Arts & Culture

Don Dudenbostel’s photographs are featured this May in the River Gallery's exhibition Defining Roots.  Dudenbostel's photos document disappearing, hidden and infamous aspects of Appalachian culture.  Throughout the past few decades, he has photographed snake handlers, moonshiners (particularly legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton), cockfighters, Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis.  “I try never to influence my images with personal feelings,” he says in this interview.

A new documentary called Rewind This! explores the rise and fall of VHS and the nostalgia of the format in the 21st century. The film will be screened at Barking Legs Theater Friday night. 

Ben Schnell, creator and host of Another Story, joins WUTC for an interview.  Schnell’s podcast features local people telling true, personal stories.  Schnell culls some of the stories from a monthly storytelling competition at The Camp House.  Other stories come from interviews Schnell conducts.  The free podcast is available through iTunes, and Schnell has also created a Soundcloud page.

Roy Blount, Jr. is a prolific Southern author and a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!  Often funny, occasionally cantankerous, he joins WUTC’s Michael Edward Miller for a loose, meandering chat.  Blount discusses his books, being a Southern expat and participating in the Celebration Of Southern Literature.

Ian Svenonius is coming to the Winder Binder Gallery & Bookstore in downtown Chattanooga on Friday, May 10th, to promote his book Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group.  The book is a music-industry satire.  The publisher says, “Pretending to be a ‘how-to" guide for aspiring rock stars, this book fuses a meticulously researched sociopolitical examination of the history of rock and roll music with the author's trademark humor and cutting wit.”