WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Today we're paying tribute to this coastal oasis with the Romantics take along the refuge and muse for creative and contemplative souls. We'll talk to a writer and a sound recording artist about how the power and poetry of this wind swept part of the world inspires them from the Cape. We hop over to Martha's Vineyard where a local has written about his adventures on the island hitchhiking with celebrities. Up next the call of the wild from coastal Cape Cod to an Islanders wild rides. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the White House is crediting

the deficit cutting deal between Congress and the White House for the latest Congressional Budget Office report that shows an improved fiscal outlook spokesman Josh Earnest. Progress has been made based on the on the deal that Democrats and Republicans struck earlier this month that is having a tangible impact on our deficit in terms of reducing it. He says the CBO report also makes clear there's still a lot more that has to be done to improve economic recovery. Now signaling some upward movement in the economy new orders for manufactured goods jumped 4 percent last month the biggest increase since March driven mostly by orders for commercial aircraft and cars. But Danielle Karson reports other key categories fell which raises concerns that the manufacturing sector might be slowing. Taxpayers foot the bill for nearly 400 billion dollars in subsidies to the energy and agricultural industries. But with the budget swimming in more than a trillion dollars of red ink. Steve Ellis who's with Taxpayers for Common Sense says the deficit reduction

panel Congress appointed may have more of an appetite for scrapping these payouts. We're hoping that they're concerned about the budget deficit is going to have the super committee take a look at these hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies we've documented. Put them on top of their chopping block. Many of the subsidies have been on the books since the 1930s to help promote business. But Ellis says the top five oil companies raked in more than 70 billion dollars in profits in the first half of the year. For NPR News I'm Daniel Karson in Washington. Some evacuations are underway in North Carolina. Hurricane Irene has strengthened into a major Category 3 storm with top winds of 115 miles per hour and forecasters warn it could become a Category 4 landfall in the U.S. is expected by the weekend but Scott Graf of member station WFYI in Charlotte reports just where it lands is still a question. The latest forecast shows Irene may now not make landfall in North Carolina. But regardless it is expected to bring heavy rains and high winds to the region on

Saturday. Emergency management officials on the outer banks have already issued a state of emergency. Tourists have been told to leave the tiny barrier island of rococo. Mandatory evacuations for residents will start tomorrow. Lori death works at a gas station in Deli on Oak rococo Island. Right now it's very calm people are just batten down the hatches and clean up everything they can float away and. Get their gas or they can leave. Meteorologists say Hurricane Irene could grow into a category 4 storm as it moves north. For NPR News I'm Scott Graf in Charlotte. U.S. stocks mixed at last check the Dow is down five points eleven thousand 171 Nasdaq off seven at 24 thirty nine. S&P 500 up slightly it's at eleven sixty three. This is NPR News. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is directing his supporters to free Tripoli from what he calls the devils who have overrun the city. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro says

that many people across the Libyan capital are celebrating the rebels gains. Tension remains over the possibility of reprisal attacks. There is certainly a sense. Fear among some that there will be retribution. There will be reprisals against Gadhafi loyalists by the now resurgent rebels here in Tripoli for example in the neighborhood why I am now locals are telling us that all the Gadhafi supporters all the people that they had sort of pegged this could all be supporters who ran away from their homes because they were afraid once the rebels came in that they would be targeted. And so that is definitely part of the tension that you are feeling right now. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in the quarrel between Japan and China over territorial waters is heating up again as Japan protest Chinese boat sailing too close to its claimed islands. JOHN MATTHEWS In Tokyo reports on the situation surrounding the disputed area.

According to the Japanese coast guard the two Chinese fishing patrol boats responded to warnings by claiming they were in Chinese waters and violating the laws. A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry agrees insisting the long disputed islands are firmly under Chinese sovereignty. Last year Japan arrested a Chinese troller captain after his boat collided with a Japanese patrol ship in the area sparking a diplomatic crisis that lasted months according to Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano. This is the first time Chinese boats have entered Japanese territorial waters around those islands since that incident. For NPR News I'm John Matthews in Tokyo. This is NPR. Support for NPR comes from America's Natural Gas Alliance whose members are participating in an online registry providing drilling information to the public. Frack focus. Dot org. If you give say reasons. You should have gone with.

