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"content": "\u003cp>Oakland-based author, U.C. Davis professor and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Yiyun Li returns to Forum to talk about her new novel, “Kinder Than Solitude.” A murder mystery, the story travels back and forth between early 1990s China and president-day America. \u003ca class=\"rssmi_more\" href=\"http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201403181000?pid=RD19\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\"> …read more\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Source: \u003ca title=\"Yiyun Li's 'Kinder Than Solitude': A Murder Mystery Set in China and the U.S.\" href=\"http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201403181000?pid=RD19\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum Books\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Ménage à Trois: Three Erotic Books and the Best Places to Read Them",
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"content": "\u003cp>In celebration of the lustier side of the recent holiday, this trio of books will keep your blood pumping while our pitifully short winter gives way to an early spring. The birds and the bees are back at it, so why not you? \u003ci>Lady Chatterley’s Lover\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Story of O\u003c/i> are tried and true, but if you’re looking for something a little racier, these three books deliver the goods with masterful prose. Try them out at these three romantic locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Henry and June\u003c/i> by Anaïs Nin.\u003cbr>\nVesuvio, San Francisco, CA\u003cbr>\nCovering a single momentous year in Paris (and her triangular affair with Henry Miller and his wife June), Anaïs Nin remains an insatiable force in this, the most realistically sexy of books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sample lines\u003c/b>: “It is like a forest fire, to be with him. New places of my body are aroused and burnt. He is incendiary. I leave him in an unquenchable fever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Where\u003c/b>: Pick one of the romantic small tables on the second floor of this legendary bar where Jack Kerouac missed a meeting with Henry Miller after getting too drunk to make the date. Celebrate this missed connection by forging your own. Available by MUNI and BART, Vesuvio is located at 255 Columbus Ave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/penisist.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"464\" alt=\"Poems of a Penisist by Mutsuo Takahashi.\" class>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poems of a Penisist by Mutsuo Takahashi.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Poems of a Penisist\u003c/i> by Mutsuo Takahashi.\u003cbr>\nRead at Alchemist Bar and Lounge, San Francisco, CA\u003cbr> \u003cbr>\nKeen on celebrating the male body, \u003ci>Poems of a Penisist\u003c/i> is most known for its one-thousand-line erotic fantasy poem, “Ode.” Pick up this radiant, stunning collection — you won’t regret it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sample line\u003c/b>: “Quo vadis?/Where?/Where on earth are you going?/Please do not go/Please stay/For that I would kneel, I would kiss/The skin of your soles, turned moist, white, flaccid in the shoes […] Do accept/ The wet admiration of my tongue and lips that climb leisurely”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Where\u003c/b>: Alchemist Bar and Lounge has a swanky spread, complete with plush leather sofas and spiffy orbed light decor. This is is a great place to curl up with a book, but it definitely will be crowded come nighttime. Located at 79 3rd Street, the bar is accessible by BART, MUNI, and even Caltrain, so don’t worry if you are coming from out of town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/whipsmart.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"448\" alt=\"Whip Smart by Melissa Febos\" class>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Whip Smart by Melissa Febos\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Whip Smart\u003c/i> by Melissa Febos\u003cbr>\nRead at Sightglass Coffee, San Francisco, CA\u003cbr>\nThis candid, provocative memoir is hard to put down, but not for the faint of heart. Febos spills on four years working as a dominatrix at a midtown Manhattan dungeon in this meditation on submission, subjugation, and the power of sex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sample line\u003c/b>: “Steve knew to be kneeling when I walked into the Red Room, his torso bent over his knees, forehead resting on the rug.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Where\u003c/b>: There’s no better way to land an adventurous date than to show up at a coffee shop with an erotic book. My choice would be Sightglass. It is so clean and severe, practically brimming with sexual tension. Sightglass is at 270 7th St and is accessible by MUNI and BART.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The birds and bees are back at it, so why not you? Check out this selection of racy tomes with suggestions on romantic local spots in which to read them.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In celebration of the lustier side of the recent holiday, this trio of books will keep your blood pumping while our pitifully short winter gives way to an early spring. The birds and the bees are back at it, so why not you? \u003ci>Lady Chatterley’s Lover\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Story of O\u003c/i> are tried and true, but if you’re looking for something a little racier, these three books deliver the goods with masterful prose. Try them out at these three romantic locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Henry and June\u003c/i> by Anaïs Nin.\u003cbr>\nVesuvio, San Francisco, CA\u003cbr>\nCovering a single momentous year in Paris (and her triangular affair with Henry Miller and his wife June), Anaïs Nin remains an insatiable force in this, the most realistically sexy of books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sample lines\u003c/b>: “It is like a forest fire, to be with him. New places of my body are aroused and burnt. He is incendiary. I leave him in an unquenchable fever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Where\u003c/b>: Pick one of the romantic small tables on the second floor of this legendary bar where Jack Kerouac missed a meeting with Henry Miller after getting too drunk to make the date. Celebrate this missed connection by forging your own. Available by MUNI and BART, Vesuvio is located at 255 Columbus Ave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/penisist.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"464\" alt=\"Poems of a Penisist by Mutsuo Takahashi.\" class>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poems of a Penisist by Mutsuo Takahashi.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Poems of a Penisist\u003c/i> by Mutsuo Takahashi.\u003cbr>\nRead at Alchemist Bar and Lounge, San Francisco, CA\u003cbr> \u003cbr>\nKeen on celebrating the male body, \u003ci>Poems of a Penisist\u003c/i> is most known for its one-thousand-line erotic fantasy poem, “Ode.” Pick up this radiant, stunning collection — you won’t regret it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sample line\u003c/b>: “Quo vadis?/Where?/Where on earth are you going?/Please do not go/Please stay/For that I would kneel, I would kiss/The skin of your soles, turned moist, white, flaccid in the shoes […] Do accept/ The wet admiration of my tongue and lips that climb leisurely”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Where\u003c/b>: Alchemist Bar and Lounge has a swanky spread, complete with plush leather sofas and spiffy orbed light decor. This is is a great place to curl up with a book, but it definitely will be crowded come nighttime. Located at 79 3rd Street, the bar is accessible by BART, MUNI, and even Caltrain, so don’t worry if you are coming from out of town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/whipsmart.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"448\" alt=\"Whip Smart by Melissa Febos\" class>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Whip Smart by Melissa Febos\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Whip Smart\u003c/i> by Melissa Febos\u003cbr>\nRead at Sightglass Coffee, San Francisco, CA\u003cbr>\nThis candid, provocative memoir is hard to put down, but not for the faint of heart. Febos spills on four years working as a dominatrix at a midtown Manhattan dungeon in this meditation on submission, subjugation, and the power of sex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sample line\u003c/b>: “Steve knew to be kneeling when I walked into the Red Room, his torso bent over his knees, forehead resting on the rug.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Where\u003c/b>: There’s no better way to land an adventurous date than to show up at a coffee shop with an erotic book. My choice would be Sightglass. It is so clean and severe, practically brimming with sexual tension. Sightglass is at 270 7th St and is accessible by MUNI and BART.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Armistead Maupin on Saying Goodbye to San Francisco and Tales of the City",
"title": "Armistead Maupin on Saying Goodbye to San Francisco and Tales of the City",
"headTitle": "KQED Pop | KQED Arts",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10833\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 343px\">\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/?attachment_id=10833\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10833\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-10833 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/9780062196248-1.jpg\" alt=\"9780062196248-1\" width=\"343\" height=\"518\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/9780062196248-1.jpg 429w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/9780062196248-1-400x604.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 343px) 100vw, 343px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: \u003ca href=\"http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Days-Anna-Madrigal-Armistead-Maupin/?isbn=9780062196248\">HarperCollins\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">There's something melancholy yet appropriate about Armistead Maupin choosing to end his famed \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> series at this particular point in the city's history; the San Francisco of the nearly 40 years of the series (\u003cem>Tales\u003c/em> first appeared in the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> on May 24, 1976) is changing rapidly and radically. In \u003cem>The Days of Anna Madrigal\u003c/em>, characters we've known from the beginning (the titular Mrs. Madrigal and Michael \"Mouse\" Tolliver) and contemporary additions from more recent books (the very Michelle Tea spirited Shawna Hawkins and the second major trans character of the series Jake Greenleaf) all contemplate the changing character of the city, but these fleeting moments are the subtext rather than the focus of the ninth and final book. In a recent conversation at \u003ca href=\"thechapelsf.com\">The Chapel\u003c/a> with Andrew Sean Greer, Maupin said that it was important to him that he see the fates of his characters through, but he didn't want a tidy conclusion that tied everything in a narrative bow. There would be no return to 28 Barbary Lane for a last goodbye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final book in the series is a prequel of sorts: a flashback structure takes readers back to Depression-era Winnemucca, home of the Blue Moon Lodge (a Nevada brothel that figured in \u003cem>More Tales of the City\u003c/em>), its proprietress, Mother Mucca, and a teenage boy named Andy Ramsey. It's no secret that Andy Ramsey grows up to become Anna Madrigal and it feels correct that, after focusing previous books in the final trilogy on pioneering every-gay Michael and grown-up girl next door Mary Ann Singleton, the series should end reflecting on the origins of the woman who made the characters a family back on Barbary Lane. At 92 years old, Mrs. Madrigal takes a Proustian and literal journey back to Nevada and her teenage years before she made the transition to Anna. As with Mrs. Madrigal, the focus of the final \u003cem>Tale\u003c/em> is family, both biological and \"logical\" as Maupin and his characters like to say. KQED Pop spoke to the author about the journeys of his beloved characters, his reflections on 40 years of gay culture and whether or not San Francisco still feels like home after he and his partner Christopher Turner famously relocated to Santa Fe in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>KQED Pop: Was there a real Mrs. Madrigal that made you want to tell the story of a transgender person in 1976?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10841\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 245px\">\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/?attachment_id=10841\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10841\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-10841 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/Armistead-Maupin-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Armistead-Maupin\" width=\"245\" height=\"368\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Christopher Turner\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Armistead Maupin:\u003c/strong> Most of her spirit was inspired by my English grandmother who was a suffragette and a reader of palms; a very fey, lovely, forgiving, passionate person. I knew of transgender people early in my career. I'd met one or two, and was fascinated by that journey and decided to use it. It was such an exotic idea in 1976 that the editors of the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em> told me I couldn't reveal her secret in the first year or else we'd scare off the readers. It was considered far more scandalous than my gay characters. I suppose even today, especially today, the transgender community is starting to get the flack from the Christian right that gay people used to get.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Even within the gay community, there are issues of recognition for \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>trans people.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I don't get that. I don't understand how anyone who goes through the gay and lesbian experience can possibly not understand that other people have other issues and respect them. If we can accept ourselves, we must be able to accept everyone, and the transgender people are there at the edge of things being far braver than most gay people in the way they live their lives. They get it from everywhere and they challenge our entire assumptions about gender in a way that's very useful to our society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There was an emphasis in the story on Mrs. Madrigal's philosophies on gender and integration of the masculine and the feminine. It's very counter to the absolute gender roles still being pushed in other parts of the culture. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I'm glad to know it. I'm also very proud of Jake Greenleaf as well and the degree to which his experience reflects that new acceptance, and my desire for further acceptance. I've had a number of writers tell me almost jokingly, \"Oh, I can't keep track of who is what\" and I tell them, \"All you have to remember is that they're human beings and you'll be just fine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The relationship between Jake and Mrs. Madrigal is tremendously moving: Jake's interest in her not only as a friend but as a pioneering member of his community is one of the major threads of the novel.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> She's a hero to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Absolutely. Now that you're in a role as an elder leader of our community, do you find there's a curiosity from younger generations wanting to know our cultural history? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I do find that and I find people who aren't afraid to ask. It's very satisfying to have those kinds of cross-generational discussions. For one thing, the old folks feel we have something useful to impart and it's comforting to have that connection with youth. That occurs in biological families in generations, but our job is to simulate that within the \"logical communities,\" as I call it, of queers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gay culture has shifted so much since 1976; we have a degree of acceptance now that might have seemed impossible at the start of \u003cem>Tales\u003c/em>. Are there any major shifts in the gay experience itself that you think change the nature of the community?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> The degree to which young LGBT people have been freed of the \"coming out\" ritual is a wonderful thing to behold. Mostly, I'm just confused about technology these days. I think we're using it in much the same way we used classifieds and cruising bars years ago. The aim is the same; the devices we use to get there are different. I don't find anything to quibble with with the younger generation. Most of you seem to have much of the knowledge that we have with an additional layer of sophistication about how the world works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Because this book is almost a prequel of sorts with the flashbacks to Anna's childhood, did you find yourself going back to the original series for some of those little \"Easter Egg\" winks at past characters?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> That's exactly what I did. I remembered a lot of them, but I went back to the first meeting on the park bench with Edgar and Anna [in the original \u003cem>Tales\u003c/em>] and began to build from there. This is the first time I ever had done such a journey into the past. I've always worked in real time so it was enormously satisfying to write about a time I don't remember. I relied rather heavily on the internet for what I didn't know. I found out a lot by Googling \"1930s whore house menu\" to find out what services would be offered at the Blue Moon Lodge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So much of the book is also set away from San Francisco. What inspired the journey outside the city, specifically the use of Winnemucca as Anna's place of origin earlier in the series?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I met a transgender woman who was actually from Winnemucca in the early 1970s. When I first arrived in San Francisco, I went to a party at California Hall that was a fundraiser for this person's sex change. She had hired Sally Rand, the old fan dancer who was the sensation of Treasure Island, Sally was 70 that week, and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was there (or what was left of it) and Kate, the hostess of the party, described it as the \"ball to end all balls.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nice pun.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I thought it was tremendously witty. She had grown up in a whorehouse in Winnemucca, Nevada, so I lifted that information in those early days when I was scrambling to get profiles on all those characters. Years later, I found a self-published memoir by Kate Marlow in which Winnemucca figured but didn't feature as her birthplace. She may have been something of a fabulist, but the notion and the detail of a young transgender boy growing up in a brothel was fascinating to me. I hint early on when Wren is talking to Brian about it -- \"That's probably not the worst place for a transgender boy to grow up\" -- and I think the story reflects that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10844\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 267px\">\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/?attachment_id=10844\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10844\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-10844\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/TalesoftheCity5.jpg\" alt=\"TalesoftheCity5\" width=\"267\" height=\"251\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> cast with Armistead. Photo: PBS\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are there any further plans to adapt the books for screen or television?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Olympia called me after she read this book and was very sweet. She asked if there were any plans to adapt it and I told her there were no plans at the moment. But wouldn't it be wonderful? There are no definite plans, but the idea is very appealing to me. And certainly, I'd like to see Olympia return to that role. One of these days, if the series is ever revived and the whole thing has to be recast, I think it would be altogether appropriate for a transgender actress to play Anna. But as of now, that part belongs to her. She certainly did her homework. She hired a transgender consultant to talk to her for hours about her own experience to inhabit that character. That's the job of an actor: plugging into a character's heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Has your friend Laura Linney expressed a desire to return to the role of Mary Ann?