Podcasts about Lopate

Phillip Lopate is the author of many acclaimed books, including the essay collections Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre, and Portrait of My Body and the novels The Rug Merchant and Confessions of Summer. He is the editor of several anthologies of essays. Lopate taught for many years in the Writing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Slovenská lyžiarska hviezda Petra Vlhová má vynikajúci vstup do sezóny, ktorá by pre ňu mohla byť dosiaľ najúspešnejšou. Na víkendových pretekoch v slalome vo fínskom Levi síce v prvý deň suverénne vyhrala, avšak v nedeľu ju o trofej pripravila zbytočná chyba. Podľa športového redaktora Michala Gavroňa vyplýva z jej štýlu, podobnému mužskému lyžovaniu. „O nej sa zvykne hovoriť, že je trochu takou žehličkou. Lyžuje brány na priamo, lebo má veľký fyzický fond a je schopná si skracovať tie oblúky,“ v podcaste denníka Pravda vysvetľuje Gavroň s tým, že ak by trochu ubrala, víťazstvo by mala isté, hoci o menší náskok. Strata takmer istého siedmeho víťazstva Petry Vlhovej nič nemení na tom, že momentálne je podľa viacerých expertov najlepšou lyžiarkou vo svetovom pohári. Prečo jej úspešný štart sezóny mnohých prekvapil? Ako je to s rivalitou a kamarátstvom medzi jej hlavnou súperkou Mikaelou Shiffrinovou? V čom urobila v poslednom období najväčší pokrok, pre ktorý môže byť vážnym favoritom na celkové víťazstvo vo svetovom pohári? Vypočujte si v podcaste denníka Pravda so športovým redaktorom Michalom Gavroňom. #pocuvajtepravdu

Slovenská lyžiarska hviezda Petra Vlhová má vynikajúci vstup do sezóny, ktorá by pre ňu mohla byť dosiaľ najúspešnejšou. Na víkendových pretekoch v slalome vo fínskom Levi síce v prvý deň suverénne vyhrala, avšak v nedeľu ju o trofej pripravila zbytočná chyba. Podľa športového redaktora Michala Gavroňa vyplýva z jej štýlu, podobnému mužskému lyžovaniu. „O nej sa zvykne hovoriť, že je trochu takou žehličkou. Lyžuje brány na priamo, lebo má veľký fyzický fond a je schopná si skracovať tie oblúky,“ v podcaste denníka Pravda vysvetľuje Gavroň s tým, že ak by trochu ubrala, víťazstvo by mala isté, hoci o menší náskok. Strata takmer istého siedmeho víťazstva Petry Vlhovej nič nemení na tom, že momentálne je podľa viacerých expertov najlepšou lyžiarkou vo svetovom pohári. Prečo jej úspešný štart sezóny mnohých prekvapil? Ako je to s rivalitou a kamarátstvom medzi jej hlavnou súperkou Mikaelou Shiffrinovou? V čom urobila v poslednom období najväčší pokrok, pre ktorý môže byť vážnym favoritom na celkové víťazstvo vo svetovom pohári? Vypočujte si v podcaste denníka Pravda so športovým redaktorom Michalom Gavroňom. #pocuvajtepravdu

