BY RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com, filed January 12, 2015
Lois Reitzes' first "City Lights" two-hour arts program today on 90.1/WABE-FM was a mix of interviews with local and national artists and some classical music excerpts.
Upfront, at 10-a.m., she quoted Frolov and Schneider above as an explanation for the name of the show "City Lights." Then she quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."
To Reitzes, "light is a metaphor that reaches across cultures... a star pierces the night. A star is a person, an entertainer who sings us a song tells us a story or dances across a stage. I'm Lois Reitzes. Welcome to 'City Lights,' the new program on WABE celebrating the people who cast a bright light on our city through books, music, food, visual art, dance, the spoke word, film and more."
Reitzes herself did a pre-recorded interview with talk show legend Dick Cavett about his book "Brief Encounters." She also recycled a six-year-old interview of "Star Wars" composer John Williams by Josephine Reed of the National Endowment of the Arts.
Her executive producer Noel Morris talked to local opera singer Jamie Barton . Reporter Kate Sweeney did a piece on WonderRoot, a local arts organization about their new, much larger space in a converted elementary school.
At noon, Rose Scott and Denis O'Hayer introduced "Closer Look" to the "Kill Bill" soundtrack.
"We haven't had a run through," O'Hayer mused. "This is going to happen as it happens, a la carte so to speak."
The first segment featured a talk with Jonathan Shapiro and Michelle Wirth about the hot issues at the General Assembly, which opens 2015 today such as transportation, ethics, education, cannabis oil and Medicaid. Later they, they interviewed House Speaker David Ralston and state House minority leader Stacey Abrams on topics many of the same topics.
Among other topics they covered over two hours: the Atlanta Falcons' Personal Seat License plan, racial profiling and cops, a hate crime in Atlanta in which media coverage has goosed an investigation and a Vietnam vet who is on death row for killing a cop.
O'Hayer at 1:49 p.m. teased Scott about singing the National Anthem at a Hawks game, a segue to congratulate Steve Holman for being named 2014 Georgia Broadcaster of the Year. "When you talk a template being a play-by-play how it should be, you have to look at Steve," said Scott, a sports specialist. They used the BCS game tonight as a pretext to talk about how difficult the National Anthem can be. Jen Hirsh, a folk singer, came up with a way to sing it in tune every time: start low enough in the register so the high notes won't be so difficult.
They also used a couple of national stories, including a lighthearted one near the end of hour two about how to create an algorithm that could "solve" poker.
Amy Kiley, by the way, takes over for O'Hayer as local host on "All Things Considered."
Radio show preview
90.1/WABE-FM
10 a.m. to noon: "City Lights" with Lois Reitzes
noon to 2 p.m.: "A Closer Look" with Rose Scott and Denis O'Hayer
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