices, the influence of postwar culture vs. personal experience, half-naked girls […]
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MoreAdam Langer is most recently the author of Ellington Boulevard. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Scurrying away from Duke-loving hipsters. Author: Adam Langer Subjects Discussed: Topographical narrative, characters that emerge from the environment, being a “method writer,” dialogue and perspective, the use of quotation marks, writing from the perspective of animals, dog science and memory, coincidences […]
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MoreJami Attenberg is most recently the author of The Kept Man. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Seduced by the Church of Tequilology. Author: Jami Attenberg Subjects Discussed: Adam Sternbergh’s grups article, Terri Schiavo, wondering what people do all day long, the donut girls in Greenpoint, donut shops that stick on the brain, pickup artists, describing objects […]
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MoreSue Miller is most recently the author of The Senator’s Wife. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Wary of Washington’s workings. Author: Sue Miller Subjects Discussed: Character names, the New Left, Tom Hayden vs. Tom Naughton, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, setting a story in the early Clinton years, Updike’s Terrorist, the reticence of older writers writing about certain […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 38:21 — 35.1MB)
MoreAmy Bloom is most recently the author of Away. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Momentarily replaced by an obnoxious sportscaster filling in. Author: Amy Bloom Subjects Discussed: Opening a novel with a protagonist immersed within the Yiddish Theater, coloring a story with tragedy vs. getting to know a character, the 57 blocks of the Lower East […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 35:45 — 32.7MB)
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