07-21-11:Alan Cheuse Live at Capitola Book Café, July 9, 2011
"..if any of you have ever spent any time in academia, you can imagine what this meant..."
—Alan Cheuse
If you listen to Alan Cheuse on the radio, and you should, you'll generally hear about two minutes of concise, intelligent criticism laced with witticisms, focused on a single book. Perhaps two, if you’re lucky. Given his many gigs as a teacher and a writer, Cheuse can pull these off more often than you'd have any reason to expect. On NPR, his voice is legendary. In person at the Capitola Book Café, hearing that voice is a rather different experience.
As Cheuse and I sat down to talk, it was very much in the manner he mentioned in one of our Three Books chats. Our conversation was utterly informal, in fact almost anti-formal, and we went all over the map, far beyond even the capacious reaches of 'Song Of Slaves in the Desert.'
Make no mistake, there are some dynamite readings from the book that will have you gripping your chair, or your steering wheel, with their intensity. And we talked about his means of creating novels over the long haul, since this one took more time to write than it might take to bring up your child and usher him or her through high school.
But as the quote above suggests, we spent a fair amount of time in the social world of academia, and in that sense, we were in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" territory. I can guarantee listeners that the next time they hear that rather intense but serene voice on NPR, they'll have another voice in their minds. It will be the voice you hear by following this link to the unedited, unexpurgated MP3 audio file.
07-18-11:A 2011 Interview with David Eagleman
Click image for audio link.
"Turns out holding secrets can be bad for you."
—David Eagleman
For a man who deals in the realm of the mind, David Eagleman is a bundle of action and verve. When I sat down with him at Bookshop Santa Cruz to talk about his latest book, 'Incognito,' he was restless and eager to dive into his subject. And if you think his book makes a complicated subject crystal clear, then you should hear him in person. His ability to use language effectively makes his a superb communicator of his own ideas.
I must admit that I rather expected Eagleman to be sort of taken aback by my characterization of his work as using the tools of science fiction, simply because I know that this is often what is used to marginalize crank works. I tried to make myself quite clear, but the prejudices against the genre go deep, I think, especially in the science world. But for me, science fiction is just a few extra tools for the literary toolbox, which are required when you're trying to radically chance the reader's perception of himself and his world.
Eagleman also brings the passion of a teacher to his work, and I think, his interviews. I had a good time giving him the opportunity to explain his work and expand upon my limited perceptions of what he was trying to do. His enthusiasm for his work is unmistakable. You can hear our conversation by following this link to the MP3 Audio file.
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