New from The Nation: “Start Making Sense”
Podcast 11/19/15

The first episode of our new weekly podcast, “Start Making Sense” from The Nation:
iTunes podcast HERE – SoundCloud audio HERE
LAILA LALAMI talks about the origins of ISIS, and what to do about it now.  Laila grew up in Morocco; her novel The Moor’s Account was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Also: The New York Times coverage of Bernie Sanders has been condescending, and terrible: journalist AMY WILENTZ comments on the recent page one story ‘Bernie Sanders Won’t Kiss Your Baby.‘

Plus: CHARLES BLOW, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, talks about growing up poor and black in rural Louisiana; his book Fire Shut Up in My Bones is out now in paperback.

And TERRY GROSS explains the difference between interviewing Hillary and interviewing Bill. It’s her 40th anniversary hosting ‘Fresh Air’; she’s done 13,000 interviews.  (Recorded in 2004)

Dustin Hoffman, Kurt Vonnegut, John Coltrane:
from the Pacifica Archives: KPFK 11/18

Today we’re featuring gems from the Pacifica Archives, and asking you to support the Archives: they are perserving our history, the sounds of our struggles and our dreams, and the voices of our heroes. Please call during the hour and pledge: 800-735-0230 – or online HERE .

This hour we’ll be featuring rare audio, the source for amazing animation from Blank on Blank: DUSTIN HOFFMAN in 1971, recalling living next door to the building in Greenwich Village blown up accidentally by the Weather Underground. He also says that, as a kid, “I carried a knife taped to my leg. I never used it but it was there.” Watch the animation from Blank on Blank HERE
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Plus: Novelist KURT VONNEGUT remembers “learning to walk around looking tough” growing up in Indianapolis. Watch HERE
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Also: JOHN COLTRANE in 1966 was living on Long Island. One afternoon, Frank Kofsky took the train out to interview him. Coltrane picked him up at the station. They drove around town. They stopped to talk. (Coltrane died less than a year later.) Watch HERE.

White Workers are Dying: KPFK 11/11

LISTEN online HERE iTunes podcast HERE
The white working class is dying – literally. Their death rate in middle age is rising, while that of all other Americans continues to fall. It’s a shocking discovery, and a revealing one. We’ll have comment from HAROLD MEYERSON—he wrote about it for the Washington Post op-ed page.

Also: In 1692, Massachusetts executed 14 women, 5 men, and 2 dogs for witchcraft. We had another “witch-hunt” in the 1950s, with McCarthyism, and after 9-11, with the roundup of young Muslim men. STACY SCHIFF explains—her new book is The Witches: Salem 1692. (Our conversation was held at the L.A. Central Library as part of the Library Foundation’s ALOUD series; listen to the ALOUD podcast HERE.)

Plus: KPFK Sports! DAVE ZIRIN analyzes the campaign against racism at the U. of Missouri, where the football team led a startlingly successful movement—refusing to play until the president resigned.  Dave is sports editor of The Nation.

Stacy Schiff on the Witches of Salem: LA Public Library ALOUD series

The panic began in 1692, when a minister’s daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged.  I’ll be in conversation with the Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Véra, about the wild story of the Salem Witch Trials.  Her new book is The Witches.
LISTEN HERE  11/3/2015

Margo Jefferson on ‘Negroland’: The Nation 10/22

Q. You grew up in the fifties in Chicago in a world you call “Negroland.” What was “Negroland”?
Margo Jefferson: Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty. Children in Negroland were warned that few Negroes enjoyed privilege or plenty and that most whites would be glad to see them returned to indigence, deference, and subservience.
–“10 Questions for Margo Jefferson,” continued at TheNation.com, HERE.

John Densmore on Bernie Sanders: KPFK 10/14

LISTEN online HERE iTunes podcast HERE
JOHN DENSMORE, drummer for The Doors, talks about Bernie Sanders — and about the new film Window of Opportunity, a suspensful dark comedy thriller about corporate greed that he produced. It’s screening Oct 28 at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood—a benefit for Bernie. WATCH the trailer HERE.

Plus: The day that Dylan went electric: we’ll speak with ELIJAH WALD about the legendary moment in our history at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965—and listen to rare audio of Dylan playing “Maggie’s Farm” that day. Wald’s new book is Dylan Goes Electric!
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Also: Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is documentary made by the award-winning filmmaker ALEX GIBNEY — is our featured thank-you gift this hour of the KPFK fund drive. We’ll be speaking with Alex Gibney about why people join Scientology—and what happens when they try to leave.

Margo Jefferson on “Negroland”: KPFK 10/7

LISTEN online HERE  iTunes podcast HERE
MARGO JEFFERSON remembers what she calls “Negroland”—the world of the black elite in the fifties, the world in which she grew up. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for her work at the New York Times; now she’s professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts, and she has a new book out: Negroland: A Memoir.

Also: GREIL MARCUS has written many books, starting with the classic Mystery Train and including the unforgettable Lipstick Traces. Now he has several new books coming out, starting with Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations; then the monumental Real Life Rock, the complete collection of his columns over the last 30 years; and he’s found new way of talking about our past: The History of Rock ’n’ Roll in Ten Songs.

Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants: KPFK 9-30

LISTEN online HERE iTunes podcast HERE
Seven little words from MICHAEL POLLAN:  “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” His number one-bestseller, out now in paperback, is IN DEFENSE OF FOOD. Michael is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley.

Also: HENRY FORD’s Amazon colony — historian GREG GRANDIN tells the story of Ford’s biggest failure.  His book Fordlandia is out now in paperback.

Plus: Politics and modern music: Hitler and Stalin went to the opera, and Joe McCarthy subpoenaed composers. What was going on?  ALEX ROSS explains — he’s music critic for The New Yorker, where’s he’s written not only about classical music but also about Bjork, Bob Dylan and Radiohead.  His award-winning book, out now in paperback, is THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the 20th Century, and his famous website is TheRestIsNoise.com.

Pope Frances at the White House: KPFK 9/23

LISTEN online HERE  iTunes podcast HERE
Pope Francis met Obama at the White House today, part of his campaign to press the world’s last superpower to do more to care for the planet and its poorest people.  We’ll have comment from NATHAN SCHNEIDER, he wrote about the Pope for the Catholic magazine America and for The Nation.

Plus: Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution – that’s the powerful documentary by STANLEY NELSON about Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, and Fred Hampton, who was killed by the Chicago police in 1969—and about the LA Panther shootout 4 days later. The film opens Friday at the Nuart in LA. WATCH the trailer HERE.
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Also: LAILA LALAMI’s amazing novel, The Moor’s Account, is out now in paperback.  It’s a fictional memoir of the first black explorer of America—a Moroccan slave who arrived with conquistadores in Florida in 1527. Laila was born and raised in Morocco and teaches creative writing at UC Riverside; her book was nominated for a Pulitzer and won the American Book Award.