Street Cries

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I just did one of the best Here on Earth programs ever, thanks to the wizardry of poet/performance artist Annie Lanzillotto and her sidekick singer/songwriter DePree. Street cries! Who would have thought that such a commonplace, raw, vulgar, and oh so not midwestern topic would evoke such a powerful response? We had some wonderful sound lined up from Annie's collection of street criers from all over the world to use in the program, but what callers spontaneously supplied was even better: a garbonzo seller from India, popcorn and peanut vendors from a baseball game, a Vietnamese fish monger's cry, an Egyptian seller of cotton candy - and much of it recreated live on the air! This must have been what God intended when he said, "Let there be talk shows!" The poet in me, the street hawker, rose to the occasion, and Joe Hardtke, Here on Earth's engineer par excellence, was just as thrilled. Now why can't we do that together more often? Any ideas?

Street Cries

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I just did one of the best Here on Earth programs ever, thanks to the wizardry of poet/performance artist Annie Lanzilotto and her sidekick, singer/songwriter DePree. Street Cries! Who would have thought that a program about something as commonplace, raw, vulgar, and oh so not midwestern could evoke such a soulful response! We had some wonderful sound lined up from Annie's collection of street cries from all over the world to use in the program, but what callers spontaneously supplied was even better - a garbanzo seller from India, peanut and hot dog vendors at a ballgame, a Vietnamese fish vendor, even an Egyptian hawking cotton candy in Arabic - and so many callers recreating these soul cries right on the air! It was what God intended a talk show should be. The poet in me, the street hawker, rose to the occasion, and Joe Hardtke, our engineer, was just as thrilled. Now, why can't we do that more often? Any ideas?

May 19-23 Programs

Dear Here-on-Earthlings,

Here's what's coming up on Here on Earth:

Monday: Colin Tudge, a BBC commentator and the author of 14 books on farming, food, and ecology, argues in Feeding People is Easy, that we can solve the global food crisis by reverting to small farming practices.

Tuesday: Meet two heroic women who have transformed their war trauma into a force for truth and healing.

Wednesday: We are still working on it.

Thursday: People all over the world read and write science fiction. What do they have in common? Jean Feraca talks with a science fiction buff participating in this year's International Science Fiction Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

Friday: Whad'a they have that we ain't got? Barry Levinson, the founder of the Mustard Museum in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, reports on his recent mustard-tasting tour of Dijon, France.

Have a great weekend!

Jean

May 12-16 Programs

Dahlings, (And by the way, didn’t you love Neal Kernan’s take on Yiddish? Who knew?)

We have a stellar line-up stacked up for you this week – I’m almost sorry I won’t be here for most of it. I’ll be hosting Monday’s program on The Counterfeiters, then heading west for a romp in the California wine country. Veronica Rueckert will be lighting up the airwaves in my place.

Monday: If you haven’t yet seen this year’s Best Foreign Film, The Counterfeiters, you’ve missed a great film experience. It’s the story of a Jewish master counterfeiter who gets sent to Auschwitz where the Nazis force him to head up a counterfeiting operation to help them win the war. It’s based on a true story, and we’ll be talking with Lawrence Malkin who wrote the book behind the movie, Krueger’s Men. I think the movie might still playing at Sundance.

Tuesday: The Man Who Loved China. Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, its long and astonishing history of invention and technology Here is a tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great—related by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.

Wednesday: When in Rome, do as the Romans. But what if you can't figure out what the Romans are doing? Wednesday we'll crack the code on international culture and tradition with the author of the book Going Dutch in Beijing.

Thursday: A Feminist Version of the Qur’an? The Qur'an is said to be untranslatable, and has so far been the domain of male translators. This hour we'll meet the woman who's tackling the Qur'an with a translation highlighting messages of inclusiveness and tolerance. (The Sublime Qur'an translated by Laleh Bakhtiar, a celebrated scholar of Sufism, a writer, translator, and the only woman to have translated The Qur'an.)

Friday: Remember Paris by Pastry? It was one of our favorite programs last spring, worthy, we thought, of another go. Sink your teeth into the sweets of Paris patisseries as we follow a metro stop guide to pastry shops and the deliciousness of April in Paris with Joyce Slayton Mitchell.

And yes, how sweet it is, this Mother’s Day stuff, these apple blossoms and lilacs, this chardonnay…

See ya…

Jean

May 5-9 Programs

Hi Folks!

First off, I apologize for not getting the bulletin out last week, but I hope you enjoyed our live remote from Conserve School up in Land o’ Lakes last Wednesday as much as I did. I was sick as a dog, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Glorious setting in the north woods, great kids that make you feel like there’s hope for the world after all, and amazing teachers like Jeff Rennicke whose story about how he teaches Jack London’s “How to Start a Fire,” was worth the five hour trip.

Here’s what’s in the mix for this coming week:

Monday: Bananas! Have you ever wondered why bananas are so cheap? Since I married a man who grew up in Venezuela, my banana consciousness has been raised, and we’ve both been waiting a long time for a book like Peter Chapman’s Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World. It’s an expose of one of the world’s most controversial multinational corporations.

