This week we 1) expose the myth of the tambourine man, 2) question the viability of veganism when you're eating from a dumpster, 3) encourage marriages to dissolve and, 4) once and for all, explain Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Our first show of the year 2003 CE will change your life!
What's on Your Mind
The Next Big Thing takes to the streets to find out what people are thinking as 2003 begins.
Dumpster Diving
Every day of the year, New York City generates 26-thousand tons of garbage. As your mother would say, the amount of food thrown away could feed an army. And come closing time every day, that's exactly what happens. Next Big Thing contributor Matt Power follows a band of urban hunter-gatherers into the dumpsters of lower Manhattan.
Everything's Relative, or, Science for Poets
E=mc² is perhaps the only physics equation that is also a cliché. But understanding it is not as easy as, say, two plus two. Richard Panek, author of the forthcoming book, The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud and the Search for the Hidden Universe, leads us through a (relatively) simple thought experiment on special relativity.
The Bizarro Bologna Show
Dan Piraro, creator of the Bizarro comics and tambourine virtuoso, shares an interactive slice of his "Bizarro Bologna Show," where comics and lunchmeat collide. For more of Dan's comics - visit the Bizarro website.
What's Your Word
Erin McKean considers whether our listener's neologisms — beautality, agoranoia, disacuate — might find their way into her next edition of The New Oxford American Dictionary.
The Wife read by Claire Bloom
Joseph Castleman is a world-famous writer, flying to Finland to accept a major life-time achievement award. Accompanying him is a woman on the verge of making a life-altering decision. She is The Wife, conceived by Next Big Thing contributor Meg Wolitzer and brought to life by the actress, Claire Bloom. The Wife is Wolitzer's newest novel and will be published in April by Scribner.
Bob Leive Closes Down Nobody's Inn
Bob Leive is the 70 year-old lead man in a Dixieland band that's been rocking Northern New Jersey's Nobody's Inn for over a decade. He shares a laugh with Dean on the night his band's regular haunt closes its doors.
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