Frank Herbert's "Dune": Interstellar intrigue! Psychedelic mind trips, swordplay, and a righteous triumph! It's time to re-read the most enduringly popular science fiction book in history. Music: "Music for String Instruments, Percussion, and Celesta." Bela Bartok. Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Harold Byrns, conductor. Recorded 1949.
Alan gives "the treatment" to Hiromasa Yonebyashi's anime masterwork, a worthy successor to such masterpieces as "Princess Mononoke," and "Spirited Away."
Jug band, hokum, whatever you call it, the Pacific Northwest has it.
Cameron Johnson is the Lone Reader. Kranz's book is the inside story of the geek squad that made the space program possible: Mission Control. Music: "Beats," by Crooked Vision.
Alan pays homage to a film that "transcends the superhero genre to emerge as an epic of operatic proportions."
Mr. Neutron's panegyric to the varieties of current Pacific Northwest Punk.
The Lone Reader holds forth on David Buerge's magisterial take on the life and significance of Chief Seattle. Music: Wind Quintet op. 43, by Carl Nielsen, performed by James Galway and the Carion Quintet.
Alan gives The Treatment to Kathryn Bigelow's riveting depiction of Detroit's 12th Street Riot of 1967.
Mr. Neutron pontificates on the profusion of fine surf bands in the Pacific Northwest
The Lone Reader talks about Dr. Coll Thrush's book Native Seattle , which credits native peoples' contributions to early Seattle. The book's second edition was published in 2017. Music is "Klincek stojo pod oblokom," by Tomo Sombolac.
Alan Jacobson's Treatment of Bill and Turner Ross's 2012 film Tchoupitoulas , an immersive documentary about three teenaged brothers rambling on New Orleans' Tchoupitoulas Street at night. It's an impressionist travelogue, a hybrid of dream and documentary, a rite of passage.
...it's not your electropop or your indie pop or your synth pop. Today is about...Power Pop.
The Lone Reader previews this Harvard Law professor's take on the two-edged constitutional tool called "impeachment." Music: The Firebird Suite, by Igor Stravinsky
Alan gives the Treatment to the newest, and one of the more inclusive and absorbing works of Wenders, the once-towering figure of the New German Cinema of the 70's, which included such monumental works as Buena Vista Social Club , Wings of Desire , The End of Violence , and Paris, Texas .
Mr. Neutron spotlights the soundtrack for the 2017 film Baby Driver , and marvels at its melding of audio and visual.
The Lone Reader looks at Thi Bui's haunting graphic memoir of the Vietnam War and its enduring scars. Music: Petits planets: Hanoi Funeral
Alan treats Edgar Wright's sublimely slap-happy stylish blockbuster Baby Driver , whose plot is propelled by machine-gun editing, tough as nails genre writing & performances, brooding noir cinematography, and the best use of a pop music soundtrack you’ll find anywhere.
Mr. Neutron is Ron Averill of Everett Public Library (WA). Focus is on music of the Ram Rams, Choke the Pope, and Kulululu.
Writer/director Paul Schraeder directs an echo of the 1976 film Taxi Driver , which Schraeder wrote. First Reformed follows a troubled loner and priest of a small, dying church congregation as he grapples with dark visions and a troubled past.
The Lone Reader homes in on naturalist Sy Montgomery's paen to the giant pacific octopus, Soul of an Octopus . Music: Beethoven, Ludwig van Symphony No. 6 in F Major "Pastoral," Skidmore College Orchestra.
The story of Laika, the Moscow mongrel turned cosmonaut, who was the first creature to orbit the earth. Music: Symphony No. 5 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Laura Faley of Hidden Meadow Ranch in Mt. Vernon, WA talks about what it takes to successfully raise chickens within within cities and suburbs in the state of Washington. Introduction by Kara Fox Music: Symphony No. 6, by Ludwig van Beethoven, Skidmore College Orchestra.
Spotlighting the swing music in Everett Public Library's music collection. Ron Averill is Mr. Neutron
The Lone Reader takes aim at Robert E. Ficken's Washington Territory: the farce and fury, fields and forests, mud and mania as wild Washington passes the veil into statehood. Music: "Missouri Waltz"
Alan gives "the treament" to 2018's documentary sensation T hree Identical Strangers , wherein three identical boys separated at birth, unaware of each other's existence, coincidentally reunite in college.
Ron ruminates about his favorite 2018 PNW albums.
An audio review of Montana Women Homesteaders , edited by Sarah Carter, which tells the tragic story of the women that homesteaded alone in the desert conditions of early twentieth century Eastern Montana.
Alan cracks open Everett Public Library's Kanopy streaming video service, by focusing on "Ex Libris," Frederick Wiseman's brilliant documentary about one of America's great cultural treasures: The New York Public Library.
Mr. Neutron spotlights Birch Pereira, a laid-back, yet frenetic Seattle artist who, along with his band The Gin Joints, somehow spans the chasm separating Perry Como, Johnny Horton, Fats Waller, and Artie Shaw.
The Lone Reader examines Paul Taylor's The Next America , which lays bare the ineluctable calculus of near-future retirements funded by a shrinking workforce.
