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West Coast Live
''West Coast Live'' is a weekly two-hour radio variety show hosted by Sedge Thomson. The unscripted program features interviews with world-renowned authors and cultural figures along with performances by musicians, comedians and other entertainers. It is broadcast live-to-satellite each Saturday morning in front of a theater audience from one of several San Francisco Bay area venues. The show is carried on NPR stations from coast-to-coast, and in Paris, France until 2018. Occasionally, the show will travel to various theaters, music festivals and film festivals throughout the northwest. The Biospherical Digital-Optical Aquaphone is the trademarked signature of Sedge Thomson. Past guests Writers include: Diane Ackerman, Maya Angelou, Julian Barnes, T.C. Boyle, Ray Bradbury, A.S. Byatt, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Chabon, Julia Child, Billy Collins, Junot Diaz, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jonathan Safran Foer, William Gibson, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Handler, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety Show
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical theatre, musical performances, sketch comedy, magic (illusion), magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a Master of Ceremonies, compère (master of ceremonies) or Television presenter, host. The variety format made its way from the Victorian era stage in Britain and America to radio and then television. Variety shows were a staple of English language television from the late 1940s into the 1980s. While still widespread in some parts of the world, such as in the United Kingdom with the ''Royal Variety Performance'', and South Korea with ''Running Man (South Korean TV series), Running Man'', the proliferation of multichannel television and evolving viewer tastes have affected the popularity of variety shows in the United States. Despite this, their influence has still had a major effect on late night television whose la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''. Eggers is also the founder of ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', a literary journal; a co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness; and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines. Early life and education Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, one of four siblings. His father, John K. Eggers (1936–1991), was an attorney, while his mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers (1940–1992), was a school teacher. His father was Protestant and his mother was Catholic. When Eggers was still a child, the family moved to the suburb of Lake Forest, near Chicago, where he attended public high school and was a classmate of actor Vince Vaughn. Eggers's elder brother ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael McClure
Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955, which was rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's ''The Dharma Bums''. He soon became a key member of the Beat Generation and was immortalized as Pat McLear in Kerouac's ''Big Sur''. Career overview Educated at the Municipal University of Wichita (1951–1953), the University of Arizona (1953-1954) and San Francisco State College (B.A., 1955) McClure's first book of poetry, ''Passage'', was published in 1956 by small press publisher Jonathan Williams. Stan Brakhage, a friend of McClure, stated in the ''Chicago Review'' that: McClure always, and more and more as he grows older, gives his reader access to the verbal impulses of his whole body's thought (as distinct from simply and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. ( ) (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer notable for ''Tales of the City'', a series of novels set in San Francisco. Early life Maupin was born in Washington, D.C., to Diana Jane (Barton) and Armistead Jones Maupin. His great-great-grandfather, Congressman Lawrence O'Bryan Branch, was from North Carolina and was a railroad executive and a confederate general during the American Civil War. His father, Armistead Jones Maupin, founded Maupin, Taylor & Ellis, one of the largest law firms in North Carolina. Maupin was raised in Raleigh. – in ''The Independent'' of Raleigh, North Carolina, June 1988 – autobiographical memoir Maupin attended Ravenscroft School and graduated from Needham Broughton High School in 1962. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he wrote for ''The Daily Tar Heel.'' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus (born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biography Marcus was born Greil Gerstley in San Francisco, California, the only son of Greil Gerstley and Eleanor Gerstley (''née'' Hyman), a Jewish woman. His father, a naval officer, died in December 1944, when a Philippine typhoon sank the USS ''Hull'', on which he was serving as second-in-command. Admiral William Halsey had ordered the U.S. Third Fleet to sail into Typhoon Cobra "to see what they were made of," and, despite the crew's urging, Gerstley refused to disobey the order, arguing that there had never been a mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy and that "somebody had to die". The incident inspired the novel ''The Caine Mutiny''. Eleanor Gerstley was three months pregnant when her husband died. In 1948, she married Gerald Marcus, who adopted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire (born June 9, 1954) is an American novelist. He is the author of '' Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'', ''Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister'', and several dozen other novels