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> It depends what book they'd be filming. There's a twenty year gap between book six and seven. She would certainly be age appropriate. It all depends on if they pick it up or if they start the series over. Laura has always been utterly willing to return to the character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Congratulations on being the namesake for Laura's new son, Bennet Armistead.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> It's certainly a great honor. I was just thrilled to death to hear about it. I knew Laura was pregnant for about four months because she Skyped me her tummy. We were all sitting around our computers and I said \"I'm sorry you couldn't come visit us in Santa Fe this fall\" and she stood up and said, \"Here's the reason.\" We all stood up and squealed as she did a happy dance with her belly. Her friends formed a very protective circle around her that allowed her to keep the secret from the tabloid press. When she called from the hospital to tell me she named the baby after me, I was getting my teeth cleaned and I made such a cry of joy the hygienists came running in to congratulate me. It's one of the greatest honors I've ever been given. I told Laura I don't think she could ever top asking me to be her date to the Academy Awards, but by God, she did it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What has the fan reaction been to the book and the series ending? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Judging by my Facebook page and places I'm looking online, it seems to be very good. People are saying, \"I didn't want it to end, but if you had to end it, this was perfect.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It's not a neat, perfect conclusion either. It's \"untidy,\" as Anna says in the novel about life. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Anna makes the point that we have to live every day as if \"it\" is going to happen, that way we can always rest assured that our love is fully expressed and that nothing has been left unsaid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you talk about Burning Man's role in this book?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> My husband talked me into going a few years ago and I realized it was a very fertile ground for fiction, especially my kind of fiction where coincidence plays such an important role. Anything can happen at Burning Man. You don't have a cell phone so you immerse yourself in serendipity. I also knew my own resistance to going would be useful to sharing Michael's attitude about attending. It's mostly the rigors of the experience I was resisting -- the dust and heat -- but of course the reason you submit to all these things is you find yourself in this singular environment that never ceases to enchant you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It's been about two years since you and Christopher moved to Santa Fe. How do you find San Francisco on your return visits?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I'm feeling the same things San Franciscans are feeling: the astonishment and mild horror over the high-rises going up along Market Street. For a number of years now, I felt it getting more crowded and oppressive in terms of the general hubbub of the city. My most treasured moments in the city are when I was young and lived on Russian and Telegraph Hill and walked everywhere and virtually lived in those garden byways without a car. Because both this novel and my life have suggested a move away from San Francisco, I have to be clear about the fact that I think a certain amount of acceptance about these things is necessary. Cities change, people change, the only thing that hasn't changed is the urge of young people to move to San Francisco. What's different now is some of them have a lot of money and can displace people who don't. It's very hard for artists to live in San Francisco anymore. Chris and I have had serious considerations about other places in the Bay Area, but Chris and I figured, if we were going to lose the San Francisco experience, we should try something else. Santa Fe always held an allure for us and we wanted to see how it felt. Having said that, this last visit to town made us really homesick. We'd like to find something affordable, a rental that would let us come back for some time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We'd love to have you here more often.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Simply, it's my town and always will be. With so much of my life and my work being about San Francisco, I couldn't escape it if I tried.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Armistead Maupin shares his thoughts on saying goodbye to his beloved characters, his reflections on 40 years of gay culture and how he feels about how San Francisco has changed.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10833\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 343px\">\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/?attachment_id=10833\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10833\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-10833 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/9780062196248-1.jpg\" alt=\"9780062196248-1\" width=\"343\" height=\"518\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/9780062196248-1.jpg 429w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/9780062196248-1-400x604.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 343px) 100vw, 343px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: \u003ca href=\"http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Days-Anna-Madrigal-Armistead-Maupin/?isbn=9780062196248\">HarperCollins\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">There's something melancholy yet appropriate about Armistead Maupin choosing to end his famed \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> series at this particular point in the city's history; the San Francisco of the nearly 40 years of the series (\u003cem>Tales\u003c/em> first appeared in the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> on May 24, 1976) is changing rapidly and radically. In \u003cem>The Days of Anna Madrigal\u003c/em>, characters we've known from the beginning (the titular Mrs. Madrigal and Michael \"Mouse\" Tolliver) and contemporary additions from more recent books (the very Michelle Tea spirited Shawna Hawkins and the second major trans character of the series Jake Greenleaf) all contemplate the changing character of the city, but these fleeting moments are the subtext rather than the focus of the ninth and final book. In a recent conversation at \u003ca href=\"thechapelsf.com\">The Chapel\u003c/a> with Andrew Sean Greer, Maupin said that it was important to him that he see the fates of his characters through, but he didn't want a tidy conclusion that tied everything in a narrative bow. There would be no return to 28 Barbary Lane for a last goodbye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final book in the series is a prequel of sorts: a flashback structure takes readers back to Depression-era Winnemucca, home of the Blue Moon Lodge (a Nevada brothel that figured in \u003cem>More Tales of the City\u003c/em>), its proprietress, Mother Mucca, and a teenage boy named Andy Ramsey. It's no secret that Andy Ramsey grows up to become Anna Madrigal and it feels correct that, after focusing previous books in the final trilogy on pioneering every-gay Michael and grown-up girl next door Mary Ann Singleton, the series should end reflecting on the origins of the woman who made the characters a family back on Barbary Lane. At 92 years old, Mrs. Madrigal takes a Proustian and literal journey back to Nevada and her teenage years before she made the transition to Anna. As with Mrs. Madrigal, the focus of the final \u003cem>Tale\u003c/em> is family, both biological and \"logical\" as Maupin and his characters like to say. KQED Pop spoke to the author about the journeys of his beloved characters, his reflections on 40 years of gay culture and whether or not San Francisco still feels like home after he and his partner Christopher Turner famously relocated to Santa Fe in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>KQED Pop: Was there a real Mrs. Madrigal that made you want to tell the story of a transgender person in 1976?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10841\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 245px\">\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/?attachment_id=10841\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10841\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-10841 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/Armistead-Maupin-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Armistead-Maupin\" width=\"245\" height=\"368\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Christopher Turner\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Armistead Maupin:\u003c/strong> Most of her spirit was inspired by my English grandmother who was a suffragette and a reader of palms; a very fey, lovely, forgiving, passionate person. I knew of transgender people early in my career. I'd met one or two, and was fascinated by that journey and decided to use it. It was such an exotic idea in 1976 that the editors of the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em> told me I couldn't reveal her secret in the first year or else we'd scare off the readers. It was considered far more scandalous than my gay characters. I suppose even today, especially today, the transgender community is starting to get the flack from the Christian right that gay people used to get.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Even within the gay community, there are issues of recognition for \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>trans people.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I don't get that. I don't understand how anyone who goes through the gay and lesbian experience can possibly not understand that other people have other issues and respect them. If we can accept ourselves, we must be able to accept everyone, and the transgender people are there at the edge of things being far braver than most gay people in the way they live their lives. They get it from everywhere and they challenge our entire assumptions about gender in a way that's very useful to our society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There was an emphasis in the story on Mrs. Madrigal's philosophies on gender and integration of the masculine and the feminine. It's very counter to the absolute gender roles still being pushed in other parts of the culture. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I'm glad to know it. I'm also very proud of Jake Greenleaf as well and the degree to which his experience reflects that new acceptance, and my desire for further acceptance. I've had a number of writers tell me almost jokingly, \"Oh, I can't keep track of who is what\" and I tell them, \"All you have to remember is that they're human beings and you'll be just fine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The relationship between Jake and Mrs. Madrigal is tremendously moving: Jake's interest in her not only as a friend but as a pioneering member of his community is one of the major threads of the novel.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> She's a hero to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Absolutely. Now that you're in a role as an elder leader of our community, do you find there's a curiosity from younger generations wanting to know our cultural history? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I do find that and I find people who aren't afraid to ask. It's very satisfying to have those kinds of cross-generational discussions. For one thing, the old folks feel we have something useful to impart and it's comforting to have that connection with youth. That occurs in biological families in generations, but our job is to simulate that within the \"logical communities,\" as I call it, of queers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gay culture has shifted so much since 1976; we have a degree of acceptance now that might have seemed impossible at the start of \u003cem>Tales\u003c/em>. Are there any major shifts in the gay experience itself that you think change the nature of the community?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> The degree to which young LGBT people have been freed of the \"coming out\" ritual is a wonderful thing to behold. Mostly, I'm just confused about technology these days. I think we're using it in much the same way we used classifieds and cruising bars years ago. The aim is the same; the devices we use to get there are different. I don't find anything to quibble with with the younger generation. Most of you seem to have much of the knowledge that we have with an additional layer of sophistication about how the world works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Because this book is almost a prequel of sorts with the flashbacks to Anna's childhood, did you find yourself going back to the original series for some of those little \"Easter Egg\" winks at past characters?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> That's exactly what I did. I remembered a lot of them, but I went back to the first meeting on the park bench with Edgar and Anna [in the original \u003cem>Tales\u003c/em>] and began to build from there. This is the first time I ever had done such a journey into the past. I've always worked in real time so it was enormously satisfying to write about a time I don't remember. I relied rather heavily on the internet for what I didn't know. I found out a lot by Googling \"1930s whore house menu\" to find out what services would be offered at the Blue Moon Lodge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So much of the book is also set away from San Francisco. What inspired the journey outside the city, specifically the use of Winnemucca as Anna's place of origin earlier in the series?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I met a transgender woman who was actually from Winnemucca in the early 1970s. When I first arrived in San Francisco, I went to a party at California Hall that was a fundraiser for this person's sex change. She had hired Sally Rand, the old fan dancer who was the sensation of Treasure Island, Sally was 70 that week, and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was there (or what was left of it) and Kate, the hostess of the party, described it as the \"ball to end all balls.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nice pun.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I thought it was tremendously witty. She had grown up in a whorehouse in Winnemucca, Nevada, so I lifted that information in those early days when I was scrambling to get profiles on all those characters. Years later, I found a self-published memoir by Kate Marlow in which Winnemucca figured but didn't feature as her birthplace. She may have been something of a fabulist, but the notion and the detail of a young transgender boy growing up in a brothel was fascinating to me. I hint early on when Wren is talking to Brian about it -- \"That's probably not the worst place for a transgender boy to grow up\" -- and I think the story reflects that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10844\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 267px\">\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/?attachment_id=10844\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10844\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-10844\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/01/TalesoftheCity5.jpg\" alt=\"TalesoftheCity5\" width=\"267\" height=\"251\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> cast with Armistead. Photo: PBS\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are there any further plans to adapt the books for screen or television?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Olympia called me after she read this book and was very sweet. She asked if there were any plans to adapt it and I told her there were no plans at the moment. But wouldn't it be wonderful? There are no definite plans, but the idea is very appealing to me. And certainly, I'd like to see Olympia return to that role. One of these days, if the series is ever revived and the whole thing has to be recast, I think it would be altogether appropriate for a transgender actress to play Anna. But as of now, that part belongs to her. She certainly did her homework. She hired a transgender consultant to talk to her for hours about her own experience to inhabit that character. That's the job of an actor: plugging into a character's heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Has your friend Laura Linney expressed a desire to return to the role of Mary Ann?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> It depends what book they'd be filming. There's a twenty year gap between book six and seven. She would certainly be age appropriate. It all depends on if they pick it up or if they start the series over. Laura has always been utterly willing to return to the character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Congratulations on being the namesake for Laura's new son, Bennet Armistead.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> It's certainly a great honor. I was just thrilled to death to hear about it. I knew Laura was pregnant for about four months because she Skyped me her tummy. We were all sitting around our computers and I said \"I'm sorry you couldn't come visit us in Santa Fe this fall\" and she stood up and said, \"Here's the reason.\" We all stood up and squealed as she did a happy dance with her belly. Her friends formed a very protective circle around her that allowed her to keep the secret from the tabloid press. When she called from the hospital to tell me she named the baby after me, I was getting my teeth cleaned and I made such a cry of joy the hygienists came running in to congratulate me. It's one of the greatest honors I've ever been given. I told Laura I don't think she could ever top asking me to be her date to the Academy Awards, but by God, she did it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What has the fan reaction been to the book and the series ending? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Judging by my Facebook page and places I'm looking online, it seems to be very good. People are saying, \"I didn't want it to end, but if you had to end it, this was perfect.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It's not a neat, perfect conclusion either. It's \"untidy,\" as Anna says in the novel about life. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> Anna makes the point that we have to live every day as if \"it\" is going to happen, that way we can always rest assured that our love is fully expressed and that nothing has been left unsaid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you talk about Burning Man's role in this book?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> My husband talked me into going a few years ago and I realized it was a very fertile ground for fiction, especially my kind of fiction where coincidence plays such an important role. Anything can happen at Burning Man. You don't have a cell phone so you immerse yourself in serendipity. I also knew my own resistance to going would be useful to sharing Michael's attitude about attending. It's mostly the rigors of the experience I was resisting -- the dust and heat -- but of course the reason you submit to all these things is you find yourself in this singular environment that never ceases to enchant you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It's been about two years since you and Christopher moved to Santa Fe. How do you find San Francisco on your return visits?