Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. The Economist magazine had a review of three books recently, all on the subject of talking to strangers. The three books are Hello Stranger by Will Buckingham, The Power of Strangers by Joe Kean, and Fractured by John Gates. This is a topic I'm obviously interested in, how we meet people, how we make friends. The Economist's review. It's unsigned, so
I don't know who wrote it. Notes quote. All three authors make sweeping generalizations about the evolution of human society, from hunter gatherers to the age of Homer and beyond. They are more interesting when they reflect using personal experience or scientific research on how people live and communicate now in different ways. They all make two separate but related points. First, interacting meaningfully with new person can bring huge rewords, but it is a skill that must be cultivated and can
easily be lost. Second, the self segregation of modern Western societies means that for many people, conversing with some fellow citizens seems pointless, undesirable, or outlandish. The second problem exacerbates the first. If you consider others beyond the pale, why make the effort to get to know them, as mister Kohane and mister Yates emphasize. In Britain and America, political divisions have ossified into tribal ones. Supporters and opponents of
Brexit live in discreete clusters. Republicans and Democrats see each other as bad people, not fellow Americans whose opinions happen to differ. These opposing sides have become strangers to one another. Mister Buckingham focuses on the pleasures and pitfalls of encounters in remote places, where the stakes are lower because the acquaintance ships are bound to be temporary in a holiday flat share in Helsinki or while traveling through the Balkans.
But like the other two, he notes that the where fariness of unfamiliar people is neither new nor insuper bowl end quote. I have a lot of friends who I disagree with politically, and they are good, rich friendships. But I don't think there's anything crazy at all about seeking out or living among people with whom you agree on kind of the big issues of life. I lived in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where I disagreed pretty much with all of my neighbors and pretty strongly too. They were
very far left. I'm obviously a conservative now. My husband and I we made amazing friends there with varying degrees of political differences. Some people just aren't that into politics, and some people are very into politics, and we don't agree, and it's absolutely possible to still have close friendships. But I should note that most of the people who we became close with in that neighborhood, who maybe we politically
disagreed with, were Jewish like us. So even if we didn't have politics in common, we had something else, something big. That's what gets lost in the conversations about people lining up with their political tribes. There's nothing weird about looking for commonality. There's an Irish bar in so many random places I visited, from Lisbon to Buenos Aires. Is it weird that Irish people would seek each other out when
they're far from home. I don't think it is. Of course, take chances and talk to strangers and make friends with people who are different from you. It's possible. But also don't be surprised if the people you're most drawn to are actually quite similar to you. That's the way the world has always worked, and there's really nothing weird about that. Coming up next, an interview with Leelle Leibowitz. Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Leelle Leovitz. Leelle is editor at Large at Tablet Magazine and co host of Unorthodox, the world's most popular Jewish podcast. Leelle is also you know, no pressure here, Leel, but my favorite writer, Hi, Leel. So nice to have you on, Carol.
I cannot tell you what a pleasure this is.
So I ask people how they would want to be introduced, and you included a word that not only I didn't know but also couldn't pronounce. And I kind of practiced, and I was like, forget it, I'm not doing it. But a tinerant drinker.
Iterant tinerant drunk. Okay, yes, I got very committed to being drunk just on occasion.
Oh okay, because I thought it was somebody who travels to get drunk based on definition. Also, yes, I couldn't even claim immigrant, you know here whenever I don't know a word, I'm like, well, I'm an immigrant, you know, even though I came when I was like one and a half. But because you're an immigrant too, and you know you knew what it meant.
Very much an immigrant, and yes, also someone who travels from location to location based mainly in the availability of gin.
Well, we have a lot of gin for you in South Florida, should you feel like making the track, you know, visiting or you know, moving whatever whatever works for you, Really.
Carol, why would I when I could open my door here in New York City, smell the great smell of you know, illegal weed stores everywhere, enjoy interaction with my you know, fellow mentally unhinged citizens, be shoved on the subway as part of my daily routine workout. There's so much fun here. It really does functioning American City like fun.
And I don't know why you would leave it. So, you know, whenever you're ready to leave that wonderland, you just let me know.
You're touching a very sore spot. But yes, you are the best ambassador for the Sunshine State. Then eventually you'll convert.
Us to you know, I used to be the best ambassador for New York City. I used to be such a fan and we tell people about how amazing it was, and then you know, I couldn't do that anymore. So it was time to go. But okay, I'm not going to keep poking at it. Tell us about yourself. How did you become a writer?
