SEDGE THOMSON at the Year's End asks what the heck happened in 2016 and what's ahead for 2017 with thoughts and songs about time and laughter and life
WILL DURST -- The comic for those who read or know people who do. His annual Big Fat Year End Kiss OFF is on this week and next around Northern California. Many comics will help you find reasons to laugh again.
We'll hear CARRIE FISHER's visit to West Coast Live and of her love for glitter and outspoken and hilarious take on the world. Laughter ensues, with song.
The brilliant MAL SHARPE in a hilarious routine seeks to get a pharmacist to practice open heart surgery in a station wagon. He has the textbook for help.
Inspired by her blind father, JUDY COLLINS learns to feel in the world and turn dreams into song.
BRUCE COCKBURN rings in the apocalypse with champagne and two glasses;
ARLO GUTHRIE sings Bob Dylan in this year of the Nobel Prize;
MIKE GREENSILL, as ever, with thanks,
Other wisdom and sounds of 2016 which made it a year of highlights and low.
This week's show:
Explorers - Artists and Astronauts
Last week's Ghost Ship fire in which nearly 40 creative souls lost their lives has brought attention to the underground world of warehouse living and working in the artist community. And in some cities a purge of artists has begun our of fear that this will happen elsewhere, despite decades of artists living and thriving in such spaces.
ZOË KEATING, cellist, talks about how her warehouse years made her the musician she is;
CASE CONOVER talks about his warehouse life in Oakland as a circus artist and graphic designer, and what he hopes will grow from this loss;
SEDGE THOMSON describes his warehouse experience in the early days of West Coast Live. He also reads the closing paragraph is from "The Worst Journey in the World" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard.
Artists are explorers; another adventurer died this week: John Glenn. He also risked in order to achieve, and we hear about the design of space suits. Forgive us, we aired this interview a several weeks ago, yet it is delicious and timely.
SEASONAL DELIGHTS -
The second hour features Mike Greensill, Uketide, The Sonos Handbell Ensemble, Nell Robinson and Jim Nunally, John Wesley Harding, Ileen Weiss, George Kahumoku with his Hawaiian version of 12 days of Christmas, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, the Christmas Jug Band, and the West Coast Live Choir.
Try our new email sign-up service. We don't send much, but when we do it's worthwhile. Either on the form to the left, or send the word - Sedge - to 22828.
Sedge's guests today provoke the appetite for curiosity:
IAN MORRIS teaches classics, history, and archaeology at Stanford University. He is the author of Why the West Rules--For Now: The Patterns of History, and What they Reveal About the Future.
BO CALDWELL, author of the national bestseller The Distant Land Of My Father, and most recently City of Tranquil Light.
HAROLD McGEE, Curious Cook, author of Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes.
L. JOHN HARRIS, with Foodoodles: From the Museum of Culinary History, Cartoons and Commentary.
STEPHEN PRUTSMAN, renowned pianist, composer, arranger. Big Bach and Forth and discusses autism.
ARANN HARRIS AND THE FARM BAND, born in a 1900s school house on their Sonoma farm. The play original and traditional songs with the grand plan to make people happy. This is ruff, radio ready for a very old radio. Old Time New School Folk. Songs about skunks, corn, sad clowns and mean people to be sung out loud together. They cook.
The Bountiful Mike Greensill
This show, SEDGE gives thanks and talks with his guests about the connections we make through food, eating, and the communal tables of our shared experiences.
(Sedge and Alice in the downstairs kitchen at Chez Panisse)
MOLLY ONEILL, former food writer for NY Times, cookbook author and
CALVIN TRILLIN of the New Yorker, top one another with hilarious answers to questions about food;
HAROLD MCGEE, the food scientist, on the chemistry of food and its cooking, why it behaves, and what is going on with those leftovers;
SASHA MARTIN, author of memoir
Life from Scratch on global cooking and families from 195 countries, and how food brought her family together;
NION MCEVOY on pressing olive oil from his ranch and his Evening Standard wine and his Chronicle Books;
STEVE SANDO, grower of heirloom beans, creator of the Gay Caballero hot sauce and the Rancho Gordo bean brand;
Their Nibs - Brilliant illustrators whose use of colour and line tells the story. A gesture is worth a thousand words.
SEDGE talks with
SPAIN RODRIQUEZ - The late, great illustrator talks about his book on Che Guevara and his time with George Crumb;
DANIEL CLOWES - His graphic novels and comics- and stories - are a wonder, taking us to Ghostworld and looking into the eightball of existence ;
PATRICIA CURTAN - She's collaborated with ALICE WATERS on drawings of food and menus - how does she draw a radish so you want to pick it up and dip it in salt;
MAIRA KALMAN - Her illustrations in her own and others' books are distinctive in style and lettering. Is it because she can see rooftops of Paris from her New York garret?
with interludes from Mike Greensill, Susan Werner, Gaucho and Los Centzoles
So much broke this week. Leonard Cohen believed that's where the light gets it. Or course, it can also leak out or we can see the darkness. We now have untried people in office. Yet we have the music of and poetry of Leonard Cohen that carries on, as for now, Obamacare, and a kind President for another 2.5 months, the likes of which I've not seen before in my lifetime.
