Thomas Schatz returns us to an era when a newly enriched movie industry rediscovered its creative energy, and indie went mainstream without losing its edge.

Between 1989 and 2004, all the old studios either merged with other media giants or were swallowed up by even bigger diversified behemoths, leading to an infusion of money and fast-tracking the digital revolution. Yet even as CGI and piles of cash fueled a new breed of blockbusters—Batman and Titanic, Toy Story and The Lord of the Rings—an indie ethos permeated the industry. And at the crossroads of commodification and aesthetic vision, auteurs ranging from Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino to Sofia Coppola and Ang Lee became household names.

Power Surge: Conglomerate Hollywood and the Studio System's Last Hurrah with Thomas Schatz (U California Press, 2026) traces these trajectories, which increasingly clashed and commingled during the 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in nothing short of a new golden age—and perhaps the last gasp of the century-old studio system.

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The podcast covers the book Satirical Tibet: The Politics of Humor in Contemporary Amdo (U Washington Press, 2025), which is about satirical speech traditons from Amdo region of Tibet and the role of zurza in Tibetan cultural production and modernity. Tune in to find out more about satire, languages, cultures of what's funny and why.

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How did Anita O'Day-the legendary jazz singer who, along with Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz, led the so-called "cool school" of modern jazz-define cool?

"That means doing everything that you like to do and getting away with it, you dig?"

Her traits included a frosted tone with a dash of vinegar; a blithe, airy rhythmic sense that could make almost any band swing; an ultra-hip bebop vocabulary; and a wisecracking insouciance, as though all this were just a lark. O'Day emerged in 1941 as a big-band singer whose tough look and take-charge style established her as a musically savvy leader of men, not a begowned accessory. Thereafter, while creating a historic body of recordings on Verve Records, O'Day became "one of the boys" in another sense, spending much of the '50s and '60s hooked on heroin. Finally clean by the '70s, she had a stunning renaissance, touring the world each year and releasing dozens of albums; even the TV program 60 Minutes profiled her in 1980.

Her memoir, High Times Hard Times, while vividly written (it was optioned more than once for films that didn't happen), cuts off in 1980, and contains almost no reflections on why she sang the way she did. With Cool Heat: Anita O'Day and Her Dangerous Jazz Life (Equinox Publishing, 2026), author James Gavin, whose biography subjects include Chet Baker, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, and George Michael, now turns his attention to O'Day's mad roller-coaster life, a nonstop procession of thrills, laughs, outrageous stories, and unforgettable music-making. Gavin, a Grammy nominee and a two-time winner of ASCAP's Deems Taylor-Virgil Thomson Award for excellence in musical journalism, draws upon a wealth of unpublished material, including interviews with many of the people who knew her best making this a definitive portrait of one of the great characters and innovators in jazz history.

James Gavin is the author of five acclaimed books and dozens of New York Times features; he is a worldwide public speaker, a Grammy nominee, and a recipient of two ASCAP Deems Taylor-Virgil Thomson Awards for excellence in music journalism. His previous book are George Michael: A Life (Abrams, 2022), Is That All There Is? The Strange Life of Peggy Lee (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, 2014), Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (Atria Books, 2009), Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker (Knopf, 2002; republished by Chicago Review Press in 2011), and Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret (Grove Weidenfeld, 1991; Back Stage Books, 2006).

James Gavin’s website.

Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Backbeat Books, 2021), Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025), and U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival.

Bradley on Facebook and Bluesky.

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