See transcript below.

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You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Christine Sismondo, cocktail columnist and author of America Walks into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops.

Transcript
Christine Sismondo: American bars are a lot more dynamic in general. As soon as we, we drove here, and we stopped in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We went to Ruby Tuesday.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Christine: And, I mean, it’s not exactly painkiller, right? You know, this is a chain bar. And I looked at the menu and they had pretty good cocktails, and everyone at the bar was talking to each other!

Michelle Rafferty: What did you get?

Christine: Oh, I think I just had a margarita.

(Soundbite of Ben Daniels Band’s “Drippin’ Indigo”)

Michelle: Hello and welcome to The Oxford Comment. I’m Michelle here with the lovely-

Justyna Zajac: Justyna.

Michelle: And you just heard us chatting at the local bar The Ginger Man with author Christine Sismondo who just wrote a book for us called America Walks into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops.

Justyna: And Christine is Canadian. She is also a cocktail columnist and actually schooled Michelle and I on the fact that American bars are superior to Canadian bars and that even includes our lovable chain Ruby Tuesday.

Michelle: Justyna, I’m looking at their menu right now, their cocktail menu, and they have something called a “Ruby Relaxer” which has been around for 35 years. Ooo and they also have something called a “Lavender Pear Martini” which is new, a “Watermelon Martini” and, a “Pomegranate Margarita.” I think these all sound like very promising drinks for the holiday weekend.

Justyna: I agree. Like the “Lynchburg Lite Lemonade Jack Daniel’s Lemon Juice.”

Michelle: Mmm. Which brings us to the real reason we’re having the podcast today. What better way to celebrate America than with drinks?

Justyna: Happy Birthday America!

(Soundbite of glasses and Ben Daniels Band’s “Drippin’ Indigo”)

Michelle: That was the sound of two cocktail glasses toasting. And without further ado, we take you back to the bar for the rest of our conversation with cocktail expert Christine Sismondo. She’s Canadian and proud, but does admit America has way better bars.

Christine: American bars are much more interesting for the large part than Canadian bars and they have better selection of drinks because of where I live in Ontario. We are first of all, the equivalent of a control state, like Pennsylvania where it’s very hard to get interesting liquor in.

Michelle: What does that mean, a “control state”?

Christine: In the liquor legislation there are some control states in the United States, which are states where the sale and importing and distribution of alcohol is controlled by the actual state. New York State is not one of them. That’s one of the reasons why New York is relatively cheap, fairly vibrant, has a lot different selection. Pennsylvania on the other hand, it’s a much tighter control over the type of liquor. And Ontario, where I live, is absolutely atrocious, and it’s just starting to get a little bit better. For example, we didn’t have legal cocktails in bars until 1947. And I can remember when I was a kid you could never just walk through a store to buy your liquor or your beer. You had to go up to a counter, just like you were getting a prescription at a drug store, and put in your order, and then somebody would go to the back and get you your little mickey of gin and sell it to you. And you had to have ID, and some places they even had a passport kind of thing so they could look at how much you bought over the year.

Michelle: Really?

Christine: Yeah.

Michelle: So if someone was buying a lot what would happen?

Christine: Well, in Ontario until sometime in the 1980s they had, and this is terrible, what they called the “Indian List.” And the “Indian List” applied to all First Nations people and also to anybody who was known for drinking too much. And they would actually be barred from buying at our controlled liquor stores in Ontario. So obviously the most scandalous part of that is the fact that Native North Americans were automatically on the list.

Justyna: Right.

Christine: Right. But you know, it’s just really, there’s a big difference. And it’s because of the laws.

Justyna: Christine, do you think that since it was so restrictive, did it actually cause more bad behavior?

Christine: I think that’s really hard to say. Not to get too academic about it, we’re so invested in this idea that prohibitions create bad behavior that sometimes we make more of it than we should. For example, prohibition in America, everyone says this: “Oh they drank more during prohibition than they did before.” And that’s not true. People actually drank much less during prohibition than they did before, because it was really expensive and it was really hard to get. So the type of drinking that happened may have been more dangerous because people have a tendency in a control state, they still drink less because it’s hard to get it. But they tend to drink maybe more dangerously because they’ll buy a larger quantity, maybe from a smuggler, and it might not be safe. And you don’t have a nice atmosphere where you can order just a beer and food. You have to drink it in the back ally. It leads to a different type of drinking. Yeah. An uglier type of drinking I think most people would say.

