Oct 31, 2013
It is fascinating to hear skilled practitioners explain just how they practice skillfully. In this episode, two writers for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart describe how they bring the comedy from the farm to your family’s table. In addition to their day jobs, Tim Carvell has written the book Planet Tad. Daniel...
Oct 25, 2013
Philip Gourevitch, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has written about genocide in Rwanda, the National Front in France, arranged marriage in Queens, and James Brown, well, everywhere -- each in its way a focus of intense emotion. He reports on harrowing events with lucidity and insight, filling readers with terror...
Oct 17, 2013
Janette Sadik-Khan, head of New York City’s Dept. of Transportation, has a combination of gifts rare in a public official: she is conversant in the most sophisticated ideas in her field; and she knows how to get things done. Actually, that pair is rare in just about everybody. Thus equipped, she transformed our...
Oct 10, 2013
Eugene Drucker is a founding violinist with the Emerson String Quartet, an association that’s endured for more than thirty years. His most recent CD, "Journeys," features two string sextets: Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence and Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht. In addition, he is the author of a novel, The Savior,...
Oct 3, 2013
A writer for the New Yorker since 1992, Susan Orlean is particularly admired for her book The Orchid Thief, the basis of the movie Adaptation, in which she became the only New Yorker staffer to be played by Meryl Streep. Her latest book is a biography of the dog actor, Rin Tin Tin, who I believe was also played by...