I'm On NPR

So, Friday I had a phone interview with NPR -- specifically, with Milwaukee's local NPR station, for their LAKE EFFECT segment. It was broadcast today (Tuesday). Listening to it, I'm pleased that it came out as well as it did. You never quite know how things will go when speaking off the cuff, so it's nice when everything goes well. They told me they have editing software that cleans up hesitations and interruptions, like coughs or saying "um . . . um" a lot; it seems to have done a nice job. Here's the link:

http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/lake_effect_segment.php?segmentid=9701


Listening to it this evening, the only slip that caught my attention was my asserting, for some reason, that Wm. Ready was a devout Catholic. I don't actually know this for a fact -- I assume he was Catholic, since his heritage was Irish despite his growing up in Wales (he boasts in his autobiography about his family having brought a priest over from Italy to serve the community), since he worked at Marquette, concentrated on getting collections of Catholic authors for his new archives, and as I understand it went from Marquette to another Catholic university. Luckily, the point's not essential to the argument, just a side-issue. Similarly, I mention Marquette's having bought some seven thousand pages worth of material; checking Wayne & Christina's count in the COMPANION & GUIDE, I see that the final number was closer to eleven thousand pages.

Oh, and the introductory bit on the website gives the opening date of the upcoming HOBBIT movie as November 28th. Would that this were true! As I understand it, it'll be a little further off than that, with the debut date being December 14th (which will make a nice slightly delayed birthday present).

--John R.

P.S.: Have to say, re. the closing music to this segment, I'd never noticed the little tuba solo in THE BALLAD OF BILBO BAGGINS before. Live and learn.  --JDR