Interview with pianist Cecile Licad

Sarah Chang and Cecil Licad

 From the vault: Pianist Cecile Licad was a prodigy in the Philippines, a soloist by the age of seven. Trained under famed pianist Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music, she received the award for most outstanding student, and later won the coveted Leventritt Gold Medal while performing with such orchestras as the London Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Royal Philharmonic. Dubbed a "pianist's pianist" by The New Yorker, Ms. Licad makes a fortuitous return to Tucson on Feb. 7 for a one-night event, playing Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto, thanks to what TSO Conductor George Hanson explains as "our patron's reaction" to Licad's performance of the Saint-Saens concerto less than a year ago. Since those standing ovations, Hanson has been championing her return to play one of the most popular concertos in the piano repertoire. I spoke to Ms. Licad via phone from New York.

JONATHAN LOWE: Poet Marianne Moore once said that, quote, "a writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself." As a musician, were you always hard on yourself, and if so, where and how do you think this drive for perfection started?

CECILE LICAD: I was five when I started, and my father used to wake me up at five in the morning to get me to practice. He was a doctor, very strict, but my mother was the pianist, although not a professional. Funny, I remember when she would try to show me something about playing, I would always say I could do that better. (laughs) Very confident for a five year old.

LOWE: So it came very naturally for you. It was just there, and you developed it very quickly.

LICAD: Yeah, I almost don't know how the process works, or how to describe it. I was never good at expressing myself articulately in words, but the piano was there, and that was definitely my medium of expression.

LOWE: Now, you're playing a big, popular romantic concerto here, Tchaikovsky's first, which you played with the Chicago Symphony and elsewhere. Does this concerto continue to challenge or inspire you, having played it so often?

LICAD: Yes, because whenever I play I always have to find something challenging about it. Sometimes, for a performer, things can almost become too easy, and you think you can do everything, but then you always have to be imaginative, too, even regarding the technical aspects. So each time you play is new, like something you discover.

LOWE: Like an emotional journey?

LICAD: Yes, and so you can't really plan exactly how you'll play it. It takes you over, and it's not something that you can make up somehow. For me, even the pacing and rhythm of it need to come naturally as a way to express what I feel in playing the music.

LOWE: What's so appealing about Tchaikovsky's 1st Concerto?

LICAD: Well, it's like a big production, a blockbuster movie or soap opera. (laughs) Like with big ranges of emotion when you see the whole work.

LOWE: Like a great story.

LICAD: Exactly, and I always relate music to telling a story, all the gradations of knowing how to build to the climax somehow. That's the difficulty of it, because most pianists who play this piece, they think it's for showing how fast or how loud you can play it. Of course there are moments like an earthquake, but that's really not the important thing.

LOWE: As in telling a story, you have to guide it, knowing what to show and when.

LICAD: Right, the mystery of it is important. And the mastery is important too because you have to be above the technical aspects in order to make it flow, and to know what kind of emotion you have to put into it.

LOWE: You've been praised for your performance of the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto, which is incredibly demanding, and also one of my favorites, since, as a teenager, I once saw Van Cliburn perform Rachmaninoff's Second at the Brevard Music Festival, which sparked my own interest in classical music. How does the Tchaikovsky 1st rate in terms of technical difficulty?

LICAD: I'm not sure, but this concerto was one I heard Van Cliburn play when I was fourteen, and I was amazed, and thought he was just incredible, too, how he delivered his sound.

LOWE: So expressive in every way.

LICAD: Yes, and that's the key to this kind of music.

LOWE: Now, you've been called a "pianist's pianist," so I'm wondering which pianists you yourself admire most. Like Rudolf Serkin, your teacher.

LICAD: Of course, and also the big Russian pianists like Richter.

LOWE: He was definitely one who made it look so effortless.

LICAD: Yes, and that's the goal of pianists, to make a simple statement with as much as you can put into it, while at the same time not looking like you're about to have a heart attack.

