Episode 519. Remembering Sam Williams

Published by austin on November 21, 2016November 21, 2016

“We were devastated to learn our friend Sam Williams of the Flying Karamazov Brothers (right) died last Friday night. We had only recently just spent time with him, recorded a podcast with him, and were looking forward to our next visit. In this episode, we share more of our conversation with Sam and talk about memories of Bill Graham, the benefits of audiences who are self-medicating, the tricks of comic timing with large (and largely stoned) audiences, misadventures with Jerry Garcia’s BMW, doing good work with Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute, traveling with a modern-day Chautauqua, memories of the Oregon Country Fair, the sophisticated science of naming tour buses, and modern heroism. A great spirit has gone. We will miss him. Hear Sam’s previous podcast chat about the Flying Ks here. (Length 19:51)

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Michelle’s ‘Green World’

Michelle Ephraim – a Professor of English and (with Caroline Bicks), the cohost of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast and the co-author of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas – joins us this week to talk about her frank and funny new book, Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare. Michelle reveals she discovered Shakespeare surprisingly late; how “fun” is a a perfectly fine description of her sometimes fraught memoir; the shared curse of meeting hero Stephens; how Shakespeare became a source of both pain and solace in the wake of a parent’s death; how her relatively cushy job became surprisingly hazardous; and, finally, how Shakespeare – a dead European white man – became a very relatable force for inclusion. (Length 19:31)

Visiting ‘Shakespeare’s House’

Richard Schoch discusses Shakespeare’s House: A Window Onto His Life and Legacy, his wonderful new history of not only the building in Stratford-upon-Avon that William Shakespeare was born in, but how that building survived and became ground zero in the Shakespeare tourism industry. Schoch reveals how he discovered the dual focus of his book; how it took almost 200 years for people to realize the treasure that still stood in their midst; the shenanigans played by people who first depicted Shakespeare’s birthplace; the important distinctions between restoring a house and remaking it; the trick of hitting that sweet spot between writing an academic history and a popular one; and how the most important person in Shakespeare’s birthplace is not Shakespeare but the visitor. (Length 18:52)

All Our Yesterdays

Joel H. Morris discusses his debut novel All Our Yesterdays – no, not the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Original Series – which tells the compellingly plausible story of the events that lead up to William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Morris reveals his multiple inspirations, both literary and personal; how investigations into the actual historical couple Shakespeare based his play on informed his novel; the ways in which writing is a process of discovery; how he balanced the political and the personal, the natural and supernatural; how he summoned the courage to explore one of literature's most famous characters; and the wonderful inability to let go of characters that won’t let you go. (Length 22:56)

2 Comments

austin · November 25, 2016 at 6:22 pm

Thanks, Howard. Sending big love and hugs to you and yours. We have more recorded chat with Sam and will post it in a few weeks.

Howard Patterson · November 22, 2016 at 5:47 pm

That was hard to listen to, and great. I’m sort of wallowing in Sam at this point – thanks for posting this. It’s all so sudden – still doing our best to adjust. Much love,

Howard Patterson
aka Ivan Karamazov