How did I become a writer? Simply? I didn't know how to do anything else. I'm being sincere. I still don't know how to do anything else. If I did, there's so many professions I would much rather choose. But from a very young age, it was very apparent that my very limited skill set was basically reading things and writing things and talking about things. It occupied, you know, every three hour and every cell of my imagination. It
was really never a question. I mean, I honestly remember myself at six or seven sort of sitting on the couch and me like, well, you know, when I published my first book, which is, of course what every adult wants to hear, which parents, of course are like, well when I'm unemployed. But it was completely obvious it's all I ever wanted to and it's still all I want to do. I mean, I don't, I'm just I mean, look at the grain in my beard right now, I've
aged into it. It was more of a problem my twenties. Billion I was never one of these people like, oh my god, dude, let's go to a poor and get high and get drunk, and I go to parties or like people. Now it's like, let's binge like nine Seasons of the Pink Lotus or whatever people are watching, Like, I'm gonna sit here, drink something and read.
How many books have you written?
I'm gonna go with eleven? Wow, dude, I don't know why I say this. Maybe nine?
But are you guessing?
I am guessing. I can't. Here's the thing, I think one great thing slash terrible things. My mind is it's very small. It's like a groundhog Day situation. As soon as I finish a problem, I'm so consumed by the project that I'm working on right now. Then as soon as I finish it, I have zero recollection of what I just did two days ago. So if you asked me about a book I literally finished writing, you know, four weeks ago, I'd be like, I don't know. Maybe I don't so I don't remember how many I can.
I just I have to leave them as soon as Sometimes it's.
Funny because people compare writing books to having children, but clearly I think you know how many kids you have?
And I'm going to go with two you sure. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm pretty sure.
Do you feel like you've made it?
Do I feel like I've made it?
I mean, you have like a million books, it's like, and two children and you know, a beautiful wife, and you don't seem like you've got it going on. And you're my favorite writer, literally, my favorite writer, which has to count for something in your modification of if you've made it.
It counts for so much because I admire you so much and you're doing such incredible, incredible work, and so this is like the greatest compliment you could pay. I'm going to go ahead and say yes. And here's why. You know, a lot of us who enter this world arts, politics, these are these are high octane, high emotion pursuits.
Right.
We go into them because we have big feelings and because we want to achieve big things. And with this comes bucket loads of absolute sheer. Can we curse on the show? Yeah, curse away, absolute sheer fucking misery because you're like, oh my god, my book failed, Oh my god, this party that I don't like in power, this person
that I hate just want to election. This very big feelings drive you looney, which is honestly why so much was all jokes about drinking aside, this is why so many of us drink, right, this is this is what we do. What I feel I've achieved in the last eight or so years is a notion of really really kind of embodying or at least really grocking to use a nerdy term, to really kind of internalizing this. This Talmudic teaching that I love. The Tama teaches us who's
the rich person. It's the person who could be happy with what he has. That was not me ten years ago at all. I was one of these people who woke up every morning He's like, why don't I have this show? Why is my party not in power? Why can't I do? Like it was constantly like this great line in Hamilton, like You're never satisfied, You'll never be satisfied. Yeah, I'm satisfied. I don't. I don't need to be the
most the biggest. I open my eyes every morning, I start the day with, you know, prayers to God, giving thanks for everything that He's given us. And it sounds corny, but it changes the entire out kind of day, Like there's no there's no inbox that could contain bad news. After you came by saying hey, look man, thanks for everything.
And then you see your kids and you see you know, your ability to have a little bit of a voice in this world and to talk and spend your days, you know, talking to people you you you like a lot and admire and thinking about ideas. I'm I am satisfied. And to me, that's that's howthing made it.
Yeah, I agree. I think that that's really what it's all about. I also had parents who did not want me to be a writer. And I remember my parents, I want to be a writer, and they were like, no, that's not a thing, like nobody makes it as a writer. You will not be able to feed yourself. Doctor, you're going to be a doctor. So if you had to have a plan B, if you couldn't be a writer, what would it be, I'll tell you when you can't be a podcaster. You know nothing in.
Thee of these things. So I actually I was a pretty good army person. I didn't go very far with it. I left it. You know, I served for three years in Israel Defense Forces. But it made perfect tense to me. There's kind of beautiful order to it and a big sense of mission. And a big sense of kind of like, okay, well, you know you're one small part of a big team I'm going to go with. I would probably have been
in the mill service. The only other thing that I ever really loved doing enough and was somewhat good at is boxing, which is again another very dumb skill that I have because I'm six foot five and two and fifty pounds and you know, at some point you gotta go and what God gave you. So I could probably have done this, but honestly, like something like a barman again to bring it back to being.
A drunk tinnerant drinking, any.