Him. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley old Cape Cod. The iconic song brings to mind that old Cape Cod the romantic one that includes a stretch of land from Chatham to Provincetown known as the national seashore and maybe is just a part of the landscape for a lot of New Englanders today and they think of it more with clam shacks and motels. But it's something special to the Romantics among us. And so this hour we're to marking the 50th anniversary of the national seashore and will do that by. Looking at the legacy of this protected land 50 years of protection for it and I have just the right folks to talk about it I'm talking about people who have been inspired by the landscape and the Cape's native creatures to create their own work. I'm joined by writer David Gessner and sound artist Steven Wilkes. David Guest who has written many books including two about the Cape return of the

Osprey and a wild ranked place. Steve Wilks is a professor at Berklee College of Music. He runs the here Cape Cod project which creates oral a U R A L snap shots of Cape Cod. Thank you both for joining us today. Great to be here. Thanks. I want to start by getting both of your just emotional responses when you think about the Cape. So Steve let's start with you. Well you certainly set it up beautifully with old Cape Cod. I can tell you that when my wife and I vacation on the Cape my wife I should add as a professional vocalist one of our favorite things to do is drive on an old county road in Wellfleet in Truro and seeing old Cape Cod in unison. So you said that may be where you're after the romantic and all of us you have certainly hit it bare and I think. For me the Cape is about all the charm that's in that song as well as the incredible sonic landscape

that it is. All right David what about you. Well first if I sang Hello Steve. Hi David. If I sang it would be it would be an ugly thing. I don't know I don't have the voice for it. I did listen to some sounds of the Cape on your website this morning of the still rocking UPS cargo tower was a particularly one that that kind of was close to my heart. I used to do it all the time as a kid. Wow as a kid I knew the Cape as you know one thing about Massachusetts that people don't know a lot about is rooster where I grew up had a dentist a lot of towns in Massachusetts are linked to places on the Cape that we would go down there and it was coined. It did feel like a place apart. And then I you know that was my initial love of the place. My next step was kind of graduating from college and staying down there for an offseason which was a whole different. Experience the place and years since the love affair has grown more complicated as the houses have grown larger and closer

together. So that's another aspect of you know not only love the simple right. No never is as a matter of fact. I have to say that David in your book a wild rank place you begin it so beautifully and I thought I would just read a couple lines where people can really get a sense of you know what it is that draws so many people back to this special place. Sure. So good. Now this is the part that I was particularly taken by which is right at the beginning so let me read these lines and then we'll talk about it is it. Fall the best time on the cape today one of those cool almost cold mornings when the wind gets things going. It wakes me by slamming the loosened shutters against the house. Then while I stretch in bed it puts on a puppet show pulsing cornrows of light against the dark oak planks of the bedroom wall. Here the wind never rests. It blusters about the neck driving out summer spreading the stench of the sea. You can watch it turning around

the house like paint whirls on a Van Gogh it rises up the hill and Buffet's the walls. Beings halliards on mass sets the trees shaking. I put on a flannel shirt and head out to the back deck. I walk to the edge of the vegetarian unzip and water the crawlers and bayberry the wind gusts and eddies Russel's the half shaded leaves. After two years in the dry interior West this is what I need. A place that smells of low tide of seaweed and skate eggs air that is thick with salt. DAVID That's just beautiful. Amazing. Thank you thank you. I really did need it at that moment in my life I'd kind of you know I think we grow up with certain smells certain flavors certain air quality you need and I think I love the West but I when I came back I was like oh home. Well let's talk about the specialness of the Cape because we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Seashore the sea shore. And when we say that I should explain

that of course the sea shore has been there. A long time but it was 50 years ago in 1961 that President John F. Kennedy Sant signed a piece of legislation to protect this coastline so that it would be there for all of us now 50 years later to enjoy. And even though some part of it has been commercialized much of it is just the same is it not Steve. It's still very much the same I think from a visual standpoint if you walk on any of the trails that you find in the Cape Cod National Seashore it's very much like it was 50 years ago or before 50 years ago. Right now on finishing Wyman Richardson's book. The House on that marsh. And that is a house that Richardson the Richard family currently lives in and he grew up in and it resides within the Cape Cod National Seashore and a lot of the things he describes in that book I think you still see when you walk the trails around there and this in particular is in East Ham. But the thing that I think is different

what I. I would guess his different is the pervasiveness of cars particularly from Route 6 when you're wandering on these trails and the Cape Cod National Seashore So I think it looks very much the same but the sound has changed by that whoosh of the tires and downshifting of the engines that kind of goes with the birds and the crickets and other things that you hear and see what you're doing with your hear Cape Cod project is to capture the sound for posterity and more so more immediately for a time capsule. Tell us about that. Yeah what we're thinking about is what we're aspiring to as an Audio time capsule of the Cape in 2011 for the past 10 years I've been indulging a hobby of field recording down on the Cape. It started with a vacation back in 2001 on the outer Cape and has continued to this day. And as these vacations on the Cape continued so did my awareness of certain challenges that the Cape might be facing from an ecological standpoint and this is everything from.

