{"id":17307,"date":"2025-01-20T18:16:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T23:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17307"},"modified":"2025-01-21T11:45:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T16:45:53","slug":"episode-622-fred-kaplan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-622-fred-kaplan","title":{"rendered":"Episode 622 – Fred Kaplan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 622:
\nFred Kaplan<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_622_-_Fred_Kaplan.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“This is a book about Washington culture, a sort of comical ‘How Things Work’.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>After 4+ decades as a reporter and with a half-dozen nonfiction books under his belt, Fred Kaplan<\/a> rejoins the show to celebrate his first foray into fiction, A CAPITAL CALAMITY<\/a> (Miniver Press)! We talk about how lockdown got him to start A Capital Calamity<\/em>, how his history in national security and the defense sector informs the novel (& its accidental march torward WWIII), how his protagonist is & isn’t a Fred-Not-Traveled, and what it was like to make things up after a career spent reporting the facts. We get into the moral quandaries of being an insider in Washington, his experience working for Les Aspin in the ’70s, the early morning storytelling revelations that opened up the novel to him, and why he set a major scene of the book above The Comedy Cellar in NYC. We also get into whether we’re slow-walking into WWIII, the lessons learned from the 2017-2021 era and how they may affect his coverage of the new administration, his jazz recommendations<\/a>, the fun of dissecting Washington cocktail party culture, the pros & cons of a multipolar world, and more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read A Capital Calamity<\/a>!<\/p>\n

(And listen to our 2013<\/a> and 2016<\/a> conversations!)<\/em><\/p>\n

“When the big system melts away, the natural tendency toward violence and anarchy are unconfined.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n