Executive director of the Clinton Housing Development Company, he’s lived in the neighborhood for 50 years and offers this advice about burglary: “When they steal your underwear, it’s time to go.” Tales of Hell’s Kitchen at the Irish Arts Center with music from Jacob Tilove. Continue reading »
Author Archives: Randy Cohen
Episode 242: Joan La Barbara and Morton Subotnick
She’s a composer and vocalist who’s performed with pretty much every orchestra on earth. He’s a composer best known for his electronic music, especially an early work, Silver Apples of the Moon. “Lawyer and Other Lawyer to Wed,” runs pretty much every NY Times wedding announcement. How did it omit theirs? Continue reading »
Episode 241: Marc Guggenheim
A writer and producer for TV, movies, comic books, and video games, he is best known for creating the series Arrow and co-writing the feature film Green Lantern, but his heart belongs to Billy Joel. “There’s no scientific or rational explanation,” he tells the UAlbany Alumni Association. Doctors are working on a cure. With music … Continue reading »
Episode 240: Peter Gilliver
“It’s the short words that are the hardest,” he tells the English Speaking Union. Love? Death? No. Shorter. Run and go. “I worked on the verb to run and it took me nine months, and one of my colleagues spent over a year on the verb to go.” Life at the Oxford English Dictionary, plus music from … Continue reading »
Episode 239: Joshua Freeman
Until the 1920’s, a diagnosis of diabetes was a death sentence. The invention of insulin changed that, and – not incidentally – saved his life. It also made him value the social stability needed to produce it. A conversation with this professor of history at Queens College, author of Behemoth: A History of the Factory … Continue reading »
Episode 238: Majora Carter
“I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right,” said Sojourner Truth about her escape from slavery. How does this relate to city planning? Majora Carter, an “urban revitalization strategy consultant,” eloquently explains at the Van Alen Institute, with music from Jole Blonde. … Continue reading »
Episode 237: Blanche Pitt
ICAP at Columbia University sees its international public health work as part of broad commitment to social justice. Nobody personifies those values more than Blanche Pitt, who directs ICAP’s projects in South Africa. With music from Kevin Nathaniel Hylton. Person: Mark Heywood Place:: Joseph Stone Auditorium Thing: South African Constitution Randy’s People: Gilbert & … Continue reading »
Episode 236: Peter Lerangis
He is a New York Times best-selling writer – 170 books, translated into 34 languages, with sales of over 6 million – but if you are a childless adult, you likely don’t know his name. If you are a 12-year-old YA reader, however, you cheer when you hear it. Plus, the sweet fried dough … Continue reading »
Episode 235: Todd Haimes
The head of the Roundabout Theatre, he’s worked with, well, everyone, and knows that meeting a childhood idol is risky; they can be horrible people. But what joy when “the person you dreamed about actually turn out to be wonderful. Wonderful!” Hear who, in this conversation at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. … Continue reading »
Episode 234: Samuel Levi Jones
He rips the covers from encyclopedias and law books – the texts of power – and stitches them together into artwork that is moving and beautiful. “Some individuals have found it problematic that I’m destroying this material.” Destroying or reconfiguring? A conversation about art and authority at the International Print Center New York, with … Continue reading »
Episode 233: Anthony Haden-Guest
Admired for his astute observations of the upper classes and the art world, he is loath to write about, let alone revisit, scenes of his own past: “I don’t want to see a bunch of young people running around doing what I used to do.” With music from the suspiciously youthful Vanisha Gould and the … Continue reading »
Episode 232: Steven Hamburg
The head scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, he knows the literature thoroughly and yet asserts, “The tension between what I read and what I observed was the area where I made my biggest contribution.” Science and the creative process. Plus another sort of creativity from musician Hannah Read. Photo by Leslie Von Pless. Person: … Continue reading »