I spoke with Steven Fechter about his newest novel -- "The Big Breeze" -- the story of Joseph Bye a phenom baseball pitcher who at the peak of his career was hit by a car and crippled. Eventually, he became a painter of baseball pitchers. Many years after the accident, he learned that he was run-over intentionally. In part this is the story of what Breeze will he do about it. But I did not want to ask Mr. Fechter about attempted murder but about baseball -- and an American culture obsessed with its heroes. “The Big Breeze” is a primer on the mind and spirit of the baseball pitcher – and how fame is treated in this country.

Mr. Fechter also wrote the play «The Woodsman» which he adapted for the film starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.

Fechter’s reputation was established when he won first prize in the 2001 Slamdance Screenwriting Competition for “The Woodsman.”

His website states his goal is to “write daring stories that take audiences into unfamiliar emotional spaces.”

Recorded at 5Napkins Burger on Broadway and W. 84th Street in Manhattan.

Alan Winson

barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca McKean and I started this program asking why so many U.S. Americans call Mayor Mamdani a "communist" and then explore the humanist idea that we all live in individual "landscapes" that form our perspectives and emotions -- and that those landscapes can be re-considered. We recorded at 5 Napkin Burger on Broadway and 84th Street in Manhattan -- speaking with David Andersson, the English-language editor of the Pressenza International Press Agency . We had talked with David in BCR #230 in June 2024 at the West Side Community Garden. And we invited N.J. high school honors student, Jeremy Maletzky -- who I had met at a talk at the Rosa Luxemburg Institute on ending the conflict in the Middle East a few weeks earlier -- to talk about "humanism" and the ideas of Mario Rodriguez Cobos -- an Argentinian, otherwise known as "Silo".

Alan Winson

barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A conversation with three men who recently traveled to Palestine to witness the state of Palestinian Christian communities living in Israel-occupied West Bank. What they experiences was horrific and hopeful. Horrific in the brutality of the young Israeli settler gangs and hopeful in the readiness of the Palestinian Christians to be accepted into a peaceful, co-existence with their Israeli neighbors. Their sojourn was organized by the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center located in Jerusalem. Sabeel organizes "Witness Visits" to Israel and Palestine; participants experience life under occupation in the West Bank firsthand, engage with Palestinian Christians and other activists, and then share their experiences in order to motivate positive change.

This BCR program was recorded at Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar.

Alan Winson -- Host

barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.