Blank on Blank

Oliver Sacks, Jacques Cousteau, and George Washington Carver. Our podcast returns with lost interviews featuring this trio on self, sight, and deep-sea diving. The three icons had the imaginations and daring to go where none had gone before. They overcame indifference and bigotry, exploring the darkest depths of the ocean, and even challenging their own deepest assumptions. These men lived the very definition of scientific inquiry....

“The evolutionary record is clear that extraterrestrials would be very different from us” – Carl Sagan in 1985, as told to Studs Terkel.  

The incomprehensible vastness of the universe, the wonder of our own place in it all… Carl Sagan was able to explain the science of space in a way everyone could understand. As part of our special series, The Experimenters — we’re uncovering interviews with the icons of science, technology, and ...

“I have to make my life worth saving, and each day you spend as if it would be your last” – Dame Steve Shirley in 2010

Dame Stephanie Shirley might be the most successful tech entrepreneur you have never heard of. In the early 1960s, Shirley started a barrier-breaking, all-woman software company that would eventually be valued at $3 billion. From a rarely heard oral history at The British Library, Shirley takes us on the journey fr...

“Everything in my mind works like a search engine set for the image function.” – Temple Grandin in 2008

This rarely heard oral history with the autism activist, author, and professor of animal science, was uncovered at Colorado State University. In this conversation, Temple Grandin is at her best, explaining for the rest of us what it’s really like to have an autistic brain and how Einstein’s not the only genius who could have been...

“Any man who really has faith in himself will be dubbed arrogant by his fellows” – Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957, as told to Mike Wallace

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright did something new when he made buildings that somehow became one with the landscape. Long, low lines, and interiors that brought the light and space of the outside in.

Wright’s designs and style seem very nice, very clean now, but at the time, he was a controversial pers...

“I wish that there had been another woman on my flight. I think it would have been a lot easier.” – Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, shortly after her historic launch in 1983.

Interviewed by Gloria Steinem.

At the time of this interview, as far as the public – and it turns out the press – were concerned, space was for clean-cut alpha males with names like Buzz. Then Sally Ride came along.

Watch the animated Sally Ride...

“My family was shocked when I came home with a volume of Hemingway … There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction.” – Garrison Keillor in 1994

In this new episode we have a conversation with a true storyteller, the humorist, Garrison Keillor. This interview was recorded in front a live audience back in November of 1994 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

On stage that night was Keillor, the host of A Praire Home ...

“It’s a good time for black people to be alive. It’s a lot of hell. A lot of violence, but I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.”  – Nina Simone in 1968, from a rare interview that’s never been heard before.

Lilian Terry had a national radio show in Italy–everyone from Ray Charles to Duke Ellington appeared on her show–and there was one person she always wanted to interview: Ni...

“Nothing means anything — except the artist makes his living by pretending, by putting it in a meaningful hole, though no such holes exist.” – Kurt Vonnegut in 1970

Kurt Vonnegut walked into a class room at NYU in November 1970. He was a guest speaker that day. He’d prepared some handwritten notes on what he wanted to say: there were his thoughts on the art of writing, his childhood, the death of his parents. He jumped from topic t...

“I‘m just an obnoxious guy who can make it appear charming, that’s what they pay me to do.” – Bill Murray in 1988 as told to T.J. English

This previously unheard interview was recorded at Bill Murray’s house in New Jersey. T.J. was writing a profile for Irish America magazine. Bill’s dog was there and had an interest in his pants. Vintage Bill Murray on fame, Cadillacs, taking care of his mom and talking to women while famous.

Watc...

“I‘m a coward, I didn’t want to die” – Patty Hearst in 1982, as told to Larry Grobel.

Larry Grobel told us the story about a time back in the early 80s when he borrowed a swimsuit at the Playboy mansion. It seems that back then, Hugh Hefner kept spare trunks at the ready whenever his guests felt the urge to test the waters beneath the famous Grotto. The reason Larry took an impromptu plunge? He wanted to nab the first interview wit...

“I keep my mouth shut now. I’ve turned into a professional coward.” – Hunter S. Thompson in 1967 with Studs Terkel.

The interview was recorded shortly after the release of Thompson’s book, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. He spent more than a year living, drinking and riding with the Hells Angels up and down the California coast. Hear what he learned.

Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Di...

“I carried a knife taped to my leg. I never used it but it was there.” – Dustin Hoffman in 1971.

Listening to this interview tape from the Pacifica Radio Archives, we were drawn to this idea of the struggles that pop up between different generations and the internal questions one confronts as he or she gets older — and becomes famous.

Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Digital Studios: http://blanko...

The interview originally aired on Wallace’s television show, The Mike Wallace Interview, on February 25, 1959. The show ran from 1957 to 1960 and now more than 65 episodes are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

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Mike Wallace rose to prominence in the mid-1950s with the New York City television interview program, Night-Beat. That be...

Joni Mitchell was interviewed on November 3, 1986. Joe was writing Off the Record–his oral history of rock and roll.

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Joe Smith was a longtime record executive and one-time radio DJ. From 1986-88, he interviewed more than 240 music artists and executives to write Off the Record. Then in 2012, he donated more than 230 hours of interviews on cassette tapes to the Library o...

One afternoon in November 1966, Frank Kofsky took the train out to Long Island. He was about to spend a day with John Coltrane. This interview comes from the Pacifica Radio Archives.

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Frank Kofsky was an author, scholar, jazz critic, and professor of history at California State University at Sacramento.

Do you live far outside of…  wherever we are now?

Well I guess I...

In the autumn of 2012, Lisa Potts rediscovered — literally, behind her dresser — a taped cassette of a long-lost interview with Bradbury that she made as a college student journalist back in 1972. Bradbury was doing a lecture at Chapman College in Orange County, and Lisa and Chadd were tasked with picking up Bradbury from his home in West L.A.

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You say y...

This conversation was recorded on March 13, 1978, for a profile Grobel was writing for Playboy. Dolly would appear on that cover of the magzine.  But take her clothes off?

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I’m just pretty open and honest. There’s not just a whole lot I won’t tell you. I think most people appreciate that the fact that you’ll just be open and honest rather than putting you down by sa...