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AM:\u003c/strong> I'm feeling the same things San Franciscans are feeling: the astonishment and mild horror over the high-rises going up along Market Street. For a number of years now, I felt it getting more crowded and oppressive in terms of the general hubbub of the city. My most treasured moments in the city are when I was young and lived on Russian and Telegraph Hill and walked everywhere and virtually lived in those garden byways without a car. Because both this novel and my life have suggested a move away from San Francisco, I have to be clear about the fact that I think a certain amount of acceptance about these things is necessary. Cities change, people change, the only thing that hasn't changed is the urge of young people to move to San Francisco. What's different now is some of them have a lot of money and can displace people who don't. It's very hard for artists to live in San Francisco anymore. Chris and I have had serious considerations about other places in the Bay Area, but Chris and I figured, if we were going to lose the San Francisco experience, we should try something else. Santa Fe always held an allure for us and we wanted to see how it felt. Having said that, this last visit to town made us really homesick. We'd like to find something affordable, a rental that would let us come back for some time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We'd love to have you here more often.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>12 Years a Slave\u003c/i>, which has grossed more than $35 million in the United States, demonstrates that there’s a market for films that narrate this country’s most egregious historic ills. The history of sexism in jazz may sound like a minor footnote in American culture, but in Judy Chaikin’s documentary, \u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i>, it becomes a larger-than-life story — one that explains how female instrumentalists in jazz from the 1930s onward faced widespread stereotyping and discrimination. Careers were lost. Lives were altered. The women only wanted to play good music, and some of them did at a very high level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a side of jazz music that had almost been forgotten until Chaikin finished her movie. “I’d say 90 percent of the jazz musicians working today know absolutely nothing about any of these historical women,” says Chaikin, who worked on the documentary for eight years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i> opens Friday, January 17, 2014 at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco, Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. The documentary covers the full arc of women in jazz and big-band music, starting in the 1930s and continuing to the present day. As a jumping-off point, the film revisits the famous 1958 photo called \u003ci>A Great Day in Harlem\u003c/i>, which gathered the era’s top jazz musicians and posed them in front of a Harlem brownstone. For jazz afficionados, there’s no other photo like it. Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young — you name the musician, and he was there. But of the 57 jazz greats standing in Harlem, only three were women: pianists Marian McPartland and Mary Lou Williams, and singer Maxine Sullivan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10134996\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3.jpg\" alt=\"The International Sweethearts of Rhythm\" width=\"500\" height=\"367\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10134996\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3.jpg 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3-400x293.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3-300x220.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The International Sweethearts of Rhythm\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chaikin’s film explains the paucity of women through interviews and indices of the times that seem shocking in the 21st century. Take the editorial from 1938 in \u003ci>Downbeat\u003c/i> magazine, the bible of jazz music, that was headlined, “Why Women Musicians Are Inferior,” and contained this lead paragraph: “Why is it that outside of a few sepia females, the woman musician was never born capable of ‘sending’ anyone farther than the nearest exit? It would seem that even though women are the weaker sex, they would still be able to bring more out of a defenseless horn than something that sounds like a cry for help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the story of how Dizzy Gillespie hired trombonist and composer Melba Liston to work with his big band in California, and then heard his big-band members say, “Man, what’d you got to send all the way to the West Coast to get some bitch to arrange our music for?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Black women musicians had to confront not just sexism but racism. Trumpeter Clora Bryant, who played with the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sweethearts_of_Rhythm\">International Sweethearts of Rhythm\u003c/a>, a primarily African-American group, tells Chaikin about traveling in the American South during a bus tour in the mid-1900s. “We’d pull into a service station,” Bryant says, “and the guy would come out with his gun and say, ‘We don’t have any black toilets. You niggers go into the field and squat.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6XDjh8gRGg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The early jazz world also created a heirarchy for women jazz musicians. Women pianists were tolerated. Singers, too. But trumpeters or bassists or practitioners of other instruments? Not really. Those were considered men’s positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The early years of jazz did feature a number of all-women big bands like The Ingenues, but they were often marketed as novelties or for their looks, with musicians forced to wear frilly or revealing outfits. Short hair was verboten. It’s surreal to see footage of these groups in one scene after another. Women played in every era of jazz, they just didn’t get viable recognition. In the 1930s, the New York musicians union had 800 women, according to \u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why, 100 years after jazz’s birth, is Chaikin’s film one of the first media efforts to explore women in jazz history? “If you look at the history of who writes the history, it’s generally men,” says Chaikin, a veteran filmmaker whose previous documentaries include \u003ci>Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist\u003c/i>. “And men generally write about what they know about. If they didn’t know about these women, then they didn’t exist, and it wasn’t of any importance. That’s how women get written out of history, in many different arenas, not just in music.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film began with a phone call from a friend, who asked Chaikin if she’d heard of a female jazz instrumentalist who’d played in a big band at the height of the big-band era in the mid-1900s. “We were both from families of musicians, and we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if there really was such a thing: A woman who played in big band,” Chaikin says. “Being a documentary filmmaker, those kinds of questions always pique your curiosity. And I started to do some research. And the next thing, I was discovering not just that there were one or two but there were many women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the 1930s, with 800 women in the New York Musicians Union, I thought, ‘How could there have been 800 women and none of them had any kind of impact on the music world?’ It’s almost impossible,” Chaikin says. “Some of them had to be really talented. So I started doing the research, and little by little, the story began unfolding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10134995\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4.jpg\" alt=\"Mary Lou Williams\" width=\"500\" height=\"625\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10134995\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4.jpg 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4-400x500.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Lou Williams\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chaikin interviews such women as Peggy Gilbert, a saxophonist who first played professionally in the 1920s. Gilbert’s career was formidable, and even in her 90s, she was excited to tell Chaikin stories of her career. Like others featured in \u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i> (including Marian McPartland), Gilbert has died since the making of the film. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up, Chaikin studied trumpet and had a brief inkling of what life might be as a musician. She relinquished that dream early on, but she also had no role models to drive her ambition. Her film features a cascade of role models, from women in the early history of jazz to jazz notables today, including Esperanza Spalding. Among the jazz musicians from earlier eras who should be better known today: Trumpeter Clora Bryant; pianist Hazel Scott; pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong (wife of Louis Armstrong); guitarist Mary Osborne; trombonist Melba Liston and saxophonist Vi Redd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I came from a musical family — we all played instruments. I studied piano and trumpet, and I played through junior high school. At that time, I could see it was not a career that was very welcoming for women. So I gave it up,” Chaikin says. “That’s why when I met these women, I was bowled over that they had stuck with it through all the difficulties I knew they had faced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I’d known there were other women who did this,” she adds, “it might have been a completely different ball game. But I didn’t know. And even today, I know there’s a lot of girls who don’t really see this as a career. So this is hopefully going to help them do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chaikin was able to make the film with funding from two longtime jazz fans with big names of their own: Hugh Hefner and Herb Alpert. Filming ended in 2008. It took three years to get the music rights for many of the featured songs. The film has already played in film festivals and select theaters. At the film’s end, many of the film’s interviewees flew to Harlem to have their photo taken in front of the same brownstone that was used for \u003ci>A Great Day in Harlem\u003c/i>. Instead of three women out of 57 men, Chaikin’s film situates three men among the female jazz singers and instrumentalists. It’s a role reversal that is symbolic and fitting. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i> opens Friday, January 17, 2014 at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center. On Friday, January 18, after the Opera Plaza’s 7pm screening, director Judy Chaikin and producer Nancy Kissock will speak, along with musicians Rebeca Mauleon, Linda Tillery, Mary Fettig, and Angela Wellman. At the Rafael Film Center’s screening on Saturday, January 18, 7pm screening, director Judy Chaikin will speak, along with producer Nancy Kissock and musicians Christy Dana, Laura Klein, Destiny Muhammed, Erika Oba, and Ellen Seeling. Producer Nancy Kissock will do a Q&A after the Sunday, January 19, 7:15pm screening at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre. For \u003ca href=\"http://thegirlsintheband.com\">tickets and more information\u003c/a> visit thegirlsintheband.com.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>12 Years a Slave\u003c/i>, which has grossed more than $35 million in the United States, demonstrates that there’s a market for films that narrate this country’s most egregious historic ills. The history of sexism in jazz may sound like a minor footnote in American culture, but in Judy Chaikin’s documentary, \u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i>, it becomes a larger-than-life story — one that explains how female instrumentalists in jazz from the 1930s onward faced widespread stereotyping and discrimination. Careers were lost. Lives were altered. The women only wanted to play good music, and some of them did at a very high level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a side of jazz music that had almost been forgotten until Chaikin finished her movie. “I’d say 90 percent of the jazz musicians working today know absolutely nothing about any of these historical women,” says Chaikin, who worked on the documentary for eight years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i> opens Friday, January 17, 2014 at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco, Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. The documentary covers the full arc of women in jazz and big-band music, starting in the 1930s and continuing to the present day. As a jumping-off point, the film revisits the famous 1958 photo called \u003ci>A Great Day in Harlem\u003c/i>, which gathered the era’s top jazz musicians and posed them in front of a Harlem brownstone. For jazz afficionados, there’s no other photo like it. Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young — you name the musician, and he was there. But of the 57 jazz greats standing in Harlem, only three were women: pianists Marian McPartland and Mary Lou Williams, and singer Maxine Sullivan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10134996\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3.jpg\" alt=\"The International Sweethearts of Rhythm\" width=\"500\" height=\"367\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10134996\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3.jpg 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3-400x293.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband3-300x220.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The International Sweethearts of Rhythm\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chaikin’s film explains the paucity of women through interviews and indices of the times that seem shocking in the 21st century. Take the editorial from 1938 in \u003ci>Downbeat\u003c/i> magazine, the bible of jazz music, that was headlined, “Why Women Musicians Are Inferior,” and contained this lead paragraph: “Why is it that outside of a few sepia females, the woman musician was never born capable of ‘sending’ anyone farther than the nearest exit? It would seem that even though women are the weaker sex, they would still be able to bring more out of a defenseless horn than something that sounds like a cry for help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the story of how Dizzy Gillespie hired trombonist and composer Melba Liston to work with his big band in California, and then heard his big-band members say, “Man, what’d you got to send all the way to the West Coast to get some bitch to arrange our music for?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Black women musicians had to confront not just sexism but racism. Trumpeter Clora Bryant, who played with the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sweethearts_of_Rhythm\">International Sweethearts of Rhythm\u003c/a>, a primarily African-American group, tells Chaikin about traveling in the American South during a bus tour in the mid-1900s. “We’d pull into a service station,” Bryant says, “and the guy would come out with his gun and say, ‘We don’t have any black toilets. You niggers go into the field and squat.'”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/o6XDjh8gRGg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/o6XDjh8gRGg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The early jazz world also created a heirarchy for women jazz musicians. Women pianists were tolerated. Singers, too. But trumpeters or bassists or practitioners of other instruments? Not really. Those were considered men’s positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The early years of jazz did feature a number of all-women big bands like The Ingenues, but they were often marketed as novelties or for their looks, with musicians forced to wear frilly or revealing outfits. Short hair was verboten. It’s surreal to see footage of these groups in one scene after another. Women played in every era of jazz, they just didn’t get viable recognition. In the 1930s, the New York musicians union had 800 women, according to \u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why, 100 years after jazz’s birth, is Chaikin’s film one of the first media efforts to explore women in jazz history? “If you look at the history of who writes the history, it’s generally men,” says Chaikin, a veteran filmmaker whose previous documentaries include \u003ci>Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist\u003c/i>. “And men generally write about what they know about. If they didn’t know about these women, then they didn’t exist, and it wasn’t of any importance. That’s how women get written out of history, in many different arenas, not just in music.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film began with a phone call from a friend, who asked Chaikin if she’d heard of a female jazz instrumentalist who’d played in a big band at the height of the big-band era in the mid-1900s. “We were both from families of musicians, and we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if there really was such a thing: A woman who played in big band,” Chaikin says. “Being a documentary filmmaker, those kinds of questions always pique your curiosity. And I started to do some research. And the next thing, I was discovering not just that there were one or two but there were many women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the 1930s, with 800 women in the New York Musicians Union, I thought, ‘How could there have been 800 women and none of them had any kind of impact on the music world?’ It’s almost impossible,” Chaikin says. “Some of them had to be really talented. So I started doing the research, and little by little, the story began unfolding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10134995\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4.jpg\" alt=\"Mary Lou Williams\" width=\"500\" height=\"625\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10134995\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4.jpg 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4-400x500.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/girlsinband4-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Lou Williams\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chaikin interviews such women as Peggy Gilbert, a saxophonist who first played professionally in the 1920s. Gilbert’s career was formidable, and even in her 90s, she was excited to tell Chaikin stories of her career. Like others featured in \u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i> (including Marian McPartland), Gilbert has died since the making of the film. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up, Chaikin studied trumpet and had a brief inkling of what life might be as a musician. She relinquished that dream early on, but she also had no role models to drive her ambition. Her film features a cascade of role models, from women in the early history of jazz to jazz notables today, including Esperanza Spalding. Among the jazz musicians from earlier eras who should be better known today: Trumpeter Clora Bryant; pianist Hazel Scott; pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong (wife of Louis Armstrong); guitarist Mary Osborne; trombonist Melba Liston and saxophonist Vi Redd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I came from a musical family — we all played instruments. I studied piano and trumpet, and I played through junior high school. At that time, I could see it was not a career that was very welcoming for women. So I gave it up,” Chaikin says. “That’s why when I met these women, I was bowled over that they had stuck with it through all the difficulties I knew they had faced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I’d known there were other women who did this,” she adds, “it might have been a completely different ball game. But I didn’t know. And even today, I know there’s a lot of girls who don’t really see this as a career. So this is hopefully going to help them do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chaikin was able to make the film with funding from two longtime jazz fans with big names of their own: Hugh Hefner and Herb Alpert. Filming ended in 2008. It took three years to get the music rights for many of the featured songs. The film has already played in film festivals and select theaters. At the film’s end, many of the film’s interviewees flew to Harlem to have their photo taken in front of the same brownstone that was used for \u003ci>A Great Day in Harlem\u003c/i>. Instead of three women out of 57 men, Chaikin’s film situates three men among the female jazz singers and instrumentalists. It’s a role reversal that is symbolic and fitting. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Girls in the Band\u003c/i> opens Friday, January 17, 2014 at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center. On Friday, January 18, after the Opera Plaza’s 7pm screening, director Judy Chaikin and producer Nancy Kissock will speak, along with musicians Rebeca Mauleon, Linda Tillery, Mary Fettig, and Angela Wellman. At the Rafael Film Center’s screening on Saturday, January 18, 7pm screening, director Judy Chaikin will speak, along with producer Nancy Kissock and musicians Christy Dana, Laura Klein, Destiny Muhammed, Erika Oba, and Ellen Seeling. Producer Nancy Kissock will do a Q&A after the Sunday, January 19, 7:15pm screening at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre. For \u003ca href=\"http://thegirlsintheband.com\">tickets and more information\u003c/a> visit thegirlsintheband.com.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Gary Shteyngart's Immigrant Humor",
