Gay and Nan Talese eloping in Rome 1959

Gay and Nan on their wedding day

Gay Talese at the typewriter ca. 1969

The Taleses in 1980, the year “Thy Neighbor’s Wife” was published

Gay and Nan in Rome 1984

“Strangers” producer Lea Thau hosting Gay Talese at the 2008 Moth Ball,
the annual gala for the organization she ran for 10 years, The Moth

Banner image: © Marianne Barcellona

Joanna’s mom during her wild years

Joanna Solotaroff and her mother, Claudia

Joanna Solotaroff is a producer based in New York, who originally comes from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Then… Margot Leitman grew up in a completely non-religious family. Still, Margot always coveted the ceremonies, rites of passage (and presents) that her religious friends enjoyed, while her mother worried about Margot’s unsteady morals. One day, the two of them sneak out to church to see what they can learn, but the real lesson comes on their Thelma and Louise adventure on the way there.

Margot and her mother

Margot Leitman is a writer/performer whose new book, Gawky:Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase, has just been released from Seal Press. She is a Moth Grandslam winner and a two-time game show winner.

Banner image: Margot Leitman during her awkward phase

Time for another super fun Strangers party, hosted by KCRW’s storytelling podcast Strangers and producer Lea Thau! Join KCRW listeners, “Strangers” fans, and storytelling lovers. Enjoy drinks and appetizers at specialty prices in Más Malo’s más funky basement cantina, make new connections and live to tell the tales…

WHEN: Wednesday, May 15th at 7PM til 10PM

WHERE: Mas Malo, 515 W. 7th Street, Los Angeles, CA90014
To RSVP, visit the event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/187047448115423/

One of the many exotic chickens competing for Best in Show.

Hundreds of exotic show chickens vied for the title of Best in Show at the Seaside Feather Fanciers Spring Fling poultry show in Ventura last month. The last competition of the season offered birds and breeders a final chance to bag a chicken-topped trophy along with bragging rights until September. Scroll down for a slideshow with more pictures of chickens at the Seaside Feather Fanciers Spring Fling.

Not familiar with the world of exhibition poultry? You’ve got a lot to learn. Exotic chickens have been selectively bred for centuries, and most bear little resemblance to your common barnyard egg-layer. The ideal for each breed is exhaustively detailed in the American Poultry Association’s “Standard of Perfection,” the bible of the show chicken world. “The book tells what the shape of each body part should be,” says Donald Barger, one of the judges ranking the entries. “We judge them against the perfect bird, and place them accordingly to how they fall in that point system.”

Donald Barger is one of the judges at the poultry show.

For the poultry show neophyte, the Spring Fling presented a mind-boggling array of show chickens of every size, color and pattern: solid, spangled, speckled and mottled. Fluffy whiteSilkies look like manic collections of stray cotton balls. The Polish breed with its crest of wild feathers resembles a mid-‘80s Tina Turner. Some birds have long colorful tails; others have legs so densely feathered they look like overgrown Ugg boots. A few require a second look to see which end is which.

Chicken-topped trophies await the Best in Show.

As the “urban chicken movement” continues to gain ground (Williams-Sonoma now sells chicken coops), even finicky city dwellers may discover the joys and challenges of raising exhibition poultry. “There is a chicken here for everybody,” says Peggy Aten, who’s been breeding exotic fowl for over 30 years. Whether you’re into feathery or sleek, refined or outlandish, “we can find you a chicken.”

SLIDESHOW: Scenes from the Chicken Show

This piece was originally produced for KCRW’s Good Food by independent producer Gideon Brower. Special thanks to Eric Drachman.

Gideon Brower is a writer who sometimes fills in as a producer on To
The Point and Which Way, L.A.? His first piece for KCRW’s IPP was
about his longtime Santa Monica neighbor, crime boss Whitey Bulger.

The Sierras near Mammoth Lakes. Photo credit: Brian Calvert

“We live next to the ocean, but we also live on the edge of the desert. And without water, the dust will rise up and cover us as though we never existed.” – Chinatown

Gold made California boom. But water kept it going. That’s especially true for Los Angeles, whose never-ending quest for water is a deep part of its history. Much of LA’s water comes from the snow captured each winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the water collected each spring in the state’s vast system of reservoirs. The problem is, we’ve never really known how much is up there. And these days it’s more confusing than ever.

But Dr. Tom Painter, a snow researcher for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, thinks he’s found an answer. Painter’s answer to the water problem is an airplane he calls the Airborne Snow Observatory, and it can measure vast stretches of mountain snow—from the air. The plane is equipped with two very cool, high-tech instruments. One is called a LiDar, which pulses a huge laser across the surface of the mountains, to measure the snow depth. The other is called a spectrometer, and it measures how white and bright the snow is.

Those two measurements, combined with ground surveys of the moisture in the snow, can tell researchers how much water will run out of the mountains, and when. At least that’s the idea. Deep, heavy snow holds more water. Dark snow—depending on coatings from dust and pollution—absorbs more of the sun’s energy and melts faster. “So we know how much sunlight is gonna be absorbed by the surface above that and how fast that’s going to melt down, wall to wall across the Tuolumne River Basin,” Painter said.