Justyna: Because actually my initial thought was increase drinking, it’s actually less drinking, just-

Michelle: in shady places.

Christine: Yeah, yeah!

Michelle: So you were saying Ontario is a control stay. What’s your favorite drink that you can’t have at home that you can have here?

Christine: Framboise beer. This one’s really good. I love Framboise beer. It’s one of my favorite things.

Michelle: What is it, Framboise?

Christine: It’s a dark raspberry beer. Go ahead and try some.

Justyna: Mmmm. It’s like jam!

Christine: Isn’t that great?

Michelle: It tastes like raspberry!

Christine: I know it really does, doesn’t it? Not like bullsh*t raspberry flavor. Right? It tastes like actual raspberries.

Justyna: That is so lovely.

Everyone: Cheers!

Michelle: To Christine and her new book!

Justyna: Yes!

Christine: Thank you.

(Soundbite of Ben Daniels Band’s “Drippin’ Indigo”)

The post Quickcast – AMERICA WALKS INTO A BAR appeared first on OUPblog.

Are Israel and the U.S. still a dynamic duo (see picture right)? According to Daniel Byman the debate isn’t about whether or not the U.S. should support Israel, but how we can encourage them with “tough support.”

Click below for the full interview.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes.
You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Daniel Byman, author of A High Price: The Triumphs & Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism. Byman is a professor at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Brooking Institution. He has served on the 9/11 Commission staff and as an analyst with the U.S. government.

The post Quickcast – ISRAEL appeared first on OUPblog.

By Michelle Rafferty

Are you capable of listening to a podcast? Are you also capable of taking a quiz? Great. That means you have a chance to win a copy of Elizabeth Knowles’ How to Read a Word. Just take the quiz below (answers can be found in the most recent episode of The Oxford Comment – words edition) and submit your answers to blog@oup.com before Monday, June 13.

1.) At what age did Caleb Madison become the youngest person to publish a crossword puzzle in the New York Times?
a) 13
b) 15
c) 28

2.) What type of people also tend to make talented crossword puzzle constructors?
a) math teachers and musicians
b) book readers and soccer players
c) high school students

3.) What is the Breakfast Test?
a) the final round of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
b) a new puzzle game available on the Apple’s App store
c) the litmus test for crossword censorship

4.) How many years has Oxford been printing books?
a) 530 years
b) 620 years
c) 650 years

5.) What was the first title Oxford printed?
a) an edition of The Creed
b) Oxford English Dictionary
c) The Canterbury Tales

6.) In 1636, who gave Oxford formal permission to print “all manner of books” in a document illuminated in red and gold ink?
a) John Fell
b) Lady Carmel Kuperman
c) King Charles the First

7.) What type of plates were used to produce images in books in the 18th century?
a)  copper
b) brass
c) gold

8.) It was estimated that the first edition of the OED would take 10 years to finish and cost £9,000. What did the numbers actually end up being?
a) Almost 50 years and £390,000
b) Over 100 years and £530,000
c) Only 5 years and £3,000

9.) How many new words are added to the OED every month?
a) about 100
b) about 1,000
c) about 10,000

10.) According to Archivist Martin Maw, the OED is like _____ in book form.
a) Lego
b) candy
c) the world’s longest opera (Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen)

Bonus: What popular CBS sitcom did New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz appear on in 2010?

The post The Oxford Comment Challenge appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes.
You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Michelle goes on-site with former Oxford intern Caleb Madison,  the youngest person to publish a crossword puzzle in the New York Times (at the age of 15). A puzzle by his class at Sundays at JASA: A Program of Sunday Activities for Older Adults was recently published in the New York Times and featured on the Wordplay blog.

Lauren gets a private tour of the OUP museum in Oxford with Archivist Martin Maw.

This slideshow features the crossword class in action, and some impressively old printing relics.

(Click the image if you would like to see it larger.)



• Rock bands

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S1.jpg

• Rock stars

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Group-shot-final.jpg

• How would you clue that?

