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The New Yorker Radio Hour — Games & Hobbies
The New Yorker Radio Hour

Profiles, storytelling and insightful conversations, hosted by David Remnick.

Copyright: © WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Latest Episodes:

Nicolás Maduro on the Brink of Dictatorship Dec 19, 2017

Show notes

Nicolás Maduro was an unlikely successor to Venezuela’s popular and charismatic Hugo Chavez. And, since his election, the country has been wracked with devastating food shortages, a breakdown of ordinary services and medical care, and rampant violence. But, as Maduro sees it, the real problem is his political opponents, and he has taken steps to secure control over all the branches of government, in order to establish a de-facto dictatorship. The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson was recently granted a rare interview with the Venezuelan President, who told him of his country’s economic relationships with Russia and China. Anderson tells Dorothy Wickenden that he came away from the conversation with a renewed sense of the need for greater American engagement in Venezuela. “It is going through the sewer on our watch,” Anderson says. Plus, a visit to the library with Cristina Henriquez.

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The Alabama Fallout, and Louise Erdrich on the Future Dec 15, 2017

Show notes

Roy Moore was a classic Trumpian candidate: a political outsider of extreme positions, rejected by the establishment and plagued by accusations of scandal. He eventually garnered the full support of Donald Trump, but Moore was finally too much for voters. A significant number of Republicans wrote other names on their ballots, and Democratic-leaning black voters turned out in force—a combination that gave Alabama its first Democrat to go to Washington in twenty years. David Remnick and the staff writer Amy Davidson Sorkin discuss what the outcome says about the President’s power and about voters’ feelings on sexual misconduct. With the recent calls for Al Franken’s resignation, congressional Democrats are trying to lay claim to the moral high ground, but Sorkin notes that the Party has yet to put the sins of Bill Clinton entirely behind it. Plus, an interview with Louise Erdrich, who says that she was inspired by Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and by P. D. James’s “Children of Men”—works that put literature in the service of imagining the worst.

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Don’t Worry, the Robots Can’t Do Your Job—Yet Dec 12, 2017

Show notes

The business reporter Sheelah Kolhatkar has recently written for The New Yorker about a wave of advances in robotic technology that will have dangerous implications for our economy and political stability. As more and more factories automate, many workers have found employment in warehouses, performing jobs where human dexterity and brains still hold a strong edge over clumsy robots that can’t recognize unfamiliar objects very well. But as robots advance in gripping skills, visual recognition, and problem solving, a dangerous wave of unemployment may loom. Kolhatkar speaks with a roboticist, an economist, and the C.E.O. of a robotics company, Symbotic, which is taking the people out of warehouses. Symbotic’s robots don’t earn pay, they don’t need health insurance—they don’t even need lights or heating to operate. Plus, Fabio Bertoni, The New Yorker’s lawyer, reveals what he does on the very rare occasions when he’s not at work.

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Susan Orlean on the Trail of Tonya Harding Dec 08, 2017

Show notes

When the Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan was kneecapped in an attack by friends of her rival Tonya Harding, the scandal riveted the nation; twenty-four years later, it’s the subject of the new film “I, Tonya.” In 1994, the New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean went to Harding’s home town of Clackamas County, Oregon, to report a story that was published as “Figures in a Mall.” Orlean read from the piece and talked with David Remnick about the enduring relevance of the story at a time of rising class resentment in American culture. Plus, Nicholas Thompson, the editor-in-chief of Wired, explains the imminent vote by the F.C.C. that will likely end government regulations on net neutrality. Internet service providers hold near-monopolies in many areas. If the F.C.C. ends its net-neutrality regulations, what will I.S.P.s do to consumers?

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Barry Blitt’s Rogues’ Gallery of Presidents Dec 05, 2017

Show notes

Barry Blitt wasn’t into politics—music and hockey were more his things—but as an artist he’s become one of the keenest observers of American politicians. Blitt has contributed more than eighty covers to The New Yorker, many of which are collected in his new book, “Blitt.” His style features watercolors and soft edges, but the satire is sharp. “It’s nice to have an image that is sort of quiet in itself, but is jabbing someone,” Blitt tells David Remnick. They talk about Blitt’s most controversial cover, from July, 2008, which reimagines the infamous fist-bump between Barack and Michelle Obama, and which provoked a backlash from liberal readers who worried that the satire would be lost on some. But nothing, Blitt says, beats drawing Donald Trump. Plus, Hilton Als talks with the indie film producer Christine Vachon about women in Hollywood and how to deal with the suits; and we have some helpful tips about your new avocado.

