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KCRW’s Michael Silverblatt at the LA Times Book Festival

KCRW’s Michael Silverblatt, the host of the literary talk show Bookworm, speaks with Jenny Attiyeh at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  Silverblatt is the real thing — an authentic, genuinely interested interviewer who reads not only the latest book his guest has come to discuss, but the writer’s entire body of work.
Less concerned with wooing an audience than in communing with the author, Silverblatt aims for connection, not ratings. His passion for literature can at times turn his program into an esoteric personal adventure, one which his listeners might at times have difficulty following. But this happens far too rarely on public radio, or in public media of any form, these days. Perhaps you disagree?

This interview is the second of three that took place at the Fourth Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in 1999. The third interview, coming soon, is with Arianna Huffington. The first interview, featured in the previous post, is with the comedian and writer  Sandra Tsing Loh.
For an audio version of this interview with Michael Silverblatt, click here: to listen.

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Posted on April 26, 2019 in a new podcast, Front Page, Literature, Public Media
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Chanticleer Backstage on ThoughtCast!

Chanticleer, for those who’ve been lucky enough to attend its concerts already know, is a delightful all-male classical vocal ensemble. It’s sold over a million albums is an audience favorite. Highly versatile, the group performs a diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance music to gospel to new music to jazz. It’s all fabulous, as you will hear. I put it together for WNYC, when the public TV station still existed in NYC in the late 90s. Enjoy!

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Posted on March 16, 2019 in a new podcast, Art, Front Page, Music, WNYC TV
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ThoughtCast Reflects on the Legacy of John McCain

John McCain’s final battle – this time with an aggressive form of brain cancer – is now over, and the debates over his legacy have yet to begin in earnest. Instead, we are awash in adulatory news coverage, which highlights McCain the icon, but obscures the man. Perhaps his performance in a pivotal New Hampshire Presidential Primary Debate, held in January 2000, just weeks before he defeated George W. Bush in that state’s primary – the first in the nation – is worth reviewing.

In this excerpt from the hour-long debate, moderated by NBC’s Tim Russert, McCain, the campaign finance reform candidate and rider of the Straight Talk Express, responds to breaking news regarding his lobbying the FCC on behalf of Paxson Communications, a campaign contributor. Let’s not forget that McCain’s reformist tendencies developed after he was criticized for exercising “poor judgment” by the Senate Ethics Committee for his role as one of the Keating Five Senators accused of corruption in 1989.
Although my follow-up question was admittedly intended to bridle him, McCain (in my view) comes across as brittle. Where is his famous sense of humor? Where the politician’s gift of deflection? McCain’s “brittle temper” was hardly a secret, but compared to other candidates on that stage, his smile is steely, his manner tense.
A self-described maverick and patriot, might McCain have been a touch too proud? Did his confidence in his own integrity, as the New York Times phrased it, “blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest”?  McCain of course went on to lose the primary to George W. Bush, and perhaps self-love, rather than love of country, got in the way.
The intention here is not to dump on McCain – what would be the point? But — if he had been just a bit less attentive to his own honor, might we have avoided 8 years of George W. Bush? Think about that for a minute. That would indeed have been a legacy.

Click here: to listen (6:14 mins).

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Posted on September 3, 2018 in a new podcast, Biography, Front Page, History, Politics, Psychology
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John McCain’s Last Stand – on ThoughtCast!

John McCain, the maverick Republican Senator from Arizona, was diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago now, so there’s not much time left for this remarkably resilient politician to take a final stand. Will McCain live long enough to vote for — or against — Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee? He did vote to confirm Neil Gorsuch, but will he return to the Capitol to help overthrow Roe V. Wade?

Who is McCain really — is he the independent spirit who rode the Straight Talk Express campaign bus during the 1999/2000 Presidential Primary?

Or is he the far more conventional conservative who surrendered to the right wing and selected Sarah Palin the second time he ran for the presidency? Clearly, he’s all of the above, which makes it difficult to anticipate his actions.

Jenny Attiyeh interviewed McCain during the New Hampshire Presidential Primary in 1999, when he was still the front runner. Back then he was the darling of the media, and was portrayed as a forthright, reformist candidate. He went on to defeat George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary, only to fall victim to a smear campaign in South Carolina  — he’d fathered a black child, was a traitor to his country — from which he never recovered.

Recently, of course, McCain’s been subjected to the taunts of President Trump. He’s endured far worse — try five years as a prisoner of war, tortured by the North Vietnamese. But now that the end is very nearly here, will he figure out what it is he really stands for?

In his latest book, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations, McCain expresses regret over his VP pick in 2008. Perhaps as the clock ticks out his final hours, he’ll reach beyond words, to something more like action. Or, as this book review states, will he continue to try to have it both ways?

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Posted on July 15, 2018 in a new podcast, Ideas, Politics
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Philip Glass creates an opera – on ThoughtCast!

Note: this mini-documentary, which was broadcast in 1996 on WNYC TV, a public television station in New York City, charts the creation of Les Enfants Terribles, a dance opera by the composer Philip Glass and the choreographer Susan Marshall.

Over the course of three months, Jenny Attiyeh saw this work of art, based on the novel by French Surrealist Jean Cocteau, take shape. The story of Les Enfants Terribles, which is also the final part of a Philip Glass trilogy inspired by the work of Cocteau, tells the tale of Paul and Lise, two adolescent siblings who are bound to each other in an unholy mix of love and jealousy. When they come into volatile contact with two other adolescents, the result is indeed terrible.

Click here: to listen (14 mins).

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Posted on May 2, 2018 in a new podcast, Art, Front Page, Music
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Lydia Ratcliff: Vermont Farmer, Stubborn Survivor

I’ve decided to re-post this ThoughtCast program from July 1, 2009 because my friend Lydia Ratcliff died yesterday, February 14th, 2018. The New York Times has written an obituary of her that I think is worth reading. She fought COPD for over a decade, so she could remain involved in the life of her Andover farm, her friends, and the ideas and preoccupations which sustained her.

Note: this audio program was broadcast on WAMC and WGBH radio in Boston, and the audio program and slideshow were featured on NHPR.org.

Milking TimeAbout 40 years ago, farms were thick on the ground in Andover, a rural town in southern Vermont. Today, 75-year-old Lydia Ratcliff’s Lovejoy Brook Farm is the last working farm still in operation. But can it survive much longer? ThoughtCast’s Jenny Attiyeh grew up visiting Lydia each summer, listening to her tales, eating fresh corn and carrots from her garden, and watching the animals give birth, and grow old. On a recent visit to see Lydia, Jenny brought along her microphone …

Lydia Ratcliff is a survivor. She’s farmed her 90 acre plot of land in Andover Vermont for 43 years, and though she’s now come down with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, she still climbs on top of that tractor in hay season.
Does she offer a lesson for the rest of us? Does she represent the future of farming in Vermont, or is she one of the last of a dying breed?
Click here to listen (9 minutes.)

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Posted on February 14, 2018 in a new podcast, Economics, Environment, Front Page
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