Notebook on Cities and Culture - podcast cover

Notebook on Cities and Culture

Colin Marshallwww.colinmarshall.org
(Formerly The Marketplace of Ideas.) A world-traveling interview show where Colin Marshall sits down for in-depth conversations with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene about the work they do and the world cities they do it in, from Los Angeles to Osaka to Mexico City to London to Seoul and beyond.
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Episodes

On the badness of the legal profession with The Philadelphia Lawyer

Colin Marshall talks to The Philadelphia Lawyer, author of both the web site of the same name and the book The Happy Hour is For Amateurs: A Lost Decade in the World’s Worst Profession , which is now out in paperback. Combining Kafka-like tales of the gamesmanship and pedantry of the legal profession with vivid accounts of the intense debauchery required to counterbalance all that wasted time in the office, The Philadelphia Lawyer’s web presence has attracted a large, devoted audience of disaffe...

Oct 22, 200957 min

Laurie Brown and Andy Sheppard of CBC Radio 2's The Signal

Colin Marshall talks to Laurie Brown and Andy Sheppard, host and producer, respectively, of The Signal on CBC Radio 2. Since debuting in March of 2007, the program has evolved to provide a highly distinctive listening experience that offers two skillfully-curated hours of late-night contemporary music to listeners across Canada — and, via the internet, the world — that’s neither predictable nor easily genrefiable. Brown accompanies Sheppard’s unusual sonic selections with commentary that’s long ...

Oct 15, 200946 min

Comic artist and comic journalist Peter Bagge

Colin Marshall talks to Peter Bagge, the comic artist behind the beloved series Hate as well as Apocalypse Nerd , Neat Stuff and Sweatshop . His new book, Everybody is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations , collects his stories originally written for the libertarian magazine Reason , works of comic journalism on such subjects as the Iraq war, gun control, the “War on Drugs” and Amtrak.

Oct 09, 200955 min

Treeless Mountain director So Yong Kim

Colin Marshall talks to So Yong Kim , director of In Between Days , winner of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize for Independent Vision, and more recently Treeless Mountain , which is now available on DVD. The story of two very young sisters in Seoul left with their distant aunt while their mother searches for their absent father, the film belongs solidly to the realist tradition while evoking the scale, perspective and feel of childhood. The New York Times ‘ A.O. Scott calls T...

Oct 02, 200953 min

On the craft of freeform radio with WFMU's Ken Freedman

Colin Marshall talks to Ken Freedman, general manager of Jersey City’s WFMU, the longest-running freeform radio station in the United States. Since the mid-1980s, Freedman and his staff have made WFMU’s name a byword for the modern freeform sensibility with a combination of, among other factors, early adoption of new distribution technology, avoidance of identity politics and pure, unadulterated unpredictability.

Sep 24, 200957 min

On French cuisine's decline with Michael Steinberger

Colin Marshall talks to longtime Slate wine columnist Michael Steinberger, author of Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine and the End of France. An ardent culinary Francophile in earlier decades, Steinberger has, along with much of the rest of the food world, come to realize that a malaise has fallen upon the cuisine that once led the world in taste, artistry, experience and sophistication. Steinberger’s book chronicles the history of French food, the recent developments that have forced it to face...

Sep 20, 200955 min

On Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left with Trevor Dann, Patrick Humphries and Peter Hogan

Colin Marshall talks to three music writers who have written books on English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, whose debut album Five Leaves Left originally shipped on September 1, 1969. Joining the conversation to celebrate the record’s fortieth anniversary are Trevor Dann, former head of BBC Music Entertainment and author of Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake ; Patrick Humphries, noted biographer of musicians and author of Nick Drake: The Biography , the very first book on the...

Sep 03, 20091 hr 3 min

Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen on personal economies

A conversation with Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University and founding blogger of Marginal Revolution . Cowen's new book is Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World.

Aug 06, 200950 min

On recorded music's history with Greg Milner

A conversation with Greg Milner, who's written music and technology journalism for Spin, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Slate, Salon and Wired. His new book, Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, tracing the evolution of music's capture from Edison cylinders to vinyl albums to waveform synthesis.

Jul 30, 200955 min

On Shohei Imamura with The Criterion Collection's Kim Hendrickson

A conversation about the early works of filmmaker Shohei Imamura, who brought an entirely new irreverent aesthetic and sociological sensibility to the 1960s Japanese film scene, with Kim Hendrickson, executive producer at The Criterion Collection and producer of their new box set Pigs, Pimps and Prostitutes: Three Films by Shohei Imamura.

