The Next Big Thing Archive

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September 2004

Loyal Fans

Friday, September 24, 2004

What makes someone a loyal fan – of, say, a long-forgotten essayist, a losing baseball team, the New York City Subway, or the synthesizer? We explore this question with the help of writer Nicholas Dawidoff, cultural critic Harold Bloom, journalist Allan Jalon, pianist Geri Allen and others. Also this week, sex columnist Dan Savage shows his stuff to activist lexicographer Erin McKean.

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Inside

Friday, September 17, 2004

From the bedroom to Baghdad, we hear from people who don’t get out as much as they used to. They include elderly participants in a telephone sing-along, an American artist living in Baghdad, and a father doing time for white collar crimes his daughter doesn’t believe he committed. On the lighter side, we’ve got a bedroom-based two-man band called "The Books," and sex columnist Dan Savage (who, needless to say, is rarely able to get his mind out of the bedroom).

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Alamo: A Radio Play

Friday, September 10, 2004

A radio play written by Rick Moody about the characters, stories and theorizations that converge at the base of a big, black cube in downtown Manhattan. Featuring, among others, Ethan Hawke, Miranda July and Larry Pine, this is no ordinary radio drama. It incorporates all kinds of sounds and voices - cell phone calls, answering machine messages, and the music and noise you find on city streets – cinema for your ears only.

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Endangered

Friday, September 03, 2004

This Week: The Next Big Thing explores all-things-ephemeral. Bird enthusiast Brad Klein marks the 90th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, while activist-lexicographer Erin McKean labors to save words that are teetering on the brink of extinction. Plus, the latest in Harvard Square hamburger fads. Also, we slip inside the mind of a flea market collector and a living room concert from singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia.