Notebook on Cities and Culture

Colin Marshall talks to The Philadelphia Lawyer, author of both the web site of the same name and the book The Happy Hour is For Amateurs: A Lost Decade in the World's Worst Profession, which is now out in paperback. Combining Kafka-like tales of the gamesmanship and pedantry of the legal profession with vivid accounts of the intense debauchery required to counterbalance all that wasted time in the office, The Philadelphia Lawyer's web presence has attracted a large, devoted audience of disaffected litigators, suspicious law students and dedicated bacchanalists alike. His book brings the distinctive sensibility of his much-e-mailed stories into long-form narrative.

Colin Marshall talks to Laurie Brown and Andy Sheppard, host and producer, respectively, of The Signal on CBC Radio 2. Since debuting in March of 2007, the program has evolved to provide a highly distinctive listening experience that offers two skillfully-curated hours of late-night contemporary music to listeners across Canada — and, via the internet, the world — that's neither predictable nor easily genrefiable. Brown accompanies Sheppard's unusual sonic selections with commentary that's long impressed fans with its friendliness, intimacy and wealth of odd stories.

Colin Marshall talks to Peter Bagge, the comic artist behind the beloved series Hate as well as Apocalypse Nerd, Neat Stuff and Sweatshop. His new book, Everybody is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations, collects his stories originally written for the libertarian magazine Reason, works of comic journalism on such subjects as the Iraq war, gun control, the "War on Drugs" and Amtrak.

Colin Marshall talks to So Yong Kim, director of In Between Days, winner of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Prize for Independent Vision, and more recently Treeless Mountain, which is now available on DVD. The story of two very young sisters in Seoul left with their distant aunt while their mother searches for their absent father, the film belongs solidly to the realist tradition while evoking the scale, perspective and feel of childhood. The New York Times' A.O. Scott calls Treeless Mountain one of the "vital, urgent and timely" vanguard members of the new genre of "neo-neorealism."

Colin Marshall talks to Ken Freedman, general manager of Jersey City's WFMU, the longest-running freeform radio station in the United States. Since the mid-1980s, Freedman and his staff have made WFMU's name a byword for the modern freeform sensibility with a combination of, among other factors, early adoption of new distribution technology, avoidance of identity politics and pure, unadulterated unpredictability.

Colin Marshall talks to longtime Slate wine columnist Michael Steinberger, author of Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine and the End of France. An ardent culinary Francophile in earlier decades, Steinberger has, along with much of the rest of the food world, come to realize that a malaise has fallen upon the cuisine that once led the world in taste, artistry, experience and sophistication. Steinberger's book chronicles the history of French food, the recent developments that have forced it to face tough competition from countries like Spain and the United States and the importance of such things as the legality of lait cru cheese, the effects of viticultural subsidies and the fall of the once-almighty Michelin guide.

Colin Marshall talks to three music writers who have written books on English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, whose debut album Five Leaves Left originally shipped on September 1, 1969. Joining the conversation to celebrate the record's fortieth anniversary are Trevor Dann, former head of BBC Music Entertainment and author of Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake; Patrick Humphries, noted biographer of musicians and author of Nick Drake: The Biography, the very first book on the man; and Peter Hogan, author of Nick Drake: The Complete Guide to His Music and an enthusiast of Drake's music from the very beginning.

A conversation about religion and falsity with Joel Grus, humorist, atheist and author of Your Religion is False.

A conversation with Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University and founding blogger of Marginal Revolution. Cowen's new book is Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World.

A conversation with Greg Milner, who's written music and technology journalism for Spin, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Slate, Salon and Wired. His new book, Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, tracing the evolution of music's capture from Edison cylinders to vinyl albums to waveform synthesis.