Jul 23, 200931 min

FORA.tv founder Brian Gruber

A conversation about bringing intelligent video to the internet with Brian Gruber, founder and executive chairman of FORA.tv , the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates from the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences.

Jul 23, 200932 min

On Brian Eno with David Sheppard

A conversation about rock music's foremost intellectual "non-musician." producer and cultural theorist with David Sheppard, author of On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno.

Jul 09, 200959 min

On Hume and Rousseau's quarrel with John T. Scott

A conversation about the dissolution of the friendship between two very different philosophers with John T. Scott, professor of political science at the University of California, Davis and co-author with Robert Zaretsky of The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume and the Limits of Human Understanding.

Jul 02, 200958 min

Philosophical journalist Alain de Botton

A conversation with Alain de Botton , author of fiction, nonfiction, journalism and various hybrids thereof. Following treatises on Proust, philosophy, travel and architecture, de Botton's newest book of "philosophical journalism" is The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.

Jun 25, 200956 min

On the vinyl LP with Travis Elborough

A conversation about the rise, fall and rise of the long-playing album format both technologically and artistically with journalist Travis Elborough, author of The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again.

Jun 18, 20091 hr 6 min

43Folders founder Merlin Mann

A conversation with writer, speaker, blogger and student of the creative mind Merlin Mann . In 2004, Mann founded 43Folders , a blog and community focused on tips, tricks, tools and techniques designed to improve one's productivity, and in late 2008, he took the site in a new direction, toward the habits and thoughts of humanity's best creators and what can be learned from examining them.

Jun 12, 200958 min

On publishing with Richard Eoin Nash

Part three of our ongoing series of conversations about the future of books and reading, this time with publishing consultant Richard Eoin Nash . Nash ran the widely-acclaimed Soft Skull Press between 2001 and March of this year.

Jun 04, 200952 min

Author and screenwriter Jon Raymond

A conversation with Jon Raymond, editor at Plazm magazine and author of the novel The Half-Life and the new short story collection Livability. With filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, Raymond co-adapted two of Livability's short stories into the critically-acclaimed feature films Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy.

May 28, 200955 min

Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani

A conversation with filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, director of Man Push Cart, Chop Shop and the new Goodbye Solo. Roger Ebert calls Bahrani "the new great American director."

May 14, 200958 min

Electro-acoustic musician Ethan Rose

A conversation about using old technology to craft modern sounds with electro-acoustic musician Ethan Rose, whose newest album Oaks was recorded with a vintage 1920s Wurlitzer organ found in the skating rink at Portland's Oaks Park. Two tracks from the record are included in this broadcast.

May 07, 200959 min

ZBS Foundation president Thomas Lopez

A conversation about creating radio fiction and humorously raising consciousness with Thomas Lopez, founder and president of the ZBS Foundation . This broadcast contains excerpts from the ZBS productions Dreams of the Amazon, Ruby and Two Minute Film Noir.

Apr 30, 20091 hr

Electronic musician Tim Hecker

A conversation about iterative creative processes, building music in layers and the history of loud sound with electronic musician Tim Hecker , whose latest album is An Imaginary Country, from which two tracks are featured in this broadcast.

Apr 23, 200953 min

Denis Dutton on aesthetics and evolution

A conversation about aesthetics and evolutionary biology with Denis Dutton , professor of the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury, founding editor of Arts & Letters Daily and author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution.

Apr 16, 200957 min

Novelist and journalist Ian Buruma

A conversation with novelist, journalist, documentarian and Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College Ian Buruma. His latest book is The China Lover, a historical novel examining the life and career of Manchurian-born Japanese actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi through the eyes of three different narrators.

Apr 09, 200941 min

Sound artist Lawrence English

A conversation about appreciating the seasons, collecting international field recordings and turning others on to sound art with composer, multimedia artist, critic and ROOM40 label head Lawrence English . Two tracks from English's latest record, A Colour for Autumn, are included in this broadcast.

Apr 02, 20091 hr 4 min

Bookworm host Michael Silverblatt

A conversation about reading, writing and radio with Michael Silverblatt, who has hosted KCRW's Bookworm, the beloved forum for the discussion of fiction and poetry on public radio, for twenty years. [ Marketplace of Ideas home]

Mar 19, 20091 hr 2 min

Jesse Thorn, host of The Sound of Young America

A conversation about the craft of interviewing and the state of public radio today with Jesse Thorn, host and producer of Public Radio International's The Sound of Young America as well as the principal of podcasting empire Maximumfun.org .

Mar 06, 200959 min
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