Today -- We remember Leonard Cohen, who died Thursday aged 82. I heard him once in concert in London, with his band, and lovely swaying back-up singers, as he crooned deeply and intimately into his microphone. He must have been 78 or so, and kept the show going strong for over four hours.
SYLVIE SIMMONS -- Biographer of Leonard Cohen
CONSPIRACY OF BEARDS -- The all-male chorus sings only Leonard Cohen and talk of what his words mean.
To help those cope with indigestible news:
MARY ROACH - Author of GULP, the story of the Alimentary Canal and Digestion
And because many have thought of exploring other lands suddenly:
NICHOLAS DE MONCHOUX - The Story of the Spacesuit -- its architecture, its materials, its hand-made bespoke style, its symbolism
[Wednesday, November 9 -- a day in which we need to be calm, cope with our anxiety, and find ways to see the beauty around us.]
Monday, November 8, is election day. All across this country, people are voting for various candidates, for multiple reasons.
Some are writing-in names. A few, apparently, have voted twice "to prevent fraud," people are being blocked at the polls, people are voting early. It's chaos. Is it the most important election ever? No, that's hyperbole. Yet it is important and divisive however it ends.
This year women and men both have been demeaned. Political machines have clashed with home-grown political movements and self-funded guerrilla ops.
So our election special will bring us centering thoughts, calming ideas, meditative practice, through words and music and quiet. Compassion, forgiveness and other qualities that may seem at times unattainable.
SHARON SALZBERG -- Buddhist and guided meditation teacher, renowned for her Insight approach
DR. MARCEY SHAPIRO -- The roots of anxiety, and ways to ease away from that -- The Physician brings her awaresness of the body-mind physics to bear on this malady which has trouble humans through time -- How emotional well-being goes with physical well-being - author of Freedom from Anxiety.
MICKEY HART -- The Grateful Dead percussionist -- A Community is a strong as its music. What's indigenous and what's foregin depends on which way you look; the beating of the universal heart.
DAVID GELLES - NY Times Reporter, who's writing and book on mediation and business, Mindful Work, may help blowhard billionaires and corner-store entrepreneurs as well as children and parents, and journalists.
SARK -- The creative impusle is in all of us and it releases us to a place of joy and hope.
Everyone breathe!
SEDGE, who often finds humor in the unexpected, felt a hankering for some laughter this week. Shall we hear someone hoist themselves on their own petard and see who salutes?
KATE CLINTON -- the political comedian with her for-a-time singular lesbian point of view -- "No one else steals my material...."
JULIA SWEENEY -- God Said HA! - The actress and writer tells her real family chemotherapy story with unexpected hilarity.
MAL SHARPE -- The Man About Town regales us about COYLE & SHARPE -- What does it mean to plan open heart surgery in a station wagon? As a teen-ager, Sedge found Coyle and Sharpe unlike anything else on radio.
MO WILLEMS -- the original EL -- MO of Sesame Street is ready to perform stand-up for kids when he's taking a breather from writing his books.
LILY TOMLIN -- She and Jane Wagner search for signs of intelligent life in the universe -- whether it's show business or politics -- and boy are they hard to find on our planet this year!
Who are we in this year of stronger-than-whatever-redux-make-us-together-greater-they-all-want-to-get-into-that-big-beautiful-house-how-did-we-get-here sloganeering. This election season women and men citizenry have been degraded when often it's blessedly only the candidates degrading themselves. It's time to bathe in the fresh water of the Merced River and breathe cool clean mountain air and discover ourselves again in a national park -- one of our nation's great treasures -- so come with us today to Yosemite National Park to find Our Better Selves..... SEDGE welcomes:
JESSE COLIN YOUNG, songwriter and lead singer of the popular group The Youngbloods in the 1960s. Everbody Get Together, Try to Love One Another Right Now... A spirit from another time. He'll sing Love is but a song to sing, Fear's the way we die, you can make the mountains ring --- as we look at Half Dome in the Sierra.
CHRIS SMITHER, folk/blues singer and guitarist whose music draws deeply from blues, folk, modern poets and philosophers.
ROSS HANNA, the late grandson of John Muir who helped sustain the legacy of his grandfather (October 1922 - June 2014).
PHIL FRANK, the late great cartoonist who created Farley (March 1943 – September 2007).
GERRY BLOCH, oldest person to climb El Capitan, at age 81, and his guide MIKE CORBETT.
YVONNE GRANGER, Park Service Ranger.
TOM BOPP, Yosemite music historian and performer.
MIKE GREENSILL, who hiked in a piano!
What is it about mysteries? On this week's program, the plot, the story, the character, the research, the accents and gritt? Today, SEDGE THOMSON talks with ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH, author The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, IAN RANKIN, author of the Edinburgh based Rebus series; JACQUELINE WINSPEAR, author of the Maisie Dobbs series; VAL MCDERMID, Scottish crime writer and forensic expert, and KATIE GILMARTIN, whose mystery, Blackmail, My Love, is set in the queer San Francisco world of the 1950s.