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Clue-that-final.jpg

• The roof, the roof

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S3.jpg

• Catching up after class

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S8.jpg

• Caleb Madison with

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S9.jpg

• his student Carmel Kuperman

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S10.jpg

• like Super(wo)man with a "K"

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S11.jpg

• and Dan the Man

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/S12.jpg

• 1695, Dr John Fell's letter type specimen

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Fell3.jpg

• 17th c. type cases

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Cases.jpg

• James Murray

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/James-Murray.png

• Word slip

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Word-slip.png

• James Murray's filing system

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/filing.jpg

• Title page from "The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars"

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Clarendon.jpg

The post Ep. 10 – WORDS appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!
You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Matthew Gallaway, author of The Metropolis Case and this tumblr (featuring some of the best personification we’ve seen in ages!)

And, see 7-year-old Matt in a tree! Those locks!

“So well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.” -The New York Times on The Metropolis Case

and

Book club members  Michelle Lipinski, Grace Labatt, Michelle Rafferty and Justyna Zajac.

To accompany this podcast, we also present the following excerpt from the The Metropolis Case:

Through Its Street Names, the City Is a Mystic Cosmos

NEW YORK CITY, 1960. Anna Prus stepped out of her apartment building onto Seventy-fourth Street, where she paused to glance back at Central Park, which looked opaque and grainy like an old newsreel. It had been snowing for days, but a sallow, expectant glow emanating from the crenellated perimeter of the park told her the storm was nearing an end. While she did not relish the idea of negotiating a trip downtown, the transformation of the city into a tundra, with squalls of powder and amorphous mounds where there had once been cars, mailboxes, and shrubs, struck her as the perfect accompaniment to the magic, improbable turn the day had taken, now that she was about to make her Isolde debut at the Metropolitan Opera.

Though Anna was not an unknown, she had to this point in her career been relegated to smaller houses and (except for some minor roles) hired by the Met as an alternate to the type of leading soprano she had always wanted to be. But as sometimes happened with singers her age—Anna was forty—her voice, after six years at the conservatory and over fifteen more of training, auditioning, and performing, had at last blossomed, giving her reason to believe that she had found her calling in the Wagnerian repertory. Which is not to say her future had been unfurled like a red carpet; if anything, her reputation as a dependable but hardly breathtaking talent still preceded her, and for this current production, she had been brought in only to “cover” the Isolde and so had expected—as she had always done in the past—to spend her nights in the wings, anxiously hoping and not hoping (because she was not one to wish ill health or misfortune on anyone) that she would finally get her chance.

This time her luck was better; from the start, the lead struggled with the role and after much gossip and speculation had finally canceled, which meant Anna was going on tonight and possibly for the entire run if she could deliver the type of performance the Met general manager, Rudolf Bing (having made a point of attending one of her cover rehearsals in the event of just this contingency), expected of her. Anna buried her scarf-wrapped chin deep into the neck of her fur coat and wrapped her arms around her bag, which held a carefully folded dress, shoes, and jewelry for the opening-night party scheduled for after the show. She walked forward into the wind, nimbly tracing a line through a group of men digging out with picks and shovels, and forced herself to review a mental list of exactly what she needed to attend to—wig, costume, makeup, voice—and whom she needed to see at the theater—Mr. Bing, the maestro, the director, the Tristan—before her seven o’clock curtain.

Excerpted from The Metropolis Case: A Novel. Copyright @ 2010 by Matthew Gallaway.  Reprinted by Permission of Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

The post Ep. 9 – WE HEART MATTY G appeared first on OUPblog.

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You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Lauren Skypes with Gordon Thompson, Professor of Music at Skidmore College and author of Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out. You can read Thompson’s OUPblog column here.

*     *     *     *     *

Michelle visits the Strand Book Store in New York City and speaks with John McMillian*, author of Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America,

and Jesse Kornbluth, founder of HeadButler.com.

*     *     *     *     *

The Ben Daniels Band

*Read an additional Q&A with John McMillian here.

The post Ep. 8 – ALTERNATIVE MEDIA appeared first on OUPblog.

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You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this podcast:

Leading oral historian Alessandro Portelli is Professor of American Literature at the University of Rome-La Sapienza. In 1973 he recorded the first of over 150 interviews with the men and women of Harlan County, which are now available in the volume, They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History.

To accompany this podcast, we also present the following excerpt from the book, as it appeared in the Dec 2010 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

THE BATTLE OF CRUMMIES CREEK
From interviews included in They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History, by Alessandro Portelli, published last month by Oxford University Press. On April 15, 1941, during a national coal miners’ strike, four striking miners entered the company store at the Crummies Creek Coal Co., in Harlan County, Kentucky, and were killed by a mine employee with a machine gun. Locals have long claimed, though it has never been confirmed, that an ensuing gunfight resulted in additional deaths on both sides.

