Podcasts about Harvard Book Store

In a special episode, Book Stew hits the road as Eileen MacDougall, Book Stew host, has author Lauren Francis-Sharma on the show a second time. This time by recording a discussion Lauren had with podcaster and fellow author, Mark Cecil, discussing her nationally acclaimed novel, Casualties of Truth, on location at the Harvard Book Store of Cambridge, MA.

Elizabeth Howard began hosting and producing the Short Fuse during the pandemic years. Those days when we were shuttered in our rooms. Displaced. Disoriented. Since then she has hosted 33 conversations, created a YouTube channel for online Short Fuse reading groups, and held live events at P&T Knitwear in New York, the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, and at the Portsmouth Athenaeum in New Hampshire.  You can find all of the Short Fuse conversations  on the Short Fuse website.Dell'Aria Cafe is at 232 East 111th Street in East Harlem.  An authentic cafe with roasted Italian coffee ... and conversation.Jasmine Rice LaBeija is a Drag Queen, who can often be found performing in New York City.Rev. Michael Curry is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States.  He spoke at the memorial held for Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.Ann Kjellberg is the founder of Book Post. Bill Marx is the founder and Editor of the Arts Fuse, the online journal of arts commentary and criticism.Kyle Dacuyan is a poet and the director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.Valena Beety is the author of Manifesting Justice and works with Tasha Shelby.Frank Young is the artist who created the collage for this episode.   

Abby and Patrick welcome philosopher Kate Manne, author of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (2017), Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (2020), and the forthcoming Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia (2024). They discuss our moral emotions – shame, contempt, disgust, abjection – and what they signal; the ideological ranking of bodies into specific hierarchies, the contingencies of when and how fatness has been valued, and the historical links between contemporary fatphobia and anti-Blackness; how discourse around fatness involves logics of scapegoating, victim-blaming, the mystifications of capitalism, anxieties about pleasure, and fantasies of self-mastery; fat activism and the insights of disability studies; and the necessity of undoing fatphobia as a crucial part of meaningful social change and solidarity.Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia comes out January 9, 2024 and is available for pre-order here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/unshrinking-how-to-face-fatphobia-kate-manne/19993688Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny is here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/down-girl-the-logic-of-misogyny-kate-manne/18742539Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women is here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/entitled-how-male-privilege-hurts-women-kate-manne/16881547Kate's Substack, “More to Hate,” is here: https://katemanne.substack.com/Other texts cited include: Julia Kristeva, Powers of HorrorKate Harding, “How Do You Fuck a Fat Woman?” (available in Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Power and a World Without Rape, eds Friedman and Valenti)Kate's book tour dates include:Book launch in Ithaca, NY at Buffalo Street Books on Jan 9thCambridge, MA at Harvard Bookstore on Jan 22thMontclair, NJ at Montclair Public Library on Jan 24thBrooklyn, NY at Community Books on Jan 26thWashington, DC at Politics and Prose on Jan 27thHave you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you've traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! 484 775-0107  A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness Twitter: @UnhappinessPod Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Theme song: Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1 https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO Provided by Fruits Music

State authorities ask drivers to have manners during Thanksgiving travel. Former Fitchburg state Senator Dean Tran is arrested on COVID fraud charges. Something's fishy at a Harvard Bookstore warehouse. 5 minutes of news that will keep you in "The Loop."

