Dinner Party Download featuring John Lithgow

John Lithgow
Actor John Lithgow.
Nigel Parry

This week on the Dinner Party Download...

Icebreaker: David Gedge

David Gedge, frontman for brit-pop stalwarts The Wedding Present, tells of shells.

Small Talk: John Letzing

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

Market Watch reporter John Letzing sings about a California mayor with a birdbrained scheme.

A History Lesson with Booze:

Fifty-three years ago this week, the U.S. military lost an H-bomb. It's still missing ... possibly somewhere off the coast of Georgia. Hear how it happened, then calm your nerves with a custom drink that gives new meaning to the term "cherry bomb" -- courtesy of Sabina Cushing, mixologist at Savannah, GA's Olde Pink House.

Guest of Honor: John Lithgow

First of all, it's pronounced Lith-GO. Like "rainbow." (Brendan wrote it out phonetically on his hand for so he wouldn't forget.) To many, he's Dr. Dick Solomon, the alien patriarch from the hit TV sitcom "Third Rock from the Sun." But he's also a Tony and Emmy winner, an Academy Award nominee, oh -- and an author. Currently he's performing in his own one-man stage show, "Stories by Heart." John gives Brendan a killer look, and talks about getting decorated and reading bed times stories to his parents.

To hear more from John Lithgow -- and catch a sweet new track from the band Fleet Foxes -- head to www.dinnerpartydownload.org.