Profession that allows you to spend some time and you know, talk to people, help people out, not in a kind of prescriptive, hierarchical like power trip kind of way, but just like, hey man, yeah how can I help you? Gin?
You can help like Jinn.
And then finally in my kind of list that what I should have could have look the real family business. I come from a long line of rabbis. I think that would have served me.
Justifying Yeah, I could see you being like a rabbi boxer. That would be your Twitter handle, right like.
Slash astronaut slash billionaire.
I believe in you actually, So what would you say is like the theme of your writing, like what do you enjoy? What you know, concepts you enjoy? Hitting the most easy.
I only say I think there's only one. Uh, it's redemption, It's it's it's creating to court my my rebe Leonard Cohen, who I wrote a book about and had the pleasure and the privilege of getting to know later in life his life. Also later in my life writing a manual for living with defeat, you know, understanding again coding one of his most famous songs that there's a crack in everything,
but that's how life gets in. Uh. You know that is such a hard kind of bit of wisdom for us to grasp as we kind of reach for redemption that looks like like perfection, that sounds like bell's ringing. That is this moment like oh my God, and all I have to do is X and then life will
be great. I think so many of us are so unhappy because we've been sold this vision of what again, to go back to our last question of conversation topic of conversation, we've been sold this vision of like what making it is that is constant waiting right, there's a doctor Seuss line like the waiting place, like you wait and wait and wait and wait, Like, Okay, so I graduate from high school and then I'll go to college, and then I'll get the internship, and then I'll get
the job, and then i'll get the go to graduate school, and then I'll get the better job, and then and then finally I'll be happy. There's a point in which the door's open, the angels sing, You're like, as Marco Witz, welcome to the time you are here. And then you're like that that was it. No, that's not how any of it works. It's it's it's the small heartbreaks, and it's learning to live with him. It's it's it's failing and then learning to fail better and failing upwards as
as you go with it. That's honestly the theme of I think everything I'm writing about it, and I think that's the thing that we need right now, because we are so fucking broken, all of us, our society. I mean to quote Alana new House, my dear friend and boss of Capital Magazine, who wrote this glorious piece called Everything is Broken. Everything is Broken in America, slash the world slash the cosmos right now, knowing how to live with it and find meaning in it and repair it.
Not in this kind of dumb, you know, revolutionary Hey, let me let me wave a Kama's flag and you know, block access to a cancer hospital because that's what I believe. But but in a real kind of generative, emotional, human, helpful, beautiful way. Boy, that's a tough skill to master.
What would you say is our largest societal problem.
It's it is eminently solvable, and it's it's a great public health crisis that we don't talk about enough. It's prestige addiction. It's this notion that so many of us have was like, oh my god, I would have made it once I have the degree from Columbia University or Harvard or Pane. Yeah, I would have made it once I'm published by the New York Times. Oh I would have made it once I'm a partner at this prestigious law firm. We set so much store by these you know, validations.
But one of my favorite things about being in Los Angeles, everyone drives everywhere and everything is valet and they ask every ye do need validation, which, of course they made for the parking but I take it cosmically like, yes, we all need validation, except we seek it in the
absolute wrong places. We seek it in you know, these institutions, and not just these institutions, but institutions that have already collapsed and crumbled into kind of like you know, fetid swamps of mutually accrediting mediocrites pursuing their power for evil. I think we could stop. I think we should absolutely stop and kind of get back to first principles. And here here's the thing. This is the source of great optimism.
It's happening everywhere. You could see it in a what twenty thirty percent drop of advanced application admissions application to Harvard. You could see it in like more and more people just opting out of these corrupted structures. And you write about this so well, and so beautifully and so frequently. It's happening everywhere. It's a great coalition of normal Americans.
It defies left and right, religious and secular. We're curing ourselves of this prestige addiction, one person at one American at the time.
How do we move that process along? How do we help that you know, ending.
Two words courage and joy, both lacking tremendously. The first is rather obvious, right, just to have the courage to say, like, I'm sorry, this is here's something that I say to my children, who are twelve and ten three times a week. I'm not exaggerating, like maybe four times a week. Look, I have a PhD from Columbia University. I taught at Columbia for some years. I taught at NYU for almost
a decade. I'm a recovered academic. So maybe easy for me to say, but I say to my twelve and ten year old three times a week, you are never going to college. You're never going to college because I'm not paying, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and spending four years of your life for someone to basically train you to be a Nazi. Like that's not
happening in our household. That's the courage part, the bigger part, and some people have that, although not enough, but they're optimistic. The bigger part, and the more troublesome part, is the joy part. Right, it's not enough just to say, well, we hate universities, the campus woke ideology, like eighty five percent of what I hear, and like, you know, the
media that I consume is all this. The joy part is say, like, guys, actually, we have amazing ideas and we have better you know, attitudes and views in life, and we love them and we're very proud of them. We're out of our faith traditions. We're proud of our communities.