Quotation of the week: “I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women this way. To dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.” First Lady Michelle Obama October 13, 2016
Today's show is one of our most requested programs the people want to hear again, the day we featured a marvelous history of the phone phreakers by Phil Lapsley and interview with Hedrick Smith who produced a documentary for PBS on how the phone company shares all your data with the government. And you can listen to this broadcast via the Listen button to the left. A reminder: My film, Kepler's Dream is showing in the Mill Valley Film Festival to great success. Showings this week Thursday October 13 at 3pm, Saturday October 15th 11AM.
From The Chapel at 777 Valencia (b/t 18th & 19th) in the SF Mission, SEDGE welcomes:
Author
the Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist with Who Stole the American Dream, on trail of political and corporate decisions that have, over the past four decades, dismantled the American Dream.
Author
whose latest novel Hold Fast tells the story of an 11-year-old girl who falls into Chicago’s shelter system and from there must solve the mystery of her father’s strange disappearance.
Author
the engineer, hacker, author and entrepreneur brings us
his fascinating new account Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell.
Musician
the Canadian fiddler, singer/songwriter and step dancer brings us a few of the high-energy songs from her new album Bright Like Gold.
The Yale
this year's lineup of 14 senior Yale University men who comprise the world's oldest and most famous collegiate a cappella group..
The Zealous
house pianist extraordinaire.
Sedge's adventures take us to Ah-Laska!
From Anchorage, and from Sitka, And a Preview of Kepler's Dream.
MR. WHITEKEYS and the Whale Fat Follies.
LIBBY RIDDLES, author and first woman to win the Iditarod dogsled race.
ELLEN PANEOK, first native Alaskan woman bush pilot.
JOANN and MONTE, renowned Alaska musicians.
Lituya Bay wave survivor HOWARD ULRICH
Author RICHARD NELSON
Story teller Bob Sam and Naa Kahidi
Sitka's Tlingit Dance Group.
The Sitka Blues Band.
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The family feature film, Kepler's Dream, starring Holland Taylor, Sean Patrick Flanery, Isabella Blake Thomas, based on Juliet Bell's aclaimed novel, produced by Sedge Thomson, is honored to be in the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival.
Three early chances to see this movie filmed in New Mexico.
Friday Oct. 7 at 6:30 pm, Lark Theatre, Larkspur,
Thursday October 13 3pm, Lark Theatre, Larkspur,
Saturday October 15, 11am, Sequoia Theatre Mill Valley
SEDGE present some outspoken comics and thinkers from around the world in this show. 
ERIC SCHLOSSER, chronicler of the bizarre underbelly of modern American culture, author of "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal" and now "Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market".
SHAZIA MIRZA, Pakistani-British female comic, who answers the 10 questions you always wanted to know about Islam, but were too afraid to ask.
GARY SHTEYNGART, author of “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook”, which charts a young and confused Russian immigrant's exploration of American culture.
ROBIN FLOWER and LIBBY McLAREN, instrumentalists, vocalists and songwriters, who let their imaginations run wild by combining fiddle, piano, guitar, mandolin, banjo and accordion with soaring vocal harmonies.
SARAH JONES, praised by the New York Times as a "high-voltage performance artist," this dynamic actor, poet and spoken word performer delivers an astonishing array of accents and quick-change character shifts in "Surface Transit".
BORIS AKUNIN, Russian author of mysteries including tries to explain the French, the Americans, and the Russians. He talks with Sedge also about "The Winter Queen".
SEDGE welcomes guests who find where the light gets in:
Author
the award-winning music journalist brings us her new biography
I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen.
Author
the California historian will shed some light on the massive October 21, 1868 Hayward Fault Earthquake.
Chef
from SF's legendary Slanted Door restaurant brings us his eagerly awaited first cookbook,
Vietnamese Home Cooking.
Musicians
classical guitarist David Tanenbaum, steel-string guitarist Peppino D’Agostino and six other guitar legends join forces to perform a wide variety of repertoire.
Musicians
the Grammy-award winning bluegrass troubadour who has toured internationally for over 30 years brings us her soulful, inter-generational band.
The A-Muse-ing
on piano, and more!
Sedge's conversations on this week's show are personal accounts, with insight and humor, leading us toward a new sense of awareness.
ANDRE AGASSI- Former #1 Tennis Payer tells how learning to tell his story changed his life.
STUART CANIN- Acclaimed violinist who played for Jack Benny, as well as Truman, Stalin, and Churchill at Yalta when he was a wee lad.
STUDS TERKEL- Story teller and oral historian on the wisdom of the ordinary, yet colorful people that made a difference, and his travails with a tape recorder.
NUALA O'FAOLAIN- Irish journalist whose salty and hilarious observations reveal the poignant need to have the stories of our lives heard.
Sedge rates this show 
/ for enlightenment, illumination, and incandescent wit.
Today, Tribal Relations and Passions, from the grand to the small, which give us verve, from the Grateful Dead, precursor to Burning Man, to Minature Golf, the Forever Tango Orchestra and Dancers from Argentina, some amazing Audience True Stories, improv with the legendary Pulp Playhouse (Barbara Scott, Regina Saisi, Paul Killiam), a mystery guest who aced parking awards, and a few surprising cameos.
