Show for October 2, 2011. The Life Unconscious: Psychologist Brian Nosek
Just how well do we know our own minds? For the last 15 years, Brian Nosek has been studying the hidden biases, preferences and thought patterns that lurk just below the threshold of self-awareness. Those unconscious attitudes are often at odds with our conscious account of ourselves, yet they may influence our outlook, our choices and even our actions. One of the tools Nosek and colleagues have used to expose latent racial preferences and other forms of bias is a simple online test, the Implicit Association Test, or IAT. In this edition of the show, I take the test myself and talk to Brian about implications of his research for our understanding of the mind, decisionmaking, politics and society.
Visit Project Implicit and take the IAT yourself.
This diagram is nonsense, but I needed something to put here.
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Show for September 25, 2011. Down and Out in Dogpatch, Pt. 2
In part 1 of this two-part series, I talked to sociologist and writer Teresa Gowan about her years among the homeless recyclers of San Francisco’s Dogpatch district. As we walked through the neighborhood, Teresa described how much it’s changed. Most of the homeless have been pushed out, and therein hangs a tale of societal attitudes—toward poverty, property and rootlessness—going back hundreds of years. In this second and final part of the series, we found out where some of Dogpatch’s remaining homeless are holing up and how they’re hanging on.
Maya (front left), Iona (back) and Teresa.
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Show for Sept. 18, 2011. Donny McCaslin: The Making of a Jazzman
Donny McCaslin grew up in Santa Cruz, where this program is based, and got his musical start here. Today he’s a widely-known, much-admired tenor sax player based in New York. Donny returned to our area recently to play at the 2011 Monterey Jazz Festival. We talked about his formative years (playing with his dad’s band on the streets of Santa Cruz) and rapid success (he joined Gary Burton’s quintet right out of college). Donny’s a very thoughtful and knowledgeable musician, and I took advantage of the occasion to ask some detailed questions about his work and development.
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No show this week. We were pre-empted by NPR’s 9/11 10th anniversary commemoration.
Show for Sept. 4, 2011. Down and Out in Dogpatch, Part 1
The sociologist Teresa Gowan spent years getting to know a community of homeless recyclers in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. She recounts the experience in her book Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco. It’s about many things: not just homelessness but also the ways we talk about it and how they hem us in; the meaning of work (which is why I chose to run this on Labor Day weekend); class and underclass in America; and the not-so-heartening history of attitudes toward poverty and “vagrancy.” Those are some the things we discussed as we paid a visit to a very different Dogpatch than the one Teresa once knew. The neighborhood has gone upscale in recent years, and many of the homeless have been driven out. We talked a lot about that, too.
Warm Water Cove, one of the spots in Dogpatch that Tereza Gowan and I traipsed through. Once a homeless camp, now a park.
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Show for Aug 28, 2011: After Recession
What happens if and when America recovers from the current economic crisis? Do things go back to normal? Not necessarily, and certainly not for everybody, says Don Peck, features editor of The Atlantic. In his new book, Pinched, he cites voluminous evidence that deep recessions leave lasting scars, and we may never be quite the same again. He says we need to take immediate action to limit the damage, and that the current narrow focus on government debt is wrongheaded. Economist Stephen Rose is less worried about America’s long-term prospects, but he too says government needs to do more to aid recovery.
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Show for August 21, 2011. High at Harvard (from Feb. 2010)
Summer rerun season continues. This time it’s my interview from 2010 with Don Lattin, author of The Harvard Psychedelic Club, as well as Harvard alum and club member Paul Lee. More here.
Show for August 14, 2011. Guitarist/Composer D.J. Sparr.
“Classically trained to rock your *#!@ socks off,” to quote Tenacious D. The very tenacious guitarist D.J. Sparr was in town to perform at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and he swung by our studio with instrument in hand. We talked about his many musical loves (country, rock, classical), his career from toddlerhood on, the folly of aesthetic snobbery and the moment he realized it’s OK to play a G major chord. We also listened to a selection of his wide-ranging performances and compositions, and he demonstrated some wicked picking and finger tapping.
D.J. Sparr as an up-and-coming country star back in the day, as orchestra front man now, and in our studio (with a sweet Taylor T5 hollowbody).
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Show for Aug 7, 2011. How Pleasure Works.