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"content": "\u003cp>What happens when an \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/gary-shteyngart-wins-wodehouse-prize/2011/05/23/AFAbedAH_story.html\">award-winning\u003c/a> and best-selling comic novelist lets the mask fall? Gary Shteyngart writes in his new memoir, \u003ci>Little Failure\u003c/i>, “On so many novels I have approached a certain truth only to turn away from it, only to point my finger and laugh at it and then scurry back to safety. In this book, I promised myself I would not point the finger. My laughter would be intermittent. There would be no safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Little Failure\u003c/i> is the dramatic journey of the Shteyngart family — from the Soviet Union to Queens, New York, from refugee status to U.S. residents. In his novels, Shteyngart’s funny register has dwelled in the outrageous and satirical, but in \u003ci>Little Failure\u003c/i>, the humor is decidedly dark, self-deprecating, circumstantial. It’s an explosive book. While much of the writing is dead serious, when humor does arise, it does so with the same \u003ci>mean-meets-kind\u003c/i> one finds in violent and melodramatic countries. (When Shteyngart was born, his parents received a letter from the government: “Dear Parents! We cordially congratulate you and share your joy at the birth of a new human being — a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and a member of the future Communist Society…”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because I was often sick and runny nosed,” Shteyngart writes, “as a child (and as an adult) my father called me \u003ci>Soplyak\u003c/i>, or Snotty. My mother was developing an interesting fusion of English and Russian and, all by herself, had worked out the term \u003ci>Failurchka\u003c/i>, or Little Failure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2014/01/12/littlefailure.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"740\" class=\"aligncenter\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comic distance from things that are still relatively at hand is something the author handles well. While in hiding, his Great Uncle Aaron witnessed the invading German force execute his family (his parents and his wheelchair-bound sister). Shteyngart describes Aaron’s escape like so; “After the Germans moved on, Aaron hoofed though the fields to a happy local chorus of ‘Run, Yid, Run!'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Shteyngart inherits his humor from his father, he finds his father’s quips mean-spirited and terrifying and they begin to tear father and son apart. “Several years ago, drunk off of turning seventy, he took my then-girlfriend (now wife) to his vegetable garden, where he handed her his biggest cucumber. ‘Here is something to remember me by,’ he winked, adding, ‘I am big. My son is small.'”\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most lovingly sketched out passages is of Shteyngart’s childhood in Leningrad. An asthmatic boy, Shteyngart spent much of his time on a couch reading, but it is a magical universe. The couch is christened the \u003ci>Imperial Snotty\u003c/i>, and there Shteyngart reads Dostoevsky, and writes sci-fi novellas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My favorite passage is one not so dramatic, but it plumbs the dramatic depths of my immigrant heart. “…in 1981 triumph is at hand,” Shteyngert writes. “An official letter arrives in our mailbox. MR S. SHITGART [sic], YOU HAVE ALREADY WON $10,000,000.00!!! Sure our last name is misspelled rather cruelly, but cardstock this thick does not lie, and the letter is from a major American publisher, to wit the Publishers Clearing House. I open the letter with shaking hands, and… a check falls out… my mother says, \u003ci>my God\u003c/i>, as we look at the pictures of a Mercedes flying off the deck of our yacht toward our new mansion with an Olympian swimming pool. ‘Oy, does it have to be a Mercedes? \u003ci>Tphoo\u003c/i>. Nazis.’ ‘Don’t worry, we can trade for a Cadillac.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their collective English, the Shteyngart family deduces they can only cash in if they subscribe to five magazines. “I walk solemnly to the mailbox and deposit our claim on the future. \u003ci>Adonai Eloheinu\u003c/i>, I say to our new God, please help us get the ten million dollars so that Mama and Papa will not fight so much, and there will be no \u003ci>razvod\u003c/i> [divorce] between them, and let us live somewhere far away from Papa’s wolfish \u003ci>rodstvenniki\u003c/i> [family] who cause all the trouble and let them not yell at Mama when she sends the money Papa says we don’t have to her sisters and Grandma Galya in Leningrad who is dying still.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, the American Dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Catch Gary Shteyngart in conversation with Daniel Handler at the Jewish Contemporary Center on January 15 at 7pm. For \u003ca href=\"https://www.jccsf.org/arts-ideas/lectures/literary/gary-shteyngart/\">More information\u003c/a> visit jccsf.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Award-winning and best-selling comic novelist Gary Shteyngart explores the often cruel humor in the American immigrant experience.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>What happens when an \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/gary-shteyngart-wins-wodehouse-prize/2011/05/23/AFAbedAH_story.html\">award-winning\u003c/a> and best-selling comic novelist lets the mask fall? Gary Shteyngart writes in his new memoir, \u003ci>Little Failure\u003c/i>, “On so many novels I have approached a certain truth only to turn away from it, only to point my finger and laugh at it and then scurry back to safety. In this book, I promised myself I would not point the finger. My laughter would be intermittent. There would be no safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Little Failure\u003c/i> is the dramatic journey of the Shteyngart family — from the Soviet Union to Queens, New York, from refugee status to U.S. residents. In his novels, Shteyngart’s funny register has dwelled in the outrageous and satirical, but in \u003ci>Little Failure\u003c/i>, the humor is decidedly dark, self-deprecating, circumstantial. It’s an explosive book. While much of the writing is dead serious, when humor does arise, it does so with the same \u003ci>mean-meets-kind\u003c/i> one finds in violent and melodramatic countries. (When Shteyngart was born, his parents received a letter from the government: “Dear Parents! We cordially congratulate you and share your joy at the birth of a new human being — a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and a member of the future Communist Society…”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because I was often sick and runny nosed,” Shteyngart writes, “as a child (and as an adult) my father called me \u003ci>Soplyak\u003c/i>, or Snotty. My mother was developing an interesting fusion of English and Russian and, all by herself, had worked out the term \u003ci>Failurchka\u003c/i>, or Little Failure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2014/01/12/littlefailure.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"740\" class=\"aligncenter\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comic distance from things that are still relatively at hand is something the author handles well. While in hiding, his Great Uncle Aaron witnessed the invading German force execute his family (his parents and his wheelchair-bound sister). Shteyngart describes Aaron’s escape like so; “After the Germans moved on, Aaron hoofed though the fields to a happy local chorus of ‘Run, Yid, Run!'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Shteyngart inherits his humor from his father, he finds his father’s quips mean-spirited and terrifying and they begin to tear father and son apart. “Several years ago, drunk off of turning seventy, he took my then-girlfriend (now wife) to his vegetable garden, where he handed her his biggest cucumber. ‘Here is something to remember me by,’ he winked, adding, ‘I am big. My son is small.'”\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most lovingly sketched out passages is of Shteyngart’s childhood in Leningrad. An asthmatic boy, Shteyngart spent much of his time on a couch reading, but it is a magical universe. The couch is christened the \u003ci>Imperial Snotty\u003c/i>, and there Shteyngart reads Dostoevsky, and writes sci-fi novellas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My favorite passage is one not so dramatic, but it plumbs the dramatic depths of my immigrant heart. “…in 1981 triumph is at hand,” Shteyngert writes. “An official letter arrives in our mailbox. MR S. SHITGART [sic], YOU HAVE ALREADY WON $10,000,000.00!!! Sure our last name is misspelled rather cruelly, but cardstock this thick does not lie, and the letter is from a major American publisher, to wit the Publishers Clearing House. I open the letter with shaking hands, and… a check falls out… my mother says, \u003ci>my God\u003c/i>, as we look at the pictures of a Mercedes flying off the deck of our yacht toward our new mansion with an Olympian swimming pool. ‘Oy, does it have to be a Mercedes? \u003ci>Tphoo\u003c/i>. Nazis.’ ‘Don’t worry, we can trade for a Cadillac.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their collective English, the Shteyngart family deduces they can only cash in if they subscribe to five magazines. “I walk solemnly to the mailbox and deposit our claim on the future. \u003ci>Adonai Eloheinu\u003c/i>, I say to our new God, please help us get the ten million dollars so that Mama and Papa will not fight so much, and there will be no \u003ci>razvod\u003c/i> [divorce] between them, and let us live somewhere far away from Papa’s wolfish \u003ci>rodstvenniki\u003c/i> [family] who cause all the trouble and let them not yell at Mama when she sends the money Papa says we don’t have to her sisters and Grandma Galya in Leningrad who is dying still.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, the American Dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Catch Gary Shteyngart in conversation with Daniel Handler at the Jewish Contemporary Center on January 15 at 7pm. For \u003ca href=\"https://www.jccsf.org/arts-ideas/lectures/literary/gary-shteyngart/\">More information\u003c/a> visit jccsf.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Loving Morrissey The Way We Used To, Despite Lacerating 'Autobiography'",
"headTitle": "Loving Morrissey The Way We Used To, Despite Lacerating ‘Autobiography’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>“Loudly and wildly the music played, always pointing to the light, to the way out, or the way in, to individualism, and to the remarkable if unsettling notion that life could possibly be lived as you might wish it to be lived.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This lovingly worded leitmotif of English pop singer Morrissey’s \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> is not one of the more controversial or barbarous sentences in its 457 alternately inspiring and infuriating pages. Heaven knows there are plenty of those, and they’re often indefensible, if at times bitchily amusing: “Her naked self probably kills off marine plankton in the North Sea,” he writes of rock critic Julie Burchill. “Crucified by his own enormous teeth, Davis is further weighed down by a colony of purple boils decorating the back of his neck,” he says of Nigel Davis, the lawyer who represented Mike Joyce, former drummer of the Smiths, who sued Morrissey and his songwriting collaborator, Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, for an equal share of performance and recording royalties. (This comes only six short sentences \u003cem>after\u003c/em> Morrissey remarks that Davis possesses “a face I could never be cruel enough to describe.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet there’s plenty of cruelty amidst \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em>, which should come as no surprise. It sits in the background of his greatest songs, provoking his protagonists to seek solace, however fleeting, in its opposite:\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>compassion. Without it, Smiths classics like, “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/2JZu2ny6Et9wFic99sMF7x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hand in Glove\u003c/a>,” “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/1FvDJ9KGxcqwv1utyPL3JZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This Charming Man\u003c/a>,” “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/5m1dft4KRRawaB9q3p8OKC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How Soon Is Now?\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/0WQiDwKJclirSYG9v5tayI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">There Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u003c/a>” wouldn’t be nearly as poignant. It motivates the gravity of Morrissey’s delivery, the moaning of his lower register and the minor keys that dominate Smiths and Morrissey solo material alike. And it animates his poetic overstatement: \u003cem>Every \u003c/em>day is silent and grey in Morrisseyland, and, although we know that this cannot be true, we appreciate the darkness of his perspective, for it makes ours seem lighter. Yes, we’re painfully aware that we \u003cem>should\u003c/em> always look on the brighter side of life, but for those times when there’s nothing more depressing than an optimist, Morrissey’s our man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cruelty gets foregrounded in \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> — so much so that it’s bound to test the patience of even the most forgiving Mozophile. A sensitive soul born into an insensitive world, Steven Patrick Morrissey had from early childhood his innocence crushed. Those who’ve never understood why such a quintessentially English singer would \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hV9vQ6GYVw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">charm a disproportionately large Mexican-American fanbase\u003c/a> might be surprised to read that his inner-city Manchester childhood was mired in poverty; routinely classmates fainted from malnutrition. Songs like “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/1gzBJArO3t0r5Bwgl9jYAe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Headmaster Ritual\u003c/a>” come to life as Morrissey recalls routine floggings: “By 9:40 each morning, we shall all have witnessed several humiliating beatings at St Mary’s, and this is how we begin our day of knowledge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Morrissey learned to be cruel early on, there’s no evidence of it here, or even during the relatively brief passages devoted to his interactions with his fellow Smiths during their short but fruitful existence. Nevertheless, Morrissey’s capacity for cutting remarks swells as the timeline extends through his solo career. It’s not that his complaints aren’t justified — nearly everything he’s recorded sold a fraction of its artistic worth. But belaboring this while ranting endlessly about the incompetence of his record labels, and, particularly, the personal shortcomings of nearly\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>every single one of his collaborators does grow wearisome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For if you enjoy Morrissey enough to engage more than casually with him, chances are you also admire his cohorts, particularly his fellow former Smiths, whom at best he pays the briefest of compliments. Maybe it made him feel better to write page after page of score-settling lacerations. But reading them is only rarely illuminating, and even less fun. If he encountered anyone else writing the same kind of stuff about him, you can bet he’d be railing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The passages that drew the most attention when the original UK edition of \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> was published last October are by contrast slim and far more refrained descriptions of two adult relationships with men — British photographer Jake Walters, whose intimate works adorn several Morrissey releases, and someone known only as “Gelato,” a younger Italian — that were likely physical, and one with a woman, Iranian-American Tina Dehghani, that’s characterized not by words of passion but by descriptions of domestic dependability. Re-edited just like recent reissues of Moz solo albums, the U.S. edition published Dec. 3 removes a photo of Walters, and pares down references to him even further. Conspicuously missing are most lines \u003ca href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/17/morrissey-describes-first-relationship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cited by \u003cem>The Observer\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, including one quoted in the paper’s headline: “Morrissey describes moment ‘the eternal “I” became “we.”‘” Such cowardice is out of character from the singer who wrote “This Charming Man” and paired much of the Smiths’ output with imagery that might’ve been exotic to outsiders but instantly registered as drawn from gay culture by anyone who shares Morrissey’s reference points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That gleeful image of Truman Capote leaping across \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_with_the_Thorn_in_His_Side_(song)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the sleeve of “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side\u003c/a>,” the somber still of Candy Darling from Warhol’s \u003cem>Women in Revolt\u003c/em> that \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Take_a_Bow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decorates “Sheila Take a Bow\u003c/a>” — these are the shimmers of the light that led the singer through oppression’s fog, and therein lies the beauty of \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em>. For although Morrissey is less than generous with praise for his former colleagues, he’s unreservedly bighearted toward his favorite films, actors, TV shows and above all, vinyl records. “Song made a difference to everything, and permitted expressions that otherwise had no way through,” he notes, introducing the book’s central theme. “All human activity is fruitless when pitted against the girls and boys singing on pop television,” young Morrissey realizes, “for they have found the answer as the rest of us search for the question. I will sing, too. If not, I will have to die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morrissey jests darkly throughout, but he’s serious here; life offers him no alternative. “If I can sing, I am free, and no legislation can stop me,” he reasons, ever pointedly. Moz finds liberation even in the easy-listening command of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Monro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matt Monro\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Bassey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shirley Bassey\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_K%C3%B6rberg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tommy Körberg\u003c/a>, whose glitz paves the way for the glam-rockers who awaken possibilities previously suppressed. “As David Bowie appears, the child dies,” he announces. “The vision is profound — a sanity heralding the coming of consciousness from someone who — at last! — transcends our gloomy coal-fire existence. David Bowie is detached from everything, yet open to everything; stripped of the notion that both art and life are impossible. He is quite real, impossibly glamorous, fearless, and quite British. How could this possibly be?