Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz comments on the news that Seiji Ozawa will leave in three years as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His tenure which began in 1973 is the longest of any music director currently active with an American orchestra. As for his next job, he says he will take over the Vienna State Opera. Ozawa was born in Shenyang, China.
Kevin Bales is a leading expert on the modern-day practice of slavery. He is author of the new book "Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy." (University of California Press) Bales is a principal lecturer at the Roehampton Institute, University of Surrey, England.
Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord is the first Navajo woman surgeon. She is the author of the new book "The Scalpel and the Silver Bear." (Bantam) In her practice, she combines modern surgery with ancient Navajo healing practices. Born and raised on a reservation near Gallup, New Mexico she now serves as an assistant professor of surgery at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Craig Stanford studies chimpanzees and gorillas in Uganda. In early March, Hutu rebels kidnapped 14 westerners including his field assistant. 8 of the hostages were killed. Stanford had left the region before the attack. Stanford talks about the political situation and its impact on the wildlife there. He is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California. He is the author of "The Hunting Apes," and "Chimpanzee and Red Colobus."
William Karesh is a wildlife veterinarian in some of the world's most remote areas. He's written about his experiences in "Appointment at the Ends of the World: Memoirs of a Wildlife Veterinarian." (Warner Books) Karesh heads the International Field Veterinary Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society, located at the Bronx Zoo,in New York.
We feature excerpts from a panel of Hollywood screenwriters discussing violence in movies. This was held 6/4/99 in Santa Monica, California. The seminar was title "Guns Don't Kill People." Among the panelists were Callie Khouri who wrote "Thelma and Louis," William Mastrosimone who penned "Extremities, and The Burning Season," Steven De Souza who wrote the first two Die Hard movies, and Miguel Tejada-Flores, who wrote "Revenge of the Nerds:" and Jack Valenti, a Washington lobbyist for the top Hollywood studios.
Carolyn Wyman is author of "Spam, A Biography: The Amazing True Story of America's "Miracle Meat."" (Harvest) She also wrote "I'm a SPAM Fan," and "The Kitchen Sink Cookbook." her syndicated weekly column, "Supermarket Sampler," present reviews of new food products in more than 100 newspapers around the country. She is a staff writer at the New Haven Register in Connecticut.
John Callahan has edited the manuscript, "Juneteenth," of a never before published book by Ralph Ellison who died in 1994. Ellison's first and only book released in 1952, "Invisible Man," won the National Book Award. Callahan was named Ellison's literary executor and is editor of "The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison." Callahan is a professor of humanities at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
Serbian filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic (GOR-en) (pas KAL yeh vich) His new black-comedy "Cabaret Balkan," a fictional account of life in Belgrade on the eve of the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the civil war in Bosnia. Shot entirely at night over a two-month period in 1998. It has received a European Critics Award for "best film" last year. Paskaljevic attended the famed Prague film school and has gone on to make such films as: "Someone Else's America," "Tango Argentino," and "Time of Miracles."
American guitarist and composer Ry Cooder. Cooder produced a new CD by Ibrahim Ferrer (ph), one of the singers with the band. A new documentary film called "Buena Vista Social Club," produced by Cooder, tells the story of these musicians.
An interview recorded with Sergei Khrushchev before taking his citizenship exam today. Sergei, who is now 63, has lived with his wife in Providence, Rhode Island, since 1991. He is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Brown University's Center for Foreign Policy Development. His father had led the Soviet Union for about a decade when he was ousted in 1964. Sergei edited his father's memoirs, is the author of "Khrushchev on Khrushchev," and is finishing a new book about his father.
Mohammad Yunus is the founder one of the world's first "micro-lending" banks. These institutions loan money to poor people that other banks consider too risky. Founded in 1983. Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has provided over 2.5 Billion dollars in micro-loans. He has written about his efforts in the new book "Banker to the Poor." (Public Affairs) He is the former head of the economics department at Chittagong University, in Bangladesh.
Dan Fesperman is the former Berlin Bureau correspondent for the Baltimore Sun 1993-1996. From there he extensively covered Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. He has drawn for his experience there for the setting of his new crime novel "Lie in the Dark." (Soho) It is about a Sarajevo homicide detective who must do his job while corpses pile up from the on-going civil war.
Linda Greenlaw has worked on commercial fishing boats for nearly 20 years. She has written about her experience leading a sword fishing boat to New Foundland in the new book "The Hungry Ocean." (Hyperion) Curiously, After completing the book, she says of writing "I'd rather be fishing." Boston magazine named Greenlaw as one of the most intriguing women of 1997. She lives on Isle au Haut, Maine.
Chris Fehlinger is the co-founder of the on-line food magazine "Pheast" and is a contributing writer for the print magazine "Wine X. Recently he was the subject of the column "Table Talk" in The New Yorker 4/5/99. In that article, he confesses that he suggest bizarre food dishes, i.e. goat's head, on unsuspecting diners, just for the sport of it. In our interview, he gives us an insider's view of the restaurant business...how maitre d's get better tips, and how to get customers to order what you want them too.
Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg comments on the diminished stature of epigraphy. This refers to the ancient art of putting writing on walls. This includes signs, posters, banners and graffiti.
