Wednesday, November 13 - novelist Nicholson Baker

Wednesday night at 8 PM on Bibliocracy Radio, KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California:  NICHOLSON BAKER.  The fictional poet-anthologist introduced in an earlier and much-acclaimed novel is back in Nicholson Baker’s continuing fictional documentary self-narration of his life titled, self-consciously and hilariously, Traveling Sprinkler.  The also wonderfully named anti-hero Paul Chowder, almost age 55,  hosts his own make-believe public radio show in his car, and behaves, stubbornly yet as easily as your favorite eccentric next-door neighbor as local purveyor of a certain kind of charming.  He integrates big ideals and ambitions into the hapless and tragic-comic.  Selfish but humane, big-hearted yet impulsive, Paul’s response to big problems or issues – the war, US drones, love – is asymmetrical and kind of nutty, but most of all it allows him to become and inhabit and exist with the urgency and futility of, not poetry this time, but song, rhythm, music, beats.  Nicholson Baker is the acclaimed author of nine novels and nonfiction as well, The Anthologist being the earlier, wildly popular first part of the Paul Chowder story.  It probably does not matter which you read first, but for sentence-level hilarity, wit, deadpan existential arias and joy, joy, joy at idiom, detail and the everyday profound power of words, Nicholson Baker is one of our best.  What a great writer.  What a cool radio show.  You can listen to it on the radio live, or online and, yes, as a free download on your computer, shoe phone, or traveling sprinkler anytime you like, as long as it’s in the next 90 days.  Thanks for supporting commercial-free anti-corporate genuine community media. Oh, and if you'd like more of my take on Baker, here's the link to a recent OC Bookly piece:  http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/10/nicholson_baker.php