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Time and time again Morrissey zeroes in on gentlemen offering alternative masculinities. On the rare occasion that his attention drifts to footballers, it’s to charismatic rebels like \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Best\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">George Best\u003c/a>. Morrissey treats his own success in school sports — yes, you read that right, \u003cem>sports\u003c/em>, particularly track — as incidental. Far more attention is devoted to deconstructing \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058824/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Lost in Space\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the camp ’60s sci-fi TV show, which fascinated the author by setting Major Don West, “who is of track and field physical,” against evil enemy agent Dr. Zachary Smith, whose voice, he writes, possesses “the caustic cattiness of a tetchy dowager rising in pitch as each line ends, hands a-flutter with \u003cem>away with you, my child\u003c/em> intolerance.” But here’s the kicker: “My notepad resting on my lap takes the scribbles of unspoken truth: effeminate men are very witty, whereas macho men are duller than death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No wonder Morrissey reveled in early ’70s proto-punkers the New York Dolls — these urbane toughs in near-drag bring together what’s femme \u003cem>and\u003c/em> butch. “On face value, the Dolls are menacing rent boys who are forcing the world to deal with them,” he quips, taking note of a music magazine headline of the time that warned, “Lock up your sons, it’s the New York Dolls!” As he points out, these Dolls were ostensibly hetero, but the antagonism of their stance — rebelliousness through flamboyance, masculinity via femininity — stokes Moz’s fire, and sets his mind dreaming. Breathlessly stream-of-conscious, \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> is entirely bereft of chapters; there’s no index, and his opening paragraph is four-and-a-half pages long. But beloved topics like the Dolls ignite his most feverish prose: “Malodorously 24-carat, the Dolls are legless realism — wired and rigged honest trash scraped up off New York’s back alleys, banished from the communities of the living.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time he and Marr had assembled the Smiths a decade later, MTV turned gender-benders like Boy George and Annie Lennox into superstars. Pop’s closet doors still generally swung shut, but this second wave of Bowie-emboldened fops reveled in sexual ambiguity more emphatically than ever. The Smiths both reflected this freedom and stood apart from it. For although Morrissey dropped Oscar Wilde’s name relentlessly and wielded gladioli onstage as if literally hitting people with flowers a la Lou Reed’s “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/1QNDtemTEnPG8mFEJK7h2O\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vicious\u003c/a>,” the band’s music and much of Morrissey’s lyrics were far more akin to England’s kitchen sink dramas of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Administering the grimly comedic verity of bitter pills like “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/5bSASu4W0HJx6CuG8rbRcA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reel Around the Fountain\u003c/a>,” the Smiths offered rock’s answer to UK playwright Shelagh Delaney’s \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Honey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>A Taste of Honey\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a singular achievement — embracing a young woman’s play about class, gender, race, sexual orientation, addiction and female desire, and cloaking its pioneering social realist aesthetic in traditional rock ‘n’ roll. Moz doesn’t reveal how he and his bandmates did that, or how much of his solo career reflected influences blunter on the surface, yet similarly complex beneath, like the racial ambiguities of rockabilly, or the volatile vulnerability of James Dean. Even today Moz dodges pat delineations: A week after \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em>‘s UK publication, Moz issued the statement, “Unfortunately, I am \u003cem>not\u003c/em> homosexual. In technical fact, I am humasexual. I am attracted to \u003cem>humans\u003c/em>. But, of course … \u003cem>not many, \u003c/em>” which is simply the most Morrissey-esque statement of all time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet the book rhapsodizes over one LGBT icon after the other — glam-rocker \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobriath\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jobriath\u003c/a>, poet \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._Housman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A. E. Housman\u003c/a>, writer-activist \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Baldwin\u003c/a> and drag artist \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Epperson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lypsinka\u003c/a>, to name four. It recounts with particular glee the moment when Richard Davalos, the bequiffed gallant who played Dean’s brother in \u003cem>East of Eden\u003c/em>, silently slips a ring on Moz’s wedding finger backstage at a Smiths show. Just as Smiths sleeves revealed the stars of his own particular galaxy, Morrissey defines himself by whom he loves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of us, like it or not, remain products of our environment, and we either resign ourselves to that fate, or spend a lifetime struggling to rise above it. There’s ample evidence that Moz is, to quote his early song, still ill. His tome ends hollowly when the author documents one rapturous ovation after the other, as if gathering evidence that even though he can’t find a major label to release his next album, he remains a living legend. We know this already.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morrissey’s prickly sensitivity was from the start threatening. In 1985, esteemed rock critic Robert Christgau \u003ca href=\"http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=The+Smiths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote that “it begs for a belt in the chops\u003c/a>.” Even today it provokes a gay-bashing stance from some. Just last month, Pitchfork critic Ian Cohen characterized Moz torch bearers The Killers as “\u003ca href=\"http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18699-the-killers-direct-hits/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a band whose campiness often appears to be some sort of glandular problem rather than a product of artistic intent\u003c/a>.” As ever, the usual prescription for unconventional males is bullying, and, at its worst, \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> bullies back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But its\u003cem> \u003c/em>most finessed passages illustrate how its author adored the music and literature and films of his youth so very much that they radically altered the course of what would otherwise been an entirely grim destiny, not just for Moz, but for all those his willfully adversarial art touched. Re-radicalizing rock via the feminine, the queer and the downtrodden, and thereby preserving its status as the protest music of genuine outsiders, Moz remains a fighter, though he’s a far more articulate lover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m holding the torch in the corner of your room,” he sang in “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/0FNWkaLLOL5mPJom4O0ICu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rubber Ring\u003c/a>,” the precursor to Terence Davies films like \u003cem>Distant Voices, Still Lives\u003c/em> that illuminate how music cradles us through life’s horrors. “Do you love me like you used to?” You make it hard, dear Morrissey, but some of us cannot do otherwise. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">http://www.npr.org/\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Loving+Morrissey+The+Way+We+Used+To%2C+Despite+Lacerating+%27Autobiography%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAzOTIwODA0MDEyNTA4MTM1OTcyMGJmMA001)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "There's plenty of cruelty in the British songwriter's book, but he's unreservedly bighearted toward his favorite films, actors, TV shows and music, and he rhapsodizes over one LGBT icon after the other.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“Loudly and wildly the music played, always pointing to the light, to the way out, or the way in, to individualism, and to the remarkable if unsettling notion that life could possibly be lived as you might wish it to be lived.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This lovingly worded leitmotif of English pop singer Morrissey’s \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> is not one of the more controversial or barbarous sentences in its 457 alternately inspiring and infuriating pages. Heaven knows there are plenty of those, and they’re often indefensible, if at times bitchily amusing: “Her naked self probably kills off marine plankton in the North Sea,” he writes of rock critic Julie Burchill. “Crucified by his own enormous teeth, Davis is further weighed down by a colony of purple boils decorating the back of his neck,” he says of Nigel Davis, the lawyer who represented Mike Joyce, former drummer of the Smiths, who sued Morrissey and his songwriting collaborator, Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, for an equal share of performance and recording royalties. (This comes only six short sentences \u003cem>after\u003c/em> Morrissey remarks that Davis possesses “a face I could never be cruel enough to describe.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet there’s plenty of cruelty amidst \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em>, which should come as no surprise. It sits in the background of his greatest songs, provoking his protagonists to seek solace, however fleeting, in its opposite:\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>compassion. Without it, Smiths classics like, “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/2JZu2ny6Et9wFic99sMF7x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hand in Glove\u003c/a>,” “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/1FvDJ9KGxcqwv1utyPL3JZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This Charming Man\u003c/a>,” “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/5m1dft4KRRawaB9q3p8OKC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How Soon Is Now?\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/0WQiDwKJclirSYG9v5tayI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">There Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u003c/a>” wouldn’t be nearly as poignant. It motivates the gravity of Morrissey’s delivery, the moaning of his lower register and the minor keys that dominate Smiths and Morrissey solo material alike. And it animates his poetic overstatement: \u003cem>Every \u003c/em>day is silent and grey in Morrisseyland, and, although we know that this cannot be true, we appreciate the darkness of his perspective, for it makes ours seem lighter. Yes, we’re painfully aware that we \u003cem>should\u003c/em> always look on the brighter side of life, but for those times when there’s nothing more depressing than an optimist, Morrissey’s our man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cruelty gets foregrounded in \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> — so much so that it’s bound to test the patience of even the most forgiving Mozophile. A sensitive soul born into an insensitive world, Steven Patrick Morrissey had from early childhood his innocence crushed. Those who’ve never understood why such a quintessentially English singer would \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hV9vQ6GYVw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">charm a disproportionately large Mexican-American fanbase\u003c/a> might be surprised to read that his inner-city Manchester childhood was mired in poverty; routinely classmates fainted from malnutrition. Songs like “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/1gzBJArO3t0r5Bwgl9jYAe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Headmaster Ritual\u003c/a>” come to life as Morrissey recalls routine floggings: “By 9:40 each morning, we shall all have witnessed several humiliating beatings at St Mary’s, and this is how we begin our day of knowledge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Morrissey learned to be cruel early on, there’s no evidence of it here, or even during the relatively brief passages devoted to his interactions with his fellow Smiths during their short but fruitful existence. Nevertheless, Morrissey’s capacity for cutting remarks swells as the timeline extends through his solo career. It’s not that his complaints aren’t justified — nearly everything he’s recorded sold a fraction of its artistic worth. But belaboring this while ranting endlessly about the incompetence of his record labels, and, particularly, the personal shortcomings of nearly\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>every single one of his collaborators does grow wearisome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For if you enjoy Morrissey enough to engage more than casually with him, chances are you also admire his cohorts, particularly his fellow former Smiths, whom at best he pays the briefest of compliments. Maybe it made him feel better to write page after page of score-settling lacerations. But reading them is only rarely illuminating, and even less fun. If he encountered anyone else writing the same kind of stuff about him, you can bet he’d be railing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The passages that drew the most attention when the original UK edition of \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> was published last October are by contrast slim and far more refrained descriptions of two adult relationships with men — British photographer Jake Walters, whose intimate works adorn several Morrissey releases, and someone known only as “Gelato,” a younger Italian — that were likely physical, and one with a woman, Iranian-American Tina Dehghani, that’s characterized not by words of passion but by descriptions of domestic dependability. Re-edited just like recent reissues of Moz solo albums, the U.S. edition published Dec. 3 removes a photo of Walters, and pares down references to him even further. Conspicuously missing are most lines \u003ca href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/17/morrissey-describes-first-relationship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cited by \u003cem>The Observer\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, including one quoted in the paper’s headline: “Morrissey describes moment ‘the eternal “I” became “we.”‘” Such cowardice is out of character from the singer who wrote “This Charming Man” and paired much of the Smiths’ output with imagery that might’ve been exotic to outsiders but instantly registered as drawn from gay culture by anyone who shares Morrissey’s reference points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That gleeful image of Truman Capote leaping across \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_with_the_Thorn_in_His_Side_(song)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the sleeve of “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side\u003c/a>,” the somber still of Candy Darling from Warhol’s \u003cem>Women in Revolt\u003c/em> that \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Take_a_Bow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decorates “Sheila Take a Bow\u003c/a>” — these are the shimmers of the light that led the singer through oppression’s fog, and therein lies the beauty of \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em>. For although Morrissey is less than generous with praise for his former colleagues, he’s unreservedly bighearted toward his favorite films, actors, TV shows and above all, vinyl records. “Song made a difference to everything, and permitted expressions that otherwise had no way through,” he notes, introducing the book’s central theme. “All human activity is fruitless when pitted against the girls and boys singing on pop television,” young Morrissey realizes, “for they have found the answer as the rest of us search for the question. I will sing, too. If not, I will have to die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morrissey jests darkly throughout, but he’s serious here; life offers him no alternative. “If I can sing, I am free, and no legislation can stop me,” he reasons, ever pointedly. Moz finds liberation even in the easy-listening command of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Monro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matt Monro\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Bassey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shirley Bassey\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_K%C3%B6rberg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tommy Körberg\u003c/a>, whose glitz paves the way for the glam-rockers who awaken possibilities previously suppressed. “As David Bowie appears, the child dies,” he announces. “The vision is profound — a sanity heralding the coming of consciousness from someone who — at last! — transcends our gloomy coal-fire existence. David Bowie is detached from everything, yet open to everything; stripped of the notion that both art and life are impossible. He is quite real, impossibly glamorous, fearless, and quite British. How could this possibly be?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Time and time again Morrissey zeroes in on gentlemen offering alternative masculinities. On the rare occasion that his attention drifts to footballers, it’s to charismatic rebels like \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Best\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">George Best\u003c/a>. Morrissey treats his own success in school sports — yes, you read that right, \u003cem>sports\u003c/em>, particularly track — as incidental. Far more attention is devoted to deconstructing \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058824/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Lost in Space\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the camp ’60s sci-fi TV show, which fascinated the author by setting Major Don West, “who is of track and field physical,” against evil enemy agent Dr. Zachary Smith, whose voice, he writes, possesses “the caustic cattiness of a tetchy dowager rising in pitch as each line ends, hands a-flutter with \u003cem>away with you, my child\u003c/em> intolerance.” But here’s the kicker: “My notepad resting on my lap takes the scribbles of unspoken truth: effeminate men are very witty, whereas macho men are duller than death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No wonder Morrissey reveled in early ’70s proto-punkers the New York Dolls — these urbane toughs in near-drag bring together what’s femme \u003cem>and\u003c/em> butch. “On face value, the Dolls are menacing rent boys who are forcing the world to deal with them,” he quips, taking note of a music magazine headline of the time that warned, “Lock up your sons, it’s the New York Dolls!” As he points out, these Dolls were ostensibly hetero, but the antagonism of their stance — rebelliousness through flamboyance, masculinity via femininity — stokes Moz’s fire, and sets his mind dreaming. Breathlessly stream-of-conscious, \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> is entirely bereft of chapters; there’s no index, and his opening paragraph is four-and-a-half pages long. But beloved topics like the Dolls ignite his most feverish prose: “Malodorously 24-carat, the Dolls are legless realism — wired and rigged honest trash scraped up off New York’s back alleys, banished from the communities of the living.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time he and Marr had assembled the Smiths a decade later, MTV turned gender-benders like Boy George and Annie Lennox into superstars. Pop’s closet doors still generally swung shut, but this second wave of Bowie-emboldened fops reveled in sexual ambiguity more emphatically than ever. The Smiths both reflected this freedom and stood apart from it. For although Morrissey dropped Oscar Wilde’s name relentlessly and wielded gladioli onstage as if literally hitting people with flowers a la Lou Reed’s “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/1QNDtemTEnPG8mFEJK7h2O\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vicious\u003c/a>,” the band’s music and much of Morrissey’s lyrics were far more akin to England’s kitchen sink dramas of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Administering the grimly comedic verity of bitter pills like “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/5bSASu4W0HJx6CuG8rbRcA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reel Around the Fountain\u003c/a>,” the Smiths offered rock’s answer to UK playwright Shelagh Delaney’s \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Honey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>A Taste of Honey\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a singular achievement — embracing a young woman’s play about class, gender, race, sexual orientation, addiction and female desire, and cloaking its pioneering social realist aesthetic in traditional rock ‘n’ roll. Moz doesn’t reveal how he and his bandmates did that, or how much of his solo career reflected influences blunter on the surface, yet similarly complex beneath, like the racial ambiguities of rockabilly, or the volatile vulnerability of James Dean. Even today Moz dodges pat delineations: A week after \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em>‘s UK publication, Moz issued the statement, “Unfortunately, I am \u003cem>not\u003c/em> homosexual. In technical fact, I am humasexual. I am attracted to \u003cem>humans\u003c/em>. But, of course … \u003cem>not many, \u003c/em>” which is simply the most Morrissey-esque statement of all time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet the book rhapsodizes over one LGBT icon after the other — glam-rocker \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobriath\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jobriath\u003c/a>, poet \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._Housman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A. E. Housman\u003c/a>, writer-activist \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Baldwin\u003c/a> and drag artist \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Epperson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lypsinka\u003c/a>, to name four. It recounts with particular glee the moment when Richard Davalos, the bequiffed gallant who played Dean’s brother in \u003cem>East of Eden\u003c/em>, silently slips a ring on Moz’s wedding finger backstage at a Smiths show. Just as Smiths sleeves revealed the stars of his own particular galaxy, Morrissey defines himself by whom he loves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of us, like it or not, remain products of our environment, and we either resign ourselves to that fate, or spend a lifetime struggling to rise above it. There’s ample evidence that Moz is, to quote his early song, still ill. His tome ends hollowly when the author documents one rapturous ovation after the other, as if gathering evidence that even though he can’t find a major label to release his next album, he remains a living legend. We know this already.