Jean’s Pick of the Week: Bruce Adolphe on Self Comes to Mind: From the first moment I spied the headline in the New York Times: Music as the Evolution of Human Consciousness and read the review of the performance that took place at the Museum of Natural History in New York City the night before (ouch! I missed it by three blocks), I knew I wanted to do a program about it. We didn’t have the benefit of Hanna Damasio’s brain imagery to watch, but we did have the composer himself and his music, plus some of the best moments from the conversation that took place between Bruce, Antonio Damasio and Yo Yo Ma directly following the performance. Not as good as being there, but, all in all, pretty terrific. God bless radio.
Here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth the first week in July:
Monday: Sex and the City (Beirut, that is): She’s very brave and very beautiful. Poet Joumana Haddad has launched Jasad in Beirut, a quarterly magazine in Arabic featuring sex and the human body that’s breaking all the taboos.
Tuesday: Biomimicry: Forget the notion that technology improves upon nature. Science writer Janine Benyus introduces us to pioneering engineers making technological breakthroughs by uncovering and copying nature's hidden marvels.
Wednesday: Travels Along the Camino De Santiago: An international bestseller, and soon to be released as a major motion picture, I’m Off Then is German comedian Hape Kerkeling’s account of his travails along the Camino De Santiago, Spain’s most traveled pilgrim’s route since the first century AD.
Thursday: President Obama will be giving his next big speech on July 11, this time from Ghana. Although it’s angered a lot of other African nations, the choice of Ghana seems calculated to reinforce the idea of Africa as a place of emergence rather than of despair since Ghana is Africa’s success story in terms of its economy and its democracy. Guest to be announced.
Friday: All about Ice Cream (repeat): Enjoying a cool sweet treat on a hot day is a beloved pastime for people around the world. We explore the history, culture, and flavors of ice cream in America, gelato in Italy, and kulfi in India.
Jean
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
June 29 - July 3 Programs
Jean’s Pick of the Week: John Nichols nailed it on Monday’s show about Obama’s response to Iran when he predicted that the President would make a stronger statement before the week’s end. As it turned out, we had only to wait another 24 hours. And the for sheer fun, I really enjoyed Wednesday’s hilarious conversation with Jag Bhalla, author of I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, about idioms from around the world. Contributions from callers were every bit as funny as those in his collection, eg: “I’m going to play chess with the Pope.” That’s Icelandic for “I have to go to the WC.”
Here’s what’s ahead on Here on Earth as we lean into the Fourth of July:
Monday: Persian Girls: Having grown up female in Iran just prior to the 1979 Revolution, Nahid Rachlin knows a thing or two about social unrest, Iranian politics and what the experience of both are like for women. Author of the memoir Persian Girls and a professor at the New School University, Nahid Rachlin joins us to provide context and insight into the current Iranian controversy.
Tuesday: Music of Human Consciousness: Musical inspiration can come from a lot of places but Composer Bruce Adolphe found the inspiration for his latest piece in a particularly unusual spot: the research of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. Self Comes to Mind is the end product of this collaboration between scientist and musician and it was recently performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Video imagery and projected texts accompanied Yo-Yo Ma’s performance of the duo’s cello and percussion composition.
Wednesday: Flowers That Kill: Here on Earth listeners will remember UW-Madison anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney for her groundbreaking work on Kamikaze Pilots, the ‘cherry blossoms’ of Japan. Emiko has been spending spring semester at the Library of Congress in D.C. where she just gave a lecture on Flowers that Kill comparing the Emperor’s symbolic use of cherry blossoms with the way Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler used roses for a similar purpose.
Thursday: Summer Reading from Words Without Borders: Editor Susan Harris and blogger Bud Parr share selections designed for those who want to know more about what’s going on in Pakistan, China, and Iran, and those who want to escape from them.
Food Friday: It’s strawberry season and French chef Monique Hooker is ready to teach us how to make a red, white, and blue strawberry pie for Fourth of July.
Wow! And I thought we were lightening up!
Have a great weekend and please keep listening!
Jean
Here’s what’s ahead on Here on Earth as we lean into the Fourth of July:
Monday: Persian Girls: Having grown up female in Iran just prior to the 1979 Revolution, Nahid Rachlin knows a thing or two about social unrest, Iranian politics and what the experience of both are like for women. Author of the memoir Persian Girls and a professor at the New School University, Nahid Rachlin joins us to provide context and insight into the current Iranian controversy.
