Riverside Chats

In the Midwest, we love our cars: fast cars, big cars, small cars, loud cars, quiet cars, different cars for different occasions like shoes. Car culture, in other words, is often indistinguishable from Midwest culture, and has been for so long that it feels natural. But what if it's not?

On today's show, Daniel Knowles makes the case that cars are ruining the world while making us unhappy and unhealthy—the subject of his new book, Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It. Talking with Tom Knoblauch, Knowles outlines the rise of cars around the world, their economic and health impacts, how this warps the design of cities, and what it might look like to envision a future reliant on public transportation.

In China, the phrase “to eat bitterness” means to persist through hardship without complaint. Artist Jennifer Ling Datchuk used the idiom to title her collection of new and recent work, comprising ceramics, textiles, video and other mediums. Datchuk is a Texas-based artist of Irish and Chinese ancestry.

In this conversation with Maria Corpuz, she discusses her work, which explores the intersections of her own identity, as well as the role of women and global labor inequality. Through material culture, the history of craft, and by championing the handmade, Datchuk challenges the social, political, and cultural systems that continue to hold women back. “Eat Bitterness” is on display at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts through September 17.

Chalis Bristol, AKA Crabrangucci, was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. She has been actively involved in the music community for years, and has played over 250 shows since 2021. She features an eclectic mix of genres from indie rock to Top 40, to house music, and K-Pop. Bristol also won the 2022 and 2023 Omaha Entertainment & Arts award for “Outstanding DJ.” Additionally, she is the Assistant Director of Sales & Marketing at the Omaha Symphony and a board member at Omaha Girls Rock.

Today she talks with Michael Griffin about her experiences finding music through the internet while growing up in Omaha, the role that DJs have in crafting an inviting space for people to hear something new, and the unlikely connection between dance and classical music.

Alajia McKizia was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. She’s had varied experiences in the local arts community, including as a studio assistant at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at multiple Nebraska galleries including the Union for Contemporary Art, Kaneko and the Tugboat Gallery. She’s also performed with African Culture Connection and .tbd Dance collective.

On today's show, Michael Griffin is in conversation with McKizia about her life, journey, and the upcoming Juneteenth Joy Fest arts and culture festival, which supports Black entrepreneurs and artists in celebration of the Juneteenth holiday. The festival is this Saturday, June 17  from noon to 10 p.m. on North 24th Street.

Because Nebraska has been the birthplace of a relatively small number of Hollywood legends, you end up hearing the same names over and over again. And one name anyone listening to this has likely heard of, whether or not they've watched the movies, is Fred Astaire. Astaire was born in Omaha in 1899 and went on to star on stage and screen in a number of highly acclaimed musicals and Hollywood's Golden Age, such as Top Hat and Swing Time. What you may not know is that Fred Astaire had a sister, Adele Astaire, who was also a successful dancer. On today's show, Tom Knoblauch is in conversation with Eliza Knight, whose new novel is Starring Adele Astaire, delving into the life and career of this often overlooked historical figure.

In 1919, Nebraska enacted a statute known at the Siman Act, which restricted the use and study of foreign languages in the classroom. A year later in Hampton, Nebraska, a parochial school instructor named Robert Meyer was convicted under the law for teaching German to a 10-year-old boy. The case made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court in Meyer v. Nebraska, which ruled in Meyer’s favor in 1923. The Court declared the law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

On today's show, Jessica Lander discusses her new book Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education with Maria Corpuz. The book, which is available now, covers Meyer v. Nebraska and other key historical moments to look at the past, present and future of immigrant education in America.

Marcey Yates is a hip hop artist and community advocate who was born and raised in North Omaha. He won the 2021 and 2022 Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards album of the year for “Culxr House: Freedom Summer," released on Omaha’s Saddle Creek Records. On today's show, Yates is in conversation with Michael Griffin about the role of culture in establishing a relationship between art and advocacy, his artist process when making music, as well as the creation of Culxr House, an organization in North Omaha providing community space for musical entrepreneurs to enrich their talent while lessening social and economic disparities.

Audiences are very concerned with genres–is it a comedy? Is it drama? Is there sci-fi? Especially when it comes to works of art that emulate life, it can be difficult to say our lives fit into neat genres. Life is often difficult, funny, scary, and sweet–sometimes within a few hours. Today Megan Tady is in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about her new book, Super Bloom, which balances tragedy, humor, and insight on how we move forward and reinvent ourselves through art. The book follows massage therapist Joan Johnston, who is grieving the death of her boyfriend as she works at an iconic Vermont spa and finds a way forward through writing, and it is available now wherever you get books.

Paul Thomas Anderson may be one of the last American auteurs. The term, which means author in French, grew out of the French New Wave and eventually made its way to America by the 1960s where the director asserted control and authorship over his–and it often was his–films. The concept has come to represent a kind of rebellion against the corporate content machine, a lone, independent cowboy of authenticity in the arts. And yet today, while the theory is still around, it’s difficult for a filmmaker to sustain commercial viability as a brand while the film industry finds itself shifting in the streaming age.

On today's show, Ethan Warren, whose new book is The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha, is in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about the changing landscape of American cinema, the legacy of Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed films like There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread, and Boogie Nights, and what his influence on the medium might be going forward.

It's not unusual among educated Nebraskans to hold the expectation that, if you’re an ambitious young person in this state, you’ll leave. This is within a moment where, over the past decade, the Nebraska Examiner has reported that “more people have continued to leave than enter Nebraska from other states, and the loss is heavily those with an education level of at least a bachelor’s degree.” Today Dr. Josie Schafer, director of the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about her research on Nebraska’s concerning demographic trends, the root causes of brain drain, and what steps may be taken to mitigate concerns as job requirements shift over the coming decades.

Later in the show, Joshua LaBure reviews 'Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda.'