Monday, March 2, 2015: Our favorite ex-con Louis Ferrante is back with a book just out in paperback titled Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman. He shares nuggets of advice good for the boardroom and the backroom such as, “never bad mouth the boss” and “the importance of networking: it’s good to go to a funeral as long as it’s not yours.” Ferrante served eight and a half years in prison for refusing to incriminate his associates in the Gambino family, since then he’s gone straight and now lectures groups of at-risk teens across the country. Then, singer-songwriter Richard Buckner explains his penchant for moving and his love of touring. He also plays a few songs in our performance studio and talks about his music and career.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015: On August, 7, 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit pulled off the “artistic crime of the century.” After eight months of planning, Petit, aided by a band of co-conspirators, rigged a wire between the tops of the Twin Towers and then spent nearly an hour dancing between the two. The cops were waiting for him when he finally came off the wire. Unsure of what crime he had committed, the NYPD charged him with “Man on Wire.” That’s the name of the Academy Award-winning documentary directed by James Marsh. The two men join Bob to discuss the film and the inspiration. Then Bob spends more time with Petit, who still practices the high wire three hours a day, six days a week. Petit is also a busker, juggler, pick-pocket artist and author. His latest book is titled Creativity: the Perfect Crime.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015: Julian Barnes has written novels, several collections of essays and stories, and a book titled Nothing to Be Frightened Of. Bob talks with Barnes about his book, which is part essay and part memoir, and is described as a meditation on religion, mortality and the fear of death. Barnes writes in the book that he sometimes finds life “an overrated way of spending time.”
Thursday, March 5, 2015: Andrew Blechman was shocked when his older New England neighbors put their house up for sale. He was even more surprised when he learned they were moving to The Villages in central Florida. It’s the world’s largest gated retirement community, takes up more space than Manhattan and includes a golf course for every day of the month. Blechman explores this rapidly growing trend in his new book titled Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias. With Facebook, Skype and Twitter you never have to lose contact with anyone ever again. So how well do you know the family next door? After a terrible tragedy on his suburban street, Peter Lovenheim wanted to know what it took to build friendships with the people closest to you- or at least the ones who are nearby. He is the author of In The Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time.
Friday, March 6, 2015: Photographer Danny Clinch has spent his career connecting the realms of visual and sonic art. Through collaborations with musicians like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and James Brown, Clinch explores the intrinsic link between music and images. Filmmaker Tom Shadyac flourished in Hollywood with the hit comedies Ace Ventura, Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty under his belt. Then a near-fatal bike accident broke his fairytale spell, and when he recovered from his coma, he set out to rediscover life and sort out “what’s wrong with the world.” Shadyac’s documentary is called I Am, and in it, he interviews great thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in searching for the meaning of life.