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morrissey’s prickly sensitivity was from the start threatening. In 1985, esteemed rock critic Robert Christgau \u003ca href=\"http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=The+Smiths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote that “it begs for a belt in the chops\u003c/a>.” Even today it provokes a gay-bashing stance from some. Just last month, Pitchfork critic Ian Cohen characterized Moz torch bearers The Killers as “\u003ca href=\"http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18699-the-killers-direct-hits/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a band whose campiness often appears to be some sort of glandular problem rather than a product of artistic intent\u003c/a>.” As ever, the usual prescription for unconventional males is bullying, and, at its worst, \u003cem>Autobiography\u003c/em> bullies back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But its\u003cem> \u003c/em>most finessed passages illustrate how its author adored the music and literature and films of his youth so very much that they radically altered the course of what would otherwise been an entirely grim destiny, not just for Moz, but for all those his willfully adversarial art touched. Re-radicalizing rock via the feminine, the queer and the downtrodden, and thereby preserving its status as the protest music of genuine outsiders, Moz remains a fighter, though he’s a far more articulate lover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m holding the torch in the corner of your room,” he sang in “\u003ca href=\"http://open.spotify.com/track/0FNWkaLLOL5mPJom4O0ICu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rubber Ring\u003c/a>,” the precursor to Terence Davies films like \u003cem>Distant Voices, Still Lives\u003c/em> that illuminate how music cradles us through life’s horrors. “Do you love me like you used to?” You make it hard, dear Morrissey, but some of us cannot do otherwise. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">http://www.npr.org/\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Loving+Morrissey+The+Way+We+Used+To%2C+Despite+Lacerating+%27Autobiography%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAzOTIwODA0MDEyNTA4MTM1OTcyMGJmMA001)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "As Zamata Joins 'SNL,' A Look At -- And Beyond -- The Prism Of Race",
"headTitle": "As Zamata Joins ‘SNL,’ A Look At — And Beyond — The Prism Of Race | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>This week the long-running comedy show \u003cem>Saturday Night Live\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/01/08/260736176/saturday-night-live-takes-a-very-important-first-step\">hired Sasheer Zamata\u003c/a> as a new cast member. The show had come under criticism for its lack of diversity, especially its lack of black women; Zamata will be the show’s first female African-American cast member in six years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When news of Zamata’s hiring broke, it was met in many circles with equal parts excitement and trepidation — the possibilities of a range of new, funny, strange black female characters not played by Kenan-Thompson-in-a-dress, up against the reality that whatever role she is playing, Zamata’s debut will mean she’s always performing the role of SNL’s Black Woman, and she faces the burden of playing within or against the history of what that role has meant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI_SFm-txRI&w=480&h=270]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In thinking about that complicated and also, hopefully, joyful and rewarding space she will occupy, I was reminded of one of my favorite story collections. Asali Solomon’s \u003cem>Get Down \u003c/em>is a book that understands the degree to which race and racial identity are so often about performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the opening story, “Twelve Takes Thea,” Thea and Nadja struggle with the pressure and suspicion that accompanies being the only black girls at a wealthy white prep school. Thea, awkward and uncertain, is at home called “Jane” by her older brother, who taunts her for being too white. At school, she’s treated as an emissary from a land of urban danger, and often confused for her bolder friend Nadja, so that their friendship means their two distinct identities collapse into their role as their grade’s black girls. When Nadja leaves school and a new black classmate arrives, the internal and external pressure Thea feels to befriend her twists itself into a cruelty that Thea believes is the only way she can differentiate herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, in “The Star of the Story\u003cem>,”\u003c/em> Solomon explores the heartbreaking space between the people we are, the people we wish to be and the stories we tell about ourselves. Solomon writes “It was during that time, in Eduardo’s arms, that Akousa came into one of her favorite selves, an Afrocentric Lola Falana. … She shoplifted bright, beaded, slinky things from Macy’s and wore strappy sandals in the dead of February.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akousa is not the only character in the collection drawn to the idea that a new self can be as simple as a costume change or a willful reinvention. Solomon’s characters are aware of the ways in which they are weird and quirky and lonely and awkward and searching and human. They are aware of the ways in which they are never far from their histories, and never free from the prisms through which they are viewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Race is one thematic link of the collection, and it is given its due complexity. But the thread that ultimately ties these stories together, and these characters to readers, is the raw desire for genuine human connection in the face of everything — race included — that seems determined to sabotage it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Evans’s latest collection of short stories is \u003ci>Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self\u003c/i>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">http://www.npr.org/\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=As+Zamata+Joins+%27SNL%2C%27+A+Look+At+%E2%80%94+And+Beyond+%E2%80%94+The+Prism+Of+Race&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAzOTIwODA0MDEyNTA4MTM1OTcyMGJmMA001)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\u003cem>Saturday Night Live\u003c/em> recently announced that they were hiring Sasheer Zamata, the first black woman to join the cast in six years. Author Danielle Evans recommends a book that can give readers an idea of how Zamata might feel: \u003cem>Get Down\u003c/em>, a short story collection by Asali Solomon.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This week the long-running comedy show \u003cem>Saturday Night Live\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/01/08/260736176/saturday-night-live-takes-a-very-important-first-step\">hired Sasheer Zamata\u003c/a> as a new cast member. The show had come under criticism for its lack of diversity, especially its lack of black women; Zamata will be the show’s first female African-American cast member in six years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When news of Zamata’s hiring broke, it was met in many circles with equal parts excitement and trepidation — the possibilities of a range of new, funny, strange black female characters not played by Kenan-Thompson-in-a-dress, up against the reality that whatever role she is playing, Zamata’s debut will mean she’s always performing the role of SNL’s Black Woman, and she faces the burden of playing within or against the history of what that role has meant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/jI_SFm-txRI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/jI_SFm-txRI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In thinking about that complicated and also, hopefully, joyful and rewarding space she will occupy, I was reminded of one of my favorite story collections. Asali Solomon’s \u003cem>Get Down \u003c/em>is a book that understands the degree to which race and racial identity are so often about performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the opening story, “Twelve Takes Thea,” Thea and Nadja struggle with the pressure and suspicion that accompanies being the only black girls at a wealthy white prep school. Thea, awkward and uncertain, is at home called “Jane” by her older brother, who taunts her for being too white. At school, she’s treated as an emissary from a land of urban danger, and often confused for her bolder friend Nadja, so that their friendship means their two distinct identities collapse into their role as their grade’s black girls. When Nadja leaves school and a new black classmate arrives, the internal and external pressure Thea feels to befriend her twists itself into a cruelty that Thea believes is the only way she can differentiate herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, in “The Star of the Story\u003cem>,”\u003c/em> Solomon explores the heartbreaking space between the people we are, the people we wish to be and the stories we tell about ourselves. Solomon writes “It was during that time, in Eduardo’s arms, that Akousa came into one of her favorite selves, an Afrocentric Lola Falana. … She shoplifted bright, beaded, slinky things from Macy’s and wore strappy sandals in the dead of February.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akousa is not the only character in the collection drawn to the idea that a new self can be as simple as a costume change or a willful reinvention. Solomon’s characters are aware of the ways in which they are weird and quirky and lonely and awkward and searching and human. They are aware of the ways in which they are never far from their histories, and never free from the prisms through which they are viewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Race is one thematic link of the collection, and it is given its due complexity. But the thread that ultimately ties these stories together, and these characters to readers, is the raw desire for genuine human connection in the face of everything — race included — that seems determined to sabotage it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Evans’s latest collection of short stories is \u003ci>Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self\u003c/i>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">http://www.npr.org/\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=As+Zamata+Joins+%27SNL%2C%27+A+Look+At+%E2%80%94+And+Beyond+%E2%80%94+The+Prism+Of+Race&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAzOTIwODA0MDEyNTA4MTM1OTcyMGJmMA001)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "From Splurge to Stocking Stuffers: A Gift Guide for the Bookish",
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"content": "\u003cp>Shopping for your bookish significant others is easy, right? You trek to your local bookstore, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/overview.html\">bring a printout of the \u003ci>New York Times\u003c/i> bestseller list\u003c/a>, close your eyes and randomly place your finger on the paper — whatever title you happen to be pointing at that one it shall be! Right? That’s certainly one way to go about it, but if you’re looking for a less risky approach here’s a gift list book lovers are bound to adore:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/matchbook1.jpg\" alt=\"writersblock matchbook sticky notes\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Stocking stuffer: Writersblok Matchbook Sticky Notes\u003c/b> ($2)\u003cbr>These sticky notes come in a pack of four and have a perforated edge for ease of use. Perfect for wrangling all types of stray thoughts. Available at most local art supply stores (I went to Flax in SF’s Duboce Triangle) and online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/spade1.jpg\" alt=\"kate spade's book clutch\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Splurge: Kate Spade’s Book Clutch\u003c/b> ($328)\u003cbr>This season’s clutches are made out of the beautiful book covers of \u003ci>The Portrait of a Lady\u003c/i>, \u003ci>The Age of Innocence\u003c/i>, and \u003ci>A Tale of Two Cities\u003c/i>. These clutches feature interior zip compartment with card slots, pretty custom woven lining, and a 14-karat light gold-plated hardware. Drool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/bells1.jpg\" alt=\"Bell's Books\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Splurge: Rare Hardcover Editions at Bell’s Books\u003c/b> (From $100 to $200)\u003cbr>Some of the best gifts I’ve gotten are from this lovely, family-owned independent bookshop in Palo Alto. \u003ca href=\"http://www.bellsbooks.com/\">Bell’s Books\u003c/a> features some of the finest, wood-cut-illustrated, hardcover books you’ll find in the Bay. For an incredible gift, find out the favorite book of the person you’re shopping for and then make your way to this amazing little bookstore. They keep numerous shelves stacked with the most galvanizing editions. My favorite gift was a \u003ci>Sons and Lovers\u003c/i> edition from 1975.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/journals1.jpg\" alt=\"Maido notebooks\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Under $20: Handpicked Slim Notebooks at Maido\u003c/b> (From $2.55 to $7.55)\u003cbr>Most bookish types are writers too. Whether we enjoy journaling, writing stories, or generally reflecting on what we read, these three notebooks are sure to wow. Tucked away on the third floor of Westfield Mall on Market Street in San Francisco is downtown’s best-kept secret: buried next to a game shop and a restaurant is Maido, a store that features rare and hard-to-find imports from Japan. Their notebooks are beautiful, elegant, and I assure you so much more exceptional than the usual notebook fare at paper stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/powells.jpg\" alt=\"Powell's Indiespensable Subscription\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Under $50: Powell’s Indiespensable Subscription\u003c/b> ($39.95)\u003cbr>Every six weeks a new Indie release is selected by the respected booksellers at Powell’s and is curated with little gifts (from cookies to steel cups). The latest volume features \u003ci>The Best of McSweeney’s\u003c/i>, edited by Dave Eggers. Buy one volume or several, depending on what you want to spend. \u003ca href=\"http://www.powells.com/indiespensable/\">Subscribe now\u003c/a> at powells.com.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/butler1.jpg\" alt=\"robert olen butler severance intercourse\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lastly, the Best Reading Experience in the World: Robert Olen Butler’s \u003ci>Intercourse\u003c/i> read in concurrence with \u003ci>Severance\u003c/i>\u003c/b> ($22.95/each)\u003cbr>Robert Olen Butler just may be the best living writer today. Reading these two volumes together is the best decision you’ll ever make. It has been the reading event of the year for me. While \u003ci>Severance\u003c/i> is a collection of the last thoughts of real and imagined characters at the moment right after a beheading, \u003ci>Intercourse\u003c/i> is a collection of the thoughts of real and imagined characters during intercourse. The writing is so distilled and beautiful I was at times literally bereft of breath. They are perfect companions because when one becomes too intense, you can just turn to the other, and in this way read them in tandem. It’ll change your life. \u003ca href=\"http://www.chroniclebooks.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?mode=list&q=robert+olen+butler\">Available at Chronicle Books\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Shopping for your bookish significant others is easy, right? You trek to your local bookstore, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/overview.html\">bring a printout of the \u003ci>New York Times\u003c/i> bestseller list\u003c/a>, close your eyes and randomly place your finger on the paper — whatever title you happen to be pointing at that one it shall be! Right? That’s certainly one way to go about it, but if you’re looking for a less risky approach here’s a gift list book lovers are bound to adore:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/matchbook1.jpg\" alt=\"writersblock matchbook sticky notes\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Stocking stuffer: Writersblok Matchbook Sticky Notes\u003c/b> ($2)\u003cbr>These sticky notes come in a pack of four and have a perforated edge for ease of use. Perfect for wrangling all types of stray thoughts. Available at most local art supply stores (I went to Flax in SF’s Duboce Triangle) and online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/spade1.jpg\" alt=\"kate spade's book clutch\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Splurge: Kate Spade’s Book Clutch\u003c/b> ($328)\u003cbr>This season’s clutches are made out of the beautiful book covers of \u003ci>The Portrait of a Lady\u003c/i>, \u003ci>The Age of Innocence\u003c/i>, and \u003ci>A Tale of Two Cities\u003c/i>. These clutches feature interior zip compartment with card slots, pretty custom woven lining, and a 14-karat light gold-plated hardware. Drool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/bells1.jpg\" alt=\"Bell's Books\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Splurge: Rare Hardcover Editions at Bell’s Books\u003c/b> (From $100 to $200)\u003cbr>Some of the best gifts I’ve gotten are from this lovely, family-owned independent bookshop in Palo Alto. \u003ca href=\"http://www.bellsbooks.com/\">Bell’s Books\u003c/a> features some of the finest, wood-cut-illustrated, hardcover books you’ll find in the Bay. For an incredible gift, find out the favorite book of the person you’re shopping for and then make your way to this amazing little bookstore. They keep numerous shelves stacked with the most galvanizing editions. My favorite gift was a \u003ci>Sons and Lovers\u003c/i> edition from 1975.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/journals1.jpg\" alt=\"Maido notebooks\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Under $20: Handpicked Slim Notebooks at Maido\u003c/b> (From $2.55 to $7.55)\u003cbr>Most bookish types are writers too. Whether we enjoy journaling, writing stories, or generally reflecting on what we read, these three notebooks are sure to wow. Tucked away on the third floor of Westfield Mall on Market Street in San Francisco is downtown’s best-kept secret: buried next to a game shop and a restaurant is Maido, a store that features rare and hard-to-find imports from Japan. Their notebooks are beautiful, elegant, and I assure you so much more exceptional than the usual notebook fare at paper stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/powells.jpg\" alt=\"Powell's Indiespensable Subscription\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Under $50: Powell’s Indiespensable Subscription\u003c/b> ($39.95)\u003cbr>Every six weeks a new Indie release is selected by the respected booksellers at Powell’s and is curated with little gifts (from cookies to steel cups). The latest volume features \u003ci>The Best of McSweeney’s\u003c/i>, edited by Dave Eggers. Buy one volume or several, depending on what you want to spend. \u003ca href=\"http://www.powells.com/indiespensable/\">Subscribe now\u003c/a> at powells.com.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/14/butler1.jpg\" alt=\"robert olen butler severance intercourse\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lastly, the Best Reading Experience in the World: Robert Olen Butler’s \u003ci>Intercourse\u003c/i> read in concurrence with \u003ci>Severance\u003c/i>\u003c/b> ($22.95/each)\u003cbr>Robert Olen Butler just may be the best living writer today. Reading these two volumes together is the best decision you’ll ever make. It has been the reading event of the year for me. While \u003ci>Severance\u003c/i> is a collection of the last thoughts of real and imagined characters at the moment right after a beheading, \u003ci>Intercourse\u003c/i> is a collection of the thoughts of real and imagined characters during intercourse. The writing is so distilled and beautiful I was at times literally bereft of breath. They are perfect companions because when one becomes too intense, you can just turn to the other, and in this way read them in tandem. It’ll change your life. \u003ca href=\"http://www.chroniclebooks.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?mode=list&q=robert+olen+butler\">Available at Chronicle Books\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Winter Read: The Robber of Memories by Michael Jacobs",
