Fried chicken, okra, biscuits, sweet tea and pecan pie — it's enough to make any food lover dream of lazy summer days in the South. Happily, Southern food has found a home in the North, where it has grown in popularity in the past three years. The Museum of the City of New York held an event to discuss the social history of "the great migration" of food from the South. In partnership with the Southern Foodways Alliance and Mississippi Development Authority/Division of Tourism, the museum invited...
Apr 16, 2010•55 min•Ep. 44
Provocative author A.M. Homes says she has book-envy....but only of male authors.
Apr 16, 2010•55 min•Ep. 43
Louise Erdrich is a novelist, poet, bookstore owner and one of People Magazine's Most Beautiful People (1990). She's been a leading voice for Native American literature throughout her writing career.
Apr 15, 2010•53 min•Ep. 42
In early April, the Cornelia Street Café hosted its monthly Liar Show . The premise is simple: Out of four storytellers, one is a liar, and it’s up to the audience to spot the fake. The four storytellers were Leslie Goshko, Robert Hurst, Joanne Soloman and Emily Epstein.
Apr 09, 2010•54 min•Ep. 41
In a rare, themeless installment of The Happy Ending Music & Reading Series at Joe's Pub, writers Adam Haslett, Sam Lipsyte and Zoe Heller did something "risky" on stage while Julliard-trained violinist and singer-songwriter Christina Courtin performed.
Apr 09, 2010•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 40
“Most of literature is about love, if it’s not about war,” declared writer André Aciman. He spoke with New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc about the meaning of literature during a recent "Live from the NYPL" event. The author explained that "literature is always interested in asking questions that are very difficult and refuses to give easy answers." Aciman also discussed his provocative new book, Eight White Nights, which is a chronicle of a short affair between two hip New Yorkers....
Apr 09, 2010•56 min•Ep. 39
On April 8, leading Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan addressed a packed hall at The Cooper Union, in his first appearance in the U.S. since the Bush Administration revoked his visa six years ago . Ramadan answered questions on homosexuality, religion, and the role of women in Islamic societies. He was on the defensive when New Yorker writer George Packer accused him of "whitewashing" history. And he used the platform to call for humility and respect among Muslims in the West and in Europe....
Apr 09, 2010•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 38
When poet Philip Schultz was preparing for a literary conference in Ireland a year ago, he turned to the works of Irish writer Colm Tóibín. Little did he know they would be flying to Ireland on the same plane, and that he'd be face-to-face with the author in the same cab. They reunited on Friday night at Le Poisson Rouge.
Apr 05, 2010•59 min•Ep. 37
"One serious case of Roots envy,” is how Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. described the reason for his interest in African-American genealogy. Gates, who delivered the Richard Gilder lecture at the New York Historical Society last week, has a distinct advantage over Alex Haley, though. For starters, the professor is armed with modern DNA testing, and a team of historical researchers and genealogists.
Apr 02, 2010•48 min•Ep. 36
Mark Morris has spent 30 years changing the landscape of dance. He took the stage in a different way for the Rubin Museum of Art's Brainwave series, which pairs neuroscientists with artists and visionaries in discussions about how the mind works.
Mar 26, 2010•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 35
Laughter filled The Cornelia Street Café at an event in late March honoring the 150th birthday of Yiddish humorist and humanist Sholem Aleichem.
Mar 26, 2010•18 min•Ep. 34
Graphic artist and novelist Art Spiegelman talks about the thought process behind his work as part of BAM's Eat, Drink & Be Literary series.
Mar 25, 2010•29 min•Ep. 33
Before Ezra Koenig was the lead singer of Vampire Weekend , he was a creative writing major at Columbia University. Even though Koenig left school, he's still a bookworm at heart.
Mar 16, 2010•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 32
The Rubin Museum of Art 's BrainWave series pairs neuroscientists with artists and visionaries from multiple disciplines for lively discussions about how our minds work and how we perceive the world.
Mar 16, 2010•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 31
The South African artist has taken on a range of social justice issues in his sculpture, film and drawings. Now, he's tackling opera.
Mar 15, 2010•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 30
The director Jesse Berger fell in love with the 17th century Jacobean playwrights years ago and founded the Red Bull Theater company to stage productions of these often neglected classics. “I wanted a home for plays where language was the primary focus,” he says. The company’s staged readings, and critically acclaimed productions, of such lyrically gory works as The Revenger’s Tragedy, Edward the Second , and Women Beware Women have introduced contemporary New York audiences to works that, Berge...
Mar 05, 2010•16 min•Ep. 29
Brooklyn-born writer Pete Hamill drew from decades of living in New York and 50 years of writing about it to pen the novel Snow in August .
Mar 04, 2010•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 28
Novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen put his private life on public display.
Mar 03, 2010•54 min•Ep. 27
Russian-born satirical writer Gary Shteyngart explains his approach to writing "at a time when evil and stupidity collide."
Mar 03, 2010•54 min•Ep. 26
Short story writer Deborah Eisenberg discussed her "dense, jewel-like" writing at BAM's Eat, Drink & Be Literary series.
Mar 03, 2010•52 min•Ep. 25
Author Jimmy Breslin is a New Yorker through and through. In 1969, the tough-as-nails journalist ran for New York City Council president on the platform that the city should secceed from the rest of the state.
Feb 26, 2010•50 min•Ep. 24
Novelist Jeanette Winterson once observed, "as a writer, your best friends are dead."
Feb 25, 2010•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 23
Feminist icon Germaine Greer is no stranger to speaking her mind.
Feb 24, 2010•1 hr•Ep. 22
Mad Men Producer Matthew Weiner may have created the character of Don Draper, but he is nothing like his inscrutable leading man.
Feb 22, 2010•55 min•Ep. 21
Joshua Ferris , Ron Carlson and Padgett Powell could start a planet together. A stream of other-worldly characters run through each of their works. So it seems natural the three authors did readings at Joe’s Pub as part Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending series.
Feb 19, 2010•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 20
David M. Buss believes that sex isn’t just for pleasure and reproduction. He's an evolutionary psychologist and a professor at the University of Texas, and he spoke about everybody’s favorite topic at the American Museum of Natural History on February 3rd.
Feb 15, 2010•49 min•Ep. 19
Email is ruining our lives. That's the conclusion at the heart of Granta editor John Freeman's book, "The Tyranny of Email: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox." Freeman took the stage uptown to wax longingly for the days of good, old fashioned letter-writing.
Feb 08, 2010•49 min•Ep. 18
It's a great irony of Mike Chico's life: A building super who spent the majority of his life helping others create a secure living space, ran away from his own home to come to New York City.
Feb 05, 2010•47 min•Ep. 17
Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Ann Belford Ulanova recently discussed Jung's unconscious mind for the “ Red Book Dialogues ” series at the Rubin Museum of Art.
Feb 01, 2010•51 min•Ep. 16
Composer, conductor and celebrated thinker John Adams joined Jungian analyst Laurel Morris for a “Red Book Dialogue” at The Rubin Museum of Art last week to talk agony, ecstasy and turbans.
Jan 28, 2010•37 min•Ep. 15
