S1: It's time for Midday Edition on KPBS. Today's arts and culture show features one local poet appearing at this year's San Diego Writers Festival. Plus , we get a preview of the upcoming Arab Film Fest. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Heinemann here with conversations that keep you informed , inspired and engaged. Writer Katie Manning shares what makes the art of poetry so special for her.
S2: There is something about poetry that speaks to us on a very deep level that I think , you know , not all forms of entertainment or art can reach.
S1: Then we hear about KPBS newest podcast on San Diego's arts and culture scene. That's ahead on Midday Edition. The San Diego Writers Festival takes place this Saturday at Coronado High School. It's a celebration of our region's literary arts and the power of storytelling. This year's festival will feature a reading from some of our most esteemed poets here in San Diego. Among them is Katie Manning. She's a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University and founder of the Wail Road Review , a literary journal that publishes poetry and short prose. Katie , welcome to the show.
S2: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.
S1: We're glad to have you. So this year's theme is Be the Change How Writing and Publishing Can Transform the World.
S2: I think that , you know , writing has the the power to help us see other people's perspectives and experience things that we couldn't otherwise experience in our own lives. And so if we let it , I think it can really build empathy. And we always need more of that. Indeed.
S1: Indeed. But we're also living in an age where there's so much content available for us , whether it's , you know , through the internet , uh , streaming movies at any hours of the day.
S2: But there are always going to be all sorts of things , all sorts of ways people can express themselves via , you know , different modes of art and so many things that can be entertaining. But I think particularly poetry is something that we always come back to. It's something that we , you know , we turn to for weddings and we turn to for funerals. And , you know , it's there is something about poetry that speaks to us on a very deep level that I think , you know , not all forms of entertainment or art can reach.
S1: And much of your poetry focuses on , on women's stories , particularly those not always being told.
S2: And , you know , for whatever reason , they don't have a voice or they're we don't know their names. Um , I'm always drawn to exploring those and seeing how we can recover perspectives that might otherwise be lost or ignored. So that was very much what I was doing with my first collection , The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman. And I think it sprinkles throughout all of my writing.
S1: And you mentioned there , you know , the gospel being in that title. You've taken a lot of inspiration from the Bible. How do biblical stories fit into your work ? Yeah.
S2: So I was raised in the church , and I was very cool when I was in high school and did Bible quizzing. So I feel like the Bible is so much part of my vocabulary and and it is for a lot of people. You know , I remember even just taking like the literature GRE when I was applying to grad school. Um , it always has a couple of questions about the Bible , because it is so much part of the language and some of the foundation for a lot of the stories that we tell , even stories that are , you know , not directly within the church. So my most recent collection , Her reverent , is using biblical language very much. And basically , I am taking language from the Bible out of context and using it to create poems in protest of people who take language from the Bible out of context and use it as a weapon against others.
S1: Real quick , before talking more about her reverent , you mentioned Bible quizzing there.
S2: Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So Bible quizzing is very much like that. It's you focus on one or a handful of smaller books of the Bible each year , and then , you know , middle school and high school students compete with each other. And , you know , somebody will ask a question and you jump up to answer the question , and whoever jumps up fastest gets to do it. And there are memory verses and , you know. So it was fun. I had a good time and I made a lot of friends across the country doing that , but it definitely made me so close with biblical language that I think sometimes I couldn't see it anymore. It's kind of like when you say a word over and over And it doesn't have any meaning anymore. Yeah , I wasn't expecting this , but with my most recent book , that process of writing sort of familiarized the language for me again , and I just appreciated that it. It allowed me to see the language that had become so familiar in a new way.
S1: And from that , you know , most recent work , her reverent.
S2: Um , so like I mentioned , I was using the Bible as a word bank , and I used the last chapter of each book of the Bible. Then I used the titles of the books , and I anagram them to create the titles of the poems. Um , this one's a partial anagram. It's from Ecclesiastes , and it's called The Book of Class. The days will say , find pleasure in the light , the clouds , the windows , the almond tree , the grasshopper , the streets , the sound of people afraid of heights the dust returns to meaning. Find the word like firmly embedded nails in every hidden thing.
S1: That's really beautiful , I think. I think a lot of us have have tried to write a poem , you know , maybe even just in school. But it can be a challenge. At least it is for me. What's your approach ? I mean , that particular poem , you know. Where did you start in that poem ? Can you break that process down for us a little bit ? Sure.
S2: So these poems are really unlike poems that I have done before. I'm not usually using , you know , a limited word bank. Although as I was working on this , I realized , of course , I'm always using a limited word bank. I'm using my own mental lexicon most of the time , and so it just was a further limitation. But it was really a useful process as kind of an assignment for myself. I had just had a baby , and I was just finishing my dissertation , and I was about to start a full time for professor position , and I thought I might never write again. If I don't give myself kind of an assignment. So this was my assignment. And with these poems , I can't tell you for sure with this poem , but sometimes I started with the title first , and sometimes I just gave myself several options for the anagram title. And then I started pulling out words from the actual , you know , last chapter of whatever book I was working with. And , you know , I was especially looking for words that seemed like they would do something interesting in a sensory way , or words that I wouldn't expect necessarily to be in the Bible , you know , or that aren't necessarily important in their context or we don't think they are. But then it's kind of fun to see , like , oh , there's a grasshopper in here or an almond tree or , you know. So yeah , that was kind of a process of just pulling words out and then playing with rearranging them and seeing what happened when I made a poem.
S1: So , you know , in addition to your own writing. You know , as we mentioned , you're the editor of a literary journal as well. It's been ten years since you founded that. Congratulations.
S2: Thank you.
S1: Thank you.
S2: It's I always joke that it's the work that I do out of love and for no money. Like I actually pay to do this work. But I love getting to find wonderful pieces of writing and share them with other people. And I love the way that I get to support other writers and encourage them and affirm their work. And so really , I just find the whole process to be really joyful , as I said. And also , there's something about , you know , even the aspects of it that are sort of mundane , like logging submissions or the kind of bookkeeping elements of it I find really relaxing because they're different than so much of what else I have to do in life. That requires a lot of thought , mental energy. There are some elements of that work , of the editorial work and that bookkeeping sort of work that I find really lovely as sort of a break from other work that I'm doing. But I think there is , I don't know , there is just something amazing to me still about the fact that I created this journal. I named this thing and other people use its name. And it's not unlike having a child , right ? You created this thing and you named it. And other people are , you know , responding to it like you had the authority to name it. And people send us such amazing work. And I I'm just constantly blown away by how much incredible writing we get to see , more than we can possibly publish. And it's an honor , you know , when people trust you to to publish them.
S1: I mean , one thing you mentioned there was , was money or lack thereof , you know , being a publisher. And for me , I mean , I don't know that many multimillionaire poets.
S2: Um , I started creating poems when I was four , and my granny helped me write them down , and I think I just always was a poet. I loved playing with language. Yeah , there's there's something about the way that poetry connects me with other people. I think a lot of times people think of writing as solitary , but it really is so communal. I feel connected with people who have written in the past and will write in the future , and I feel connected with , you know , my current fellow poets and writers and editors. And so I think that's one of my favorite things. I'm maybe a rare extrovert poet , but I love I love those , those aspects connecting with people at readings and conferences and , and through publication. All of that is just is really wonderful.
S1: We've been having lots of conversations here on midday about art and its importance , especially in uncertain times.
S2: I think it has the ability to call us to action. I always think that's one of the highest compliments someone can give to a poet and a poem , right ? This poem made me want to do something. It , you know , caused me to want to respond in some , you know , concrete way. And so , I mean , I think , I think art has so , so many different ways that it can reach us. And the world of poetry is so wide. So , you know , anything that you think you couldn't find in a poem , we can probably find a poem that does that. So I do think for me those are the biggest things. They they keep me hoping and they keep me empathetic and able to feel what another person is feeling or experiencing. Also , you know , I think because of that , frequently call me to action. And I think that's that's really important work.
S1: I've been speaking with poet Katie Manning. You can see here at the San Diego Writers Festival on Saturday , April 5th. Poetry readings will start at 330 at the Coronado Performing Arts Center , followed by the San Diego Poetry Annual Open Mic. Katie , thank you so much.
