Senior curator of the motion picture collection at the George Eastman House, Paolo Cherchi UsaiI. He is also Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Rochester. He is an expert on silent films, and is co-director and co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. He has worked with Alloy Orchestra on several film projects. And he restored the print of "Lonesome." He's the author of numerous articles and studies of silent film.
From The Alloy Orchestra, composer and keyboardist Caleb Sampson. The band has gained a reputation for composing and performing exciting, percussive silent film scores. Their repertoire includes scores for "Metropolis," "Nosferatu," "Lonesome," and their newest, for the Russian classic "Man with a Movie Camera." The film has a "sneak preview" at the Telluride Film Festival in early September, and it premieres at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy in October. They have two CD's.
Novelist Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Her new novel is The Fatigue Artist, (Scribner) about a 40 year old woman who comes down with chronic fatigue syndrome. One reviewer calls it "witty and hopeful and fierce." Schwartz is also the author of Disturbances in the Field, and Leaving Brooklyn.
Monologist, actor and writer Spalding Gray. He's written and performed several monologues including, "Monster in a Box" about all the distractions that prevented him from completing his novel, Impossible Vacation, and Swimming to Cambodia about filming a movie in Cambodia. Now Gray has a new monologue and book about his eye problems, and his adventures in the mainstream and alternative health care industries. It's called Gray's Anatomy. (Vintage Books).
Illustrator and comic-book artist Peter Kuper. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, and his "Eye of the Beholder" was the first comic strip to regularly appear in The New York Times. He is also co-founder and co-editor of World War 3 an illustrated political comics magazine. He's illustrated a number of books. Most recently, Give it Up! And Other Short Stories by Franz Kafka, (NBM Publishers)
Film director Larry Clark. He's making his directing debut with the new film "Kids." The film has generated controversy for its "throwaway brutality," and its graphic portrayal of a group of antisocial teenagers in Manhattan, where sex is easy and deadly and drugs are common place. Clark has photographed the gritty side of teenage life for two books, Tulsa, and Teenage Life. The film's screenwriter is a 21 year old skateboarder Clark met while hanging out with a group of them in Manhattan's Washington Square Park.
Film Critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Clueless." The film stars Alicia Silverstone and was written and directed by Amy Heckerling who Schiff considers one of the top two female directors in Hollywood. Heckerling's other films include "Fast times at Ridgemont High," and "LookWho's Talking."
Classical Music Critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the recent performance of American pianist Leon Fleisher. Thirty years ago he suffered a disabling repetitive stress syndrome injury. Since then, he's played almost exclusively with the Left Hand. This recent performance featured Fleisher attempt a Mozart concerto with both hands. 12
Author and Historian Richard Rhodes discusses the Cold War battle for the Hydrogen Bomb. His latest book is Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (Simon & Shuster August 1995) Using recently declassified files in the United States and the Soviet Union he details the escalation of the Superpower arms race. He won a Pulitzer Prize for chronicling the Manhattan Project in The Making of the Atomic Bomb. He is the author of several other books including Nuclear Renewal: Common Sense about Energy, A Hole in the World, Sons of Earth, and Looking for America.
Joel Selvin, the Rock Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, talks with Fresh Air Producer Amy Salit about the life of Grateful Dead band leader Jerry Garcia. Marin County officials in California say Garcia died early this morning of apparently natural causes. He was 53.
TV producer, writer, director and actor Garry Marshall. He's considered a "One man Who's Who" of Television. He's written for The Lucy Show, The Danny Thomas Show, The Tonight Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Jack Parr Show, and Love American Style. He created 14 prime time sitcoms including Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, The Odd Couple. During one week in 1979, Marshall boasted four of the top five rated TV shows.
Paul Beaver is the editor of the British magazine Jane's Balkan Sentinel. The Sentinel is published by Jane's Information Group, which also publishes Jane's Defense Weekly. Beaver discusses the magazine's investigation into tracking the clandestine arms supply routes into Bosnia and the Balkan states. It has been reported that all of the warring factions in that region have been receiving weapons illegally. The United Nation's currently has an arms embargo on the six republics of the former Yugoslavia.
Father Thomas Keating teaches the centuries old art of Contemplative Prayer This prayer is done without words and even without thoughts. Keating believes this opens the heart and mind to God. Keating teaches at the St Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. The Monastery also supports a network of prayer workshops through Contemplative Outreach Ltd. in Butler, New Jersey. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
Writer Clifton Taulbert grew up in the segregated South in the 1950s. His experiences growing up black in America are chronicled in his two memoirs When We Were Colored and the Pulitzer Prize nominated The Last Train North, (Penguin Books). Taulbert lives in Tulsa Oklahoma where he is a businessman. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Hunters and Gatherers the new comic novel by Francine Prose, a story about a Manhattan community of New Age Goddess worshippers (Farrar, Straus and Giroux .August 1995)
Rock Historian Ed Ward looks at why "Pop" music has hit the charts around the world but remains buried in the subculture in America. "Pop" music, as it is known internationally, is not to be mistaken with Top 40. Ward says American radio stations in the late 1970s and early 80s didn't pick up the sound and a lot of the "Pop" music went unheard.
Jo Giovannoni, she is the editor of Harley Women. She says the sound of a loud Harley can hardly be described as noise but finds the word "music" a better description and she says women are changing the image of "bikers."
