Dec 24-28 Programs

Dear Friends,

I hope you enjoyed our week of holiday programming as much as we enjoyed producing it. As one faithful listener pointed out, last Friday's program about Primo Levi (Last Christmas of the War) - which left everybody in tears including gentilissimo Ernesto Livorni, my guest who actually slapped himself when he started to cry – was reminiscent of the Thanksgiving Day programs I used to do with Connie Kilmark when we asked listeners to tell us about the best gift they ever gave, or received. Powerful stuff. My favorite kind of radio.

Anyway, because we had such a favorable response to The Christmas Package (Dec. 15), we've decided to repeat it on Christmas Day. We're also repeating our program about the Evolution of Santa Claus (Dec. 18) on Christmas Eve. So here's how the week looks on paper:

Monday: The Evolution of Santa Claus, from his origins in ancient Turkey to Jolly Old St. Nick

Tuesday: The Christmas Package: an unforgettable story told by an Italian Jew who gets a Christmas package from home delivered to him in Auschwitza month before the end of the war.

Wednesday: Back to the Bonobos with the great Swiss biologist Frans De Waal, author of The Inner Ape, who insists we got it all wrong by claiming chimpanzees as our evolutionary ancestors instead of the peace-loving bonobos, the hippies primates who make love instead of war.

Thursday: In 1969, young Kirin Narayan's older brother, Rahoul, announced that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment with a guru. Another familiar motif from the sixties, and a link to our evolutionary past, explored with Indian anthropologist, Kirin Narayan, author of the memoir, My Family and Other Saints.

Friday: Just when you're sick of the whole idea of food: delicious and healthful slimming secrets from the author of Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat.

Merry Christmas! And to all a Good Night!

Jean