Granny Hager: Crummies Creek. Now, there was killing there and I can’t tell you just how many were killed. You see, I used to have all of that down, but it got washed away so many times, and burned out. I don’t know all that did happen, but they really had a battle up there. I think there was five killed. They wanted the scabs to go on to work, and they wanted to run the union men away, you see. And that is what started the battle. Now that was the roughest place we had in Harlan County.

Plennie Hall: The day before the battle, I went into the office and I told Mr. Johnson, “Mr.Johnson,” I says, “won’t you sign the union? It would be good for everybody, to be satisfied with everything.” And he said, “Hell no”; he wouldn’t under no circumstances. And the next day, the union come up there to stop them from working.

Becky Simpson: Six years old. Me and my mother always walked from Cranks Creek to Crummies to the commissary with my dad’s paycheck. They had a bunch of pickets up at the commissary. This big bald-headed guy, they called him Big Jim Black Hair, he was a big-league ballplayer, he told my mother, “What’re you doing here with this child today? Get what little you’re going to and get this child back out, there’s gon’ be trouble today.” As we was leaving the commissary, they was rolling up these big machine guns, that they could open up the double doors and shoot out. So me and Mommy is walking back up the mountain, we heared the shooting start. And they just mowed the men down.

Ben Campagnari: Now, we were running, and we had a pegleg man. You wouldn’t believe it. Going down that railroad track, and he’s hitting about four ties at a time; and he outrun half of the people that had good legs, and we was all a-running because they was cutting down with the machine gun, or trying to. And I said: “If I ever go on a picket line again, I’ll go with protection.” We died
just like ducks.

Hazel Leonard: And that night, the thugs that lived, they carried all their dead men out of there and hauled them to the top of Crummies mountain, and burned them up. There was a place there, that they called the Halfway House, it was just a dive, you know, just for men to drink and hang out at. And they sold booze and everything, you know what I mean. So they hauled all these people out there, that had got killed that night—the thugs. They hauled them up that mountain to that place and then they burned it. They burned them up.

Plennie Hall: Three weeks later I was over there getting a payday, and there was a drainpipe runs down there, and somebody that crawled in that drainpipe and died, the dogs
pulled out some of his bones. There never was no more said about it. I wondered about who that could have been, or where they were from.

The post Quickcast – HARLAN COUNTY appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!
You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a counterterrorism analyst until 2004. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism (recommended by bin Laden himself). His latest book is the biography Osama bin Laden which he recently discussed on The Colbert Report (and this podcast!).

* * * * *

The Ben Daniels Band

The post Quickcast – OSAMA BIN LADEN appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!
You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Katherine Connor Martin, Senior Editor – OED

Matt Kohl, Senior Editorial Researcher – OED

And should you be interested in getting a hippopotamus for Christmas…

*          *          *

Lights, camera, lexicon: the language of films in the OED

By Katherine Connor Martin

The post Quickcast – BADA-BING! appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!
You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this episode:

Kevin Whitehead is long-time jazz critic for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air and has written about jazz for many publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Down Beat, and the Village Voice. His latest book is Why Jazz?: A Concise Guide.

(Psssst! Wanna hear more blues? Then check out The Ben Daniels Band.)

The post Ep. 7 – JAZZ appeared first on OUPblog.

In this, the 10th Oxford Comment, Lauren and Michelle investigate what makes a classic beauty icon, learn about appearance-based discrimination, talk body politics, and discover the threads that tie fashion to beauty.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this episode:

Historian, archaeologist, and classical scholar, Duane W. Roller is emeritus professor  at Ohio State University and the author of eight books, the most recent of which is Cleopatra: A Biography. Read his OUPblog posts here.

*     *     *     *     *

Deborah L. Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of over twenty books, including The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law.

*     *     *     *     *

Margitte Leah Kristjansson is a PhD student in communication at UCSD whose work is situated within the emerging field of fat studies. She is interested in all things fat, and blogs about her interests at margitteleah.com and riotsnotdiets.tumblr.com. Margitte recently completed a documentary on fat female bodies and visibility available for viewing here.

