Author Chuck Klosterman's Dangerous Idea? Laugh tracks are the most philosophically stupid thing. Ever.
We've interviewed Klosterman a number of times, here's a link to more interviews with him.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
We hate mosquitoes.
But why? I mean, yes --- West Nile, dengue, malaria, Zika…not to mention ruined picnics, sleepless nights, and bites you scratch until they bleed … Those are logical reasons to dislike mosquitoes. But admit it – they also just creep you out.
Jeffrey Lockwood gets at the psychology in his book “The Infested Mind.” He’s an entomologist who once had a truly horrific encounter with a swarm of grasshoppers. He was left traumatized. Afterwards he wondered why we all fear and loathe insects so much.
Lockwood told Rehman Tungekar the answer is deep deep in our psyches.
This is Charles. This interview was recorded near the end of the presidential race when everyone and their brother was trying to figure out what was happening in the minds of poor, white voters. I grew up in poverty under the shadows of Northeast Ohio steel mills. And it struck me that many of the insight everyone was looking for was right there in the music of where I grew up. In my opinion, the best example of that voice in 2016 was country music singer-songwriter Brandy Clark. Her album, "Big Day in a Small Town," had the answers, if anyone dared to listen.
Christopher Moore talks about untranslatable words.
Writer Junot Diaz tells us why he's a big fan of Samuel R. Delany's novel, "Dark Reflections".
The Silk Road was once the great meeting place between the East and the West - a network of ancient trading routes winding through China and India, across Central Asia and Iran to the Mediterranean.
David Shields talks with Anne Strainchamps about his book, which is a meditation on how our bodies decay and die, and his irrepressible father who is 97 and who doesn't give death the time of day.
Charles Baxter and Richard Bausch are both successful American writers and good friends. They talk with Steve Paulson about the pitfalls and perils of doing book tours.
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