05-31-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 164: Kaui Hart Hemmings, 'The Possibilties'
Click image for audio link.
OK, so having a it too much fun here. And as well, need to thank David Rich for bringing up the idea of "The Lightning Round." Pure brilliance, as in the books.
Here's the one-hundred sixty-fourth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two(three[?])-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I'm way behind, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to get back up and stumbling. I have lots of great books in the hopper to review and lots of great interviews to podcast.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
The one-hundred sixty-fourth episode is a look at Kaui Hart Hemmings and 'The Possibilties.'
"How do you measure the cost of those sixteen homicides?"
— Kent A. Kiehl
Kent A. Kiehl had a different plan when he started college than what ended up coming to pass. As we talked about how he came to write 'The Psychopath Whisperer,' Kiehl revealed that his original intent was to pursue a career in sports. But circumstances headed him a different direction.
I spoke with Kiehl via ISDN, and I have to thank his crew at the University of New Mexico radio station, KUNM, who helped set it up; the sound was superb, which made it easy for us to settle in and talk. And, while I much prefer to speak in-person, I may try to do this more often, as the stellar audio and interactive quality of this conversation leads me to feel more at ease with the remote format.
We covered a lot of the material in the book, but only in a manner that will, I trust, lead readers to want to experience the book for themselves. But putting an audio voice to the prose voice in the book adds a whole new dimension to this work.
Kiehl talked about the lessons he took as a writer from the John Seabrook's profile in The New Yorker. It's quite clear he learned well and learned from the best. He also talked about his beginnings, about being a kid in Tacoma when Bundy was tearing the community apart. Kiehl's father wrote for the newspaper, and clearly Bundy left a mark on Kiehl's imagination.
I was also fascinated with the technical aspects of the book. While he to a certain extent downplays his role here, Kiehl is a real innovator and smart enough to hire other innovators to work with him to collate the data he acquires from his souped-up MRI machines. As an old UNIX shell-script "programmer" (I use quotes because I know real programmers, and know I am not among them), I have to admit that I was curious about some of the details in the book and perhaps went a little deeper than necessary.
That might explain the 1-hour-plus interview; that and the sheer this-is-so-cool level of the whole shebang. Look, I'll say it now; there are many scenes in this book that seem like bits of Silence of the Lambs, only true. Find out which ones by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