Rapidly advancing coastal erosion to the possible implementation of the Cape Wind project and being a musician I started thinking would it be great if we put together a team and created a project where we tried to capture the Cape as it exists in sound right now. And in addition to doing that for our own entertainment wouldn't it be great if we could create it as an archive that people could go back to you. Fifty years from today I want people to hear a little bit of what you've already recorded you just mention Eastham. And so this is a recording of birds chirping an ambient noise on the national seashore and Eastham. So you get a little bit of the yeah the car sound the modern

intrusion if you will of what's going on there but. But you do hear those birds. Yeah that's a flock of red winged blackbirds that are calling back and forth in the day I was down there recording by the way this is near the Edward Penniman house and he used him on the Cape Cod National Seashore. And the day that I was recording it was those birds that caught my ear and while we were recording I was really focused on all these calls going back and forth from the flop. And it was really only after recording getting back home and listening to it that I was aware of ALL MY GOD roots six was a presence through that entire recording. David what what is the importance of Steve's project contextually about you know maintaining the legacy of the national seashore and and cape. Well I think it starts with preservation. That's the kind of genius. I mean he's talking about preserving a time preserving sounds. That's the genius of the National Seashore. So when you did your intro

news people were talking about okra coke. I've lived in North Carolina now on shore for seven years and I've always troubled kind of. Perplexed by how closely the houses are built together even to the point where the million dollar houses you can stick a broom out the window and hit the house next door and I didn't like that kind of grown up and you know you're the Cape. But when I went up to Oak or coke here it was beautiful and our MY did me at the Cape and it turned out over Coke years before the Cape to their national seashore that was preserved and these are such amazing acts and of course at the time everybody is against them. You know nobody wants their land taken away don't want developers don't want to be told we can't develop this. But nobody I spoke to a third generation Kochi it and he said yeah my grandfather hated it and now I love it I read bits and I think that's true on the cape too you know you yes you know you preserve something that

your grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to I mean if the wind is right and you rock and below the bras are the key. It's all about. You don't even hear the cars for six. You really can't retrace the rose steps at best. Stepped on his steps along that same track. Well I have to say that just listening to that piece am I listened when we were you know putting it together for the show. I just was taken to the place and I really had to be pointed out to me that there were cars wishing around. But is everything down to it so much to me like the cape and I was right there you know listening to it that that's a positive thing and at the time that was certainly the case for me as I said those redwing blackbirds really caught my ear. But there is this line of thinking that when you're listening in a sonic landscape there are certain keynote sounds you know there are certain sounds that are always there always present. If I was to use a musical term it would be an

ostinato you know it's always present it's always repeating. And what this project has taught me is the keynote sounds of the Cape. What are those keynote sounds that are always present and always there. The flock of red winged blackbirds will come and go with nesting season on the Cape. But as I was pointing out in that particular recording around that part of the Cape Cod National Seashore Route 6 is for four seasons a year. Well no matter. Yeah we here are appreciating and. The romance of the national seashore and we have much more to talk about. So we're marking the 50th anniversary of the Cape Cod National Seashore with two men who have used this coastal part of the world as their own muse. We're joined by writer David Gessner and audio file Steve Wilkes. We'll continue the Cape Cod conversation after this break. Sure.

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show Radiolab Fridays it to here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just joining us we're paying tribute to the Cape Cod National Seashore This month marks the 50th anniversary. And joining us to talk about why the Cape has long been a source of inspiration to writers painters poets musicians are David Gessner and Steve Wilkes. David Gessner has written many books including two about the Cape return of the Osprey and wild place. Steve Wilkes is a professor at Berklee College of Music. He runs the here Cape Cod project which creates aural snapshots of Cape Cod. Steve you said before you started this project you know maybe you enjoyed the landscape but it was just there

and now having undertaken this project you've begun to see it in a different way even as you're capturing the sounds. Talk to us about that. That's a great question and a great a great point. As a musician I think all of us know the term of hearing a song in our head over and over. We hear a song on the radio a couple of times and suddenly it becomes embedded in our brain. And I think for everyone but particularly for musicians when this happens it we're not just saying you hear the melody of the song or the beat of the song but you really hear the song the recording as it exists. That kind of memory getting a song caught in your head is about capturing a certain kind of aural image. So as a musician I've been seduced by music my whole life I've had millions of songs in my head. But two weeks ago I was driving to the Cape Cod National Seashore Salt Pond visitor

center to meet someone and something happened that had never occurred to me before. I was staying untrue. This was on Cornhill and at night I had been entertained by the crickets that were on Cornhill. And this very particular kind of cicada which only comes out at night. I don't hear it during the day and every night was this beautiful magical chorus that was happening as I was pulling in to the Salt Pond visitor center parking lot. I heard a song in my head but it wasn't a song I was hearing the crickets and cicadas exactly and are all image that before I would have defined as hearing a song over and over in my head and I had never made that transition to hearing the environment around us in that way. And I thought that was an amazing moment for me and it hasn't happened again since. But it showed me that in digging deep into the sound of Cape Cod it's

starting to resonate inside in a way I hadn't expected before and it's a welcome way I might add. Well let's hear some crickets that you recorded and gnostic and in this clip you can hear crickets cars and people. Now David when you hear that I know it takes you back to the Cape and one of the things you've been writing about for the last several years is really a kind of appreciation for the environment by a group of folks you've dubbed the new environmentalists. So what is it about your experience on the Cape and the way that Steve I think has just become to see it in a different way that you can speak to as well. Well you know I'd like to speak directly to the thing Steve is saying because it's so fascinating to me. My one of my best

