Modern physics may seem remote from our daily lives, yet the discoveries in the field have the potential to change how we view the world.  On this program, Lisa Randall discussed how discoveries in modern physics shape the world around us.

Quantum mechanics may seem to be an intimidating topic, yet it is fundamental to understanding the everyday world.  On this program, Prof. Michael Fayer discussed how quantum theory explains our everyday world.

Yo La Tengo's eclecticism has been the engine in their Miata for over 20 years now. Popular Songs is their latest LP, and saying it's two-faced is an understatement. While one song seduces you, the next is working on stealing your wallet.

We've also got tracks from the latest HEALTH LP, and the show's metal debut with a new track from Black Cobra.

This week on the Needle Drop, Daughters reach a new extreme with their latest album, Anthony continues to search for his inner DJ, and we feature new tracks from Arcade Fire’s the Suburbs.

This week on the Needle Drop, Sufjan Stevens goes electronic on his latest album, the Age of Adz. We've also got new tracks from Luke Abbott and Animal Collective's Avey Tare. To finish things up, we'll listen in to Belle and Sebastian's new LP, Belle and Sebastian Write About Love.

On this week's the Needle Drop, we've got a new single from Deerhunter, and Anthony DJs a set of dance tracks from around the blog-o-sphere.

We've also got tracks from two new albums: Bare Wires' Seeking Love and Wild Nothing's Gemini.

OK, the short description doesn't really make much sense, but it does mention some of the highlights of this week's show. None of that stuff, however, is in the first segment, which has a progression through the years 1965-67 and sets from 1968 and 1966. The next segment is dominated by a requested track from an obscure Detroit band called the Corporation. The second hour starts with a pair of tunes from 1967 and moves into a set from the Seeds, finishing with a track from the second Flock album, Dinosaur Swamps (our featured album cover of the week). The final half hour is almost entirely from the Electric Ladyland album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, although we did manage to squeeze in a short Kinks song as well.

China, India, Southeast Asia: Asia’s high-octane economies, though impacted by the global recession, are on a long-term trajectory to expand their influence. Their energy and determination are challenging the economic supremacy of the United States not only in the region but wherever key natural resources are in play. China alone holds the commanding share of U.S. debt in a complex relationship that yokes the two economic titans together in a tense, unpredictable partnership. President Obama says the U.S.-Chinese dynamic is "as important as any bilateral relationship in the world." Is it a zero sum game where either they or “we” prevail or can it be reframed as a quest for shared prosperity? Protectionism and xenophobia threaten to derail the relationship to the detriment of both. How can American foreign and economic policies avoid such mutually destructive outcomes and instead encourage a healthier mix of competition and cooperation?

Dmae Roberts talks with acclaimed author Lisa See. Her latest novel, Dreams of Joy debuted  at No. 1 on the NY Times best seller list. See tells us about her extensive research on Mao’s Great Leap Forward that caused the death of up 45 million people in China from 1958-1961. We also hear about the movie version of See’s book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, to be released in July 2011.

Dreams of Joy is a sequel to See’s earlier novel, Shanghai Girls. The book follows the title character, 19-year-old Joy, and her mother Pearl in Communist China during a horrific time: the euphemistically-named Great Leap Forward.

As in all of her novels, See brings the stories to life with details gleaned from her intensive eresearch. But Dreams of Joy also deals with the universal theme of the relationship between mother and daughter. As one Chinese aphorism goes, “Mothers suffer. Childen do what they want.”

Lisa See grew up in Los Angeles, the great-granddaughter of a patriarch of Los Angeles Chinatown, Fong See. Although she lived with her mother, who is not Chinese, she also spent a lot of time with her father’s Chinese American family. These experiences of being in between two cultures laid the groundwork for her writing later on.

Wayne Wang started his career with films exploring the Chinese experience, most notably, CHAN IS MISSING, an indie hit about a cab driver in San Francisco's Chinatown. After a sojourn working in studio films such as THE JOY LUCK CLUB and then THE LAST HOLIDAY, he returned to his indie and ethnic roots with THE PRINCESS OF NEBRASKA and now, SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN, adapted from the novel by Lisa See. When we spoke on July 6, 2011, he discussed using the feminine side of his nature, understanding the effect of high heels by wearing a pair for a day, and why he changed the novel's plot by including a parallel story set in present-day Shanghai. He also speaks frankly about the pitfalls of making a film with Asian characters for a non-Asian audience, and how he ended up on a radical Quaker ranch when he first arrived in the United States from China.

