COVER STORY Cities After Disaster
Kurt Andersen talks with journalist, historian, and geologist Simon Winchester about disasters – why they happen and what happens afterward. They’ll look at the aftermath of the earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco 99 years ago. Winchester explains why he thinks New Orleans should not be rebuilt at all.
The Riot of 1900
At the turn of the 20th century, New Orleans was one of the few places in America where people of different races could play music together and live and work side by side. That delicate balance blew up in 1900, when the city’s native-born Whites, ethnic immigrants, Blacks, and Creoles found themselves in the middle of a race riot that changed American music forever. Produced by Alan Lipke. This story was made possible by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. For more about race and culture Between Civil War and Civil Rights, visit www.racewithistory.org Buy CDs by Jelly Roll Morton
SPECIAL GUEST Simon Winchester Simon Winchester was an oil geologist before becoming one of Britain’s leading journalists (he covered Watergate, Jonestown, and the Falklands War) and then a historian. His new book is A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. He is also the author of The Professor and the Madman, about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and The Fracture Zone, which recounts his journey from Austria to Turkey during the 1999 Kosovo Crisis. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is about the Javanese volcano eruption of 1883. Go to Simon Winchester's homepage Read an excerpt from A Crack in the Edge of the World Buy books by Simon Winchester
Number 1 For 37 Minutes
Luke DuBois is a musician and computer programmer
who has spent the last couple of years developing a technique he calls
time-lapse phonography. Much like the way financial analysts sample the
stock market to determine prices, time-lapse phonography samples sound
to create averages. DuBois used the technique to condense Billboard's
pop music charts into a single piece of music: 42 years of #1 hits compressed
into 37 minutes. He calls the piece, "Billboard." Produced by Trent Wolbe. Go to the Luke DuBois' Website Go to the website for Columbia University's Computer Music Center See Billboard's Hot 100 Charts
Joan Didion Joan Didion is one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. Her long essays – in a form of journalistic meditation unique to her -- are the envy of any nonfiction writer. She has not been a memoirist, until now. Her new book, The Year of Magical Thinking, nominated for this year’s National Book Award, is the harrowing story of the year following the death of her husband. Kurt talks with Didion about writing through her grief. Go to Randomhouse's website on Joan Didion Buy The Year of Magical Thinking Buy other books by Joan Didion
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New York, and is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Tiffany & Co.Foundation and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
Little Queenie
