Sze has a new collection of poems, "The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998" (Copper Canyon Press) Sze is second-generation Chinese-American. His poems reflect his many different influences: science and math, Asian ancestry, Buddism, and the American Southeast were he lives. Sze is a Professor of Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Pediatrician Lawrence Diller specializes in child development and behavior. He's evaluated hundreds of patients for attention deficit disorder, for which the drug Ritalin has often been prescribed. His new book "Running on Ritalin: A Physician Reflects on Children, Society, and Performance in a Pill." (Bantam Books). After seeing more and more parents come into his practice asking for Ritalin for their children, Diller became concerned, and wrote an article in 1996 that started a national debate about the use of the drug.
Journalist Adam Hochschild is the author of "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" (Houghton Mifflin) about the brutal reign of King Leopold II of Belgium over the Congo in the 1880s. His regime sparked the creation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." Leopold plundered the Congo's rubber, instituted forced labor, and reduced the population by half, committing mass murder. All the while, Leopold cultivated a reputation as a humanitarian.
Murch re-edited Orson Well's 1958 film "Touch of Evil." At the time of the film's initial release, the studio remixed the film to Well's displeasure. He fired off a letter with suggested changes. With those notes as their guide, Murch and re-edit producer Rick Schmidlin have reconstructed the film to Well's intentions. Some of the other films he's edited and/or mixed are "The Conversation," "American Graffiti," "Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather (II, and III)"and "The English Patient."
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews some reissues of music from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess." They are: the first complete recording of Porgy and Bess, reissued in Sony's Masterworks Heritage Series, and Selections from Porgy and Bess with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, on Telarc.
Dr. Jonathan Mann, the founding director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS, died this week in the Swiss Air plane crash. Last year, Terry Gross interviewed him about the state of AIDS across the globe, as well as the speculations at that time about a possible AIDS vaccine. He was the Dean of the School of Public Health at Allegheny University of Health Sciences in Philadelphia. This interview was originally aired 12/1/97
Music critic Ken Tucker reviews the new album of songs about infidelity by a group called "The Wandering Eyes." It's titled "The Wandering Eyes Sing Songs of Forbidden Love."
Born in 1937 in Littlefield, Texas, Jennings was a disc jockey at 14, and had already formed his own band at the age of 12, making guest appearances on local station KDAV's "Sunday Party," where he met Buddy Holly in 1955. Jennings became Holly's bass player. It was Jennings who gave his seat up to the Big Bopper on the plane which crashed later killing Buddy Holly.
Aryeh Neier is the President of the Soros Foundation. He has written the new book "War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice." (Times Books) Neier has also served for 12-years as executive director of Human Rights Watch and eight-years as the national director of the ACLU. He is considered one of the premiere human rights advocates and has conducted investigations of human rights abuses in more than 40 countries.
Sherman has a new album called "A Lady Must Live." She has been a long-time favorite of Manhattan's night life. Her new album features many American classic songs by Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Cole Porter.
"Slums" is Jenkins first screenplay and directorial debut. Robert Redford read her script while she studied at the Sundance Filmmaker's Lab in Utah. Redford became the film's Executive Producer.
Pelecacnos is the author of "Sweet Forever" (Little, Brown) He has been called "one of 1990's rising stars in crime fiction." His other works include "King Suckerman," "The Big Blowdown," "Down By the River Where Dead Men Go," "Shoedog," "Nick's Trip," and "A Firing Offense."
Plympton's work can be seen on MTV has a new feature length film, "I Married a Strange Person." Unlike computer animators, Plympton draws every frame of his films by hand. Each feature length film has 30-thousand individual drawings. Simpson's creator Matt Groening calls Plympton a God. The American Museum of the Moving Image in New York presented a retrospective of his work this month.
A discussion about terrorism with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tim Weiner. He writes about the CIA for "The New York Times." He talks about the changing nature of terrorism and specifically the challenges of tracking down Islamic militant Osama Bin Laden.
