Show for May 13, 2012: Documentary Filmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars
Joshua Mellars has a thing for world travel and world music, and he combines both passions in his latest pair of films. Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan is a portrait of the late Indian classical virtuoso and his son Alam Khan, who’s carrying on the family musical tradition. Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage is about Portuguese Fado music, and features some of the top contemporary fadistas (fado singers), including Katia Guerreiro, Ana Moura, Camané, and Carlos do Carmo. Joshua joined me to discuss the films and the music that inspired them.
Play Like a Lion is screening at the Santa Cruz Film Festival.
Ali Akbar Khan, with sarod. Fado singer Camané.
Click the Play arrow above to listen to the show, or you can download the MP3 here (if using a Mac, control-click the link and choose “Save Link As”; If using a PC, right-click and choose “Save Target As”).
Show for March 21, 2010. Physics at the Edge: Anil Ananthaswamy
In recent years, physics theory has gotten way ahead of the evidence. Now, researchers are going to extremes to figure out what’s true and what isn’t. They’ve launched a set of hugely ambitious experiments in some of the most forbidding places on Earth, from the South Pole to Himalayan mountaintops. Physics writer Anil Ananthaswamy travelled to these remote laboratories, and he tells us what he saw.
Learn more about Anil’s book and see photos from his travels here.
Today’s Show (Mr. 21, 2010)
Awe-inspiring physics experiments in awe-inspiring settings: what more could a roving science writer ask for? Anil Ananthaswamy spent several years circling the globe and visiting spectacular mountaintop observatories, subterranean dark matter detectors, polar neutrino telescopes and other destinations. He dropped in to discuss his new book The Edge of Physics. We’ll post the show audio (a “director’s cut” containing some nice bits omitted from the air version, plus some extra clips) here tomorrow. Check back then.
