There Weren't Even Any Mice Stirring

The latest New Yorker Out Loud podcast, an interview with Louis Menand about parody, has him reading a parody of the Night Before Christmas in the style of Ernest Hemingway, by James Thurber . Listen here and fast forward to 4:30.

Tina Brown on NPR

Tina Brown, currently the editor of The Daily Beast, has been making appearances on NPR for about a year, where she discusses newspaper and magazine articles. I really like her picks and her perspective, which tends to be broad, editorial and oriented toward the social sciences.

This particular piece is one of the best ones, from last May, about privacy:


NPR Site for the segment
MP3 Download

Past NPR segments featuring Tina Brown (among many):
August 25, 2010
June 16, 2010
April 1, 2010
May 25, 2010

Oliver Sacks on Face Blindness

I have some complaints about The New Yorker Out Loud podcast, in particular the strange intro that implies there are audio stories coming up which don't actually exist (they're just print stories), but as with the magazine I am often drawn to its topics and personalities, like this short interview with Oliver Sacks. There isn't much heft to this interview but it's a nice opportunity to hear Oliver Sacks' voice, which somehow sounds both affectionately sheepish and lofty.
 A good companion to this would be this fascinating story from the BBC about super recognizers, people who are the opposite of face blind.

Page from the New Yorker for this podcast
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