Ben Katchor, the first cartoonist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship grant, is also a writer, teacher, and performer of TED Talk recitations.  His familiar-seeming yet skewed urban vignettes, such as Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer and The Cardboard Valise, have been appearing in magazines and alternative newspapers for over a quarter century.  More recently, he's been collaborating with musician Mark Mulcahy on an absurdist musical play, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, and a comic-book opera, The Carbon Copy Building, both of which won Obie Awards.  Seemingly unable to successfully arrive in Portland, Katchor joins host S.W. Conser on the phone from Seattle to discuss his latest book, Hand-Drying in America and Other Stories, a collection of architecture-related comics from Metropolis magazine.

Tom Becker hosts this episode where we hear about the Portland Troublemakers School (April 13th) from two of its organizers, a movie review of "No", a discussion about the crises in Europe, and a book review of Jennifer Egan's "Look At Me". An error clipped the first couple minutes of this recording, and it starts right with Tom introducing Bill's interview. The list below is in order and the show is otherwise complete.

Larry Bowlden reviews an earlier work by Jennifer Egan (a Pulitzer prize-winner for her 2010 novel "The Goon Squad"), "Look at Me". Larry considers Egan's exploration of identity and how others see us affects and effects us.

Sonia Faleiro, author of Beautiful Thing, explains the culture of Bombay's Dance Bars and the recent social uprising around women's rights in India.

Interviewed and produced by Andrew Yeh.