LOWE: How aware are you of the audience as you're playing?

LICAD: I am aware of them. Sometimes when you're practicing you may feel that you don't have enough energy, but when the audience is there, you do feel that you have to keep them with you, and you feel their own energy somehow, too.

LOWE: Are stool height and pedal softness big issues for you, like with playing Liszt as opposed to Chopin?

LICAD: Not really, but I do adjust every piano prior to playing because clarity is important, no matter how soft or loud or fast the music requires. Being clear is the important thing.

LOWE: Any horror story or amusing anecdote you'd like to share about performances or audiences?

LICAD: Well, when I was fifteen or sixteen I once played a command performance for then First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, and she wanted me to prepare for just the last movement of the Tchaikovsky concerto. Well, for a concert like this we didn't normally play the whole concerto, and so I was waiting for the entrance of the orchestra for this last movement, and they just started playing the first movement! I didn't know that she told the conductor that she wanted to show off me playing these long passages of octaves. So I was completely shocked, but I still had to play it. (laughs) Marcos just wanted what she wanted, and then afterward it was like "I got you," but in a joking way.

LOWE: I've read that you like to learn from scratch without listening to recordings, and really exploring music that's new to you.

LICAD: Yes, I do enjoy learning new stuff, and this year I've been learning a lot of Scriabin. Works with orchestra too, where there's also a chorus, with very difficult scores that I have to learn. People tend to approach you with the idea that you have a specialty because you play something well, but in reality you give your best to the work in front of you. People associate me with Chopin, Rachmaninoff, big romantic works, but I do also play other things.

LOWE: They once gave Van Cliburn a ticker tape parade in New York after his competition win in Russia, at the height of the Cold War, but today that's something hard to imagine in our repetitive Top 40, hip hop music video era. What would you recommend for young people to listen to in order to discover this music for themselves?

LICAD: That's hard to say. Maybe Chopin, whose music is so universal, and connects to the soul.

LOWE: As opposed to, like Schoenberg.

LICAD: Right, except, you know, when I was playing Scriabin some friends of my son Ottavio, who were not into classical music, asked him, like, "wow, what's that cool music your mom is playing?"

LOWE: What did you think of Tucson, last time you were here? Did you get a chance to explore much?

LICAD: Not last time, but this time, definitely. It's snowing here in New York right now, and so there's another reason I look forward to exploring Tucson! It's such a beautiful place.

Oldies but Goodies

London. Nov. 1, 2006. New York Times bureau chief Alan S. Cowell, although he doesn't know it yet, is about to cover the events leading up to the poisoning death of a former KGB intelligence officer known for his criticisms of President Vladimir Putin. Sound like a spy thriller? It is, but it's not fiction, and now Cowell has gone on to chronicle the entire back story in his new book THE TERMINAL SPY, which follows Alexander Litvinenko throughout his insider career in the 1990s with other spies and sanctioned Russian thugs. Cowell explains why a rare radioactive isotope known as polonium was the preferred weapon of assassinations by the Kremlin--primarily for its resistance to detection and short half-life. One speck in food will kill within days, then be flushed from the body, while inflicting excruciating pain. It was only by accident that Litvinenko's dose was discovered, while his approved killer escaped prosecution so that diplomats could save face. Narrated by the always engaging actor John Lee, whose accented performance is especially appropriate here, the audiobook confirms suspicions that sometimes, at least, real life can be just as intriguing as those spy thrillers on the big screen. (Random House Audio; 6 1/2 hours abridged)

