The self-described Trash Walker prowls corporate dumpsters, seeking egregious waste, and yet she says, “I love stuff, and I want to make that clear. I love things. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to the trash.” A paradox resolved at Materials for the Arts. Music: Reid Jenkins. Continue reading »
Author Archives: Randy Cohen
429: Molly McBride
She’s filmed a lot of musicians—Michael Tilson Thomas, Metropolitan Opera productions—but her heart belongs to Doña Carlota Joaquina, princess of Portugal, the Shrew of Queluz: “Any woman who is known as a shrew I would probably like.” Produced with Ralph Farris. Music by Ethel. Continue reading »
428: Darren Walker
As president of the Ford Foundation, he supported Monticello’s efforts to improve its depiction of the enslaved Black people who built it and of Thomas Jefferson, who owned it. “I believe that Thomas Jefferson and his home are one and the same.” Produced with the Municipal Art Society. Guest host: Jami Floyd. Music: Rashad Brown. Continue reading »
427: Lorraine Frazier
Rightly proud of her field, she declares, “We’ve been the most trusted profession in the country for twenty-some odd years.” Police? Priests? Tech execs? Finance weasels? Yeah, right. Nurses! She’s the dean of the Columbia University School of Nursing. Music: Caitlin Warbelow. Continue reading »
426: Ammon Shea
“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 »
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 »