Friday, July 8, 2011

Programs for the Week of July 11, 2011

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): The Story of Charlotte's Web: My Pick of the Week: It took E.B. White sixteen takes before he could get through a recording of Charlotte’s Web without breaking into tears. I had exactly the same problem when I first discovered the book in reading it to my kids, and even our crusty tech Joe, who grew up on a dairy farm, teared up thinking about his own first encounter with it. I especially enjoyed hearing from our last caller who had grown up on a farm and preferred Marjorie Rawlings The Yearling because of its brutal honesty about the reality of farm life in the rural South. But to my mind that just pointed up the uniqueness of the way E.B. White wove whimsy with science, as skillfully as Charlotte herself. What a delightful hour. Thanks to all of you.

Monday: Hush, Baby, Hush: All around the world, for as long as babies have fretted, those who care for them have been making up lullabies on the spot, passing them on, and sometimes, written them down. What's your favorite lullaby?

Tuesday: French Seduction: In La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life, New York Times' Paris Correspondent, Elaine Sciolino navigates the Parisian maze of unspoken assumptions about the cultivation of pleasure, and the hidden truth about French life: it's all about seduction.

Wednesday: Rescuing Regina: The harrowing true story of a feisty nun, a ferocious lawyer, and a group of grassroots volunteers who set aside political differences in a race to save a Congolese torture survivor from deportation and almost certain death. Along the way, Sister Josephe holds America’s hidden asylum system up for long overdue scrutiny.

Thursday: Zen and the Art of Firefighting: In 2008 a wildfire nearly destroyed the Tassajara Zen Center in the Ventana wilderness of southern California, but five monks including one woman with no firefighting experience were able to fend off the flames. Colleen Morton Busch and Mako Voelkel join us to describe how Zen mind beats fire.

Friday: T.B.A.:

Jean

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