National Seashore moments I was with an Olympic environmentalist not doing a mentalist you know as I said before through rocked up the backside of the Cape. Then we had Henry Beston in 1926 to when it looked at this little cottage the outermost house for a year. And in about 10 years ago I went with John Hay the famous Cape writer back East Ham to Coast Guard beach. And as we were pulling into the driveway he was getting you know he was almost 90 at this point. As we were pulling into the parking lot. He pointed down and he said I came here during the blizzard of 1978 and I rushed the outermost house bobber way out into the sea he said. The windows look like ice and then he said something which I went searching during the break because I have what Steve would think. Then he stood facing the Atlantic with no land between US and Europe. The breakers rolled in with great sprays right drop kicking up payloads of mist. Listen to that

John said. What better noise. The plunge followed by the sea. The river with the steady powerful a great watery montra like nothing we had heard on the tamer side of the Cape. Something about the sea shore side where you get the splashing going to take walks and the push coming. Back to me is exciting and to turn it back to your question. You're one of the things I try to do in my writing is NOT have people think oh this is nature writing this is wait this is you know I want to get them more physical and visceral and certainly sound as well as visual images and sound breaking below just ideas is one of the things that I've been trying to do. And when we talk about the national seashore I think it should be noted that there are other shores out you know in the in the country. But what's happened here is quite special. I mean David you point out that what's happened on the Jersey Shore I guess could have happened here but didn't and so we're in a different place.

Yeah it's made a huge difference to just that one act and you know that's one of the I mean I think it's relevant to right now when we're talking about we're contrasting two things right now in the political environment we're saying you can have freedom or you can have rules. Well here's an example of something that a body's restraint and rules leading to a greater freedom. We did this we did this rice thing 50 years ago and now we get the benefits we get to hear those noises we get to rock along that beach I mean you could actually you could put your backpack on right now. And in our October day and rock the backside of the cape but you have essentially the. Same experience the room had 800. Well in fact David you did hike the seashore tell us about that. Well it was you know I thought the book like you've mentioned a couple times a Roderick place which is a thorough quote It is a Roderick place and there is no flattery in it which I really like because that's a different case than most people know you know that they're they're thinking beach balls and umbrellas in the summer but there's a winter Kate that a lot more raw and

rank and in the off season I decided to kind of follow his trip up the backside and really you know would walk for hours and hours without seeing anybody. And then you know maybe at the end I propped and Provincetown it was quite a contrast to go from you know rocking on my own to having having a beer in downtown but it was a great experience and it was really uninterrupted wild stretch you know for three days. I wonder if you would just read us a bit from wild right place from the chapter of the thing itself. OK. I come to the Cape to live deliberately. I steal this line from the road just as I've stolen my adventure. For the next months my father's summer home will serve as my cabin Cape Cod Bay will be my part. Through escape was riled. But today much of that wild. This is covered with video stores the ball in Colorado the Cape existed only in my mind

romanticized it was easy to forget the crowded roads and beaches polluted aquifer. The jet ski is retching into the water. The high cancer rates on the upper Cape the coming out fall pipe promising the seas on the beach. The outer most common contents. How am I justified in still thinking of this place as a wild ride when I feel healthy and strong here. Certainly it's easy enough to get depressed just pics of the cars more and more each summer crawling across the bridge from Boston New York City at points beyond where the mobs of children who grew up spending summers here and will soon build houses of their own on the Cape there isn't the luxury of wide open space. Is the frequent house clear on the houses once built. Marcus Noland forever. We're a little like the rabbits you know the law their law and their land. Crisscrossed by roads ports or going to smaller and smaller patches of oil. While you were reading David Steve was nodding his head what resonated with you there. I think you captured it so beautifully not not just you know the beauty

and the wonder of a place like the great beach but you know all of the challenges that mankind is forcing Cape Cod to deal with. David one thing I wanted to tell you in that you made me think of when you were reading that is there was an afternoon where I was recording at the original Marconi site it was a foggy afternoon in April and the the sound of the surf was just remarkable it was amazing and there was a group of gentleman who walked up to the site and saw what I was doing and my wife was assisting me and she explained it and she said to the gentleman hey you know you guys have any thing that you would like to suggest as a place or a thing to record and there was a pause. And one of the gentleman looked at us and said. How about the sound of disgust. Oh my God. I was shocked for a minute and then he explained that they had gone on a guided walk on a trail earlier and had come upon unexpectedly one of those MC mansions that you referred to in a place that he felt was

magical and sacred and I will say this I have been unable to record the sound of disgust and I'm not I'm not saying that maybe we should work together. I can help you with this guy. I was actually looking at the wrong map in my office right now that has the cape in 1951 and the cape in 1990 and it's Mark Green for land and yellow for development and it's an amazing contrast to those 40 years that thank God the one green snot that is the sea shore to Cape Cod National Seashore I really don't well describe what's happened in the rest of the map and we've got that sea shore but what I will say it's all yellow basically except for patches. You know you see the work of I mentioned John Hay and Robert since you see the work of Brewster they did a good job. You see somebody found that you see some green still but there are a large yellow clusters but I think the bigger thing I mean it's easy to you know rant against progress and I certainly do it plenty. But I think the bigger psychological thing

is to go back to the song that started the show. The original idea that most of us had will be romanticized Cape Cod. If you're going to do this. They were placed in this other place you're going to leave certain things from your normal place behind you going to leave your conveniences behind. Maybe they're going to be old when you open the door they're going to be some mouse turds on the old plank. The House is going to be creaky not insulated you're going to hear your your sister in the next room you going to it's stock going to be it's going to be more primitive. And there's a pleasure in that because you're going back to something older. I've moved to the Cape for the for my first winter in 1983 and there was still that sense. But more and more you get a sense that people leave their big air conditioned house in the suburbs and go to a new air conditioned house. So you leaving something and coming to something else you're giving up kind of a counter life and that was the thrill. Kind of having a place apart.

So do you think that people are not appreciating it. I mean one of the what happens is if you have something that's around you all the time sometimes it is just part of the landscape beautiful as it may be. You don't lose a special miss and sort of every day miss. And I wonder if an anniversary like marking a 50th anniversary as this does makes people refocus. I certainly do. And I was lucky enough to attend some of the ceremonies at the National Seashore headquarters on August 7th. And I'm telling you. I sat in an auditorium and listened to some wonderful authors who live on the Cape. Read their own work or the work of other great authors who have who have written about the Cape and it was like going to church for everybody who was in that auditorium at the Salt Pond visitor center. We are talking about some of the challenges that the cape is facing and some of the things you know we're all seeing and hearing. But there's no question that it's still a sacred place

and the Cape Cod National Seashore is the most sacred of those sacred spots that you can still find down there. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH and online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley we're talking about Cape Cod this month marks the 50th anniversary of the Cape Cod National Seashore joins me to pay tribute to it our writer David Gessner and sound artist Steven Wells. David Geffen has written many books including two about the Cape Steve Wilkes is a professor at Berklee College of Music. He also runs the Heer Cape Cod project which creates aural snapshots of snapshots of Cape Cod. And I want to give people a chance to hear another one of your aural snapshots. This is one of my favorites. This was recorded in Wellfleet at Marconi station and you can hear the waves crashing in a few seagulls. OK I could just drink that in for about 15 minutes.

I just love that sound. I began that day recording on Cape Cod Bay at Pam at Harbor and one of the things about this project has been the things that I've missed. The things that I did not press the record button quickly for on that day. One of those things happened. I was sitting with my recorder in pause waiting for a fishing boat to come in and record that coming into panic harbor and four teenagers walked by me. Two boys two girls and the two girls were walking behind the boys and one of them said to the other. We're in Massachusetts. Oh my God I thought Cape Cod was a state. And I was like oh darn I missed it. But then that afternoon I moved over to the original Marconi site and was recording that surf and again the fog was coming in and I remembered the rose words you know here a man can put all of

America behind him talking about the cape in Texas like terms. And I thought you know. Those girls had it right. I mean officially no it's not the 50 first state but it is a place whose protected landscapes on the Cape Cod National Seashore do remind you of its grandeur and my wife and I always refer to it as the 50 for St. break David Gessner you've written a lot about the Cape certainly about the parts of the National Seashore. OK. And you're also trying to encourage the rest of us to become new environmentalists we don't have to carry a sign we don't have to be rabid about it. But there are things that we can do to appreciate more fully that which is a part of our our landscape and the National Seashore being a beautiful part of that. So what do you say to folks about how to appreciate this wonderful piece of land.