Christine Yao's debut feature film, EMPIRE OF SILVER, would have tested the mettle of even a seasoned filmmaker. Multiple locations, period sets, and a small army of camels were only a few of the elements involved in bringing Chen Yi's novel to life. The particulars of all those things come up in the interview, as well as the synchronicity of having a world financial crisis occur during filming in 2008 that has more than a few parallels with the action in the story of merchant bankers at the end of China's imperial period, particularly the role that personal relationships between bankers, and the element of trust has on a bank's solvency.

When Cherlyn Wagner was pregnant, she sort of imagined that as a mom she’d come to play the role of her own mother: the mean mommy. But when Cherlyn is 32 weeks along, her mom commits suicide and Cherlyn has to become a mother at the precise moment her own mother stops being a mother altogether. When Cherlyn's son is born, she makes a decision. She is going to be a (relatively) laid back mom.

In class, with Duke safely out of the room, the third graders wrote and recorded questions they wanted to ask Duke: about himself, about his life in Korea, about South Korea and about his experience with us at school. We are still learning to be good radio interviewers, and we discussed how different kinds of questions, or how one frames a question will yield richer, more interesting answers from the interview subject. We spun the recorded questions into a pretend call-in radio show called “Ask Duke,” complete with English and Korean announcers, sound effects, music and actual Korean commercial breaks. We played the show for Duke and after each question paused it and recorded his answer. Afterwards, We wove his answers into the recording, creating the final, complete “Ask Duke”  Q. and A. radio show.

Spy Princess: Noor Inayat Khan is an Indian-American female spy from World War II, who fought with the French Resistance movement and was killed by the Germans at Dachau in 1944. She is one among only four women to have receive the George Cross for their bravery during World War II. Noor was born in Moscow on New Year's Day in 1914 to an Indian father and an American mother. She grew up in London and France and was recruited by the British as the first woman radio operator and sent to France during World War II. (Historical footnote: There appears to be a connection between Tipu Sultan and Star Spangled Banner, the American national anthem.) This intriguing historical figure who is the great, great, great grand-daugher of Tipu Sultan, an 18th century Indian ruler and a distant relative of Mary Eddy Baker, founder of the Christian Science Movement. Noor's father was a Sufi minister and a musician. Noor was only 30 years old when she was killed. Spy Princess: Noor Inayat Khan is a biography written by London-based Shrabani Basu. The book was recently released in the USA. In this piece Shrabani talks about how she put the book together and describes the effort as a "giant jigsaw puzzle." Shrabani describes Noor as a gentle musician on the one hand, and a fierce fighter on the other. Four men were needed to pin down this "Tigress of Paris," when she was imprisoned by the German points out Shrabani.

Bernadette McDonald has written a gripping biography of Elizabeth Hawley, an American women who moved to Nepal in the 1960 after years of solo travel in remote places. On her own in Nepal for more than four decades, Hawley is renowned as the unofficial chronicler of Himalayan expedition climbing. Despite never having visited Everest herself, her detailed chronicles are so precise that all incoming expeditions meet with her prior to their departure for base camp. Susan Johnston interviewed McDonald at the book's launch, part of the Banff Mountain Book Festival. McDonald's book is based on extensive interviews with Hawley, celebrated mountaineers, and Kathmandu intimates. It follows the development of Himalayan mountaineering and Nepal?s entry into the twentieth century.

Paradise Lost produced by Neil Sandell
Emelia Symington Fedy and her partner found paradise on the tropical island of Maevo, Vanuatu.    The locals embraced them. And while the lifestyle was rough by North American standards, it made Emelia feel alive.  They left the island with every intention of returning  to live.   At least that was the plan.

Peace of Mind produced by Kent Hoffman
J.V. Dixon was born in Charleston, South Carolina and began his career as a trumpet player when he was just 16. After years on the road, he eventually made his way to Toronto to settle down and raise a family.
Now after a very difficult year, he's returned to music to find peace of mind.

Taking the Long Way produced by Lindsay Micheal
Meg Whitton has a job she loves, great friends and an exciting life. But when some of her high-school friends get together, she realizes she is the only one without a husband and a house. With her Birthday fast approaching, she decides to turn around in her dating life and get over her fear of rejection...with surprising results.