If something is "good" is that good enough? Who decides? In this episode, Bill and Andrew discuss how people define "good," what interchangeability has to do with morale, and the problem with a "merit-based" culture. Bonus: Learn how Americans became the first to use the French idea of interchangeable parts in manufacturing. Note: this episode was previously published as Part 5 in the Awaken Your Inner Deming series.  TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. The topic for today is, Deming Distinctions: Beyond Looking Good. Bill, take it away. 0:00:30.4 Bill Bellows: Funny you mentioned that. You remind me that I've been at this for over 30 years, and coming up in July, I'll be celebrating 40 years of marriage. Like 30 years, 40, where do these numbers come from? 0:00:44.5 AS: Okay. Yeah. Who defines quality in a marriage, Bill? 0:00:47.0 BB: Alright. 0:00:50.8 AS: Okay, we won't go there. Take us, take it away. 0:00:52.2 BB: We won't go there. So we are gonna talk about who defines quality, and to get into "beyond looking good." As I shared with you, I've listened to each of the podcasts a few times. And before we get into who defines quality, I just wanna provide clarification on some of the things that came up in the first five episodes. And so, one, and I think these are kind of in order, but if they're not in order, okay, well, I made reference to black-and-white thinking versus shades-of-gray thinking. And I called black-and-white thinking - black and white data - category data, and the word I was searching for that just wasn't coming out was attribute data. So for those who are keeping score, attribute data is probably the most relevant statistician term in that regard. 0:01:44.9 BB: Attribute data versus variable data. And what I've made reference to, and we'll talk more in a future session, is looking at things in terms of categories. And categories are black and white, or it could be red, yellow, green, that's three categories, or looking at things on a continuum. So I'm still excited by the difference that comes about by understanding when we're in the black-and-white mode or the category mode or the attribute data mode versus the variable mode, and still have a belief that we can't have continuous improvement or continual improvement if we're stuck in an attribute mode. 0:02:22.9 BB: And more on that later, that's one. I talked about Thomas Jefferson meeting Honoré Blanc and getting excited about the concept of interchangeable parts. And I had the date wrong, that was 1785, if anyone's keeping score there. He was ambassador to France from 1785 to 1789, but it was in 1792 that he wrote a letter to John Jay, who was a...I think he was a Commerce Secretary. Anyway, he was in the administration of Washington and shared the idea. I was doing some research earlier and found out that even with the headstart that Blanc had in France, 'cause back in 1785, Jefferson was invited to this pretty high level meeting in Paris where Blanc took a, I guess, like the trigger mechanism of 50 different rifles. Not the entire rifle, but just the...let's just call it the trigger mechanism with springs and whatnot. And he took the 50 apart and he put all the springs in one box, all the other pieces in their respective boxes and then shook the boxes up and showed that he could just randomly pull a given spring, a given part, and put 'em all together. And that got Jefferson excited. And the...what it meant for Jefferson and the French was not just that you can repair rifles in the battlefield quickly. 0:03:56.9 BB: Now, what it meant for jobs in France was a really big deal, because what the French were liking was all the time it took to repair those guns with craftsmanship, and Blanc alienated a whole bunch of gunsmiths as a result of that. And it turns out, Blanc's effort didn't really go anywhere because there was such a pushback from the gunsmiths, the practicing craftsmanship that jobs would be taken away. But it did come to the States. And then in the early 1800s, it became known as the American System of Production. But credit goes back to Blanc. I also made reference to absolute versus relative interchangeability. And I wanna provide a little bit more clarification there, and I just wanna throw out three numbers, and ideally people can write the numbers down, I'll repeat 'em a few times. The first number is 5.001, second number is 5.999, and the third number is 6.001. So it's 5.001, 5.999, 6.001. And some of what I'm gonna explain will come up again later, but...so this will tie in pretty well. So, what I've been doing is I'll write those three words on the whiteboard or throw them on a screen, and I'll call... 0:05:28.9 AS: Those three numbers. 0:05:31.4 BB: A, B, and C. And I'll say, which two of the three are closest to being the same? And sure enough people will say the 5.999 and the 6.001, which is like B and C. And I say that's the most popular answer, but it's not the only answer. People are like, "well, what other answer are there?" Well, it could be A and C, 5.001 and 6.001, both end in 001. Or it could be the first two, A and B, 5.001 and 5.999. So what I like to point out is, if somebody answers 5.999 and 6.001, then when I say to them, "what is your definition of same?" 0:06:14.9 BB: 'Cause the question is, which two of the three are close to being the same? And it turns out there's three explanations of "same." There's same: they begin with five, there's same: they end in 001. And there's same in terms of proximity to each other. So I just wanna throw that out. Well, then a very common definition of "quality" is to say, does something meet requirements? And that's the black-and-white thinking. I've also explained in the past that requirements are not set in absolute terms. The meeting must start at exactly 1:00, or the thickness must be exactly one inch. What I've explained is that the one inch will have a plus or minus on it. And so let's say the plus and minus gives us two requirements, a minimum of five and a maximum of six. Well, then that means the 5.001 meets requirements and the 5.999 meets requirements. 0:07:15.4 BB: And so in terms of defining quality, in terms of meeting requirements, A and B are both good. And then what about the 5.999 and the 6.001? Well, those numbers are on opposite sides of the upper requirement of six. One's just a little bit to the left and one's a little bit to the right. Then I would ask people, and for some of you, this'll ring - I think you'll be smiling - and I would say to people, "what happens in manufacturing if, Andrew, if I come up with a measurement and it's 6.001?" Okay, relative to defining quality as "meeting requirements," 6.001 does not meet requirements. So what I'll ask people is, "what would a non-Deming company do with a 6.001?" And people will say, "we're gonna take a file out, we're gonna work on it, we're gonna hit it with a hammer." And I say, "no, too much work." And they say, "well, what's the answer?" "We're gonna measure it again." 0:08:25.7 AS: Until we get it right. 0:08:27.7 BB: We will measure it until we get it right. We will change the room temperature. We will take the easiest path. So then I said, get people to realize, they're like, yeah, that's what we do. We measure the 6.001 again. Well, then I say, "well Andrew, why don't we measure the 5.001 again?" And what's the answer to that, Andrew? [laughter] 0:08:51.5 AS: 4.999. [laughter] 0:08:54.7 BB: But what's interesting is, we'll measure the 6.001 again. But we won't measure the 5.001 again. We won't measure the 5.999 again. And so to me, this reinforces that when we define quality as "meeting requirements," that what we're essentially saying in terms of absolute interchangeability, what we're pretending is that there's no difference between the 5.001 and the 5.999. At opposite ends, we're saying that Blanc would find them to be interchangeable, and putting all the things together. I don't think so. 0:09:36.7 BB: I think there's a greater chance that he'd find negligible difference between the 5.999 and the 6.001. And that's what I mean by relative interchangeability, that the difference between B and C is nothing, that's relative interchangeability. The closer they are together, the more alike they are in terms of how they're integrated into the gun, into the rifle, into the downstream product. And I just throw out that what defining quality as "requirements" is saying is that the first two are...the person downstream can't tell the difference. Then I challenge, I think there's...in terms of not telling the difference, I think between 5.999 and 6.001, that difference is minuscule cause they are relatively interchangeable. The other two are implied to be absolutely interchangeable. And that I challenge, that's why I just want to throw that out. All right, another thing I want...go ahead, Andrew. 0:10:38.3 AS: One of the things I just highlight is, I remember from my political science classes at Long Beach State where I studied was The Communist Manifesto came out in 1848. And Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were talking about the alienation of the worker. And what you're talking about is the kind of, the crushing of the craftsmen through interchangeable parts that was a lot like AI coming along and destroying something. And after 50 or 60 or 70 years of interchangeable parts, along comes The Communist Manifesto with the idea that when a person is just dealing with interchangeable parts, basically they're just a cog in the wheel and they have no connection to the aim of what's going on. They don't have any connection, and all of a sudden you lose the craftsmanship or the care for work. And I think that the reason why this is interesting is because that's, I think, a huge part of what Dr. Deming was trying to bring was bring back...it may not be craftsmanship for creating a shoe if you were a shoemaker, but it would be craftsmanship for producing the best you could for the part that you're playing in an ultimate aim of the system. 0:12:02.6 BB: Yes. And yes, and we'll talk more about that. That's brilliant. What you said also reminds me, and I don't think you and I spoke about it, you'll remind me. But have I shared with you the work of a Harvard philosopher by the name of Michael Sandel? 0:12:24.3 AS: I don't recall. 0:12:27.0 BB: He may be, yeah, from a distance, one of the most famous Harvard professors alive today. He's got a course on justice, which is I think 15 two- or three-hour lectures, which were recorded by public television in Boston. Anyway, he wrote a book at the beginning of the pandemic. It came out, it's called The Tyranny of Merit. 0:12:54.0 BB: And "merit" is this belief that "I did it all by myself." That "I deserve what I have because I made it happen. I had no help from you, Andrew. I had no help from the government. I didn't need the education system, the transportation system. I didn't need NASA research. I made it happen all by myself." And he said, what that belief does is it allows those who are successful to claim that they did it by themselves. It allows them to say those who didn't have only themselves to blame. And he sees that as a major destructive force in society, that belief. And I see it tied very well to Deming. Let me give you one anecdote. Dr. Deming was interviewed by Priscilla Petty for The Deming of America documentary, which was absolutely brilliant. 0:13:49.8 BB: And she's at his home, and he's sharing with her the medal he got from the Emperor of Japan, and he's holding it carefully, and I think he gives it to her, and she's looking at it, and she says to him something like, so what did it mean to you to receive that? And he said, "I was lucky. I made a contribution." He didn't say I did it all by myself. He was acknowledging that he was in the right place at the right time to make a contribution. And that's where Sandel is also heavily on, is don't deny the role of being born at the right time in the right situation, which is a greater system in which we are. Well, for one of the college courses, I was watching an interview between Sandel and one of his former students. 0:14:48.1 BB: And the point Sandel made that I wanted to bring up based on what you just said, he says, "what we really need to do is get people dignity in work." And that's what you're talking about, is allowing them to have pride in work, dignity in work instead of as they're making interchangeable parts, having them feel like an interchangeable part. And I'm really glad you brought that up because when we talk later about letter grades, I would bring back one of the reasons I find Deming's work astounding, is that he takes into account psychology in a way that I hope our listeners will really take heart to in a deeper way. 0:15:30.2 AS: And so for the listeners out there, just to reinforce, the book is called The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good. Published in 2020 by Michael Sandel. And the ratings on Amazon is 4.5 out of five with about 2,446 ratings. So it's a pretty well-rated book I'd say. And looks interesting. Now you got me wanting to read that one. 0:15:57.0 BB: Oh what I'll do is I'll send you a... Well, what I encourage our listeners to do is find the interview... Harvard Bookstore did an interview in 2020, 2021, with Michael Sandel being interviewed by his former student by the name of Preet Bharara. [laughter] Who used to be the... 0:16:24.3 AS: SEC... 0:16:24.4 BB: Head of these...no, well, he prosecuted a number of people for SEC crimes, but he headed the Justice Department's long oldest district, which is known as SDNY or the Southern District of New York. And so he was a...in one of the first classes his freshman year at Harvard, Preet Bharara's freshman year at Havard was one of Sandel's first years. And so they had an incredible conversation. So I would encourage the listeners to... 0:16:51.8 AS: Yeah, it's titled: Michael J Sandel with Preet Bharara at Harvard. And the channel is called Harvard Bookstore. 0:16:58.6 BB: Yes, absolutely. All right. So another topic I want to get to in terms of clarification and key points, last time we talked about tools and techniques and what I'm not sure I made much about.... First of all, I just wanna really reinforce that tools and techniques are not concepts and strategies. Tools are like a garden tool I use to dig a hole. Technique is how I go about using it, cleaning it, and whatnot. Not to be confused from a concept...and what is concept? We talked about last time is a concept is an abstract idea and a strategy is how do we apply it? So tools and techniques within Six Sigma quality could be control charts, could be design of experiments. And all, by the way, you're gonna find those tools and techniques within the Deming community. So it's not to say the tools and techniques are the differentiator. 0:17:50.8 BB: I think the concepts and strategies are the differentiators, but I don't wanna downplay tools. Lean has tools in terms of value streams, and you won't find value streams per se in Dr. Deming's work. Dr. Deming looks in terms of production viewed as a system. In a later session, I want to talk about value streams versus Deming's work. But I just wanna point out that I find it...it's easy to get lost in the weeds with all we find within Lean, Six Sigma, Deming and whatnot. And this is why last time I wanted to focus on tools and techniques as separate from concepts and strategies. And what I think we did speak about last time, again, for just as a reminder, is what's unique that we both enjoy with Dr. Deming's work is that KPIs are not caused by individual departments, assigned to individual departments. 0:18:46.0 BB: KPIs are viewed as measures of the overall system. And if you assign the KPIs across the organization and give every different function their own KPI, what you're likely to find - not likely - what you WILL find is that those assigned KPIs are interfering with others' abilities to get their KPIs met. And in the Deming philosophy, you don't have that problem because you understand that things are interdependent, not independent. And so I just wanna close by saying what I find in Deming's work to be most enlightening is this sense of "what does it mean to look at something as a system?" And it means everything is connected to everything else. When you define quality in terms of saying "this is good because it meets requirements," what you've just said is, "this is good in isolation." Whether it's the pass from the quarterback to the wide receiver, saying the pass met requirements. 0:19:52.0 BB: What I think Dr. Deming would ask is, "is the ball catchable?" [laughter] And yet, what I've seen in my aerospace experience is parts being measured for airplanes in Australia that they meet requirements because the measurements are taken early in the morning before the sun has had a chance to heat the part up. And we get the 6.001 is now 5.999. You know what that means, Andrew? It's - we can now ship it. [laughter] 0:20:23.9 BB: And send it off to America for some airplane factory. 0:20:26.2 AS: When we shipped it, that's what it was. 0:20:28.9 BB: Exactly. And so, again, interdependence is everything. Go ahead, Andrew. 0:20:34.6 AS: I wanted to point on, there's a company in Thailand that really has gotten on the KPI bandwagon, and I was talking with some people that work there, and they were just talking about how they've been rolling out the KPIs for the last couple of years and down to the number of seconds that you're on the phone and everything that you do is tracked now. And then I just witnessed that company basically use that KPI as a way to basically knock out a whole group of people that they were trying to get rid of by coming in with tight KPIs and then saying, "you're not keeping up with 'em and therefore you're out." And I just thought...and the manager that was involved I was talking to, you could just see, he saw how KPI can just be weaponized for the purposes of the senior management when you're doing KPIs of individuals. And the thing that I was thinking about is, imagine the CEO of that company in a couple of years, in a couple of months, they happen to listen to this podcast, or they pick up a book of Dr. Deming and they think, "Oh my God, what did I just do over the last five years implementing KPIs down to the individual level?" [laughter] 0:21:48.5 BB: Oh, yeah. And that's what we talked about last time is...as I told you, I had a friend of a friend who's worked for Xerox, and he said there wasn't a KPI that was flowed down that they couldn't find a way to beat. And that's what happens, and you end up getting things done, but what's missing is: at whose expense? All right. So we talked about...now, let's get into beyond looking good, Deming distinctions. Who defines quality? Well, from Philip Crosby's perspective, quality's defined by the...it could be the designer. The designer puts a set of requirements on the component, whatever it is. The unit, the requirements have latitude we talked about. They're not exact. There's a minimum of six, a maximum of...or a minimum of five, maximum of six. 0:22:48.8 BB: There's a range you have to meet, is the traditional view of quality. And in my 30 years of experience, I've not seen quality defined any other way than that. It has to be in between these two values. Sometimes it has to be five or below or six or above, but there's a range. But also what we talked about last time is Dr. Deming said "a product or service possesses quality if it helps someone and enjoys a sustainable market." But what I found profound about that definition, it is not me defining quality and saying, "Andrew, the parts met requirements when I threw it. Now, it's your job to catch it." It's me saying, "I've thrown the ball and you tell me, how did I do? You tell me how did I do?" And if you said, "Bill, if you throw it just a little bit higher, a little bit further out, a little bit faster," that's about synchronicity. Now, I'm realizing that my ability to throw the ball doesn't really matter if you can't catch it. So if I practice in the off season, throwing it faster and faster, but don't clue you in, until the first game, how's that helping? So I've got a KPI to throw it really, really hard. And you're thinking, "how's that helping?" So that's... 0:24:19.9 AS: And can you just go back to that for a second? Quality is on a product or service, you were saying that how Dr. Deming defined that, it helps someone... 0:24:26.7 BB: Yeah. Dr. Deming said "a product or service possesses quality if it helps someone and enjoys a sustainable market." And so my interpretation of that is two things. One is, it's not me delivering a report and saying the report met requirements. It's saying, "I get the report to you, and I ask Andrew, how did I do?" And then you say to me, "I had some problem with this section, I had some problem...." But the important thing is that you become the judge of the quality of the report, not me. And it could be information I provide you with in a lecture. It's you letting me know as a student that you had a hard time with the examples. And I'm thinking, "well, I did a great job." So it's not what I think as the producer handing off to you. It's you giving me the feedback. So quality is not a one-way...in fact, first of all, quality's not defined by the producer. It's defined by the recipients saying, "I love this or not." And so that's one thing I wanna say, and does it enjoy a sustainable market? What I talked about in the past is my interpretation of that is, if I'm bending over backwards to provide incredible quality at an incredible price, and I'm going outta business, then it may be great for you, but it may not be great for me. So it has to be mutually beneficial. I just wanna... Go ahead, Andrew. 0:26:03.1 AS: You referenced the word synchronicity, which the meaning of that according to the dictionary is that "simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related, but had no discernible causal connection." What were you meaning when you were saying synchronicity? Is it this that now you're communicating with the part of the process ahead of you, and they're communicating back to you and all of a sudden you're starting to really work together? Is that what you mean by that? 0:26:33.1 BB: Yeah. When I think of synchronicity, I'm thinking of the fluidity of watching a basketball game where I'm throwing blind passes to the left and to the right and to the observer in the stands are thinking: holy cow. That's what I'm talking about, is the ability that we're sharing information just like those passes in a basketball game where you're...I mean I cannot do that without being incredibly mindful of where you are, what information you need. That's what I meant. That's what I mean. As opposed to - I wait until the number is less than...I'm out there in the hot sun. I get the measurement, 6.001, no, no, no, wait. Now it's five. Where's the synchronicity in that? Am I concerned about how this is helping you, or am I concerned about how do I get this off my plate onto the next person? And I'd also say... 0:27:32.6 AS: Yep. And another word I was thinking about is coordination, the organization of the different elements of a complex body or activity so as to enable them to work together efficiently. You could also say that the state of flow or something like that? 0:27:48.7 BB: I'm glad you brought up the word "together." The big deal is: am I defining quality in a vacuum, or am I doing it with some sense of how this is being used? Which is also something we got into, I think in the, one of the very first podcasts, and you asked me what could our audience...give me an example of how the audience could use this. And I said you're delivering a report to the person down the street, around the corner. Go find out how they use it. I use the example of providing data for my consulting company to my CPA, and I called 'em up one day and I said, "how do you use this information? Maybe I can get it to you in an easier form." That's together. I mean relationships, we talked earlier about marriage, relationships are based on the concept of together, not separate, together. Saying something is good, without understanding how it's used is not about "together." It's about "separate." 0:28:54.1 BB: And so what I find is, in Lean, we look at: how can we get rid of the non-value-added tasks? Who defines value? Or I could say, and Lean folks will talk about the...they'll say this: "eliminate things that don't add value." My response to them is, if you tell me that this activity does not provide value in this room for the next hour, I'm okay with that. If you tell me this activity doesn't add value in this building for the next year, I'm okay with that. But if you don't define the size of the system when you tell me it doesn't add value, then you're implying that it doesn't add value, period. 0:29:43.4 BB: And I say, how do you know that? But this is the thinking, this is what baffles me on the thinking behind Lean and these concepts of non-value-added, value-added activities. I think all activities add value. The only question is where does a value show up? And likewise in Six Sigma quality, which is heavily based on conformist requirements and driving defects to zero, that's defining quality of the parts in isolation. What does that mean, Andrew? Separate. It means separate. Nothing about synchronicity. And so I'm glad you brought that point up because what I...this idea of "together" is throughout the Deming philosophy, a sense of together, defining quality in terms of a relationship. 0:30:31.1 AS: And I remember when I was young, I was working at Pepsi, and they sent me to learn with Dr. Deming. And then I came back, and what I was kind of looking for was tools, thinking that I would...and I came back of course, with something very different, with a new way of thinking. And then I realized that Dr. Deming is so far beyond tools. He's trying to think about how do we optimize this whole system? And once I started learning that about Dr. Deming, I could see the difference. Whereas, you may decide - let's say that you wanna learn about Lean and get a certification in Lean or something like that. 0:31:15.5 AS: Ultimately, you may go down a rabbit hole of a particular tool and become a master in that tool. Nothing wrong with that. But the point is, what is the objective? Who defines the quality? And Dr. Deming clearly stated in the seminars that I was in, and from readings that I've read, that the objective of quality isn't just to improve something in...you could improve something, the quality of something and go out of business. And so there's the bigger objective of it is: how does this serve the needs of our clients? So anyways, that's just some of my memories of those days. 0:31:52.4 BB: Yeah. But you're absolutely right. And the point I'm hoping to bring out in our sessions is: I'm not against tools and techniques. Tools and techniques are incredible. They're time savers, money savers, but let's use them with a sense of connections and relationships. And I agree with you, I've done plenty of seminars where people are coming in - they're all about tools and techniques. Tools and techniques is part of the reason I like to differentiate is to say....and again, I think people are hungrier for tools and techniques. Why? Because I don't think they've come to grips with what concepts and strategies are about. And I'm hoping our listeners can help us...can appreciate that they go together. Tools and techniques are about efficiency, doing things faster, doing things cheaper. Concepts and strategies are about doing the right thing. Ackoff would say "doing the right thing right." And short of that, we end up using tools to make things worse. And that's what I'm hoping people can avoid through the insights we can share from Dr. Deming. 0:33:05.4 AS: And I would say that, would it be the case that applying tools, and tools and techniques is kind of easy? You learn how they work, you practice with them, you measure, you give feedback, but actually going to figure out how we optimize this overall system is just so much harder. It's a complex situation, and I can imagine that there's some people that would retreat to tools and techniques and I saw it in the factory at Pepsi when people would basically just say, "well, I'm just doing my thing." That's it, 'cause it's too much trouble to go out and try to negotiate all of this with everybody. 0:33:50.7 BB: I think in part, I think as long as they're managing parts in isolation, which is the prevailing system of management, then, I agree with you. Becoming aware of interdependencies in the greater system, and I'll also point out is whatever system you're looking at is part of a bigger system, and then again, bigger system, then again, bigger system. What you define is the whole, is part of a bigger system. No matter how you define it, it's part of a bigger system because time goes to infinity. So your 10-year plan, well, why not a 20-year plan? Why not a 30-year plan? So no matter how big a system you look at, there is a bigger system. So let's not get overwhelmed. Let's take a system, which Ackoff would say, take a system which is not too big that you can't manage it, not too small, that you're not really giving it the good effort, but don't lose sight of whatever system you're looking at - you'll begin to realize it is actually bigger than that. Again, what Dr. Deming would say, the bigger the system, the more complicated, which is where you're coming from, but it also offers more opportunities. I think we're so used to tools and techniques. 0:35:14.3 BB: I don't think people have really given thought to the concepts and strategies of Deming's work as opposed to Lean and Six Sigma as being different, which is why I wanted to bring it up with our listeners, because I don't think people are defaulting on the tools. I just don't think they appreciate that concepts and strategies are different than tools and techniques. And I like to have them become aware of that difference and then understand where black-and-white thinking works, where continuum thinking has advantages. There's times to look at things as connected, and then there's times to just move on and make a decision, which is a lot easier because the implications aren't as important. But at least now we get back to choice, be conscious of the choice you're making, and then move on. All right, so also on the list we had, who defines quality? 0:36:09.0 BB: We talked about that. What is meant by good: the requirements are met. Who defines good? Again, if you're looking at Phil Crosby, who defines good? Someone has to set, here are the requirements for being "good." I could be giving a term paper and me saying to the students, this is what "good" means. Next thing I wanted to look at is, "why stop at good?" And, I'm pretty sure we've talked about this. A question I like to ask people is how much time they spend every day in meetings, discussing parts, components, things that are good and going well. And what I find is people don't spend a whole lot of time discussing things that are good and going well. So why do they stop? Why not? Because they're stopping at "good." 0:36:57.1 BB: And that goes back to the black-and-white thinking. They're saying things are "bad" or they're "good." We focus on the bad to make it good, and then we stop at good. Why do we stop at good? Because there's no sense of "better." All right. And what does that mean? So again, we have why stop at good? Why go beyond good? And this is...'cause I think we're talking about really smart people that stop at "good." And I think to better understand what that means, what I like to do is ask people, what's the letter grade required for a company to ship their products to the customer? What letter grade does NASA expect from all their suppliers? And I asked a very senior NASA executive this question years ago. He was the highest ranking NASA executive in the quality field. 0:37:50.5 BB: And I said, "what letter grade do you expect from your contractors?" And he said, A+. A+. And I said, actually, it's not A+. And he is like, "What do you mean?" I said, "actually the letter grade, your requirement is actually D-." And he pushed back at me and I said, what...he says, "well, what do you mean?" I said, "how do you define quality?" And he said, "We define quality as requirements are met. That's what we require." I said, "so you think A+ is the only thing that meets requirements?" He's like, "well, where are you coming from?" I said a pass-fail system, now we get back to category thinking, if it's good or bad, what is good? Good is passing. What is passing? What I explained to him: passing is anything from an A+ down to a D-. 0:38:38.9 BB: And he got a little antsy with me. I said, "well, the alternative is an F, you don't want an F, right?" I said, "well, what you're saying is that you'll take anything but an F and that means your requirements are actually D-." And then when I pushed back and I said, "is a D- the same as an A+?" And he said, "no." I said, "well, that's what I meant earlier" in the conversation with him. And I told him that they weren't interchangeable. So when you begin to realize that black and white quality, Phil Crosby-quality, allows for D minuses to be shipped to customers. Again, in this one way I define quality, I hand it off to you. 'Cause in that world, Andrew, I make the measurement, it's 5.999, it meets requirements, I ship it to you, your only response when you receive it is to say, "thank you." [laughter] 0:39:33.2 BB: For a D minus, right? Well, when you begin to understand relationship quality, then you begin to understand that to improve the relationship, what's behind improving the relationship, Andrew, is shifting from the D- to the A. And what does that mean? What that means is, when I pay attention to your ability to receive what I give you, whether it's the pass or the information, the more synchronously I can provide that, the letter grade is going up, [laughter] and it continues to go up. Now, again, what I'm hoping is that the effort I'm taking to provide you with the A is worthwhile. But that's how you can have continuous improvement, is stop...not stopping at the D minus. 0:40:17.6 BB: Again, there may be situations where D minus is all you really need, but I, that's not me delivering to you a D minus blindly. That's you saying to me, "Hey, I don't need an A+ over here. All I really need is a D minus." That's teamwork, Andrew. So on the one hand, and what I think is, our listeners may not appreciate it, is who defines the letter grade? So in your organization, I would say to people, you give everyone a set of requirements to go meet, what letter grade does each of them has to meet to hand off to a coworker, to another coworker, to a customer? Every single one of those people, all they have to do if they're feeling disenfranchised, as you mentioned earlier, they're feeling like an interchangeable part, well, under those circumstances, Andrew, I don't have to call you up, I just deliver a D minus. And you can't complain because I've met the requirements. 0:41:14.2 BB: So what I think it could be a little scary is to realize, what if everybody in the company comes to work tomorrow feeling no dignity in work and decides to hand off the minimum on every requirement, how does that help? And what I find exciting by Deming's work is that Dr. Deming understood that how people are treated affects their willingness to look up, pay attention to the person they're receiving and deliver to them the appropriate letter grade. So I'm hoping that helps our audience understand that if it's a black and white system, then we're saying that it's good or it's bad. What that misses is, keyword Andrew, variation in good. So the opportunities to improve when we realize that there's a range, that "good" has variation. Another point I wanna make is, what allows the Deming philosophy to go beyond looking good? 0:42:16.2 BB: Well, if you look at the last chapter 10, I think, yeah, chapter 10 of the New Economics is...like the last six pages of the New Economics is all about Dr. Taguchi's work, and it's what Dr. Deming learned from Dr. Taguchi about this very thought of looking at quality in terms of relationships, not just in isolation, Phil Crosby-style meeting requirements. And the last thing I wanna throw out is I was listening to a interview with Russ Ackoff earlier today, and he gave the three steps to being creative. This is a lecture he gave at Rocketdyne years ago. And he said, the first thing is you have to discover self-limiting constraints. Second, you have to remove the constraint. And third, you have to exploit that removal. And what I want to close on is what Deming is talking about is the self-limiting constraint is when we stop at good. [laughter] 0:43:20.7 BB: And I'm hoping that this episode provides more insights as to the self-imposed constraint within our organizations to stop at "good." What happens when we go beyond that? And how do you go beyond that? By looking at how others receive your work and then expand that others and expand that others and expand that others. And then what I find exciting is, and the work I do with students and with clients is, how can we exploit every day that idea of synchronicity of quality, and not looking at quality from a category perspective? Again, unless that's all that's needed in that situation. So I don't want to throw out category thinking, use category thinking where it makes sense, use continuum thinking where it makes sense. So that's what I wanted to close with. 0:44:12.1 AS: Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'm gonna leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, and it's very appropriate for the discussion that we've had today. "People are entitled to joy in work."  

