Search results for

2: Musician, Singer, Record Producer and a Fresh Air favorite BEN VAUGHN. He has a new release, "Mono USA: 8-track Home Recordings 1988-1992" (Bar/None).

2: Journalist STAN SESSER, who details the successful marketing of American cigarettes in Asian countries in a New Yorker article, (September 6, 1993). SESSER claims the continent of Asia consumes half the world's cigarettes. Of particular interest to American tobacco firms is China -- despite explict laws prohibiting the sale or advertising of foreign cigarettes -- because three hundred million people smoke (more people than the entire population of the United States). An official of the World Health Organization says deaths by cigarettes in China will soon wipe out gains made in preventing deaths from malnutrition and communicable diseases.

2: Novelist and short-story writer ROBERT BOSWELL. He's best known for his novels, "Crooked Hearts," and "The Geography of Desire." Of those books, one reviewer wrote (Mr. Boswell) "has a marvelous ability to creat ensemble pieces populated by people who are rich in both psychological detail and idiosyncrasy." His novels focus on families, and the connections between people. BOSWELLS's new novel is "Mystery Ride," (Knopf) about a failed marriage that endures, however, in the hearts of the couple. BOSWELL also teaches at New Mexico State University and at the Warren Wilson Master of Fine Arts Program for Writers in North Carolina.

Ken Tucker reviews the new benefit album organized to help singer/songwriter Victoria Williams, who is afflicted with mutliple sclerosis: "Sweet Relief". The album features Lou Reed, Pearl Jam, Matthew Sweet and others performing her songs.

Kevin Whitehead reviews the latest entries in Hollywood''s "lovers-on-the-run-through-blinding-deserts" genre: "Kalifornia" and "True Romance" (scripted by Quentin Taratino, who gave us "Reservoir Dogs" last year).

2: The former head of NBC's television programming PAT WEAVER (Sylvester L. "Pat" Weaver, Jr.). He began that job in the early days of the medium - in 1949 - and was the creator of two of television's longest running shows, the "Today" show and the "Tonight" show. WEAVER started his career in radio, where he worked with comic Fred Allen. And he was advertising manager for the American Tobacco Company, under the eccentric tobacco magnate George Washington Hill. WEAVER has a new memoir of his career, "The Best Seat in the House," (Knopf). It was written with Thomas M. Coffey.

Biomedical ethicist ARTHUR CAPLAN. Among the topics Marty discusses with him are the right to die and the implications of the doctor-assisted suicides, specifically how Dr. Jack Kevorkianhas been helping patients die. Caplan is Director of Biomedical Ethics and a professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Surgery at the University of Minnesota

COMMENTATOR MAUREEN CORRIGAN ON TWO NEW BOOKS OF NON-FICTION: "THEIRS WAS THE KINGDOM" BY JOHN HEIDENRY (NORTON) A HISTORY OF READERS DIGEST, AND "LAND OF DESIRE" BY WLLIAM LEACH (PANTHEON) ABOUT THE RISE OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Writer, actor, director HAROLD RAMIS. He's one of the most influential forces behind some of the biggest comedy hits of the late 70s and 80s. But his influence is not generally known by those outside the industry. (For that reason he's been called the "Clark Kent" of comedy. Also because he's "mild-mannered," "bespectacled," and he "looks as if he would be the first to duck under the table at the first sign of a food fight"). RAMIS wrote for "The National Lampoon Show," and "SCTV." He co-wrote as well as acted in the movies, "Animal House," "Stripes," "Ghostbusters," and others. He directed the new movie, "Groundhog Day," starring his old co-star Bill Murray.

2: Actor JAMES EARL JONES. His is one of the distinctive voices of our time, yet few people know he fights a stutter; JONES' stage work off-Broadway in Jean Genet's "The Blacks" and Athol Fugard's "The Blood Knot" lead to a Broadway success in "The Great White Way", for which JONES won a Tony. His work in August Wilson's "Fences" won him another. It took one day to record the voice track for Darth Vader in "Star Wars": a performance which lead to many other commercial voice-over projects. JONES has released his memoirs, "Voices and Silences" (Scribners). (Rebroadcast from 9