The plane will be loaded with data about the snow above the Tuolumne Basin, which feeds water into San Francisco. In the near future, flights like this can be ramped up to cover all of the Sierras, quickly measuring snowmelt for the state.

This will create a brand new method to help California’s water managers know how much water to keep or release from their reservoirs. Painter likened this system to a system of dual bank accounts, one in the mountains, one in the reservoirs—except it’s getting harder and harder to manage them.

For decades, we’ve had ways to measure the snow and its water from the ground. But the information comes from instruments scattered at low elevations—where snow melts first. That leaves a lot of unknowns, especially late in the spring.

At the same time, there’s a lot of pressure on managers to make sure they use the water wisely. And it’s only getting worse. “The temperature patterns are changing,” said Bruce McGurk, a consultant on Painter’s project and a former water manager for the Hetchy Reservoir, the main water supply to San Francisco. “Climate change is having quite an effect on the accuracy of those forecasts. We also see bigger droughts and bigger floods. This record-setting dry season this spring, since January, is an example of how this system keeps changing.”  Measuring the snow pack by air can help them managers plan more effectively.

But why care? Because without the water from the mountains, and the reservoir system that controls it, Los Angeles might still be a village. In the early nineteen hundreds, major engineering and political feats went into bringing water far from the mountains into the growing city.

Richard Atwater, executive director of the Southern California Water Committee, said California, as it keeps growing, is going to need all the water it can get. “Everybody has a water shortage problem of one nature or another, and you gotta really thank our grandparents and our great grandparents for figuring out how to solve that problem, but we still have work to do,” he said.

More growth means more demands on water. Governor Jerry Brown is right now pushing for a major, $14 billion water project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta—a major source of water for the state—that could potentially catch more runoff coming out of the mountains. Atwater says this is an issue affecting all Californians. “It affects obviously Los Angeles and Southern California down to San Diego, but it really affects communities from Bakersfield to Fresno to San Francisco to Oakland—it affects really the whole state,” he said. “We’re all in it together.”

Brian Calvert is an independent radio producer based in Southern California. His interests include wilderness, the environment and the American West. His work has appeared on Weekend America, Studio 360 and KCRW’s UnFictional. Follow Brian on Twitter @brcalvert and check out his blog at http://calvertink.wordpress.com/

But it’s finding nature in the urban Pico-Union neighborhood that is the specialty of Araceli Perez, the Children’s Nature Institute’s in-house educator. She wants kids to notice the nature that is around them, everyday, not just on special days when they go on a field trip or take a trip to the beach.

Children on a nature walk near Pico-Union.

At first, this seems like a big challenge. It’s hardly pastoral at Vermont and 20th, near the 10 Freeway overpass. There’s loud music booming from a flea market in a parking lot across the street. The neighborhood is a checkerboard of both neatly tended lawns and homes next to others that are neglected.

But parents in this neighborhood want to find the nature here, and share it with their kids. “Sometimes, you don’t take the time to see the natural, the nature around us,” says Marta Morales, a mom who brought her daughter on a recent nature walk.

Nature is found in the most urban areas.

There’s nature here, says Kelly Decker, Executive Director of the Children’s Nature Institute, and learning to see it is critical. She points out a beautiful avocado tree that is growing next to an old television and a discarded rubber tire.

“We encourage them to instead of look away, to look at it,” says Decker. “We’ll use the trash and litter that is on the ground and talk about what’s recyclable, what needs to go into the trash, how can you tell the difference, and then we’ll talk about the natural materials as well. The identification and classification is not only a scientific habit of mind, but its also good for their development.”

Kids look for life in a patch of grass. Photos by Jody Becker.

Alex Morales, Executive Director of the Children’s Bureau, a non-profit dedicated to finding stable homes for kids and strengthening struggling families, has seen the impact of the Children’s Nature Institute programs. What’s accomplished on the hikes, he says, “is some of the most powerful on the job training for how you start them going in the direction of having warm conversations, teaching moments, and they are just showing up and light bulbs are going off.”

The Children’s Nature Institute’s Annual Gala “World of Wonder” is Thursday night, April 25th at  the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica. For more information on their programs and events, see www.childrensnatureinstitute.org.

Leigh Pitt

The Memorial for Heroic Self Sacrifice

Cathy FitzGerald is a writer, producer and presenter. Her first radio documentary – The Magic Carpet Flight Manual – was broadcast on the BBC World Service in 2010 and won the Radio Academy Production Award for Best Newcomer, 2011. Since then she’s made many more features for the BBC, including Dreaming Dickens which won the Grand Prix Marulic for Best Documentary, 2012, and The Listening Project Symphonywith the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Follow her on Twitter @cathyfitzg and learn more at her website.

No Greater Love was produced by Cathy FitzGerald and Matt Thompson. It was a Rockethouse production for the BBC World Service.