S2: Oh , thank you for having me.
S1: Coming up , we preview some of the filmmakers and films featured at this year's San Diego Arab Film Festival.
S3: Films do not change the world , but they may open your eyes to push you to think , to push you , to be curious , to push you , to want to find out more.
S1: That's coming up on Midday Edition. You're listening to. KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Heinemann. The San Diego Arab Film Festival will showcase movies over the next two weekends at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park , and a pair of Palestinian documentaries will bookend the festival. KPBS Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando spoke with event organizers Larry Christian and Maha Jabbar , as well as filmmaker Muna Khalidi. Here's that conversation , Larry.
S4:
S5: There were a series of vigils at the Oregon Pavilion because it was happening at Christmas time , and there were a lot of people there , and some of some friends of mine said they wanted to have some handbills to pass out to people to say what it was about , and they wanted a native English speaker to write them and what I do it. That led to the formation of then the Middle East Cultural and Information Center , which focused on issues of the Arab and Islamic world , with a special emphasis on Palestine. And then in 2011 , we got more formal and became Karama , got 501 C3 certified , and that's what we've been doing since then. There had been actually interest for a long time. And in the Arab community of different groups who to have an Arab film festival in San Diego and various groups would get together and get that started , and they'd get to a certain point and they couldn't quite get all the way there. And so at a certain point , one of our members was a , uh , a founder of the San Diego Jewish Voice for peace chapter. And he said to the rest of us in Carmel , well , why don't we do it ? Sure. We said. And when we took on having an Arab film festival in San Diego , that was like a long term commitment. So for the last 14 years we've been doing that.
S4: And aside from Iran and Israel , we do not get a whole lot of Arab films released , especially not in mainstream theaters and not even streaming that much.
S5: One is we are signed up on a website called Film Freeway , which is a major international forum for getting submissions to film festivals. We get a number of mostly shorts from from that source and then we research what's going on at film festivals around the world and pick out ones that we think are interested in , you know , doing this is a is really an all year project. Maha right now is putting together our initial findings on potential films for next year.
S4: And Maha , you have noticed this year that there are quite a few female centric films.
S6: So the first Saturday we are showing two Lebanese films and they are both female centric. And that is Taika is the first showing and then Asia is the second. And then there's flight 404 , which is from Egypt , and it is Egypt's submission to the Oscars. And it's also like hit big box office time in Egypt. And then there is take my breath from Tunisia. And finally , Pessimism from Canada , but about a Syrian refugee. So five films that are female centric.
S4: And you are presenting one of these.
S6: I will be presenting Arazi. Arazi is is Lebanon's submission to the Oscar. Arazi means feeder , which is our emblem of Lebanon and is the name of the single mother. It's a story about a single mother called Irsay and her teenage son , and they take us on this emotional ride as they try to survive in a collapsing Beirut. When their scooter , the one thing helping them get by , gets stolen and they're thrown into a journey across the city's divided neighborhoods. It's really good , actually. It's funny , intense , and it's a real window into Lebanon's class and sectarian divides. I personally enjoyed that a lot.
S4:
S6: I left Lebanon as a child in 1976 , during the height of the civil war , and came to England and then the US.
S4: And speaking of female centric films , there is the documentary State of Passion , which is the closing night film. It's not about a woman , but it's co-directed by two women. And one of those filmmakers is here right now. And I want to thank Muna for joining us from Lebanon , where it's 1 a.m. right now. And tell us about your documentary , which focuses on a doctor.
