David Greenberger (born June 26, 1954) is an American artist, writer and radio commentator best known for his ''

Duplex Planet ''The Duplex Planet'' is a zine edited and published by David Greenberger since 1979. It contains transcriptions of his interviews with elderly residents of senior centers and "meal sites" in the Massachusetts area. For many years, the zine foc ...

'' series of

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

comic books A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

, CDs, and

spoken word Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an oral tradition, ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetic ...

performances A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

and radio plays. From 1996 to 2009, he was a frequent contributor of

essays An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

and music reviews for

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

Biography

Greenberger grew up in northwestern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

on the shores of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

. In 1979, having just completed a degree in fine arts as a painter, Greenberger took a job as activities director at a nursing home in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. On his first day, he met the residents of the nursing home and abandoned painting in favor of conversation. "This is my art," he said. In this unexpected setting, Greenberger found an unusual medium and a desire to portray the people he met as living human beings instead of "just repositories of their memories or the wisdom of the ages." Instead of collecting oral history about significant events, Greenberger focused on talking one-on-one with ordinary people about ordinary things—the joy of a close shave or answers to "Can you fight city hall?". Greenberger began publishing his conversations with old people in ''The Duplex Planet'', a small, homemade magazine he started in 1979, and continued for 187 issues, concluding in 2010. It has subsequently found larger audiences in other forms, which are all derived from the original template. A series of personal commentaries drawn from Greenberger's experiences with this body of work has aired regularly on

's "

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

". Since the mid-90s he has created some 500 audio works of monologues and music with a variety of collaborators (including members of Los Lobos, NRBQ, Robyn Hitchcock, and Wreckless Eric). These have been released on some 20+ CDs. Greenberger was the subject of a segment in 2007's "Life Part 2: Language of Aging", part of a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

series on

aging Ageing (or aging in American English) is the process of becoming Old age, older until death. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi; whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentiall ...

and his performance of "Cherry Picking Apple Blossom Time" with an ensemble led by Paul Cebar at Milwaukee's Pabst Theater was broadcast on PBS stations. His work has been the subject of three documentaries, "Lighthearted Nation" ( dir. Jim McKay, C-hundred Film Corp, 1989), "Your Own True Self" (dir. Paul Athanas & Jay Rooney, Gravita International Films, 1992), and "A King in Milwaukee" (dir. Nicole Docta, UWM Center on Age & Community, 2009), as well as being adapted into the short film by David Kagen, "Whitewash." He gave a TEDx talk titled "A Quarter Million Forgotten Conversations" in 2010 about his recorded work. Greenberger returned to visual art in 2006, producing several thousand drawings that have been shown and sell regularly. In 1979 he was a founding member, bass player, and lyricist of the band Men & Volts who went on to record five albums over the course of the 1980s. He is also co-writer of some 50+ songs with Chandler Travis as recorded by his various bands from 1985 onwards (The incredible Casuals, Chandler Travis Philharmonic, Catbirds).

References

External links

"As I Grow Old"

This I Believe ''This I Believe'' was originally a five-minute program, hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow from 1951 to 1955 on CBS Radio Network. The show encouraged both famous and everyday people to write short essays about their own personal motivati ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, April 23, 2007
"Growing Old in L.A."
radio documentary, California Council for the Humanities, "California Stories", 2005
Duplex Planet official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenberger, David 1954 births Living people American comics writers American literary critics American essayists Artists from Chicago

Biography

References

Further reading

External links