Tuesday: The Story of Yiddish: a gutter language, and an unlikely survivor of the ages, not unlike the Jews themselves, told by Neal Karlen, staff writer for Newsweek and Rolling Stone and a contributor to the New York Times.

Wednesday: 27 Gumballs: an entrepreneurial microfinance scheme created by a group of clever Stanford students who are turning gumballs into cash for the working poor.

Thursday: John Nichols weighs in on the global food crisis.

Friday: What am I eating.com? When I was in China a few years ago I met a delightful English woman named Suzy Oakes, a world traveler who has eaten the most amazing things all over the world, and created a website to catalog them with 61,000 entries in 256 languages, including Black Foot!

Oh yes, and thank you so much for supporting WPR!

Jean

April 18-25 Programs

Hello Here-on-Earthlings!

I’m heading north again this weekend. Randall Davidson and I will be at the Aaron Bohrod Gallery at UW-Fox Valley for a reception and reading this Friday as part of the Fox Valley Literary Festival. Then it’s off to our studios in Green Bay to do a Here on Earth program on sturgeon caviar, and after that I head south again to Wisconsin Rapids to read on Saturday at the Prairie Chicken Festival, although I’ve never written anything about prairie chickens.

Here’s what’s coming up this week on Here on Earth:

Monday: Chasing the Olympic Torch: 37 arrested in London, chaos in Paris, and Free Tibet banners flying from the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s been a wild ride for the Olympic Torch, and it’s far from over. Should we boycott the games? Joe says this one promises to be “a firecracker.”

Tuesday: Maronite, Coptic, Armenian Orthodox: As we head into Holy Week in the Eastern Orthodox Church, we sample some of the riches of the Eastern Christian liturgies with Andrew Krivak, a former Jesuit, and the author of A Long Retreat.

Wednesday: Here on Earth travels north to celebrate Earth Day at Conserve School in Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. Our theme: Growing Up Wild: Connecting Kids with the Great Outdoors.

Thursday: The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama: In an age of irony and irreverence, we still have a desire to believe. No one taps into our longing more than the Dalai Lama. Celebrated travel writer Pico Iyer talks about why the Dalai Lama matters and what lies ahead for the spiritual leader, globe trotter and simple monk.

Friday: Did you ever pull up a weed from your garden and think "Hey, that looks good enough to eat!" From dandelions to chickweed to grape leaves, learn how to forage the roadsides and fields with Wildman Steve Brill, America's Best-Known Forager.

I’m out a here!

Jean

April 14-17 Programs

Cari Amici!

Here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth:

Monday: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine and the One State Solution: For an unflinching analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an equally bold and unflinching solution, join me with London-based Palestinian physician, Dr. Ghadi Karmi, a 1948 refugee from Jerusalem, the author of Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine.

Tuesday: For a whale of a story, we take a look at the international whaling industry: Who hunts them? Who eats them? How many are left?

Wednesday: You don’t have to become a monk to live like one. The BBC recently broadcast a television special that chronicled the adventure of a group of laymen who set out to live the monastic life.

Thursday: Many of us were captivated by the images of three protestors who crawled up the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco this week in support of a Free Tibet. We’re in touch with the organization that sponsored them, and hope to follow up on the waves of protests that are plaguing the Olympic Torch on its journey from Athens to Beijing.

Friday: I’ll be in Green Bay today with colleague and fellow writer Randall Davidson to take part in the first annual Fox Cities Literary Festival. We’ll be in Menasha at the Aaron Bohrad Gallery for a reception and readings. After that, I’ll be whisked away to our studios in Green Bay to host a Friday Here on Earth food program about Caviar. Would you know what to do with 50 pounds of sturgeon eggs? Betsy Krizenesky does!

Have a great weekend!

Jean

Ciao Amici!

Without intending it, we have lined up an almost completely Hispanic week on Here on Earth, with the exception of one Australian theologian!

Here’s how it shakes out:

Monday: Fermat’s Room: A scary Spanish film featured in this weekend’s Wisconsin Film Festival, and this year’s choice for World Cinema Day, Fermat’s Room has an intriguing premise straight out of The Pit and the Pendulum: 4 mathematicians locked in a shrinking red room that will crush them to death if they don’t solve the problem! Talk about pressure!

Tuesday: Juan Felipe Herrera, a multi-talented writer/performer whose many works focus on the politics of immigration and identity issues in the Latino community. His latest book is 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border.

Wednesday: Isabel Allende talks about her latest memoir, The Sum of Our Days, a passionate and inspiring look at the life of the Allende family held together by the resolute matriarch – Isabel herself - after the tragic loss of Paula, her daughter.

Thursday: Michael Morwood, the controversial Christian theologian, author of Is Jesus God and Tomorrow’s Catholic is in the midst of a rare US tour. We’ll catch him as he flies by.

Friday: We break stride with our Food Friday tradition today to welcome the star of the 2005 Madison World Music Festival, Lila Downs, back to Madison. The daughter of a Mixtec cabaret singer, Downs has been touring internationally performing native Mesoamerican music in Mixtec, Zapotec and Maya. She was featured in the movie Frida. You’ll love her if you don’t already.

What a week! You come too and make it really special.

Jean