S3: This is a film that through which we aim to tell the story of what it really means , like to be in an a genocide. It's a story of Raza , told through an exceptional person who is Doctor Ghassan. Abu Ghassan is a reconstructive surgeon. Very well known , very well respected. And he's a very dear friend of both mine and Carol. Carol Mansour , the co-director. And this is not his first time in Brazil. So this was not a scripted film. It was not even a planned film. But since we're close friends , every time Gaston has been together , we've been in touch. In fact , we were in touch the day he decided to go , which was October 7th. He or when I spoke to him in the morning , he'd already booked his ticket and we were speaking every single day , whenever possible. And we spoke the day he decided that he was about to leave Brazil. So we looked at one another and we said , that's it. We need to go to our man now and meet him. And that's how it happened. We took the next flight and met him just as he emerged from our man , sat with him , had the first interview in the middle of the night. He was exhausted. He was drained. He was thin. He was ill. He was traumatized , I think. still. But we got that first interview , and after we got that first interview , we just knew that this film had to be made. And honestly , it kind of made itself. We just followed the story from one angle and another and another and another , and we felt very pressured. We felt that this was one , that this was our story , and we should be the ones telling it not to wait until a stranger comes from abroad , and two that needed to be told immediately that we didn't have the luxury of , you know , reflecting later on. That would be another story later when we reflect on what has happened. But there was something happening and is happening right now. And we had the privilege of having a treasure , which is a close relationship and trust with someone on the ground , but also , and I hope other medics won't hate me. Kazan has this ability that most surgeons don't. Which is to see the bigger picture and to contextualize and to be articulate. So this is kind of a quick introduction to the film.
S4: So you are going to be showing this film at the Arab Film Festival here in San Diego.
S3: We want people to listen. We want people to hear the story. We want people to become interested in learning more. It's a film. Film do not change the world. But they may open your eyes. To push you to think. To push you. To be curious. To push you. To want to find out more. To push you. To learn. And if we can achieve that , I think we'd be very , very happy. The San Diego Arab Film Festival is a very good platform. Form. We participated earlier in 2017 , I think , and what we really liked about it is that it's not only the Arabs or Arab Americans. It's a much wider community , because what we really don't want is to be preaching to ourselves. We know what's going on. We understand it. We want to reach those people who are in the grey area , who are still on the fence , who are intrigued. And I think we have a very compelling storytelling here that touches on a lot of issues. At the forefront is the story of a person and what makes a very successful person living a very comfortable life. Pick up , leave his family and go to a war zone repeatedly. But the layers underneath that is what makes any Palestinian feel so strongly and have that sense of identity. And also , what does it really mean ? We've all seen images. We've all seen the destruction. But what does it really mean to live it ? What does it mean that a hospital is bombed ? What does it mean when you have the Israeli army targeting doctors and paramedics and specialists ? It means you've destroyed the system. So we're trying to get the extent of what's going on. The horror. Not only. It's not a reportage. There are thousands. I mean , our phone screens are full of news reports. We have conversations about it. Yes , it's very heavy , but the reality is heavy. But also there is humor and there is a it's reality. So it's very , very true and and and real and raw and it's in its emotions.
S4: And Larry , you have one other Palestinian film screening at your festival. This is your opening night film. It's the recent Oscar winner No Other Land.
S5: We are sold out. We really wanted to have opening night and closing night films from Palestine , and we were really attracted to the idea of having one of those be about Gaza , which is , you know , on everybody's mind all the time , but another one being on the West Bank and what's happening there. They're connected. And there's a tendency in public discourse to kind of atomized Palestine. There's the West Bank , there's Jerusalem , there's there's Gaza. There's not even sometimes not even just all of Gaza , just Hamas. But all of these things are part of us , are part of a whole. And we wanted to give that get that idea across with our choice of opening and closing films.
S4: And these two documentaries we're talking about are really driven by current events. But one of the films I really loved is a film about a historical figure , a French black psychiatrist and intellectual from Martinique , and his name was Fanon , and you are showing a film about him set in Algiers in the 1950s.
S5: So Frantz Fanon was a very important psychiatrist and intellectual , particularly during the times of liberation movements in the 50s and the 60s. So he was a practicing psychiatrist , and he got hired to work at an institution in Algeria , where he got confronted with the differences from his own approach to treating patients , where his goal was to try to get the people in the institution to a point where they could reintegrate back in with their families and society. And the French people who had been running before just wanted to keep them , you know , hidden away. He was trying to work with that , but he also encountered the racism of the French rulers , who had a strict segregation between the French and the Arab patients , and also towards him as a black doctor. Towards the end of the time covered by the film , the Algerian Liberation Front was becoming more prominent and becoming more successful. And Frantz Fanon , who came from a place that was also colonized by France , was very sympathetic to that , and he ended up becoming an important player in that conflict. He wrote maybe his most famous book , uh , wretched of the Earth. Among the things that it addresses is the social and psychological effect of colonialism on On the victims , but also about the , uh , the role in effect of violence on the people there and what part of his argumentation is that ? When you look at the violence of the colonizer and the violence of the liberationists , you can't analyze those in the same terms , because there are different phenomena and they affect the people who are involved in it in different ways. You know , thinking about this film and about Frantz Fanon , and it seems to me that it's very current.
