October 2000

Bart Simpson -- For over 10 years, Nancy Cartwright has provided the voice for the mischievous tyke, Bart Simpson of the TV series, The Simpsons. Cartwright has written a book, detailing her life as Bart, and tells Noah that when she first read for The Simpsons, Bart, was not the part she was up for. (7:45)

New Age Africa -- Stephan Micusc is a German musician who collects obscure instruments from around the world, and then learns to play them. He's been making records for twenty years, featuring lush combinations of instruments that, to his knowledge, have never been played in an ensemble before. His latest CD, The Garden of Mirrors, features a harp from Gambia, an Irish tin whistle, a Japanese flute, and steel drums from Trinidad, just to name a few of the instruments. Micus has multi-tracked his own voice to accompany his unique compositions, creating a choir that evokes the black township choirs of South Africa. Charles de Ledesma has a review of the disc. (4:30)

The Garden of Mirrors, by Stephan Micus is copyright 2000, ECM Records.

Fumbling the Future -- Linda chats with Robert C. Alexander, co-author of Fumbling the Future : How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer, about how the Xerox Corporation squandered an opportunity when the company was the first to build a personal computer which used a mouse and a graphical user interface. (5:00)

Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer, by Robert C. Alexander and Douglas K. Smith is available through e-publisher IUniverse.com. See http://iuniverse.com.

Book Research -- Noah is joined by best-selling novelist, Barbara Kingsolver, author of Prodigal Summer. They discuss how Kingsolver researches the settings and characters of her novels. This one is set in southern Appalachia - a place that the novelist knows well. Kingsolver says she must spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the character and rhythm of a location before writing about it. Kingsolver has also written The Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, and Pigs in Heaven. (7:45)

Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver, is published by Harper Collins, October 2000, ISBN # 0-06-019965-2.

Npr 100: A Love Supreme -- NPR's Eric Westervelt has the story of the 1964 recording, A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane. It's a four part piece that expresses Coltrane's faith in God. And it's part of the NPR 100 -- NPR's list of most important American musical works of the last century. (12:30)

View the enitre NPR 100 list at: http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html.

TV Cooks -- Authors promoting their books often travel from city to city stopping for interviews at as many broadcast outlets as possible. For chefs with new cookbooks this means more than being able to talk about their work, it means being able to demonstrate it on camera. Pippin Ross has a behind the scenes look at cooking for television, in a visit to a T.V. kitchen training ground run by cooking and media guru Lisa Ekus. (5:14)

Find Lisa Ekus on the Internet: http://www.lisaekus.com. The report mentions Jesse Ziff Cool and her book Your Organic Kitchen, published by Rodale Press, ISBN # 1579541666.

Pitching -- Robert talks with Roger Kahn, author of The Head Game: Baseball Seen From The Pitcher's Mound, about his book. They talk about Sandy Kofax and Johnny Sain. Kahn says Kofax was a wild pitcher in his early days, and had to learn control. (7:15)

The Head Game: Baseball Seen From The Pitcher's Mound, by Roger Kahn, is published by Hook Slide, Inc., ISBN # 0-15-1004410-2.

Lost and Found Sound: Grateful Dead Revived -- In today's installment from the Lost & Found Sound series we hear the music of the Grateful Dead re-invented in the studio by the a cappella soul singers, The Persuasions. Their new CD, Might as Well... The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead, has just been released. (12:30)

Might As Well: The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead is distributed by BMG and Arista. Find out more at: http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/stories/001020.stories.html

Egypt & Islam -- Robert talks to Geneive Abdo, Tehran Correspondent for The Guardian newspaper and author of No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam. Abdo says the Egyptian people in general are strikingly more "anti-Israel" than the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (4:30)

No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam by Geneive Abdo is published by Oxford University Press, 2000.

Arthur Miller -- Robert Siegel talks to playwright Arthur Miller about his book Echoes Down the Corridor, a collection of his essays - from autobiography to commentary - spanning nearly six decades. (12:00)

Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays 1944-2000, by Arthur Miller, is published by Viking, copyright 2000, ISBN # 0-670-89314-5.

