Sitting at a lookout on a beautiful Catskills trail, staring out toward the Hudson Valley framed below, I caught sight of a young woman running along. She seemed wet, and I wondered aloud to her if there was water from where she'd come. It was a hot day and I was looking to dive in somewhere. She came to a complete stop to regard me, and clearly considered my question a responsibility. She began looking in earnest on her phone for how to guide me to water. She hadn't been in any. She was just co...
Jul 20, 2020•9 min
Why are Tara Sanders & Earl Legister, Jr. together? "We always connected on the dance floor," Tara says emphatically. And Earl agrees. Of course, there is no way of ever knowing, exactly, what brings two people together, on the dance floor and off. That alchemy is long-studied, long-pondered. But for the last year-plus, the strange chemical equation called 'love' has Tara and Earl in its grips, and they are dancing together, and inspiring others to do the same, especially recently. "When Cov...
Jun 29, 2020•53 min
I found Dr. Edward Lee on Facebook, not exactly sure how. He is a renown professor of history at South Carolina's Winthrop University, an author and lecturer who looks back with reason on the 20th Century. He has more than 4,000 friends on Facebook, humans of all kinds, former students, friends, and strangers he has made friends with from around the world in his efforts to understand what happens, and why. He is clearly much respected for his open ears and open mind. Recently, Dr. Lee posted abo...
Jun 19, 2020•38 min
Reason + Flexibility + Love. This is how we get in tune with the stranger within us, and the stranger outside. Nose to the wind...breathe it in. In this episode, we feel our way through. Join us on our journey.
May 25, 2020•28 min
The concept of "friend" on Facebook is a strange one. So often, people request to be 'friends' from all over the world, and I don't even know them. "Why do you accept?" my husband asks. And I think about this. What better way to interact and learn about people from all over the world quickly and easily then social media? Seven years ago, a request came in from a young woman in India named Navodita Singh. I accepted. In the ensuing years, Navodita--a beautiful always-smiling dancing woman-- has l...
May 14, 2020•28 min
When I first met NYC artist Agni Zotis at a cafe near her apartment/studio in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. In her iconic gravelly voice, inflected with a little Greek, by way of Queens, she offered up tales of the nonprofit she created to bring kids much-needed meditation and art, May Kids Transform. And she spoke of the inspiration she'd found for her latest series at the time -- amazing fluorescent depictions of the cosmos, backlit. When I ...
May 05, 2020•58 min
The great Americana singer Pi Jacobs has a wonderful idea of how to cope in the face of Covid-19: dance and sing. In her newly released single off her Two Truths And a Lie album, called "No Sin to Be Poor," the effervescent Jacobs recalls her own childhood poverty, and how they managed to get through it by having fun and being silly. "There's no shame in needing help," she says in our chat. And while many people now might need that help, there is never a better time to find creative expressive w...
Apr 27, 2020•45 min
A major silver lining of the current pandemic is that one can find usually VERY BUSY people at home, and eager to chat. One-time stranger, longtime friend Mr. Brian Elmquist has been very busy in recent years on the road around the world with his spectacularly popular 'Americana' band, The Lone Bellow. But I was able to catch up with him at home in Nashville with his lovely wife and beautiful kids and chat about a whole lot of things including his LIVE streaming concert on Instagram TONIGHT at 1...
Apr 09, 2020•45 min
To me, Raed El-Khazen is one of the best examples of how talking to strangers changes the course of one's life. It's hard to know what to say about this man I met 12 years ago at Dizzy's Diner in Park Slope, hard to pin down exactly why when his eyes sparkled at me and his gravelly voice spoke I felt the need to look more closely at myself and at the world. He has that affect on people:) Raed is a musician, and a dedicated devotee of learning and thinking about the ways in which humans need to p...
Mar 24, 2020•48 min
I met Nena Hribar at my friend Saskia's wedding in Fethiye, Turkey, last spring. She is from the tiny European country of Slovenia, and was one of 14 women from all over the world--a mini United Nations--with whom I sat naked in the sauna at a beautiful Turkish Bath (otherwise known as a Hamam). We found ourselves together at the airport in Dalaman, waiting for a plane to Istanbul, and I recorded our chat. I've been looking for the perfect opportunity to put our amazing conversation out into the...
