Our conversation ranged over modern boxers, Victorian writers, one-room schools, and that nearly mythical creature, that unicorn of politics, the moderate Republican. (I hope to see one someday.) It was a treat to engage with someone interested in, well, everything. Continue reading »
Monthly Archives: May 2020
305: E. Jean Carroll
She asserts, boldly if not entirely persuasively, that the supreme literary form is the advice column. She is rightly celebrated for hers, Ask E. Jean, which ran in Elle magazine from 1993 through 2019, and for winning the Miss Cheerleader USA title in 1964, the invariable precursor of an esteemed career in journalism. Continue reading »
304: Randy Cohen
From time to time someone suggests that I be a guest on the show and describe my own person, place, and thing. I reply, maybe in season ten, my euphemism for never. Then I smile and add, sure, if we’re confined to our homes by a horrible pandemic exacerbated by a criminally incompetent White House and can’t … Continue reading »
303: Wendy Whelan
She’s been with the New York City Ballet for 30 years, rising from apprentice to principal to associate artistic director. “When I moved to New York at 15, by myself, I moved into Jacques d’Amboise’s home. He rented the third floor of his brownstone to four young ballet students.” The world’s coolest boarding house. I … Continue reading »
302: Vincent Sapienza
He leads New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, managing the finest municipal water system in America, despite much of it flowing through century-old cast-iron pipes. He told the Municipal Archives, “The pipe under 42nd Street goes back to the time when John Wilkes Booth’s brother was acting as Hamlet on Broadway.” Yes, he dates infrastructure … Continue reading »