“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. Continue reading »
Author Archives: Randy Cohen
425: Hernan Diaz
Like Conrad, Nabokov, and Beckett, this novelist—In the Distance, Trust— writes in a language other than the one he spoke as a child, and it helps him see the world afresh: “If you move out of one language and into another, it is like moving out of one country and into another.” A conversation at … Continue reading »
424: Anthony Davis
When he was in college, he met Duke Ellington. “I was a freshman with a huge afro, an Angela Davis afro, and he pointed at me across the room and said, ‘You must be a musician.’” Thus anointed, he went on to compose operas including X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The … Continue reading »
423: Davóne Tines
This terrific bass-baritone enjoys white orchids in his dressing room. They’re beautiful and ephemeral, like—oh, I don’t know—music? Now everything seems like a metaphor. “Everything is a metaphor,” he says. The joys and jolts of a person of color in the world of classical music. Continue reading »
422: Suzanne Vega, Gene Pritsker
This singer-songwriter and this composer met at artist Mark Kostabi’s house. “He’s attracted to lots of different kinds of people,” she says. “He brings them together, feeds them, gives them wine, and tells us to perform.“ Isn’t that pretty much the Island of Dr. Moreau? Music: Suzanne Vega, Bill Anderson, and the CompCord quartet. Presented … Continue reading »
421: Steven Heller
This graphic designer is admired for his decades as an art director at the Times, for his teaching, and for his books, including his most recent, Growing Up Underground, a memoir of his youth in the East Village of the sixties: ”It was disgusting, but in a good way.” Produced with the Type Directors Club, part of The One … Continue reading »
420: Ashwin Vasan
The best medical outcome is that the patient doesn’t get sick in the first place, notes New York City’s health commissioner, and yet, “We spend four trillion dollars on health care, and we spend about three cents of every dollar on prevention and public health. Something has to give.” He’s right, but what? Challenging! Presented … Continue reading »
419: Ross Gay
As a poet and essayist (Inciting Joy), he is acutely in touch with his feelings, and yet he refers to “the many ways I try not to be aware of what’s breaking my heart.” A paradox reconciled, plus pickup basketball as a model of self-government, and the pawpaw as a model fruit. Produced with Orion magazine. Continue reading »
418: Freeman Hrabowski
When he was 12, he joined the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham and was thrown in jail. At 15, he entered college, studied mathematics, and went on to lead the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, bringing legions of under-represented students to STEM studies and STEM professions. He is America’s secret STEM mentor. Continue reading »
417: Lt. Col. Jordan Becker
He served in the special forces in Iraq, as a defense policy advisor to NATO, and now teaches international relations at West Point, where a woman colleague gently explained male privilege. He got it: “I had this advantage, in that I’m kind of a fat-headed, broad-shouldered man with badges and gadgets.” Continue reading »
416: Suzanne Nossel
The CEO of PEN America, she has good news and bad news. “We’re not seeing a lot of book burning, thankfully, but we are seeing a kind of forest fire of book banning rippling it way across the United States.” Actually, that’s simply bad news. Continue reading »
415: Rachael Price & Taylor Ashton
These musicians admire the Buddhist teacher and “spiritual entertainer” Alan Watts, despite his having led a flamboyantly imperfect life. Debauchery is not strictly required, however; saintliness, too, has its appeal. “If you can be a shining example on this earth, that’s absolutely inspiring as well,” Rachael tells the New York Baha’i Center. Continue reading »