David Greenberger

David Greenberger
Born	June 26, 1954 (1954-06-26) (age 57)
Occupation	Artist, Writer, critic
Nationality	American
Genres	Non-fiction
duplexplanet.com

David Greenberger is an American artist, writer and radio commentator best known for his Duplex Planet series of zines, comic books, CDs, and spoken word performances and radio plays. He is a frequent contributor of essays and music reviews for National Public Radio.

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. 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."^[1] 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^[2] or answers to "Can you fight city hall?".^[3]

Greenberger began publishing his conversations with old people in The Duplex Planet, a small, homemade magazine he started in 1979, and still publishes today. 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 National Public Radio's "All Things Considered". Greenberger was the subject of a segment in 2007's "Life Part 2: Language of Aging", part of a PBS series on aging.

References

1. ^ Life Part 2 . R-E-S-P-E-C-T | PBS
2. ^ Duplex Planet: Mortality, Aesthetics and a Smooth Shave
3. ^ The Duplex Planet - City Hall

External links

• "As I Grow Old", This I Believe, NPR, April 23, 2007
• "Growing Old in L.A." radio documentary, California Council for the Humanities, "California Stories", 2005
• Duplex Planet official website
• An interview with David Greenberger in MungBeing Magazine

Persondata
Name	Greenberger, David
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Date of birth	June 26, 1954
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