This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast presents an interview with novelist David Goodwillie about his book Kings County . Goodwillie is also the author of the novel American Subversive , a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the memoir Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time . Goodwillie has written for the New York Times , New York Magazine , Newsweek , and Popular Science , among other publications. He has also been drafted to play professional baseball, worked as a private inves...
Dec 14, 2022•46 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Dr. Paul Smith, who serves as the secretary-general of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). BGCI leads the Global Tree Assessment and recently published the “ State of the World’s Trees Report ” showing that one-third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction. Prior to joining BGCI, Paul was the head of the Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew. He is editor of The Book of See...
Dec 01, 2022•31 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast finds our host, Michael Shields, in conversation with Dr. Lynda Ulrich, founder of the Goodness Exchange , a website whose aim is to prove that the world is still a beautiful place, full of wonderment, discovery, and compassion. Dr. Ulrich is the author of the book Happiness is an Option : Thriving (Instead of Surviving) In the Era of the Internet, and is also the host of the Conspiracy of Goodness podcast. The Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast is desi...
Nov 23, 2022•53 min
In this episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast, host Michael Shields interviews music critic and journalist Steven Hyden, the author of This Isn’t Happening , Twilight of the Gods , Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me , and (with Steve Gorman) Hard to Handle . His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine , Washington Post , Billboard , Pitchfork , Rolling Stone , Grantland , The A.V. Club , Slate , and Salon. He is currently the cultural critic at UPROXX . Hyden’s latest book, Long Ro...
Nov 15, 2022•46 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with the author of Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles , Alex Har vey. Alex Harvey is a producer and director of programs including Panorama and The Late Show for the BBC. His films include The Lives of Animals and Enter the Jungle . Based in Los Angeles, he regularly writes on literature, film, and music for the London Review of Books and Los Angeles Review of Books. His book, Song Noir, examines the formative f...
Nov 04, 2022•55 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Tara Watson, professor of economics at Williams College and a co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources , the leading academic journal in labor economics, as well as Kalee Thompson, a journalist and senior editor at Wirecutter and the author of Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History . Watson and Thompson are co-authors of The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age...
Oct 07, 2022•27 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with the author of Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science (The Rise and Fall of the Department of Social Relations) , Patrick L. Schmidt . In Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science , Schmidt tells the little-known story of how some of the most renowned social scientists of the twentieth century struggled to elevate their emerging disciplines of cultural anthropology, sociology, and social and clinical psychology. Scor...
Sep 29, 2022•49 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with musician Chris Forsyth. It isn't hyperbole to describe Chris as one of rock’s most gifted improvisers. Chris got his start in Brooklyn's experimental circles in the early 2000s and promptly grew into a masterful technical player. As the bandleader of Chris Forsyth & the Solar Motel Band, he composed mostly instrumental pieces that channeled both the psychedelic jamming of the Grateful Dead and the precision of art-punk...
Sep 14, 2022•38 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Woodstock, New York via North Carolina singer-songwriter Kenny Roby. Roby is the former lead singer of 6 String Drag, which he formed with bassist Rob Keller in the early 1990s, a band which quickly became one of the more notable bands of the Americana movement. The band's style ranged from old style country with a hint of soul and gospel to rock. While 6 String Drag broke up in the late 1990s, Roby continues to make recor...
Sep 09, 2022•54 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with author Ryan Pinkard , a music journalist from Denver, Colorado. Pinkard is the author of the new 33 1/3 book, Boxer , which is the focus of this episode. Boxer is a comprehensive and enlightening oral history of the band that traces The National's early career and struggles, culminating in the creation of their watershed album. He has just begun work on his second book for 33 1/3's new Genre series, in which he'll explore ...
Aug 24, 2022•46 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Pat McGee , a documentary director in both film and television who works to unearth character-driven stories that push to find common ground. Most recently, McGee directed and produced the award-winning From the Hood to the Holler — the focus of this episode — a feature on political activist Charles Booker of Kentucky, one of the rising stars of the progressive political movement. McGee’s other film credits are notable. Al...
Aug 18, 2022•32 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with comedian Alonzo Bodden who has been making people laugh for over twenty years with many fans knowing him as a regular panel member on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me . A professor of comedy and life, Bodden’ first big comedy break came when he was on the “New Faces of Comedy” showcase at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. However, it was as the season three winner of NBCʼs Last Comic Standing where Bodden was first in...
Jul 27, 2022•31 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with musician and founding member/keyboardist for the progressive rock band Umphrey's McGee, Joel Cummins. Joel’s keyboard wizardry is widely established throughout the music world. Beyond his heralded work with the increasingly popular, must-see live act that is Umphrey’s McGee, Joel has released impressive solo work and plays in bands with the likes of Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction, and Chris Pola...
Jul 13, 2022•34 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with journalist, published author, and the foremost expert in this ever-changing QAnon conspiracy theory, Mike Rothschild. Mike is a contributing writer for millennial-focused news and technology site the Daily Dot , where he explores the intersections between internet culture and politics through the lens of conspiracy theories. As a subject matter expert in the field of fringe beliefs, Mike has been interviewed by the New Yor...
Jul 05, 2022•41 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with journalist and author Philip Watson. Philip worked for a number of years at GQ , where he was deputy editor, and Esquire , where he was editor-at-large. He has been freelance for the past decade or more, contributing articles and features to many publications in Britain, Ireland and the US, including the Guardian , Telegraph Magazine , Sunday Times , Observer , Irish Times, London Evening Standard , Travel + Leisure , and ...
