Program

Traditional folk songs: works of unknown origin or undetermined attribution as to author or composer, with most of the recordings made before 1970. Featured artists will include the Gateway Singers, Joan Baez, the Journeymen, Odetta, the Limeliters, Carolyn Hester, Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Burl Ives, Barbara Dane and more

Find out on Saturdays when WICN features classic swing, big band music and all those great songs the world has come to love.
Join Howard Caplan from 8am-noon and hear artists from Cab Calloway to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Dianna Krall. Howard’s program mix is full of surprises and genuine enthusiasm. A great way to start your Saturday morning!
At noon, join Joe Slezik on a Jazz Matinee and go back in time when singers could sing and all the bands could swing! Joe spins hard to find vinyl records all afternoon until 4 pm. tune in and hear artists as diverse as the Hi-Lo’s, Jack Jones, Art Van Damme, Doris Day, Matt Monroe and more. How about big band arrangements from Nelson Riddle and Billy May? It’s all here exclusively on WICN every Saturday afternoon. Join us as we take you to another place and time…and some of the greatest music in the world!

This Monday on a Tasteful Blend, join your host Tyra Penn in a musical celebration of Cinco de Mayo, one of the major national holidays of Mexico. All morning long, tune in for Latin and Pan-Caribbean jazz, with a special nod to Mexican-American jazz artists and composers like Poncho Sanchez, Lila Downs, Victor Mendoza...even Carlos Santana!

A Crying Saucer!

THOMAS CATHCART and DANIEL KLEIN return to Inquiry to talk about the logical fallacies that make up most of what we call political discourse. Talking to Tom and Dan is like trying to converse with some mad mythological creature that is part stand-up comedian, part Harvard philosophy professor. Hilarious and thought provoking. Tune in for another wild and wooly discussion as Thomas and Daniel  talk about their new book: Aristotle and an Aardvark go to Washington: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes.  

Is there life on other planets in our solar system? Is there a galactic civilization that occupies this tiny end of the universe? If there are aliens out there, how come we haven’t bumped into them yet? As Enrico Fermi put it: “Where is everybody?” Tonight on Inquiry, JEFFREY BENNETT, astrophysicist, author and educator will attempt to answer some of these questions. His very scientific approach to the search for life on other world is titled BEYOND UFOS: THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE AND IT’S ASTONISHING INPLICATIONS FOR OUR FUTURE. Tune in and find out why crop circles are a really dumb idea.

John Patitucci at Kennedy Center Jazz Club
There's an array of basses, guitars and drums onstage for John Patitucci, Larry Koonse and Brian Blade. An array of music as well, by Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and Frederic Mompou (1893-1987) of Barcelona. "Jesus is on the Mainline" is the closer.

Clayton Brothers at 2008 University of Michigan Jazz Festival
After the Los Angeles bassist John and saxophonist Jeff Clayton spend the day coaching eager students in snowy Ann Arbor, their quintet premieres arrangements of music inspired by other brothers in jazz.

One of the most unique and fascinating social histories of America is JEFF WILTSE’s CONTESTED WATERS: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF SWIMMING POOLS IN AMERICA. On tonight’s Inquiry, Wiltse, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Montana, describes how public pools were originally designed as bathhouses for the urban poor. But over the course of the first half of the 20^th Century, as the function of pools changed, these municipal spaces became the focus for heated and often-ugly debates about class, race and sexual equality that culminated in violence and riots. Tune in for a little known, but important, history of America! 

Put down that iPod and take a hike! That’s some of what RICHARD LOUV recommends in his book Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. What is happening to the minds and bodies of this current generation of children who seem to never experience the out of doors? Louv talks about the numerous health benefits to our children that time playing in that local woodlot or field can offer and why many parents fear letting their children roam outside. 

Did you know that 58% of the area of the lower 48 states no longer supports natural vegetation? Or that 57% of all ecological communities in the United States are “imperiled” or “vulnerable”? One of the important indicators of these recent environmental changes are the dramatic decreases in certain bird populations. Birds are important indicators of the “health” of our environment and their declines are due to factors like climate change, habitat loss and degradation, poor water management and the effects of sprawl. On Inquiry tonight is JEFFREY V. WELLS, Senior Scientist for the Boreal Song Bird Initiative, Visiting Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and former Director of Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society. His new book THE BIRDER’S CONSERVATION HANDBOOK: 100 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS AT RISK, lists those species most at risk and what can be done about it.  

Roses may be red, and violets of course may be blue, but why? Why is one rose white while another is pink? On Inquiry we speak with DAVID LEE, Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University and Director of the Kampong of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Miami. Lee’s NATURE’S PALETTE: THE SCIENCE OF PLANT COLOR is one of the few books that combines a deep knowledge of organic chemistry with an artistic love of the aesthetics of plants in the garden and forest. Lee explains why leaves, flowers, seeds and bark are the colors they are. Tune in and find out about leaves that can quickly change color back and forth, the mysterious iridescent plants of the jungle floor, why blue flowers are so damned strange and how some flowers can even look like rotting meat. 

Inquiry has a fascinating talk with writer and journalist MARK HARRIS about the evolution of Hollywood films in the 1960s by closely looking at the trials and tribulations of the films: The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? and Dr. Doolittle. By meticulously examining how these movies got produced, cast and directed, all films up for Best Picture in 1968, Harris paints a vivid portrait of the “Old” and “New” Hollywood in the 60s. His endlessly entertaining history PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD is crammed with enough crazy stories and wild dish to keep the most jaded film fanatic satisfied. 

Inquiry welcomes back DANIEL H. PINK, writer and lecturer on economic transformation and the rapidly changing world of work. Daniel has written a new career guide unlike any other you have seen before. It’s a manga, and a highly entertaining one at that. Tune in as we talk about THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY BUNKO: THE LAST CAREER GUIDE YOU WILL EVER NEED.

Writer, artist and teacher PAUL KARASIK has collected the works of one of the most bizarre and unique comic book artists that ever put pen to superhero. Fletcher Hanks worked for third-rate comics in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s.  Till now, his strange tales of banshee-like jungle goddesses and vengeful intergalactic superheroes with insane powers have only been known to a select few collectors. Karasik aptly describes Fletcher Hank’s style as “harsh and naïve, ugly and beautiful, loud and silent as a tomb.” Paul Karasik has collected some of Hanks’ works in his new book: FLETCHER HANK'S: I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS. But that’s only part of the story. Karasik then decided to track down the real Fletcher Hanks. Find out the rest of this unique tale of art and torment tonight on Inquiry.

 

At 9:30, Inquiry welcomes back artist and teacher SUSAN SWINAND. Susan will talk about her stunning new work and her upcoming exhibition. To see some examples of Susan’s rambunctious and wild paintings, go to: