What will historians make of 2018? Certainly, the past twelve months will be considered extraordinary. At Life Elsewhere, we covered many of the news-breaking topics and we interviewed an intriguing mix of guests – authors, musicians, experts, and commentators. Selecting highlights from the past year’s shows was no easy task, so we settled on revisiting conversations that are memorable and special to Life Elsewhere. To begin, from our show that aired as 2018 unfolded, environmental journalist, Robert Hunziker’s predictions are unnervingly accurate, except for POTUS’s hair falling out, we have no guaranteed proof, but that may have happened years ago. At the time of International Women’s Day and National Women’s History Month, from our show titled, Women Didn’t Count At All, Elaine Weiss talked about her superb book, The Woman’s Hour, where she deftly traces The Great Fight To Win. We covered the Me Too movement and women’s issues throughout the year with an exceptional line-up of guests, including Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz who returned to the show to talk about her latest book, How To Love The Empty Air, where she emotively shares poems about the death of her mother. The new music of London-based The Loss Adjusters caught our attention, then we discovered that member, Richard Price was also a poet. A long engaging conversation resulted with Price talking about “working the mic” and reading one of his gorgeous poems. No matter how much we may want to avoid mentioning Mr. Trump, some of our guests made the topic more palatable, including, Dr. Jennifer Mercieca, from Texas A & M University who spoke knowledgeably of his public face, while astute author, David Shields comments on his speech pattern. The political observer’s latest book, Nobody Hates Trump More Than Trump: An Intervention also happens to be one of our favorite funny reads of 2018. Singer-songwriter, Amy Rigby has been a long-time favorite guest of Life Elsewhere, in 2018 she joined us a number of times, including when we were privileged to get an advance copy of her latest album, The Old Guys. Norman B mentions her song, Bob may be his favorite and Amy tenderly explains the story behind it. Remarkable books and charming authors were a large part of our shows for 2018, including Camille Perri, author of the clever-funny novel, When Katie Met Cassidy. Not shy talking about her own sexuality, Camille explains an erotic scene with unconditional honesty. Frequent contributor to Life Elsewhere, Mark Haskell Smith introduces us to Yacht Rock and discusses dialogue in his new novel, Blown. Rudy Tambala of A. R. Kane and Jübl fame unravel some of the sexual mystery behind, Lolita, the unique 12” single that influenced so many bands to follow. In his latest fascinating book, The Omega Principle, Paul Greenberg talks about why we need to be so aware of our environment. With the debut EP, Take Care, Be Well, Portland-based, Slippery Eyes were one of our exceptional music finds for 2018. In their first radio interview, the band gathered around a single mic to chat about playing live. After airing a long, intimate conversation with the famed bass player for XTC, we discovered that Colin Moulding has legions of fans who downloaded our broadcast a record number of times. In this portion of the interview, Colin talks about what could be a maudlin topic in Scatter Me a track from his new collaboration with drummer Terry Chambers. To close, a few words from musicologist and long-time music biz professional, Adam Morris recalling his days of drinking with Pete Shelley, of Buzzcocks fame, who sadly died just before Christmas. If you would like to hear any of these shows in full, go to the Listen page at Life Elsewhere or pop on over to Mixcloud. The most recent shows are also up at NPR One and Apple Podcasts.
Happy New Year!
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Show #305
Life Elsewhere 