Coming Soon! A Four Part Series from TTBOOK!

Public Radio International

Wisconsin Public Radio

ALONE TIME

Program 09-02-01-B

Listen!

Imagine the loneliest place you can think of. For Robert Kull, that place was an island off the coast of Patagonia. A place where the barometer dipped and the wind howled off the ocean. Kull spent a year there, exploring complete solitude and seeking the answers to spiritual questions that had dogged him all his life. What he found was the opposite of loneliness. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the art of alone time.

SEGMENT 1:

John Cacioppo is the co-author of "Lonelines: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection." He tells Steve Paulson that feeling lonely is a signal that we need to interact with others as fundamental to our well-being as signals like hunger and thirst. Also, Robert Kull chose to live completely alone off the coast of Chile for a year. He tells Anne Strainchamps the hardest part was the mental challenges he faced, not the weather or coping with his prosthetic leg. Kull's book is "Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes."

SEGMENT 2:

Nashville music critic Bill Friskics-Warren is the author of the book "I'll Take You There." He takes Jim Fleming on a quick trip through some classic songs of loneliness, from the Stanley Brothers, Roy Orbison and others, and we hear them all. Also, Thomas Dumm tells Anne Strainchamps why he thinks a lonely society can be a dangerous one and he's worried about America. His book is "Loneliness As a Way of Life."

SEGMENT 3:

Kathleen Norris is the author most recently of "Acedia and Me." She tells Anne Strainchamps about her experience with the mental habit monastics used to describe a kind of frantic escapism and aversion to other people. It's similar, but not identical, to the modern disease of depression.

CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 09-02-01-B.

................................................................

Books & CDs:

John Cacioppo & William Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (W. W. Norton)
Thomas Dumm, Loneliness as a Way of Life (Harvard University Press)
Robert Kull, Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes (New World Library)
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me (Penguin Group)

Websites:

• Loneliness Quiz
  http://www3.shastacollege.edu/lvalvatne/psych15/ucla_loneliness_scale.htm

Music:

• -Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground/ Blind Willie Johnson/American Song Project
  
• -Clem Snide/ Loneliness Finds Her Own way/ Your Favorite Music/Spin Art
  
• --Coast to Coast/ Christopher O'Riley/ "Home to Oblivion"/ HarmoniaMundi
  
• -Eleanor Rigby/composed by Lenon, McCartney/ Vitamin String Quartet
  
• --Let's Get Lost/ Christopher O'Riley/ "Home to Oblivion"/ HarmoniaMundi

Distribution dates: week of 12/27/2009 - hour 1 week of 02/01/2009 - hour 2 click HERE for timings and cues

Listen!

................................................................

Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

Wisconsin Public Radio is a service of the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension.

Page design and management by Jim Fleming at Wisconsin Public Radio and Sarah Fleming.

© 2009 WHA Radio and the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.