Jesse Thorn has been interviewing comedians and hip-hop artists and other creative people for over twenty-five years. He started with a college radio show and he just kept going. His show, The Sound of Young America, got picked up by public radio stations, and he eventually changed the name to Bullseye, probably because he was no longer quite so young. One of the effects of having started a radio show in college and turning it into a career is that Jesse Thorn never went to journalism school. Because of that, in 2017 he decided to do a series of interviews with interviewers about interviewing. That’s his description. It’s called The Turnaround, and he talked with a lot of legends, including public radio favorites Terry Gross and Ira Glass. In this conversation, Jesse and Alex discuss what he’s learned about interviewing—from those interviews and from doing it for a quarter century. Kismet, Bloomington’s Newest Literary Magazine (as far as we can tell) Kismet started because its publishers—specifically M.J. Woods and Bry Best—had noticed a lacuna in the world of speculative fiction magazines. They longed for a magazine that did a few specific things, which they listed in their first issue: Intentionally created a community of its own Focused on frequently marginalized voices, non-Western perspectives, transgressive ideas, etc. Functioned between media and academia, both putting out the content and discussing it critically. Then they realized: they could make that magazine. The Kismet is what resulted. We talk with Editor-in-Chief M.J. Woods, Co-Founder and Developmental Editor Bry Best, and Managing Editor and Oracle Sarah Johnson LaBarbera about the story of its founding, what they hope to accomplish, and why developmental editing is such an important part of their mission. The Personal Made Visible At the end of every academic year, the Eskenazi School of Art Architecture and Design presents a thesis show including work from each of the graduating Master of Fine Arts students. The show is a professional exhibit in the Grunwald Gallery in the Fine Arts Building on the IU campus in Bloomington. To accommodate the graduating students, and to give their work room to breathe, they divide them into two shows. In the second round this spring was an exhibition by Sookyung Augustin called (in)Visible Identity: All the Little Things. Moved by Augustin’s work, Kayte Young reflects on art and connection. Your Name Means Dream Preview Relationships with chatbots, with AI, with robots, whatever we want to call them – these are situations we have to face right now. And Jewish Theatre Bloomington will be helping us think through that with their latest production. It’s called Your Name Means Dream. It runs May 7 through 17 at the Waldron Rose Firebay. We spoke with the director, Martha Jacobs, and one of the two actors, Diane Kondrat, about the upcoming production. Kayte Young, Alex Chambers and Tyler Lake, produce the show and we get production help from Danny William, Karl Templeton, Jillian Blackburn and Jonah Ballard. Our theme music was composed and performed by Alan Davis. Additional music from Universal Production Music. The executive producer is Eric Bolstridge