Next, John Keller is a hit man who collects stamps. Odd, you might say, for a man you might associate with being a sociopath. But is Keller really without scruples? In HIT AND RUN by award winning mystery writer Lawrence Block, the case is made for a hit man possessing endearing qualities. For the purposes of reader identification, this is a useful presumption, too, since it would be more difficult to root for someone who might slit your throat for no good reason. Keller usually has a good reason, and not just because he's being paid. The victims usually "deserve" what they get. That is, they are usually killers themselves. In this latest installment, Keller has been set up by his employer to take the fall for a political murder he didn't do, and must disappear before the police find him. He eventually travels to New Orleans, where he attempts to live a normal life with a construction job and even a girlfriend. With his stamp collection presumably stolen and his intriguing secretary "Dot" out of the loop, Keller bides his time until the expected moment of revenge presents itself, when his old life may (or may not) resume. Has Keller finally retired, as he intended? Judge for yourself. Your guess is as good as mine. The plot is not the important thing here. In fact, there's not much plot at all. The attraction is in hearing about the day to day mundane activities of a man with a job we wouldn't consider doing. Unless we were sociopathic. Block walks that tightrope even more believably with the talents of narrator and actor Richard Poe, who gives the understated performance required by the text, and who crosses into dramatic accented speech only at those moments involving confrontation, whether droll or action oriented. Poe is good, and he has Keller's mindset down pat, and that conveys to the audience. Is there a John Keller out there somewhere in real life? Perhaps, but he's certainly not the norm. You wouldn't be as curious about him if he was typical, either. (Recorded Books; 8.5 hours unabridged)

CROWDSOURCING was coined by journalist Jeff Howe in the June 2006 issue of Wired magazine to describe the phenomenon of non-professional contributions to formerly professionally dominated industries. Although no one expects those who frequent social websites, (endlessly swapping photos and songs and videos), to put doctors and lawyers out of business anytime soon, Howe makes the case, in his book subtitled WHY THE POWER OF THE CROWD IS DRIVING THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS, that the contributions of ordinary citizens to the creative side of free enterprise is already putting many professionals out of work. His primary case study is iStockPhoto.com, a company which licenses stock photography via the internet at a much cheaper rate than professional stock photographers, or Getty Images. Anyone can submit their photos, and if accepted, can begin to earn royalties on them. The same is true for Threadless.com tee shirts, whose designs are crowdsourced, voted on by peers, and then sold to the very people who frequent the site. Of course the biggest model for crowdsourcing is Google, which ranks pages by how often people quote or link to them. And while Current.com collects news stories from amateurs, YouTube attempts to bypass mainstream media altogether by making anyone a "reporter." Certainly these trends are commendable in many ways, opening doors to innovation and increased productivity, since not even scientists have time to sift through all the data collected by giant telescopes, looking for asteroids or signals from intelligent civilizations. But if this new meritocracy were to expand, would it not give false hope to those considering whether or not to attend grad school? If I've got an advanced degree in thermodynamic engineering, and I'm driving a cab, I'll have a better chance of contributing to an alternative energy startup company (that crowdsources) than someone who has been washing dishes in a diner all his life. Rather than seeing this trend as empowering the masses, it is therefore better to view it as an opportunity for unrecognized talent to come forward. Still, an interesting discussion all around, as narrated by actor Kirby Heyborne, who is moonlighting here from feature films and television series. (Random House Audio; 10 hours unabridged)

Finally, the epic SF classic DUNE ended with Paul Muad'Dib in control of spice mining on the desert planet, having defeated the forces of House Harkonen. Frank Herbert's sequel, DUNE MESSIAH, takes up years later, after Paul's armies have conquered the galaxy. The period between these two books has been left unexplored, until now, with PAUL OF DUNE, by Herbert's son Brian, and Kevin J. Anderson. The duo have previously explored other timelines surrounding Dune, but here they focus on the reign of conquest in which Paul leads his legions from victory to victory while both self doubts and internal conflicts threaten to undermine him. Attempts are here made on Paul's life, and loyalties are questioned, leading to harsh consequences that bring up the old question, "Does absolute power corrupt absolutely?" Read by Dune universe insider Scott Brick, who is quite familiar with all the requisite pronunciations, the novel is a must for Dune fans, and anyone else into space opera. For those whose suspension of disbelief doesn't extend to Star Wars, and the clash of epic egos in space so vast that even Darth Vader is a grain of sand on some distant beach, might I suggest the clash to be resolved on the next Election Day? Perhaps not, but at least things will be in better perspective after hearing this audiobook. (MacMillan Audio; 18 1/2 hours unabridged)

Interview with Jonah Lehrer

 

Jonah Lehrer is editor at Large for SEED Magazine and the author of HOW WE DECIDE and PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST. He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. and has written for The New Yorker, Nature, Wired, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. Also a Contributing Editor at Scientific American, he can be heard on National Public Radio's Radio Lab.