In this re-run from June 2010, psychologist Paul Bloom describes the meaning of pleasure and the pleasure of meaning. More here.
Show for July 31, 2011. Composers Elena Kats-Chernin and Behzad Ranjbaran
Two composers coming to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music demonstrate once again how outmoded that term “classical music” is. Elena Kats-Chernin, who grew up in Russia and now lives in Australia, is a joyous musical pluralist, cozy with modernism, minimalism, tango, ragtime and pop. Elena and I discussed a sampling of her work, including her surprise hit Eliza Aria (used in the Lloyd’s Bank advert below) and Re-Collecting ASTORoids, her tribute to Nuevo Tango maestro Astor Piazzolla, to be performed at the Cabrillo Fest Aug. 6. Also on the bill that night will be Behzad Ranjbaran’s Concerto for Piano, written for virtuoso Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Thibaudet will be on hand at Cabrillo to perform it. Behzad was born in Iran, and we talked about the echoes of Persian folk music in his concerto and other compositions.
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Heads-up: I’ll be anchoring KUSP’s live broadcast of Cabrillo’s opening night concert on Aug. 5. The broadcast starts at 7PM; concert’s at 8. Visit the Cabrillo Festival website to see all the performances and events.
Show for July 24, 2011. John Waters and Philip Glass.
I’m not sure what John Waters and Philip Glass have in common, other than their shared birthplace (Baltimore) and prolific output. Also the fact that they’re both appearing at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur in coming weeks, which gave me an opportunity to chat with them. I spoke with John about his life, career, role models and preoccupations, picking up on another interview I did with him a few years ago. Philip Glass discussed the new Days and Nights Festival he’s spearheading in Big Sur and Carmel Valley, featuring music, dance, theater and film.
John Waters is bringing his live one-man show to the Henry Miller Library on Aug. 13. Philip Glass will be there later this summer. On Aug. 31, he and HML’s Magnus Toren will be curating an evening of poetry and live music. On Sept. 1, the Philip Glass ensemble will play Philip’s original score for Todd Browning’s film Dracula (the one with Bela Lugosi), as the movie screens. More on the Henry Miller Library events here. More on the Days and Nights Festival here.
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Show for July 17, 2011. The Machinery of Life.
Harry Noller has been doing molecular biology since before it was even called that, and he’s been doing it very well. His work has helped illumine some of the fundamental processes on which all life (at least all earthly life) depends. He speaks about his fascinating career and research on today’s show. We’ll hear about his meetings with remarkable scientists, his own brush with Nobel laureate-hood and the dizzying intricacies of his pet research subject, the microscopic machines known as ribosomes.
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Harry’s lab has put together some ribosome animations, which you can view here. Have patience: some of these take a while to download. Here’s another ribosome movie (very simplified), with music you can dance to:
Show for July 10, 2011. All About Fado (Rebroadcast)
For today’s show, we re-aired our Nov. 2009 program about Portuguese Fado music. The original post is here. Please note: references in the show to Mariza’s “upcoming” performances are from 2009.
Show for July 3, 2011. Celebrating In(ter)dependence Day
Stories about becoming American: where we come from, how we got here, the connections we make and the connections we keep, at home and abroad. In part 1, KUSP’s Sean Rameswaram joins Team America and swears some oaths. In part 2, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi attends naturalization ceremonies in all 50 states, meeting new US citizens. In part 3, Mwende Hahesy, also of KUSP, pays a visit to her mother’s homeland and reflects on the relationship of family and nationality.
Citizen Sean, fully naturalized. Mwende in Kenya with her grandmother Esther.
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Show for June 26, 2011. Jennifer Ouellette and The Calculus Diaries.
How one mathophobe conquered her fears, and others can, too. For years, science journalist Jennifer Ouellette made a living writing about subjects like physics, while avoiding the mathematics. Finally, she resolved to shed the dread and confront calculus, as she relates in her recent book The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse. We talked about her reconciliation with math, the history and uses of calculus (e.g., predicting rates of zombification), the sources of math anxiety and techniques for getting over it.
We also played an excerpt from this song, by Matthew Kaney:
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Incidentally, Jennifer’s hubby is the physicist Sean Carroll, who we interviewed here on the subject of time.