Jessica Jarchow is a body acceptance activist in San Diego, CA. When she’s not blogging at tangledupinlace.tumblr.com and tangledupinlace.blogspot.com, Jessica encourages body positivity by being as visible as possible – organizing and hosting events, modeling, and supporting fat-tastic designers. You can learn more about Jessica by watching Margitte’s documentary.

Jarchow (left) and Kristjansson (right)

*     *     *     *     *

Thanks to everyone who spoke to us at the Berg Fashion Library launch party at FIT:

John Vollmer, Toby Slade, Edna Nahshon, Annie Van Assche, Purdy, Sachiko Hori, Justyna Zajac

*     *     *     *     *

The Ben Daniels Band

The post Ep. 6 – BEAUTY appeared first on OUPblog.

In Spring 2010, Lauren and Michelle decided it was time Oxford University Press got a podcast, and by September, The Oxford Comment was born. Reporting at special events, live on the street, and from the “studio,” each episode features commentary from Oxford authors and friends of the Press.

“The Oxford Comment has been a great learning experience. Among other things, we now know how to hold coffee mugs in serious ways, and smile at blank computer screens.” -Lauren (left), Michelle (right)

How can I hear more of that super groovy background music?

Most of the music you hear is by The Ben Daniels Band. You can check them out here.

How can I get ya’ll on my iPod, or Zune, or whatever?

Pretty easy, just subscribe on iTunes.

The Oxford Comment podcastography

Quickcast: AMERICA WALKS INTO A BAR

June 27, 2011
Who drinks better – America or Canada?

-“Ruby Tuesday and Framboise Beer” – Over lunch at The Ginger Man in New York City, cocktail columnist Christine Sismondo discusses American bars, control states, and why prohibition doesn’t actually increase drinking.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Quickcast: ISRAEL

June 20, 2011
Are Israel and the U.S. still a dynamic duo?

-“Tough Support” – Daniel Byman, professor at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, says that despite polarizing counterterrorism measures, the U.S. is still “pro-Israel.”

—————————————————————————————————————————

Ep. 10: WORDS

May 23, 2011
From puzzles to the printing press.

-“The Breakfast Test” – Michelle takes a crossword construction class with Caleb Madison,  the youngest person to publish a crossword puzzle in the New York Times (at the age of 15).
-“OUP Archive” – Lauren gets a private tour of the OUP museum in Oxford with Archivist Martin Maw.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Ep. 9: WE <3 MATTY G

April 18, 2011
How to write a smash first novel.

-“Embrace the Zany” -Author (and OUP Law Editor) Matthew Gallaway comes to Oxford book club to discuss his book The Metropolis Case. Topics include: Pittsburgh, advice for writers…and what’s up with the incest scene?

—————————————————————————————————————————

Ep. 8: ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

April 4, 2011
Are we living in the “anti-60s”?

-“Bieber vs. Beatles” – Gordon Thompson skypes in to discuss 60s rock ’n’ roll and the alternative voice in music.
-“Hush Puppies Hysteria!” – John McMillian and Jesse Kornbluth on the underground press and the state of media today. From the Strand Book Store in NYC.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Quickcast: HARLAN COUNTY

March 14, 2011
The real story of the infamous Harlan County.

-“Survival is not a Metaphor” -The people of Harlan County, KY are mostly known for their history of intense labor battles (and thanks to Malcolm Gladwell, short temperament), but leading oral historian Alessandro Portelli says they are most remarkable for their incredible will to survive.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Quickcast: OSAMA BIN LADEN

March 9, 2011
What does he really want from us?

-“The Enemy that Doesn’t Exist” – Former CIA agent Michael Scheuer on how Americans have been greatly misinformed about bin Laden’s motivations.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Quickcast – BADA-BING!

February 23, 2011
Words coined from film!

-“Was it Flower?” – Super star OED Editors Matt Kohl and Katherine Martin discuss some of their favorite words and phrases given to us by Hollywood. Twitterpated! Party on! And the false Latin plural (Winklevii)!

—————————————————————————————————————————

Episode 7: JAZZ

February 14, 2011
An introduction in less than 20 minutes!

-“Her Name was Iola” – Kevin Whitehead, the long-time jazz critic for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air, goes over some pivotal moments in jazz across the decades: Armstrong! Fake record skipping! Secret allusions! Banjos! Monk! And more!

—————————————————————————————————————————

Episode 6: BEAUTY

February 3, 2011
What IS beauty anyway?

