Limited Engagement

On this week’s show, conversation and music with Arizona Blues Hall of Fame inductee Scotty Spenner. Our talk went all over the place, and I had a blast. You can catch Scotty playing with with True Flavor Blues every Sunday afternoon at Copper Star Coffee, or in Celtic rock band Saints of Eirinn. Friday night, September 29th, he’ll be playing a solo gig presented by Emancipation Arts at The Trunk Space. Listen to Scotty’s playing at the end of the show, and you’ll hear exactly why you should go.

This week's Limited Engagement features four of the five members of The SunPunchers: Betsy Ganz, Jon Rauhouse, Serena Fonze, and Dominic Armstrong (Lindsay Cates was not in attendance). These four fantastic musicians crammed their gear into our front room, played two gorgeous songs ("Hold You Now" and "Sodium Pentothal Blues"), then sat and talked to me for about an hour or so. Have I ever mentioned how much I love having musicians on the show? If I haven't, you should know that it is a tremendous amount. You can get The SunPuncher's EP, Honey, on their website, and their first full-length album, Levity (which is one of my favorite albums of 2017 thus far), is available on Bandcamp, or you can pick up a copy locally over at Stinkweeds.

On this week's show, our 53rd, I had the great pleasure of speaking to Nazlah Hassan, the founder of Gift Children Books, an organization with the mission of getting books in the hands of children from families with economic hardships who would otherwise be unable to afford them. The organization holds annual bookfairs in Harlem and Phoenix, and the Phoenix bookfair will take place on November 11th at Booker T. Washington Child Development Center. November 4th, in the same location from 9 am to 5 pm, Gift Children Books is holding a fundraising book sale where members of the public will have the opportunity to purchase from a selection of 1500 titles written by and about African Americans. Visit http://giftchildrenbooks.org/ for more details.

LE 52 contains some thoughts on the institution of marriage and weddings themselves; reviews of the record and bookstores we went to; talk of breakfast food, a particularly delicious cookie sandwich, and our lack of culinary adventurousness; reflections on Chicago; and an explanation of how the unifying thread of this entire trip was the Tom Waits song “Better Off Without a Wife.” If this sort of stream of consciousness thing appeals to you, then this week’s show is so far up your alley, it’s tickling your tonsils.

This week’s show is the second in an ongoing series of conversations with non-profit arts and culture organizations based here in the valley. Kids Need to Read “works to create a culture of reading for children by providing inspiring books to underfunded schools, libraries, and literacy programs across the United States, especially those serving disadvantaged children.” Representing the organization in this conversation are Founder and Executive Director, Denise Gary and Operations Director, Lori Cothrun. Visit Kids Need to Read at http://www.kidsneedtoread.org/ to learn even more about the organization and how you can support their mission.

LE 50 - Chatterpod pilot by Limited Engagement

This week on the show, I talk to Sophie Etchart, founder of Read Better Be Better, an organization committed to improving reading proficiency in 3rd graders. It was an amazingly insightful conversation, and the way RBBB trains and empowers 8th graders to work with 3rd graders to improve their skills is one of the most moving stories I’ve ever heard. Listen to the show, and then go learn what you can do to support RBBB’s mission.

This week’s show is the second half of my conversation with writer, editor, MFA candidate, and all around awesome lady, Leah Newsom. There is a lot of tattoo talk in this half, which I was very interested in, and may have changed my entire attitude on how I approach getting a tattoo. Be sure to check out the literary journal Leah co-founded, Spilled Milk.

I had a nice long chat with Leah Newsom, so here is another part one of two. I’ve known Leah for years, but I didn’t know know her, so we talked about it all—coasters, tissue, Myspace, family, religion, writing, the MFA life, travel, tattoos, deep stuff. Leah is a co-founder and editor of Spilled Milk, an online literary journal focusing on ultra-short form—"a highly caffeinated alternative to mindlessly scrolling your infinite, mundane newsfeeds."

This week’s show is part deux of my conversation with Ernesto Moncada. I’m sure I said something last week, but I really enjoyed talking to Ernesto, and I’m excited for you to hear the rest of our conversation. There is more on the notion of things lost in translation, we get to hear some about his experience transitioning from the Mexican literary scene to the arts and culture scene here in Phoenix, and much more.

This week’s show is the first of another two-parter. I packed the recording gear into a bag, traveled down to Ernesto Moncada’s place, and we sat at his kitchen table discussing anything that came to mind. There was very good coffee involved. Ernesto pretty much does it all: he’s a writer, actor, teacher, comedian, artist, he just directed a wonderful version of Paul Auster’s Laurel and Hardy Go to Heaven, and he’s a wizard on the stilts. No, that’s not a typo. Ernesto’s got some amazing stories, and it was a great conversation.

This week, we’ve got part two of my conversation with Four Chambers founder, Jake Friedman. We talk more about writing in this one, specifically Jake as a writer, and how what he wants to do as a writer plays into what we’re looking to publish as a press. Which is timely, because Four Chambers is open for full length manuscript submissions through July 31st. Visit the FCP website for guidelines and a link to our Submittable page.

This week I talk to the founder and editor-in-chief of Four Chambers Press, Jake Friedman. Jake’s been on the show a couple of times, but it was either as part of a panel, or as the guest host for the second anniversary show, so he came over, we hung out, then we got on the mics and talked—a lot. We talked for about two and a half hours, so this is a two-parter. We talk about publishing and writing, craft and process. If that’s your thing, these shows will be right up your alley.

This week, I talk to ASU professor and drummer extraordinaire, Mike Pfister. Mike was an early supporter of this show, originally as part of the audience, and then as an integral part of the live show, performing opening sets with PressPlay, and more recently the experimental jazz quartet, Klee. I've known Mike for years and have worked on a number of projects with him, but I found I didn't know much about him personally, so I learned a lot through our conversation.

This week's episode is a conversation with Sean David Christensen (http://www.seandavidchristensen.com/). Sean is promoting his short film, The Duel (https://www.duel-film.com/), which has had screenings at the Athens International Film and Video Festival and the San Francisco Documentary Festival, and can be seen at the Marfa Film Festival this July. He’s also done a number of other short films which you can find on Vimeo, he’s a frequent storyteller at Chatterbox and Bar Flies, and he’s in the band Maggie Dave (https://www.maggiedave.com/). I had a great time talking to Sean, and you should definitely check out his work. The soundscape you hear at the end of the show was created by Rafael Anton Irisarri for The Duel.