Tuesday: Music of Human Consciousness: Musical inspiration can come from a lot of places but Composer Bruce Adolphe found the inspiration for his latest piece in a particularly unusual spot: the research of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. Self Comes to Mind is the end product of this collaboration between scientist and musician and it was recently performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Video imagery and projected texts accompanied Yo-Yo Ma’s performance of the duo’s cello and percussion composition.
Wednesday: Flowers That Kill: Here on Earth listeners will remember UW-Madison anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney for her groundbreaking work on Kamikaze Pilots, the ‘cherry blossoms’ of Japan. Emiko has been spending spring semester at the Library of Congress in D.C. where she just gave a lecture on Flowers that Kill comparing the Emperor’s symbolic use of cherry blossoms with the way Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler used roses for a similar purpose.
Thursday: Summer Reading from Words Without Borders: Editor Susan Harris and blogger Bud Parr share selections designed for those who want to know more about what’s going on in Pakistan, China, and Iran, and those who want to escape from them.
Food Friday: It’s strawberry season and French chef Monique Hooker is ready to teach us how to make a red, white, and blue strawberry pie for Fourth of July.
Wow! And I thought we were lightening up!
Have a great weekend and please keep listening!
Jean
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Jean’s Pick of the Week: Wednesday’s show with Margaret Wertheim on the amazing psychedelic Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project, a combination of feminine handicraft, non-Euclidean geometry, beauty, science, and social activism. Truly.
Here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth in the week ahead:
Monday: Back by popular demand, Satish Kumar, Indian sage and editor of Resurgence Magazine, joins us from the UK to talk about his own lifestyle: Elegant Simplicity which is the theme of the current issue of the magazine.
Tuesday: Scientist Leads Institute for the Study of Compassion: James Doty, neurosurgeon turned biotech investor, made a fortune and lost it in the dot-com bubble. Something similar, albeit on a much smaller scale, happened to a lot of us in the recent financial meltdown. James Doty started re-examining his values. Today he’s the director of an institute he founded for the study of compassion.
Wednesday: Global Word Play: Years ago when I was hosting my old morning show, we used to have a fun segment called “They Have a Word For It.” Howard Reingold, who wrote a little book with that title, would listen into our conversation for a while and then come up with whatever word from the book seemed appropriate. The book was a collection words from foreign languages for which there is no English equivalent. So when Carmen Jackson proposed doing a program with the author of the new book, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World, of course I said yes. Join in with Jag Bhalla. It’ll be fun.
Thursday: The Compelling Moment: Richard Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Innovation has a knack for reading a crisis as an opportunity. He calls this “The Compelling Moment,” citing what’s going on in Tehran, Detroit, and elsewhere in these worst of times/best of times.
Friday: Milkshakes With a Twist!
Have a great weekend and thanks for lending us your ears.
Jean
Here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth in the week ahead:
Monday: Back by popular demand, Satish Kumar, Indian sage and editor of Resurgence Magazine, joins us from the UK to talk about his own lifestyle: Elegant Simplicity which is the theme of the current issue of the magazine.
Tuesday: Scientist Leads Institute for the Study of Compassion: James Doty, neurosurgeon turned biotech investor, made a fortune and lost it in the dot-com bubble. Something similar, albeit on a much smaller scale, happened to a lot of us in the recent financial meltdown. James Doty started re-examining his values. Today he’s the director of an institute he founded for the study of compassion.
Wednesday: Global Word Play: Years ago when I was hosting my old morning show, we used to have a fun segment called “They Have a Word For It.” Howard Reingold, who wrote a little book with that title, would listen into our conversation for a while and then come up with whatever word from the book seemed appropriate. The book was a collection words from foreign languages for which there is no English equivalent. So when Carmen Jackson proposed doing a program with the author of the new book, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World, of course I said yes. Join in with Jag Bhalla. It’ll be fun.
Thursday: The Compelling Moment: Richard Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Innovation has a knack for reading a crisis as an opportunity. He calls this “The Compelling Moment,” citing what’s going on in Tehran, Detroit, and elsewhere in these worst of times/best of times.
Friday: Milkshakes With a Twist!
Have a great weekend and thanks for lending us your ears.
Jean
Saturday, June 13, 2009
June 15-19 Programs
Picks of the Week: My husband and I happened to be in Cordoba, Spain, on 9/11, and there we were again, this time in Barcelona, when Obama gave his speech from Cairo. So it was quite the thrill to be able to talk about the impact of that amazing speech on my first day back at work. I also thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Darwinian dimensions of art with philosopher Denis Dutton, author of The Art Instinct, on Tuesday – there were so many interesting callers that day. And Wednesday’s Bead for Life program with Torkin Wakefield, the American psychologist who is transforming the lives of so many impoverished war widows in Uganda through, of all things, a paper bead exchange, was truly inspiring and very Here on Earth.
Here’s what’s happening on Here on Earth in the week ahead:
Monday: Out of Poverty: The new issue of Dispatches Magazine puts itself among the poor: the traditional underclass and the newly impotent – in America, in Africa, in India, and in Europe. We talk with Dispatches editor and former Milwaukee native Mort Rosenblum.
Tuesday: The Blue Sweater: Can you imagine the shock of giving an outgrown sweater to Goodwill and then finding it eleven years later on the back of some poor kid in Rwanda? That’s what happened to Jacqueline Novogratz who subsequently left a career in international banking to found Acumen Fund, an organization dedicated to tackling global poverty.
Wednesday: Saving the Coral Reefs One Stitch at a Time: Join us for a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft. Margaret Wertheim, co-director of the Institute for Figuring, is joined by a bevy of women who are in the process of creating a stitched coral reef as a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.
Thursday: Well Blow Me Shivers!: Were you surprised when stories of pirates on the high seas began appearing in daily headlines? Had you thought that the days of pirates were long past? The history of piracy is a long one, and there are certain similarities that link the pirates of centuries past with those working off the coast of Somalia today.
Friday: Urban/Suburban Permaculture: People in cities and suburbs are learning how to produce their own fruit, vegetables, herbs, honey, and more using Permaculture design strategies that reduce work and increase success. Live from Stevens Point, we’ll talk with Bill Wilson from Midwest Permaculture who’s giving introductory workshops at this year’s Energy Fair.
I’m traveling to Green Lake today to give a presentation on Evolutionary Theology to members of the United Church of Christ.
Have a terrific weekend!
Jean
Here’s what’s happening on Here on Earth in the week ahead:
Monday: Out of Poverty: The new issue of Dispatches Magazine puts itself among the poor: the traditional underclass and the newly impotent – in America, in Africa, in India, and in Europe. We talk with Dispatches editor and former Milwaukee native Mort Rosenblum.
Tuesday: The Blue Sweater: Can you imagine the shock of giving an outgrown sweater to Goodwill and then finding it eleven years later on the back of some poor kid in Rwanda? That’s what happened to Jacqueline Novogratz who subsequently left a career in international banking to found Acumen Fund, an organization dedicated to tackling global poverty.
Wednesday: Saving the Coral Reefs One Stitch at a Time: Join us for a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft. Margaret Wertheim, co-director of the Institute for Figuring, is joined by a bevy of women who are in the process of creating a stitched coral reef as a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.
Thursday: Well Blow Me Shivers!: Were you surprised when stories of pirates on the high seas began appearing in daily headlines? Had you thought that the days of pirates were long past? The history of piracy is a long one, and there are certain similarities that link the pirates of centuries past with those working off the coast of Somalia today.
Friday: Urban/Suburban Permaculture: People in cities and suburbs are learning how to produce their own fruit, vegetables, herbs, honey, and more using Permaculture design strategies that reduce work and increase success. Live from Stevens Point, we’ll talk with Bill Wilson from Midwest Permaculture who’s giving introductory workshops at this year’s Energy Fair.
I’m traveling to Green Lake today to give a presentation on Evolutionary Theology to members of the United Church of Christ.
Have a terrific weekend!
Jean
Saturday, June 06, 2009
June 8-12 Programs
Jean is coming back on Monday! Here's the line-up for her:
Monday: Reaching Out to the Muslim World (part 2): Since his days on the campaign trail, President Obama promised a speech to the Muslim World to define US policy and change perceptions of America. Did his speech in Cairo succeed? We will analyze Obama's speech and look at the international reaction as we talk with Prof. Uli Schamiloglu, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tuesday: The Art Instinct: Can you imagine what our cave people ancestors were thinking as they relaxed by the side of a fire and enjoyed a beautiful sunset? If you think that we’ve only learned to appreciate beauty more recently, think again. We’re celebrating Darwin’s bicentennial year with author Dennis Dutton and his book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution which explores the evolutionary role of aesthetic appreciation.
Wednesday: Bead for Life: Bead for Life is a non-profit organization dedicated to overcoming extreme poverty in Uganda through the support of an international grassroots movement rather than aid. Through the work of Bead for Life, women in Uganda make and sell paper beads to people around the world. Join us and Bead for Life’s Torkin Wakefield as we explore how feminine handicraft becomes the base for eradicating extreme poverty.
Thursday: Travel as a Political Act: They say the world is shrinking, so what can we do to feel more comfortable with our neighbors? Travel! Acclaimed travel writer Rick Steve’s new book argues that we can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Travel as a Political Act will teach us all what it means to travel with our place in the world in mind.
Friday: We're still working to find a food program for this hour. Any suggestions?
Thanks for listening,
Here on Earth team
Monday: Reaching Out to the Muslim World (part 2): Since his days on the campaign trail, President Obama promised a speech to the Muslim World to define US policy and change perceptions of America. Did his speech in Cairo succeed? We will analyze Obama's speech and look at the international reaction as we talk with Prof. Uli Schamiloglu, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tuesday: The Art Instinct: Can you imagine what our cave people ancestors were thinking as they relaxed by the side of a fire and enjoyed a beautiful sunset? If you think that we’ve only learned to appreciate beauty more recently, think again. We’re celebrating Darwin’s bicentennial year with author Dennis Dutton and his book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution which explores the evolutionary role of aesthetic appreciation.
Wednesday: Bead for Life: Bead for Life is a non-profit organization dedicated to overcoming extreme poverty in Uganda through the support of an international grassroots movement rather than aid. Through the work of Bead for Life, women in Uganda make and sell paper beads to people around the world. Join us and Bead for Life’s Torkin Wakefield as we explore how feminine handicraft becomes the base for eradicating extreme poverty.
Thursday: Travel as a Political Act: They say the world is shrinking, so what can we do to feel more comfortable with our neighbors? Travel! Acclaimed travel writer Rick Steve’s new book argues that we can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Travel as a Political Act will teach us all what it means to travel with our place in the world in mind.
Friday: We're still working to find a food program for this hour. Any suggestions?
Thanks for listening,
Here on Earth team
Sunday, May 31, 2009
June 1-5 Programs
Jean is still away this week. Veronica Rueckert will bring you the following programs.
Monday: Guerrilla Gardening: What do you get when you cross a desire to go green and the nerve to takeover land owed by someone else? It's called Guerrilla Gardening, and while it was first practiced in 17th century Britain, it's become a movement in places like New York City, where abandoned lots are turned into lush gardens by local "Green Guerrillas." Join us and Richard Reynolds, author of On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries, as we explore the history of activist gardening.
Tuesday: The Book of Dead Philosophers: What can you tell about a person from the way they die? In The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York, explores death, our last taboo, from a most unusual perspective. He recounts the demise of famous philosophers, revealing how their variously tragic, amusing, and bizarre ends can help us lead richer lives.
Wednesday: Iceland's Story: Iceland is the site of an aluminum smelting industry, it's been at the forefront of renewable energy development, and, most recently, it's seen what is perhaps the most spectacular fall of any nation during the global economic crisis. Andri Magnason's book Dreamland and the recent film made from it takes us on a journey through Iceland's struggle to recover a sustainable identity for itself but its story has something to teach us all about what it means to honor what's valuable about a nation.
Thursday: Take Back Your Time: TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. Join us to explore work and workers around the world.
Friday: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human: Have you ever seen an otter fry a fish? Maybe you haven't thought too much about how cooking is a strictly human activity, but Richard Wrangham has. In his latest book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human, Richard Wrangham, renowned primatologist, argues that humanity itself began when we started cooking our food. This food Friday we go deep into our human ancestry to discover how cooking itself may be responsible for our biological and sociological evolution into what we are today.
Best,
Here on Earth team
Monday: Guerrilla Gardening: What do you get when you cross a desire to go green and the nerve to takeover land owed by someone else? It's called Guerrilla Gardening, and while it was first practiced in 17th century Britain, it's become a movement in places like New York City, where abandoned lots are turned into lush gardens by local "Green Guerrillas." Join us and Richard Reynolds, author of On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries, as we explore the history of activist gardening.
Tuesday: The Book of Dead Philosophers: What can you tell about a person from the way they die? In The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York, explores death, our last taboo, from a most unusual perspective. He recounts the demise of famous philosophers, revealing how their variously tragic, amusing, and bizarre ends can help us lead richer lives.
Wednesday: Iceland's Story: Iceland is the site of an aluminum smelting industry, it's been at the forefront of renewable energy development, and, most recently, it's seen what is perhaps the most spectacular fall of any nation during the global economic crisis. Andri Magnason's book Dreamland and the recent film made from it takes us on a journey through Iceland's struggle to recover a sustainable identity for itself but its story has something to teach us all about what it means to honor what's valuable about a nation.
