Big Talk – WFHB

The folks at Stages Bloomington take the old movie line, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show,” seriously. Stages is a local nonprofit that specializes in bringing young people — elementary and high school aged — into the theater. Annalise Cain has been hired as the organization’s teen programming coordinator. Cain, a former theater kid …

He has designed a public scratching post made of pumice and a time capsule encased in 10 pounds of beeswax. Artist and industrial designer Maxwell Fertik came from heavily forested New England and, there, learned to appreciate and love natural materials. He specializes in transforming material from local biota into usable items and art that …

A hot August week 57 years ago. Thousands of protesters took to the street during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They faced off against thousands of Chicago police officers and Illinois National Guardsmen. Blood was drawn as the whole world watched. Aaron Cohen, a 15-year-old from the comfortable suburb of Winnetka was there, …

The five scariest words in Bloomington: The students are coming back! Author, artist, and PR maven Tristra Newyear joins us on Big Talk to discuss the coming 2025-26 school year at Indiana University. We ponder a complaint seemingly common to every lecturer and professor — students can’t read or write anymore. Is traditional literacy being …

We turn the tables this week as author, historian, artist, and PR maven Tristra Newyear interviews Big Talk producer and host Michael Glab. They discuss the July 10th, 2025 benefit celebration for WFHB at The Bluebird. It’s been 50 years since Mark Hood and Jeffrey Morris staged the first benefit at The Bluebird for Bloomington …

The Busman’s Holiday boys, Lewis & Addison Rogers, have released a new album, Table Talk, this past June. Now in their 20th year performing together, the Busman’s boys will stage a gala album release show in September with special guest bestselling poet and author Ross Gay. The Rogers sibs’ music takes a bit of a …

She realized how inadequate her formal sex education had been when she took a Biology & Culture of Women’s Bodies course at Indiana University. Indiana schools prioritize abstinence over information when it comes to school sex education classes. Christine Brackenhoff, a nurse formerly with the Monroe County Health Department’s now-closed Futures Family Planning Clinic, interviews &...

We pick up our conversation with Dave Askins, citizen-journalist and the outsider on the inside, who has resurrected his B Square Bulletin. He hopes to create a 21st century online daily local newspaper employing reporters and photographers covering a wide range of beats. He aims to establish a nonprofit corporation so he can solicit financial …

He thought he’d had enough back in December 2024, so Dave Askins quit publishing his daily B Square Bulletin. After two months, he was back on the beat with an idea for a bigger, better online local news publication. Now publishing two or three times a week, Askins aims to fashion a more comprehensive daily …

For decades now, public libraries have been more — much more — than places where you can only borrow books. Libraries’ collections now include items from baking dishes to pickleball sets and even to seeds for your garden. The Monroe County Public Library’s Library of Things (its formal title) is the repository of the almost …

It was a silly film but Ian Mair was inspired by it. The Linton, Indian native saw “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein” when he was a third grader. He’s been making movies ever since. Mair and his school chum James Stevenson went on to found Moonlight Films, a cinema factory that’s put out more than …

When Anna Stamm was a little girl, she watched B-movies on TV with her father. She wondered how and why TV stations picked movies to air. Her curiosity has led her to pursue her doctorate in local broadcast history. Bloomington was home to one of the key figures in television and radio, Sarkes Tarzian. Stamm …

The second part of our conversation with minister, activist, antiwar protester, and advocate for death row inmates, the Rev. Bill Breeden. He earned national notoriety when he swiped an Odon, Indiana street sign honoring President Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor and Odon native, John Poindexter. Breeden began evangelical preaching at the age of 15 and …

He went from being a teenaged country preacher to protesting war and ministering to death row prisoners. Now retired, the Rev. Bill Breeden has lived a wild, loving, socially conscious life. He’s spent time in American jails and a foreign dungeon. He’s stolen street signs and lived in a tepee. None other than Kurt Vonnegut …

We began to explore the iconic musician, producer, engineer, and anti-star’s Bloomington roots and his sojourns to Los Angeles, New York City, and New Orleans last week. Bingham’s back in town now, having served in a “musical boot camp” while performing at the Orbit Room this spring. This edition of Big Talk originally aired Thursday, …

He’s back in Bloomington, for the nonce, after sojourns through Los Angeles, New York City, and New Orleans, among other ports of call. The one-time member of the storied Bloomington prog-rock band, Screaming Gypsy Bandits, former principal of the innovative, experimental Bar-B-Q Records label, and a key figure in the origin story of WFHB, Bingham …

The co-founder of Ledgemule Press, Dave Torneo, has published Cincinnati poet Matt Hart’s latest volume of verse, Falling Fine, under the Pickpocket Books imprint. The book’s release party will feature an imaginative overhead-projector puppet show by artist and educator Johanna Winters, as well as music performed by several local players. Winters’ puppetry will explore the &#8230...

She’s Bloomington’s Trans-dimensional Diva. She lives in the vestibule of a North Walnut Street portal to other realities. And she’ll be hosting the Alternate Dimension Mill, Saturday, April 19, at the Monroe County Public Library auditorium. McGee, a veteran of stage and small screen, has immersed herself in the imaginary Bloomingtons created by MDWST Fable, …

The former guest host of Big Talk is wearing a new hat these days. Tying together his love for comedy, sports, and Bloomington, Alex Ashkin has organized a fundraising event to benefit both Middle Way House and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington. He has reeled in Jared Thompson of the Comedy Attic, New …

A Bloomington tradition now in its fourth year, the Bloomington Indiana International Film Festival will draw cinephiles to Redbud Books and The Bishop Bar Thursday through Saturday, April 3-5. Matt Rice, who wrangles the filmmakers and emcees panel discussions between showings, joins Big Talk this week. Founded by local hero Byron Jordan Wolter, the BIIFF …

This week’s Big Talk is a sheer gabfest with retired Indiana University professor and internationally recognized expert on movies, James Naremore. He’s written countless books on cinema and has appeared on numerous Criterion Collection editions, analyzing and commenting on such classics as “Citizen Kane” and “The Magnificent Ambersons.” Naremore has written and...

Spring is here, after a long, hard winter. More trees will be will be growing leaves in Bloomington this year, thanks to Canopy Bloomington’s regular schedule of planting as well as its new Cool Corridors program. Staffers, board members, and community volunteers for the nonprofit were out in force in the Crestmont neighborhood this past …

Artists need help — and who better to help them than other artists? That’s one of the goals of the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington. Charles Pearce was named the organization’s first executive director in December and it holds its annual meeting tomorrow at Fountain Square. The public is invited and will get the chance …

Singer/songwriter Krista Detor so enjoyed her experience at Hedgebrook, the women artists’ retreat on Whidbey Island, that she was inspired to create something like it when she got back home to Bloomington. She and musician/sound engineer David Weber set about the task of creating a small complex of rooms and studios for creative types of …

Their three-year term leading Indiana University’s Cultural Studies Program is coming to an end. Rebekah Sheldon and Tess Given are going out with a bang with Bikini Kill guitarist and self-described “cultural instigator,” Erica Dawn Lyle, speaking at their February lecture series installment. They’ve organized a two-day Cinema and Extinction Symposium this month as well. &...