We're proud of our solutions to these problems that are much more ancient and sustainable than anything you know, college professors have designed two and a half minutes ago, historically speaking, right, I think this building and building with with grit and happiness is what makes this country great. I believe in it wholeheartedly. I think the next couple of years are going to be very tough, but in the long run, Look,
this is a covenantal nation. We renew the covenant every couple of years, and it doesn't look the same for any generation that renews the covenant. It didn't look the same for the people in eighteen sixty one as it did for the people in seventeen seventy six, and it didn't look the same in nineteen sixty four as it did in eighteen sixty one. It's our turnout and it's going to be amazing.
So what does that look like practically, because you know you have a twelve and a ten year old, you're saying they're never going to college. You're you're you're going to hit up again. So what happens when they graduate high school? They just they go to work? Is it? I mean, I'm in I'm into like send my kids to college. I'm just afraid that they're going to want to go to college.
First of all, they could go to college. What I say, to be very precise is I'm never paying for your college once you're eighteen. If you wish to take and make mistakes, I mean, legally I can't stop you. But I do have a four I have a four pronged plan, and it sounds very Soviet apologies, but I have been thinking about this a lot. My four prong plan is simple.
I want to take the four years they would have spent on college and to say, two hundred and thousand dollars or so, all all things you know, considered, and spend them the following way. I want about a quarter of that time and money spent on them actually reading books and learning, something which as we all know, necessarily
happen in college. It is not too difficult to put together a very good kind of yees, set of readings and kind of essential core competencies that replaces and surpasses everything you would have learned at the Liberal It's four years called. I want a quarter of the time and money spent on traveling, because I think it is eminently important for these kids to actually see the world and know what it's like, which again does not happen in
the mirthless, airless type quarters of college. I want a quarter of this time spent picking up a skill, like a real life skill, and it could be anything from very high end skills like oh my god, now you can program Python, and you could get a high beating job to learn how to be a plumber, which is something that humanity will always need as long as we have indoor plumbing, which hopefully is a long while.
Yeah, well see right.
And then the fourth and then the fourth part of it, which I think is probably the most important, I want them to volunteer. I want them to give back to their community, which is something that you do not emphasize at all. We do it kind of to check a box in the college application, but not in a real way of like, look, this community has given you so much. Life has given you so much time, time for you to go and give back, and if possible in between, if I get out a fifth, I want them to
fuck around. I want him to wander because I think so much of the way that you know, life is set up for a young person. You never get a moment to just say like, Okay, I am now going to just figure myself out, which is Lord knows, most of us do it when we're forties. And then we have terrible midlife crises and we have divorces, and we buy dumb sports cars, and we do things that we really would regret, you know. We have affairs, we like destroy our lives, we develop addictions. Let's do it when
we're nineteen, shall we. Let's just take a bunch of time being like, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna you know, live for a little. Yeah, all that could be done on a much more pleasurable and much more affordable calendar and budget than sending your kid to Oberlin.
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marco It Show. I feel like I know that this is not your point, and I know you're not going to do this, but this could actually be an extremely successful money maker. This program, this four four to five prong program. You can fuck around, you know, leave that in, kick it out, whichever way you want to go could be you know, because because parents don't, I think a lot of parents send their
kids to college. I definitely have in my head that my kids are going to college, even though I know all the risks and all the problems with colleges and all the negatives, just because I don't have the plan B. I don't have the le alibivis you know, for prong plan in mind. And I feel like people would buy your program, which.
Is why I'm announcing right here and right now in the Carrol Marco itself.
I think you could charge way more than that, you know.
I think that's why I didn't say businessman when you ask me what I should have been, because obviously, right.
I think you're gonna need a businessman partner for this, So which.
Is why you're announcing right now in the camera. So no, no I am.
I too, am bad at business like most writers are. So I think we're gonna we're gonna need some sort of other person who knows what they're doing to make this plan happen. But I you know, I again, I know that this isn't your intention, But I think you can provide parents in a plan B and a different path to college, and I think a lot of people would take that plan.
I would love to do something even better, sorry, mom, if you're listening, than making a lot of money off of it, I'd like to give it away for free because, for example, look the sort of liberal arts curriculum you could design a very good especially with the vast amount of you know, genuinely terrific lectures that exist online right now.
You can design a very good kind of liberal arts education that the kid can consume a year for I'm going to go in and say, maybe three hundred dollars all things, like, all all books included done because a lot of that stuff could be found for free online.