In this episode, I chat with Hannah Pittard about her new book, We Are Too Many, styles of writing, divorce, and teaching.Hannah Pittard is the author of four novels and a forthcoming memoir.  Her books have been recommended by the New York Times; Chicago Tribune; O, The Oprah Magazine; Time; The Guardian; The Washington Post; Belletrist; Powell's Indie subscription club; The Indie Next List; and the signed First Edition Club at Harvard Bookstore. She is a winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a MacDowell Colony Fellow, and a graduate of Deerfield Academy, the University of Chicago, and the University of Virginia. She also spent some time at St. John's College in Annapolis. She is a Professor of English at the University of Kentucky and lives in Lexington with her boyfriend and stepdaughter. Support the showThe Bookshop PodcastMandy Jackson-BeverlySocial Media Links

If something is "good" is that good enough? Who decides? In this episode, Bill and Andrew discuss how people define "good," what interchangeability has to do with morale, and the problem with a "merit-based" culture. Bonus: Bill gives us a short history lesson on how Americans became the first to manufacture using interchangeable parts even though the originator was a Frenchman. 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. The topic for today is, Deming Distinctions: Beyond Looking Good. Bill, take it away.   0:00:30.4 Bill Bellows: Funny you mentioned that. You remind me that I've been at this for over 30 years, and coming up in July, I'll be celebrating 40 years of marriage. Like 30 years, 40, where do these numbers come from?   0:00:44.5 AS: Okay. Yeah. Who defines quality in a marriage, Bill?   0:00:47.0 BB: Alright.   0:00:50.8 AS: Okay, we won't go there. Take us, take it away.   0:00:52.2 BB: We won't go there. So we are gonna talk about who defines quality, and to get into "beyond looking good." As I shared with you, I've listened to each of the podcasts a few times. And before we get into who defines quality, I just wanna provide clarification on some of the things that came up in the first five episodes. And so, one, and I think these are kind of in order, but if they're not in order, okay, well, I made reference to black-and-white thinking versus shades-of-gray thinking. And I called black-and-white thinking - black and white data - category data, and the word I was searching for that just wasn't coming out was attribute data. So for those who are keeping score, attribute data is probably the most relevant statistician term in that regard.   0:01:44.9 BB: Attribute data versus variable data. And what I've made reference to, and we'll talk more in a future session, is looking at things in terms of categories. And categories are black and white, or it could be red, yellow, green, that's three categories, or looking at things on a continuum. So I'm still excited by the difference that comes about by understanding when we're in the black-and-white mode or the category mode or the attribute data mode versus the variable mode, and still have a belief that we can't have continuous improvement or continual improvement if we're stuck in an attribute mode.   0:02:22.9 BB: And more on that later, that's one. I talked about Thomas Jefferson meeting Honoré Blanc and getting excited about the concept of interchangeable parts. And I had the date wrong, that was 1785, if anyone's keeping score there. He was ambassador to France from 1785 to 1789, but it was in 1792 that he wrote a letter to John Jay, who was a...I think he was a Commerce Secretary. Anyway, he was in the administration of Washington and shared the idea. I was doing some research earlier and found out that even with the headstart that Blanc had in France, 'cause back in 1785, Jefferson was invited to this pretty high level meeting in Paris where Blanc took a, I guess, like the trigger mechanism of 50 different rifles. Not the entire rifle, but just the...let's just call it the trigger mechanism with springs and whatnot. And he took the 50 apart and he put all the springs in one box, all the other pieces in their respective boxes and then shook the boxes up and showed that he could just randomly pull a given spring, a given part, and put 'em all together. And that got Jefferson excited. And the...what it meant for Jefferson and the French was not just that you can repair rifles in the battlefield quickly.   0:03:56.9 BB: Now, what it meant for jobs in France was a really big deal, because what the French were liking was all the time it took to repair those guns with craftsmanship, and Blanc alienated a whole bunch of gunsmiths as a result of that. And it turns out, Blanc's effort didn't really go anywhere because there was such a pushback from the gunsmiths, the practicing craftsmanship that jobs would be taken away. But it did come to the States. And then in the early 1800s, it became known as the American System of Production. But credit goes back to Blanc. I also made reference to absolute versus relative interchangeability. And I wanna provide a little bit more clarification there, and I just wanna throw out three numbers, and ideally people can write the numbers down, I'll repeat 'em a few times. The first number is 5.001, second number is 5.999, and the third number is 6.001. So it's 5.001, 5.999, 6.001. And some of what I'm gonna explain will come up again later, but...so this will tie in pretty well. So, what I've been doing is I'll write those three words on the whiteboard or throw them on a screen, and I'll call...   0:05:28.9 AS: Those three numbers.   0:05:31.4 BB: A, B, and C. And I'll say, which two of the three are closest to being the same? And sure enough people will say the 5.999 and the 6.001, which is like B and C. And I say that's the most popular answer, but it's not the only answer. People are like, "well, what other answer are there?" Well, it could be A and C, 5.001 and 6.001, both end in 001. Or it could be the first two, A and B, 5.001 and 5.999. So what I like to point out is, if somebody answers 5.999 and 6.001, then when I say to them, "what is your definition of same?"   0:06:14.9 BB: 'Cause the question is, which two of the three are close to being the same? And it turns out there's three explanations of "same." There's same: they begin with five, there's same: they end in 001. And there's same in terms of proximity to each other. So I just wanna throw that out. Well, then a very common definition of "quality" is to say, does something meet requirements? And that's the black-and-white thinking. I've also explained in the past that requirements are not set in absolute terms. The meeting must start at exactly 1:00, or the thickness must be exactly one inch. What I've explained is that the one inch will have a plus or minus on it. And so let's say the plus and minus gives us two requirements, a minimum of five and a maximum of six. Well, then that means the 5.001 meets requirements and the 5.999 meets requirements.   0:07:15.4 BB: And so in terms of defining quality, in terms of meeting requirements, A and B are both good. And then what about the 5.999 and the 6.001? Well, those numbers are on opposite sides of the upper requirement of six. One's just a little bit to the left and one's a little bit to the right. Then I would ask people, and for some of you, this'll ring - I think you'll be smiling - and I would say to people, "What happens in manufacturing if, Andrew, if I come up with a measurement and it's 6.001?" Okay, relative to defining quality as "meeting requirements," 6.001 does not meet requirements. So what I'll ask people is, "what would a non-Deming company do with a 6.001?" And people will say, "We're gonna take a file out, we're gonna work on it, we're gonna hit it with a hammer." And I say, "No, too much work." And they say, "Well, what's the answer?" "We're gonna measure it again."   0:08:25.7 AS: Until we get it right.   0:08:27.7 BB: We will measure it until we get it right. We will change the room temperature. We will take the easiest path. So then I said, get people to realize, they're like, yeah, that's what we do. We measure the 6.001 again. Well, then I say, "Well Andrew, why don't we measure the 5.001 again?" And what's the answer to that, Andrew? [laughter]   0:08:51.5 AS: 4.999. [laughter]   0:08:54.7 BB: But what's interesting is, we'll measure the 6.001 again. But we won't measure the 5.001 again. We won't measure the 5.999 again. And so to me, this reinforces that when we define quality as "meeting requirements," that what we're essentially saying in terms of absolute interchangeability, what we're pretending is that there's no difference between the 5.001 and the 5.999. At opposite ends, we're saying that Blanc would find them to be interchangeable, and putting all the things together. I don't think so.   0:09:36.7 BB: I think there's a greater chance that he'd find negligible difference between the 5.999 and the 6.001. And that's what I mean by relative interchangeability, that the difference between B and C is nothing, that's relative interchangeability. The closer they are together, the more alike they are in terms of how they're integrated into the gun, into the rifle, into the downstream product. And I just throw out that what defining quality as "requirements" is saying is that the first two are...the person downstream can't tell the difference. Then I challenge, I think there's...in terms of not telling the difference, I think between 5.999 and 6.001, that difference is minuscule cause they are relatively interchangeable. The other two are implied to be absolutely interchangeable. And that I challenge, that's why I just want to throw that out. All right, another thing I want...go ahead, Andrew.   0:10:38.3 AS: One of the things I just highlight is, I remember from my political science classes at Long Beach State where I studied was The Communist Manifesto came out in 1848. And Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were talking about the alienation of the worker. And what you're talking about is the kind of, the crushing of the craftsmen through interchangeable parts that was a lot like AI coming along and destroying something. And after 50 or 60 or 70 years of interchangeable parts, along comes The Communist Manifesto with the idea that when a person is just dealing with interchangeable parts, basically they're just a cog in the wheel and they have no connection to the aim of what's going on. They don't have any connection, and all of a sudden you lose the craftsmanship or the care for work. And I think that the reason why this is interesting is because that's, I think, a huge part of what Dr. Deming was trying to bring was bring back...it may not be craftsmanship for creating a shoe if you were a shoemaker, but it would be craftsmanship for producing the best you could for the part that you're playing in an ultimate aim of the system.   0:12:02.6 BB: Yes. And yes, and we'll talk more about that. That's brilliant. What you said also reminds me, and I don't think you and I spoke about it, you'll remind me. But have I shared with you the work of a Harvard philosopher by the name of Michael Sandel?   0:12:24.3 AS: I don't recall.   0:12:27.0 BB: He may be, yeah, from a distance, one of the most famous Harvard professors alive today. He's got a course on justice, which is I think 15 two- or three-hour lectures, which were recorded by public television in Boston. Anyway, he wrote a book at the beginning of the pandemic. It came out, it's called The Tyranny of Merit.   0:12:54.0 BB: And "merit" is this belief that "I did it all by myself." That "I deserve what I have because I made it happen. I had no help from you, Andrew. I had no help from the government. I didn't need the education system, the transportation system. I didn't need NASA research. I made it happen all by myself." And he said, what that belief does is it allows those who are successful to claim that they did it by themselves. It allows them to say those who didn't have only themselves to blame. And he sees that as a major destructive force in society, that belief. And I see it tied very well to Deming. Let me give you one anecdote. Dr. Deming was interviewed by Priscilla Petty for The Deming of America documentary, which was absolutely brilliant.   0:13:49.8 BB: And she's at his home, and he's sharing with her the medal he got from the Emperor of Japan, and he's holding it carefully, and I think he gives it to her, and she's looking at it, and she says to him something like, so what did it mean to you to receive that? And he said, "I was lucky. I made a contribution." He didn't say I did it all by myself. He was acknowledging that he was in the right place at the right time to make a contribution. And that's where Sandel is also heavily on, is don't deny the role of being born at the right time in the right situation, which is a greater system in which we are. Well, for one of the college courses, I was watching an interview between Sandel and one of his former students.   0:14:48.1 BB: And the point Sandel made that I wanted to bring up based on what you just said, he says, "what we really need to do is get people dignity in work." And that's what you're talking about, is allowing them to have pride in work, dignity in work instead of as they're making interchangeable parts, having them feel like an interchangeable part. And I'm really glad you brought that up because when we talk later about letter grades, I would bring back one of the reasons I find Deming's work astounding, is that he takes into account psychology in a way that I hope our listeners will really take heart to in a deeper way.   0:15:30.2 AS: And so for the listeners out there, just to reinforce, the book is called The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good. Published in 2020 by Michael Sandel. And the ratings on Amazon is 4.5 out of five with about 2,446 ratings. So it's a pretty well-rated book I'd say. And looks interesting. Now you got me wanting to read that one.   0:15:57.0 BB: Oh what I'll do is I'll send you a... Well, what I encourage our listeners to do is find the interview... Harvard Bookstore did an interview in 2020, 2021, with Michael Sandel being interviewed by his former student by the name of Preet Bharara. [laughter] Who used to be the...   0:16:24.3 AS: SEC...   0:16:24.4 BB: Head of these...no, well, he prosecuted a number of people for SEC crimes, but he headed the Justice Department's long oldest district, which is known as SDNY or the Southern District of New York. And so he was a...in one of the first classes his freshman year at Harvard, Preet Bharara's freshman year at Havard was one of Sandel's first years. And so they had an incredible conversation. So I would encourage the listeners to...   0:16:51.8 AS: Yeah, it's titled: Michael J Sandel with Preet Bharara at Harvard. And the channel is called Harvard Bookstore.   0:16:58.6 BB: Yes, absolutely. All right. So another topic I want to get to in terms of clarification and key points, last time we talked about tools and techniques and what I'm not sure I made much about.... First of all, I just wanna really reinforce that tools and techniques are not concepts and strategies. Tools are like a garden tool I use to dig a hole. Technique is how I go about using it, cleaning it, and whatnot. Not to be confused from a concept...and what is concept? We talked about last time is a concept is an abstract idea and a strategy is how do we apply it? So tools and techniques within Six Sigma quality could be control charts, could be design of experiments. And all, by the way, you're gonna find those tools and techniques within the Deming community. So it's not to say the tools and techniques are the differentiator.   0:17:50.8 BB: I think the concepts and strategies are the differentiators, but I don't wanna downplay tools. Lean has tools in terms of value streams, and you won't find value streams per se in Dr. Deming's work. Dr. Deming looks in terms of production viewed as a system. In a later session, I want to talk about value streams versus Deming's work. But I just wanna point out that I find it...it's easy to get lost in the weeds with all we find within Lean, Six Sigma, Deming and whatnot. And this is why last time I wanted to focus on tools and techniques as separate from concepts and strategies. And what I think we did speak about last time, again, for just as a reminder, is what's unique that we both enjoy with Dr. Deming's work is that KPIs are not caused by individual departments, assigned to individual departments.   0:18:46.0 BB: KPIs are viewed as measures of the overall system. And if you assign the KPIs across the organization and give every different function their own KPI, what you're likely to find - not likely - what you WILL find is that those assigned KPIs are interfering with others' abilities to get their KPIs met. And in the Deming philosophy, you don't have that problem because you understand that things are interdependent, not independent. And so I just wanna close by saying what I find in Deming's work to be most enlightening is this sense of "what does it mean to look at something as a system?" And it means everything is connected to everything else. When you define quality in terms of saying "this is good because it meets requirements," what you've just said is, "this is good in isolation." Whether it's the pass from the quarterback to the wide receiver, saying the pass met requirements.   0:19:52.0 BB: What I think Dr. Deming would ask is, "is the ball catchable?" [laughter] And yet, what I've seen in my aerospace experience is parts being measured for airplanes in Australia that they meet requirements because the measurements are taken early in the morning before the sun has had a chance to heat the part up. And we get the 6.001 is now 5.999. You know what that means, Andrew? It's - we can now ship it.   [laughter]   0:20:23.9 BB: And send it off to America for some airplane factory.   0:20:26.2 AS: When we shipped it, that's what it was.   0:20:28.9 BB: Exactly. And so, again, interdependence is everything. Go ahead, Andrew.   