Radio Galaxy

Chillag’s the blue guy. (I’m posting this from a hotel room in China, and I can’t quite tell if it works. If it doesn’t, try the direct link — it’s worth it.)

Click here to play.

It’s here. At last. My interview with Jim Shepard, author of Like You’d Understand, Anyway, the inaugural selection of the Radio Galaxy Book Club. Many thanks to Laura Conaway for technical support.

Shepard was an incredibly gracious interview subject. We talked for nearly an hour about the stories in the book—whose protagonists include an executioner during the French Revolution, a soldier in Hadrian’s army, and an engineer at the Chernobyl disaster. Shepard fielded questions from some of our loyal book club members, including Kymm in Barcelona and Seth in Kansas. I asked him about the prevalence of male suffering and ineptitude in his stories (he thinks women have a reason to care about this, too, despite Rebecca in Berlin’s opinions to the contrary). And he spoke compellingly about the writer’s duty to go out in the world and report on what he or she finds. “Part of the project of literature,” says Shepard, “is empathy.”

The piece is between 12 and 13 minutes long. Enjoy.

I’m working on a new selection, and will keep you posted.

The Adler Planetarium

I didn’t expect to question my self-worth as an astronomer while watching the third Presidential debate last night, but that’s what happened.

Sen. McCain’s relentless harping on Sen. Obama for destroying “Joe the Plumber’s” American dream was just too much. Let me tell you about my American dream. It has to do with stars.

I have been studying them my entire life. It began before my earliest memories, but once evident, my interest in everything celestial was supported by my mom, encouraged by my teachers, and bolstered by an elementary school field trip to a planetarium. Nothing special, just a high school in the area that was endowed well enough to have a small dome and an even smaller star projector. If I had to guess, I would say it couldn’t have cost more than $3,000. (And that was in 1986.) But the opportunity to actually see the motion of the planets and stars across the sky was — as the commercial says — priceless.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a great public school district in Northern Virginia where a field trip to such a high school was possible. For many students both then and now, this may not be the case. This is especially a tragedy for inner city students; those who can’t even see the stars on their own because the skies over their heads are lit day and night by the sun or the ever-increasing electric glow of urban life. The best way these students can get access to the stars is through a museum planetarium that can both educate and inspire. In Chicago, the Adler Planetarium fills this role. And yes, top of the line, robust, professional star projectors cost a pretty penny. About $3 million, as Sen. McCain is so fond of pointing out.

By categorizing this proposed expense (that Sen. Obama supported) as pork, Sen. McCain is belittling my American dream, and the dream of young kids who, after a trip to the Adler, might one day grow up to share my love of the universe. Planetariums such as the Adler are in a unique position to help inspire students to pursue science and math — something our country is in desperate need of as Sen. McCain himself acknowledged in last night’s debate.

I would like to remind Sen. McCain that the American dream comes in all shapes and sizes. Why does Joe the Plumber matter more than Summer the Astronomer? After all, my future observatory is going to require some plumbing.

Photo: Atelier Teee via Flickr

Without comment.

During last night’s vice presidential debate, Win Rosenfeld tweeted a happy first anniversary to the Bryant Park Project.

If we had made it to day two of our second year, I’d give better than even odds we’d have booked Politico’s Jim VandeHei to talk about Biden vs. Palin. He’s up there in video — better looking than I expected, for some reason — and I can’t help thinking his analysis would be so much more fun as a live talk on radio.

(Me, I’m living on Planet Money these days, all economy, all the time. Sarah Goodyear’s got the Book Club interview with Jim Shepard on the way. And I’m thinking of what more could be done with this space. Thanks for waiting it out with us.)

In New York, we bottle chutzpah

In case you hadn’t seen enough signs of the apocalypse lately, I’ll lay another one on you.

This businessman from Ohio came to New York in 2003, drank a glass of water, and got an idea. He’d put our local tap water in a bottle and sell it for a buck-fifty a pop. This is not a joke:

Tap’dNY is a New York City bottled water company with a local twist and knack for honesty. We don’t travel the world from Fiji to France seeking water or offer the usual bottled water gimmicks. We work with NYC’s public water system to source the world’s best tasting tap water, purify it through reverse osmosis and bottle it locally, leaving out ludicrous transportation miles.

We offer an honest and local alternative to thirsty New Yorkers, giving them a smarter choice: to drink their own (award winning) water.

I’m waiting for my fellow citizens to laugh this guy out of town. Please, people. Start laughing.

Anyone?

By now, I think all you Radio Galaxy Book Club people who intend to read Jim Shepard’s Like You’d Understand, Anyway along with us have probably gotten the book. I know some of you have read it. So it’s time to start getting questions together, because I have set a date to interview Shepard.

It’s going to happen October 1. And I want your help in figuring out what I’m going to talk with him about.

Then I’ll get you the results, in some form—audio, text, or a combination of the two.

Sound good? Get reading, and drop me your questions in the comments or by e-mail here.

In the meantime, check out the video above, in which Shepard reads from the book, starting with the beginning of the story “Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay.” It’s a brilliant example of his ability to enter a real historic moment and use it as a jumping-off place for creating characters.

If you want to learn more about the extraordinary events of July 9, 1958, in Lituya Bay, you could start here.

My father-in-law, Richard Goodyear, has revised his take on the present state of the electoral votes. A dedicated Obama supporter, he sees a mixed and still-evolving picture, writing:

[The] polls haven’t yet caught up with the Palin effect. Assuming that effect persists, the RCP Averages will catch up with it, and when it does the map, and the outcome in EVs, will change in McCain’s favor.

The new analysis is here.

This is Joe Biden, who's not as handsome as my father-in-law but looks a lot like him anyway.

Richard Goodyear, my father-in-law for exactly eight years today, has been an Obama supporter from way, way back. If he’d known young Barack as a grade schooler in Hawaii, he’d likely have started canvassing for him right then.

Sr. Goodyear (lucky guy lives in Spain now) is also possessed of an exact — and exacting — intelligence. He’s brilliant, stunningly so. While the rest of us have been toying around with outcomes on the various electoral map calculators of the world, he has been dissecting the one on Real Clear Politics. Here, from an Obama proponent’s perspective, is one of the most intriguing looks at the presidential race I’ve seen so far. (Hint: He says he’s now convinced he “should leave worry as a last resort.”)

Solid, Leaning and Toss Up States, an analysis by Richard Goodyear
Bonus: He’s also a lovely, lovely photographer.

UPDATE: His latest version considers the “Palin Effect.”

Got this from @eladyland. If nothing else, it’s amazing how much work went into it. (I’m guessing whoever made it is voting for Obama.)