“Many people think that the big words are the big part of the dictionary,” says this lexicographer, “but it’s the little words that are so full of life and variation and complexity,” We talk about “go” and more as Person Place Thing becomes Word Word Word.
New York City’s health commissioner during the first two years of the pandemic—he stepped down on March 15—says he sees something admirable in our response: “We have gotten vaccinated not just to protect ourselves but to protect our communities.” Well, yes, if we have gotten vaccinated, says dour me, who sees something else. Produced with the New York City Municipal Archive. Music: Stephanie Coleman and Nora Brown.
A remastered conversation from the vault with a former New York City health commissioner, who regarded her work as part of a broader fight for social justice, not surprising given her family history: her parents are lifelong activists who met at a demonstration against a segregated restaurant, my idea of a love story. We spoke at the Van Alen Institute in 2017 about public health and urban design. Music: Sam Reider. Plus a bonus segment from Garry Trudeau. It all fits together. Really.
He is the former cartoon editor of the New Yorker, whose own cartoon captioned, "No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?" is the magazine’s most reprinted. Enjoy this remastered conversation from 2014, vacuum packed to preserve freshness.
In 1972, his parents, Massimo and Lella, designed a map of the New York subway system. Many people hated it. I loved it. (I have one framed on my living room wall.) The MTA soon withdrew it. Now it’s back, slightly revised. Good news in bleak times.
As a member of Manhattan Transfer, she won ten Grammy awards, but “I was not going to be a singer at all, actually; I was going to be a nurse.” Medicine’s loss, music’s gain. Guitar: Sean Harkness. Presented with The Village Trip.
Her father, Leonard Bernstein, thought “that if he could write a good enough song, maybe he could stop war.” Not insane, aspiring. “It’s ridiculously idealistic, but that was his impetus.” Tales of a famous father. Music: Amy Burton, accompanied by John Musto. Presented with The Village Trip, whose annual festival begins September 19.
He’s a member of The Washington Post’s editorial board, a commentator on the PBS NewsHour, anchor of The Weekend on MSNBC, author of Yet Here I Am. He is liberal in his politics, conservative in his dress. “Absolutely. I love a good, wild outfit, on someone else.”
When this drummer was a kid, his father introduced him to an array of music, from Tito Puente to Dobie Gray. “He bought himself a La-Z-Boy chair. He would sit there after dinner, smoke a cigarette, and zone out listening to music.” Bad for the lungs, great for the soul. The making of a musician. Presented with the Bronx Music Hall.
She’s a special correspondent for BBC Studios, a regular contributor to MSNBC, and co-host, with Anthony Scaramucci, of the podcast The Rest Is Politics. “People call journalists curious; I think it’s just nosiness.” A higher form of nosiness!
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research makes many of the 24 million items in its archive available online, but there’s an “electric moment of actually touching a document,” says its executive director. “My first was when Lenin’s party card was put in my hand.” (Patrons are urged not to touch the documents. This is not some sort of scholarly petting zoo.) Music: Jardena Gertler-Jaffe, Bethany Pietroniro.
This Obie-winning actor created the role of Helen in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Memnon. “It is definitely under-utilized. Underappreciated.” Greek mythology in modern theater? That too, but here she refers to the peanut in American cooking. See her in Marcus Garvey Park throughout July. Working. Not just lounging around.
Decades ago, he shook hands with W. E. B. Du Bois, born in 1868. It seems impossible, but then again Einstein was a contemporary of Billy the Kid. Lewis went on to write a Pultzer-Prize winning biography of Du Bois. Einstein went on to be Einstein. Presented with the Maysles Documentary Center. Music: Henrique Prince.
These principals of the architectural firm WORKac found it challenging to design their own home. The psychological complexity of domestic life? The culmination of years of thought? “The hardest thing about designing our house was that we just haven’t designed a lot of houses.” Produced with the Center for Architecture. Music: Rashad Brown.
The artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company summarizes his aesthetic: “The curtain goes up, twenty minutes happen, the curtain comes down, and it is transformative.” Easy to say, brilliant to achieve. And they do.
He’s worked from Hanoi to Berlin to America’s old-growth forests. “As a photographer, it’s only in getting lost that you move forward.” As a civilian, when I get lost, I pretty much just get lost. Another reason to admire him. Produced with the National Academy of Design. Music: Stephanie Jenkins.
He led the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and pretty much created theater at Lincoln Center. “The happiest moments of my life have been in rehearsal rooms.” Well, yeah. In there with him? David Mamet, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett. Sequentially not simultaneously. Presented with Hunter College.
This lawyer works on health policy at Columbia’s Mailman School: “Public health in a certain sense is about balancing, the rights we have as individuals with the needs of society to preserve, protect, and promote the health of the population.” Not a bad approach to democracy in general. Music: Caitlin Warbelow
This children’s book author—Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tiger Rising, The Tale of Despereaux—describes her innate ability: “I have a knack for nothing except being filled with wonder.” I’d dispute that, as would legions of admiring readers.
This graphic designer spent her early childhood in Germany. “My father told me, ‘You are Korean, you are a visitor here, and what that means is, you don’t have to fit in.’ For me, that liberated everything.” The power of outsider consciousness. Presented with Base Design. Music: John Sherman.