Well first I say to Steve. One good quote deserves another. OK Henry Beston said a year into outer nature is the accomplishment of the tremendous ritual and when I was talking about the things people don't remember about the Cape you know a kid a lot of kid loved it 30 years ago and comes back and builds a house that separates him from the natural world. And when we last spoke Cali you know that was my hope that's my whole first step is getting out of that ad and mucking around in it but also breathing it in and hearing it and remembering that that's fun. Another thing John Hayes said to me when we went to a Coast Guard beach in East Ham was watch these birds dive Listen to this noise and it's symphonic. It's like a symphony it's engaging all your senses and that's what makes human beings happy. So it's not I mean it is somebody as Steve said like going to church and the spiritual aspect but it doesn't have the stuff. Text You know it's like the good parts of church and I think that's the

first you know that's really the first step is it's getting out and it remembering. And you could be you know you bring your kids there and you get to the beach and that you've got to yell at them to get them off the beach and there's all that. There's also sitting out on the deck with a drink and watching the sun dip and and watching the bird life. You know another thing we haven't mentioned is just the tremendous amount of birds that migrate to you know the sandbar that's the Cape in the fall millions of birds at night. And so that's one of the things that makes it thrilling too. And we mention outermost beach and the Coast Guard Mark Marconi. Well that those are amazing places but an amazing time I don't want to give away trade secrets here but if anybody goes to the Cape in the third week of October I said you know you read the thing I thought was the best time I had was I could be more specific. October 21st at 28. Go go there and you're going to have an experience that that is a wild and primal If you rock those same summer beaches not understanding that both of you love the

whole 40 mile stretch wondering if there's a favorite part for you. David Gessner Well I guess I'd have to you know I've kind of beat it into the ground here but for me the you know the outer most house because I both I'm experiencing the natural world and the layers of literary tradition that go back almost like no place in the in the world. I mean you know you shake a stick on the cape but you had another writer and we. And it's amazing you know it's kind of when Wendell Berry the Kentucky writer said you know he went back home to write he said his challenge was no one had written the land before the challenge of the Cape writer's exact opposite everyone of the planet before so to me that's a place the other thing is the one thing I love about the seashore is I'm really from the bay side. And if it were I think your neighborhood Kreider you don't have the cliffs. I love walking below the cliffs and feeling like you're in Ireland for something along the

seashore there. But you don't get where I am where I live. OK Steve. Well my absolute favorite spot would be Cornhill intro it's not within the boundaries of the Cape Cod National Seashore but to me it's every bit as beautiful but within the National Seashore I've just fallen in love with salt pond NASUWT Marsh Fort Hill Park that area is magic to me now when I drive down to the cape if I don't stop off at Salt Pond on my way to true I feel like I've missed something. And that's an area I'm looking to doing a lot more recording of particularly from October 21st to October 28 of this year. Now I understand that your project is going forward til 2012 now is that right. That is true which you know as far as documenting the audio Time Capsule we want to go all the way to December 30 first and possibly into the spring to get the peepers which I missed this year. Then my disgust noises. And Steve you're talking about helping to create a CD with the sounds of the Cape. Eventually No. So it

won't so all those great sounds won't go to the next generation of folks will open up the Time Capsule alone. We do intend to go into post-production and we actually want to do two CDs a standalone CD of some of the best recordings in their full length not the aural snapshots and also engaging members of the Berkeley Community to do re mixes or reinterpretations of these recordings. They have a guest in our last word about the national she's tour and 50 years of the National Seashore. I just want to abide people that the gift of restraint is also a gift of freedom. Beautiful. Beautiful right. Hey David when are you coming up here so I can walk the great beach with you. I'm coming up to do a really good October 21st I bet. All right well I thanks my thanks to both of you for just a wonderful discussion you two romantics. We've been paying tribute to Cape Cod with David Gessner and Steve wilts. David Guetta has written many books including return of the Osprey and a wild ranked

place both are about the Cape. His latest book is the tarball Chronicles. Steve Wilkes is a professor at Berklee College of Music. He runs the here Cape Cod project which creates aural snapshots of Cape Cod. You'll find links to both David Guest books and some of the sounds of here Cape Cod on our website. Up next we head to Martha's Vineyard where hitchhiker gives us a celebrity tour of the island. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the Boston speakers Series 7 evenings of personal perspectives and insights at Boston Symphony Hall featuring Tom Brokaw Valerie Plame-Wilson David McCullough and others. Information at Boston speakers series dot org. And from Harvard bookstore hosting former Boston Globe book critic Gail Caldwell reading from her memoir Let's take the long way home on Thursday August 25th. More information at Harvard bookstore and Harvard dot com. And from American Masters with a profile on folk legend Joan Baez a biography of the

singer songwriter activist plus a chance to see her in Boston this November. That's American Masters Joan Baez tonight at 8:30 on WGBH to PR as the world brings you voices from around the globe. I know I'm doing any good to defend Thank you. It's your daily source for international news and a gateway to cultures beyond our borders. When we say as you know where the time is here he seemed to say this. I'm Marco Werman. Join me right here for the next edition of THE WORLD coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. I'm Bob C.. Host of Morning Edition on eighty nine point seven and I'm Brian O'Donovan host of a Celtic soldier August 30 1st marks the end of WGBH is the school year and while it's the most important time to support the programs you love this program is coming to you fundraiser free. Help keep your community connected to quality news and great music all throughout the year.