JONATHAN LOWE: What prompted you to pursue this intriguing subject?

JONAH LEHRER: The book was really a by-product of indecision. I’d always loved literature and science and found myself increasingly torn when it came to choosing an undergraduate major. The brain was such an endlessly fascinating organ, but what about my favorite novels?  Could I really choose between Jane Austen and kinase enzymes? So that’s when I started thinking about ways to fuse these two interests. I wrote several terrible short stories stuffed full of synaptic acronyms. The particular epiphany that led to the book occurred in a lab. At the time, I was working in a lab that was studying the chemistry of memory. The manual labor of science can get pretty tedious, and so I started reading Proust while waiting for my experiments to finish. After a few hundred pages of melodrama, I began to realize that the novelist had these very modern ideas about how our memory worked. His fiction, in other words, anticipated the very facts I was trying to uncover by studying the isolated neurons of sea slugs. Once I had this idea about looking at art through the prism of science, I began to see connections everywhere. I’d mutter about the visual cortex while looking at a Cezanne painting, or think about the somatosensory areas while reading Whitman on the “body electric." Needless to say, my labmates mocked me mercilessly.

LOWE: The relationship between art and science is a long, if tenuous, one. What is the thread running through your choices for including people as divergent as Proust, Cézanne, Stravinsky, and Escoffier in exploring the relationships and discoveries of human consciousness, or that irreducible factor of human experience?

LEHRER: I'm afraid the thread is my own preferences and predilections. After I realized that Proust had anticipated these scientific theories, I suddenly started re-reading all my favorite novelists, poets and artists. What did Virginia Woolf intuit about consciousness? Why was Walt Whitman so obsessed with his “body electric”? Why did Cezanne paint in such an abstract style? Once I started asking these strange questions, I saw all sorts of connections. I realized that there was a whole group of artists that had discovered truths about the human mind—real, tangible truths—that science is only now re-discovering. Of course, I don’t intend my list to be exhaustive. These aren’t the only artists who were interested in the mind, or anticipated important facts about the mind. I hope that this book inspires other people to look at their favorite artists through the prism of neuroscience. The newfangled facts of science provide us with a whole new way to appreciate our fictions.

LOWE: The mind is a mysterious organ. You conclude that we may never know how or why a collection of neurons can become self aware, or be more than a sum of its parts. If we are essentially a fiction which we create by our attention and conscious awareness, can an understanding of this ever lead human evolution to diminish our obsession with the ego, and toward more compassion and creativity?

LEHRER: That would certainly be nice. But I wouldn't hold my breath. The ego is a tough thing to dislodge.  

LOWE: I was both amused and amazed by your examples of split brain subjects, and how we are, in fact, two identities perceived as one. The example of the man whose brain hemisphere link was split, with only one half of his brain being in love with his wife, is classic. Is there some biological version of quantum entanglement going on in our perception of wholeness?

LEHRER: I don't think you need to invoke the quantum world to explain our sense of wholeness. The brain is great at confabulating, at subtly tweaking reality until it makes sense. That sense of confabulation is at the core of our identity. In this sense, we are a fiction that must be continually re-invented.

LOWE: In what way does science now need art to progress beyond its current stalemates, and how can this be accomplished?