for adults and children. Many of Maguire's adult novels are inspired by classic children's stories. Maguire published his first novel, ''The Lightning Time'', in 1978. ''Wicked'', published in 1995, was his first novel for adults. Though unsuccessful at first, it was adapted into a popular Broadway musical in 2003. Maguire is married to American painter Andy Newman, in one of the first gay marriages performed in the state of New York. They have three children. Biography Born and raised in Albany, New York, Gregory Maguire is the middle child of four. His mother died shortly after giving birth to him and his father sent him to live with an aunt, who later turned him over to a local orphanage. Maguire's father later remarried and had three more children with his new wif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher. Lamott is based in Marin County, California. Her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Lamott's writings, marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, cover such subjects as alcoholism, single-motherhood, depression, and Christianity. Life and career Lamott was born in San Francisco, and is a graduate of Drew School. She was a student at Goucher College for two years where she wrote for the newspaper. Her father, Kenneth Lamott, was also a writer. Her first published novel ''Hard Laughter'' was written for him after his diagnosis of brain cancer. She has one son, Sam, who was born in August 1989 and a grandson, Jax, born in July 2009. Lamott's life was documented in Freida Lee Mock's 1999 documentary ''Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott''. Because of the documentary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid (; born May 25, 1949) is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). She lives in North Bennington, Vermont and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year. Biography Early life Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in St John's, Antigua, on May 25, 1949. She grew up in relative poverty with her mother, a literate, cultured woman and homemaker, and her stepfather, a carpenter. She was very close to her mother until her three brothers were born in quick succession, starting when Kincaid was nine years old. After her brothers' births, she resented her mother, who thereafter focused primarily on the brothers' needs. Kincaid later recalled, Our family money remained the same, but there were more people to feed and to clothe, and so everything got sort of shortened, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Irving
John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of ''The World According to Garp'' in 1978. Many of Irving's novels, including ''The Hotel New Hampshire'' (1981), ''The Cider House Rules'' (1985), ''A Prayer for Owen Meany'' (1989), and ''A Widow for One Year'' (1998), have been bestsellers. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in the 72nd Academy Awards (1999) for his script of ''The Cider House Rules''."John Irving 1999 Acceptance Speech on Winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay" ''oscars.org'' Five of his novels have been adapted into films (''Garp'', ''H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Hass
Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection ''Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005.''Goldman, Justin"Poetic Justice – Robert Hass"Diablo Magazine, July 2008. In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. Life Hass's works are well known for their West Coast subjects and attitudes. He was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Rafael. He grew up with an alcoholic mother, a major topic in the 1996 poem collection ''Sun Under Wood''. His older brother encouraged him to dedicate himself to his writing. Awestruck by Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg, among others in the 1950s Bay Area poetry scene, Hass entertained the idea of becoming a beatnik. He graduated from Marin Catholic High School in 1958. When the area became influenced by East Asian literary techniques, such as haik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970) is an American author, musician, screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is best known for his children's book series ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' and ''All the Wrong Questions'', published under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket. The former was adapted into a Nickelodeon film in 2004 as well as a Netflix series from 2017 to 2019. Handler has published adult novels and a stage play under his real name, along with other children's books under the Snicket pseudonym. His first book, a satirical fiction piece titled ''The Basic Eight'', was rejected by many publishers for its dark subject matter. Handler has also played the accordion in several bands, and appeared on the album ''69 Love Songs'' by indie pop band The Magnetic Fields. Life Handler was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Sandra Handler (née Walpole), a retired City College of San Francisco dean, and Louis Handler, an accountant. His father wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions. Ginsberg is best known for his poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. San Francisco police and US Customs seized "Howl" in 1956, and it attracted widespread publicity in 1957 when it became the subject of an obscenity trial, as it described heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made (male) homosexual acts a crime in every state. The poem reflected Ginsberg's own sexuality and his relatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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