S1: That was KPBS Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando , speaking with Larry Christian and Maha Jabbar of the San Diego Arab Film Festival , along with Muna Khalidi , co-director of A State of Passion , which closes the festival on April 13th. Coming up , we hear from the creators of KPBS new arts and culture podcast , The Finest. They share what they hope listeners will take away from it.
S7: Whether it's finding some new art or taking up birding or whatever. Finding some way to remind themselves why they love living here or why this place is incredible.
S1: That's ahead on Midday Edition. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Hindman. So what makes San Diego America's finest ? The answer may change depending on who you ask. But there's one thing that helps. And that's our thriving arts and culture scene. KPBS newest podcast , The Finest , takes us behind the scenes of all the arts happenings in our region and connects us to the creatives shaping culture today. We actually have an excerpt from the very first episode , and if you love matcha , it might ring a few bells. Take a listen.
S7: What actually happens when your business goes viral ? When you get caught up in the currents of an online sensation ? What do you hang on to ? How do you keep your sense of self and purpose ? This is the story of Peru , a tea shop that made waves when they opened their La Jolla location in 2021. For years , they've been selling single origin and custom blended loose leaf tea to San Diegans. But it was their matcha lattes that took off on TikTok.
S8: We're at Peru , one of the best matcha shops in San Diego. You have to try Peru tea. Guys , I drove three hours to try the most viral matcha spot in San Diego. They make one of the best match lattes I've ever had. The first thing I noticed was their matcha machine that produces house milled ceremonial matcha.
S4:
S9:
S7: Most of the TikToks show Peru's Minimalist decor , with workers staring at matcha with bamboo whisks and carefully pouring it into plastic cups , all set to chill , vibey music. But if you took that serene soundtrack away , if you were there in person , the vibe was not so zen. The lines stretched down the street. Co-owners and married couple Amy Truong and Lani Bellezza went through so much oatmilk they could hardly keep it stocked.
S10: There was this idea that we were a cafe and we love cafes and stuff , but I think it got so busy to the point that we couldn't even talk to customers who were coming in.
S7: Lonnie and Amy were grateful for the excitement around their drinks , but they are passionate about the mindfulness and philosophy of a slow , focused tea experience , slinging hundreds of matcha lattes every day. It was never quite their vision.
S10: It was kind of a good reminder for us to revisit who we are as a business.
S7: In August of last year , Lonnie and Amy announced they'd no longer be serving drinks , and TikTok mourned. Now they're all about tea experiences and selling all kinds of loose leaf tea and the equipment to prepare it at home. They broke all the rules of the notoriously challenging food and beverage industry. They shut the door on a huge line of customers. And now business is better than ever.
S10:
S7: When they started , they offered San Diego an unfamiliar product without a lot of proven demand. Single origin loose leaf tea. no tea bags. Amy creates all of their famous blends , which use only natural ingredients , like in their blue camomile tea made from three kinds of real flowers. All their teas are inspired by memories from childhood and beyond , including Amy and Lonnie's own truly cinematic romance. This is their story. Serendipity. Big leaps of faith and a chance encounter in San Diego's Japanese sister city led them to each other and led them to their own unique , committed way of bringing world class tea and community to San Diego. And they're doing it their way. Slow. Focused. Happy. Not taking anything for granted.
S10: It really goes into the principle of , like , Japanese tea. Someone like Ichi. Go , ichi. It's like one chance. Like one meeting. It's like you always want to be your present self. Because you never know what like tomorrow might bring or , you know , within the few hours. so it always has to be like everything at this moment counts.
