Conversations with Eric Hoffer; From the Cradle to Skid Row
Description:
Mr. Hoffer tells Mr. Day about his personal life. He discusses his family and their early demise, his blindness and later recovery and its effect on his reading habits, his work as a migrant laborer and dock worker. He ends this series of conversations with a comment on age: "The best part of the art of living is to grow old gracefully." (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche) Eric Hoffer, philosopher and longshoreman, is interviewed in by James Day, general manager of KQED in San Francisco. In the first season of six episodes, the conversations are based on Mr. Hoffers latest book, The Ordeal of Change, published in March of 1963 by Harper and Row. Eric Hoffer works four days a week as a San Francisco longshoreman just enough to pay bills for his furnished room and meals. His main concerns are reading, thinking and writing. Mr. Hoffer has produced three books, The True Believer, The Passionate State of Mind, which is a collection of 280 aphorisms on man, and The Ordeal of Change, which states his philosophy on what history teaches us. Eric Hoffer was born in the Bronx, N.Y., in 1902, the song of a German cabinetmaker. His Mother died when he was seven-years-old, and shortly thereafter, he lost his eyesight. Nine years later, Mr. Hoffers sight was restored and he began to read voraciously. In the early 1920s, he moved to the West Coast where he worked at different types of laboring jobs while continuing his main preoccupation reading. In the late 1930s, Mr. Hoffer began writing and by the early 1940s, he was sending his efforts to publishers. The True Believer, published in 1951 was his first success. Mr. Hoffer is interviewed by James Day, general manager of station KQED, San Francisco. Mr. Day is host for the stations popular interview series Kaleidoscope. He is a former deputy director of Radio Free Asia and former public affairs director of KNBC in San Francisco. He was graduated from the University of California in 1941. Conversations with Eric Hoffer is a 1963 production of KQED, San Francisco.The 12 half-hour episodes that comprise the series were originally recorded on videotape. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
