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Today I posted a bonus talk with the brilliant Maura Quint who had some real smart and hilarious commentary on the GOP debate, Election outcome and a very important chat about Tax policy that only Maura can make this interesting.

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Read Maura's hilarious debate recaps at McSweeney's

Maura Quint is a humor writer and activist whose work has been featured in publications such as McSweeneys and The New Yorker. She was named one of Rolling Stone’s top 25 funniest twitter accounts of 2016. When not writing comedy, Maura has worked extensively with non-profits in diverse sectors including political action campaigns, international arts collectives and health and human services organizations. She has never been officially paid to protest but did once find fifteen cents on the ground at an immigrants’ rights rally and wanted to make sure that had been disclosed. She was the co founder and executive director of TaxMarch.org

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On today's episode I talk to comedy writer Jen Spyra. Originally from Pittsburgh, Jen was a senior writer for The Onion for many years. There she also headed the editorial video department as a writer, director and producer. Beyond The Onion, her humor writing has appeared in numerous places including The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, and currently, she is a staff writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on iTunes, follow me on Twitter.

A greatest-hits compilation from The Organist’s first two years, created for a special holiday broadcast on KCRW, featuring Nick Offerman, David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Jack White, Lena Dunham, Judy Blume, and more!

Ilse Blansert (aka The Waterwhispers on YouTube) discusses her experiences with ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, a curious, little understood physiological reaction to gentle sounds or "triggers" that provide relief from stress and insomnia. The videos of Blansert and her peers are hugely popular on YouTube and have helped to create a wide, digital community who can now sleep soundly as tingles dance up their spines.

Actor/director/screenwriter Thomas Lennon (The State, Reno 911!, Hell Baby) performs two short monologues written by playwright Nick Jones (Orange Is the New Black, Jollyship the Whiz-Bang) and Blake Butler (300,000,000, There Is No Year).

To celebrate the release of Lena Dunham's new book Not That Kind of Girl, out this week, we're re-airing a conversation recorded last year between Lena and Judy Blume.

To order Lena's book, go here: http://lenadunham.com/

Banner Image: Lena Dunham & Judy Blume. Photo by Jenna Weiss-Berman.

CREDITS Produced by Jenna Weiss-Berman, Ross Simonini and Andrew Leland. Thanks to Gary Scott, Jenny Radelet, Melissa Morton, Mario Diaz and Monika Scott.

Tao Lin is the author of the novels Taipei and Shoplifting from American Apparel, among others. For The Organist, Lin discusses his recent novel and reads his work aloud and employs rappers Kool AD and Kitty to read his prose at tongue tying speed for an experiment in reading comprehension. Christian Lorentzen, an editor at the London Review of Books, gives a critical perspective on Lin's work and Kitty provides a mixtape. CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE.

CREDITS: Produced by Ross Simonini. The Organist is produced by Simonini along with Jenna Weiss-Berman and Andrew Leland.

Banner Image Credit: Mallory Whitten

Peter Mendelsund is an award-winning book designer and the author of What We See When We Read, a phenomenological treatise on the visual art of reading. In this episode of the Organist, Mendelsund discusses the auditory side of reading and the sound of the classic orators of literature, including James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Dylan Thomas. CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE.

CREDITS: Produced by Ross Simonini. The Organist is produced by Simonini along with Jenna Weiss-Berman and Andrew Leland.

Banner Image Credit: George Baier IV

Neko Case, whose musical career spans over two decades, brings the listener on a journey of the music that has shaped her, from the time she was a child listening to "Taking Care of Business" by Bachman Turner Overdrive until now, listening to "People Have the Power" by Patti Smith. Over the years she's listened to 80s hardcore, country, gospel, and punk, all of which have contributed to her unique sound. CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE.

CREDITS Produced by Jenna Weiss-Berman, Ross Simonini and Andrew Leland. Thanks to Gary Scott, Jenny Radelet, Melissa Morton, Mario Diaz and Monika Scott.

Pre-order the latest album from Neko's side project, the New Pornographers, out August 25th.

The fiction writer, humorist, and essayist, George Saunders talks with the Organist's executive producer, Ross Simonini about the sonic aspects of his writing and reading. After reading aloud a passage from his most recent story collection, Saunders discusses his use of writerly voice as both a written and spoken device in his work. CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES.

CREDITS This week's show was produced by Ross Simonini with Jenna Weiss-Berman and Andrew Leland. Banner Image Credit: George Saunders. Music: "Fairyland" by Balam Acab.