- “The Icon” – Duane Roller discusses the ongoing influence of Cleopatra’s beauty (although we don’t really know what she looked like!)
- “The Beauty Bias” – Deborah Rhode discusses the pervasiveness of appearance discrimination.
- “The Fat-o-sphere” – Margitte Kristjansson and Jessica Jarchow talk body politics, “headless fatties,” s-heroes, and Glee!
- “The Safety Pin” – Fashionistas at FIT discuss whether or not clothing makes you beautiful.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Episode 4.5: RELIGION (Part 2)

January 13, 2011
Part 2 of this series looks at the ongoing debate between science and religion.

- “Why are Unicorns Hollow?” – Steve Paulson, Executive Producer of NPR’s To the Best of Our Knowledge, shares clips of interviews with famed atheist Richard Dawkins and chimpanzee advocate Jane Goodall.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Episode 5: CAB CALLOWAY

December 21, 2010
Happy Birthday to the jazz legend who would be turning 103 this December 25th.

- “Hi-De-Ho” – BBC Producer Alyn Shipton on the pioneering ways of Cab Calloway.
- “Trickeration” – Vince Giordano plays the bandleader at Babette’s nightclub on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Michelle pays a visit to the real nightclub where Giordano keeps the music of the Jazz Age alive.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Episode 4: RELIGION (PART 1)

December 8, 2010
A look at some of the most controversial issues in religion this past year.

- “Is Islam Peace?” – Coverage of the 92nd Street Y debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan. Includes exclusive interviews with participants as well as moderator and New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein.
- “Mask of the Revolution” – Oxford employee Nick Mafi discusses why his family left Iran and what it was like growing up in the Ohio burbs post 9/11.
- “3 Myths” – Historian David Sehat argues that Americans don’t actually have religious freedom.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Quickcast: REFUDIATE

November 16, 2010
What do you get when you mix refute and repudiate? Word of the Year!

- “Palin’s Word Blend” – Senior Lexicographer Christine Lindberg explains why some words stick and others just aren’t meant to be.
- “Onward to the Iconic McDonald’s!” – Michelle and Lauren search the streets for a person who knows what “refudiate” means.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Quickcast: COMPLEXITY

November 10, 2010
Complexity science – learn it, live it, love it.

- “Hey, that Computer’s Driving my Car!” – Melanie Mitchell, winner of the 2010 ΦBK Science Book Award, says complexity science can help solve the world’s problems.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Episode 3: DRAMA

October 19, 2010
Secrets of the theater world revealed!

- “Robot Skin” –  The Toy Box Theatre Company adapts Woyzeck, Georg Buchner’s unfinished masterpiece.
- “Hamlet in Ohio” – Once upon a time musical theater was “too commercial” for academia, but now the discipline is on the rise says Associate Editor Norm Hirschy.
- “Carefully Taught” – Author James Lovensheimer on how Rodgers and Hammerstein fought racial intolerance while writing a hit Broadway show.
- “Waterfalls” – On the eve of Broadway’s opening of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Musical Director and cast member Justine Levine talks emo punk rock, taxidermy in the orchestra pit and much more! Plus the cast’s “secret” warm up drill.

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Quickcast: COMIC CON

October 11, 2010
Superheros, sci-fi speed dating, and the sweet, sweet sound of light sabers.

- “Nerf Gun” – A tour of the New York Comic Con & Anime Festival including interviews with: Dr. Travis Langley, Batman extraordinaire and director of The ERIICA Project; Matthew Silva and John Strangeway of Penny Dreadful Productions; Ashley Eckstein, voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars…and many more!

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Episode 2: GEEKS

September 24, 2010
They have evolved.

- “Circus Geek” – Jesse Sheidlower, Editor-at-Large (North America) of the Oxford English Dictionary and author of The F-Word, on the etymology of the word “geek.
- “Jam that Buzzer” – Matt Caporaletti on the perks of winning Jeopardy.
- “She Used the Word Obtunded” – Husband and wife co-authors David Barash and Judith Lipton on how they seduced each other with their brains.
- “Rise of the Underdog” – From Sherlock Holmes to War Games and now Susan Boyle, sociologists Scott Allison and Al Goethels say we have a place in our hearts for “lovable losers.”
- “What Kind are You?” – At the Gelf Magazine “Geeking Out” series on urban planning, guest speakers Benjamin Kabak, Sharon Zukin and Charles Komonoff reveal what type of geeks they are.