LEHRER: In the book, I quote an E. O. Wilson line from his book Consilience where he talks about how “the workings of social institutions are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics.” That’s a perfectly reasonable and utterly ridiculous sentence. Of course, human consciousness (and thus human culture) is ultimately a side-effect of jiggling atoms and quantum mechanics. To believe in science is to believe in materialism all the way down. But I think that sentence also reveals the silliness of the uber-reductionist framework. Take the human brain. I’d argue that something is lost when human experience is seen as nothing but the electrical interactions of a 100 billion neurons. What science sometimes forgets is that this isn’t how we experience the world. (We feel like the ghost, not like the machine.) Think of it this way: it’s quite possible to take a soaring Mozart symphony and reduce it into a series of physical soundwaves. That’s a nifty exercise, and you might even come up with some elegant physics equation that summarizes the sound of Mozart. But what happened to the music? The intangible beauty, the visceral emotion, the entire reason we listen in the first place. All is lost when the sound is reduced into its most elemental details. In other words, reductionism can leave out a lot of reality.

LOWE: Speaking of reducing things, what kind of recipes do you use personally to achieve this mysterious added flavor achieved by Escoffier, and what's your favorite?

LEHRER: My favorite thing to cook is embarrassingly simple: pasta with tomato sauce and parmesan. My secret is to add a tablespoon of ketchup (which is rich in umami) to the hot garlic oil, before I add my tomatoes. Of course, parmesan cheese is an umami bomb, so that's how I smuggle lots of umami into my pasta.

Tornadoes as Cover for Murder

from the vault: Alice Blanchard won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction for her book of stories, "The Stuntman's Daughter."  Other awards include a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, a New Letters Literary Award, and a Centrum Artists in Residence Fellowship.  Her stories have appeared in many literary publications, and she was also heard on National Public Radio's "The Sound of Writing." The author of "Darkness Peering," read by Patricia Kalember for Random House Audio, Alice has a phenomenal new novel out titled "The Breathtaker," read by Peter Coyote for Time Warner Audiobooks. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles.

JONATHAN LOWE:  Welcome, Alice. Now, you're no stranger to literary awards.  But what influenced you starting out as a writer, and how did you make the transition from writing stories to writing novels?

ALICE BLANCHARD:  Some of my early influences were the short stories of Raymond Carver, John Updike and Stephen Crane. These writer's stories were not only beautifully written, but demanded an emotional response.  The short story is exceptionally hard to master.  It requires an unusual discipline and attention to character, atmosphere and epiphany.  My stories tended to be 25 pages or longer, and people often commented that I should write a novel. Eventually that idea took hold.  So for me, writing short stories was an incubation process for writing novels.

The image that inspired "Darkness Peering" came from my childhood. I grew up in New England farm country, where there were all these run-off ponds, and for some reason I had an image of a dead girl lying in a run-off pond. It disturbed me and wouldn't let go. At the same time, I was intrigued by a moral question: what would you do if somebody you loved turned out to have done something very bad? Would you turn them in? Would you believe them incapable of evil? What if you were wrong?

LOWE:  The two things that impressed me most about your new novel "The Breathtaker" was the original yet believable twist on the serial killer subgenre, and the narrative drive of the story, which never bogs down long enough to lose the reader, but rather offers him or her "breathing" space while pushing the story ahead.  First, how did you arrive at this plot vehicle for your characters?

BLANCHARD:  The idea came to me very organically.  My husband and I were driving cross-country from New England to Los Angeles, and I fell in love with Oklahoma.  The sky opened up, the land flattened out, an occasional farmhouse floated by in a sea of wheat.  As we were driving through the center of the state, I noticed a dramatic split in the sky--methyl green below, dark green above. Then a hard rain came. We were in flash-flood territory. A stream rose quickly to road level, so we pulled into a gift shop and asked what was happening.  The store owner told us there was a Tornado Watch. We left an hour later and drove across the Texas Panhandle under a fading sky, but Oklahoma haunted me for months afterwards. I just knew I had to write about it.

