Monday, August 25, 2008

Bob talks with filmmaker David Lynch about transcendental meditation and his new memoir, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. Lynch has been a devotee of meditation for 30 years and in 2005 launched the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. He explains how finding inner harmony helped him craft “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart” and “Twin Peaks.” Then, Bob talks with movie director and Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam. As the only American member of the Python troupe, Gilliam is best known for quirky and elaborate animation sequences between live action sketches. His latest film as a director is "Tideland."

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Bob talks to Daniel Sheehy the Director and Curator of Smithsonian Folkways Recording about the music collection of Moses Ash. Moses handed his collection over to the Smithsonian before he died in 1986. The Smithsonian has expanded he legacy by making his entire collection available on line. Then, Bob visits with record collector Joe Bussard at his home in Frederick, Maryland. Bussard is the founder and proprietor of his own label, Fonotone records. He is a musician and a radio host and throughout his life he has tirelessly scoured Appalachia and the south for classic 78 RPM records. Today, he maintains a collection of more than 25,000 of these rare records, primarily of American folk, gospel, and blues from the 1920s and 1930s, which is believed to be the largest such collection in the world.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Bob talks with Australian writer Tim Winton about his award-winning collection of connected short stories, The Turning: New Stories. In 1998, Australia declared Winton a "national living treasure” and in 2005 the book won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Then, Mike Birbiglia is a comedian living in New York City. He has a fear of bears and a habit of sleepwalking, and he's Italian -- the Olive Garden kind. He won a comedy contest during his sophomore year at Georgetown, then waited tables for three years at the Washington, D.C. Improv. Eventually he got on stage there, opening for Dave Chappelle and is now a regular on the late night talks shows and Comedy Central.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Louis Ferrante fought his way up the mafia ranks, earning himself a spot in the Gambino clan. Then as an inmate in federal prison, he experienced the thrills of a great piece of literature. Bob talks to Ferrante about his memoir, Unlocked: A Journey from Prison to Proust, and why he changed the names to "protect the innocent and conceal the guilty."


Friday, August 29, 2008
 
Bob talks with director Kenneth Branagh and actor Michael Caine about their new film “Sleuth.” It’s a remake of the 1972 thriller in which Caine played the younger of the only two characters in the movie opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Then, Bob is joined by Anthony Hopkins who writes, directs and stars in his film “Slipstream,” billed as a story about the implosion of a man's mind. The movie also stars Christian Slater, John Turturro, Michael Clark Duncan, Camryn Manheim and Jeffrey Tambor.