S7: Ichigo Ishii one chance , one meeting from KPBS Public Media. This is The Finest , a podcast about the people , art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. I'm Julia Dixon Evans.
S1: So that was a preview of the new KPBS Arts podcast called The Finest. And now I'm joined by the creators behind that podcast host Julia Dixon Evans and producer Anthony Wallace. Hey , welcome to the show.
S7: Hey , Andrew. Thanks for having us. Hello.
S11: Hello. Yeah , good to be here.
S1: So congratulations on the podcast. I mean , it must be exciting to have it finally out there. So the first episode is out today , and I want to segue into that episode. We just heard a snippet of Julia. How did you first come across Peru.
S7: Well , I actually heard about this tea shop from an artist I was interviewing for a story years ago in this exhibit called Ghidorah Lives. It was a weird experience. Like all of these arts community things are connected. But I went there. They used to have a shop in Point Loma , another in La Jolla , but I went to that Point Loma shop and got some tea. Loved it. And then our editor actually brought it up. I was like , these people have an incredible story , like the way that they develop their business and the way that they do their work is great. So yeah , that was how Peru crossed our desks.
S1: And Anthony , I think , you know , this is arts and culture. You're starting off with T here.
S11: We're working on a ton of different stories right now on various points of completion , but we have stuff about like other stuff about food , more traditional art , stuff that , you know , you , you think of immediately music , visual art , painters , um , but also like outdoors , things like hiking , nature , bird birding , birding specifically. So yeah , I think we have a pretty broad view of of culture. And just like seeing culture as everything that kind of makes San Diego what it is.
S1: And part of that , Julia , I mean , amongst all these different topics you're covering , you're also talking poetry this season too , right ? Right.
S7: So we are like looking at individual artists and , and kind of approaching it from a storytelling standpoint , like who is behind the art and culture that we're seeing in San Diego. So like talking to these poets , talking to visual artists and finding out like why they're making the work that they're making. What is it like to be an artist in San Diego ? Um , how can you make a living ? I think that's been a really important question for me in my work here is like , how do you survive ? What's the economy like as an artist ? So that's that's something really fascinating. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And I mean , you've been covering the San Diego arts and culture beat for , like you said , about a decade.
S7: I'm like , what does it mean to report on arts events ? Like , what does it mean to to like , have have this job right now and watching the way that the arts scene and , and creative communities pivoted. That has been like a really huge distinguishing factor of how artists and the arts and culture have survived in San Diego and watching the ways that people have changed their habits have come back to arts , have decided that , you know , this is how I'm going to seek out community. This is how I'm going to seek out our food , music , whatever. And that's been interesting to follow.
S1: And you're right. I mean , there was such a dramatic change , the start of the Covid pandemic. And Anthony , I think you guys are also exploring on the season , the arts economy and some of the challenges , as you mentioned , that artists are facing in the region.
S11: As Julia mentioned , Julia and I have both like worked in the arts. Um , so we know firsthand what it's like to try to scrape together a living doing that. A couple of our episodes are early episodes following this. First one are specifically about the music economy and just what it's like to try to make it as a musician these days. And we go pretty deep into streaming and Spotify. And I think a lot of people , you know , vaguely know that it's tough and Spotify doesn't pay very well. But we were surprised to learn just how much Spotify has changed just in the past couple of years , and how that's made it even more difficult for the artist. It's also changed our experience as users of Spotify , as it's become more essentially , it's come to resemble TikTok more where it's it's really about suggesting stuff to you and kind of like taking your autonomy out of the equation.
S1: And Anthony , you're you're a newcomer to San Diego , but you've traveled reported kind of all over the place.
S11: And you can just feel that everywhere. And I've spent a lot of time like living in reporting in Latin America. So I love that. It makes me feel more connected to the place. I think it's really interesting. We were talking about nature a little bit , the biodiversity. I've learned that San Diego is the most biodiverse county in the United States. Lots of great opportunities for , you know , outdoor activities , but just a ton of wildlife and interesting things to explore , including many types of birds , which we which we got into , um , and then also sports. Like I , I feel I've always known that San Diego loves the Padres like I've been as a Diamondbacks fan , kind of , uh , jealous of , like , how enthusiastic the city is about. Yeah. Um , but then also like , the the love for the soccer teams , too , I think is really cool.