LOWE: Were you influenced by movies like "Twister" or "Hard Rain"?

BLANCHARD:  "The Breathtaker" began with a simple idea, actually--the landscape of Oklahoma.  The land and the people I met there haunted me.  I then got an idea about a family that was being torn apart from the inside out.  A husband and wife with a teenage daughter are in the middle of a crisis when the storm comes.  I wrote the scene. . .the scene turned into a chapter, the chapter into many chapters.

LOWE: What kind of research did you do for the story?

BLANCHARD:  After I wrote the book, I went back and did the research in order to make sure I was accurate.  I was surprised to find out how often I was right about a certain fact, although I had to learn an enormous amount.

LOWE:  Why do you think people chase storms?

BLANCHARD: My sense is that most storm-chasers are adrenaline junkies and also very intellectually curious.  I think the people who track tornadoes are similar in some ways to detectives who hunt down serial killers.  With "The Breathtaker," I was struck by the idea that a homicide can rip through a family the way a tornado rips through a town. Both leave devastation in their wake, both leave many victims. There is a desire to know more, to find out why these things happen, to bear witness to such events that are beyond our control.

LOWE: Charlie Grover's past emotionally affects his presence in the story, and points to a suspect. What are your thoughts about him?

BLANCHARD:  For Charlie Grover, I had an image of a cop with burn scars over a third of his body. I liked the idea that, because of an old tragedy, a fire, he wore his loss and pain right there on his body. He couldn't hide it from the world the way most of us can. It was there for everyone to see. I like a hero who has it all out there and has to deal with it and can't run away from it.  I think the whole trick to writing a novel is finding a character or characters you're obsessed with. If you are obsessed with an idea or character, then something true and meaningful will spring from it.

LOWE: Time Warner Audio did a great job on the audio version, and Dennis Kao told me that they took the time to add sound effects because they enjoyed it so much, and thought it would work well here. Did you think, as I do, that the effects aided the story unobtrusively? And what did you think of Peter Coyote's performance?

BLANCHARD:  I think they did an amazing job.  I greatly admire Peter Coyote as an actor, and I thought he was just brilliant.

LOWE:  This sounds almost like an audio movie, and in ways is better than "Twister" because it substitutes a mystery/suspense element where there's only an inane rivalry in the movie.  Any thoughts on audiobooks as a medium, in an age when more people find themselves stuck in traffic longer, and in all kinds of weather?

BLANCHARD:  I'm from Los Angeles where traffic jams are the norm. I have alot of friends who are into audiobooks due to long commutes, and I think it's great.  When I was little, my grandfather would quote whole sections of "Alice in Wonderland" to my sisters and me.  He took us up to his creaky old attic and let us pick out these very old, illustrated books to keep.  He taught me that books were special, and for me, there's nothing like the smell and feel of a brand new book, and there's nothing like having a book read to you, either.  Although I haven't heard many audiobooks in the past, I intend to listen to more in the future.

LOWE:   Any movie plans for your novels?

BLANCHARD: At one time "Darkness Peering" was optioned by USA Films, with Diane Keaton attached to direct.  Currently, though, Warner Brothers-based John Wells Productions is in the process of writing a screenplay based on "The Breathtaker."  They did "West Wing" and "ER," as well as "White Oleander" and other films.

LOWE:  That's great news.  What's next for you?

BLANCHARD:  Regarding my next suspense novel, all I can tell you is that there's a different cast of characters, it's set in a whole new locale, and I'm very excited about it. I love to write about normal, everyday people who are just scraping by, doing their jobs, going about their business, trying to be good mothers or fathers, who unexpectedly encounter an obstacle, something hugely life-threatening or overwhelming, and must be braver or stronger than they ever imagined possible. We all hope we can rise above who we are.  Real challenge, big conflict, can bring out our heroic side, and I'm interested in that.

LOWE:  Thanks for keeping us interested too, Alice.

(The Breathtaker is breathtaking. Jonathan Lowe is author of "Awakening Storm.”)

