Hour 25
July 31st, 2005
I’d heard of Hour 25, a radio talk show about science fiction which has been running on noncommercial radio in Los Angeles for some thirty years now, but I didn’t realise that the show was available online.
I spent some time today listening to an interview with Terry Pratchett from late last year; with an hour to talk, the format allows plenty of space for an author to relax and ramble on about much more than their latest book. The web site has audio of shows going back to 2000 (not to mention some readings of classic SF and fantasy stories), so I think I know what I’m going to be listening to over the next few nights.
[Via MetaFilter]
July 31st, 2005 at 11:38 pm
Also, my old friend from over 20 years ago, Jim Freund has been hosting Hour of the Wolf on WBAI in NYC for that many years (succeeding Baird Searles and Margot Adler). (I was on the show a number of times Back In The Day.)
It’s actually on at a much more reasonable time in the UK.
Some interview transcripts.
I’d thought I’d blogged the Hour 25 site some years ago, but a quick check didn’t turn up such a post.
July 31st, 2005 at 11:57 pm
I’ve been following various SF podcast/online streaming links since making this post, and I’d come across that page about Hour of the Wolf. However, when I skimmed the page I thought it said 5 to 7pm, which wouldn’t work terribly well for us right-pond types. Thanks for pointing out my mistake.
August 1st, 2005 at 8:56 pm
No, it was always great fun to appear on the show, since it pretty much meant staying up all night, and then leaving around 3 a.m. to take slow-running subways to get to the deserted area the station is in and try to find a way to signal the person inside to let one in.
Even getting up at 5 a.m. was a delight.
Now that it’s on at, in my present time zone, 3-5 a.m., somehow I seem to not often remember to be awake. Funny, that. (Besides, calling in is a lot more expensive from here.)
Seriously, in my very-not-recent experience, sometimes Jim has fine shows and guests, and occasionally it’s more a mix of music and older taped stuff, so it’s a bit hit-and-miss, but generally or at least frequently, has some good stuff.
August 1st, 2005 at 11:18 pm
Having listened to some fairly uninspired SF-related podcasts over the last 24 hours, I’m more than happy to give a show with a bit of a pedigree like Hour of the Wolf a chance. I suppose that the show’s host is at the mercy of authors’ tour schedules, so I’ll cut it some slack and give the show a few weeks to impress me.
August 2nd, 2005 at 12:11 am
“I suppose that the show’s host is at the mercy of authors’ tour schedules….”
To some degree, sure, but also on the one hand, there are plenty of skiffy folk in the city to have in, but on the other hand, they have to be people willing to stay up all night and do as above. :-)
Jim has quite a huge library of taped readings and convention talks to draw on from the past few decades, as well, and also some dramatizations, dating back quite a ways.
At least the time slot, and subject, has pretty much kept the station, a font of internal politics that often has spilled out into the news (WBAI has a long pedigree of Pacifica Foundation leftism), from ever messing with the program. Mostly.