Love in the House produced by Yvonne Gall
Shana Myara is making a calendar. A personal calendar. 365 pages. One new word for every day of the year. The calendar has only one purpose, and one audience. It's a love letter to her partner. 

Several community colleges around the country are participating in an experiment to see if discussions and writing assignments about sex can help students make good sexual decisions.

But today, in the age of sexting and random hook ups, when porn stars have their own prime time reality shows, what does the word even mean? Laura Stepp talks to Liora Tanenbaum, author of Slut! Growing Up Female With a Bad Reputation and various twenty-somethings about this short word with a long history and what it means to them.

For Father's Day we asked a young man named Shane to interview his father, Roland, about some of the rougher times in their family history. Shane and Roland show us that it's never too late to open up about sex, relationships, and what it takes to be a good partner.

A love story, an interview, an explanation and an experiment. Here we see what happens when you take tree hugging to the next level.

Partners in life and partners in filmmaking, Michael Biehn and Jennifer Blanc worked both sides of the camera for THE VICTIM, a giddy homage to the grindhouse genre. When I talked to them on June 3, 2011, the first question I had was whether or not the name of Biehn's charater in the film, Kyle, was a shout-out to the character he played in TERMINATOR (yes and no), but the rest of the answer, about where the last name came from shows a sentimental side to Biehn. The duo went on discuss getting then using creative control, the pros and cons of shooting on a tight schedule, and what the film has to say about the way sex makes fools of us all.

Painted Lady: Part Two Elizabeth once worked the strolls in Calgary and Vancouver as a heroin addicted prostitute. She tells us how she went from sex trade worker to soccer mom. Elizabeth Hudson is also the author of Snow Bodies: One Woman?s Life on the Streets. For more information about her book, visit Newestpress.com. Elizabeth Hudson Producer: Carma Jolly This is a self-contained episode of a two part Outfront. Outfront Opening and Closing Theme available - (see Timing and Cues section for more details) SEE ADDITIONAL LICENSE TERMS

Errol Morris specializes in stories that challenge preconceived notions and recieved truth. With TABLOID, he allows Joyce McKinney, the center of a tabloid frenzy involving sex and religion, the tabloid reporter and the tabloid photographer who told the tale to the multitudes in search of salacious story, and a gay Mormon activist who met Joyce after the fact, to tell differing versions of the story that, while often mutually exclusive, may still all be true. In this Morris is telling the viewer about him or herself as much as he is the subject of his documentary. When we spoke on May 3, 2011, he discussed his interviewing style that elicits intimate and unselfconscious disclosures, why the term "simple truth" is an oxymoron, and how Joyce set him off on a reading binge.

I just shake my head sometimes. At least once a semester, usually more, Salt students find themselves in the most out-of-the-ordinary places. It boggles my mind.

A couple of semesters ago, a student wound up on a deer hunt gone awry. Another semester, a student spent hours if not days in a home overrun with cats, dogs, birds, and who knows what else. Still another navigated an island of warring lobstermen.

Last semester, it was swingers. Julia King produced a story about a weekly swingers party in central Maine. In case you don’t know, swingers are…. well, here’s Julia’s definition:

“A swinger’s party is a place where people go to engage in open sexual activity and just have a good time where they seek support and comfort of friends and a group of people that is just openly accepting of people from all different walks of life.”

On this edition of the Saltcast, Julia talks about recording people making love and her choice not to include the sounds of sex in her story. Have a listen to “Swing Free.”

A man comes to believe that he possesses extraordinary powers -- powers that he can only activate by putting himself in harm's way. But what will happen when he decides to test his theory? A Chatterbox Audio Theater original.

Debbie Peagler's case became a cause celebre when her lawyers, Joshua Safran and Nadia Costa, worked tirelessly and pro bono to have her retried under a new provision of the law that allowed for a battered woman defense. Peagler had been convictied of second-degree murder of her boyfriend, a man who had abused her and forced her into prostitution. Yoav Potash's film follows them all as they discover a justice system where justice is hardly a consideration. When I talked with them on July 25, 2011,the film was screening as part of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and the strength Safran drew from this orthodox faith and practice was one of the topics we covered. The conversation also turned to the emotions that the trio went through during the making of CRIME AFTER CRIME, when and why they realized that the case was about more than just Peagler, as well as the lawyers' frank assessment of the crimnal justice system against which they struggled, one rife with petty inter-office politics and an obsession with its public image.