This week's show features an interview with composer and singer, Meredith Monk, who holds the 2014-2015 Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall. For 50 years, Monk has created music that bends the limits of the human voice, much of it connected to her own films, dance, opera, and site-specific performances. The Organist's executive producer, Ross Simonini interviews her about Buddhism, her early days in New York, and her wide array of curious vocal techniques.

CREDITS This week's show was produced by Ross Simonini, with Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Andrew Leland. Banner Image: Meredith Monk

This week the Organist explores sound design in two new documentaries, Irene Lusztig's The Motherhood Archives and Matt Wolf's Teenage. The films each use a combination of archival footage and original music to convey the cultural constructions of two very separate stages of human development--birth and adolescence.

the motherhood archives (trailer) from komsomol films on Vimeo.

Produced by Jenna Weiss-Berman, Ross Simonini and Andrew Leland. Thanks to Gary Scott, Jenny Radelet, Melissa Morton, Mario Diaz and Miranda Mellis.

Photo courtesy of The Motherhood Archives.

Daniel Fishkin is a young musician who played in bands and studied composition at Bard College. When he was 22 he got a bad case of tinnitus, a continuous ringing in his ears that drowned out all the sounds around him, and even some of the music in his head. It was a pretty tough blow for an aspiring composer. It wasn't the first time that a musician has had to deal with hearing loss, but what Fishkin did with this situation is remarkable.

Produced by Jascha Hoffman.

 

 

Daniel Fishkin
Photo by Samuel Lang Budin

Daniel Fishkin's feedback system, where a piano string vibrates without being touched.
Fishkin used this to create the Tinnitus Suites.
Photo by Oliver Jones

Transducers attached to long strings that create a feedback loop when amplified.
Photo by Oliver Jones

 

Banner image by Samuel Lang Budin

NOTE: This show contains language that may not be appropriate for young audiences.

This week's show features two segments from the 2013 season of the Organist. Actor, writer, and artist James Franco (Spring Breakers, Palo Alto) performs a radio play by playwright Will Eno (Thom Pain (based on nothing), The Realistic Joneses) written exclusively for the Organist. Filmmaker Harmony Korine discusses his novel, A Crackup at the Race Riots, and some unreleased songs he wrote and recorded as a child for the sole purpose of annoying his grandmother. 

The untitled radio play was written by Will Eno and performed by James Franco. This episode was produced by Ross Simonini, Jenna Weiss-Berman and Andrew Leland. 

 

 

Banner Image Credit: Harmony Korine

This week's show features the premiere of an original radio play written by Alena Smith (@TweenHobo; HBOs The Newsroom) and performed by actor/director David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer, Wanderlust, Role Models) and Rachel Dratch (@TheRealDratch; Saturday Night Live, Second City, 30 Rock). The play is followed by a casual conversation between the actors and writer on television binge-watching and the life-saving benefits of psychoanalysis.

Horse Counselor was written by Alena Smith, performed by David Wain and Rachel Dratch, produced by Ross Simonini, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Andrew Leland.

Banner image: Dale Hichens

Before he became a journalist, writing hilarious and harrowing books of reportage like The Psychopath Test and The Men Who Stare at Goats, as well as contributing radio stories to This American Life and BBC 4, Jon Ronson had a brief career as a musician. He played keyboards in a group called the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band, which was a sort of experimental-comedy new-wave act. The group's leader was the comedian Chris Sievey, who possessed a confounding absurdist charisma both on and offstage. He wore, for example, a giant papier mache head over his own head both on and off stage. Jon Ronson co-wrote a film, called Frank, that fictionalizes his time in the band. It stars Michael Fassbender and will be released in the US in August. Jon Ronson has this story of his experience driving around England in a van with a man in a huge papier-mache head. Ronson's book, Frank: The True Story That Inspired the Movie, is published by Riverhead.

This episode is produced by Jenna Weiss-Berman and Andrew Leland. Thanks to Lucie Elven and Paul Ruest.

The Birthday Song, sung every day of the year at birthday parties across the land, is sweet, simple, and 120 years old this year. But it's also a highly contested piece of intellectual property, pulling in millions of dollars for a large music conglomerate, Warner/Chappell, which charges films and TV shows who want to include the song, and pull the films from the shelves and file lawsuits if they don't comply. Andrea Silenzi looks at the strange and somewhat tortured history of the song's ownership, and offers a novel form of resistance to Warner's hegemony.

This episode was produced by Andrea Silenzi. You can find more information on the Happy Birthday contest at freemusicarchive.org, and listen to free birthday song entries.

Banner image: Greg Harrison