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"content": "\u003cp>As the end of the year ruthlessly approaches, I have found solace in a book about a river journey into the jungles of my homeland, Colombia. There is nothing like a travel book to cure winter and holiday woes. Michael Jacobs is a British writer of Irish and Spanish descent who has written numerous travel guides, but \u003ci>The Robber of Memories: a River Journey through Colombia\u003c/i> is something more. It is half travel book, but also half fancy, spurred by the author’s ability to turn his life into metaphor. The metaphor is this: with his father passed, taken by Alzheimer’s, and his mother at the onset of dementia, Jacobs began to see the tumultuous river Magdalena (once the only thoroughfare through a wild, inhospitable jungle during colonization) as that of Lethe, \u003ca href=\"http://books.google.com/books?id=e24YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=true\">the river of the Greek underworld\u003c/a> that if drunk from would erase all your memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Latino studies scholars might already cringe at such a premise (in the tradition of our otherness represented in media and literature, a South American river equated with one in the underworld, is, well, a bit questionable) but the metaphor feels genuine. The book opens when, by chance, at a bar after the Cartagena Literary Festival, Jacobs spots Gabriel Garcia Marquez enjoying a beer with his family. Jacobs has a mutual friend introduce him — his friend does so by exaggerating (or foretelling) that he is an Englishman obsessed with the river Magdalena. Garcia Marquez enthuses he would love to chat with Jacobs, but as the band serenading Garcia Marquez renews their efforts, Garcia Marquez — then rumored (\u003ca href=\"http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/brother-says-garcia-marquez-has-dementia/?_r=0\">now confirmed\u003c/a>) to be suffering from dementia — grows distant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His eyes were half-open and staring quizzically towards me,” Jacobs writes, “wondering perhaps who I was. I felt for a few moments that… he had become a caiman watching me from the banks of a tropical river, somnolent and near invisible, but with eyes that peered above the murky waters, taking in everything… offering their blessing to a journey I had already begun that night in my mind, up a river that was also a metaphor of memory, into a luxuriant world of marvels and dangers, to areas of the past both brilliant and dark, on to the Magdalena’s high and distant source, in Andean moorland, by the shores of oblivion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you decide to read this book, don’t expect a forward building journey down a river. Jacobs’ journey is more one of waiting: waiting for his passage to be secured on a boat, waiting for said boat to get unstuck and pick him up, waiting for a different boat, then waiting as \u003ci>that\u003c/i> boat is also stranded on the river. It seems fitting that a sideways and upwards inquiry into remembering and forgetting is halted by an obstacle course of floods and droughts and fear of encountering paramilitaries and guerrillas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/03/magdalenariver.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom:10px; /><br />A boat by the shores of the Magdalena, Colombia. Image: Luis Perez, <a href=\" http:> Wikimedia Commons \u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>With a Colombian companion, Julio, and under the dominion of a captain who is jovial and loud, they finally get going. But the start of the jouney is comically disappointing; the boat travels at jogging speed and is prone to getting stuck on the riverbed. The captain tells Jacobs that navigating the river Magdalena is not an exact science, and that his sailors have not undergone official training. In the tedium of hours, Jacobs watches the sailors poke at the river with a long stick to guess the depth and thereby navigate the boat, and meanwhile he daydreams about Colombia’s troubled history and the fleeting memory of his mother. The ringing of his telephone, which explodes, surprisingly, at remote parts of the river, often interrupts his thinking. It is usually the nurse calling at the behest of his mother, who in the depths of her dementia has come to believe that Jacobs is her late husband, alive and in the process of abandoning her. At night Julio and Jacobs entertain themselves by hiding from the controlling captain and stealing some of his sailors to drink rum in the hull of the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the villages thin out, and there are only settlements here and there, the tensions rise. There are constant forebodings about being in guerrilla or paramilitary territory, and the floating corpses of animals are always mistaken for human bodies. As the boat’s passage becomes more difficult, Jacobs is intensely obsessed with reaching the source of the river, a place he equates with the waters of Mnemosyne (the underworld waters in Hades that will preserve your memories). Getting to the source, he believes, will be a magical experience. But it is nearing the end of his journey, when the inevitable happens: Jacobs encounters guerrillas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a different type of blundering that caught me up as a reader. As Jacobs tries to continuously connect his river journey to Garcia Marquez, the metaphor comes out forced, and it leaves one with the taste of a place not entirely seen but exoticized. Real people are compared to literary characters, as are places, situations, and vistas. It is as if at times Jacobs himself were experiencing Colombia third hand. I was also uncomfortable with some passages, as Jacobs uses questionable terms, like \u003ci>zambo\u003c/i> and \u003ci>mulatto\u003c/i>, terms that were given to the natives by Spaniards in order to fit them into a hierarchy based on race, and are incredibly charged and not altogether okay out of the mouth of a foreigner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a fascinating, meandering book nonetheless and Jacobs can write about the landscape in an effusive, inspired way: “A few tiny huts on stilts had precariously survived in a landscape fringed by banks of water lilies, palms and exotic trees in bloom, a landscape in which even the translucent yellows of the dying mangoes had a seductive sensuality. We bathed in waters once ruled by caimans, then stopped off at an enchanted island whose few inhabitants were stewing turtle for lunch. A parakeet landed on my shoulder, while up above shrieking monkeys jumped from tree to tree.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Robber of Memories\u003c/i> is out now.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As the end of the year ruthlessly approaches, I have found solace in a book about a river journey into the jungles of my homeland, Colombia. There is nothing like a travel book to cure winter and holiday woes. Michael Jacobs is a British writer of Irish and Spanish descent who has written numerous travel guides, but \u003ci>The Robber of Memories: a River Journey through Colombia\u003c/i> is something more. It is half travel book, but also half fancy, spurred by the author’s ability to turn his life into metaphor. The metaphor is this: with his father passed, taken by Alzheimer’s, and his mother at the onset of dementia, Jacobs began to see the tumultuous river Magdalena (once the only thoroughfare through a wild, inhospitable jungle during colonization) as that of Lethe, \u003ca href=\"http://books.google.com/books?id=e24YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=true\">the river of the Greek underworld\u003c/a> that if drunk from would erase all your memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Latino studies scholars might already cringe at such a premise (in the tradition of our otherness represented in media and literature, a South American river equated with one in the underworld, is, well, a bit questionable) but the metaphor feels genuine. The book opens when, by chance, at a bar after the Cartagena Literary Festival, Jacobs spots Gabriel Garcia Marquez enjoying a beer with his family. Jacobs has a mutual friend introduce him — his friend does so by exaggerating (or foretelling) that he is an Englishman obsessed with the river Magdalena. Garcia Marquez enthuses he would love to chat with Jacobs, but as the band serenading Garcia Marquez renews their efforts, Garcia Marquez — then rumored (\u003ca href=\"http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/brother-says-garcia-marquez-has-dementia/?_r=0\">now confirmed\u003c/a>) to be suffering from dementia — grows distant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His eyes were half-open and staring quizzically towards me,” Jacobs writes, “wondering perhaps who I was. I felt for a few moments that… he had become a caiman watching me from the banks of a tropical river, somnolent and near invisible, but with eyes that peered above the murky waters, taking in everything… offering their blessing to a journey I had already begun that night in my mind, up a river that was also a metaphor of memory, into a luxuriant world of marvels and dangers, to areas of the past both brilliant and dark, on to the Magdalena’s high and distant source, in Andean moorland, by the shores of oblivion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you decide to read this book, don’t expect a forward building journey down a river. Jacobs’ journey is more one of waiting: waiting for his passage to be secured on a boat, waiting for said boat to get unstuck and pick him up, waiting for a different boat, then waiting as \u003ci>that\u003c/i> boat is also stranded on the river. It seems fitting that a sideways and upwards inquiry into remembering and forgetting is halted by an obstacle course of floods and droughts and fear of encountering paramilitaries and guerrillas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/12/03/magdalenariver.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom:10px; /><br />A boat by the shores of the Magdalena, Colombia. Image: Luis Perez, <a href=\" http:> Wikimedia Commons \u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>With a Colombian companion, Julio, and under the dominion of a captain who is jovial and loud, they finally get going. But the start of the jouney is comically disappointing; the boat travels at jogging speed and is prone to getting stuck on the riverbed. The captain tells Jacobs that navigating the river Magdalena is not an exact science, and that his sailors have not undergone official training. In the tedium of hours, Jacobs watches the sailors poke at the river with a long stick to guess the depth and thereby navigate the boat, and meanwhile he daydreams about Colombia’s troubled history and the fleeting memory of his mother. The ringing of his telephone, which explodes, surprisingly, at remote parts of the river, often interrupts his thinking. It is usually the nurse calling at the behest of his mother, who in the depths of her dementia has come to believe that Jacobs is her late husband, alive and in the process of abandoning her. At night Julio and Jacobs entertain themselves by hiding from the controlling captain and stealing some of his sailors to drink rum in the hull of the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the villages thin out, and there are only settlements here and there, the tensions rise. There are constant forebodings about being in guerrilla or paramilitary territory, and the floating corpses of animals are always mistaken for human bodies. As the boat’s passage becomes more difficult, Jacobs is intensely obsessed with reaching the source of the river, a place he equates with the waters of Mnemosyne (the underworld waters in Hades that will preserve your memories). Getting to the source, he believes, will be a magical experience. But it is nearing the end of his journey, when the inevitable happens: Jacobs encounters guerrillas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a different type of blundering that caught me up as a reader. As Jacobs tries to continuously connect his river journey to Garcia Marquez, the metaphor comes out forced, and it leaves one with the taste of a place not entirely seen but exoticized. Real people are compared to literary characters, as are places, situations, and vistas. It is as if at times Jacobs himself were experiencing Colombia third hand. I was also uncomfortable with some passages, as Jacobs uses questionable terms, like \u003ci>zambo\u003c/i> and \u003ci>mulatto\u003c/i>, terms that were given to the natives by Spaniards in order to fit them into a hierarchy based on race, and are incredibly charged and not altogether okay out of the mouth of a foreigner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a fascinating, meandering book nonetheless and Jacobs can write about the landscape in an effusive, inspired way: “A few tiny huts on stilts had precariously survived in a landscape fringed by banks of water lilies, palms and exotic trees in bloom, a landscape in which even the translucent yellows of the dying mangoes had a seductive sensuality. We bathed in waters once ruled by caimans, then stopped off at an enchanted island whose few inhabitants were stewing turtle for lunch. A parakeet landed on my shoulder, while up above shrieking monkeys jumped from tree to tree.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Robber of Memories\u003c/i> is out now.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s that time again for traditional foods and family rituals that grow richer with each passing year. And this is the second year I’m offering suggestions for the best children’s books for holiday gifts.(\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/11/30/111926/some_of_our_favorite_childrens_books\">Check out last year’s list here.\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To curate that list, I’ve returned to \u003ca href=\"http://www.hicklebees.com/\">Hicklebee’s Book Store\u003c/a> in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood where co-owner Valerie Lewis takes kid’s books very seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis and her staff have built a marvelous children’s book museum at the bookstore. The walls are covered with original art by book illustrators, and touchstone objects from kids’ books, like the spiderweb from \u003ci>Charlotte’s Web\u003c/i>, and the blue jeans (or their facsimile) from the \u003ci>Traveling Pants\u003c/i> series signed by author Ann Brashares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis found a theme in this holiday list ranging from picture books to young adult fiction. They’re stories about people who solved problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Outfoxed\u003c/i> by Mike Twohy\u003cbr>This is the first children’s book from Mike Twohy, a \u003ci>New Yorker\u003c/i> cartoonist. A hungry fox in search of his dinner invades a hen house one night and grabs a duck instead of a chicken. But the duck is sly enough to convince the fox that he’s really a dog. Tactics include peeing on the rug. The fun here is in the young reader (listener) getting the joke before Fox. Ages 4-8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/treelady.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"the tree lady by h joseph hopkins\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Tree Lady\u003c/i> by H. Joseph Hopkins\u003cbr>This picture book, with beautiful illustrations, is based on the life of a Northern California woman named Katherine Olivia Sessions. Hopkins has found an inspiring proto-feminist in Sessions, who graduated with a botany degree from UC Berkeley, and then became an influential horticulturalist in Southern California, introducing drought-tolerant trees to the arid landscape of San Diego’s Balboa Park. Ages 5-10.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/nasreddine.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"nasreddine by odile weulersse\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Nasreddine\u003c/i> by Odile Weulersse, illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer\u003cbr>Nasreddine (or Nasrudin) is a legendary figure in Middle Eastern folk tales. He’s often a bit of a fool who proves deep practical and spiritual wisdom. Here Nasreddine is just a boy learning the ways of the world. He’s faced with the challenging problem of finding approval from some villagers. His father’s wisdom saves the day. Ages 5-9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/crabtree500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"crabtree by jon and tucker nichols\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i> by Jon & Tucker Nichols\u003cbr>This picture book is kind of a \u003ci>Where’s Waldo\u003c/i> for common objects. Alfred Crabtree has lost his false teeth. The only way to find them is to organize his cluttered house, which is full of odds and ends like candy, a pencil, a plunger, a yapping dog or two, a rubber band or three, and broken furniture, all pictured on various pages of the book. \u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i> comes from San Francisco’s own \u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/t/categories/books/mcmullens\">McSweeney’s McMullens\u003c/a> Kids Books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/mistermax.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"mister max by cynthia voigt\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things\u003c/i> by Cynthia Voigt\u003cbr>This mystery-adventure tale is a kind of \u003ci>Home Alone\u003c/i>, featuring a 12-year-old boy named Max. His parents are actors and they leave him behind when they sail to India. Did they mean to abandon him? Have they been kidnapped? Max gets help from his librarian grandmother, but decides to stay independent and begins using the theatrical crafts learned from his parents to earn money as a finder of lost things. The first book of a planned trilogy. Ages 8-12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/buster.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"bluffton by matt phelan\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bluffton: My Summers with Buster Keaton\u003c/i> by Matt Phelan\u003cbr>Historical fiction featuring a boy named Henry, who becomes friends with a young Buster Keaton in a Michigan resort town in 1908. Henry wishes for the adventurous life in show business, while Buster but yearns for a simpler life more like Henry’s. Ages 9-12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/farfaraway.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"far far away by tom mcneal\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Far Far Away\u003c/i> by Tom McNeal\u003cbr>This story features the ghost of Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm. Their collections of folk-tales are told to children, but are pretty blood curdling. In \u003ci>Far Far Away\u003c/i>, the ghost of Grimm watches over young Jeremy Johnson Johnson but isn’t as effective as he might be. Ages 7 and up.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s that time again for traditional foods and family rituals that grow richer with each passing year. And this is the second year I’m offering suggestions for the best children’s books for holiday gifts.(\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/11/30/111926/some_of_our_favorite_childrens_books\">Check out last year’s list here.