Terry Gross

Photographer Jan Staller. His photographs capture the well-traveled outskirts of cities. His subjects are viaducts, tunnels, piers, and subway entrances - the places we pass on the way to somewhere else. He's just published a new collection of such photographs taken around New York over the past ten years, "Frontier New York" published by Hudson Hills Press. In the book's introduction Paul Goldberger writes, "To look at New York through Staller's photographs is to feel that the familiar city has become somehow mystical, ephemeral, almost haunted."

Theatre and film director and screenwriter Peter Brook. In 1985, Brook staged an epic, nine hour play based on the Indian sacred text, "The Mahabharata (mah-hah-ber-rah-tah)." He's also directed a 6 hour T-V version and a 3-hour film version. Previously, Brook directed the Royal Shakespeare Company, founded the International Center for Theater Research, and directed the premiere of the groundbreaking play "Marat/Sade."

Commentator Patricia McLaughlin (mic-LOFF-lin) tells us how to dress for Earth Day.

Spiritual teacher RAM DASS. Ram Dass' book, "Be Here Now," was a widely used spiritual guide during the early 70s. Ram Dass followed that book up with several others, among them "The Only Dance There Is" and "How Can I Help?" Ram Dass started out as Harvard professor Richard Alpert. While at Harvard in the early 60s, Alpert joined with Timothy Leary and others in the early psychedelic experiments. That led him to investigations of meditation and spiritual practices.

Poet ALLEN GINSBERG and composer PHILLIP GLASS. The pair have collaborated on a interpretation of Ginsberg's poem, "Hydrogen Jukebox." The work gets it's premiere April 26th at the American Music Theatre Festival in Philadelphia, and features six singers, a five piece orchestra, and a mix of songs, chants, and the spoken word.

Baseball Hall-of-Fame pitcher Bob Feller. Some call him the fastest pitcher in history---taking the mound for the Cleveland Indians when just a teenager, Feller racked up 266 wins, struck out over 2500 batters, and pitched the only opening day no-hitter in major league history. In his new book, "Now Pitching, Bob Feller: A Baseball Memoir," he recounts his more 50 years in the game. (The book is co-authored with writer Bill Gilbert and published by Birch Lane Press).

Actor, comedian, filmmaker, and author Michael Palin. In the fall of 1988, Palin set out to recreate the journey Jules Verne described in "Around the World in 80 Days." Palin circled the globe by using just about every means of transportation except airplane (since that wasn't available in Verne's time). Palin turned his journey into an 8-part TV BBC series (it aired in this country on the A&E network) and a book that's a bestseller in England.

Reporter Lawrence Weschler. Weschler is a staff writer for the "New Yorker," where he writes on human rights, political, and cultural issues. Weschler's new book, "A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers," (published by Pantheon) looks at how victims of torture in Brazil and Uruguay worked to bring their captors activities to light (portions of the book ran as a five-part series in the New Yorker). Weschler's earlier books include "The Passion of Poland," and "Shapinsky's Karma."

Writer Oscar Hijuelos (E-Whell-Los). His recent novel, "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love," just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It's the story of Cuban immigrant brothers who work by day at grimy, exhausting jobs in a meat-packing house, but by night, in silk suits and lace ties, play the mambo, the vibrant, footloose music of Cuba. Surrounded by musicians wearing vests decorated with sequined palm trees, the Castillo brothers try to secure their own version of the American Dream.

British singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding. Born in the historical seaside town of Hastings, Harding has looked to the United States for his creative influences--from his Cambridge doctoral dissertation on the role of Jimmy Stewart in American films--to the songs of bluesman Robert Johnson, and folksingers John Prine and Jim Croce. His new album is called, "Here Comes the Groom."