Thursday: Take Back Your Time: TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. Join us to explore work and workers around the world.
Friday: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human: Have you ever seen an otter fry a fish? Maybe you haven't thought too much about how cooking is a strictly human activity, but Richard Wrangham has. In his latest book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human, Richard Wrangham, renowned primatologist, argues that humanity itself began when we started cooking our food. This food Friday we go deep into our human ancestry to discover how cooking itself may be responsible for our biological and sociological evolution into what we are today.
Best,
Here on Earth team
Sunday, May 24, 2009
May 25-29 Programs
Jean’s Pick of the Week: Taqwacores: A New Way to be Muslim in the West. For anyone who has ever grappled with doctrinal religion, Michael Muhammad Knight’s very American, very punk rock take on Islam is really refreshing. His novel, The Taqwacores, about a group of punk rock Muslims who live together in a house in Buffalo, New York, really does read a lot like Catcher in the Rye. We didn’t talk much about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but we did talk quite a bit about idolatry, the problems with organized religion, and how to relate directly with the Divine. Interestingly enough, callers connected not as punk rockers, but as seekers.
Monday, Memorial Day: An Ecology of Music: You’ll enjoy listening again, if you haven’t heard it before, to this program with John Luther Adams, one of our most original composers. It was one of my favorite programs of 2008. John Luther Adams lives in Alaska where he immerses himself in the primal, grandiose soundscapes of the arctic out of which he makes music that will make your hair stand on end.
Tuesday: What can you tell about a person from the way they die? In The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York, explores death, our last taboo, from a most unusual perspective. He recounts the demise of famous philosophers, revealing how their variously tragic, amusing, and bizarre ends can help us lead richer lives.
Wednesday: “Fugee” Soccer (as in Refugee) When New York Times journalist Warren St. John wrote about a soccer team in Georgia made up of child refugees from all over the world, Universal Studios jumped on the film-rights. Warren St. John’s new book about the team, Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town, chronicles the hard work and heroic journeys of the players and sheds light on what it takes to build a community when we seem to have little in common.
Thursday: Samuel Charters, one of the very first musicologists to study Afro-American music, has summed up his life's work in A Language of Song, which details his journey to Africa and to find Africa-influenced music in the United States, Brazil, and the Carribean.
Friday: Sex, Death, and Oysters: When food writer Robb Walsh discovered that the local Galveston Bay oysters were being passed off as Blue Points and Chincoteagues in other parts of the country, he decided to look into the matter. His new book, Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover's World Tour, documents a five-year adventure that docks everywhere from oyster reefs to oyster bars and from corporate boardrooms to hotel bedrooms in a quest for the truth about the world’s most profitable aphrodisiac.
I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks. Veronica Rueckert will be hosting Here on Earth until my return on June 8.
Have a great Memorial Day weekend!
Jean
Monday, Memorial Day: An Ecology of Music: You’ll enjoy listening again, if you haven’t heard it before, to this program with John Luther Adams, one of our most original composers. It was one of my favorite programs of 2008. John Luther Adams lives in Alaska where he immerses himself in the primal, grandiose soundscapes of the arctic out of which he makes music that will make your hair stand on end.
Tuesday: What can you tell about a person from the way they die? In The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York, explores death, our last taboo, from a most unusual perspective. He recounts the demise of famous philosophers, revealing how their variously tragic, amusing, and bizarre ends can help us lead richer lives.
Wednesday: “Fugee” Soccer (as in Refugee) When New York Times journalist Warren St. John wrote about a soccer team in Georgia made up of child refugees from all over the world, Universal Studios jumped on the film-rights. Warren St. John’s new book about the team, Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town, chronicles the hard work and heroic journeys of the players and sheds light on what it takes to build a community when we seem to have little in common.
Thursday: Samuel Charters, one of the very first musicologists to study Afro-American music, has summed up his life's work in A Language of Song, which details his journey to Africa and to find Africa-influenced music in the United States, Brazil, and the Carribean.
Friday: Sex, Death, and Oysters: When food writer Robb Walsh discovered that the local Galveston Bay oysters were being passed off as Blue Points and Chincoteagues in other parts of the country, he decided to look into the matter. His new book, Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover's World Tour, documents a five-year adventure that docks everywhere from oyster reefs to oyster bars and from corporate boardrooms to hotel bedrooms in a quest for the truth about the world’s most profitable aphrodisiac.
I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks. Veronica Rueckert will be hosting Here on Earth until my return on June 8.
Have a great Memorial Day weekend!
Jean
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