THE FORESVER TANGO ORCHESTRA, with bandoneons, and dancers
STEVE SILBERMAN, author Skeleteon Key - a Guide to the Grateful Dead (and recently, the acclaimed Neurotribe)
BOX SET -- Jim Brunberg and Jeff Pehrson with songs
ANNE LAMOTT, on her book on writing and life, Bird by Bird -- Today she riffs on the passion of jealousy
PULP PLAYHOUSE improv with sentences from the audience in person and submitted on-line.
A Mystery Quiz Guest
BONNIE LOYD, Urban Geographer, on Minature Golf and the history of those bewindwmilled courses
DIANE HIDY, our house pianist.
Sedge Thomson's guest speak, sing, play on the theme of vibrations -- the rhythms of life and time, from swaying trees to perscussion, and the cycles of humor.
Evelyn Glennie, Scottish percussionist, whose renowned performances are musically amazing, and whose deafness is vital to her performances, compositions, and shows us how to listen with our whole body.
Sedge welomes three funny and provocative writers, and two forward-looking musical groups, from the post-Jazz Hot to the avant sonorities of the bass clarinet, and a man who knows the best to way make tea - don't using boiling water.​
RICHARD PRICE, author, Lush Life
TOBIAS WOLFF, author, Our Story Begins
EDWARD DOCX, author, Pravda
Musical guests EDMUND WELLES: THE BASS CLARINET QUARTET
THE VERY HOT CLUB
ROY FONG, Imperial Tea Court demonstrates best practices of tea
MIKE GREENSILL
SEDGE's guests: What a time! All aboard!
MYTHBUSTERS
from MythBusters, the beloved science entertainment TV program that tests the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, adages, Internet videos and news stories. From October 8 at the WIX lounge in SF.
Author
author of The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle. From March 19 at Revival in Berkeley.
Author
author of critically acclaimed novel West of Here, set in the fictional town of Port Bonita, on Washington’s rugged Pacific coast. From July 30 on Lopez Island, WA
Musicians
award-winning, hard-driving traditional bluegrass and bluegrass-gospel music out of Norman, Oklahoma.
From July 23 in Etna, CA.
Musicians
David Gans and the Rowan Brothers bring us their improvisational approach to the music of the Beatles.
From June 25 at the SF Ferry Building.
Author
screenwriter of acclaimed British World War II detective television series
Foyle's War, and author of the bestselling
Alex Rider children's series, with the final installment,
Scorpia Rising.
From March 26 at Revival in Berkeley.
Today's Certified Wisdom and Happiness show is about work -- finding it, inventing it, the purpose of it, and protecting it -- The great defining activity of we humans. SEDGE THOMSON is joined by London-based author and interviewer, BLANCHE GIROUARD, for today's West Coast Live. This summer West Coast Live is presenting periodic pop-up shows with in various places, today from Amy Murray's REVIVAL BAR & KITCHEN in Berkeley, CA. We invited an audience in between meal times for coffee and conversation. Look for more such pop ups, coming soon.
HASSAN EL TAYYAB, composer, author, and teacher. His road-memoir, Composing Temple Sunrise, takes us to the Black Rock Desert of Burning Man and a curious structure called "Fishbug." Along the way, he learns about his own songwriting. He helps inner-city children find their own muses as he finds his. We'll hear him play his songs both solo and with his group American Nomad.
Dr. MYRA STROBER - Pioneering economist, author of Sharing the Work: What my Family and Career Taught Me About Breaking Through (And Holding The Door Open for Others) - The Stanford professor's memoir takes us through a time of great change for working women in America via the story of her own life.
JOYCE SCOTT, author of Entwined, Sisters and Secrets in the Silent World of Artist Judith Scott. This is the story of twin sisters, one with Downs Syndrome, who were separated as young girls, and reunited 40 years later when Joyce reclaimed Judith from an institution and helped her become an internationally acclaimed artist. An inspirational and moving story of love and creativity.
DANIEL BACON, author of Frisco. His novel shows us how life and work on the San Francisco waterfront, and the great General Strike, reflected and shaped the City even as we know it today. Is the gig work economy of today so different from the day workers on the docks of the 1930s? The lovely food stalls of the Ferry Building now stand where roustabouts and stevedores once struggled for work and love.
Laughter, conspiracy theories, and more laughter
Author
bestselling author of books for children, including
Extra Yarn and the
Brixton Brothers mystery series, he has also put together the great
Picture Book Manifesto.
Author
the bestselling author and/or illustrator of a growing number of books for children, teens and new parents, including
How to Be, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, and
Baby Mix Me a Drink.
Foodie
noted food writer, owner of the Hayes Street Grill and founding member of the Ferry Building Farmer's Market stops by in celebration of the Market's 20th year.
Musicians
blending heavy percussion, soulful vocal harmonies, and thoughtful arrangements, this dynamic group from Oakland calls their music Afro-Indie Soul.
Choir
t
he 30 member male a capella choir performing the songs of the legendary poet, novelist and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.
The Amusing
our stellar house pianist.
THE BILLS, the rollicking acoustic marvels whose blend sound symphonic and rhythyms deep and woven from sea spume - From Vancouver and Victoria, BC
GAUTAM MALKANI, Financial Times editor, whose novel reflects the urban complexity and humor in London life. He has a new book project and an engaging "Unbound" promo trailer, r-rated for language yet funny and moving.