ANOTHER EARTH is a film that sets the synapses firing with its consideration of identity, reality, and redemption as it posits a reality where the sky is suddenly filled with a duplicate of our home planet. When I spoke with co-writer and co-star Brit Marling on July 14, 2011, the conversation reflected that as it flowed from the confluence of physics and metaphysics, the individual universes of perecption, and the synchronicity of the number four. A soft-spoken woman, Marling has an infectious sense of wonder when speaking of the malleable nature of reality, and the artistry of her collaborator, director and co-writer Mike Cahill.

There are two versions of the interview, the longer includes bonus material about the symbolic meaning of having Africa appear on the second Earth, and a parsing of the words "charity" and "reparation" when dealing with the aftereffects of imperialism on that continent.

Joe Wright and Saoirse Ronan's previous collaboration on ATONEMENT resulted in an Oscar(tm) nomination for Ronan. Their latest project, HANNA, casts Ronan as a 16-year-old trained to be the perfect assassin, in a tale that combines elements of fairy tales and sharp social commentary on what our culture does and doesn't expect from the female of the species. When I spoke with them on April 8, 2011, the conversation covered the empowering quality of the fierce physcial training Ronan undertook, why the villain of the piece has red hair, and the possibility of a sequel with Wright directing the film form a story Ronan herself devises. 

Jennifer Lawrence gives an assured and raw performance as Ree Dolly, a girl taking on her rural Ozark community in director and co-writer Debra Granik's WINTER'S BONE. It's an impressive follow-up to her award-winning turn in Oscar Arriaga's BURNING PLAIN.

When I spoke with the actor and her director on April 30th, 2010, it was inevitable that one of the film's most shocking scenes, where Lawrence at Ree eviscerates a squirrel in order to feed her family, would be a topic of conversation. Granik, a vegetarian, talked about showing respect for the local culture in its depiction. Lawrence talked about being in character. Character and respect also came up in discussing how non-Ozark natives got the accent right, and in finding the key to a girl who can be so young and yet so driven.

For Ruba Nadda, CAIRO TIME was another chance to explore what is universal in all women, no matter what their ethnic or cultural background. The unexpected, and unlooked for, romance between a married American tourist and the Cairo native who was her husband's trusted employee, unfolds, as the title suggests, at a pace that is anything but western. Nadda is a prolific writer of fiction and maker of short films, though CAIRO TIME is only her second feature film, but one that returned to a theme of many of her works, the meeting of Islam and the west. It's a theme with which she, a Candadian Moslem of Arab descent, is very familiar.

When I spoke to Nadda on April 29, 2010, she was bouyed by the reception the film had been getting at film festivals around the world, including the San Francisco International, which she was attending. She was also eager to discuss the criticism leveled at her for he way she depicted Cairo, calling on the work of Edward Said to make her point, as well as why she prefers to work on the edge.

The Hidden World of Girls
Two New Hours from The Kitchen Sisters and NPR

With Host Tina Fey

The Hidden World of Girls, two new hour-long Specials hosted by Emmy Award-winning writer and actress, Tina Fey. Stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secret identities—of women who crossed a line, broke a trail, changed the tide. 

Host Tina Fey, star of 30 Rock, author of Bossypants and Saturday Night Live alumna, takes listeners around the world into the secret life of girls—from the dunes of the Sahara to a slumber party in Manhattan, from the dancehalls of Jamaica to a racetrack in Ramallah—and reveals some of her own hidden worlds.  

These two new specials are produced by the Peabody Award-winning Kitchen Sisters, in collaboration with NPR and independent producers from around the world.  Inspired by “The Hidden World of Girls” series heard on Morning Edition and “All Things Considered”, these specials feature the best stories from that series as well as new, never before heard features, interviews and music.  

Lively, sound-rich, evocative, “The Hidden World of Girls” is two hours of stories and more. Stories of girls and the women they become. 

