Makepeace, Anne — We Still Live Here: Revival of the Wampanoag Language

The film “We Still Live Here,” tells the story of the revival of an indigenous Native American language that was not spoken or written for over 100 years. Our guest in this edition of Radio Curious is Anne Makepeace, the writer and producer of the documentary film.

The Wampanoag people of Southeastern Massachusetts ensured the survival of the Pilgrims in New England, and lived to regret it. After nearly 400 years of forced cultural assimilation the Wampanoags have brought their language home again.

Radio Curious visited with Anne Makepeace from her home in northwestern Connecticut on April 29, 2013, and she began by pronouncing “We Still Live Here” in Wampanoag.

The films Anne Makepeace recommends are “The Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Dersu Uzala.”

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Gross, Terry — Fresh Air

If you like interview programs perhaps you have listened to Fresh Air, produced in Philadelphia and broadcast regularly on public radio stations, and hosted by a woman named Terry Gross, our guest on this edition of Radio Curious.  I wanted to know who she is, and what she does to prepare for and create Fresh Air.  I spoke with her by phone from her home near Philadelphia in 1994 and asked her how she does it, how does she put together so many interesting programs so frequently?

The books Terry Gross recommends are “Self-Consciousness: Memoirs,” by John Updike & “U and I,” Nicholson Baker.

Originally Broadcast: March 7th, 1994.

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McVicar, Gregg — 22,000 Songs=Under Currents

Our guest in this program is Gregg McVicar, the host and producer of Under Currents. Under Currents is Public Radio’s freewheeling eclectic music mix of Triple A, Rock, Folk, Blues, Native, Americana, World, Reggae, Dub and Electronica.  It brings you five hours of music every day.

Gregg McVicar and I visited in the Under Currents state of the art studio in the San Francisco Bay Area on April 6, 2013.  We were in the sound booth listening to it’s superb quality and I realized that it was really Radio Curious on tour.

The book Gregg McVicar recommends is  “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larsson.

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Muir, John — An Early American Conservationist

One of the greatest early conservationists of America was a Scottish immigrant named John Muir who, as a young boy, went first to Wisconsin and then later, as a young man in the 1860s, he moved onward to California. A friend of president Theodore Roosevelt, he successfully sought to preserve the spectacular Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada range, it was joy in his lifetime. Yet the loss of the equally spectacular Hetch Hetch Valley to a dam to provide water for San Francisco was his greatest sorrow. John Muir founded the Sierra Club and is credited with founding the National Park system in the United States.

I visited with John Muir in the person of Lee Stetson in the studios of Radio Curious in October of 1995 and discussed his life and observations.

Originally Broadcast: October 1995.

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Edelman, Reid — The Music Man is Coming to River City

The Music Man is coming to town, right here in River City, also known as Ukiah, California.

In this program Radio Curious visits with Reid Edelman, the producer and director of the musical extravaganza.  Edelman is a professor of Theater Arts at the Mendocino College in Ukiah, California.  This production of the Music Man, presented by the Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department and Ukiah Civic Light Opera, involves more than 100 people from the Ukiah community. It opens April 12 and plays through April 21, 2013 at the Mendocino College Center Theater on the Ukiah campus. For more information call (707) 462 9155.

I met with Reid Edelman in the Radio Curious studios on March 29, 2013 and began our visit when I asked him:  Why the Music Man?

The book Reid Edelman recommends is “Improv:  Improvisation and the Theatre,” by Keith Johnstone.

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