0:20:34.6 AS: I wanted to point on, there's a company in Thailand that really has gotten on the KPI bandwagon, and I was talking with some people that work there, and they were just talking about how they've been rolling out the KPIs for the last couple of years and down to the number of seconds that you're on the phone and everything that you do is tracked now. And then I just witnessed that company basically use that KPI as a way to basically knock out a whole group of people that they were trying to get rid of by coming in with tight KPIs and then saying, "you're not keeping up with 'em and therefore you're out." And I just thought...and the manager that was involved I was talking to, you could just see, he saw how KPI can just be weaponized for the purposes of the senior management when you're doing KPIs of individuals. And the thing that I was thinking about is, imagine the CEO of that company in a couple of years, in a couple of months, they happen to listen to this podcast, or they pick up a book of Dr. Deming and they think, "Oh my God, what did I just do over the last five years implementing KPIs down to the individual level?" [laughter]   0:21:48.5 BB: Oh, yeah. And that's what we talked about last time is...as I told you, I had a friend of a friend who's worked for Xerox, and he said there wasn't a KPI that was flowed down that they couldn't find a way to beat. And that's what happens, and you end up getting things done, but what's missing is: at whose expense? All right. So we talked about...now, let's get into beyond looking good, Deming distinctions. Who defines quality? Well, from Philip Crosby's perspective, quality's defined by the...it could be the designer. The designer puts a set of requirements on the component, whatever it is. The unit, the requirements have latitude we talked about. They're not exact. There's a minimum of six, a maximum of...or a minimum of five, maximum of six.   0:22:48.8 BB: There's a range you have to meet, is the traditional view of quality. And in my 30 years of experience, I've not seen quality defined any other way than that. It has to be in between these two values. Sometimes it has to be five or below or six or above, but there's a range. But also what we talked about last time is Dr. Deming said "a product or service possesses quality if it helps someone and enjoys a sustainable market." But what I found profound about that definition, it is not me defining quality and saying, "Andrew, the parts met requirements when I threw it. Now, it's your job to catch it." It's me saying, "I've thrown the ball and you tell me, how did I do? You tell me how did I do?" And if you said, "Bill, if you throw it just a little bit higher, a little bit further out, a little bit faster," that's about synchronicity. Now, I'm realizing that my ability to throw the ball doesn't really matter if you can't catch it. So if I practice in the off season, throwing it faster and faster, but don't clue you in, until the first game, how's that helping? So I've got a KPI to throw it really, really hard. And you're thinking, "how's that helping?" So that's...   0:24:19.9 AS: And can you just go back to that for a second? Quality is on a product or service, you were saying that how Dr. Deming defined that, it helps someone...   0:24:26.7 BB: Yeah. Dr. Deming said "a product or service possesses quality if it helps someone and enjoys a sustainable market." And so my interpretation of that is two things. One is, it's not me delivering a report and saying the report met requirements. It's saying, "I get the report to you, and I ask Andrew, how did I do?" And then you say to me, "I had some problem with this section, I had some problem...." But the important thing is that you become the judge of the quality of the report, not me. And it could be information I provide you with in a lecture. It's you letting me know as a student that you had a hard time with the examples. And I'm thinking, "well, I did a great job." So it's not what I think as the producer handing off to you. It's you giving me the feedback. So quality is not a one-way...in fact, first of all, quality's not defined by the producer. It's defined by the recipients saying, "I love this or not." And so that's one thing I wanna say, and does it enjoy a sustainable market? What I talked about in the past is my interpretation of that is, if I'm bending over backwards to provide incredible quality at an incredible price, and I'm going outta business, then it may be great for you, but it may not be great for me. So it has to be mutually beneficial. I just wanna... Go ahead, Andrew.   0:26:03.1 AS: You referenced the word synchronicity, which the meaning of that according to the dictionary is that "simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related, but had no discernible causal connection." What were you meaning when you were saying synchronicity? Is it this that now you're communicating with the part of the process ahead of you, and they're communicating back to you and all of a sudden you're starting to really work together? Is that what you mean by that?   0:26:33.1 BB: Yeah. When I think of synchronicity, I'm thinking of the fluidity of watching a basketball game where I'm throwing blind passes to the left and to the right and to the observer in the stands are thinking: holy cow. That's what I'm talking about, is the ability that we're sharing information just like those passes in a basketball game where you're...I mean I cannot do that without being incredibly mindful of where you are, what information you need. That's what I meant. That's what I mean. As opposed to - I wait until the number is less than...I'm out there in the hot sun. I get the measurement, 6.001, no, no, no, wait. Now it's five. Where's the synchronicity in that? Am I concerned about how this is helping you, or am I concerned about how do I get this off my plate onto the next person? And I'd also say...   0:27:32.6 AS: Yep. And another word I was thinking about is coordination, the organization of the different elements of a complex body or activity so as to enable them to work together efficiently. You could also say that the state of flow or something like that?   0:27:48.7 BB: I'm glad you brought up the word "together." The big deal is: am I defining quality in a vacuum, or am I doing it with some sense of how this is being used? Which is also something we got into, I think in the, one of the very first podcasts, and you asked me what could our audience...give me an example of how the audience could use this. And I said you're delivering a report to the person down the street, around the corner. Go find out how they use it. I use the example of providing data for my consulting company to my CPA, and I called 'em up one day and I said, "how do you use this information? Maybe I can get it to you in an easier form." That's together. I mean relationships, we talked earlier about marriage, relationships are based on the concept of together, not separate, together. Saying something is good, without understanding how it's used is not about "together." It's about "separate."   0:28:54.1 BB: And so what I find is, in Lean, we look at: how can we get rid of the non-value-added tasks? Who defines value? Or I could say, and Lean folks will talk about the...they'll say this: "eliminate things that don't add value." My response to them is, if you tell me that this activity does not provide value in this room for the next hour, I'm okay with that. If you tell me this activity doesn't add value in this building for the next year, I'm okay with that. But if you don't define the size of the system when you tell me it doesn't add value, then you're implying that it doesn't add value, period.   0:29:43.4 BB: And I say, how do you know that? But this is the thinking, this is what baffles me on the thinking behind Lean and these concepts of non-value-added, value-added activities. I think all activities add value. The only question is where does a value show up? And likewise in Six Sigma quality, which is heavily based on conformist requirements and driving defects to zero, that's defining quality of the parts in isolation. What does that mean, Andrew? Separate. It means separate. Nothing about synchronicity. And so I'm glad you brought that point up because what I...this idea of "together" is throughout the Deming philosophy, a sense of together, defining quality in terms of a relationship.   0:30:31.1 AS: And I remember when I was young, I was working at Pepsi, and they sent me to learn with Dr. Deming. And then I came back, and what I was kind of looking for was tools, thinking that I would...and I came back of course, with something very different, with a new way of thinking. And then I realized that Dr. Deming is so far beyond tools. He's trying to think about how do we optimize this whole system? And once I started learning that about Dr. Deming, I could see the difference. Whereas, you may decide - let's say that you wanna learn about Lean and get a certification in Lean or something like that.   0:31:15.5 AS: Ultimately, you may go down a rabbit hole of a particular tool and become a master in that tool. Nothing wrong with that. But the point is, what is the objective? Who defines the quality? And Dr. Deming clearly stated in the seminars that I was in, and from readings that I've read, that the objective of quality isn't just to improve something in...you could improve something, the quality of something and go out of business. And so there's the bigger objective of it is: how does this serve the needs of our clients? So anyways, that's just some of my memories of those days.   0:31:52.4 BB: Yeah. But you're absolutely right. And the point I'm hoping to bring out in our sessions is: I'm not against tools and techniques. Tools and techniques are incredible. They're time savers, money savers, but let's use them with a sense of connections and relationships. And I agree with you, I've done plenty of seminars where people are coming in - they're all about tools and techniques. Tools and techniques is part of the reason I like to differentiate is to say....and again, I think people are hungrier for tools and techniques. Why? Because I don't think they've come to grips with what concepts and strategies are about. And I'm hoping our listeners can help us...can appreciate that they go together. Tools and techniques are about efficiency, doing things faster, doing things cheaper. Concepts and strategies are about doing the right thing. Ackoff would say "doing the right thing right." And short of that, we end up using tools to make things worse. And that's what I'm hoping people can avoid through the insights we can share from Dr. Deming.   0:33:05.4 AS: And I would say that, would it be the case that applying tools, and tools and techniques is kind of easy? You learn how they work, you practice with them, you measure, you give feedback, but actually going to figure out how we optimize this overall system is just so much harder. It's a complex situation, and I can imagine that there's some people that would retreat to tools and techniques and I saw it in the factory at Pepsi when people would basically just say, "well, I'm just doing my thing." That's it, 'cause it's too much trouble to go out and try to negotiate all of this with everybody.   0:33:50.7 BB: I think in part, I think as long as they're managing parts in isolation, which is the prevailing system of management, then, I agree with you. Becoming aware of interdependencies in the greater system, and I'll also point out is whatever system you're looking at is part of a bigger system, and then again, bigger system, then again, bigger system. What you define is the whole, is part of a bigger system. No matter how you define it, it's part of a bigger system because time goes to infinity. So your 10-year plan, well, why not a 20-year plan? Why not a 30-year plan? So no matter how big a system you look at, there is a bigger system. So let's not get overwhelmed. Let's take a system, which Ackoff would say, take a system which is not too big that you can't manage it, not too small, that you're not really giving it the good effort, but don't lose sight of whatever system you're looking at - you'll begin to realize it is actually bigger than that. Again, what Dr. Deming would say, the bigger the system, the more complicated, which is where you're coming from, but it also offers more opportunities. I think we're so used to tools and techniques.   0:35:14.3 BB: I don't think people have really given thought to the concepts and strategies of Deming's work as opposed to Lean and Six Sigma as being different, which is why I wanted to bring it up with our listeners, because I don't think people are defaulting on the tools. I just don't think they appreciate that concepts and strategies are different than tools and techniques. And I like to have them become aware of that difference and then understand where black-and-white thinking works, where continuum thinking has advantages. There's times to look at things as connected, and then there's times to just move on and make a decision, which is a lot easier because the implications aren't as important. But at least now we get back to choice, be conscious of the choice you're making, and then move on. All right, so also on the list we had, who defines quality?   0:36:09.0 BB: We talked about that. What is meant by good: the requirements are met. Who defines good? Again, if you're looking at Phil Crosby, who defines good? Someone has to set, here are the requirements for being "good." I could be giving a term paper and me saying to the students, this is what "good" means. Next thing I wanted to look at is, "why stop at good?" And, I'm pretty sure we've talked about this. A question I like to ask people is how much time they spend every day in meetings, discussing parts, components, things that are good and going well. And what I find is people don't spend a whole lot of time discussing things that are good and going well. So why do they stop? Why not? Because they're stopping at "good."   0:36:57.1 BB: And that goes back to the black-and-white thinking. They're saying things are "bad" or they're "good." We focus on the bad to make it good, and then we stop at good. Why do we stop at good? Because there's no sense of "better." All right. And what does that mean? So again, we have why stop at good? Why go beyond good? And this is...'cause I think we're talking about really smart people that stop at "good." And I think to better understand what that means, what I like to do is ask people, what's the letter grade required for a company to ship their products to the customer? What letter grade does NASA expect from all their suppliers? And I asked a very senior NASA executive this question years ago. He was the highest ranking NASA executive in the quality field.   0:37:50.5 BB: And I said, "what letter grade do you expect from your contractors?" And he said, A+. A+. And I said, actually, it's not A+. And he is like, "What do you mean?" I said, "actually the letter grade, your requirement is actually D-." And he pushed back at me and I said, what...he says, "well, what do you mean?" I said, "how do you define quality?" And he said, "We define quality as requirements are met. That's what we require." I said, "so you think A+ is the only thing that meets requirements?" He's like, "well, where are you coming from?" I said a pass-fail system, now we get back to category thinking, if it's good or bad, what is good? Good is passing. What is passing? What I explained to him: passing is anything from an A+ down to a D-.   0:38:38.9 BB: And he got a little antsy with me. I said, "well, the alternative is an F, you don't want an F, right?" I said, "well, what you're saying is that you'll take anything but an F and that means your requirements are actually D-." And then when I pushed back and I said, "is a D- the same as an A+?" And he said, "no." I said, "well, that's what I meant earlier" in the conversation with him. And I told him that they weren't interchangeable. So when you begin to realize that black and white quality, Phil Crosby-quality, allows for D minuses to be shipped to customers. Again, in this one way I define quality, I hand it off to you. 'Cause in that world, Andrew, I make the measurement, it's 5.999, it meets requirements, I ship it to you, your only response when you receive it is to say, "thank you."   [laughter]   0:39:33.2 BB: For a D minus, right? Well, when you begin to understand relationship quality, then you begin to understand that to improve the relationship, what's behind improving the relationship, Andrew, is shifting from the D- to the A. And what does that mean? What that means is, when I pay attention to your ability to receive what I give you, whether it's the pass or the information, the more synchronously I can provide that, the letter grade is going up, [laughter] and it continues to go up. Now, again, what I'm hoping is that the effort I'm taking to provide you with the A is worthwhile. But that's how you can have continuous improvement, is stop...not stopping at the D minus.   0:40:17.6 BB: Again, there may be situations where D minus is all you really need, but I, that's not me delivering to you a D minus blindly. That's you saying to me, "Hey, I don't need an A+ over here. All I really need is a D minus." That's teamwork, Andrew. So on the one hand, and what I think is, our listeners may not appreciate it, is who defines the letter grade? So in your organization, I would say to people, you give everyone a set of requirements to go meet, what letter grade does each of them has to meet to hand off to a coworker, to another coworker, to a customer? Every single one of those people, all they have to do if they're feeling disenfranchised, as you mentioned earlier, they're feeling like an interchangeable part, well, under those circumstances, Andrew, I don't have to call you up, I just deliver a D minus. And you can't complain because I've met the requirements.   0:41:14.2 BB: So what I think it could be a little scary is to realize, what if everybody in the company comes to work tomorrow feeling no dignity in work and decides to hand off the minimum on every requirement, how does that help? And what I find exciting by Deming's work is that Dr. Deming understood that how people are treated affects their willingness to look up, pay attention to the person they're receiving and deliver to them the appropriate letter grade. So I'm hoping that helps our audience understand that if it's a black and white system, then we're saying that it's good or it's bad. What that misses is, keyword Andrew, variation in good. So the opportunities to improve when we realize that there's a range, that "good" has variation. Another point I wanna make is, what allows the Deming philosophy to go beyond looking good?   0:42:16.2 BB: Well, if you look at the last chapter 10, I think, yeah, chapter 10 of the New Economics is...like the last six pages of the New Economics is all about Dr. Taguchi's work, and it's what Dr. Deming learned from Dr. Taguchi about this very thought of looking at quality in terms of relationships, not just in isolation, Phil Crosby-style meeting requirements. And the last thing I wanna throw out is I was listening to a interview with Russ Ackoff earlier today, and he gave the three steps to being creative. This is a lecture he gave at Rocketdyne years ago. And he said, the first thing is you have to discover self-limiting constraints. Second, you have to remove the constraint. And third, you have to exploit that removal. And what I want to close on is what Deming is talking about is the self-limiting constraint is when we stop at good.   [laughter]   0:43:20.7 BB: And I'm hoping that this episode provides more insights as to the self-imposed constraint within our organizations to stop at "good." What happens when we go beyond that? And how do you go beyond that? By looking at how others receive your work and then expand that others and expand that others and expand that others. And then what I find exciting is, and the work I do with students and with clients is, how can we exploit every day that idea of synchronicity of quality, and not looking at quality from a category perspective? Again, unless that's all that's needed in that situation. So I don't want to throw out category thinking, use category thinking where it makes sense, use continuum thinking where it makes sense. So that's what I wanted to close with.   0:44:12.1 AS: Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'm gonna leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, and it's very appropriate for the discussion that we've had today. "People are entitled to joy in work."  

