Astute WP reader Laurie McIntosh alerted us to a fun fact today: In the past week, National Public Radio has been crawling with Catskillians.
Case in point: David Krajicek, front man of Blues Maneuver, a Catskills band that features a horn section to die for, was interviewed on All Things Considered yesterday about the phenomenon of the "perp walk" in the wake of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal. (Krajicek's trombone skills were incidental to the subject of the interview; more relevantly, he's an expert on media crime reporting, a former journalism professor, and a special correspondent for the New York Daily News.)
Phoenicia resident Holly George-Warren was also on the public airwaves this week, when she chatted with Terry Gross of Fresh Air about her biography of Gene Autry. George-Warren has a prodigous reputation as a rock author -- she's penned over ten books on subjects like the Grateful Dead and Woodstock -- and she also somehow finds the time to specialize in the history of the Wild West as well. Her latest book, out just this month, is called The Cowgirl Way.
Finally, McIntosh points out that Schoharie-born author Stephen J. Dubner, who co-wrote the blockbuster Freakonomics, now regularly hosts a radio segment on NPR's Marketplace show. Although Dubner no longer lives in the Catskills, McIntosh remembers in an email that he wrote his first book in Shandaken, apparently while also finding time to host a regular rockin' movie night:
[I'm] sure was residing on Route 42 for the writing of "Turbulent Souls," the book that garnered him national attention, and which I just learned from his bio has been re-titled "Choosing My Religion," and is being developed as a film ... Side note: At the house where Stephen lived, you can still find a shingle declaring "Shandaken Show Palace" attached to the old barn. A couple of friends helped him host movie nights there -- projector, popcorn machine.