Author LEONARD PITT, author of Walking Through Lost Paris, mime, and founder of the Berkeley Chocolate Club, helps us see back in time to pre-Haussman Paris.
Music by VIENNA TENG TRIO, the acclaimed pianistand songwriter in the pop-folk style.
T.C. BOYLE, author, with his new book, Talk Talk, a adventure in identiy theft with a deaf woman as his protagonist and a CGI creator as her ally.
And a song about food and touring from PETER SCHICKELE, sole discoverer of the music of PDQ Bach.
We're sure it is only a coincidence that the phone circuit failed the day we featured a marvelous history of the phone phreakers by Phil Lapsley and and interview with Hedrick Smith who produced a documentary for PBS on how the phone company shares all your data with the government.
From The Chapel at 777 Valencia (b/t 18th & 19th) in the SF Mission, SEDGE welcomes:
Author
the Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist with Who Stole the American Dream, on trail of political and corporate decisions that have, over the past four decades, dismantled the American Dream.
Author
whose latest novel Hold Fast tells the story of an 11-year-old girl who falls into Chicago’s shelter system and from there must solve the mystery of her father’s strange disappearance.
Author
the engineer, hacker, author and entrepreneur brings us
his fascinating new account Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell.
Musician
the Canadian fiddler, singer/songwriter and step dancer brings us a few of the high-energy songs from her new album Bright Like Gold.
The Yale
this year's lineup of 14 senior Yale University men who comprise the world's oldest and most famous collegiate a cappella group..
The Zealous
house pianist extraordinaire.
We commence for you our Certified Wisdom & Happiness summer series of broadcasts with compelling people from all walks of life in all kinds of places. This week, in celebration of American independence
SEDGE's guests:
WHITFIELD DIFFIE, cryptographer and inventor of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and early advocate for internet privacy via encryption
The JESTERS - Songs of the 20s and 30s by this stylin' trio
DISAPPEAR FEAR - the renowned duo stops in
Reading of THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - First read aloud on July 2nd, 1776
BILL BARICH - author of Laughing in the Hills, Travelling Light, and his major book on California, Big Dreams
THE TRAGICALLY HIP - The acclaimed Canadian Band from 7,034 feet in the High Sierra
ECORAP - The international consciousness raising of environmental awared for urban youth in Germany, Greece, Croatia, and the US, organised by Leonard Pitt
DIANE HIDY, house pianist
Today's live broadcast (June 25th) is the last of our 10AM broadcasts.
Since 1994, we've enjoyed that place of temporal geography. New construction is going up in that space. Starting July 2nd, our San Francisco broadcast time will be Noon-2pm. As we broadcast live to many places in the world at 10A PT, we must get our show now earlier to them than 10AM PT, so we are changing how we produce West Coast Live. We might change the name. Some weeks we will do a live show at noon from some interesting place and the other stations might carry it a week later. Sometimes we will record a show during the week and it will air Saturday. All a bit complicated, but we've worked out a way to morph. We will maintain conversation, music and play. With as much of a live audience as we can.
I started this show to bring unheard and well-known voices to live radio. Live. No delay. Immediate. Pure. From places far from airless studios - community theatres, cafes, moving ships, kitchens, museums. It's a tightwire walk. It's theatre and alive with the unknown. I feel alive in the moment of it. That's my personal motivation. The guests rise to embrace the risk. It's part of our mise en place that allows for the unexpected delights.
What's Next? - We'll all find out. It's all live.
Today SEDGE welcomes:
MARY ROACH - She eschews polysyllabic titles: Bonk, Stiff, Spook. Her new one - Grunt - reports on the curious science of humans at war. Jolly topic, or she'll make it so....
CLAIRE PEASLEE - The naturalist says her focus will be divided between lepidoptera and cartilagenous fishes (one or these will receive more loving detail).
SOLSTICE - Women's vocal sextet marking their 20th anniverseray this weekend of complex harmonies and the joy of song.
MIKE GREENSILL - the maestro will play exceptionally well today, and WESLA WHITFIELD will help him.
Other guests To Be Announced this week
If you'd like to be in the live audience for this bit of San Francisco Broadcast History, tarry not!
Sedge's guests, punctual, articulate, and masters of the 100 yard em dash, the colon, and the apostrophe. Astonishing tales of grammar, cash register exorcism, and gorgeous guitar. Catch up with us Live at the Ferry Building, in two weeks, June 25 .
A.S. Byatt, author, The Little Black Book, Posession, The Children's Book
Lynne Truss, author, Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Pico Iyer, travel writer and philospher
Dave Gleason and Wasted Days
Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, changing the world
Sedge presents a superb program from May 6, 1995, with clarion voices and timeless and timely insights - the first broadcast in 21 years. - Requested by a listener, Sarah, who wrote last week to explain why she wanted to hear it: "At a pinnacle of the song, [Cynthia Green] sang a sustained high note and Clemons nodded his head and silently applauded her, his eyebrows raised to the sky....Their perforrmance has played over and over in my mind ever since then. These were my most favorite WCL moments of all time." The rest of the show is pretty darn outstanding, too. From the Cowell Theatre
Clarence Clemons (The Big Sax Man from Bruce's "E" Street Band) and his Red Bank Rockers wtih Cynthia Green, vocal
Alistair Cooke, BBC presenter of Letter from America, host of "America", "Masterpiece Theater", author
Lucy Kaplansky, recovering therapist and renowned folk singer
Thomas Keneally. author of "Schindler's List (Ark)" and acclaimed Australian novelist, on writing about concentration camps while looking out at the strapping lads and lasses on Sydney's Bondi Beach.