Mar 10, 2020•26 min
After an awesome rhythmic drum session and a collaborative chalkboard drawing (beautiful!), my new interns Jalissa and Breanna sat down with me over popcorn and chamomile tea to discuss...well, how they might stay inspired a la Kobe Bryant, to whom they dedicated their gorgeous art work. I talk too much in this, filling in the silence too often with my own thoughts, which is exactly what teachers and adults do badly, so shame on me. These ladies are bright and engaged when given half a chance, t...
Feb 11, 2020•42 min
My intern, Abby, and I were talking about self expression. She is 16 and admittedly quiet. "How do you do it? Talk to strangers?" she asked. So I decided to show her. We went to Barnes & Noble. We looked around, and I told her I would buy her a journal, and a pen so that she could better connect to her thoughts. We first need to connect to what we think before we are ready to express it. Abby spent a while choosing the journal and pen she wanted. We bought them, and then headed to the cafe t...
Jan 08, 2020•25 min
Since I've known her, Brazilian artist Claudia Vieira has played with lines. Drawing them, using tape to make them, on walls and floors and various surfaces. Her line is continuous, spiraled, repetitive. It is an immersion, a self-reflective cathartic, healing experience of the crossing of space and time, both for the artist and the viewer/participant. Her creations are trance-like journeys, meditations that connect one place to another, one time to another, the world to itself. She and I have n...
Dec 10, 2019•40 min
Randy makes things from bones and stones, hence the name of his amazing shop in Tannersville, NY: Bones & Stones. He also makes things from animals and bugs. I was incredibly impressed with the creativity of Randy's work, how he takes things from the natural world and creates other things, like lighting fixtures and pipes. It is, of course, ancient practice to utilize our natural resources in creative ways, but sometimes we can forget. Randy is a wonderful breath of fresh air, a fascinating ...
Oct 23, 2019•6 min
I talk to people all the time who are afraid to talk to strangers. You can see it in the set of their shoulders, the way they slump forward. You can see it in the way they avoid your gaze, how they look anywhere but in your eyes. I do what I can. I say something about their shirt or their dress, guess something about how they might be feeling about the weather or how long they've been working their shift, how tired or frustrated they must feel about living life, whether in a big Park Slope Brown...
Oct 04, 2019•8 min
I came across actor/producer Melissa Sutkowski in the park one day this summer, sitting at a tree stump 'desk.' I laughed at the site of her, chilling there with her laptop, which seemed so natural, literally. We got into a conversation about the incredible importance of appreciating nature and it turns out the subject is one of the main themes of Melissa's latest project, a documentary called 'The Messengers.' Listen to the podcast to hear more about her amazing project. When she told me about ...
Sep 09, 2019•14 min
Woody Goldberg and I met years ago in a little cafe in Park Slope called Parco that has since closed. I caught up with him recently in another cafe nearby, Couleur Cafe, and we shared old memories of a bygone time, and talked about his new work as an extra for film and TV...He is, apparently, easily typecast as "an old Brooklyn guy." He is an awesome character, not surprising he has been discovered. I so enjoy meeting up with neighborhood folks like Woody. It can only happen if you make a point ...
Jul 18, 2019•26 min
Crystal healing is something I'm interested in, and I always buy pieces of rock and stone that appeal to me. I love reading about what they are meant to bring into my life, though I'm always terrible at remembering. When I arrived recently at the Omega Institute, a retreat center in Rhinebeck, NY, for the Juno Women's Leadership Residency I had applied for (and received), I went straight to the bookstore. I figured I'd treat myself to a few crystals and things to support me spiritually throughou...
Jul 07, 2019•9 min
I like to tell Dexter that he is the best guest I've ever had in my house, and I've had a lot of guests. His appreciation of my hors d'ouvres the night he came to perform as an alumni of the Musicambia program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility was seriously unparalleled. He is one of the most joyous enthusiastic people I have ever had the pleasure to know. It was probably not easy for Dexter to walk into some stranger's house in Park Slope. It was definitely not easy to talk to a group of peopl...
Jun 30, 2019•44 min
"Critical Revolutionary Hip Hop Pedagogy." He said it fast, like he would on stage. But I had to stop him, to get him to explain. Spiritchild's work with youth, and in the prison system, with homeless and refugees through programs including Urban Art Beat is something to stop and pay attention to. It's critical. And revolutionary. It uses Hip Hop as a creative tool to engage and inspire collaboration in a new way, an engaging way. And, oh yeah, part of his 'revolution' is to open up more dialogu...