Join indie booksellers Nicole Brinkley, J.T. Greathouse, Lily Rugo, Jean-Paul Garnier and Meg Wasmer for another FanFiAddict roundtable! During the discussion, these five passionate booksellers delve into the ins and outs of Indie Bookstores, exploring the essentials of brick and mortar bookstores/bookselling, being part of a local book community, recommending the right books to customers, developing relationships with publishers/individual authors and more. This is the fourth edition of our monthly ROUNDTABLE series, where we bring a handful of authors together to discuss a topic related to SF/F/H, writing craft, publishing and more. SUPPORT THE SHOW: - ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠ (for exclusive bonus episodes, author readings, book giveaways and more) - ⁠⁠Merch shop⁠⁠ (for a selection of tees, tote bags, mugs, notebooks and more) - Subscribe to the ⁠⁠FanFiAddict YouTube channel⁠⁠, where this and every other episode of the show is available in full video - Rate and review SFF Addicts on your platform of choice, and share us with your friends EMAIL US WITH YOUR QUESTIONS & COMMENTS: ⁠⁠sffaddictspod@gmail.com⁠⁠ ABOUT THE PANELISTS: Nicole Brinkley is a writer, podcaster and bookseller at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY. Find Nicole on Instagram, her personal website or Oblong Books. J.T. Greathouse is the author of the Pact and Pattern fantasy series, as well as a bookseller at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA. Find J.T. on Twitter, Amazon, his personal website or Auntie's Bookstore. Lily Rugo is a bookseller at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA, as well as podcaster and blogger. Find Lily on Twitter, her personal website or Harvard Book Store. Jean-Paul Garnier is a science fiction author/poet, producer of the Simultaneous Times podcast and owner of Space Cowboy Bookstore in Joshua Tree, CA. Find Jean-Paul on Twitter or Space Cowboy Bookstore. Meg Wasmer is the co-owner of Copper Dog Books in Beverly, MA. Find Meg on Instagram or Copper Dog Books. FOLLOW SFF ADDICTS: ⁠⁠FanFiAddict Book Blog⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ MUSIC: Intro: "⁠⁠Into The Grid⁠⁠" by MellauSFX Outro: “⁠⁠Galactic Synthwave⁠⁠” by Divion --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sff-addicts/message

Listen in to organizer and author Ellen Cassedy as she shares the inspiration for her new book: "Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, A Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie." Ellen brings 50 years of strategic thinking to the table in an energizing conversation! At the heart of the successful 9 to 5 labor organizing movement, women built strong networks of relationships between people with shared concerns and vision. Find out how! Great tips for activists! For more information about Ellen, visit her website: https://ellencassedy.com/ For more information about the Feminist Action Team in Massachusetts, and upcoming actions, email us at BostonRedCloaks@gmail.com For more information about December 8, 2022 author / book event at Harvard Bookstore, visit: https://www.harvard.com/event/ellen_cassedy/ For more information about the documentary "9 to 5" visit: https://www.netflix.com/title/81160953

Join us as we discuss  The Year of Living Danishly, by Helen Russell;  True Biz, by Sara Novic;  How the Word is Passed,  by Clint Smith;  Kaikeyi, by Vaishnavi Patel, and Pilgrims Way, by Abdulrazak Gurnah.To learn more about the books or to purchase - click below!https://bookshop.org/shop/youvegottoreadthisVisit us on our Instagram Page - Click below!https://www.instagram.com/youvegottoreadthispodcast/Visit us on our Facebook Page - Click below!https://www.facebook.com/Youve-Got-to-Read-This-100997165428924Please note - we receive a percentage of each purchase you make on our Bookshop page that goes to support the production of our podcast.

How do anime and television inspire books? How do you use those comparisons to handsell books in bookstores? Should you watch Steins;Gate—and is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood really as good as everybody says? In our second episode of season three, join Lily Rugo from The Harvard Book Store as she sits down in conversation with author Fonda Lee to talk about the sometimes visual nature of fantasy stories and how comparing them with media properties can sell books. SHOP HARVARD BOOK STORE: harvard.com BOOKS & BOBA EPISODE: booksandboba.com/2021/12/15/164-author-chat-w-fonda-lee/ FULL TRANSCRIPTIONS + SHOW NOTES: misshelved.nebrinkley.com SUPPORT US ON PATREON: patreon.com/nebrinkley LEARN MORE ABOUT BOOKS: tinyletter.com/misshelved MORE PLACES TO LISTEN: anchor.fm/misshelvedpod Edited by Rebecca Speas and Nicole Brinkley. Logo by Jean Michel. Music by Mark Shwedow.

Sandro Galea, physician and epidemiologist, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health and the author of The Contagion Next Time (Oxford University Press, 2021) argues that the problems in U.S. public health systems, including racial disparities, predated the pandemic and need to be repaired before the next crisis. →EVENT: Dr. Galea has a virtual book event coming up on Thursday, Nov. 5 at 5 pm via the Harvard Book Store where he'll be in conversation with Arianna Huffington.  

The February Revolution succeeded! Everything is great now! Get tix for Hero of Two Worlds Events! Aug 20 Politics and Prose with Jamelle Bouie Aug 23 Midtown Scholar with Ben Rhodes Aug 24 The Strand with Alexis Coe Aug 31 Harvard Bookstore with Patrick Wyman.

Maybe I should go all PJO and start naming my episodes like clickbait. Huh. Either way, I had a lot of fun book shopping in Boston and wanted to share. The posts about each individual book are yet to come onto my website, but checkout mokshadavaloor.Wordpress.com/books for all my reviews. Don't forget to email me at mokshareviews@gmail.com or send me a voice message --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/moksha-davaloor/message

With a few weeks of summer left to enjoy, we take listener calls and talk about what's on our summer reading lists with Jennifer De Leon, an author and editor of Wise Latinas, and Rachel Cass, head buyer for the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge.

The Duma is about to get a new roommate: The Petrograd Soviet Sign up fast for Hero of Two Worlds Events! Aug 20 Politics and Prose with Jamelle Bouie Aug 23 Midtown Scholar with Ben Rhodes Aug 24 The Strand with Alexis Coe Aug 31 Harvard Bookstore with Patrick Wyman.

Good riddance to Dear Nicky. Sign up fast for Hero of Two Worlds Events! Aug 20 Politics and Prose with Jamelle Bouie Aug 23 Midtown Scholar with Ben Rhodes Aug 24 The Strand with Alexis Coe Aug 31 Harvard Bookstore with Patrick Wyman.

To open this episode I rebroadcast a reading by Anaïs Duplan of his recent new work Blackspace: on the Poetics of an Afrofuture, and which took place through Harvard Book Store's virtual event series in November 2020. Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He has taught poetry at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and St. Joseph's College.  His video works have been exhibited by Flux Factory, Daata Editions, the 13th Baltic Triennial in Lithuania, Mathew Gallery, NeueHouse, the Paseo Project, and will be exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in L.A in 2021.  As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City's artist-run organization Public Space One. He works as Program Manager at Recess. Song featured: Court Of Love  by Durand Jones & The Indications Connect With The Artist This episode first aired June 28, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming Summer, 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

To open this episode I rebroadcast a reading by Anaïs Duplan of his recent new work Blackspace: on the Poetics of an Afrofuture, and which took place through Harvard Book Store's virtual event series in November 2020. Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He has taught poetry at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and St. Joseph's College.  His video works have been exhibited by Flux Factory, Daata Editions, the 13th Baltic Triennial in Lithuania, Mathew Gallery, NeueHouse, the Paseo Project, and will be exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in L.A in 2021.  As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City's artist-run organization Public Space One. He works as Program Manager at Recess. Song featured: Court Of Love  by Durand Jones & The Indications Connect With The Artist This episode first aired June 28, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming Summer, 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

The February Revolution began on International Women's Day Meanwhile...Lafayette Events! Aug 20 Politics and Prose with Jamelle Bouie Aug 23 Midtown Scholar with Ben Rhodes Aug 24 The Strand with Alexis Coe Aug 31 Harvard Bookstore with Patrick Wyman.

Is sex in fiction important for representation? What about fanfiction? Let's talk seeing explicit trans, queer sexual relationships on the page. In this week's Misshelved, listen in as science fiction author K.M. Szpara chats with Harvard Bookstore manager Read Davidson about sex, fanfiction, and The Magicians. SHOP HARVARD: harvard.com FULL TRANSCRIPTIONS + SHOW NOTES: misshelved.nebrinkley.com SUPPORT US ON PATREON: patreon.com/nebrinkley Edited by Nicole Brinkley and Natalie Orozco. Logo by Jean Michel. Music by Mark Shwedow.

Francis Fukuyama er mer bekymret i dag enn han var da han skrev boken The End of History. Dette er et opptak fra Harvard Bookstore 3. mai 2021, der vi hører Fukuyama i samtale med Mathilde Fasting om boken After the End of History. Samtalen foregår på engelsk.

Claire Saffitz in conversation with Julia Turshen about Julia's new cookbook Simply Julia. Thanks to Harvard Bookstore for hosting this conversation!Claire is a freelance recipe developer, author, and video host. Previously, she was Senior Food Editor at Bon Appétit magazine, where she worked for five years in the test kitchen. She hosted the series Gourmet Makes on the Bon Appétit YouTube channel, where she used her classical pastry knowledge to reverse engineer popular snack foods and candy. Claire was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and now lives in New York City. She graduated with honors from Harvard University in 2009, studied classic French cuisine and pastry at École Grégoire Ferrandi in Paris in 2012, and completed her Masters degree in History at McGill University in 2014, where she focused on culinary History in the Early Modern Era. Her first cookbook, Dessert Person, came out in October 2020.Follow-up links:For more about this season's partner, check out BetterThanBouillon.ComTo order a signed copy of Simply Julia  from Oblong Books, head hereFor more about Harvard Bookstore who hosted this conversation, head hereFor over 50 more episodes of Keep Calm and Cook On, head hereFor more about Claire Saffitz, head here 

Two emergency-room physicians, Dr. Jay Baruch and Dr. Rishi Goyal, join our host, Nicholas Dames, to consider how novels can inform the practice of medicine. When a patient enters the ER, they may be experiencing one of the most dramatic moments in their life story. For the doctor, it may be just one of many cases they'll encounter that day. How does narrative affect the way doctors treat patients? And how can reading novels like Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go help medical providers navigate the "narrative disaster zone" of the ER? You can find complete show notes here and purchase books from our independent-bookshop partner, Harvard Book Store, here.

Novelist Heidi Julavits and scholar Leah Price join our host, Nicholas Dames, to consider how novels help us make sense of catastrophe. When Ling Ma's Severance was published in 2018, the idea of an airborne global plague seemed theoretical. In hindsight, it appears eerily prescient. How do novels like Severance guide us to understand our place in historical time—to process events like pandemics alongside the mundanity of everyday working life? You can find complete show notes here and purchase books from our independent-bookshop partner, Harvard Book Store, here.

Novelist Garth Greenwell and scholar Daniel Wright join our host, Nicholas Dames, to consider how novels expand our understanding of sex and intimacy in the digital age. In our image-saturated culture, it can be easy to fixate on a surface while overlooking the consciousness—the thinking, feeling subject—under the (pixelated) skin. How can novels, like Barbara Browning’s The Gift, remind us that bodies are, well, embodied? You can find complete show notes here and purchase books from our independent-bookshop partner, Harvard Book Store, here.

Novelist Elif Batuman and scholar Merve Emre join our host, Nicholas Dames, to consider how novels help us develop an awareness of capitalism, power, and the world we live in. In making pain beautiful, do novels depoliticize us? Or can a novel like Sakaya Murata's Convenience Store Woman help us figure out what freedom looks like? You can find complete show notes here and purchase books from our independent-bookshop partner, Harvard Book Store, here.

Novelist Teju Cole and scholar Tara Menon join our host, Nicholas Dames, to consider how novels inspire readers to wrestle with difficult ideas. From Shelley's Frankenstein to Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, how have novels helped us think more ethically about the world we inhabit? You can find complete show notes here and purchase books from our independent-bookshop partner, Harvard Book Store, here.

Tom's next guest is the acclaimed author Nicole Krauss. She is the author of four novels, including the international bestsellers Forest Dark, Great House, The History of Love, and her debut novel, Man Walks Into a Room. She’s been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Orange Prize, and she a winner of the Saroyan Prize and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France. Last week, on Election Day as it turns out, Harper Collins published Krauss's first collection of short stories. It’s called To Be a Man: Stories. In it, we are introduced to a dazzling array of characters in locales that span the globe from Israel, to Japan, Switzerland, and both coasts of the United States. Nicole Krauss is doing a number of virtual events in which she’ll talk about her new short-story collection. Tonight, she’ll be online with the Free Library of Philadelphia at 7:30. Tomorrow, the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will host an event at 7:00. And she’ll be at an event sponsored by the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California, next Wednesday afternoon at 3:00. [Ticketing fees for the online events cover the purchase of Ms. Krauss's new book.] Nicole Krauss joins Tom on Zoom…

Join me for a conversation with  Robert (Bob) Mattson as he describes his more than 50-year journey with macrobiotics.  Bob describes the year he spent in Oroville, California at the Vega Study Center with teachers Herman and Cornellia Aihara, both health pioneers.  While at Vega, he transcribed the "Morning Tea" sessions with Herman and Cornellia, a time when students and teachers engaged in informal Q&A over morning tea.  Bob shares the pearls of knowledge so freely offered during these sessions including:  "psychological/spiritual healing can occur in an instant while physical healing takes time."  Herman:  "Once a person changes his or her mind and decides to heal, this is the important 'instant' that is the spark that spurs healing."  Herman:  "For our spiritual development, we sometimes have to give up things we really cherish ( like smoking or sugar)."  Bob quotes from Verse 48 - Tao Te Ching – "In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added.  In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped.  Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action.  When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.  True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way.  It can't be gained by interfering."  Bob:  "The world is gained by letting go - when we mature, we discover this is a more peaceful way to live and when we let go, we create the space for new ideas to emerge.  People who eat poorly - their judgment is impacted and rarely are they prepared to let go of old ways of thinking."  Touching upon his current writing project - the vocabulary for a new world constitution - Bob reckons with one planet, one global civilization.  He also speaks about a paper he wrote on microbial life - spurred by his conversations with E.O. Wilson, the prominent biologist and writer who he was chauffering at the time.  Most of us would be satisfied with Wilson's responses to questions posed; Bob however decided to conduct his own research.  He purchased 25 books on microbes from the Harvard Book Store and undertook an extensive research and writing project.  He claims it is no coincidence  that his most recent and current writing projects on microbes and personal rights are perfectly aligned with what the current state of the world -given the pandemic and the erosion of our most precious rights.  I queried as to what he learned in his role as a taxi driver, personal driver and chauffeur to many prominent individuals.  Bob:  "The rich and famous are actually quite ordinary, but caught some lucky breaks.  Many are quite expert in their chosen field, but this brilliance doesn't necessarily permeate to other areas of their lives."  He views one of the keys to a long and fulfilling life to always remain a student, something he learned from Herman Aihara.  Bob:  "By taking up a diet with whole grains and vegetables as primary foods, one stands a chance of undoing the systemic conditioning that we are confronted with early in life and beyond."  He truly adheres to the adage which he has created "whole grains whole brains."  Thank you Bob for an awesome conversation!

One hundred years and one day after the ratification of the 19th Amendment,Martha S. Jones, legal and cultural historian at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (Basic Books, 2020), tells the story of Black women's fight for the vote, still going today against voter suppression efforts. → VIRTUAL EVENTS: On August 26th at 6 PM Eastern Time, Dr. Jones will join the National Archives in conversation about the book to mark the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Click here for more information. And on September 8th at 7 PM Eastern Time, Harvard Book Store will be hosting a virtual talk with Dr. Jones and a special guest.  Both events are FREE with RSVP online.

Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You, chats with Daniel Ford about his new book Cleanness (out today, Jan. 14, from Farrar, Straus and Giroux). To learn more about Garth Greenwell, visit her official website, like his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Greenwell is appearing at the Harvard Book Store tonight at 7 p.m., and he’ll be in conversation with author Stephen McCauley.  Today’s episode is sponsored by Libro.fm, Daniel Ford's Black Coffee, and OneRoom.

Note: This episode discusses sexual abuse.Tracy Strauss's debut memoir, "I Just Haven't Met You Yet," explores her process of healing as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and the pursuit of love in the 21st century. A graduate of Lesley University's MFA in Creative Writing program, Tracy has written extensively on love and dating and her essays have been published in Glamour, New York Magazine, Oprah Magazine, The Millions, Ms. Magazine, The Huffington Post, Salon, Publishers Weekly, Ploughshares, The Rumpus, and other publications."I Just Haven't Met You Yet" was named a hardcover bestseller by Harvard Bookstore and Diesel Bookstore, an Audio File Magazine  2019 Earphones Award Winner, and was selected for Books on the T.For more information on Tracy, visit our episode page. 

Noah Feldman speaks to author and Pushkin co-founder Malcolm Gladwell about his new book "Talking to Strangers" in Boston, MA, at an event organized by the Harvard Bookstore. They discuss everything from spy craft, to the current political climate, to compliment sandwiches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author and journalist Rachel Louise Snyder joins Daniel Ford on Friday Morning Coffee to discuss her new book No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us (out May 7 from Bloomsbury Publishing). Caitlin Malcuit also shares resources victims of domestic violence, or their loved ones, can use, and we recommend generously donating your time or money to these invaluable programs. To learn more about Rachel Louise Snyder, visit her official website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Snyder is appearing at Harvard Bookstore on May 13 at 7 p.m. and will be in conversation with Suzanne Dubus and Andre Dubus III.   Today’s episode is sponsored by Libro.fm, OneRoom, Deliberate Freelancer, and Black Ink Coffee Company.

Author Nathan Englander's latest novel, “kaddish.com,” hits bookstores and online retailers this week. Englander, who has written about challenging Jewish questions in his books “Dinner at the Center of the Earth,” “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” and “New American Haggadah,” introduces us in his latest book to a secular character who has decided to use an online service, kaddish.com, to relieve him of the 11-month obligation of daily kaddish recitations for the spirit of his recently deceased father. This fast-paced novel is part thriller, part morality tale and part exploration of Jewish faith and tradition. From Brooklyn to Jerusalem to a table in the afterlife, “kaddish.com” is a memorable journey that raises key questions of Jewish faith: What obligations do Jewish mourners owe the dead—and the living? In an age of almost limitless innovation, how does technology interact with ancient tradition? In this special episode, Englander reads the first chapter of his book and discusses his work with hosts Miriam and Dan. Englander will be discussing his novel and signing copies at Harvard Book Store on April 1 at 7 p.m.: http://www.harvard.com/event/nathan_englander2 Learn more: https://www.kaddishdotcom.com

BOOK AND PODCAST: "We're describing the ruckus, sir." (1984-1991) How have we not talked about John Hughes? His movies defined what it meant to come of age in the 1980s. But do they continue to ring relevant in this modern age? Or are our memories of these films just misappropriated nostalgia? Such is the question Tim's nervous to ask of today's special guest, author and cultural critic, Kevin Smokler (and ...actually ... it's two questions).00:00:00 PASSABLE INTRO - Tim’s morning voice starts off the show00:02:41 NOT BOB BUT STILL TIM WITH … Kevin Smokler, author of “Brat Pack America: A Love Letter To ‘80s Teen Movies”00:07:34 FILM BUFFER - medium before meaning00:14:01 BRANDING THE ‘90s - and Tim pretends to know “lingua franca”00:24:55 NEW WAVE ROMANTIC - desperately wanting to be in Desperately Seeking Susan00:32:24 POP CULTURE APOCRYPHA - loosing the language of film00:38:02 UNSTUCK IN TIME - and the danger of nostalgia00:44:41 THE BREAKFAST BOOK-CLUB - why write about this00:52:45 THE BREAKFAST BOOK-PLUG - go read “Brat Pack America”00:54:57 CLOSINGS - contacts, plugs and no catchphraseContinue with the conversation Kevin Smokler started by visiting his personal website HERE.Head back to High School via the library with this interview of him discussing ANOTHER book of his HERE.And for a far more intricate and scholarly look at the films of the 1980s, follow the words that make up the sentences in Kevin Smokler's BRAT PACK AMERICA: A LOVE LETTER TO 80S TEEN MOVIES available at your favorite independent bookseller (such as the HARVARD BOOKSTORE) as well as on AMAZON, BARNES AND NOBLE and ITUNES.You can also follow Kevin Smokler on TWITTER @WeegeeThis episode of 20TH CENTURY POPCAST was recorded by ZENCASTR, a high fidelity podcast recording platform that records multiple guests from multiple zip-codes all as if they were in the same room. It was then mastered by AUPHONIC, a web-based post-production service that makes it sound like Bob and Tim are worth listening to. Log in to each for studio quality recordings NOW! (exclamation point provided by ZENCASTR). MUSIC FEATURED IN TODAY’S EPISODE: “Super Poupi ” (opening theme) and "Poupi Great Adventures: The Arcade Game" (closing theme) performed by Komiku from the 2018 album POUPI'S INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES available at Freemusicarchives.org.Cleared for public domain use through Creative Commons under a CCO 1.0 Universal License. "I Go Crazy" performed by Flesh For Lulu as featured on the original motion picture soundtrack to SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL as well as their 1987 LP release LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH.The use of this song is for entertainment purposes and without the expressed permission of the recording artist.Subscribe to 20TH CENTURY POPCAST! on APPLE PODCASTS, STITCHER and ANDROID or stream it at www.20popcast.com.Like, share and reminisce with 20TH CENTURY POPCAST! on FACEBOOK.Contact the show with any questions, suggestions or possible topics at 20popcast@gmail.com, #20popcast on Twitter and the POP TALK section of www.20popcast.com.Follow ROBERT CANNING @rhcanning on TWITTER. Read his web-comic at EXAGGERATEDLIFE.wordpress.com and his music blog at superultramegamix.wordpress.com. Follow TIM BLEVINS @subcultist on TWITTER and as SUBCULTISTon INSTAGRAM. 20TH CENTURY POPCAST will return next week to not really talk about Kevin Pollack or Rick Overton.

The full broadcast of Boston Public Radio from Tuesday, June 5th, 2018. Carol Rose, executive director of ACLU of Massachusetts, weighed in on the Supreme Court's Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. NBC Sports' Trenni Kusnierek discussed Trump's decision to disinvite the Philadelphia Eagles from the White House. Sports reporter Howard Bryant joined us to talk about his new book, "The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism." He will be appearing at the Harvard Book Store on Monday, June 11. We opened the lines to hear your thoughts on Bill Clinton's remarks about apologizing to Monica Lewinsky. Food writer Corby Kummer once again discussed the dangers of plastic straws. CNN's John King joined us to talk about the day's top headlines. Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn talked about the impact of Starbucks' racial bias training.

Over the course of eleven books, including his latest novel, THE UNMADE WORLD, Steve Yarbrough has established himself as a master of language and place. But James knows him as the leader of the greatest workshop ever. They discuss that class at Sewanee, as well as being a Southern writer with a British aesthetic, structuring novels based on the football calendar, and getting poked in the stomach. Plus, Annie Hartnett on being more productive.    Steve Yarbrough: https://www.steveyarbrough.net/ Steve and James discuss: Sewanee Writers' Conference  Jill McCorkle  Johnny Carson  IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS by Jennifer Haupt  THE GIRL FROM BLIND RIVER by Gale Massey  Bill Parcells  Jimmy Johnson  University of Arkansas  William Harrison  John Clellon Holmes  James Whitehead  Bill Belichick  Graham Greene  Emerson College Pamela Painter  Margot Livesey  THE LAST PICTURE SHOW by Larry McMurtry BOOKMARKED: LARRY McMURTRY'S THE LAST PICTURE SHOW by Steve Yarbrough (SY)  PRISONERS OF WAR by SY  THE END OF CALIFORNIA by SY  "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway  Ron Hansen  A CLOCKWORK ORANGE  Bill Evans  Raymond Carver  THE DIXIE ASSOCIATION by Donald "Skip" Hayes  Richard Yates  William Trevor  "Wildwood Flower" "Blowing up on the Spot" by Kevin Wilson (from PLOUGHSHARES, Winter 2003-4)  Joyce Carol Oates "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"  THE PIGEON TUNNEL by John LeCarre   Alice Munro  THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy  Gary Fisketjon  Greg Michalson Fred Ramey  Knopf  THE OXYGEN MAN by SY  The Harvard Book Store  Michael Nye  OBJECTS OF AFFECTION by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough Unbridled Books  - Annie Hartnett: http://www.anniehartnett.com/ Annie and James discuss: "If You Want to Write a Book, Write Every Day or Quit Now" by Stephen Hunter   "Why the Best Way to Get Creative Is to Make Some Rules" by Aimee Bender http://www.oprah.com/spirit/writing-every-day-writers-rules-aimee-bender/all#ixzz58vlFL9eU THE ELECTRIC WOMAN by Tessa Fontaine  Sarah Shute  THE DEFINING DECADE by Meg Jay  ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT by Stephen King  DEEP WORK by Cal Newport  Anne Vogel  Benjamin Percy  THE SOUND OF MUSIC -  http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/            

