Davisville

Davis has interesting people, ideas, connections, and events. On Davisville, host Bill Buchanan presents stories that have some connection to Davis. The program has won 14 Excellence in Journalism awards from the San Francisco Press Club since 2018, plus a national Hometown Media Award for excellence from the Alliance for Community Media in 2024. Contact: davisville @ dcn.org

Replays Tuesday 12-12:30pm, Saturday 8:30-9am
Live Monday 5:30-6pm
Podcast
Music programs are only online for two weeks after they are broadcast.

Davisville, Dec. 12, 2022: How donors in Yolo County give their money

The end of the year is a big time for giving. Today we talk about what people in Yolo County prefer to give to, what inspires them to donate, and what doesn’t, as measured by this year’s survey of donors from the Yolo Community Foundation. The county has about 600 nonprofits. Executive Director Jessica Hubbard discusses the survey, the limits of the responses, where local wealth comes from, concern for arts/culture nonprofits and other “second responders,” and the outlook for 2023.

Davisville, Dec. 5, 2022: Yiyun Li, a writer of growing acclaim, once taught at UC Davis (first aired in 2015)

Yiyun Li’s reputation as a writer continues to rise. Her books have earned her several major awards and have taken her to Princeton, where she teaches and serves as director of its creative writing program. In spring 2015, when she was teaching writing at UC Davis, she appeared on Davisville to talk about her work and the short story “A Sheltered Woman” that had won her what was then her latest award. Today we replay that interview from May 18, 2015.

Davisville, Nov. 21, 2022: The annual movie show with Davis critic Derrick Bang

Derrick Bang says he’s looking forward to seeing Steven Spielberg’s new movie, The Fabelmans, but hopes to pass on the modern-cannibals-in-love story, Bones and All. It’s time for our annual year-end movie talk with Derrick, and Davisville host Bill Buchanan begins by confessing he has seen only one movie in a theater this year. We also get Derrick’s take on some of 2022’s worst movies, some of its culturally significant ones, and how he keeps interested in movies after watching, reviewing and dissecting them since his days at the California Aggie in the 1970s.

Davisville, Nov. 7, 2022: Guaraldi’s popular Christmas classic goes deluxe

There’s a lot of magic in Vince Guaraldi’s music, especially A Charlie Brown Christmas. This fall Craft Recordings is releasing extended deluxe versions of the holiday classic, and we talk with three of the people involved: brothers Jason and Sean Mendelson, whose late father Lee Mendelson was the executive producer of the Peanuts holiday specials, and Davis author Derrick Bang, who wrote the expanded CD/LP’s liner notes.

We also talk about the soundtrack to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which Craft released in August.

Holiday music would be very different if Lee Mendelson hadn’t brought Guaraldi and Peanuts creator Charles Schulz together. We hear about how they met, talk about Guaraldi and the music — and Jason gamely recreates the moment when, as a kid, he was voicing Marcie in the Happy New Year, Charlie Brown TV special and the character gave Charlie Brown a smooch.

Davisville, Oct. 24, 2022: A new way to deal with all the surplus stuff in Davis

Old rooftop TV antennas can become shovel handles. Discarded bedframes can be feedstock. Owners of balky vacuum cleaners can learn how to maintain them, instead of trash them. Boomers with a house full of unwanted possessions can get advice on handing them off to new uses. Community Mercantile, a new nonprofit store stocked with re-used items that offers this kind of serious recycling to the town, has its grand opening this Sunday, Oct. 30. Today on Davisville, we talk with co-founders Larry Fisher and Stephanie Koop about what they’re doing, and why.

Davisville, Oct. 10, 2022: The ‘Ghost of the Woodland Opera House’

It’s 1909, and the Golden Fleece Traveling Players have arrived at the Woodland Opera House to present a melodrama, Daughter of the West. But strange accidents disrupt preparations for the performance — and the ghost of William Porter, who has haunted the Opera House since dying there in a fire in 1892, takes credit for the trouble when he appears to one of the company’s players.

This is a partial synopsis of the WOH’s current play, Ghost of the Woodland Opera House, and here’s the Halloween angle — some of the story is true. Today on Davisville we talk with Matthew Abergel and Bob Cooner, the co-authors of the play, which Matthew is also directing.

Davisville, Sept. 26, 2022: The last record store in town is having a busy year

Young adult buyers rediscovering a sense of community as they listen to records together. Interest in long-gone bands like Led Zeppelin. High prices for LPs you couldn't give away a decade ago. People emerging from the pandemic who bring in boxes of their vinyl records because they want to get stuff out of their homes, and they don't want the records to be thrown away. Paul Wilbur, the longtime manager of Armadillo Music in downtown Davis, says the current market for LPs and CDs isn't easily explained, but love for music is a big part of it. He’s our guest today on Davisville.

Davisville, Sept. 12, 2022: Searching deepest space, while working from Davis

In a remote Chilean desert, the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization is building a huge telescope that promises to see deeper into space than any optical telescope now existing. The work involves five countries and more than a dozen leading universities and institutes — and the president of the nonprofit that’s building it, Robert Shelton, lives in Davis. He joins us today on Davisville to talk about this huge new eye on the distant reaches of space and what it might show us, like whether we’re alone in the universe.

(The rendering depicts the Giant Magellan Telescope, now being built in Chile.)

Davisville, Aug. 29, 2022: At UC Davis, researchers work on restoring the ability to speak

Imagine that you want to speak, but you can’t, because a stroke or disease has robbed you of the ability. Two researchers at UC Davis are helping to create a “brain-machine interface” that would use a brain implant and technology to recreate an individual's ability to talk. That advance would be profoundly important to the individual, of course, and for all of us, it’s a promising use of technology.

Today on Davisville we talk with Drs. David Brandman and Sergey Stavisky about their research, how the interface would work, who it can help, recent advances in neuroprosthetics, the novel leadership set-up of their lab, and what brought them to UC Davis.

(This UC Davis Health photo shows members of the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab, with Sergey Stavisky at the far left, and David Brandman second from right.)

Davisville, Aug. 15, 2022: The Davis night sky can be magical in the summer

The night sky is one of the best parts of Davis during summer and early fall. Hot days yield to mild evenings that make it easy to spend time outdoors after sunset, and a bright moon on the horizon can feel elemental, inviting thoughts about subjects that go far beyond the daily routine.

On today’s program Vinita Domier from the Davis Astronomy Club talks about the attractions of the night sky. With the James Webb space telescope, humans can now see farther in space than ever. We also we hear from stargazers at two recent nighttime events where the club's members brought out their telescopes: one event in the Explorit Science Center parking lot, and the other at a Yolo Basin Foundation benefit held one Saturday night deep in the Yolo Bypass.

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Comments

You're a Davis icon, Bill. Keep up the good work of providing local, informative, and quality programming.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 11/15/2013 - 10:07pm

Bill, listen to the first 10 minutes of my show dated 7/7/2010. I hope you approve.
Paul Sheeran

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 07/08/2010 - 7:22am

Just wanted to say thanks for an outstanding interview with Freedom From Hunger's president, Chris Dunford.
Keep up the good work!

Sam Citron

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 04/20/2010 - 12:39pm

thanks, Sam!

This is the program in question; it aired Jan. 25:

http://www.kdrt.org/node/2689

Bill

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 04/20/2010 - 12:42pm

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