Jun 22, 2019•1 hr 15 min
Sometimes, at a party, there is a particular person who stands out. Maybe it's their smile, or their seemingly-ironic mustache. You start talking, and you keep talking. Such was the case with Alex Gasser Londono, a funny whip-smart young Berklee grad with an admittedly ironic mustache who has come to New York to play bass, guitar and compose beautiful songs like "Who is Who," which I was lucky enough to have him sing to me in my living room in this episode. We discuss the challenges of making it...
Jun 15, 2019•29 min
My meeting Ruby Frazier was a complete fluke. It was a case of being at the school where I do my workshop too early, and chancing upon a breakfast, and being asked to talk about my work with InspireCorps, and having Ruby come up to me afterward to say she does very similar work with her Drama for Success organization. We are both bent on using the arts to build confidence, and character. We had a great conversation about our mutual goals, two kindred spirits brought together by happenstance, jus...
Jun 08, 2019•25 min
When you drive around with a friend looking for something exciting in New York City, you usually find it. Last week, my friend Judy and I ended up in La Sultana, a Hookah bar in the East Village. Even though I'd tried the hookah, or "shisha" in Turkey, we prevailed upon the gentleman sitting next to us down the bench in the cozy back den for advice. We ended up talking to Mohamed Sarrar for a while. It turns out he was in New York to drum, sing and act in a play called "The Jungle" at St. Ann's ...
Jun 01, 2019•25 min
When Juan came in to install my new Verizon Fios, he caught sight of a photograph I have of a heavy naked man at the top of a seesaw laughing at the skeleton below. The piece, by Art Toulinov, fascinated him, and it sparked a great conversation about the realities of the human condition, among them nudity and death. I love it that my art by Art brought us immediately into a deep conversation, my favorite thing with strangers!
May 25, 2019•7 min
My neighbor, Leigh Blake, has been a tireless humanitarian for many years. She has started a myriad of phenomenally successful organizations to help complete strangers over the years, including AIDS charities Keep A Child Alive and Arms Around The Child. Her latest project, Fund a Mom, is an amazing grassroots effort to prove that small monthly cash gifts directed to women creates a lasting impact. She started in India with a group of destitute mothers in the slums of Jaipur 9 months ago, and ha...
May 16, 2019•44 min
I was introduced to Jessie Kilguss a number of years back when I was writing a story about local Brooklyn songwriters with a country twang. We were strangers then, but I interviewed her and we connected over work she was doing with an organization called Musicambia. The organization brought music to incarcerated people in the hope of helping them define themselves as something far more positive than 'prisoners'. We had coffee a number of times before I figured how to get involved. I threw Musica...
May 10, 2019•34 min
I love to travel, in large part because it requires that you talk to A LOT of strangers. On my recent trip to Istanbul, I wandered about for three days. Among the many friendly people I met, I came across a student who'd recently moved to Istanbul who was visiting the Blue Mosque like I was, the owner of a drum shop who gave me a demo of the beautiful Turkish Darbouka I bought, and the owner of a variety of shops that sold everything from jewelry to carpets, who took me through them and chatted ...
May 07, 2019•34 min
I met Cathy years ago through a mutual friends' surprise party in New Orleans. We totally clicked when we met, and here we are, years later, sitting on a bench outside a cafe in Brooklyn, talking about the health and well-being of the homeless people she works with as a pharmacist with a nonprofit in Portland, and the work I do here at a women's shelter. We get into some really interesting terrain talking about the use and overuse of drugs and how, maybe, just maybe, we can start to also "prescr...
Apr 26, 2019•32 min
I met artist Monika Wuhrer a few years back. I'd been told about her magic from a number of people. And, indeed, working with her at her gallery and at PS81 has been a joy. My friends were right, we have so much in common. Mostly, we both agree that freedom of expression is crucial to helping us be who we are, and the raw materials we use to express ourselves don't matter. It is around us all the time, what we need in order to build our character. For her growing array of KoKo NYC kids' classes ...
Apr 20, 2019•48 min
Are marketers evil? Doug Zarkin didn't seem to be at all when I sat down with him to chat in the lobby of the midtown offices of global optical business Luxottica, for whom he is the VP-Chief Marketing Officer of the Pearle Vision chain. I met Doug a lifetime ago when I wrote about the Mark brand he was running for Avon in an article for Advertising Age . He has since run a variety of top brands including Victoria Secret's Pink and Calvin Klein, and has become an oft-quoted expert on how to buil...
Apr 18, 2019•46 min