Regina Carter -- The newest CD by jazz violinist Regina Carter, Motor City Moments, features compositions by her fellow Detroit natives like vibraphonist Milt Jackson and Marvin Gaye. Carter is garnering recognition for her jazz interpretations of pop-based material. Reuben Jackson has a review. (4:30)

Motor City Moments, by Regina Carter is copyright 2000 on the Verve label, catalog # 314 543 927-2, see http://vervemusicgroup.com

Wallflowers -- Elysa Gardner reviews the new CD by The Wallflowers, Breach. The Wallflowers' front man in Jakob Dylan - son of Bob Dylan - and Gardner says that Jakob is a strong musical presence in his own right. (4:00)

Breach, by The Wallflowers is on Interscope Records.

Yankee Clipper -- Noah talks with Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the new book Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life, about two personalities of the man known as The Yankee Clipper, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio: the elegant athlete and national icon, and the intensely private man, distant and eaten up by resentments of Mickey Mantle and others. (7:45)

Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life, by Richard Ben Cramer is published by Simon and Schuster, ISBN # 0-684-85391-4.

Longing -- Alan Cheuse reviews a new novel by J.D. Landis called Longing. It's about nineteenth century Europe's most romantic musical couple, composer Robert and performer Clara Schumann. (1:45)

Longing, by J.D. Landis is published by Harcourt Brace; ISBN # 0151004536.

Npr 100: King Porter Stomp -- Jelly Roll Morton wrote King Porter Stomp back in the early 1900s, when he was still a teenager, playing piano in the clubs of his hometown, New Orleans. The composition incorporates all kinds of musical and cultural elements that were part of that scene: from ragtime and blues to classical and parlor songs, to African and Caribbean music. Folklorist Nick Spitzer says Morton had a unique approach to music: he was the first to use "riffs" as musical building blocks. He treated the piano more a like a whole orchestra than a single instrument, thus making it easy for King Porter Stomp to be adapted by orchestras. When King Porter Stomp was arranged for Benny Goodman's big band, the swing era was born. Jelly Roll Morton always considered himself the "inventor of jazz." Jazz historians do agree that he had a lot to do with creating the genre. (12:30)

See the full list of NPR's Top 100.

Npr 100: Born to Run -- Today's selection from the NPR 100 -- a list of the one hundred most important American musical works of the last century -- is Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. NPR's Joanne Silberner brings us an appreciation of the 1975 album. (8:00)

Lost and Found Sound -- In this special edition of Lost and Found Sound, 20 years of recordings from a small tobacco town were recorded by James Eddie McCoy. The collection is called A Man Tapes his Town -The Unrelenting Oral Histories of Eddie McCoy. (12:30)

Joseph Arthur -- Glenn Gamboa reviews the new CD by Joseph Arthur Come to Where I'm From (Real World/Virgin) (4:15)

Old American -- Alan Cheuse reviews a new novel by New Hampshire writer Ernest Hebert, who takes us back in time to the mid-eighteenth century during the French and Indian Wars. The book is called The Old American. (University Press of New England) (1:30)

Mirror, Mirror -- Alysa Gardner reviews the new CD by Kelly Price called Mirror, Mirror. (4:00)

Mirror, Mirror is on the Def Jam label.

Anima -- Anima, a group from Brazil, mixes its classical training and early music experience with an interest in Brazilian folk music and instruments. The band will tour the United States later this month. Susan Kaplan, of member station WFCR, reports. (7:45)

Anima's CD's, entitled Especiarias and Espiral Do Tempo (Time Spiral) are available from MCD World Music. Websites in Spanish: Especiarias and Espiral Do Tempo.

NPR 100: Django -- This week's selection from the NPR 100 list -- the most important American musical works of the 20th Century -- is the jazz classic Django. We hear the story of the tune pianist John Lewis wrote for late Roma guitarist Django Reinhardt. NPR's Tom Cole reports on the two very different musical personalities, and the resulting jazz standard. (12:30)

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