Saturday Morning for Saturday 17 December 2022

8.10 Sam McAlister: the woman behind that Prince Andrew interview

8.40 Danyl McLauchlan: neurodiversity and me

Danyl McLauchlan joins Kim to tackle life's big questions, ideas and thinkers. This week, how neurodiverse really are we?

McLauchlan has taken a few 'are you autistic' tests online in his time, he writes on The Spinoff with the answer always, "slightly, in some ways, but mostly no." 

Scientists have long known that in our heads we think and see things differently. Danyl doesn't feel 'cognitively normal' but is sceptical of a binary answer that places people as either neurotypical or neurodivergent. He's been thinking about neurodiversity as it relates to everyone from the characters in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels to the brains of tech disruptors like Peter Thiel.  

Danyl is the author of two novels and his first essay collection, Tranquillity and Ruin, was published last year by Victoria University Press.

9.05 Principal experimentalist explains nuclear fusion breakthrough

Recreating nuclear fusion - the reaction that powers stars including our sun - is seen as the holy grail of energy technology, holding potential to create a near-unlimited source of safe clean energy.

This week, scientists at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made a huge breakthrough.
Their experiment, which involved  smashed hydrogen atoms with a laser, produced more energy than they put in. 

Alex Zylstra is the principal experimentalist on the project.

 

9.35 Lawrence Millman: was Santa tripping on magic mushrooms?

When we think about the origins of Santa Claus most of us envision Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas and maybe Coca-Cola. Adventurer, writer and mycologist Lawrence Millman sees a large red and white psychedelic 'amanita muscaria' mushroom.

Millman is a proponent of a theory, backed by Harvard professors, anthropologists, and other mycologists, that Santa is made in the image of a 'shroom loving Arctic shaman, who dispensed psychedelic gifts down chimneys and whose reindeer flew high. 

Lawrence Millman is the author of Goodbye, Bye: Arctic Poems, Last Places: A Journey in the North, Fungipedia and Giant Polypores and Stoned Reindeer. He has made over 30 trips to the Arctic and Subarctic during his adventuring career. 

10.05 Brigid Delaney: how to be Stoic in Chaotic Times

If you're feeling frazzled with the festive season, then you might want to take a leaf out of Brigid Delaney's new book.
 
The author and senior writer for Guardian Australia says she spent years living a chaotic lifestyle but in 2018 turned her attention to Stoicism, an ancient philosophy which promotes the idea that we shouldn't unnecessarily worry about things outside our control.
 
Drawing on age-old schools of thought, Delaney's book Reasons Not to Worry, How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times offers practical tips for everything from beating FOMO, dealing with pandemic pandemonium and finding inner calm.

10.35 Bee Dawson: the heroes of Ōtari-Wilton's bush  

Wellington's Ōtari-Wilton's Bush is the only botanic garden dedicated solely to the collection and conservation of plants unique to Aotearoa. 

The bush reserve also has over a 100 hectares of regenerating forest and some of the Capital's oldest trees. For writer and historian Bee Dawson it's a place of stories - of both national botanical heroes and local community. She has brought them together in Ōtari: 200 Years of Ōtari-Wilton's Bush.

Ōtari-Wilton has become a 'Living Plant Museum' associated with plant legends like John Gretton McKenzie, Walter Brockie and Leonard Cockayne. Today it's home to a laboratory dedicated to the study and preservation of our native flora. 

11.05 The best books of 2022 with Kate De Goldi and Laura Kroetsch

Kate De Goldi and Laura Kroetsch join Kim to share their favourite books of the year.

From a tour of sea creatures, to a novel with four versions of the same story, and a history of bodily freedoms, their picks provide eclectic and electric reading options for summer.

Arts Foundation Laureate Kate De Goldi is one of New Zealand's most celebrated authors. Her most recent novel Eddy Eddy, was released earlier this year and she is also known for her interest and work in children and young people’s literature.

Laura Kroetsch is a reviewer, writer and curator of literary events. She has directed Adelaide Writers’ Week, the ‘Dark & Dangerous Thoughts’ sessions at Dark Mofo in Hobart and, most recently, Adelaide’s Jaipur Literature Festival Each Others Stories programme.

Kate's picks:

Everybody; A book about Freedom by Olivia Laing (non-fiction, UK)

Wayward by Dana Spiotta (novel, USA)

Trust by Hernan Diaz (novel, USA)

Peninsula by Sharron Came (stories/novel, NZ)

Dinosaur by Lydia Millet (novel, USA)

Bird Collector by Alison Glenny (poetry, NZ)

16 Words by Rogers & Groenink (picture book, non-fiction, all ages, USA)

A Vertical Art by Simon Armitage (essays, UK)

We Don't Know Ourselves by Fintan O'Toole (non-fiction, Ireland)

The Trees by Percival Everett (novel, USA)

Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk (essays, USA)

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner (novel, UK)

Simon the Fiddle by Paulette Jiles (novel, Canada)

The Stupefying by Nick Ascroft (poetry, NZ)

Laura's picks
 
Fiction

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley (USA)

Dinosaur by Lydia Millet (USA)

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka (USA)

Portrait of the Thief by Grace D Li (USA) CRIME

Non-fiction

Everybody; A book about Freedom by Olivia Laing

How Far The Light Reaches: A LIfe in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

Strangers to Ourselves: Stories of Unsettled Minds by Rachel Aviv

Worn: A People's History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser

South to American: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry

Pleasures and Landscapes by Sybille Bedford

 

 

Music featured on this show:

Yoshimi battles the Pink Robots Pt 1
The Flaming Lips
Played at 9.30am

The Worst is Done
Weyes Blood
Played at 10.30am

The best things in life are free
Sam Cooke
Played at 11.58am

 

Books featured on this show:

Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews
By Sam McAlister
ISBN: 0861544404
Published by One World Publications

Reasons Not to Worry, How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times
By Brigid Delaney
ISBN: 9781743310496
Published by Allen and Unwin

Ōtari: 200 Years of Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush
By Bee Dawson
ISBN: 9781988595610
Published by Cuba Press