Columnist and commentator Murray Kempton. The New Yorker says he's "surely among the greatest of all living newspapermen" . . . "the one true original in the business." For years he wrote a column for the old New York Post. Now he writes for New York Newsday and The New York Review of Books. At 76, he bicycles around Manhattan in his elegant attire to gather material for his columns on the City's "rebels, losers and rascals." His latest book is a collection of his newspaper pieces.
Physician and author Kenneth Iserson, M.D. Iserson wanted to promote organ and tissue donation. So he wrote a book about what happens to dead bodies. It's called "Death to Dust" (Galen Press). Iserson believes that death is the pornography of our culture. He says that after-death activities are shrouded in secrecy. His book explores the mundane--burial choices and advance directives--and the arcane--head shrinking, cannibalism and cryonic preservation.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead fills in for Stephen Schiff and reviews two new movie releases--"With Honors" with Joe Pesci and "PCU" with David Spade. They're both campus comedies.
Writer, feminist, organizer, and the founder of Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem. She has a new book of essays, "Moving Beyond Words, (Simon & Schuster). In one of the essays she wonders -- what if Freud were female? -- and imagines what life would be like if one of the most "enduring, influential, and fiercely defended thinkers" in Western civilization were Dr. Phyllis Freud. In her new book Steinem also reflects on turning 60.
Ted Hawkins is a singer, a songwriter, and a guitarist who for almost 30 years was a street musician in L.A. His music isn't the blues though he's qualified to sing them: he grew up in poverty in Mississippi, his mother was a prostitute, he never knew his father. As a teenager, Hawkins spent time in jail. His first two marriages ended quickly: one was annulled, his second wife died two months into the marriage.
TV critic David Bianculli previews the third installment of "Prime Suspect." It will air on PBS tonight. Helen Mirren stars as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. "Prime Suspect" is part of PBS's anthology series "Mystery."
Singer, songwriter, guitar player, Dan Penn. Penn has written soul music classics--"Do Right Woman," "Cry Like a Baby," "Sweet Inspiration," "I'm Your Puppet," for example. His compositions have been made famous by the likes of Aretha Franklin, James Carr, Percy Sledge, Solomon Burke and Otis Redding. Penn left his tiny hometown of Vernon, Alabama when he was sixteen. . . a white kid, singing like Ray Charles and in love with black music.
Rock musician Marshall Crenshaw. According to The New York Times, many critics have ranked Crenshaw"among the finest rock artists of the last dozen years." Now he has written a book. It's a reference guide to Rock 'n' Roll in the movies ("Hollywood Rock" HarperPerennial). According to his longtime bass player Graham Maby, Crenshaw has an encyclopedic knowledge of rock music. And he knows about the rock and roll movie genre from first-hand experience. He played Buddy Holly in the 1987 movie "La Bamba" about musician Ritchie Valens.
Writer Michael Ignatieff, who has investigated six of the world's trouble spots for a BBC television series, and a companion book: "Blood & Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). A Canadian of Russian ancestry who lives in England, Ignatieff's book raises the question of why nationalism, which once unified countries like Germany and Italy, today pulls countries apart.
Alison Des Forges. She's a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where her specialty concerns the central African countries of Rwanda and Burundi. She's also the Co-Chair of the International Commission on Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda, and a consultant to Human Rights Watch Africa on Rwanda and Burundi. Rwanda has descended into civil strife since April 6th, when the Rwanda and the Burundi presidents were both killed in a plane crash.
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the new album by the Seattle band Soundgarden, voted by "Sassy" magazine "America's ugliest band". It's their fourth, "Superunknown," on A & M Records.
Journalist and mystery writer Jon Katz. Katz is a media critic, . formerly for Rolling Stone and now for New York Magazine. First in Katz's "Death by Station Wagon" (Bantam) and now in his newly released "The Family Stalker" (Doubleday), soft boiled detective hero Kit Deleeuw cruises the streets of a fictional suburban community on crime-solving forays in his Volvo station wagon. Deleeuw lost his Wall Street job in the 80's.
At the recent Public Radio Conference in San Antonio, Texas, three Fresh Air arts reviewers swapped stories at a critics forum. Rock critic, Ken Tucker; commentator and book critic, Maureen Corrigan; and TV critic, David Bianculli, offered their thoughts on issues such as media hype and how to deal with it. They shared anecdotes about angry subjects of negative reviews who seek revenge against the reviewer. That panel discussion will be aired today.
South African journalist John Matisonn. Matisonn is white and grew up in the suburbs in Johannesburg. (His grandparents emigrated to South Africa at the turn of the century). To NPR listeners he's best known for his coverage from South Africa from 1986 to 1991. Matisonn also worked in Washington, D.C. He's now the head of elections for the South Africa Broadcasting Company, SABC, (which before the end of apartheid, broadcast purely government propaganda).
Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Bengal Nights," and "It Does Not Die," two autobiographical novels about the same romantic affair. They've just been republished. "Bengal Nights" is by Mircea Eliade, "It Does Not Die," is by Maitreyi Devi. (Both University of Chicago Press).
