Blues musician John Hammond returns in Fresh Air's weekly performance segment with a demonstration of his slide guitar style. He plays songs by Son House and Big Bill Broonzey.
Commentator Stewart Brand reports on his first journey through cyberspace, a type of three-dimensional computer-generated world that humans can `fly through' by simply pointing a finger. Brand traces the evolution of Cyberspace through recent fiction.
Author Jose Torres. His new book, Fire and Fear, charts the personal turmoil and the athletic rise of heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson. Torres comes to the Tyson story well qualified: he's the former world light heavyweight boxing champion (his lifetime record was 52-3-1), and he trained with the same man who trained Mike Tyson. Since retiring, Torres has served as the New York state boxing commissioner and written a biography of Mohammad Ali titled Sting Like A Bee.
Author and satirist Robert Kaplow. Kaplow is the leader of the satirical group, "The Punsters," which has appeared on "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered," and more recently here on Fresh Air. Kaplow himself portrays Moe Moscowitz, the hyper-kinetic self-promoter and pitchman. Kaplow also writes novels for young adults. His latest novel is titled Alessandra in Love.
Joel Rosenman and John Roberts. Twenty years ago Rosenman and Roberts were in their 20s when they came into a large inheritance. They decided to take the money and promote a rock concert in upstate New York. What they ended up organizing was Woodstock, possibly the one event that best sums up an entire era of American history.
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Turner and Hooch," the new comedy starring Tom Hanks as a man who's life is turned upside down when he inherits a huge, slobbering dog.
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews two new reggae albums, "One Bright Day," by Ziggy Marley (son of the late Bob Marley) and "Cumbolo" by the Jamaican group Culture.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews two new compact discs of music conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Schwartz says these two discs are rare examples of Toscanini conducting live performances while still at the height of his powers.
Pianist Dubravka Tomsic. Tomsic came to the United States from her native Yugoslavia as a teenager. Her playing so impressed Arthur Rubinstein that he personally intervened with the Yugoslavian government to fund her music studies here. Tomsic returned to Yugoslavia after her graduation from Juilliard. She is now back in the United States for the first time in 30 years, for a small number of concerts and recording sessions.
Commentator Maureen Corrigan looks back at Ex-Wife a 1929 novel by Ursula Parrott that has recently been re-printed. Corrigan finds many of the issues of contemporary feminism wrapped up in this story of a flapper who tries an "open" marriage.
Filmmaker Wayne Wang. With the films "Chan is Missing," "Dim Sum," and "Slam Dance" to his credit, Wang is the first Chinese-American film director to make an impact in the American film industry. Wang has focussed his work around the problems of identity and assimilation, and other issues in the lives of Chinese-American immigrants. He made his first film, "Chan is Missing," on a budget of only $22,000, but the mystery set in San Francisco's Chinatown became both a critical and box-office success.
Poet and essayist John Haines. Haines' new book The Stars, The Snow, The Fire, recalls the 25 years he spent homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness. Haines is more than "one of our best nature writers," according to Hayden Carruth of Harpers Magazine. Carruth writes that Haines "knows the ecological crisis ... as a crisis of consciousness, the human mind in ultimate confrontation with itself.
Actor AVERY BROOKS. He reached stardom with his TV portrayal of "Hawk," the strong, almost silent partner in the detective series "Spenser for Hire." He took that character into its own series last season. Brooks brings to his TV work the same concern for African-American culture that has marked his stage career and his life. He won acclaim for his reinterpretation of the Harriet Beecher-Stowe character "Uncle Tom" in a production on the Showtime cable channel, and for his stage portrayal of Paul Robeson.
Novelist Frederick Forsyth. With the publication of The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, all in the space of three years, critics dubbed Frederick Forsyth a master of the international suspense thriller. The plots of all his stories have been praised for their split-second calculations and for their attention to the mechanical details of, say, mixing the right sunburn salve or creating an atomic bomb. Forsyth turned to novels after a long career as a newspaper and radio reporter throughout Europe and Africa.
Television Critic David Bianculli reviews "Wise Guys!," an installment of "P.O.V." (Point of View), the PBS series that showcases independently produced documentary films. This program follows contestants as they prepare for, and perform on, the game show "Jeopardy."
Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Goin' Home," the second album by tuba player and composer Bob Stewart. Stewart, who stresses that the tuba is a world instrument, heard everywhere from New Orleans to Surinam, mixes genres in this album, jumping from "Sweet Georgia Brown" to Thelonius Monk's "Bemsha Swing."
Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone reviews the work of the young singer Alva Rogers. Rogers has performed in clubs throughout the New York City area over the last several weeks.
Washington Post chief defense correspondent George Wilson. His new book, Mud Soldiers: Life Inside the New American Army, is an analysis of the efficiency and morale of the all-volunteer Army Infantry, the combat branch that would bear the brunt of any war, and which almost certainly sustain the highest loses. Wilson spent a year with 200 recruits, following them from basic training to maneuvers in the Mohave Desert, to their first assignments. Wilson's other books include Army in Anguish and Supercarrier.