As part of this international collaboration, The Kitchen Sisters opened up The Hidden World of Girls NPR phone line and invited listeners to share their stories of groundbreaking girls and pioneering women. Calls poured in from around the world and these stories and messages thread throughout the hours. Stories in this hour include:

• Horses, Unicorns and Dolphins—a story of girlhood fantasy and aspiration.
• From Afghanistan we enter The Hidden World of Kandahar Girls—girls and young women going to school, working towards careers, standing up to the threats of the Taliban.
• We explore the mysterious universe of women’s bodies in the story, Chicken Pills: The Hidden World of Jamaican Girls where homegrown cosmetic treatments and changing ideals of beauty are part of a national debate going on in the music, in the dancehalls and on the streets.
• Nigerian writer, Chris Abani tells the story of his English-born mother, Daphne Mae Hunt, who enlists him at age 8 to be her translator in rural Nigeria as she goes door-to-door into the villages teaching women the Billings Ovulation Method of birth control.
• In San Francisco, we step inside the secret identity of Theresa Sparks.
• We visit Tiina Urm, a young Estonian environmental activist who spearheaded a one-day clean up of her entire country.
• We meet Amira Al-Sharif from Yemen who came to New York City to document the lives of young American women.
• We go back stage with singer Janelle Monae and hear about her songwriting process.

Major Funding for The Hidden World of Girls comes from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art. And from listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions.

BILLBOARD :59
Incue: We call it the garbage map of Estonia.
Outcue: I’m your host Tina Fey.

NEWS HOLE: 1:00-6:00

SEGMENT A: 12:29
Incue: From The Kitchen Sisters and NPR, Welcome to the Hidden World of Girls.
Outcue: Back in a moment.

BREAK: 19:00-20:00

SEGMENT B (18:59)
Incue: You’re listening to The Hidden World of Girls.
Outcue: Back in a moment with stories from Yemen, the Fillmore and Kingston, Jamaica.

BREAK: 39:00-40:00 

SEGMENT C (18:59)
Incue: NPR’s Hidden World of Girls continues.
Outcue: With The Kitchen Sisters, I’m Tina Fey

Available now to all stations. Producer Paul Ingles hosts "The Emergence of Paul Simon," an engrossing two-hour special on the creative output of heralded songwriter Paul Simon. Ingles draws from an impressive guest roster to explore how Simon connected with audiences in the 1960s as part of Simon & Garfunkel, in the 1970s as a solo artist and in the 1980s when he re-emerged as a world star with the release of his Graceland album. Guest commentators include Simon biographer Patrick Humphries and music writers Ann Powers, Anthony DeCurtis, Paul Zollo, Lydia Hutchinson, Jim Fusilli and more. The program includes excerpts from several archival interviews of Simon and features musicians Joseph Shabalala, Shawn Colvin, Deborah Holland and several others. By mixing Simon's music from key moments in his career with informed commentary from musicians and music critics, "The Emergence of Paul Simon" articulates what two generations of music lovers have found so compelling about this thoughtful and innovative writer and performer.  Program begins with excerpts from Simon's 2011 release "So Beautiful or So What?"


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"...as stations air this special, we'll have radio listeners spending the better part of this show glued to their radios. Talk about your driveway moment! I am impressed by the sheer magnitude of this project that holds together very nicely from start to finish...." John Hingsbergen (WMUB)

It was a favourite of the Nazi Party; it was adopted by Communists to celebrate Marx’s ideals; it was played at the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate the collapse of Communism; and it’s currently the anthem of the European Union. Few pieces of music have been adopted to identify so many disparate groups. What is it about Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and the fourth movement in particular - the Ode to Joy - which inspires us?

Actor Michael York has had a highly successful career on stage, screen and TV. In this lecture he explains how perfoming the works of Shakespeare in his early career helped prepare him for roles he would play later on, and how the interpretations of the works of Shakespeare aren't as carved in stone as we might think.

An enlisted Union soldier in the American Civil War, Private Frank Thompson held a remarkable secret, for "he" was in fact a woman. Laura Leedy Gansler joins Talking History's Linna Place to shed some light on the life of Sarah Emma Edmonds, the young girl who transformed herself into Frank Thompson. Gansler, writer and lawyer, is author of The Mysterious Private Thompson: The Double Life of Sarah Emma Edmonds, Civil War Soldier. And Harvey Kaye joins us with a commentary he titles "Tom Paine's Counsel for A Time That Tries Men's Souls" and reflects on how the real vision and legacy of the Founding Fathers has been lost. Kaye is Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. The program features our regular features: History in the News and our recommendation for a Site of the Week.

Talking History's Fred Nielsen and author Jared Diamond delve into the interdependent relationship between a society's development and its environment. Jared Diamond is Professor of Geography and Physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an award winning author. His latest book, and the subject of our discussion is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. And we will air the last in our eight part series adapted from the unpublished manuscript "Recollections of Field Hospital Service During the War of Secession" by T.V. Brown.