Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Free Radicals - The Dirt on Clean

Our November 19th show may be about the history of cleanliness but the truth is it's pretty dirty. I talk to Canadian author Katherine Ashenburg about her new book "The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History," which goes into detail about the long history of how people in the Western world have kept themselves clean, or not clean, and how the notion of cleanliness is so totally tied to society and culture over time.

Why do we wear perfume and deodorant? Why was water once considered to be extremely dangerous to your health? This book and this interview helps answer these questions and more.

Listen to the show!

Free Radicals - The Anatomy Lesson

Our November 5 show featured an interview with Belgian artists Marijs Boulogne and Julia Clever, who were in Montreal to perform their multi-faced multi-media piece "The Anatomy Lesson" - an "exploration of love, death and ritual through forensic storytelling." I talked to them about the impetus for the piece, its connection to forensics and media representations of forensic science, as well as the various emotional audience reactions they've received.

I saw their show on October 27 at Studio 303 here in Montreal and was blown away - by the intricacies of the anatomically correct newborn baby made entirely out of thread and yarn, the detail of the endoscopic camera used in the piece, and the depth of emotion throughout.

Listen to the interview!