Arts & Culture

Tom Hall remembers his friend and colleague, jazz musician Dave Brubeck, who passed away last week just short of his 92nd birthday.  We also listen back to an interview he did with Maryland Morning in 2009.

December 7th & 8th, 2012, on The Signal:  

When he was drafted during the Vietnam War, Jim Karantonis trained to be a medic and he was assigned stateside - in the psych ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  The former neuropsychiatric technician joins us to reflect on what he learned from his patients.

Benn Ray of Atomic Books visits with his unique holiday suggestions, including graphic novels, sheet music, a hot new cookbook, and one item that seeks to re-invent the notion of what a book truly is.

The Maryland Film Festival WYPR Spotlight Series features screenings of films, followed by interviews with people involved with the film, or related to the movie's subject matter. Previous screenings have included Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life And Time Of Tim Hetherington, a tribute to photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who was killed in Libya in 2011. 

Steve James, director of The Interrupters

Lucy Alibar, screenwriter of Beasts of the Southern Wild

Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore

If you’re one of the Doomsday disciples who believe December 21st marks the “end of days,” then you don’t have to worry about last minute Christmas shopping. Why do the Mayan Prophesy and the apocalypse continue to be an obsession for so many? Midday's American culture commentator Sheri Parks debunks the notion that the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world on December 21st.

With tens of thousands of Marylanders in foreclosure, today we'll hear about two remediation programs: the National Mortgage Settlement, which could bring principal reduction to distressed borrowers, and the Independent Foreclosure Review, which could put your mortgage in front of a neutral third party to look for the bank's mistakes and potentially get you some financial compensation from your servicer. Deadlines for both are looming.

Michael Collier is the former poet laureate of Maryland. He teaches on the faculty of the University of Maryland, College Park, and he directs the Breadloaf Writers Conference in Vermont. He has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Web Extra: Michael Collier reads his poem "Six Lines for Louise Bogan"

Half a century ago in Taneytown, Maryland, a young couple – Dotty and Leroy Eyeler - started a bluegrass band together. Little did they know they’d become the matriarch and patriarch of a musical legacy:  The Carroll County Ramblers.  

Baltimore city is getting ready to create its budget for fiscal year 2014--and its asking citizens how it should allocate those billions of dollars. We ask budget director Andrew Kleine how citizens can make their thoughts known through budgeting workshops.

The Sparrows Point steel mill and its surrounding communities will be recognized this weekend by the Maryland State Arts Council. We ask oral historians Elmer Hall and Louis Diggs about the significance of the towns on Sparrows Point.