Fresh Air on AM 870 NewsTalk

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Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Each week, nearly 4.5 million people listen to the show's intimate conversations broadcast on more than 450 National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network.

Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a "talk show," it hardly fits the mold. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with "probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights." And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country's leading interviewers. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators.

Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR.

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Television
10:56 am
Fri January 13, 2012

Walton Goggins: Playing Bad Boy Boyd On 'Justified'

Originally published on Fri January 13, 2012 12:11 pm

This interview was originally broadcast on May 26, 2010. Justified returns for a third season on Fx on January 17, 2012 at 10pm EST.

One of actor Walton Goggins' earliest moments on stage came at a Georgia hog-calling competition when he was just 10 years old.

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Television
10:56 am
Fri January 13, 2012

Timothy Olyphant: Laying Down 'Justified' Laws

Credit Mark Seliger / FX
Timothy Olyphant plays Raylan Givens, a present-day U.S. marshal with Wild West inclinations on the FX series Justified.

This interview was originally broadcast on March 28, 2011. Justified begins its third season next week.

Timothy Olyphant plays Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on the FX series Justified.

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Movie Reviews
3:02 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

An 'Iron Lady' Fully Inhabited By Meryl Streep

I admit I was biased against the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. Not, you understand, against Thatcher and her Tory politics. Against Meryl Streep and her accents. Which are great, no doubt. But I went in resolved not to fall for her pyrotechnics yet again. I wanted realism.

Well, it didn't take long to realize that I was watching not only one of the greatest impersonations I'd ever seen — but one that was also emotionally real.

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Country
12:02 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

Janie Fricke: The 'Country Side Of Bluegrass'

Originally published on Thu January 12, 2012 2:14 pm

Janie Fricke has had a long, winding career. She started out as a singer of TV commercial jingles, warbling for Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Red Lobster, among other clients. She then moved on to singing back-up vocals for stars such as Elvis Presley, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

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Movie Interviews
11:46 am
Thu January 12, 2012

Gary Oldman: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sirius

Originally published on Thu January 12, 2012 3:10 pm

Gary Oldman watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy when it aired as a BBC miniseries in 1979, but he purposely avoided a second viewing before signing up to play George Smiley in a new film adaptation of John le Carre's classic 1974 novel.

"I really thought that I would be contaminated by it," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "And I didn't want to do an impersonation."

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Television
10:52 am
Thu January 12, 2012

Bill Moyers Is Back On TV — And Better Than Ever

Credit Peter Krogh / ©Peter Krogh
Bill Moyers began his career in journalism as a junior reporter at the Marshall News Messenger in Marshall, Texas.

It's one of my favorite TV moments of this year. On Tuesday, the night of the New Hampshire primary, Stephen Colbert had Bill Moyers as his special guest on The Colbert Report. Moyers was there to publicize his return from retirement and the launch of his new TV series, Moyers & Company. Colbert booked him to help him do just that — but as his on-screen persona Stephen Colbert, the pontificating political conservative, he was there to throw good-natured verbal punches.

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Digital Life
10:26 am
Thu January 12, 2012

A War To Watch: YouTube Takes On Television

Credit Screenshot from YouTube
Music Reviews
12:00 pm
Wed January 11, 2012

François Houle And Benoît Delbecq's Dream State

It's been more than a decade since clarinetist François Houle and pianist Benoît Delbecq's previous recording, but Because She Hoped proves that they can a strike a mood together quickly. That quiet, misterioso air is one specialty, conjuring a dream state: a slow-motion sleepwalk.

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Book Reviews
11:39 am
Wed January 11, 2012

'Hope': A Comic Novel About the Holocaust?

Originally published on Thu January 12, 2012 12:54 pm

Years ago, when my daughter was a toddler, my husband and I were friendly with another couple who had a child the same age. The friendship came to an end when the wife of the couple let slip that her husband had dressed their daughter as JonBenet Ramsey for Halloween. "He has an offbeat sense of humor," the wife explained to me. That's one way to look at it. Or else, as I thought, maybe hubby's "humor" wasn't funny at all — just perversely detached from the horrific death of an actual 6-year-old.

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Television
11:35 am
Tue January 10, 2012

A New 'Morning' On CBS, But Will It Work?

Credit John P. Filo / CBS
CBS This Morning is co-hosted by Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill.

There are three new hosts of CBS This Morning, which was unveiled yesterday. One is Erica Hill, a holdover from The Early Show, the previous program in the early-morning time slot. Another is Gayle King, still best known as Oprah Winfrey's best friend, who's here to handle most of the entertainment interviews. And the third, the pivot point, is Charlie Rose, brought over from PBS to give this new show an injection of instant respectability and seriousness.

