Tim Page has been the chief classical music critic for the Washington Post and New York Newsday and a regular contributor to the New York Times, where I first encountered his byline. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for work for the Post. He’s a professor emeritus of musicology at USC and his many books include The Glenn Gould Reader, Dawn Powell: A Biography, the memoir Parallel Play, and four books for the Library of America imprint, on Powell and Virgil Thompson.

Tim grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where as a kid he was the subject of a celebrated short documentary film, A Day With Timmy Page. Over the course of his career, he has done a stint as a cocktail pianist; played keyboards and composed for his own rock band, Dover Beach; and served as the host of New, Old and Unexpected, a daily program on WNYC-FM, where he presented hundreds of radio premieres.

Stephen Merritt's website

Tim Page's Subtack

Stephen Merritt and the Future Bible Heroes, "Memories of Love"

Photo of Merritt by Kevin Yatarola

Mike Jensen spent 35 years covering basketball and other sports for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His book about Philadelphia basketball will be published in 2026 by Temple University Press. In 2024, Mike was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame. He also won national Eclipse Awards for his horse racing coverage of Smarty Jones and Barbaro. Among other honors, he was named Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year and won the Jim O'Connell Award by the United States Basketball Writers Association for Excellence in Beat Reporting. He still has the trophy for winning a foul-shooting contest at the 1976 Julius Erving Basketball Camp.

His subject, the legendary William "Speedy" Morris, spent more than fifty years coaching basketball in Philadelphia on the. high school and college levels.

Morris's speech on being inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.

Mike Jensen article on the Speedy Morris "coaching tree."

Comprehensive coverage of Morris after he coached his final game, in 2020. The photo of Morris, taken when he was coaching Penn Charter high school in 1983, is from this site.

Morris teaching the pump fake.

David Bianculli is the first return guest to The Lives They're Living. (We talked about Mason Williams in one of the first episodes.) David has been the TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross since its inception, and has been writing about television since 1975, notably at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Daily News. He's written four books: The Platinum Age Of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific (2016); Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 2009); Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously (1992); and Dictionary of Teleliteracy (1996). Bianculli is professor of Television Studies at Rowan University in New Jersey.

His subject on this episode is the great writer, director, and producer James L. Brooks, who got his start some sixty years ago in an unexpected place. Since then, among many other achievements, Brooks co-created The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Simpsons, and wrote and directed the Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment.

Conan O'Brien talks about Brooks's laugh.

Clips of Brooks laughing.

Albert Brooks speech from Broadcast News.

Photo of Brooks by Bob Marshak, 2004.