HOUR ONE:
It’s hard to believe, but Jim Henson died 25 years ago. Today, we look back at the life of the visionary artist. In his biography, writer Brian Jay Jones tells Henson’s personal story, revealing the man behind the Muppets. The book by Jones is titled simply Jim Henson: The Biography.
Then Bob talks with Stephen Christy about one of Henson’s lesser known works. Tale of Sand is a Jim Henson-written screenplay that was eventually released as a graphic novel. Christy was the editor of the project.
HOUR TWO:
Famed director John Waters—the man behind Hairspray, Pecker, and many other films—made a cardboard sign that read “I’m Not Psycho” and hitchhiked from Baltimore to San Francisco. His book Carsick is his account of what happened during his unforgettable and unconventional “vacation.” It is now available in paperback.
Then, the story of another famous road trip. Peter Carlson isn’t sure which anecdote it was that turned him into a self-described Khrushchev-in-America buff. It could have been the one about the irascible Soviet leader throwing a fit because he wasn’t allowed to go to Disneyland. Or it could have been Khrushchev’s suspicion that Camp David was really a leper colony. Or it could have been Khrushchev arguing with Nixon over which kind of animal dung smelled the worst. But Carlson synthesized the stories into K Blows Top, a book about Nikita Khrushchev’s great American road trip he undertook in the summer of 1959.