Frida Kahlo, the wit of the Guerrilla Girls, art activists and provacateusses
Mike Greensill, piano
What writers really think
Author
whose novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner, talks about
Lush Life.
Author
known for his memoirs, including
This Boys Life, shares insights about his latest book,
Our Story Begins.
Author
the British writer stops by to talk with us about his award winning novel
Pravda.
Musicians
the world's only bass clarinet quartet, inventing and performing heavy chamber music.
Musicians
this San Francisco-based Quintette will bring you right back to Paris in the '30s.
The Omnivorous
on Piano.
Join us at the Ferry Building in San Francisco to make beautiful radio together!
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Sedge welcomes (from Feb 26, 2011 -- when 1'-2' of snow was forecast in San Francisco:
WESLEY STACE (AKA singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding) with his new novel, Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: In her singular voice—humble, elegiac, practical—Maxine Hong Kingston sets out to reflect on aging as she turns sixty-five, in her new book I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
Naturalist CLAIRE PEASLEE on Central Valley waterbirds
DAN HICKS and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge A special visit with the late, great Maestro of Musical Drollery
THE EVENTFUL MIKE GREENSILL
and so much more!
Today - Sedge feature conversations from 1994 to today about mothers and motherhood (and fathers, as necessary to this...) with
MAYA ANGELOU, with her son GUY JOHNSON on motherhood, poetry, and becoming herself through red beans and rice,
TILLIE OLSEN, on political demonstrations and writing and being a mother, and being in the SAT test.
ANNE LAMOTT, with observations on her self as mother,
RUTH REICHL, about NOT becoming her mother and,
MARILYN YALOM on the history of the breast.
Please sign up to the mailing list for the most current information, including live show schedule. And availalbe via the Listen button to the left in the center column.
From May 24, 2008 - FILM, POETRY, MYSTERIES never before re-broadcast!
-
ELEANOR COPPOLA, author of Notes on a Life including her work as a filmmaker.
-
JOHN STRALEY, author and private eye in Sitka, Alaska, has a new thriller set in 1935, The Big Both Ways.
-
AUGUST KLEINZAHLER, poet who doesn't like to call himself a poet whose marvelous books include The Strange Hours Travelers Keep and Sleeping It Off in Rapid City.
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RICK DI DIA and AIREENE ESPIRITU,Guitar meets ukulele. Guitar loses ukulele. Guitar wins ukulele .
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WES SCOOP NISKER, author of Crazy Wisdom Saves The World Again .
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Music from piano player MIKE GREENSILL, who knows his Sitka from his Skagway
November 4, 2006 at The Booksmith on Haight Street, helping celebrate their 30 years as San Francisco's leading independent bookstore.
Musicians
Surf Band from Fukuoka, Japan stop through on their West Coast Tour.
Innovator
founder of Craigslist.org... Need we say more?
The Prolific
award-winning author and illustrator of hundreds of children's books, including
Strega Nona, The Art Lesson, and Christmas Remembered.
Author
author of
No Plot, No Problem and the man who turned November into National Novel Writing Month, will inspire you to get out your pen and paper.
From November 2011, when SEDGE welcomed:
Author
The world of Oz comes full circle in Gregory Maguire's fourth and final novel in the
New York Timesbestselling series
The Wicked Years.
Author
author and illustrator of the best-selling children's classics
Polar Express,
Jumanji,
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and many more.
Artist
whose well known "Distorted Urban Realism" style combines elements of graffiti with classical art training, here with his new book
The Legends of Hip Hop.
Musicians
the fine five piece string band from Kalamazoo, Michigan, who
Rolling Stone assures is "representing the genre for a whole new generation."
The first of Sedge's renowned kitchen table shows! From January 1999:
ANNE LAMOTT, the hilarious and insightful writer, live at the kitchen table.
TERRY JONES, British Comedian best known as a member of Monty Python.
DICK DALE, King of the Surf Guitar.
HUGH MASEKELA AND BAND, South African Jazz and Afrobeat musician.
MARE WINNINGHAM, actress and singer-songwriter.
And More!