\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To curate that list, I’ve returned to \u003ca href=\"http://www.hicklebees.com/\">Hicklebee’s Book Store\u003c/a> in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood where co-owner Valerie Lewis takes kid’s books very seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis and her staff have built a marvelous children’s book museum at the bookstore. The walls are covered with original art by book illustrators, and touchstone objects from kids’ books, like the spiderweb from \u003ci>Charlotte’s Web\u003c/i>, and the blue jeans (or their facsimile) from the \u003ci>Traveling Pants\u003c/i> series signed by author Ann Brashares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis found a theme in this holiday list ranging from picture books to young adult fiction. They’re stories about people who solved problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Outfoxed\u003c/i> by Mike Twohy\u003cbr>This is the first children’s book from Mike Twohy, a \u003ci>New Yorker\u003c/i> cartoonist. A hungry fox in search of his dinner invades a hen house one night and grabs a duck instead of a chicken. But the duck is sly enough to convince the fox that he’s really a dog. Tactics include peeing on the rug. The fun here is in the young reader (listener) getting the joke before Fox. Ages 4-8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/treelady.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"the tree lady by h joseph hopkins\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Tree Lady\u003c/i> by H. Joseph Hopkins\u003cbr>This picture book, with beautiful illustrations, is based on the life of a Northern California woman named Katherine Olivia Sessions. Hopkins has found an inspiring proto-feminist in Sessions, who graduated with a botany degree from UC Berkeley, and then became an influential horticulturalist in Southern California, introducing drought-tolerant trees to the arid landscape of San Diego’s Balboa Park. Ages 5-10.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/nasreddine.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"nasreddine by odile weulersse\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Nasreddine\u003c/i> by Odile Weulersse, illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer\u003cbr>Nasreddine (or Nasrudin) is a legendary figure in Middle Eastern folk tales. He’s often a bit of a fool who proves deep practical and spiritual wisdom. Here Nasreddine is just a boy learning the ways of the world. He’s faced with the challenging problem of finding approval from some villagers. His father’s wisdom saves the day. Ages 5-9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/crabtree500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"crabtree by jon and tucker nichols\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i> by Jon & Tucker Nichols\u003cbr>This picture book is kind of a \u003ci>Where’s Waldo\u003c/i> for common objects. Alfred Crabtree has lost his false teeth. The only way to find them is to organize his cluttered house, which is full of odds and ends like candy, a pencil, a plunger, a yapping dog or two, a rubber band or three, and broken furniture, all pictured on various pages of the book. \u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i> comes from San Francisco’s own \u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/t/categories/books/mcmullens\">McSweeney’s McMullens\u003c/a> Kids Books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/mistermax.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"mister max by cynthia voigt\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things\u003c/i> by Cynthia Voigt\u003cbr>This mystery-adventure tale is a kind of \u003ci>Home Alone\u003c/i>, featuring a 12-year-old boy named Max. His parents are actors and they leave him behind when they sail to India. Did they mean to abandon him? Have they been kidnapped? Max gets help from his librarian grandmother, but decides to stay independent and begins using the theatrical crafts learned from his parents to earn money as a finder of lost things. The first book of a planned trilogy. Ages 8-12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/buster.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"bluffton by matt phelan\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bluffton: My Summers with Buster Keaton\u003c/i> by Matt Phelan\u003cbr>Historical fiction featuring a boy named Henry, who becomes friends with a young Buster Keaton in a Michigan resort town in 1908. Henry wishes for the adventurous life in show business, while Buster but yearns for a simpler life more like Henry’s. Ages 9-12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/29/farfaraway.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10ps\" alt=\"far far away by tom mcneal\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Far Far Away\u003c/i> by Tom McNeal\u003cbr>This story features the ghost of Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm. Their collections of folk-tales are told to children, but are pretty blood curdling. In \u003ci>Far Far Away\u003c/i>, the ghost of Grimm watches over young Jeremy Johnson Johnson but isn’t as effective as he might be. Ages 7 and up.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Even when covered in shiny wrapping paper, books give themselves away immediately. As soon as the receiver grabs hold of the gift, they’re thinking, “Oh. A book.” But when they tear off the paper and see that you’ve thoughtfully selected a book full of artwork that just happens to have an accessible, accompanying story, you can revel in the smug glory that you won the gift-giving competition this year. Or maybe you’re not a passive aggressive gifter and you’re just looking for gift ideas for the kids and creative people in your life. Either way, you’ve come to the right place: Here’s a collection of rad children’s books by some of my favorite artists, most of them local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children’s book illustrations are a powerful influence on a young person’s perception of visual culture, and they have the power to inspire new creativity in the world. Many contemporary artists cite specific children’s books as early inspiration, so giving these books as gifts literally supports the art community of the future, making you a fancy patron of the arts. And if books are mirrors of the soul, these books reflect our true, childlike nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/nightriders500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"matt furie, the night riders\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/night-riders\">\u003ci>The Night Riders\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Matt Furie\u003cbr>Furie’s artwork is inspired by toys, pop culture, dragons and wizards, so it’s only natural that McSweeney’s McMullens would publish this work of art, a picture book story about friendship. Furie’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/visualarts/article.jsp?essid=24070\">Boys’ Club\u003c/a> zines are full of hilarious teenage boy humor, but this quiet, visual narrative is appropriate for babies and nostalgic for adults. For fans of Furie, the drawings are breathtaking. The book could be considered a contemporary \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_and_Toad\">Frog and Toad\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/crabtree500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"jon and tucker nichols, crabtree\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/crabtree-1\">\u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Jon and Tucker Nichols\u003cbr>Tucker Nichols is insightful and witty, and he works with text and imagery to simplify ideas to the point that they ignite complex thoughts. He’s collaborated with his brother on the story of Mr. Crabtree, who has lost his dentures among all his eccentric, worldly possessions. The Nichols brothers will be \u003ca href=\"http://www.parklifestore.com/2013/11/19/tucker-and-jon-nichols-book-release-event-for-crabtree-at-park-life/\">signing copies of \u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003cb>TODAY, Saturday, November 30, 2013\u003c/b> at Park Life in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/ganesha500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"sanjay patel and emily haynes, ganesha's sweet tooth\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/ganesha-s-sweet-tooth.html\">\u003ci>Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes\u003cbr>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=31331\">Sanjay Patel\u003c/a> works at Pixar, creating the artwork for films like \u003ci>Cars\u003c/i>, which is loved by nearly all kids everywhere, and his cartoon style translates well into his bold, bright personal artwork and publications inspired by Hindu epics and deities. \u003ci>Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth\u003c/i> is the tale of the elephant god who breaks his tusk on a jawbreaker, a candy-colored adaptation of the original legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/horse500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"clare rojas and sheila heti, we need a horse\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/we-need-a-horse\">\u003ci>We Need a Horse\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Clare Rojas and Sheila Heti\u003cbr>Clare Rojas has a few books that could be classified as children’s literature and this one, written by Sheila Heti, is the story of a horse having an existential crisis who learns that everyone’s purpose is unknown but important. For kids who are scared of the dark, \u003ci>We Need a Horse\u003c/i> anthropomorphises nighttime, revealing that it is just as vulnerable as any other scaredy cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/sugardip500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"esther pearl watson, trouble at sugar dip well\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Trouble at Sugar Dip Well\u003c/i> by Esther Pearl Watson\u003cbr>In a two-part series about Jules the cowgirl and her singing horse, Gertie, the heroines try to save the town of Sugar Dip from a water bandit. This book was published over a decade ago, which is probably why, out of all the books on this list, the illustrations look most different from the artist’s current fine artwork, but it maintains Watson’s smart humor and strong female leads. Watson has published tons of books since the days of Jules and Gertie, and her newest is a limited edition book called \u003ca href=\"http://www.funchicken.bigcartel.com/product/moderskepp\">\u003ci>Moderskepp\u003c/i>\u003c/a> featuring a series of otherworldly images created by sticking Gummy Bears and tinfoil on a car windshield, which could also be a great gift idea for kids or creatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/kadel500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"mel kadel and sounder, it rained all day\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/visualarts/article.jsp?essid=113766\">\u003ci>It Rained All Day\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Mel Kadel and ((SOUNDER))\u003cbr>This little gem is a record book and illustrates a song by Kadel’s friend and musical collaborator, Mike Aho, a.k.a. ((Sounder)). Sitting down with the book as the record plays is a priceless experience that I detailed back in January here on KQED Arts. Whenever someone familiar with the artist sees this book prominently displayed on my shelf they say, “Mel Kadel has a book?!” Yes, she does. And you need it. Everyone needs it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/hangglider500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"brian mcmullen and jason jagel, hang glider and mud mask\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/hang-glider-and-mud-mask\">\u003ci>Hang Glider and Mud Mask\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Brian McMullen and Jason Jägel\u003cbr>I haven’t seen this one in person yet, but the reviews are glowing and it’s literally a double whammy with two different stories that lead into each other. You can start with the story of \u003ci>Hang Glider\u003c/i>, or flip the book over over and begin with \u003ci>Mud Mask\u003c/i>, a new, simple twist on \u003ci>Choose Your Own Adventure\u003c/i>. Like all of the artists on this list, Jägel’s artwork easily lends itself to illustration for young people and kids at heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While you are supporting local artists, why not also support the shops that support them? You can find these books at \u003ca href=\"http://www.parklifestore.com/\">Park Life\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.gheehappy.com/about/\">Ghee Happy\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/t/categories/books/mcmullens\">McSweeney’s McMullens\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"http://unpianobooks.com/books.htm\">Unpiano Books\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Even when covered in shiny wrapping paper, books give themselves away immediately. As soon as the receiver grabs hold of the gift, they’re thinking, “Oh. A book.” But when they tear off the paper and see that you’ve thoughtfully selected a book full of artwork that just happens to have an accessible, accompanying story, you can revel in the smug glory that you won the gift-giving competition this year. Or maybe you’re not a passive aggressive gifter and you’re just looking for gift ideas for the kids and creative people in your life. Either way, you’ve come to the right place: Here’s a collection of rad children’s books by some of my favorite artists, most of them local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children’s book illustrations are a powerful influence on a young person’s perception of visual culture, and they have the power to inspire new creativity in the world. Many contemporary artists cite specific children’s books as early inspiration, so giving these books as gifts literally supports the art community of the future, making you a fancy patron of the arts. And if books are mirrors of the soul, these books reflect our true, childlike nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/nightriders500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"matt furie, the night riders\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/night-riders\">\u003ci>The Night Riders\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Matt Furie\u003cbr>Furie’s artwork is inspired by toys, pop culture, dragons and wizards, so it’s only natural that McSweeney’s McMullens would publish this work of art, a picture book story about friendship. Furie’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/visualarts/article.jsp?essid=24070\">Boys’ Club\u003c/a> zines are full of hilarious teenage boy humor, but this quiet, visual narrative is appropriate for babies and nostalgic for adults. For fans of Furie, the drawings are breathtaking. The book could be considered a contemporary \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_and_Toad\">Frog and Toad\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/crabtree500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"jon and tucker nichols, crabtree\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/crabtree-1\">\u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Jon and Tucker Nichols\u003cbr>Tucker Nichols is insightful and witty, and he works with text and imagery to simplify ideas to the point that they ignite complex thoughts. He’s collaborated with his brother on the story of Mr. Crabtree, who has lost his dentures among all his eccentric, worldly possessions. The Nichols brothers will be \u003ca href=\"http://www.parklifestore.com/2013/11/19/tucker-and-jon-nichols-book-release-event-for-crabtree-at-park-life/\">signing copies of \u003ci>Crabtree\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003cb>TODAY, Saturday, November 30, 2013\u003c/b> at Park Life in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/ganesha500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"sanjay patel and emily haynes, ganesha's sweet tooth\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/ganesha-s-sweet-tooth.html\">\u003ci>Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes\u003cbr>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=31331\">Sanjay Patel\u003c/a> works at Pixar, creating the artwork for films like \u003ci>Cars\u003c/i>, which is loved by nearly all kids everywhere, and his cartoon style translates well into his bold, bright personal artwork and publications inspired by Hindu epics and deities. \u003ci>Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth\u003c/i> is the tale of the elephant god who breaks his tusk on a jawbreaker, a candy-colored adaptation of the original legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/horse500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"clare rojas and sheila heti, we need a horse\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/we-need-a-horse\">\u003ci>We Need a Horse\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Clare Rojas and Sheila Heti\u003cbr>Clare Rojas has a few books that could be classified as children’s literature and this one, written by Sheila Heti, is the story of a horse having an existential crisis who learns that everyone’s purpose is unknown but important. For kids who are scared of the dark, \u003ci>We Need a Horse\u003c/i> anthropomorphises nighttime, revealing that it is just as vulnerable as any other scaredy cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/sugardip500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"esther pearl watson, trouble at sugar dip well\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Trouble at Sugar Dip Well\u003c/i> by Esther Pearl Watson\u003cbr>In a two-part series about Jules the cowgirl and her singing horse, Gertie, the heroines try to save the town of Sugar Dip from a water bandit. This book was published over a decade ago, which is probably why, out of all the books on this list, the illustrations look most different from the artist’s current fine artwork, but it maintains Watson’s smart humor and strong female leads. Watson has published tons of books since the days of Jules and Gertie, and her newest is a limited edition book called \u003ca href=\"http://www.funchicken.bigcartel.com/product/moderskepp\">\u003ci>Moderskepp\u003c/i>\u003c/a> featuring a series of otherworldly images created by sticking Gummy Bears and tinfoil on a car windshield, which could also be a great gift idea for kids or creatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/kadel500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"mel kadel and sounder, it rained all day\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/visualarts/article.jsp?essid=113766\">\u003ci>It Rained All Day\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Mel Kadel and ((SOUNDER))\u003cbr>This little gem is a record book and illustrates a song by Kadel’s friend and musical collaborator, Mike Aho, a.k.a. ((Sounder)). Sitting down with the book as the record plays is a priceless experience that I detailed back in January here on KQED Arts. Whenever someone familiar with the artist sees this book prominently displayed on my shelf they say, “Mel Kadel has a book?!” Yes, she does. And you need it. Everyone needs it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/11/27/hangglider500.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"brian mcmullen and jason jagel, hang glider and mud mask\">\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/hang-glider-and-mud-mask\">\u003ci>Hang Glider and Mud Mask\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Brian McMullen and Jason Jägel\u003cbr>I haven’t seen this one in person yet, but the reviews are glowing and it’s literally a double whammy with two different stories that lead into each other. You can start with the story of \u003ci>Hang Glider\u003c/i>, or flip the book over over and begin with \u003ci>Mud Mask\u003c/i>, a new, simple twist on \u003ci>Choose Your Own Adventure\u003c/i>. Like all of the artists on this list, Jägel’s artwork easily lends itself to illustration for young people and kids at heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While you are supporting local artists, why not also support the shops that support them? You can find these books at \u003ca href=\"http://www.parklifestore.com/\">Park Life\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.gheehappy.com/about/\">Ghee Happy\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://store.mcsweeneys.net/t/categories/books/mcmullens\">McSweeney’s McMullens\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"http://unpianobooks.com/books.htm\">Unpiano Books\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
"link": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
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