There's something Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has loved as long as he's loved basketball: Sherlock Holmes. Like so many of us, he watched the old movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce on TV and fell under Holmes' spell; he even thought Holmes was a real detective. In 2015, when Kareem published his well-regarded "Mycroft Holmes," a mystery-adventure about Sherlock's smarter brother, he joined me on Off-Ramp to talk about it.

Kareem is smart; there's little in Doyle's stories about Mycroft, leaving the field open to him and his co-author Anna Waterhouse to tell new stories, and not incidentally let Kareem explore his Trinidadian heritage, and paint a more accurate picture of the multi-cultural London of Victorian England.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

(Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.)

John Williams is so ubiquitous now, as former leader of the Boston Pops and the man behind the music for so many Lucas and Spielberg films; and old-fashioned lush orchestral scores are now so common, it's hard to believe they were endangered a few decades ago. But they were, and Alex Ross, the New Yorker music writer, says you can thank Williams. In a long Off-Ramp interview from 2016 with tons of musical examples, Alex makes the case for Williams, and debunks the notion that the maestro is any sort of plagiarist. He also gamely demonstrates how to properly hum the Star Wars theme.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

(Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.)

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CyberFrequencies on Life on the Web ... Clint Eastwood on his Life in Movies ... Jackson Musker on insurance woes for Oakridge victims ... Leonard Maltin tells the backstory for his movie guide ... the man behind "Sleighride," Leroy Anderson.

New takes on Dickens' classic ... plus the original Lionel Barrymore radio broadcast of "A Christmas Carol."

Queena Kim meets Ricky Jay ... Martin Eisenstadt talks back ... Mateo Stoneman's secret: "I learned to be a mariachi in prison!" ... Dinner Party Download makes you smarter, AND more intelligent ... Andy Rooney STILL hates Christmas ... Early peek at Downey and Law in "Sherlock Holmes."

Mateo Stoneman's secret ... The mother of all LA photo books ... Metallica as I knew them, by Steven Cuevas ... trying to Vanish in America ... Brian Watt controls air traffic, kinda of ... CyberFrequencies and the Rosetta Project.

Off-Ramp's Thanksgiving tradition: "Walking Out of History," the true story of Shackleton's miraculous "Endurance" expedition of 1914.

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