Michael Schell

WKCR is excited to announce a 24-hour broadcast on May 22 celebrating the 112th anniversary of the arrival of Sun Ra! This special broadcast will run from 12am to midnight and will preempt all regularly-scheduled Friday shows. Tune in at 89.9 fm or at wkcr.org!

A week after our Mother's Day Zappathon we explore post-Zappa themes in this podcast w/contributions by Zorn, Frith, Paxton, @CheerAccident, @Ldn_Sinfonietta & more. Plus Xenakis, Ligeti and Nancarrow gems turn 50 w/help from @AlessioBaxPiano & @PLAimard. mixcloud.com/FlotationDevic…

@francesbarber13 They’re the counterpart to the anti-abortion movement in the US: people who believe, or want to believe, that they’ve found the one defining moral issue of their time, and that they’re the chosen ones who are on the right side of it.

If this is The Left I presumed I was on all my life, I want nothing to do with it.

A week after our Mother's Day Zappathon we'll have a post-Zappa tonight, with Zorn, Frith, Mitterer, Gabriel Zucker, Alex Paxton and @CheerAccident offering quirky eclectic fusion tracks. Plus Xenakis, Ligeti, Nancarrow & Elena Firsova. Sun 10pm PDT 91.3fm kbcs.fm

@AbdelA1924 @DavidSamuelMay I have plenty of sympathy for displaced Germans in 1945-48. I would be annoyed if they branded their displacement as the "Untergang" and turned it into a story of cosmic victimhood that left out things like, oh, the war they launched, what its goals were, and how they lost.

@Variety Palestine is to the deranged left as abortion is to the fundamentalist right.

Hannah Einbinder says Hollywood not speaking out in support of Palestine "pisses me off" and they "need these issues to affect a white person for them" to care. “I look at these people who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind and they cannot utter a single word. I really can’t understand it... People in Hollywood, unfortunately, need these issues to affect a white person for them to see it as relating to them,” she noted. “Like, they see Jimmy Kimmel getting taken off the air suddenly, they see Stephen Colbert’s show being canceled by CBS, which is owned by the Ellisons, and they go, ‘How could this possibly happen?’ And it’s like, we know how because we saw students and professors and journalists and authors and Palestinian folks be silenced and fired and expelled and imprisoned… it took it happening to these white men for people to be like, ‘Oh my god.’” variety.com/2026/film/news…

Very important lesson for Blue Cities here: Every change Lurie has made has been opposed by screaming, bullying activists -- ignoring them has been the path to policy success and extremely high popularity. @skaushik100 sfchronicle.com/election/artic…

@LyyPerr Some things belong on the cutting room floor.

Ppl are irritated by the interview subject but I am irritated by the awfulness of this Q&A delivered by one of the last gainfully employed magazine journalists in this country. The Q&A form requires a ton of work if boredom & banality are to be avoided. "May I call you Rosie"?!?!

@seattletimes And the teachers union scored a goal in their eternal battle with PBAs to see who can present the best case for severely curtailing the power of public sector unions.

The Seattle Education Association just elected a new president, but she's currently on leave as the district investigates allegations she abused a student. #Echobox=1778506249-2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">seattletimes.com/education-lab/…

Get your 2-hour @Zappa fix whenever you want with our 2026 Mother’s Day show, with four major new archival releases that feature Frank and the Mothers of Invention at their iconoclastic best. w/Captain Beefheart, L. Shankar, @MarcAndreHam & @Ensemble_inter mixcloud.com/FlotationDevic…

Born 90 years ago today in Oakland was Lovella May Borg, AKA Carla Bley (1936–2023). We recently celebrated her radical piano concerto ¾ for its 50th anniversary. Its influences range from minimalism to Sibelius, whose famous Valse Triste is quoted. mixcloud.com/FlotationDevic…

Wrap up your Mother's Day with Flotation Device and our annual Frank Zappathon celebrating the Mothers of Invention. This year features four new archival releases, lots of guitar improv and a @MarcAndreHam premiere recording. Sun 10pm–Mid PDT on 91.3 @KBCS kbcs.fm

@IonaItalia Actor Jack Cassidy too.

I'm reading about the rock star Steve Marriott who died at age 44 after he fell asleep while smoking in bed. He was a drug addict and a hard partier with an extremely impulsive personality and perhaps psychiatric issues, so he was unlikely to be long-lived. But still ... 1/2

Fetterman says he won’t switch parties: “I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.” Says “fringe” has taken over “I remain strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor and even pro-rib-eye over bio slop.” washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/…

@sfmcguire79 These are the same people who tried to cancel Bright Sheng—one of the three or four leading Chinese-born composers active today, and a Cultural Revolution survivor—for showing Olivier’s Othello in class a few years ago.

1250 UMich faculty, staff, students, and alumni have signed a letter claiming “nothing Professor Peterson said was inappropriate to the occasion” and that his “remarks were thoughtful, informed, instructive, and ethically rich.” The problems run deep. docs.google.com/document/u/0/d…

Today's podcast conveys our farewell to Michael Tilson Thomas, Xenakis' Psappha at 50, new albums by Crispell, Seabrook and @MelvinGibbs, a @MeliaWatras preview at @MeanyCenter, and revived gems by Ornette Coleman and Gubaidulina. mixcloud.com/FlotationDevic… @A_Ferriere @JobyBurgess

@EWErickson I suppose the difference is that unlike the GOP, the Democratic Party finds Nazi-sympathy to be an embarrassment, not a job qualification. Which I guess is better than nothing.

Tonite we bid farewell to Michael Tilson Thomas as a conductor, composer and pianist committed to new music. We also celebrate Xenakis' Psappha for its 50th birthday with 3 contrasting recordings. Plus @MelvinGibbs @MeliaWatras and more Sun 10pm PDT 91.3fm kbcs.fm

Opening night of Carmen at @SeattleOpera with Ludovic Morlot & Sasha Cooke, with seven more performances to go in this run directed by Paul Curran and w/@JnaiBMezzo alternating with Cooke in the title role. Watch my interview with Morlot at tinyurl.com/MorlotCarmen then go see it!

@cheeseatnight @jessesingal @KenJennings I’m not opposed to using Ivermectin as a cattle dewormer. That doesn’t mean I advocate its use as a COVID vaccine substitute in humans.

@jessesingal @KenJennings are you against boys with Gynecomastia getting testosterone therapy or having surgery? Because thats the most common type of "youth gender medicine" in the US, and you've never spoken about it, you only talk about far less frequent medical treatments

I disagree. If he genuinely thinks youth gender medicine is so important that Gavin Newsom is unvotable-for b/c he merely said he was *torn* about it, @KenJennings should speak out *more*. He should publicly explain his stance in detail rather than doing this drive-by-snark BS.