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Praying for Tangier Island Dec 01, 2017

Show notes

Residents of Tangier Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, live through each hurricane season in fear of a major storm that would decimate their land. With its highest point only four feet above sea level, the island loses ground to erosion every year, and its residents may be among the first climate-change refugees of the United States. “I do believe in climate change,” Trenna Moore, a schoolteacher, says. “But I believe in what it says: centimetres a year. We’re losing feet.” The New Yorker’s Carolyn Kormann and the Radio Hour’s Sara Nics travelled to the island, and spent time with James Eskridge, a commercial crabber and mayor of the town of Tangier, Virginia. A stalwart supporter of Donald Trump, Eskridge told the President of the residents’ desire for a seawall around the entire island. Based on his own observations, Eskridge disputes the entire scientific community that sea-level rise is a threat, but he sees that the danger is real: “If we were to get a hurricane to come in, it would wipe out the whole harbor here, and probably a good chunk of the island.”

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Bruce Springsteen Talks with David Remnick Nov 24, 2017

Show notes

In October, 2016, Bruce Springsteen appeared at The New Yorker Festival for an intimate conversation with David Remnick. (The event sold out in six seconds.) This entire episode is dedicated to that conversation.

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Noah Baumbach’s Unhappy Families Nov 21, 2017

Show notes

In his review of “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected),” the New Yorker critic Anthony Lane paraphrased no less an author than Leo Tolstoy. “All happy families are alike,” Lane wrote, but “every unhappy family, in its own way, belongs in a Noah Baumbach movie.” In films like “The Squid and the Whale” and “Margot at the Wedding,” Baumbach shows a particular feel for family dynamics, and for characters who are messed up and exasperating but feel as real as the people around you. “The Meyerowitz Stories” stars Dustin Hoffman as an artist long past his prime, and Adam Sandler as one of his sons. Sandler’s character has moved back home to his father’s house, and, though the world might judge him a failure, his relationship with his own daughter redeems him. Noah Baumbach talked with The New Yorker’s Susan Morrison about how families judge success and failure. Plus, Erica Jong talks about her relationship with her grandfather, their visits to the American Museum of Natural History (across the street from their apartment building), and how his devotion to her in her childhood gave her the confidence to succeed as a writer.

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Will the Harvey Weinstein Scandal Change America? Nov 17, 2017

Show notes

The allegations against Harvey Weinstein have opened the floodgates for women in other industries and walks of life to go public with claims of sexual misconduct—and to be heard instead of dismissed. Ronan Farrow, who broke the Weinstein story for The New Yorker, shares his perspective on the fallout with the staff writer Alexandra Schwartz. And David Remnick talks with the feminist thinker bell hooks, who sees the roots of male violence in patriarchal culture and the way that boys are raised into it. If we don’t understand the male psyche and how we deform it, hooks argues, we will never solve the problem.

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Love, War, and the Magical Lamb-Brain Sandwiches of Aleppo, Syria Nov 14, 2017

Show notes

When Adam Davidson was a reporter in Baghdad during the Iraq War, he started dating a fellow-reporter, Jen Banbury, of Salon. On a holiday break, they left the war zone and traveled to Aleppo, Syria—then a beautiful, ancient, bustling city—and, while there, they ate the best sandwiches that they had ever had. They were shockingly good, so much so that Adam and Jen never quite registered what was in them or where they came from. The couple, now married, told this story to many friends over the years, but none was more interested than Dan Pashman, the host of the food podcast “The Sporkful.” Fascinated by the mystery, Pashman set out on a quest to find and re-create the sandwiches. He talked to Syrian emigrés, a political refugee, and finally to Imad Serjieh, the owner of the family sandwich shop that bears his last name. Pashman found that the Serjieh sandwiches—preferably the one made with boiled, spiced lamb brain—aren’t just a local favorite; they capture the essence of the city, and, as long as they are still being made, Pashman thinks, Aleppo lives. Plus, the writer and monologuist Jenny Allen has something she’d like to say to you—or, rather, some things she’d like you to stop saying.

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