Yeah, I mean that would be And this is why writers don't make money. I just gave you a brilliant million dollar idea and you're life.
I just told you. I'm giving it right back away for free. It's really a shame to be probably the two Jews in the world whore like the worst with like money.
Yeah, it sucks. So I love talking to Yuliel, and here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
This is an incredible question because I've been thinking about it so much, and I realized that anything and everything anyone says sounds like those, you know, incredibly hokey and corny, you know, graduation speeches in which you say, well, you know, take time to like look around you and smell the flowers or whatever. So I'll give two pieces of advice, and one of them is a little bit more serious and the other is a little bit not.
And I think I'll just interject for one second that I've heard from listeners who have told me that they've changed like different parts of their lives based on that question. I know it sounds hokey, but it works. It's like people need to hear the words, so tell us, tell us what they need to do.
I will give three three and you and you decided. You decide which is which is serious and which is not. My first is to never ever order a vodka martini, which is an abomination and a crime against civilization. And also never to even use a shaker in your martini. Just basically pour some gin into into your class.
I'm a Manhattan drinker.
General direction of a vermutha. Now, on a serious note, I have I have two pieces of advice and they're kind of inter interlocking. The first is to be very rude and the second is to be very extreme. And here's what I mean by that. We live in a very hyper connected world. Just since the beginning of this interview, three devices, you know, cling, pinged and dingd trying to kind of get my attention to it. I still never
figured out that do not disturb thing. Most of us, you know, get up every morning and be like, oh, this is what I have to do today, and seventeen email, three hundred text messages, twenty WhatsApp threads, you know, signal notifications, checking Twitter, going on Facebook, posting and Instagram. Later like whatever happened to that email? I was supposed to write the worst person in the world, as I think, you know, I think this, I think I've done this to you.
I can sometimes not return calls or emails four months, by the way, including to my wife. I could tell you what sure she really enjoys that she is an absolute amazing moment because she understands about me when I have a project that really engrosses me, I'm one hundred percent present in this project. So the message I suppose is, you know, be here now, be complete present in what you do. Do not return that call, do not return
that email. It's okay. Let people kind of seethe and then just say I'm sorry, but let me tell you about what i was doing. And I think they'll appreciate that much more because they know that you're not just being a dick, but you're actually completely present. And the same goes for you know, your children. I never ever have my phone on me ever, even in the vicinity of me when I'm in you know, a dinner with
friends or with my kids. Never my kids know that I will tell them rudely again, I'm sorry, I don't have time for you today. I'm not gonna talk to you because I'm not gonna do this. Spolshy think like, oh honey, how is dinner? Click click click, phone front phone thing. They think, Yeah, I'm not gonna do it. If I'm here with you, you know that I'm one hundred percent here with you, and if not, just be like, I'm sorry, I can't do it today or this week.
Or sometimes even this month, I will say to my kids, look, i'm a dad line, I'm finishing a book. I'm sorry, you're not gonna see me in you know, until May or whatever. I think they appreciate it much more so. My first advice don't be afraid to be rude, if that is what it takes to really be present in what you do. And the second thing, which I think goes hand in hand with is which is wonderful, is
be extreme. Look, we are all taught by this kind of devascinated, effeckless, spineless, bloodless educational system that the best view is always from the fifty yards line, that you always have to see all points of every available thing, that you always have to be very reasonable and you know, negotiate calmly and rationally, and you know what, eighty five percent of the time it's great advice except for the fifteen percent of the time that it's and that fifteen
percent of the time counts for everything, because if you do not have at least four things in your life that you are willing to go completely all out, zero compromises, zero fucks given over, then I don't think you're doing this right. And it includes by the way, to so many of US Jews, the ability to say I'm sorry. I don't need to see the other side of this question. I'm seeing my side. Do I care about what's going
on in Gaza, Sure, it's terrible, you know what. I care much more about the one hundred and thirty something Israelies that are kidnapped. That's my top priority. I'm not gonna worry about this. This is what a normal person does. Or to feel actual, real hatred of your enemies because they're evil people. To see the world in terms of
good and evil that really do exist. If you do not believe in that, and if you do not have the passion to want to root out evil, and if you're not willing to be extreme about saying I'm sorry, I'm not compromising with these people. I don't care about the root causes or the you know, the reasons, or the justifications or their narrative. Fuck the root causes. I want them gone. That to me is a quality that
is much lacking. And if you could find a little bit, a little bit of that burning intensity in your heart, I think you'll do much better.
I love that be extreme. Thank you so much. Leelle read them and table read one of his twenty eight books, Love to have you on. Thank you so much, What a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us on The Carol Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.