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Music Reviews
12:08 pm
Mon January 9, 2012

Dore: The Little Studio That Could (Produce Hits)

Someday, some genius is going to do a Mad Men-type show about the little record labels of the late 1950s. Yes, I'll happily serve as a consultant.

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Author Interviews
11:42 am
Mon January 9, 2012

Rin Tin Tin: A Silent Film Star On Four Legs

Credit Gasper Tringale /
Susan Orlean is a staff writer for the New Yorker and has contributed articles to Vogue, Rolling Stone and Esquire. She is the author of several books, including The Orchid Thief.

Originally published on Mon January 9, 2012 12:13 pm

Members of the baby boomer generation might remember the old TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, about a German shepherd and a boy named Rusty who lived with a cavalry troop in the American West.

In 1954, Rin Tin Tin was even "interviewed" by a writer for The New Yorker who noted that he turned up his nose at roast beef and drank milk from a champagne glass.

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Fresh Air Weekend
11:19 am
Sat January 7, 2012

Fresh Air Weekend: Pamela Adlon, 'Portlandia'

Credit IFC
In one episode of Portlandia, Brownstein and Armisen started a grass-roots campaign to prevent the Olympics from ever coming to Portland.

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Pamela Adlon: From 'Hill' Kid To 'Californication' The veteran voice-over actress, who played 12-year-old Bobby Hill on Fox's animated comedy King of the Hill, now co-stars in the raunchy Showtime drama.

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Television
11:52 am
Fri January 6, 2012

This Weekend, Some New Shows (And Old Favorites)

The New Year brings with it new TV programming, and this Sunday is an especially busy one for television. Two new series premiere, while one miniseries and several other series return.

But because it's a new year, let's start with the new shows.

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Movie Reviews
11:46 am
Fri January 6, 2012

'Extremely Loud' And Incredibly Manipulative

Originally published on Thu February 23, 2012 5:24 pm

Some critics are indignant over Stephen Daldry's film of Jonathan Safran Foer's book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. They say the appropriation of Sept. 11 for such a sentimental work is exploitation.

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Remembrances
10:33 am
Fri January 6, 2012

Barbara Lea: Remembering A Versatile Cabaret Singer

Barbara Lea was a singer known for her straightforward interpretations, precise diction, and respect for the intentions of each song's composer and lyrist. She died December 26th at the age of 82, from complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Lea got her start singing in clubs in the 1950s. Her first album, A Woman in Love, released in 1955, was named one of the finest recordings of the year. Though she dropped out of singing for a while, she made a comeback in New York's cabaret world in the 1970s.

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Television
12:14 pm
Thu January 5, 2012

Brownstein And Armisen's Comedic Take On Portland

Soon after Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen became friends, they started making sketch-comedy videos.

"We would email a link ... to our friends, but they were mostly for us," says Brownstein. "It was very understated and silly, and we were just sort of reveling in the absurd."

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Music Reviews
11:36 am
Thu January 5, 2012

On 'Back To Love,' Hamilton Makes Every Syllable Count

Credit Courtesy of the artist
Anthony Hamilton.

On Back to Love, Anthony Hamilton makes music from declarations. He tells a woman "I'm missing you crazy" in "Who's Loving You," and it's typical of his strategy. He states his thesis, his opinion, his desire in a voice that speaks as much as it sings for the sake of emphasis. After he's sure he's gotten his lover's attention, he begins doing his rhythm-and-blues work, mixing soul and blues and hip-hop phrasing to heighten the emotion in a song.

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Television
10:59 am
Wed January 4, 2012

Pamela Adlon: From 'Hill' Kid To 'Californication'

When Pamela Adlon meets her daughters' middle-school aged friends, she asks them nicely not to watch Californication, the show she's starred in for the past five seasons.

"I say, 'I'd appreciate if you don't watch my show and you don't Google me,'" she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

But Adlon, who plays the brash, unapologetic, sexually charged Marcie Runkle on the Showtime series, says she knows that's not going to stop anyone.

"I am not embarrassed," she says. "I know they Google me."

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Book Reviews
11:59 am
Tue January 3, 2012

'Diaries' Reveals New York Through The Ages

Credit istockphoto.com
New York Diaries captures impressions of the city from Henry Hudson to the bloggers watching the events of Sept. 11.

Most everyone's spirits are a bit deflated after the holidays. So, as a literary antidote, I recommend a just-published anthology called New York Diaries: 1609 – 2009. Editor Teresa Carpenter has collected four centuries worth of diary excerpts written by people, great and small, who've lived in or just passed through one of the greatest cities in the world.

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