Call 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 4 give on line at WGBH or and thanks. The latest local news headlines are as close as your smartphone with the new WGBH app a single tap keeps you up to date with headlines from business to arts and culture. Just a free download away at the App Store or learn more at WGBH. Dot org. Afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley joining me from Martha's Vineyard is a man who knows the island inside and out. Paul Samuel Doleman He's the author of hitchhiking with Larry David. Paul don't welcome. Hey you're covering a lot of ground on the Cape and the islands today. I love it. We love it here it's soaring above a song we catch a glimpse. That's exactly right. Look out for those hurricane winds that might blow you up in your family. Well let's think about that. Your book is subtitled you never know when magic will happen because being picked up by Larry David was magical you say.

It was an incredible experience that I wasn't planning on I stuck out my thumb. I had sore legs from a long ride the day before I decided to take a ride stick out the thumb and the comedic icon Larry David pulled over. I thought my God it's Larry David and I got in the car and we sat there for a moment he stared at me and was leaning back and. I said what he thought. He looked at me with that look only Larry can do and said you're not one of those serial killers or something are you. And I thought it was a serious question. So I thought for a second and I said Larry it's the vineyard in the summer. So even if I am I'm on vacation I'm not working. Which I'm sure he enjoyed as a comedian. And for that. Oh I don't know Larry David is the creator of Seinfeld and also the creator and star of the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm which is been going for what seven seasons now and doing quite well. He has a phenomenal.

He's popular in Vietnam all over the world Larry is an icon and this incredible guy actually I saw him like two weeks ago and he's been very gracious about this. Well this book nonsense and silliness and of course I've never seen any of his shows when he got in the car and I thought that I'll never come up. But it did and it's part of the ride in the magic of the ride and he started busting my chops he was going to kick me out of the car and we made a deal that if you give me the ride I would watch some of the programs and I have watched all of curb but I've yet to watch any of the Seinfeld series I figure maybe if Larry coughs up another ride at dinner or lunch something like that you know then maybe. Well truth be told Paul it took you quite a while before you looked at anything that he had produced. That's really got to be an embarrassing point as he kept running into you on the island and you still hadn't watched either of his big shows. Oh you're out it is an interviewer that's read the book. That's the part I get a lot of interest if people haven't read the book so tell me about Jerry Seinfeld I'm like I don't know what he's talking about the end of the summer he busted me on that he I couldn't believe he remember he turned around and gave me that pointed finger. And he says have by the way if you watched any of my programs and luckily I invoke the

summer weather defense that the summer weather had been spectacular. And once again not to take it personally I wasn't a TV guy you know and so I was lucky enough Last summer the very first day I was on the island he was on the island we immediately ran into each other again over a slice of pizza. And I said Hey just so we know all bets are off all all debts have been paid I have watched your show and it's spectacular and we shook hands. I think there was peace there and a little more peace in the world. Well Paul your book is actually it runs down two tracks on first if you just wanted to read it purely as a kind of voyeuristically in which you we can enjoy your running into various stars other than Larry David and really interesting people that's one way of looking at it. But really the underpinning of the book is to talk about this quote magic that you talk about which is about. Really appreciating what some would call happenstance others coincidence. But you say is magic.

Yeah and I'm glad you really caught that because a lot of people pick up the book and it's a lot of laughs It's a faster E.. And I get these beautiful letters from people all over the world thank you all of you out there who are listening. I deeply appreciate it. But beyond the laughter and the circus stuff on top and a few celebrities that you see Meg Ryan Ted Danson whoever the deep undertone is one of humility for the magic that we exist in that we forget about and we completely take for granted yours truly included I need to be jolted awake all the time and unfortunately most of us need to be jolted awake through tragedy rather than just pure momentary presence. I say at one point in the book that all of this is happening while we hurtle through space on a giant magnet. Think about that. Looking out the window there's birds in the trees. This whole thing works it's amazing. And whether we call it magic synchronicity coincidence or something else in any language there in my opinion and what I write about is there seems to be this

incredible. Intelligence and that's a word that doesn't even measure up. That permeates everything. Intelligence within US intelligence in the world intuition and why did Larry stop and pick me up because about five minutes into that ride he said I never pick up hitchhikers ever. And I said Really. And then I said why did you pick me up and he said the hot one. And then he said you know I don't know but I just felt like I was supposed to. And it gets deep. What if he hadn't I wouldn't be here with you in the books had this life it's all over the place. Well it reminds me you know what you often hear people say five minutes earlier or five minutes later I wouldn't have been in the right place to experience a certain thing. So that's really how the book resonated with me in terms of your adventures of sort of minding your own business and bumping into Larry David and others as you went along. Yeah and we said at the time because we have all these encounters we can the ride we kept running any into each other a couple times literally We screeched because it was so crazy.