S7: I think you moved here at a really good time for local sports like this this month.
S1: That's true. Yeah , we're having a soccer boom right now for sure. Julia , earlier Anthony mentioned , you know , a little bit about Spotify and the the economics behind music and kind of something that's been , you know , surprising to him.
S7: Like like Anthony said , like I knew it was bad and I always thought like , well , I'm just going to use it anyway. Like , you have to use it. Everyone uses it. And I think learning just how dire those numbers are has been a huge surprise. And then I guess the other part is like how many stories we're like stumbling upon. We're finding threads in like one interview where we're like , oh my gosh , there's like ten more stories here. And it's just like this bounty of incredible stories where we joke that , like , all these episodes are kind of connected , like you can draw lines because there's yeah , stories are everywhere. And and the way that things are connected , it really does speak to like how collaborative. San Diego arts and culture scenes are.
S1: And Anthony , going back to the music piece here. Um , you know , in addition to kind of talking about it and telling stories of the music scene in San Diego , I mean , you also composed the music for the finest. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that process was like ? And yeah. How did you , you know , end up settling on the theme you chose , which it just seems like it's really beautiful. And also music plays such a central role to the finest. Yeah.
S11: Yeah. Well thank you. It's really very fun for me to make the music. It's one of my favorite parts. Um , but yeah , the music was a pretty big part of our conversations from the beginning. We really wanted to establish , like , a feeling of the show and what we called a sonic palette , um , of , you know , certain instruments and sounds that we would use , you know , throughout all the episodes. And I think , like if you look at our show artwork , our logo , there's very bright colors. It's fun. Um , and I think the music kind of sounds like that , uh , it's energetic , upbeat to an extent , and there's a lot of kind of quirky electronic sounds. And yeah , we just wanted to create , like a distinctive sound that felt fun and engaging.
S1:
S7: I think that I would like people to rediscover or even maybe like for the first time , what is surrounding them in their region in San Diego. Um , whether it's finding some new art or going to a new venue to see music. Or like taking up birding or whatever , you know. Like finding some way to remind themselves why they love living here or why this place is incredible.
S1: It's beautiful. Anthony. What about.
S11: You ? I agree. Yeah. It's something that we've said kind of from the beginning , is that we want the podcast to make people feel like they know San Diego better. And I would hope that every episode is just very engaging in and of itself , good stories. But also it's like if you really liked it , you can like experience the thing that we were talking about in real life. Like , you can go to this tea shop. You can go birding. You can go to a show of one of these musicians that we're talking about. So yeah , I would hope that it's kind of like interactive in that way.
S7: We're also really motivated by like trivia. And so we hope that people will get little factoids that they can impress their friends with.
S1: Oh , neat. Oh. That's cool. And before I let you both go , I just wanted to ask. I mean , you both have worked in the arts.
S11: So I've been really into short stories. Like George Saunders , Ted Chiang , because of how economical they are. I think like a podcast needs to be very tight with no fat everything else. You know , every action has to lead to the next. So I'm inspired by that form and the efficiency of it.
S7: I think for me , it's been like recently , I've gotten into audiobooks. Like I feel like I had to train myself to be a good audiobook listener. And I have been really enjoying finding , like , full cast audiobooks or , or really short audiobooks that you can pop out in two hours. So that's been my my thing lately.
S1: I've struggled with the same thing , like is listening to an audiobook the same as reading. I'm always kind of struggling.
S7: With it counts. It fully counts.
S1: I like it. Well , I've been speaking with the finest host , Julia Dixon Evans and producer Anthony Wallace. The first episode of The Finest drops today , with episodes releasing each Thursday morning. You can listen to it on KPBS or wherever you listen to podcasts. Julia. Anthony , thanks so much.
S7: Thank you. Andrew.
S11: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm Andrew Bracken. KPBS Midday Edition airs on KPBS FM weekdays at noon , again at 8 p.m.. You can find past episodes at KPBS morgue or wherever you listen. Thanks again for listening. Have a great day.