Glaser in Rotterdam Maas River tunnel

Meredith Glaser is a svelte 31-year-old from Long Beach. A couple of years ago she found a job as an urban planner in Rotterdam, the second-largest city in the Netherlands. She’s learned to tolerate the wind and snow. And she’s fond of riding her bike on Rotterdam’s impressive bicycle infrastructure.

Before the second world war, Rotterdam had narrow streets and typical Dutch row houses. But in 1940, the Germans bombed it to rubble. Rotterdam was rebuilt for the car, with wide boulevards that resemble Wilshire or La Cienega. “The tragedy gave us space to redevelop the center,” explained Jeanette Baljeu, Rotterdam’s Vice Mayor in charge of transportation.

“Bicycles and cars shared the streets,” said Baljeu. But the new, wide boulevards developed problems. “Children were used to playing in the streets. They started getting run over,” explained Glaser. There were also car-versus-bike fatalities. Then came the oil crises of the 1970s. “We decided to take back space from cars to make bicycle lanes; to make it safer for all,” said Baljeu.

Tree-lined buffer keeps cars well away from cycle lane

Rotterdam segregated the lanes with wide buffers and curbs, to keep cars far away from cyclists and pedestrians. Today, fatalities are extremely rare. Compare that to Los Angeles, where fewer than two percent ride a bike, yet 24 cyclists are killed every year.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was reminded of this in July, 2010, while riding on Venice Boulevard. The bike lane–really just a painted line along the parked cars–was blocked by a stopped cab. As the mayor tried to pass, the taxi pulled out. “I hit my head and shattered my elbow,” he explained.

That focused him on the bike Master Plan. “We did nearly 80 miles of bike lanes this year.” Villaraigosa also worked to exempt them from the morass of California environmental law. “The system’s broken when you need an environmental impact report to re-stripe a lane,” he said. Still, aside from a half-mile test project on Figueroa, there are no plans for Dutch-style protected lanes.

Long Beach has gone further, with real bike lanes on Broadway and Third that have a curb to keep scofflaw motorists from driving or parking on them. “If you remove the element of car-versus-bicycle crashes, people use bikes more,” said Long Beach’s Mayor Bob Foster.

View of one of Rotterdams wide boulevards with tramways car lanes and bike lanes

Like Long Beach and Los Angeles, Rotterdam is part of a sprawling complex of cities. The Randstad–Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, the Hague and 30 smaller towns in the West Central Netherlands–has seven million residents spread over three-thousand square miles.
All Randstad cities have rail connections and robust bike infrastructure. Glaser enjoys giving tours of Rotterdam’s, which includes a bike-only tunnel under the Maas river.

Glaser is hopeful that one day Angelenos will build safer bike lanes. Combine Southern California’s weather with good bike infrastructure, she said, and everyone will ride. “I think California is one of the more progressive states. I think it has a promising future.”

Roger Rudick is a journalist and writer based in Los Angeles. His novel, “Story of a Comfort Girl,” is available on Amazon.

A recent “State of the Air” report from the American Lung Association gives LA County’s air quality a big fat ‘F.’  Smog, the brown stuff also known as ozone pollution, is still a problem – though it’s a lot better than it used to be. But there’s also particle pollution – sometimes called soot. And where does soot come from? According to the report, things that drive and fly cause 90 percent of the pollution in the region.  Diesel-fueled trucks, trains, and ships are a big part of that. That’s the soot. And there’s one place where all these vehicles come together – The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  The report calls the areas near the ports “hot spots.”

Produced by Tena Rubio with photography by Blair Wells. This was produced as part of the Independent Producer Project, KCRW’s initiative to cultivate and support the work of independent media producers and artists. For more information, visit www.kcrw.com/ipp

 Listen to the radio version of the story:

Tena Rubio is an award-winning radio journalist based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. She’s a frequent contributor to NPR’s Latino USA and is the former host & executive producer of the nationally syndicated show, Making Contact. A former TV producer & news writer, she is currently Board Secretary for the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR). This work was produced as a project for USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships.

 
Blair Wells is a Los Angeles-based photographer.  His love of documentary photography has led him to capture the face and heart of social issues, including projects featuring post-Katrina New Orleans day-workers, the everyday moments of a Santa Barbara homeless family and health issues of kids living near the Port of Los Angeles. Blair also organized participatory photography projects involving the deaf community and teenagers with autism. Through it all, the human condition – the struggles and successes of everyday people – remains the single most compelling subject of his work.

Love + Radio comes from producer Nick Van der Kolk. He and his collaborators make strange and intense sound stories while aggressively bending and breaking almost every rule of conventional radio. Plus their topics are bloodier, stranger and dirtier than anything you’ll ever find on your car radio.

The Man in the Road is the story of a man named Melvin Dummar, told mostly in his own words. In 1967 he picked up a man lying in the Nevada desert and gave him a ride. It was a chance meeting that turned Dummar into a 1970′s media celebrity.