Podcast: The New Yorker Radio Hour

The Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour”) talks to David Remnick about her first solo museum exhibition, “Astro Noise,” which channels her investigations of government surveillance into immersive installation art. A group of jazz musicians recall how David Bowie found them in a hole-in-the-wall club and enlisted them to create “Blackstar.” And the poet Brenda Shaughnessy reads Hilton Als a poem about living in a loft full of lesbians, back when New Yorkers could still afford to smoke.

This week, Father Michael Pfleger, a white priest on Chicago’s South Side, holds a funeral for a young man who threatened his life; Larry David applies his passive-aggression to Missed Connections listings; and the authors of a new book on autism discuss “patient zero,” an elderly man in Mississippi who was the first person ever to receive the diagnosis.

Tony Schwartz spent more than a year with Trump back in 1986, ghostwriting his memoir. He hasn’t ever talked publicly about the experience of working with Trump—until now.

In this episode, the ghostwriter behind “The Art of the Deal” tells all, and Andy Borowitz reviews highlights of the Republican National Convention.

In 2014, the New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman wrote about Kalief Browder, a teen-ager from the Bronx who spent three years jailed at Rikers Island without ever being convicted of a crime. After his release, Browder committed suicide. In excerpts from Gonnerman’s interviews with him, he speaks candidly about the psychological toll of solitary confinement, and what it meant to have the criminal-justice system take away years of his life. Also, the Public Theatre’s artistic director, Oskar Eustis, tells David Remnick why “Hamilton” will have a real impact on America’s debate on immigration, and the New Yorker’s theatre critic, Hilton Als, speaks with the actress Michelle Williams. Lastly, we reveal the real answer to the question “Can my dog say hi?”

The Libertarian Gary Johnson is an E.P.A.-supporting gun-rights advocate who appreciates a good edible, and he wants your vote for President.

In this episode, Obama’s former campaign strategist talks Clinton and the Cubs, a mathematician rocks out, and the “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris vents a little.

In Leonard Cohen’s last interview, he discusses his career, his spiritual influences, and what he is doing to prepare for death.

If Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug kingpin known as El Chapo, is extradited to the United States, he might face two formidable witnesses: identical twin brothers, former drug traffickers on a major scale, who gathered evidence against him for government prosecutors. Jack Handey tells some “Tales of Old Santa Fe,” where the cowboy past collides with the New Age present. And David Remnick talks with Alicia Garza, who co-founded Black Lives Matter, about the movement’s goals, and her issues with Hillary Clinton.

High school students in Queens mount a fraught election simulation, Salt Lake City’s openly gay mayor-elect talks about the Mormon Church, and Roger Angell speaks to David Remnick about writing in his tenth decade. And Lena Dunham tries to make plans with Allison Williams in “Let’s Get Drinks” -- it shouldn’t be this hard, should it?

David Remnick’s conversation with Leonard Cohen in the last months of the musician’s life, and Amy Davidson and George Packer grapple with the Trump Presidency.

Anthony Bourdain talks writing, travel, and President Obama’s eating habits, and Robin Wright looks at the dangers of foreign policy conducted by tweet.

What is it like to grow up with twenty siblings? When Sue and Hector Badeau considered the lives of children in foster homes, which are often traumatic, they felt that had to do something, and eventually adopted twenty in addition to their two biological kids. Larissa MacFarquhar reports on a family shaped by extreme compassion.
When William Finnegan isn’t covering conflicts in places like Mexico, Sudan, and Somalia, he goes surfing. It’s been his hobby for half a century, and, on a recent morning, he gave David Remnick, the editor of the magazine, his first and only surfing lesson.
Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer who has been writing about the environment for years, and has covered many international talks on climate change. She tells David Remnick why the upcoming U.N. conference in Paris could really matter.
Finding money on the ground isn’t a bit of luck for Roger Pasquier—it’s the result of diligent effort and skill. Pasquier, who is an ornithologist, pulls in around a hundred dollars a year in spare change, but he doesn’t do it for the money.

In this episode, three epic battles: Jane Mayer recounts her experience investigating—and being investigated by—Koch Industries; Junot Díaz discusses his fraught relationship with his native Dominican Republic; and the undefeated boxer Heather Hardy prepares for a big fight at the Barclays Center. Finally, the astronomer who wrote “How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming” lays out his evidence for the existence of a ninth planet.

Lenny Shiller owns some of the most recognizable cars around; his vintage vehicles have been appearing in movies for years (often with Lenny at the wheel). We’ll visit the garage in Brooklyn they call home.  A black woman raised in a white family searches for the biological father she never knew, a man known as Big Brown, while coming to terms with her race.

Jill Lepore takes a look at history and the Supreme Court. Plus, we hear stories about life in prison and learn why Mo Willems retired his enormously popular children’s-book series “Elephant and Piggie.”

Senator Cory Booker burst onto the national scene about a decade ago, after serving as the mayor of the notoriously impoverished and dangerous city of Newark, New Jersey. To get that job, Booker challenged an entrenched establishment. “My political training comes from the roughest of rough campaigns,” he tells David Remnick. “You just won’t think it’s America, the kind of stuff we had to go up against. And it [was] such a great way to learn [that campaigning] has to be retail—grassroots. And so much of this, in those early primary states, is about that.”

Booker spoke with Remnick about growing up black in a largely white area of New Jersey, where his parents had to fight to be able to buy a home; about his long relationship with the Kushner family, which started back when Jared Kushner’s father, Charles, was a leading Democratic donor; and why he’s proud to collaborate with even his direst political opponents on issues such as criminal-justice reform. “Donald Trump signed my bill,” Booker states. “I worked with him and his White House to pass a bill that liberated thousands of black people from prison” by retroactively reducing unjustly high sentences related to crack cocaine. “Tell that liberated person that Cory Booker should not deal with somebody that he fundamentally disagrees with.”

Note: In this interview, Senator Booker asserts, “We now have more African-Americans in this country under criminal supervision than all the slaves in 1850.” The historical accuracy of this comparison has been challenged. More accurately, the number of African-American men under criminal supervision today has been compared to the number of African-American men enslaved in 1850.

In The New Yorker Radio Hour’s début episode, the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, speaks with Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of “Between the World and Me,” about the profound influence of James Baldwin on his writing and why he’ll always be wary of optimism.
Jill Lepore, a staff writer at The New Yorker, introduces us to a childhood friend who was one of the only people of color in their small New England town. This is the first part of a three-part story, “The Search for Big Brown.”
Kelefa Sanneh, who is also a staff writer, takes a day trip to a suburb of Philadelphia to visit Spraynard, a pop-punk band. Most of their friends have moved into the city, but the members of Spraynard stayed to try to create a punk scene in their home town.
Boarding a plane just got even more chaotic in a Shouts & Murmurs written by George Meyer and performed by Allison Williams, from “Girls,” that imagines a farcical airport scene.
And Evan Osnos, who writes about Washington for the magazine, talks about sexism in politics with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York.

On shows as varied as “Jessica Jones,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” and “Game of Thrones,” characters are confronting sexual violence in ways never shown before on television. Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic, thinks this is probably a good thing. Also, the jazz pianist Robert Glasper explains why sometimes there’s no need to take a solo; and a troubled man takes to the water for a series of adventures, like something out of Mark Twain.
Originally aired December 15, 2015

Sarah Koenig, the host of “Serial,” talks with David Remnick about why her podcast’s success caught her by surprise.  Robin Coste Lewis, who recently won a National Book Award, explains how a devastating injury damaged her brain, but aided her poetry. And Jelani Cobb goes back to his high school.