Interview with Dale Brown

JONATHAN LOWE:  Welcome, Dale.  First off, can you tell us how long you were in the military, and what you flew?

DALE BROWN:  I spent eight years in the Air Force, and I flew B-52 Bombers, and the FB-111 Bomber.

LOWE:  What in your military background led you to become a writer?

BROWN:  Well, I wanted to be a writer first, actually.  I wrote a column for the Penn State University newspaper, and I did freelancing for many years.  So I think I've always wanted to be a writer and a flyer, and I was lucky enough to do both as a career.

LOWE:  Do you still fly?

BROWN:  Yes.  As a private pilot, I have a Cessna 421 that I fly on business and for personal things.

LOWE:  Now, you write about Dreamland a lot.  What is Dreamland, and how does it differ from the infamous Area 51?

BROWN:  Well, we never really called it Area 51.  Dreamland is our nickname.  There is a classified air base in south central Nevada, just north of Las Vegas.  It's a regular Air Force base, and about two thousand people work there.  Their main offices are actually out at Nellis Air Force base, and some of them commute on a 727 to this classified base from Nellis.  You can't find it on any map, but there are lots of satellite photos of the base.  It's small, but it has movie theaters, a bowling alley, and a commissary.  But if you're there it's because you're specially assigned, and they do research and development on new weapons systems.

LOWE:  Have you been there?

BROWN:  No, but I've talked to many folks who have been there, and I've done exercises out there at the Red Flag range.  The base is actually in the middle of a series of bombing ranges in the desert there.  The Red Flag exercises are meant to give pilots their first ten combat missions, with the theory being that if you survive your first ten missions, you're likely to survive your combat encounters.  The restricted area in the middle is where you can't fly, where it's restricted from the surface to infinity, and we're told that's where the base is, which from satellite photos looks just like any other Air Force base.

LOWE:  John Nance reads his own aviation mysteries for Brilliance Audio.  I'm wondering, do you get the chance to at least listen to your own audiobooks, and if so, what do you think of the medium?

BROWN:  I absolutely love the medium.  I listen to them all the time.  I usually get them on CD, or download them onto my PDA.  I think it's important for authors to find a good reader who's compatible with your material, and how you think they should perform it.

LOWE:  You've got a good one there with Richard Allen.

BROWN:  I've been lucky to have a bunch of good ones.  I like David McCallum.  I got to watch Joseph Campanella to do one of my books, and he was just terrific.  It was amazing just to watch him.

LOWE:  What is your new novel "Plan of Attack" about?

BROWN:  It's about a limited nuclear attack against the United States.  It's not a terrorist action or an accident.  It's an actual attack, and I developed a scenario in which the Russian president, who was in "Air Battle Force," is frustrated due to the decreasing power of the Russian state and military, and the way America is throwing its weight around, and so he decides to mount a very limited attack in which the United States won't feel that the nation is in jeopardy.  Minimal civilian casualties, little fallout, low yield weapons, with the idea that if he can convince the President that's all he'll do, the United States won't retaliate.

LOWE:  That's an interesting scenario.  Of course people are paranoid now about any radiation, even food irradiation.  Like a dirty bomb would probably make parts of Manhattan unlivable forever.  Do you think an incident like that, what you're postulating, could change the view of using limited nukes?

BROWN:  In general, the view has changed regarding using limited nuclear weapons.  That's an option now, with the Bush administration.  This came about because of the Afghanistan conflict, with the maze of tunnels and caves where the Taliban were hiding, and the high risk to U.S. soldiers.  So Bush made it clear that he was ready to use limited nuclear weapons to penetrate deep where conventional weapons don't work.  So I think we're already committed to doing that.

LOWE:  What about neutron bombs, which leave buildings intact and don't destroy an area with radiation so it can never be used again?