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-375 – Leadville Father and Son  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4375.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast.  My name is Chris.  I'll be your host for today. And for that I am truly grateful.  I guess you could say I'm your senior citizen of endurance sports.  We've got a lot to talk about today.   “We need to talk.” – no, seriously, today's show is going to be chock-a-block with racing and running.  It is that time of year, right?  This is the end of the summer training campaign where we put all the chips down and race.  We take the test at the end of the term. Sometimes we pass, sometimes we fail.  Either way we learn.  And then we slide into the winter solstice of our training.  A celebration lap of Thanksgiving races and solstice celebrations.  It is the cycle of our lives.  Along the way today, between the racing talk, there may even be some other thoughts.  I can never be sure once I start writing!  In fact, the act of writing an episode is a bit like toeing the line at a race.  I never know what's actually going to happen.  Until I get out there and feel the race.  That's the good part.  That's the uncertainty that keeps us moving forward. Today we'll have a couple of race reports probably and I try to squeeze something important out of Eric and his son Zach who ended up running Leadville together and serendipitously finishing together. I am still quite busy in my life.  I have raced twice since we last talked.  And, I see many of you have raced as well.  I see your smiling faces and sweat-shiny bodies sprawled exultantly in the grass of a finish line, exhausted and triumphant!  Good for you.  You've cracked the code.  You've sipped from the well of knowledge that is endurance sports. Race weeks are actually less busy for me. My workouts are shorter and less intense.  For me these were local races so there were fewer logistics as well.  Basically I just have to lay out my kit and set the alarm.  Like I said, this is the end of my season.  This is the old cadence.  Train through the summer and race in the fall.  Now, whether you've made your goals or not, you cycle down.  It can be a full-on rest. Or it can be a change of pace.  But you need to cycle to refresh.  You can't balance on that edge of race fitness for too long.  It's a peak condition.  A point on the curve.  Now you cycle down and start, in reality, building momentum for the next cycle, the next peak.  The mistake people make is to load up a bunch of races in a row and just keep trying to execute.  When I do this I settle into a sort of mediocre purgatory of performance and enjoyment.  Life has rhythms.  You need to breath in and breathe out the physical and mental cycles to get your most fulfillment and best performance.  … Last episode I did a pep-talk piece on why we should all stop complaining and just show up and race.  I want to make sure that you understand when I do these oratory type pieces I am not focused on any specific individual.  Actually, I am focused on one specific individual; me.  Yeah, that's right when I drop into lecture or inspirational talk mode, most of the time I'm not talking to you.  I'm talking to me.  These pieces are a way of me sorting through my thoughts, emotions and fears.  To get them down on the paper (yeah I still write with a pen in a notebook sometimes).  To tease out the ‘why am I feeling this way?'  and ‘Why did I do this stupid thing?' and ‘What can I learn from it?' I know it feels sometimes like I'm talking about you or to you, and I am, in a way because the human comedy has the same patterns.  If it resonates with you that's great.  Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.  On with the show. … I'll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don't have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member's only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – Clip from Cheap Trick - Surrender Voices of reason – the conversation Eric and Zach Strand Hey Chris, Three photos attached, you choose. Link for the 2017 Leadville video with Zach:   My poorly maintained website:  Congrats again on your Baystate run, super solid effort.  Makes it kind of hard to say 2018 is your last year at Boston. Eric Section two – Big D and the Kid's Table – “Little Bitch” Outro That is it my friends, you have stumbled up and down rocky mountains in the dark and at altitude for 30 hours the end of a training cycle and yet another RunRunLive podcast.  Episode 4-375 in the can.  I've got a seasonal recipe idea for you.  This time of year there are lots of apples where I live.  You can only eat so many apples.  But, you can make Apple sauce.  Preheat your oven to 200-250.  Yes low heat.  Good for drying pumpkin seeds too! Take those over-ripe, over abundant apples.  As many as you want.  Peel them.  Core them.  Cut up into pieces.  You can either mix in some spices before or after you cook them.  Your choice.  Cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon - whatever you like.  No sugar!  This is where I depart from grandma's recipe.  And no butter!  You can add a bit of coconut or other healthy oil if you want.  Put them in an oven safe crock or pan of some sort covered.  Ignore them while they bake on low heat for a couple hours.  When, some hours later, you walk by the stove and think “Crap those apples are still in there!” you can take out the crock and stir up the now applesauce.  If just have to have sweetner you can add some honey.  Mix it in with your morning oatmeal.  Use it as a condiment.  It's healthy and awesome.  And, since we are getting all seasonally Martha on you here's another tip.  I have been struggling with this problem ever since I bought the house I live in.  There is no fan in the master bathroom.  In the summer I can open a window.  In the colder months I have trouble shaving because the mirror fogs up. I can wipe it with the towel, but it just doesn't work well.  Th internet provided me with the trick.  You take a little shampoo, (or anything like that), and spread it on the part of the mirror you don't want to fog up.  Then wipe it off.  Now, believe or not, that section will not fog no matter how long of a post-run hot shower you indulge in.  Very helpful.  Next up for me is the Thinksgiving 5K and right after that the Mill Cities Relay with my club.  And then the 6th rendition of the Groton Marathon!  Looks like Frank and Brian and maybe even Ryan will be healthy enough to run with me this year – on Dec 31st. End of the season!.  I have to think of something to keep me interested.  Then we get back on the next cycle for my 20th Boston Marathon.  I think I'll have a party this year.  … I have a great podcast story for you.  This last week I went to see Mike Duncan speak at the Harvard Book Store on my way home from the city one night.  The smart kids in class will remember that Mike is the voice behind The History of Rome podcast.  Mike was one of the early podcasters and The History of Rome was one of the first podcasts back in 2007.  Coincidently around when I started RunRunLive.  Mike completed the arc of the history of Rome a few years back and has continued with a new history podcast called Revolutions which is quite good as well.  The History of Rome took him around 300 episodes and is still out there in podcast land.  Those of you who have been with me on this journey for a while might remember that I interviewed Mike on the show. He made the great mistake of mentioning that his wife was a half marathoner so I had an excuse to talk history with him.  () Tuesday night when I popped out of the train at Harvard Square and walked over to the Bookstore I was surprised to see quite a large crowd there to see Mike.  Standing room only.  Overflow crowd. And they had sold out his new book, , the Beginning of the end of the Roman Republic, which he was there to speak on.  {Link in the show notes}.  I was coincidently waiting for Teresa to get out of class, so I hung around with the overflow crowd, crouching in an aisle between biographies and gender studies and listened to Mikes talk over the loud speakers.  I hung around and waited out the 45 minute line of people waiting to shake his hand or get their book signed.  I introduced myself to Brandi, Mike's wife, and we chatted about running.  She had just run the Marine Corps Marathon a couple days earlier.  We had a great chat.  I gave Mike my congrats on his successful book launch.  Talking to the people in the crowd, they weren't necessarily there for Mike's book, but they were there because of Mike's podcast.  The voice had touched them.  The power of the voice of Mike's podcast made them invested in Mike in a unique way.  Over the 10 years Mike has been doing the podcast, we, his audience have seen him, heard him, been with him on his journey.  Starting as an unemployed history major, getting married, having two kids and now publishing a real book.  He discovered that he could do what he loved from a room with a mic in Madison WI.  And make a living at it.  He didn't need to ask for permission.  He just started talking about something that was interesting to him.  I'm very happy for his success. Mike also found his tribe.  I saw them in Cambridge Tuesday night.  Bow-tied, balding, tweed-suited history students and teachers waiting in line for a chance to shake the hand of the voice that had become a comfort and a friend to them in some deep disembodied way.  That for me was a bit awe inspiring and humbling. The lessons here are manifold.  First, of course, it to take action and do what you love and you will find your tribe.  Do it consistently and you may find success, however you define that. Another lesson, closer to home, is that your tribe is at once a great privileged and a humbling responsibility.  To have written the words and produced the voice that creates this investment from your tribe, just by doing what you love, is a great responsibility.  We all have our tribes.  We have this responsibility for our tribes.  What are you going to do today to make the investment of your tribe worth it and honorable? I am humbled.  I am truly grateful. Thank you for joining me on my adventure.  On my journey. I'll see you out there.     Ok my friends you have run very quickly to the end of episode 4-374 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Let's go for a cool-down and stretch a bit, shall we? After the Maine Marathon I decide to double down and run BayState in a couple weeks. It's a flatish course design for qualifying.  I've qualified there twice.  I know the course.  My buddies Frank and Brian are running so Hopefully we can pace each other.  Based on the Maine marathon I'm in good enough shape to run a fast race on the right day.  I'm going to run the Groton Town Forest 10 miler tomorrow as a workout.  I'll go out easy for the first 3 miles then race it in.  Should be fun. It's a difficult course and one of my favorites.  It's one of my club races and I do love to support the club.  I've adjusted to the new work schedule. The most challenging part has been burning in new habits.  I take the train in with Teresa. Most mornings I'll where my workout stuff and do my workout early then shower up for work. The logistical challenge is remembering to bring everything you need for both activities and doing so either at night before you go to bed or in the morning before you head in.  So far I have forgotten, a belt, my office keys, my car keys, and my wallet and my shaving stuff – on different days this month.  No big deal – I just work around it.  One day this week I was throwing my workout stuff into my backpack – BTW I've found a use for the backpack that ASICS gave me – and I grabbed what I thought were my Hokas, but they ended up being a 6-year old pair of Brooks Launch that had been retired to lawn mowing long ago. I had an easy run on the schedule.  I just wore the old shoes.  I mean I ran a few hundred miles in those shoes at some point so I should be able to jog around the city in them for an hour!   See?  Smikle and muddle through.  It all works out.  I quick update of Buddy the old Wonder dog.  He's doing ok.  He's shrinking. Literally shrinking.  He appreciates the colder weather but he can't run much anymore.  His back end bothers him and he's slow getting up and down.  Just like me, he doesn't' know he's old.  He sleeps all day and gets bored still.  He's happy, but that's built into his DNA.  … Another product I want to give you a review on is a pair of Bluetooth Headphones I've been trying to kill.  I got these sent to me in June by a company called Jaybird Wireless. They are the X3 – sweat proof, secure fit.  I have not been able to kill them. You see my super-power is sweat.  Not just any sweat, toxic Chris sweat. You folks are privy to the kind of workouts I do in all kinds of weather. Most headphones I've used that claim to be sweat-proof are not Chris-Sweat-Proof.  They last a couple weeks and I kill them.  I have not been able to kill these. The closest I got was one long workout in July when I filled them with so much fluid that they sounded like they were underwater.  I thought that was it, but they bounced back.  They survived the sweat filled days of July and august. They survived multiple of those as long runs.  They survive the occasional rainy tempest – like the back half of the Wapack Trial race.  At this point I'm willing to concede that these things are tough.  The only thing I managed to kill was the little blue light that comes on when you put them in the charging cradle.  That does not come on anymore.  But they still charge. They come in an overly complex iPhone type collectors box packaging.  They have a tricky little USB charging cradle.  They have a companion iPhone audio program that has dozens of audio profile adjustments and other tweaky Millennial thingies which I ignored.  The default sound is fine.  They are on a flat wire that you can loop around the back of your neck.  They have multiple secure-fit ear thingies.  They work ok but I've been losing the little ear buds and I've found them hit or miss on the security side.  I've had my best luck jamming the earbud deep into my ears and looping the wire over my right ear to support the mic.  The challenge with this deep-jamming methodology is that they become totally noise cancelling which isn't always a good thing when you're running in traffic. The plastic wing-thingies that are supposed to grip onto the inside curve of your ears work, but I find them a bit stiff so that they make my ears sore after a while.  They are supposed to work for making calls.  When I've tried that the people on the other end can't hear me.  I'm probably doing something wrong.  The Bluetooth set up and sync works great. Actually, too well.  They will sync to my phone and my computer and my car and sometimes I have no idea what they are connecting to until I notice sound coming out.  I do love the hands-free, wire-free experience.  You can put your iPhone in a plastic bag and stick it in your pocket or in your backpack.  That's very convenient and safer for the iPhone.  They claim an 8 hour battery life.  I haven't taken them much beyond 4-5 hours but they made it that far. The bottom line here is that I tried to kill these headphones and couldn't.  I'm going to keep trying.  I do have some challenges keeping them in my ears but I do appreciate them and they have helped make some long runs much more enjoyable.  Again, I don't make any money off it, but the links are in the show notes. That's it.  I did have some lady offer me a mattress to test.  That's interesting, huh?  How exactly would I test it?  That's a topic for an entirely different podcast.  I'll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-375 – Leadville Father and Son  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4375.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast.  My name is Chris.  I’ll be your host for today. And for that I am truly grateful.  I guess you could say I’m your senior citizen of endurance sports.  We’ve got a lot to talk about today.   “We need to talk.” – no, seriously, today’s show is going to be chock-a-block with racing and running.  It is that time of year, right?  This is the end of the summer training campaign where we put all the chips down and race.  We take the test at the end of the term. Sometimes we pass, sometimes we fail.  Either way we learn.  And then we slide into the winter solstice of our training.  A celebration lap of Thanksgiving races and solstice celebrations.  It is the cycle of our lives.  Along the way today, between the racing talk, there may even be some other thoughts.  I can never be sure once I start writing!  In fact, the act of writing an episode is a bit like toeing the line at a race.  I never know what’s actually going to happen.  Until I get out there and feel the race.  That’s the good part.  That’s the uncertainty that keeps us moving forward. Today we’ll have a couple of race reports probably and I try to squeeze something important out of Eric and his son Zach who ended up running Leadville together and serendipitously finishing together. I am still quite busy in my life.  I have raced twice since we last talked.  And, I see many of you have raced as well.  I see your smiling faces and sweat-shiny bodies sprawled exultantly in the grass of a finish line, exhausted and triumphant!  Good for you.  You’ve cracked the code.  You’ve sipped from the well of knowledge that is endurance sports. Race weeks are actually less busy for me. My workouts are shorter and less intense.  For me these were local races so there were fewer logistics as well.  Basically I just have to lay out my kit and set the alarm.  Like I said, this is the end of my season.  This is the old cadence.  Train through the summer and race in the fall.  Now, whether you’ve made your goals or not, you cycle down.  It can be a full-on rest. Or it can be a change of pace.  But you need to cycle to refresh.  You can’t balance on that edge of race fitness for too long.  It’s a peak condition.  A point on the curve.  Now you cycle down and start, in reality, building momentum for the next cycle, the next peak.  The mistake people make is to load up a bunch of races in a row and just keep trying to execute.  When I do this I settle into a sort of mediocre purgatory of performance and enjoyment.  Life has rhythms.  You need to breath in and breathe out the physical and mental cycles to get your most fulfillment and best performance.  … Last episode I did a pep-talk piece on why we should all stop complaining and just show up and race.  I want to make sure that you understand when I do these oratory type pieces I am not focused on any specific individual.  Actually, I am focused on one specific individual; me.  Yeah, that’s right when I drop into lecture or inspirational talk mode, most of the time I’m not talking to you.  I’m talking to me.  These pieces are a way of me sorting through my thoughts, emotions and fears.  To get them down on the paper (yeah I still write with a pen in a notebook sometimes).  To tease out the ‘why am I feeling this way?’  and ‘Why did I do this stupid thing?’ and ‘What can I learn from it?’ I know it feels sometimes like I’m talking about you or to you, and I am, in a way because the human comedy has the same patterns.  If it resonates with you that’s great.  Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.  On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – Clip from Cheap Trick - Surrender Voices of reason – the conversation Eric and Zach Strand Hey Chris, Three photos attached, you choose. Link for the 2017 Leadville video with Zach:   My poorly maintained website:  Congrats again on your Baystate run, super solid effort.  Makes it kind of hard to say 2018 is your last year at Boston. Eric Section two – Big D and the Kid’s Table – “Little Bitch” Outro That is it my friends, you have stumbled up and down rocky mountains in the dark and at altitude for 30 hours the end of a training cycle and yet another RunRunLive podcast.  Episode 4-375 in the can.  I’ve got a seasonal recipe idea for you.  This time of year there are lots of apples where I live.  You can only eat so many apples.  But, you can make Apple sauce.  Preheat your oven to 200-250.  Yes low heat.  Good for drying pumpkin seeds too! Take those over-ripe, over abundant apples.  As many as you want.  Peel them.  Core them.  Cut up into pieces.  You can either mix in some spices before or after you cook them.  Your choice.  Cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon - whatever you like.  No sugar!  This is where I depart from grandma’s recipe.  And no butter!  You can add a bit of coconut or other healthy oil if you want.  Put them in an oven safe crock or pan of some sort covered.  Ignore them while they bake on low heat for a couple hours.  When, some hours later, you walk by the stove and think “Crap those apples are still in there!” you can take out the crock and stir up the now applesauce.  If just have to have sweetner you can add some honey.  Mix it in with your morning oatmeal.  Use it as a condiment.  It’s healthy and awesome.  And, since we are getting all seasonally Martha on you here’s another tip.  I have been struggling with this problem ever since I bought the house I live in.  There is no fan in the master bathroom.  In the summer I can open a window.  In the colder months I have trouble shaving because the mirror fogs up. I can wipe it with the towel, but it just doesn’t work well.  Th internet provided me with the trick.  You take a little shampoo, (or anything like that), and spread it on the part of the mirror you don’t want to fog up.  Then wipe it off.  Now, believe or not, that section will not fog no matter how long of a post-run hot shower you indulge in.  Very helpful.  Next up for me is the Thinksgiving 5K and right after that the Mill Cities Relay with my club.  And then the 6th rendition of the Groton Marathon!  Looks like Frank and Brian and maybe even Ryan will be healthy enough to run with me this year – on Dec 31st. End of the season!.  I have to think of something to keep me interested.  Then we get back on the next cycle for my 20th Boston Marathon.  I think I’ll have a party this year.  … I have a great podcast story for you.  This last week I went to see Mike Duncan speak at the Harvard Book Store on my way home from the city one night.  The smart kids in class will remember that Mike is the voice behind The History of Rome podcast.  Mike was one of the early podcasters and The History of Rome was one of the first podcasts back in 2007.  Coincidently around when I started RunRunLive.  Mike completed the arc of the history of Rome a few years back and has continued with a new history podcast called Revolutions which is quite good as well.  The History of Rome took him around 300 episodes and is still out there in podcast land.  Those of you who have been with me on this journey for a while might remember that I interviewed Mike on the show. He made the great mistake of mentioning that his wife was a half marathoner so I had an excuse to talk history with him.  () Tuesday night when I popped out of the train at Harvard Square and walked over to the Bookstore I was surprised to see quite a large crowd there to see Mike.  Standing room only.  Overflow crowd. And they had sold out his new book, , the Beginning of the end of the Roman Republic, which he was there to speak on.  {Link in the show notes}.  I was coincidently waiting for Teresa to get out of class, so I hung around with the overflow crowd, crouching in an aisle between biographies and gender studies and listened to Mikes talk over the loud speakers.  I hung around and waited out the 45 minute line of people waiting to shake his hand or get their book signed.  I introduced myself to Brandi, Mike’s wife, and we chatted about running.  She had just run the Marine Corps Marathon a couple days earlier.  We had a great chat.  I gave Mike my congrats on his successful book launch.  Talking to the people in the crowd, they weren’t necessarily there for Mike’s book, but they were there because of Mike’s podcast.  The voice had touched them.  The power of the voice of Mike’s podcast made them invested in Mike in a unique way.  Over the 10 years Mike has been doing the podcast, we, his audience have seen him, heard him, been with him on his journey.  Starting as an unemployed history major, getting married, having two kids and now publishing a real book.  He discovered that he could do what he loved from a room with a mic in Madison WI.  And make a living at it.  He didn’t need to ask for permission.  He just started talking about something that was interesting to him.  I’m very happy for his success. Mike also found his tribe.  I saw them in Cambridge Tuesday night.  Bow-tied, balding, tweed-suited history students and teachers waiting in line for a chance to shake the hand of the voice that had become a comfort and a friend to them in some deep disembodied way.  That for me was a bit awe inspiring and humbling. The lessons here are manifold.  First, of course, it to take action and do what you love and you will find your tribe.  Do it consistently and you may find success, however you define that. Another lesson, closer to home, is that your tribe is at once a great privileged and a humbling responsibility.  To have written the words and produced the voice that creates this investment from your tribe, just by doing what you love, is a great responsibility.  We all have our tribes.  We have this responsibility for our tribes.  What are you going to do today to make the investment of your tribe worth it and honorable? I am humbled.  I am truly grateful. Thank you for joining me on my adventure.  On my journey. I’ll see you out there.     Ok my friends you have run very quickly to the end of episode 4-374 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Let’s go for a cool-down and stretch a bit, shall we? After the Maine Marathon I decide to double down and run BayState in a couple weeks. It’s a flatish course design for qualifying.  I’ve qualified there twice.  I know the course.  My buddies Frank and Brian are running so Hopefully we can pace each other.  Based on the Maine marathon I’m in good enough shape to run a fast race on the right day.  I’m going to run the Groton Town Forest 10 miler tomorrow as a workout.  I’ll go out easy for the first 3 miles then race it in.  Should be fun. It’s a difficult course and one of my favorites.  It’s one of my club races and I do love to support the club.  I’ve adjusted to the new work schedule. The most challenging part has been burning in new habits.  I take the train in with Teresa. Most mornings I’ll where my workout stuff and do my workout early then shower up for work. The logistical challenge is remembering to bring everything you need for both activities and doing so either at night before you go to bed or in the morning before you head in.  So far I have forgotten, a belt, my office keys, my car keys, and my wallet and my shaving stuff – on different days this month.  No big deal – I just work around it.  One day this week I was throwing my workout stuff into my backpack – BTW I’ve found a use for the backpack that ASICS gave me – and I grabbed what I thought were my Hokas, but they ended up being a 6-year old pair of Brooks Launch that had been retired to lawn mowing long ago. I had an easy run on the schedule.  I just wore the old shoes.  I mean I ran a few hundred miles in those shoes at some point so I should be able to jog around the city in them for an hour!   See?  Smikle and muddle through.  It all works out.  I quick update of Buddy the old Wonder dog.  He’s doing ok.  He’s shrinking. Literally shrinking.  He appreciates the colder weather but he can’t run much anymore.  His back end bothers him and he’s slow getting up and down.  Just like me, he doesn’t’ know he’s old.  He sleeps all day and gets bored still.  He’s happy, but that’s built into his DNA.  … Another product I want to give you a review on is a pair of Bluetooth Headphones I’ve been trying to kill.  I got these sent to me in June by a company called Jaybird Wireless. They are the X3 – sweat proof, secure fit.  I have not been able to kill them. You see my super-power is sweat.  Not just any sweat, toxic Chris sweat. You folks are privy to the kind of workouts I do in all kinds of weather. Most headphones I’ve used that claim to be sweat-proof are not Chris-Sweat-Proof.  They last a couple weeks and I kill them.  I have not been able to kill these. The closest I got was one long workout in July when I filled them with so much fluid that they sounded like they were underwater.  I thought that was it, but they bounced back.  They survived the sweat filled days of July and august. They survived multiple of those as long runs.  They survive the occasional rainy tempest – like the back half of the Wapack Trial race.  At this point I’m willing to concede that these things are tough.  The only thing I managed to kill was the little blue light that comes on when you put them in the charging cradle.  That does not come on anymore.  But they still charge. They come in an overly complex iPhone type collectors box packaging.  They have a tricky little USB charging cradle.  They have a companion iPhone audio program that has dozens of audio profile adjustments and other tweaky Millennial thingies which I ignored.  The default sound is fine.  They are on a flat wire that you can loop around the back of your neck.  They have multiple secure-fit ear thingies.  They work ok but I’ve been losing the little ear buds and I’ve found them hit or miss on the security side.  I’ve had my best luck jamming the earbud deep into my ears and looping the wire over my right ear to support the mic.  The challenge with this deep-jamming methodology is that they become totally noise cancelling which isn’t always a good thing when you’re running in traffic. The plastic wing-thingies that are supposed to grip onto the inside curve of your ears work, but I find them a bit stiff so that they make my ears sore after a while.  They are supposed to work for making calls.  When I’ve tried that the people on the other end can’t hear me.  I’m probably doing something wrong.  The Bluetooth set up and sync works great. Actually, too well.  They will sync to my phone and my computer and my car and sometimes I have no idea what they are connecting to until I notice sound coming out.  I do love the hands-free, wire-free experience.  You can put your iPhone in a plastic bag and stick it in your pocket or in your backpack.  That’s very convenient and safer for the iPhone.  They claim an 8 hour battery life.  I haven’t taken them much beyond 4-5 hours but they made it that far. The bottom line here is that I tried to kill these headphones and couldn’t.  I’m going to keep trying.  I do have some challenges keeping them in my ears but I do appreciate them and they have helped make some long runs much more enjoyable.  Again, I don’t make any money off it, but the links are in the show notes. That’s it.  I did have some lady offer me a mattress to test.  That’s interesting, huh?  How exactly would I test it?  That’s a topic for an entirely different podcast.  I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -

Harvard Book Store, New York

This is a recording of a conversation with Jeff Howe, the co-author of our new book Whiplash. The conversation and the subsequent Q&A were recorded live at the Harvard Book Store on February 24th. [EP-EN-35]

Ottessa Moshfegh says she writes to explore why people do weird things. The daughter of a Croatian mother and Iranian father, she was a serious piano student who knew she didn't want to be a pianist when she felt the call to write - and not just write, but be bold. We spoke to her before her reading at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass. Episode Music: Kevin MacLeod, "Trio for Piano, Violin and Viola" Credit Music: Uncanny Valleys, "Curious or Disconcerting"

Caitlin Moran is the best-selling author of How to Be a Woman, Moranthology, and columnist for the Times of London. She and her sister developed and write 'raised by wolves" --a British television series loosely based on their experience in a family of ten growing up in a tiny subsidized flat in the English midlands. She is also a mother of two, an unapologetic feminist, and really, really funny. Caitlin Moran is now out with Moranifesto, her second collection of columns and essays. The Harvard Book Store sponsored her event at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We caught up with her before she went on stage. She was warm and playful and not at all anxious about going on stage - or writing. Episode Music: "American Weirdos" by Hurry Up Ad Music: "Joy in the Restaurant" by David Szesztay

Each week, comedian Kenice Mobley explores part of the city with a guest. This week, she's joined by comedian Myq Kaplan who explains the difference between the COOP (a bookstore in Harvard Square) and the Harvard Bookstore (it's own thing). Check him out at Laugh Boston, January 12-14.

Tom Gauld -- a cartoonist, illustrator of comics and covers for the New Yorker and The Believer. His weekly cartoon about the arts for The Guardian newspaper is a wry, often deadpan favorite among writers. He is extremely prolific, author of more than a dozen books of comics, including You're Just Jealous of My Jetpack and most recently Mooncop. The lunar cop is perfectly Gauldian character - doesn't say much, spends a lot of time walking the barren landscape, is pretty lonesome and quaint. Virginia met with Tom before his talk at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just an hour's drive from our studio. The challenge was finding a quiet spot to record in Harvard square...at rush hour. Music: "Feeding Pigeons" - Poddington Bear Ad Music: "Joy in the Restaurant" - David Szesztay

Harvard Book Store

Tom Perrotta is the author behind, among others, Little Children, The Abstinence Teacher, and The Leftovers, now a hit HBO drama which he co-writes. Recently, he provided the foreword to a new Penguin edition of The Scarlet Letter. We made a date with him and settled into a corner of Harvard Book Store to ask him about his writing process. #authors #books #writing

In Episode 6, we chat with Josh Christie, manager at Sherman's Books and Stationery in Portland, ME. Get excited. You also can stream the episode on iTunes and Stitcher. Find us on Tumblr at drunkbooksellers.tumblr.com. Follow us on Twitter at @drunkbookseller for updates, book recs, and general bookish shenanigans. Epigraph Bitches in Bookshops Our theme music, Bitches in Bookshops, comes to us with permission from Annabelle Quezada. It’s the best. Introduction   [0:30] In Which We Drink Strong Stouts and Cat Valente Singing in Russian for a Talent Show Josh is the perfect guest for Drunk Booksellers. He is the manager and book buyer at Sherman's Books and Stationery in Portland, Maine (not Oregon). He’s also the co-author of Maine Outdoor Adventure Guide and The Handbook of Porters & Stouts, as well as the author of Maine Beer: Brewing in Vacationland. In his spare time, he’s an adjunct professor on the The Maine Brew Bus and a co-host of The Bookrageous Podcast.  Drink of the Day: As one might expect from a stout & porter expert, Josh gave us three options for our drink of the day. Lion Stout Guinness Foreign Extra Stout Anchor Porter Josh is reading Drinking in America: Our Secret History by Susan Cheever, Judge This by Chip Kidd, and The Beer Bible by Jeff Alworth.   Kim’s reading Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss (pubs April 2016) and Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor.   Emma’s reading Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken, Nimona by Noelle Stevensen, Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente (also mentioned Six-Gun Snow White) Books we’re excited about: The Witches: Salem, 1692  by Stacy Schiff (also mentioned Cleopatra: A Life) The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood (pubs April 2016) Embed with Games: A Year on the Couch with Game Developers by Cara Ellison  (pubs February 2016) Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (Bookmarked Series) by Curtis Smith (pubs March 2016) Harry Potter Coloring Book from Scholastic, Inc.  Contraband Cocktails: How America Drank When It Wasn't Supposed to by Paul Dickson (published by the ever-awesome Melville House) The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders & Lane Smith The Good Book: Writers Reflect on Favorite Bible Passages, edited by Andrew Blauner  Gratitude by Oliver Sacks Chapter I   [20:17] In Which We Love Everything Except Rap and Polka, Particularly Maps Sherman’s Books & Stationery has 5 locations in Maine, with a 6th opening in 2016.  Most surprising bestseller (other than adult coloring books): The Historical Atlas of Maine, edited by Stephen J. Hornsby   Also mentioned: Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr If maps and books are your thing, definitely check out Plotted: A Literary Atlas by Andrew Degraff and Daniel Harmon . We all love it so hard.   From Plotted: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Chapter II   [32:23] In Which We Lust after Built-in Bookshelves, Love Everything Except Rap & Polka Josh loves some good narrative nonfiction: Mary Roach, Erik Larson, Stacy Schiff, John Muir, and Ralph Waldo Emerson Kim and Emma get overexcited about handselling nature essays to Josh. Emma loves Limber by Angela Pelster. Kim’s excited about Annie Dillard’s forthcoming collection, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New (pubs March 2016). Josh recs the Best American series, particularly Best American Sports Writing Go read anything published by Write Bloody. Especially Andrea Gibson (start with Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns).  Originally posted by x-rayvisions   Chapter III   [41:06] In Which We Love Maps and Weirdos, Learn that Maine is More Than Just Lighthouses & Lobsters,  Josh’s Wheelhouse includes books with maps, character indexes, and anything that’s super weird, such as Mort(e) by Robert Repino Josh’s very practical Station Eleven/Wild book: SAS Survival Guide by John Lofty Wiseman  Josh’s real Station Eleven/Wild book: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Go-To Handsell: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed, The Lobster Kings by Alexi Zentner Originally posted by cuddle   Generally Impossible Handsells: Poetry and Graphic Novels If you’re not a graphic novel reader yet, start with Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, The Sculptor by Scott McCloud, or Habibi by Craig Thompson That annoying Slate article that Josh mentions can be found here: Don’t Support Your Local Bookseller. Feel free to read it if you feel like angrily ranting at everyone you interact with for the next few years. Epilogue   [51:27] In Which Josh Tells Us About His Awesome Bookish Wedding and Where You Can Find Him On the Internet Josh and his wife gifted each other literary tattoos as wedding presents, because they’re the coolest. Josh is getting the the Escapist’s key from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon and his wife is getting the the Brakebills seal from Lev Grossman’s The Magicians. Totes adorbs, right? Favorite Bookstore other Than Your Own: WORD (aw, yeah!), Harvard Book Store, Porter Square Books, Northshire Bookstore Favorite Literary Media: PANELS, Reading Aloud Podcast If you’re not listening to Bookrageous, go remedy that immediately. We love it so hard.  Find Josh on the interwebz at: Twitter: @jchristie Website: BrewsAndBooks.com Instagram: JChristie7 You should probably follow us on Twitter @drunkbookseller if you’re not doing so already. We’re pretty cool. Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes nerdy bookish things for Book Riot. Kim occasionally tweets at @finaleofseem.  Make sure you don’t miss an episode by subscribing to Drunk Booksellers from your podcatcher of choice. Also, if you read this far in the show notes, you should probably go ahead and rate/review us on iTunes too. The only compensation we get from this podcast is a nerdy ego-boost, so we’d love to hear how much you’re digging it.

Jane McGonigal is the internationally acclaimed game designer and author, most recently of "SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient–Powered by the Science of Games". In a wide-ranging conversation, she spoke at MIT with Scot Osterweil, creative director of the MIT Education Arcade (education.mit.edu). The event was hosted by Harvard Book Store.

"Improbable Cargo" follows the "frozen-water trade" connecting India and the northeastern United States--from a personal perspective. Vijee Venkatraman muses on her life at each end of this journey of blocks of ice across oceans, and on how something as transient as ice could create a bond that lasted centuries. A version of this essay appeared in the Harvard Book Store's essay collection Paige Leaves.

[Re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast] Simon Johnson, the Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is an outspoken critic of the US government response to the financial crisis. Now he takes on the “too big to fail” banks which continue to threaten our economy.  In his latest book, called 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (Pantheon, 2010), which he co-wrote with James Kwak, Simon argues that if the biggest banks aren’t cut down to size, it’s only a matter of time before we face another financial crisis. And once again, the government – aka the taxpayers – will be obliged to step in and bail out these behemoths. In Simon’s words, if they’re too big to fail — they’re too big to exist! Simon Johnson is also a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.  And he’s the co-author, again with James Kwak, of the influential economics blog The Baseline Scenario. Simon spoke with ThoughtCast at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast] Simon Johnson, the Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is an outspoken critic of the US government response to the financial crisis. Now he takes on the “too big to fail” banks which continue to threaten our economy.  In his latest book, called 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (Pantheon, 2010), which he co-wrote with James Kwak, Simon argues that if the biggest banks aren’t cut down to size, it’s only a matter of time before we face another financial crisis. And once again, the government – aka the taxpayers – will be obliged to step in and bail out these behemoths. In Simon’s words, if they’re too big to fail — they’re too big to exist! Simon Johnson is also a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.  And he’s the co-author, again with James Kwak, of the influential economics blog The Baseline Scenario. Simon spoke with ThoughtCast at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[Re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast] Simon Johnson, the Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is an outspoken critic of the US government response to the financial crisis. Now he takes on the “too big to fail” banks which continue to threaten our economy.  In his latest book, called 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (Pantheon, 2010), which he co-wrote with James Kwak, Simon argues that if the biggest banks aren’t cut down to size, it’s only a matter of time before we face another financial crisis. And once again, the government – aka the taxpayers – will be obliged to step in and bail out these behemoths. In Simon’s words, if they’re too big to fail — they’re too big to exist! Simon Johnson is also a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.  And he’s the co-author, again with James Kwak, of the influential economics blog The Baseline Scenario. Simon spoke with ThoughtCast at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Clark is director of the non-profit Center for Naturalism and author of Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses. He writes on science, free will, consciousness, addiction and other topics, and maintains Naturalism.org, an extensive resource on worldview naturalism. He is also moderator for the monthly philosophy café at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Tom Clark discusses the implications of a thorough-going scientific naturalism for the concepts of the self and of free will. He contrasts "contra-causal free will" with kinds of political or social freedom, and argues that the former is a vestige of outmoded religious or dualistic thinking. He talks about compatibilism, and how he can be a skeptic of free will while also prizing personal freedom, how determinism can be compatible with certain kinds of free will. He explores what these implications of scientific naturalism might actually mean for criminal justice, and how rejecting concepts of free-will may empower society to be more humanistic and to solve social ills more effectively. And he talks about the growth of skepticism about free will, both in the academic scientific communities and in the skeptic and freethought world.

This week's playlist: • Once and Awhile by B.C. Read, from Bowl of Sugar (2006); available from CD Baby and the iTunes Music Store. Visit BCRead.com for more information. • Welfare Blues by Kirk Fletcher, from Shades of Blue (2003); available from Delta Groove Productions, CD Baby and the iTMS. Visit this page at the Delta Groove Productions site for more information. • Stop Lying In My Face by Calvin Owens, from The House if Burnin' (2002); available from the Order Page at Calvin's site and the iTMS. Visit CalvinOwens.com for more information. • Just Like Me by Doc Bates, from Hard Headed Heart (2006). Visit Doc's page at Podshow.com for more information. • Stick Around, Stuttering Blues and Serves Me Right, by The Insomniacs, from Left Coast Blues (2007), available from Delta Groove Productions and the iTMS. Visit The Insomniacs' page at the Delta Groove Productions site and The Insomniacs' MySpace page for more information. • Building Full of Blues by Fathead, from Building Full of Blues (2007); available from ElectroFi Records and the iTMS. Visit Fathead.biz for more information. • Dimples by Michael Holt and the Trophy 500's from Boogalu (2007). Visit MichaelHolt.info and the band's MySpace page for more information. • Get With You by The Ken DeRouchie Band, from Live At Jimmy Mak's (2007); available from CD Baby and the iTMS. For free downloads of other KDB tracks, go to this page. And visit KDBand.net and their MySpace page for more information. Mentioned during this show: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Harvard Book Store. Excellent online resources for more information about the blues: The Blues Foundation and the Delta Blues Museum; and be sure to download and listen to the DBM's top-notch (and free) podcast, the Uncensored History of the Blues. Be sure to read Today's Chicago Blues by Karen Hanson, an excellent guide to all things blues in present-day Chicago. (Music on Murphy's Saloon #114 courtesy of the artists and the Podsafe Music Network, the PROMONET program of the Independent Online Distribution Alliance, Download.com or Garageband.com)