What is this about I didn't know I was going to write a book I had a dream the last night of the summer and said write a book whatever it is and you can give it your favorite word for the ineffable mystery of being and I did in its taken off and that's what I think but the great part about how this thing that I'm referring to this ability is democratic. You don't need money you just need to be present. You don't need status social position. It doesn't matter what color your skin is it doesn't matter what language you speak. There's a matter if you're illiterate you can get still tune in and if whatever it is in you moves you through the world I can guarantee you'll you'll have a more richer experience I would say you'll be suffering for here that I don't think anybody would promise but it's it's magic and I've been listening to your stuff and I think there is an undertone and that permeates a lot of what you're talking about with this. Well a lot of people would listen to you now and say OK I know this guy he's doing the yoga. We're in the Birkenstocks and you know he's waking up every day with what the

guy told me. You know it's only you know so you know I can't relate to this but there's a certain intimacy that is built up when your encounters with these strangers. I wonder in the chapter ice cream and fish heads on page for 64 if you would just read a little bit to show how you just this is just a guy that just picked you up. Absolutely. And I don't have the Birkenstocks on I meet a lot of donuts. And anybody you know you took a cop out you know but it's available to anybody I think that for whatever reason the fact that I'm in front of this Mike is the universe proving if he can do it anybody can. So on page 64 I was with this guy and I called him broken hearted bill feeling too lazy and full to bike up bile and I wander up to the town West Tisbury road in search of the left. My first ride is with a year round resident Bill. Apparently he's had quite a winter. He recently discovered his wife was having an affair with his best friend. Ouch. Not only

did this devastate him it also hurts kids. Are you OK I ask. It's been a tough six months but I feel like I'm finally on the other side of it. How long were you married. She and I met on the Vineyard 10 summers ago brokenhearted Belsize. She got pregnant so we decided to make a go of it. I started my own business and found myself working day and night to keep us afloat. It was a very tough time. We had two more boys between the kids in my new company. There was no time left for us. Eventually we grew apart and she found her way into my buddy's arms. Lately I'm doing a lot better and I feel like everything's going to be alright. Our divorce was final last month. I'm sorry. Thanks. It took me a while but I've forgiven her. After everything she did. How did you forgive. Well. With time. The hurting eased up and I was able to look at my part in it. Besides we all do the best we can. We're human. And there's a message right there. So I think that's what people are resonating with they find themselves in these stories of people that

that you just you know run into hitchhiking on the island. And that's what's been sort of the response to the book I want to point out for a lot of people saying hitchhiking who had checks. But it's a tradition on the island it's not unusual and many folks like yourself who may have other means of transportation your case a bike often do it. So tell us a little bit about that. I haven't had a car and just so those people are saying who is this person it's the book is hitchhiking with Larry David and my site is hitchhiking with Larry David that COM you get on Amazon or any store. And I like the idea of hitchhiking because I felt like I was throwing myself sort of I loved to body surf. It's like you throwing yourself into the waves and you're letting other forces move you around like a pawn in. I would just stick out my thumb. And I think because I was legitimately interested all these different people from celebrities to billionaires to broken hearted guys Wall Street Mike a guy who got out of finance a guy in Hollywood.

If you hold the space in the intent is pure just to discover if I say these people are like waiting to share themselves beyond Hi how are you finding you. But I think it's also going for that. I think there something must be said about the intimacy of strangers. Where are you. You are dying to say something but you don't want to say it to somebody you know necessarily you know especially your wife holding that frying pan will tell her you're right and I think you just it just flowed and for whatever reason these people open their hearts to me I feel very very very privileged and I shared back and I just made mental notes I had no idea I was going to write a book about it but it's amazing the friendships that have developed a lot of characters in the book and I stay in touch I'm going to see dealmaker Don later today. I had breakfast with billionaire. I've seen different folks around the island Larry. You know and Bill on the island have really responded to the book people who visit Martha's Vineyard but I think it's even expanded beyond the island people are resonating with something of what you've written there. I got a note from a guy in the New York thoroughfare the other day I thought it must have been a 50 year old man it was so deep it

was a 19 year old kid a guy in a sailboat out of Newport a kid in Australia. But it's been huge in the Cape and Islands in New England. I think people are hungry for connection genuine authentic transparent connection and that's what we need we can't find that in Madison Avenue as we can't find that store front. You know we can find it work we can only find it within through the love we share with I can't believe I've never run into you because I'm on the island quite a bit and a couple places times in the book I was there at the same place you. You were so I'm sure at some point I'll see you. I think we're due for a slice of pizza and I can't believe that you didn't use this excuse to get to the island for some sort of trip and had a person in there you know you need to work those angles I'm going to do no work that angle on that free trip. Thanks very much. We've been talking about Martha's Vineyard with Paul Samuel Domon the author of hitchhiking with Larry David. Thanks so much. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us

on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Alan Mathis produced by Chelsea Merz will Rose live and Abbey Ruzicka and this is the last week for our intern Sarah Ward where production of WGBH radio buttons NPR station for news and culture.