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Davy Rothbart On 'My Heart Is An Idiot'

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"This American Life" contributor Davy Rothbart on life and love on the road, and his latest collection, "My Heart Is An Idiot."

Davy Rothbart (wikipedia)
Davy Rothbart (wikipedia)

Davy Rothbart has made a name for himself with hip, hilarious, out-there essays on public radio's "This American Life."  Tales of life on the road as artist, provocateur, searcher for love.  Passions gone right, gone wrong, gone nowhere.  Chance meetings, and falling in love.

Obsessions that blow in like dust storms, like tornadoes, and leave all kinds of  wreckage and wonderment in their wake.  Now Rothbart has put together a big collection of those tales.  “My Heart,” says the title, “Is an Idiot.”

This hour, On Point:  life and love on the road, with Davy Rothbart.
-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Davy Rothbart, an author, filmmaker, contributor to This American Life, and the editor/publisher of Found Magazine. His new book is My Heart Is An Idiot: Essays.

From Tom's Reading List

L.A. Times "The love of Davy Rothbart's life is a character from Allison Anders' 1992 film "Gas Food Lodging." Shade, played by Fairuza Balk, is the wan and ephemerally beautiful daughter of a New Mexico trailer park waitress. From the day Rothbart — the editor of Found magazine and a "This American Life" favorite — first saw the film, he's fallen only for women with slivers of Shade to them: wraithlike girls who are often more fiction than fact."

The Rumpus "Modern literary fiction is so often told from an immersive first person perspective that sometimes the line between the classic essayist and the contemporary novelist disappears."

New York Times "Davy Rothbart had misplaced his usual hype music, so Rage Against the Machine would have to do. Mr. Rothbart, a writer and a creator of Found magazine, the repository for forgotten notes and photos, normally listened to Metallica’s“One” to get himself pumped for a show. But on Monday evening he popped a CD with “Bombtrack” into the player in his rented Dodge minivan and began fist-pumping along."

Excerpt

Video: Trailer of My Heart Is An Idiot

Playlist

One by Metallica
Pink Houses by John Mellencamp

This program aired on November 27, 2012.

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