BROWN:  They are viable weapons, and from a military standpoint, they are great weapons.  But it's like a terror weapon, so the political decision to use one would be difficult to make.  Because the Russians and others fear such weapons because they would aid invasion, where you could just kill the Army, and then take over.

LOWE:  Where do you think the biggest threat to us comes from, and what can we do about it?

BROWN:  I think the biggest threat comes from these rogue states like North Korea, Iran, and from Pakistan.  I think what Pakistan has done over the past few years has been most damaging.  Because they were our ally, and at the same time they were giving nuclear information to our enemies...to North Korea, to Iran.  I'm encouraged by the level of cooperation we're getting from Libya, and we have special operations guys on the ground in Pakistan now, closing in on Al-Qaeda.  North Korea has nuclear weapons and delivery systems, which are a serious threat, of course, and I think we could probably take North Korea if we wanted to, but the close proximity to the South Korean capitol makes this dicey.  If we don't cut off the head quickly, North Korea could retaliate and kill millions of people.  But I truly believe that the whole regime there will collapse on itself, given time.  The people are afraid of stepping out of line, and the military is all about getting what it wants from the government, but this situation can't last forever.  It'll fold.

LOWE:  Who is your main audience, military men?  I take it you don't get many little old ladies at book signings.

BROWN:  No, I write male fantasy, and what appeals to anyone who who likes action and adventure.  Mostly retired military, both men and women.

LOWE:  Any movie deals in the works?

BROWN:  Not yet.  The creative side tends to bump into the budgeting side, so that's where the problem arises.  Producers really like my books, but they give it to the guys doing the budget, and eyebrows get raised.  But one of these days they'll get a big name attached to one of my books, and the funding will come, along with a good director.

LOWE:  What's next for you?

BROWN:  I really enjoy writing screenplays, and producing other projects.  We have something going with Atari now.  And in Hollywood, there are a lot of exciting opportunities.  Things move fast there, with a lot of creative people, although there's something of a herd mentality operating, where you have to be the first one to do something, and then everyone follows.

LOWE:  No risks, just sequels?

BROWN:  (laughs) Right.

LOWE:  I think that's the case with anyone holding a checkbook, unfortunately.  Thanks, Dale.  Look forward to hearing from you again.

Note: Recommend his ARCTIC STORM RISING.

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Try Audiobooks

1) Because Americans have been sitting too long within easy reach of potato chips and liquid candy, and they need to go outside for some fresh air and exercise before their heart attack, which is coming up right after the next commercial break. (Audiobooks can be also enjoyed while walking, jogging or “while planting bulbs,” too, as author Jayne Ann Krentz suggests.)

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2) Because we all need to read more, but can’t seem to find the time, and this multi-tasking aspect of audiobooks provides a solution, although there may be no solution for sports addicts glued to ESPN.

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3) Because you can save a tree by downloading an audiobook off the internet. Trees are great fans of audiobooks, just like cows who recommend going vegetarian.

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4) Because the most important organ in the human body in the brain, which runs on imagination. Something you can’t get watching a TV screen, or computer screen. 

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5) Because the movie playing in your mind is always more entertaining than seeing the half baked adaptation that emerged from some Tween Hollywood screenwriter’s Freddy Kruger shaped cookie cutter.

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6) Because audiobooks are performed by actors (and everyone knows actors are more important than non-actors, right?)

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7) Because eyestrain also adds to your potential health care costs, (and, remember, Medicare won’t be around by the time Congress finishes reading all the fine print in any bill they might agree on if they could read. . . or add.)

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8) Because if you read a print book while on vacation you might miss your plane, or the boat, or that girl in the bikini who just winked at you. (Not to mention the scenery. In which case you could run straight into a tree, as one reading jogger we once saw do).

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9) Because, like Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, The Donald, and others, authors often read their books themselves, (although, granted, some of them just want to hear their own voice.)

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10) Because trying new things gets you out of any rut or habitual bad habits, and doing something-–ANYTHING-–differently can force change to happen.  --J. Lowe