People & Life
People & Life on Weekend America
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Weekend Soundtrack: "Tracy in the Bathroom Killing Thrills"
It's time to listen to your weekend soundtrack - the songs that bridge the gap from Friday to Monday. This week our story comes from Paula Pisani. Her weekend soundtrack is the song "Tracy in the Bathroom Killing Thrills" by the rock group Mary's Danish. She says it gives her an adrenaline rush to start the weekend.
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Dear Dad: A Christmas Card
We're getting into the thick of the holidays. Maybe you've already spent some time shopping for gifts. Maybe you've started receiving a few holiday letters or cards. Sometimes these letters are incredibly personal - and not always in the best way. Sometimes they even reveal family secrets long buried. Raluca Oncioiu, whose family is originally from Romania, received one such Christmas card.
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Reflecting on Mumbai
London had the 7/7 bombings. Madrid had the 3/11 train bombings. America had September 11th. And while India has suffered bombings before, last week's terrorist attacks were something else altogether. Brooklyn-based Indian-American poet Vijay Seshadri lived through 9/11, and this weekend, he talks about what the events in Mumbai mean for him and the poem that helps him get as close as he can to understanding it all.
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Change of Seasons: Poetry and Curling
Is there a chill in the air yet, in your neck of the woods? Our nose hairs haven't frozen yet, but we're sure that treat is just around the corner. Which can only mean one thing: winter! You still have a couple weeks until the official beginning (December 21st, to be exact) but here's a little primer for the season.
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The Story of Stuff
Annie Leonard spent a decade researching where all our "stuff" comes from: consumer goods, electronics, cars, food. She figured out how it was made, who bought it, and where it all ended up. Then she made a 20 minute video, "The Story of Stuff." As it turns out, everything comes from somewhere. You buy it, you use it, you throw it away. But the story of stuff has a plot line that might hold the world in the balance.
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Muslim Cowboy
When he was growing up in northeast Oklahoma, Kareem Salama knew that he wanted to be a cowboy. Now he's an aspiring country music star. He's also a practicing Muslim. He sees no contradictions in that, saying his upbringing in Oklahoma made it all possible. Reporter Kyle Gassiott brings us his story.
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Blip Festival
This weekend in New York City, artists will be playing video game consoles for eager crowds. Blip Festival 2008 is underway. Audiences are attending chip-music concerts. Chip-music artists modify old Gameboys and old video game consoles and recast them as musical instruments. We spoke with three artists who are trying to push the limitation of those old game systems.
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Good King Who?
Every holiday season, the malls are filled with piped in Christmas carols. Most have something to do with Jesus or Santa. All except one, that is: "Good King Wenceslas." You remember him, right? He looked out on the Feast of Stephen, as the snow lay roundabout, deep and crisp and even? It's a catchy tune, and easy to sing but why in the world did it catch on as a Christmas carol?
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Voter Intent
For most of the country, the 2008 election is over. But not in Minnesota. After nearly three million votes were cast in Minnesota's US Senate race, incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman leads his Democratic challenger Al Franken by only 215 votes. The state has finished hand counting all the ballots, but there's still no winner.
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Letters: Survivors of Suicide, Axl Rose, and a Post-Election Mixtape
Quite a few listeners have had strong emotional reactions, both happy and sad, to certain parts of the show recently. In fact, there may have been some crying and laughing. We hear your responses to our segments on survivors of suicide, Axl Rose's editor and our post-election mixtape.
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Inside Blackness: Two Coopers, Two Continents
Helene Cooper, author of "The House at Sugar Beach," was raised in Liberia and is now the diplomatic correspondent to The New York Times. As part of our series Inside Blackness, she sat down with Weekend America's Desiree Cooper to discuss the psychological difference between being raised as a black person in Africa versus the United States.
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Bringing Poetry Home
Home is a subject poets have been scribbling about in stanzas since the days of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey." This year, some poets put their own spin on the topic at City of Asylum Pittsburgh's annual jazz and poetry reading. Two of those poets come from very different places: Liberian-born Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, and native South Carolinian Terrance Hayes.