Jun 07, 2022•44 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with pianist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, who has been a fixture of the New York experimental music rock and jazz scene since 1999, Marco Benevento. Marco’s music covers a wide swath of ground, seemingly connecting the dots in the vast space between LCD Soundsystem and legendary musician Leon Russell. His songwriting is smart and earthy, yet simultaneously pulsating with dance rock energy. Benevento...
May 27, 2022•35 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with award-winning journalist and photographer currently focused on migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises, Sally Hayden. Hayden has worked with VICE News, CNN International, TIME, BBC, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, NBC News, Newsweek, the Independent, the Telegraph, the National, the Huffington Post and ITV News, and had stories and photojournalism republished on six continents by out...
May 16, 2022•39 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with independent underground rapper Sage Francis, widely considered one of our generation’s greatest lyricists. His career derives mainly from gifted wordplay which creates vivid narratives to instigate as well as inspire. Dubbed as the “forefather of indie-hop,” Francis originally earned acclaim in the early 2000s by winning the most highly coveted titles of the emcee battle circuit. With little to no funding, Francis sustaine...
May 05, 2022•1 hr 11 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with organ, keyboard, and synth extraordinaire Robert Walter, a founder member of the Greyboy Allstars. Walter is a dynamic and prolific musician who splits his time between his own 20th Congress, The Greyboy Allstars, and a robust film soundtrack career in Los Angeles. Initially formed as the backing band for rare groove luminary DJ Greyboy, The Greyboy Allstars became a long term project for Walter with a string of critically...
Apr 28, 2022•32 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with the author of Fight Like Hell : The Untold History of American Labor , Kim Kelly. Kelly is an independent journalist, author, and organizer. She has been a regular labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018, and her writing on labor, class, politics, and culture has appeared in The New Republic , The Washington Post , The New York Times , The Baffler , The Nation , The Columbia Journalism Review , and Esquire, among many ot...
Apr 22, 2022•41 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and music producer Stuart Bogie. Bogie has toured and recorded extensively with groups such as Antibalas, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, and Iron and Wine, to name a few, and he performed as the featured soloist in the original Broadway production of Fela! . As a composer/arranger, he scored the Oscar nominated documentary How To Survive a Plague , which featured performances by th...
Apr 13, 2022•37 min
In this episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast host Michael Shields interviews Elijah Anderson, the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies at Yale University. Anderson is one of the leading urban ethnographers in the United States and his publications include Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999); Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community (1990); and the classic sociological work, A Place on the Corner (197...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 2 min
In this episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast host Michael Shields interviews Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University where she is also the principal investigator for the Democratic Knowledge Project. In 2020, she won the Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, administered by the Library of Congress, that recognizes work in disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes. She is the author or co-editor of many books, including Our Declaratio...
Mar 30, 2022•25 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Phil Freeman , a renowned music journalist specializing in jazz and metal. He is the former managing editor of the world music magazine Global Rhythm, the former editor-in-chief of the metal magazine Metal Edge, the founder of MSN Entertainment's Headbäng daily metal blog, and currently writes a monthly jazz column, Ugly Beauty , for Stereogum. Freeman is also the co-creator of Burning Ambulance, a quarterly journal of art...
Mar 07, 2022•48 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with guitarist Scott Metzger, a musician who has spent the past decade earning a reputation as one of the most adventurous improvisers in live music. When he wasn’t sharing the stage with the likes of Phil Lesh, John Scofield or Nels Cline, he was playing to massive crowds with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. His musical interests, however, run broader than his bonafides might suggest. During downtime from JRAD Metzger pursued project...
Feb 21, 2022•37 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Ian Tyrrell, emeritus professor of history at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of numerous books, including True Gardens of the Gods: Californian-Australian Environmental Reform, 1860 –1930 and Historians in Public . His latest book, American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea , is the focus of this episode and persists as an important and remarkably comprehensive examination of an extremely co...
Feb 12, 2022•46 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast looks back on the distressing events of January 6th, 2021 with an examination of the documentary Day of Rage , a film that culls thousands of hours of videos and audio from rioters and police body cams to tell the story of the Capitol insurrection. The product of a six-month New York Times investigation, Day of Rage provides the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why. To properly delve into this powerful documentary, this episode f...
Feb 02, 2022•25 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Lina Zeldovich, a writer and editor specializing in the journalism of solutions. Her work has appeared in the New York Times , Reader’s Digest , Smithsonian , Popular Science , Scientific American , Atlantic , and Newsweek , among many other popular outlets, and she has won awards from the Newswomen’s Club of New York, the Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club, and the American Society of Journalists and Author...
Jan 12, 2022•38 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast introduces you to American Gadlfy , a documentary that tells the story of how, a decade since his last campaign, 89-year-old former senator and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Gravel came out of retirement when a group of teenagers convinces him to run for president one last time. Through the senator’s official Twitter account, the four “Gravel teens” embark on an unlikely adventure to qualify him for the Democratic debates in order to advance an a...
Dec 23, 2021•29 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Jake Poller, the author of Aldous Huxley, which is the focus of this episode, and also Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality. Poller edited the essay collection Altered Consciousness in the Twentieth Century and his articles have appeared in the Aldous Huxley Annual, the D.H. Lawrence Review, Aries, Literature and Theology and International Journal for the Study of New Religions. His research focuses on the intersecti...
Dec 14, 2021•37 min