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Episode 1: BOOZE!

September 7, 2010
Where would we be without it?

- “Don’t be a Teetotaler” – Historian Benjamin Carp on the revolutionary lubricant of the Founding Fathers.
- “Baby in a Brewery” – A tour of the Brooklyn Brewery with Brewmaster Garret Oliver.

The post The Oxford Comment Archive appeared first on OUPblog.

What do scientists say about the “soul”? How does Richard Dawkins answer the question “why are we here?” In Part 2 of this series on religion, Steve Paulson (of NPR fame) reflects on the biggest questions in the ongoing science vs. religion debate.  Part 1  can be found here.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Featured in Part 2:

Steve Paulson, Executive Producer of To the Best of our Knowledge and author of Atoms and Eden

exclusive interviews from world famous atheist Richard Dawkins and chimpanzee advocate Jane Goodall

The post Ep. 4.5 – RELIGION (Part 2) appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Featured in this podcast:

Alyn Shipton, jazz critic and BBC producer, author of Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway

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Vince Giordano of Boardwalk Empire, live at Sofia’s Restaurant in New York City

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The Ben Daniels Band

The post Ep. 5 – CAB CALLOWAY appeared first on OUPblog.

Want more of The Oxford Comment? Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Featured in Part 1:

Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan Debate: Is Islam a Religion a Peace?

Highlights and exclusive interviews with Hitchens, Ramadan, & New York Times National Religion Correspondent  Laurie Goodstein

Read more and watch a video courtesy of the 92nd St Y HERE.

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Nick Mafi, Oxford University Press employee extraordinaire

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David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom

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The Ben Daniels Band

The post Ep. 4 – RELIGION (Part 1) appeared first on OUPblog.

If you haven’t heard – well, how haven’t you heard? “Refudiate” is the New Oxford American Dictionary‘s 2010 Word of the Year. (And no, that doesn’t mean “refudiate” has been added to the NOAD or any other Oxford dictionary.) In this quickcast, Michelle and Lauren talk with NOAD Senior Lexicographer Christine Lindberg, and take to the streets to see what people think of this special word – or shall we say word blend?

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Music by The Ben Daniels Band.

The post Quickcast – REFUDIATE appeared first on OUPblog.

Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University and External Professor and Member of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning and complex systems.

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

From the Phi Beta Kappa Society:

Amazing feats of collective intelligence, such as the colony of army ants that link themselves together to cross daunting precipices, are having an unconventional effect on the future of science. The “complexity” of these naturally occurring events cannot be explained by the traditional method of breaking science down into its most basic parts, in this case, the individual army ants. Instead, the study of complex systems, those made up of simple components with limited capacity for communication, provide a much broader illustration of the science of self-organization and adaptation.

In Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press, 2009), Melanie Mitchell draws on her background as a computer scientist and her work with the Santa Fe Institute to study the complex systems that have evolved in nature and how they may contribute to the future of computer programming, specifically with regards to artificial intelligence. Mitchell also looks at the human brain’s ability to create consciousness from a complex network of electrically charged neurons, axons, and dendrites, as well as the immune system’s unique collection of cells, which work together in an effective and efficient way without any central control.

The song featured in this podcast is “In the Middle” from the album Can’t You See by The Ben Daniels Band. Get it here.

The post Quickcast – COMPLEXITY appeared first on OUPblog.

This time around, Lauren and Michelle deal with drama! They talk with the Toy Box Theatre Company, learn about politics in musical theater, and go behind-the-scenes on the set of Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson. ALSO: You have a chance to win* free tickets to Woyzeck or a copy of Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck by Georg Büchner!

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

*To enter to win free tickets or a copy of Georg Büchner’s theatrical works, send an email to blog@oup.com with the subject line “Toy Box” by 5pm ET on October 26. Two tickets will be awarded at random to the October 31, 3pm showing of Woyzeck (at the Choicirciati Cultural Center in New York City). Admission includes a champagne toast and talkback with the cast and crew. A second lucky entrant will win a copy of the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck.

Featured in this Podcast:

TOY BOX THEATRE COMPANY

(About this Production of Woyzeck)

Thanks to Jonathan Barsness, Ryan Colwell, David Michael Holmes, Sarah Hankins, Elisabeth Motley, James Sparber, and Colonna Sonora

Norm Hirschy, Associate Editor for Theater & Music

James Lovensheimer

Assistant Professor in Music, History and Literature at Vanterbilt University

Author of South Pacific, Paradise Rewritten

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

Special thanks to Justin Levine

The Ben Daniels Band

The post Ep. 3 – DRAMA appeared first on OUPblog.