This week, Sedge presents some brand new and archival material, including:
HELEN MACDONALD, whose memoir H is for Hawk recounts the year she spent training a goshawk in the wake of her father's death. (2016)
JIM HARRISON, (1937-2016) author of Legends of the Fall and other works about the outdoors and food; Sedge's interview with him on Fresh Air. (1990)
WES JACKSON, farmer, philosopher and author of several landmark books on sustainable agriculture, Wes is founder and current president of The Land Institute and a member of the World Future Council. (2014)
GREENHORNS, Severine von Tscharner Fleming, farmer, activist, organizer and director of The Greenhorns, a documentary film and grassroots organization working to recruit, promote and support the growing tribe of new agrarians. ('14)
MARIAH PARKER'S INDO LATIN JAZZ ENSEMBLE get us grooving on a world of musical influences, from Havana to Kolkata. ('14)
Live from the Hearing Room upstairs at the SF Ferry Building, Sedge welcomes:
GREIL MARCUS, music journalist and cultural critic with his newest titles Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations, and Real Life Rock: The Complete Top 10 Columns 1986-2014.
SCOOP NISKER, author, radio commentator, comedian, and Buddhist meditation instructor with the new collection of his wit and wisdom You Are Not Your Fault and Other Revelations.
MURIEL MURCH shares some of the wisdom that comes with age and illness in The Bell Lap: Stories for Compassionate Nursing Care.
KARL & CARL, the globe-trotting comedians stop by with thiier latest edition of Tips on Travel.
ENSEMBLE MIK NAWOOJ, a hip hop orchestra led by composer JooWan Kim, featuring a 7-piece chamber orchestra, 2 MCsand an opera singer.
And More!
From October 19, 2013, when SEDGE welcomed:
Author
the beloved California writer joins us to release the second volume of his collected short stories
Collected Stories Vol II.
Author
the critically acclaimed author of Music Through the Floor brings us his achingly tender and funny portrait of an unraveling family in Model Home.
Singers
t
he 30 member male a capella choir performing the songs of the legendary poet, novelist and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.
Singers
vocalists who fall outside a cappella traditions, landing in a hot tub of humor and vocal prowess.
Musician
Nashville singer-songwriter on tour with her album
Ruby Red Shoes -- inspired by Sedge?!
Piano Man
the Bay Area's favorite jazz and cabaret piano maestro.
Join us! Sedge welcomes:
RAMBLIN JACK ELLIOTT, legendary troubadour and cowboy poet with over 40 albums under his belt, he is a direct link to the foundations of American folk music.
BOX SET, the outstanding Americana band serves up their extraordinary guitar playing and rich vocal harmonies.
CAROLINE PAUL, author of The Gutsy Girl, tales of her greatest escapades -- as well as those of other women throughout history -- inspiring girls to pursue a life of adventure.
LEONARD PITT, the Berkeley author reminisces about a youthful trip to Paris that sparked a life in the arts in his new memoir My Brain is on Fire.
And More!
Live from Studio 55 Marin at 1455 Francisco Blvd E, San Rafael, Sedge welcomes:
GORDON EDGAR, author of Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge brings us the fascinating history of one of the world's most beloved cheeses in Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America's Most Iconic Cheese.
JOHN MUIR LAWS, artist, naturalist, author and educator renowned for his field guides, here with his latest, The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling.
FERGUS BORDEWICH, the political historian offers some perspective in his new account The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government.
RITA HOSKING TRIO, the soulful Americana and bluegrass artist and friends bring us captivating songwriting and storytelling.
MIKE GREENSILL, our talented, wise and witty house pianist ties it all together. And More!
From Studio 55 Marin at 1455 East Francisco Blvd in San Rafael, Sedge welcomes:
PAUL LISICKY, the poet and memoirist brings us his latest, The Narrow Door, a deeply moving and bravely honest memoir about friendship among writers.
PAMELA TURNER, author of Samauri Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune, the captivating true story of a 12th-century Japanese warrior.
RAY BONNEVILLE, the roaming Canadian blues musician and poet has a library's worth of songs to sing and stories to tell.
JEFF CAMPBELL, the Philadelphia native brings us a taste of his new album The Kitchen Sink, melding his love of raucous rock with a lyricist's poetic power.
THE BLACK BROTHERS warm us up with their old Dublin street songs and historical ballads from the Irish, English and Scottish folk traditions.
A mixture of freshly recorded and well-preserved segments. Sedge welcomes:
DAN HICKS, we pay tribute to the great Bay Area singer-songwriter who passed away earlier this month at age 74. He was on our show many times over the years, with groups such as The Hot Licks, Christmas Jug Band, The Acoustic Warriors.
IAN RANKIN, the Scottish crime writer sits down at Sedge's kitchen table to talk about his latest Inspector Rebus novel, Even Dogs in The Wild.
MAYA ANGELOU, the late literary voice revered globally for her poetic command and her commitment to civil rights, best known for her series of seven autobiographies, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
GUY JOHNSON, Maya's son and an acclaimed author and poet in his own right, having published such works as Standing at the Scratch Line and Echoes of a Distant Summer.
THE BROTHERS COMATOSE, a the Bay Area's southwestern-tinged, rowdy stringband bring us a track from their new album City Painted Gold.
Live from Studio 55 Marin at 1455 Francisco Blvd E, San Rafael! Sedge welcomes:
SARK, known for her personal, journal-like writings and art, inspiring others with her vulnerable and honest journeys toward self-acceptance. Her latest: Succulent Wild Love.
THE BROTHERS COMATOSE, the Bay Area's southwestern-tinged, rowdy stringband bring us a taste of their new album City Painted Gold.
