AUGUSTMAY 20192021 Explore the LifeAncient and Work Mysteries of a Local Step ABehind Heartwarming the Scenes at the Literary Icon in Amy Tan: Unintended Metropolitan Museum of Art Memoir fromRevealed American Masters on DuringNew the PandemicSeason of PAGE 7 Secrets of the Dead PAGECall 13 the Midwife PAGE XX PAGE X CONTENTS 2 3 4 5 6 8 VIRTUAL + NEWS + NOTES RADIO SCHEDULE RADIO SPECIALS + PASSPORT TV LISTINGS IN-PERSON EVENTS PODCASTS Your guide Meet up with us in What’s happening Your guide to What’s new and Watch more with to broadcast person and online. at KQED? radio shows. recommended? KQED Passport. television. VIRTUAL + IN-PERSON EVENTS Stronger, Higher, Faster: Big Wave Surfing and Climate Change Wednesday, May 19, at 6pm Surfers know exactly how the waves have grown more powerful as climate change accelerates. Meet Bianca Valenti, one of the top big wave surfers in the world, and Grant Washburn, who not only has competed in Mavericks competitions, but also has chronicled its wave patterns over the past 30 years. This event is hosted by KQED science reporter Kevin Stark. RSVP at kqed.org/events. PHOTO: BIANCA VALENTI PHOTOGRAPHED BY SACHI CUNNINGHAM. SACHI BY PHOTOGRAPHED VALENTI BIANCA PHOTO: Bay Area Book Festival Saturday, May 1, through Sunday, May 9 See and interact with literary stars — from your home. This year’s festival (May 1–9) features Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro with Yaa Gyasi; Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain); National Book awardee Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown) with LODGE 49’s Jim Gavin. Also, legendary psychiatrist Irvin Yalom with Joyce Carol Oates; MacArthur “genius” Yiyun Li with China expert Orville Schell; Jeff VanderMeer (Annihilation); and others. Free youth programs (Davey D!). KQED members receive 20 percent off passes at baybookfest.org with the code KQED20. CAAMFest Fort Mason Center in San Francisco and online CAAMFest, the nation’s largest festival of Asian American and KQED.ORG Asian film, food and music, is back for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month. Running May 13–21, the festival features virtual screenings, conversations and performances, including three evening drive-in programs at Fort Mason Center. • Highlights include Try Harder! about Lowell High School by MAY 2021 MAY local filmmaker Debbie Lum; Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir; and The Donut King, about a Cambodian refugee who built PERK a multimillion-dollar empire. For full listings and tickets, visit CAAMFest.com. L PHOTO FROM THE DONUT KING; COURTESY OF LOGAN INDUSTRY. OF LOGAN THE DONUT KING; COURTESY FROM L PHOTO 2 Cover: Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir on American Masters. Photo courtesy of KPJR Films. This still is from the documentary; John Behrens, director of photography. NEWS + NOTES Meet Luke Tsai, KQED’s New Food Editor PHOTO BY BERT JOHNSON. BERT BY PHOTO If you follow Bay Area food reviews and articles, you’ve probably read Luke Tsai’s writing. Most recently, it’s appeared in Eater SF, and also in San Francisco magazine, the East Bay Express, and in two Best Food Writing anthologies. The good news for us is that Luke is now contributing his considerable talent to KQED, where he’s the new food editor. A former high school English teacher, Luke has written about quesabirria (a kind of cheesy taco), appropriation in Bay Area “ethnic” cuisines, the last Black chefs in San Francisco and much more — including a recent piece for KQED: “In Praise of the Toum at Oakland’s Shawarmaji.” —Ellyn Hament What drew you to join KQED and what are you Sadly, many restaurants have been hard hit by the looking forward to working on here? pandemic and many have closed or are closing. Do you see any silver linings in this – new ways of I’ve long admired the KQED Arts & Culture team’s operating, perhaps, or something else? diverse, inclusive coverage — the way writers such as Nastia Voynovskaya and Pendarvis Harshaw tap into It has been such a brutal year for the restaurant industry, communities that have historically been overlooked but one small silver lining is that a large number of laid- by the mainstream media. That’s always been my off chefs have used this time to launch new pop-ups and approach toward writing about food as well — to give the Instagram-based food businesses, selling, say, arepas or neighborhood taco truck or pho shop the same respect laksa directly to customers online. Many of these cooks and depth of coverage that you’d give to a Michelin- are immigrants or children of