Wordy Birds

Gator A-Go-Go

Original airdate: March 5, 2010

“They threw the midget over the balcony, and I was off on the spring break vacation of a lifetime…”

-the first line of Gator A-Go-Go by Tim Dorsey

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2009 Holiday Book Review

Original airdate: December 18, 2009

Liz talks with Kelly Justice, owner of Fountain Bookstore and Ward Tefft, owner of Chop Suey Tuey about the year in books… the book business… and the future of independent bookselling.

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Stalin Thought of You

Original airdate: October 23, 2009

Director Kevin McNeer talks about his documentary, “Stalin Thought of You.”

From stalinthoughtofyou.com:

“By the time he passed away in 2008 at the age of 109, Boris Efimov’s pen had churned out political cartoons for the Soviet press on just about every world event in the past hundred years. Whether in WWII, when Russia faced annihilation by the Nazis – who had orders to hang Efimov on sight – or during the super-power days of the Cold War, Efimov always had an inexhaustible supply of images and jokes to deploy against the enemy. His list of satirical casualties ranges from the Tsar to George Bush.   But behind his titanic career, his charm and his wit, is what Efimov calls “a wound that does not heal”: the execution of his older brother Mikhail Koltsov. The ambitious Koltsov was a famous journalist, pal of Earnest Hemingway, and a Soviet spy, but he always looked out for his younger brother Boris, who to his dying day worked and slept under his older brother’s portrait. The keys to Koltsov‘s fate and Efimov’s contradictory attitude toward it are bound up in their complex relationship with Stalin.  Efimov’s words, drawings and animated films are interwoven with rarely seen footage from the Russian State Film Archives in a kaleidoscopic stroll through the darker side of the 20th century.”

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Get Your War On.
The Definitive Account of the War on Terror 2001-2008

Original airdate: January 9, 2009

“Get Your War On,” written by David Rees is rife with F-bombs. So is this show. I bleeped them all because it airs in the “Safe Harbor” hours of broadcast, noon on Fridays. Your ears have been filtered. But, the F-bombs in his work are necessary.

On the back of the “Get Your War On” book, a writer for Newsweek is quoted: “Hilariously deadpan fatalism…a surprising articulate expression of our anxieties.”

And when anxieties are speaking, don’t they swear? When you’re watching the news about the war in Iraq, don’t you swear to yourself about the lives lost, the money spent and the horrors that others are facing? Even my dog, lying on the floor in front of the television seems to be swearing.

The book we’re discussing today takes the headlines, converts them into clip art comics and interjects the anger, revulsion and disillusion that many Americans feel. It’s very funny.

You can find David Rees’ bio, past work and other tidbits here: http://www.mnftiu.cc/

Animated videos of his comics can be seen here: http://www.mnftiu.cc/videos/

Thanks for tuning in.

Liz

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Skulls

Original airdate: October 10, 2008

On June 4th, 2007, artist Noah Scalin came up with an ingenious idea: he cut a skull out of orange paper and posted it online with the note, “I’m making a skull image every day for a year.” His uniquely witty works became a wild success: five months later, nearly 250,000 people have visited the site, many sending in skull photos of their own and turning Scalin’s blog into one of the world’s top sites. Why skulls? Noah answers, “why not?”

Thanks for tuning in.

Liz

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