CONSPIRACY OF VENUS, the women's a'capella choir that sings original arrangements of contemporary music, here with a taste of their debut album Muse Ecology, out February 27th.
ARANN HARRIS, Sonoma County farmer, teacher and musician brings us story and song -- a soulful mix of old time blues, mountain music, funk and angry Grampa!
JENNIFER KING stars in the one-woman play Bad Dates, a hilarious journey of self-discovery involving a Buddhist rainstorm, a teenage daughter and a few very bad dates. Now at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma.
MIKE GREENSILL, house pianist who adds his British-turned-American humour to the show.
Live from Studio 55 Marin at 1455 Francisco Blvd E, San Rafael! Sedge welcomes:
JOYCE CAROL OATES, the literary icon's new novel The Man Without a Shadow examines the mysteries of memory, personality, and identity and pierces the enigmatic force that drives human lives -- love.
SUNIL YAPA has exploded onto the scene with his debut novel Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, set amid the heated conflict of Seattle's 1999 WTO protests.
PRARTHO SERENO, writer, artist, teacher, Poet Laureate of Marin County.
HOWELL DEVINE bring us the kind of blues you just don't hear anymore; the textured rhythms that would be shaking the floors of a Southern juke joint some 70 years ago.
MIKE GREENSILL, house pianist and witty sidekick. And more!
Live from Studio 55 Marin at 1455 Francisco Blvd E, San Rafael! Featuring:
JASON MARK seeks to find out if true wilderness still exists on Earth today in his new book Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man.
MARGARET WINSLOW, geologist and author of the travel memoir Over My Head: Journeys in Leaky Boats from the Straight of Magellan to Cape Horn and Beyond and forthcoming The Cusp of Dreadfulness: Fifteen Seasons in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.
ETHAN RAFAL, photographer and writer behind Shock and Awe, a twelve-year, autobiographical project examining the relationship between protracted war and homeland decay.
LIA ROSE, whose captivating guitar and poetic voice represent a new era of folk songwriting in the San Francisco Bay.
DANIEL CHAMPAGNE, renowned Austrailian singer-songwriter with a reputation of making crowds buzz and jaws drop wherever he goes.
MIKE GREENSILL, our beloved and talented house pianist.
From The Chapel in the Mission dirstict of San Francisco from May 18, 2013, SEDGE welcomed:
Author
the travel writer and novelist known for such bestsellers as
The Great Railway Bazaar and
The Mosquito Coast, here with his latest,
The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari.
Author
the bestselling author of
The Emperor's Children brings us her next novel,
The Woman Upstairs, about
an elementary schoolteacher in need of a fantasy. She finds one.
Author
author of the emotional and humorous works
All about Lulu and
West of Here, on tour with his latest big-hearted novel,
The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving.
Musician
the lovely Georgian-turned-Californian singer-songwriter and her band bring us some songs from their new album
Ridgeline.
Composer
house pianist extraordinaire. And More!
From October 2011 at the WIX.com lounge in San Francisco, Sedge welcomed:
MYTHBUSTERS
from MythBusters, the beloved science entertainment TV program that tests the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, adages, Internet videos and news stories.
Writer
author of
Packing for Mars, San Francisco's One City One Book selection for 2011, and editor of
The Best American Science and Nature Writing.
Humanitarian
human rights activist for the people of South Sudan.
Musician
The legendary co-founder of The Doors and the critically acclaimed slide/blues guitarist have put their artistic minds together, creating a truly captivating new sound!
Musician
Dirty Martini singer with a solo CD.
The Spacey
Master Pianist and Entertaining Sidekick.
Join us for our 22nd Anniversary Special, live from Studio 55 Marin at 1455 Francisco Blvd E, San Rafael! Sedge welcomes:
WES "SCOOP" NISKER, the famed author, radio commentator, comedian, and Buddhist meditation instructor asks life's big existential questions and has some good laughs along the way.
CLAIRE PEASLEE, West Marin's coastal naturalist brings us some earthly winter wisdom.
MURIEL ANDERSON, world-renowned guitar and harp guitar player brings us a taste of her new show Wonderlust, a virtual tour around the world in music and imagery, set to a backdrop of stunning visuals by celebrated photo-artist Bryan Allen.
THE POTRERO HILLBILLIES, J Raoul Brody and friends bring us their recreation of the Kinks' overlooked masterpiece Muswell Hillbillies.
MIKE GREENSILL, our beloved and talented house pianist. And More!
From July 8, 1995 at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco, Sedge welcomed:
ALLEN TOUSSAINT (October 1925 – August 2013) musician, songwriter and record producer who was influential in New Orleans R&B.
ELMORE LEONARD (October 1925 – August 2013) crime fiction writer, author of Get Shorty, Freaky Deaky, and Riding the Rap.
LADY BIANCA, Blues pianist and singer.
SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY CHORUS, featuring Cynthia Hobgood.
BILL CRAWFORD, author of Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal
AUSTIN LOUNGE LIZARDS, the pranksters of acoustic music.
BONNIE LOYD, the Urban Geographer
CARRIE FISHER, Star Wars actress who was in town appearing in Wishful Drinking at Berkeley Rep. (from March 2008)
featured interviews
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