immigrants who are serving starred fine-dining restaurant. So it feels great to be the cuisine of their own cultural heritage for the first among like-minded folks. time after spending years working in somebody else’s kitchen, cooking somebody else’s food. Some of the most I’m also excited that the job will give me the time and delicious meals I’ve eaten in recent months have been at space to think big and put together some cool packages these pop-ups. If they’re able to morph into permanent, of stories built around a specific theme or cuisine. sustainable businesses, the Bay Area food scene will be Keep your eyes out for the first one, which should drop much stronger for it. sometime in the coming month. Is there anything else you’d like people to know Which cuisines, foods or food trends do you think about you or your new role at KQED? will become popular in the near future? I’m always thinking ahead to my next meal, and I would I’m always wary of talking about cuisines that have be grateful if readers would send along their most been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years passionate food recommendations. You can email me at as “trends.” That said, Malaysian, Singaporean and [email protected] or contact me on Twitter @theluketsai. MAY 2021 MAY Venezuelan food businesses have been some of the most • exciting newcomers of the past year. I’d be delighted if they got a little bit more mainstream recognition in the Bay Area. There’s also a new generation of hip — and quite delicious — vegan restaurants that are transforming the public’s perception of meat-free eating. KQED.ORG 3 Please note: Coronavirus and late-breaking AUDIO news may affect the schedule below. MON TUES WED THURS FRI SAT SUN Mid BBC World Service Mid World City Arts Evening Commonwealth Science Friday Evening 1:00 Reveal 1:00 Council & Lectures Specials Club (Hour 2) Specials World Affairs Freakonomics 2:00 Council 2:00 3:00 Inside Europe Radiolab 3:00 Morning Edition 2-9am Marketplace Morning Report 4:51 & 7:51am KQED Newsroom 4:00 Hidden Brain 4:00 The California Report 5:51, 6:51 & 8:51am Washington Week KQED News 6:04, 6:21, 7:04, 7:31, 8:04 & 8:31am 5:00 KQED Science, 6:21 & 8:21am Weekend Edition 5:00 The Do List Fridays, 6:21 & 8:21am Perspectives 7:36 & 8:36am (Sat. & Sun.) 6:00 Perspectives 6:42am & 8:42am Rightnowish 7:35 & 9:35am (Sun.) 6:00 KQED News: (Sat.) 7:04am, 7:35am, 8:04am, 8:35am, 7:00 7:00 9:04am, 9:35am, 10:04am, 11:04am, 1:04pm, 2:04pm, 4:04pm, 5:04pm 8:00 (Sun.) 7:04am, 8:04am, 9:04am, 10:04am, 8:00 11:04am, 12:04pm, 1:04pm, 2:04pm, 3:04pm, 9:00 4:04pm, 5:04pm 9:00 Forum (Live call-in line: 866.733.6786) KQED News 9:04 & 10:04am It’s Been a Wait Wait... 10:00 10:00 Minute Don’t Tell Me Science Friday Wait Wait... 11:00 11:00 Don’t Tell Me The Moth Here & Now (Hour 1) KQED News: 11:04am & 12:04pm The New Yorker Noon This Noon American Life Radio Hour The Takeaway Snap City Arts 1:00 1:00 KQED News: 1:04pm Judgment & Lectures The World 2:00 Radiolab On the Media 2:00 KQED News: 2:04pm PBS NewsHour Freakonomics The TED 3:00 3:00 KQED News: 3:57pm Radio Radio Hour Marketplace 4:00 Reveal Says You 4:00 The California Report Magazine 5:00 All Things Considered All Things Considered 5:00 KQED News: 4:32 (except Fri.), 5:04, 5:30, & 6:04pm 6:00 Radio Specials Latino USA 6:00 Political The California Marketplace Breakdown Report Magazine Fresh Air The Splendid 7:00 Live Wire 7:00 KQED News: 7:04pm Table KQED.ORG World Affairs City Arts Evening Commonwealth Science Friday 8:00 Hidden Brain 8:00 Council & Lectures Specials Club (Hour 2) Selected Shorts Planet Money/ • 9:00 1A The Moth 9:00 How I Built This MAY 2021 MAY This 10:00 Forum (a repeat of one hour of the morning broadcast) Tech Nation 10:00 American Life BBC World 11:00 BBC World Service Snap Judgment 11:00 4 Service RADIO Shows We Love: The Moth Radio Hour There’s a reason radio remains a beloved broadcasting medium: It offers listeners opportunities to hear powerful storytelling and introduces them to new people, places and ideas. This type of storytelling is exemplified by The Moth Radio Hour, a staple of KQED weekend programming. The Moth promotes the art and craft of storytelling and honors and celebrates the diversity and commonality of human experience. Its founder, George Dawes Green, "wanted to recreate, in New York, the feeling of sultry summer evenings in his native Georgia, when moths were attracted to the light on the porch where he and his friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales.” That’s exactly what listening to these stories feels like.