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Special thanks to…

Ryan Glitch, host of Sci-fi Speed-Dating

Dr. Travis Langley, Professor of Psychology at Henderson State University, director of The ERIICA Project

Dr. Robin S. Rosenberg, co-editor of What is a Superhero, author of Superhero Origins: What Makes Superheroes Tick & Why We Care (forthcoming 2011). Take the SUPERHERO SURVEY!

Matthew Silva, Creative Director at Penny Dreadful Productions

John Strangeway, Production Assistant at Penny Dreadful Productions

Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, founder of Her Universe

Laura Domholt of the Tonner Doll Company

The Ben Daniels Band

and everyone else we met!

The post Quickcast – COMIC CON appeared first on OUPblog.

In the second episode of The Oxford Comment, Lauren Appelwick and Michelle Rafferty celebrate geekdom! They interview a Jeopardy champion, talk sex & attraction with a cockatoo, discover what makes an underdog a hero, and “geek out” with some locals.

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Featured in this podcast:

Jesse Sheidlower, Editor-at-Large (North America) of the Oxford English Dictionary, author of The F-Word

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Matt Caporaletti, “Advertising Account Supervisor from Westwood, NJ,” Jeopardy champion

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David P. Barash and Judith Lipton authors of Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Our Revenge

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Scott T. Allison and George R. “Al” Goethels, authors of Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them. Check out their heroes blog!

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The Ben Daniels Band

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Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College & the CUNY Graduate Center. Read her OUPblog posts!

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Benjamin Kabak, author of popular subway blog Second Avenue Sagas

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Charles Komanoff, creator of the Balanced Transportation Analyzer

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Gelf Magazine

Vincent Valk, contributing writer, also online editor for Chemical Week magazine

Max Lakin, contributing editor (click here to read his piece on Sharon Zukin and Naked City)

Adam Rosen, contributing editor, host of the Non-Motivational Speaker Series

The post Ep. 2 – GEEKS appeared first on OUPblog.

By Lauren Appelwick & Michelle Rafferty

Hey everyone! We’re excited to announce that it has finally launched – we now have a podcast! It’s called The Oxford Comment (get it?) and each episode we’ll talk to people smarter than us in hopes that it rubs off.

Our loyal subscribers got a sneak peek a few days ago, but now The Oxford Comment is available to all. (Although, if you’re not using our RSS feeds…what’s wrong with you?) There are several ways to get this podcast. You can:
- listen here on the blog
- sign up for the RSS feed
- subscribe on iTunes

In this first episode, we talk to Benjamin Carp about the drinking habits of the Founding Fathers and visit brewmaster Garrett Oliver at the Brooklyn Brewery. Let us know what you think! This has been a collaborative effort with many, many people, and we welcome your feedback with the most open of arms. Write to us in the comments section below or at blog@oup.com, give us a shout on Twitter, or review us on iTunes.

Special thanks to Paul Harrington, Max Sinsheimer, Grace Labatt, Pat Mack, Bill Murphy, Charles Hodgson, “Jon,” and the Super-Secret-Listening-Focus-Group-Club.

And an extra-special thanks to the Ben Daniels Band for making great music…and letting us use it. We encourage you all to check them out on Facebook. Here’s one of our favorite BDB songs, “Drippin’ Indigo” from their album Can’t You See –> [See post to listen to audio]

The post Put THIS in your iPod. (Or Zune…whatever.) appeared first on OUPblog.

(Subscribe on iTunes!)

Mentioned in this podcast:
- Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution by Benjamin L. Carp
- Fraunces Tavern in New York City
- City Tavern in Philadelphia
– The Oxford Companion to Beer edited by Garrett Oliver, forthcoming Fall 2011

Music on this podcast:
- Ben Daniels Band – Like them on Facebook!

Special thanks to Paul Harrington, Max Sinsheimer, Grace Labatt, Pat Mack, Bill Murphy, Charles Hodgson, “Jon,” and the Super-Secret-Listening-Focus-Group-Club.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Write to us in the comments section below, or to blog@oup.com

The post Ep. 1 – BOOZE! appeared first on OUPblog.