April 13, 2002

We've got lots of word play on this week's show, from a pitch session with New Oxford American Dictionary editor Erin McKean to an (almost) one-woman show by writer/actor Deb Margolin. Plus visitations down South, with Patrik Bass, and through the stomping grounds of Jack Kerouac, with Jonathan Ames.

In Search of Kerouac
Writer Jonathan Ames sets out to mooch free coffee from the Princeton Club, steal (or maybe just buy a few) neckties from Brooks Brothers, and in other ways emulate the meandering footsteps of his long-time hero Jack Kerouac.

Mmmmm...
Was a time, late at night, when Beat poet and creator of "Word Jazz" Ken Nordine would wake up hungry. When he did, he just couldn't help himself. "Hunger Is From" was taken from his 1957 recording.

It's Not Easy Ordering Pigs' Feet
After the humiliation of calling all of his most devoted food fanatics to a Chinese banquet that proved to be highly inauthentic, Chowhound Jim Leff tries to make amends.

Looking South
Now a resident of Brooklyn, New York, Patrik Bass remembers the good and the bad of the disappearing segregated South of his childhood. Bass is author, with collaborator Karen Pugh, of In Our Own Image, an illustrated chronicle of African-American lives and traditions of the past half century.

Goodbye to Raven Chanticleer
Raven Chanticleer, founder of the world's "first" and "only" African-American Wax and History Museum, and a man known for creative embellishments of all kinds, died March 31. We listen to host Dean Olsher's previously aired conversation with Chanticleer, complete with, among other curiosities, the material girl in blackface.

Catch and Release
Fishing in Harlem. Bass, catfish, carp and the pros.

The Poetry of Everyday Life
Is it English? Yiddish? Or Zeitlinese? Contributor Steve Zeitlin of City Lore considers the history and efficacy of some of his family's favorite expressions.

May the Best Word Win
If you want to introduce a word into the dictionary, first you'll have to get it past an editor. Callers pitch favorite homegrown words to New Oxford American Dictionary editor Erin McKean.

Why Cleaning Fails
Actor and playwright Deb Margolin confesses to losing jobs, love, and perhaps perspective as she succumbs to "the tyranny of paper," in this made-for-radio rendition of her acclaimed performance piece "Why Cleaning Fails." With a cameo appearance by Margolin's daughter Molly.


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