Society & Culture

Trombonist Melba Liston is one the few women to find success as a musician, arranger, and composer in the world of jazz. Liston has worked with artists as diverse as Dizzy Gillespie and Aretha Franklin. After spending five years living in Jamaica, Liston has returned to the United States and formed a new big band, the seventeen-piece "Melba Liston and Company."

Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners, the name under which she writes her Washington Post advice column. She also reviews theater under her own name for the Post. She's recently written "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior." Martin joins the show to defend the importance of etiquette, discuss class relations and manners, and answer Fresh Air staff's questions on topics such as splitting the check, catching an unzipped "fly," sexism and other "-isms' in the workplace, and the perils of modern dating and marriage.

Juan Gonzalez has just returned to the Philadelphia Daily News after taking a year's leave to found and serve as the first president of the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights. Enrique Arroyo is the director of the Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey. They join the show to discuss Latino issues in the Delaware Valley.

Poet, playwright, and novelist Ntozake Shange is best known for her choreo-poem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf," which has been adapted for public television. Her first novel, "Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo" has just been published. It follows three sisters whose weaver mother named them after vivid dyes. The novel mixes poems, spells, potions, and recipes, and explores the territories and choices of modern Black women.

William Murray is the son of atheist crusader Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whom the family considered "the most hated woman in America." At the age of 14, Murray was the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case his mother filed to remove prayer from the Baltimore Public Schools. Murray experienced a difficult relationship with Murray O'Hair, who terrorized him as child. As an adult, Murray converted to Christianity and hasn't spoken to his mother since 1977. His new book is "My Life Without God."

Eldridge Cleaver was active in the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and early 1970s. He fled the country after his involvement in a shootout with Oakland Police and returned in 1975. Cleaver served 9 months in jail before being released, and he finishes his last day of parole today. He joins the show to discuss what has happened since his return, including his political involvement (which has become more conservative) and return to Christianity.

Jessica Savitch is one of the most prominent women journalists on broadcast television. She began her career as a Philadelphia newscaster. Her autobiography "Anchorwoman" discusses how she made her career in a male dominated industry. She joins the show to discuss journalism and women.

In 1952 jazz singer Cleo Laine joined The John Dankworth Band; in 1958, she and Dankworth married. They continue their collaboration: Dankworth produces and arranges Laine's albums and manages her career. Their latest effort is the album "Smilin' Through," which features Dudley Moore on piano. The English couple began touring the United States and Canada in the 1970s and Laine has sung in many prestigious venues. Dankworth has also written the scores for several films. The two are in town to perform at the Valley Forge Music Fair.

Helen Gurley Brown is the editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. She says that her newest book, "Having it All," is aimed at "mouse burgers" or, women of plain appearance. She defends beauty standards and claims that all women can develop themselves through fashion, makeup, exercise, and even plastic surgery.

Poet and performer Lane Kiyomi Nishikawa will be performing his one-man show about being Asian American "Life in the Fast Kabe: Requiem for a Sansei Poet" in Philadelphia. The show contains stories and poems based on his life in Hawaii and San Francisco. He joins the show to discuss his work and life.

Ben Krass of the Krass Brothers clothing store and Aaron Levin of Aron Levin Galleries are businessmen known in Delaware County for their television commercials. They join the show to discuss why they chose to create their own television advertisements, and how the ads have effected their businesses and images.

Peter Max is an artists whose "psychedelic" posters and graphics were popular in the 1960s and early 1970s, and he designed the appearance of the film "Yellow Submarine." He switched to painting in the mid-1970s, and his recent paintings of the Statue of Liberty were featured in Reagan's White House. A retrospective of his paintings, drawings, lithographs and etchings will open at the Hallowell Gallery in Conshohocken.

Vine Deloria is a Native American activist and writer. The member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe joins the show to discuss Native American politics and society.

Stanley Crouch is a jazz critic and Village Voice columnist who regularly writes about jazz, theater, and black issues and politics. Crouch is also a drummer who has recorded with several jazz bands. He is in Philadelphia to speak at a jazz forum and concert.

Novelist Edmund White's newest work, "A Boy's Own Story," follows a young gay man growing up in the midwest in the 1950s. The novel has some autobiographical elements. White joins the show to discuss his life, growing up as a homosexual person, and his novel.

Marge Piercy is a novelist. Her new book is titled "Braided Lives." She joins the show to discuss looking back on one's past, feminism, and her involvement in leftist politics.

Divine is known for acting in drag in John Waters' films. Divine has developed a club act which will play in Philadelphia and is publishing a paper-doll book. Divine's drag persona was developed with director and writer John Waters. A retrospective of Waters' films is currently playing in Philadelphia. The two join the show to discuss their careers, lives, and the public's reaction to their boundary-pushing films.

Documentarian Bob Mugge's new film "Black Wax" is a performance documentary with poet and activist Gil Scott-Heron. The film documents performances by Scott-Heron, including some with wax figures. Mugge's previous film "Amateur Night at City Hall," was a documentary about Frank Rizzo. The film includes Scott-Heron performing a portion of his poem/song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

Poet Nikki Giovanni joins the show to discuss her latest work "Those Who Ride the Night Winds," the life of a poet, African American poets, rap, and women poets.

Joyce Johnson became a part of the circle known as the Beat writers: Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, when she broke away from her middle class Jewish family life and joined the bohemian Greenwich Village crowd. Johnson met Kerouac in 1957 and was in a romantic relationship with him for two years. Her new memoir, "Minor Characters," discusses not only her experiences but also the role of women in the Beat generation. Johnson is also an editor and novelist.