In this unholy amalgamation of interview and free-form kibbitz between two cranky former employees of WNYC, Bob Garfield and Alec Baldwin discuss life, acting, and the great Stockton Briggle. Plus, find out more about Bob's split with “On the Media.”TRANSCRIPT:TEDDY ROOSEVELT: Surely there never was a fight better worth making than the one which we are in. BOB GARFIELD: Welcome to Bully Pulpit. That was Teddy Roosevelt. I'm Bob Garfield with Episode 12: Alec Baldwin Is Everywhere (Including Here, Right Now).ALEC BALDWIN: I'm a game show host. I'm a podcast host. I'm a father of seven children. I'm out of my mind....GARFIELD: ..and see what I mean? That's him, star of stage, screen, Page 6, iHeart Radio, and, in this case, Instagram Live, where he appears once a week for his 2.1 million followers in conversation with actors, musicians, and at least one dashing, elderly podcaster. Why? Because he graciously wanted to call attention to this show. It was something of an interview, something of a promo appearance, and something of a free-form kibbitz between two cranky former employees of WNYC radio in New York City. I warn you, like other friendly conversations you've overheard, it comes with a lot of random digressions.BALDWIN: I'm here with the one and the only Bob Garfield to talk about his new show, Bully Pulpit, to talk about his career in journalism (his long and wonderful career as a journalist), to talk about the fate of journalism. We might talk about that for like 60 seconds, because what's the point? But first of all, Bob, tell me, you left public radio--you were on public radio for quite a while. On the Media, wonderful show. Of course, I'm obviously a fan of yours, a huge fan of yours. But when you left there, talk about the genesis of Bully Pulpit, how did that come together? GARFIELD: Well, first of all, I left there the way an artillery shell leaves a cannon. I was fired. And you know, we can get into that a little bit. The lawyers prevent me from being, you know, too candid. But yeah, we can talk about that. Can we just observe one thing, since this conversation is taking place the day after the Facebook shut down and the Instagram shut down and two days after this blockbuster interview on 60 Minutes with the whistleblower? We are on Instagram, which we now well understand triggers self-loathing in kids, right? Because, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, if we're talking like evil, he makes Vladimir Putin look like Mr. Rogers. So I guess what I'm saying is, kids, please love yourself and we love you too. That's where I want to start. I apologize for talking to you, Alec, on this particular platform because evil. BALDWIN: [coughing] I'm choking. GARFIELD:  I know, it was poignant. I understand.BALDWIN: It's very moving. [coughing]GARFIELD: You know, if that were in a movie (that little episode), in 12 minutes, you would die of consumption.BALDWIN: Well, someone wrote “Trump 2024,” so I immediately started convulsing. GARFIELD: [laughs]BALDWIN: Well, listen, I am someone who Instagram is my primary, if not sole social media source. I have a Twitter account which I keep open just as a placeholder for my name. Facebook--I have a Facebook page for myself, for my foundation. My wife and I have a charitable foundation. We have a Facebook page for that. But Instagram is it for me. And I guess Instagram is owned by Facebook, correct?GARFIELD: It is. And you know, obviously it's a fantastic utility, but it is both utopian and dystopian, and the dystopian side is really dystopian. I mean that because Mark Zuckerberg and company know exactly what the deleterious effects are of the social dynamic on these platforms, and they will not do anything to remediate them because it screws up their business model. So they are constantly apologizing and explaining and being on the defensive, but they never actually fix what's broke. So, nonetheless, like I said, really good utility, and I'm delighted, de-freaking-lighted, to be talking to you on this or anywhere because I'm always delighted talking to you. BALDWIN: Well, thank you. Now a guy who shall remain nameless contacted me quite a while ago, probably last year in the heart of the first waves of the COVID (probably more than a year ago), to talk about a more user friendly platform. Like this with more integrity. Everybody'd have to register. You'd have to give all your real information. You'd have to give a photograph. You'd have to be completely transparent. It's you as you, being you, doing you, posting as you. The question, of course, is how many people really, really want that? Or do most people really kind of like the way it is, where you can hide and you can conceal yourself and say just hateful things?GARFIELD: Well, it's a playground for the id, right? And it, you know, it empowers you to have power, even if it's only the power to intimidate or to terrorize or to bad mouth. And, you know, it taps into something that unfortunately is all too human.BALDWIN: Yeah.GARFIELD: Can I say one other thing, Alec? This is so weird. I'm sitting here looking at your face because Instagram, right? So, last night I was watching the Jerry Lewis documentary, which popped up on Amazon Prime, and there you were. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching the John DeLorean docu-drama--FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN CLIP: I'm gonna try to be DeLorean.GARFIELD: --and there you were, not only as DeLorean, but as yourself commenting on the DeLorean saga. I just watched you in the mini-series, (I think on Peacock), Dr. Death--DR. DEATH CLIP: Duntsch is never going to stop on his own.GARFIELD: --which is a really, really, really perverse story. And I watch you every week on the Match Game.MATCH GAME CLIP: We're looking for….penis. GARFIELD: Well, OK, that's actually not true, I don't watch the Match Game. But Alec, I'm afraid to open the f*****g fridge because I think you're going to be in there like drinking my orange juice from the carton. BALDWIN: There I am on the missing — I'm missing on the carton.GARFIELD: I don't understand. You've got between like 6 and 47 kids. How do you have the time to be everywhere all at once? I don't understand this.BALDWIN: I wish that were true. But Peacock--we started Dr. Death in March of last year. They shut down. They came back and were rebooted and ready to go with all of their protocols by mid-October. We shot from mid-October to the end of like, I think middle or end of February, you know, because we have the holidays. It was like a almost five month shoot to do eight episodes because of all the shutdowns and protocols. But it was a group of people--what you see very often in the business now is how hard people are working to keep everything going. They don't want to be the one that shuts down the production. They don't want to be the one that brings the COVID on the set. They're working really, really hard--like my kids' school. When you go to my kids' school and we drop them off at school, everyone's working really hard, masking, gloves, spraying things down, and distancing. And everybody on the staff is vaccinated. Everybody on the faculty is vaccinated. And I would imagine most of the parents are vaccinated as well, and we're assiduous about all of this because the kids can't be vaccinated yet. So we're always trying to protect unvaccinated children. So the job I did with Peacock (and my part was rather small. I mean, the real star of it was Joshua Jackson--played the eponymous character, if you will.)GARFIELD: Very well. He does a sociopath very, very well, that guy. BALDWIN: Wonderful performance. And so, everybody worked really hard to protect everything COVID-wise. I'm leaving to go to New Mexico in a little while to go shoot a film very quickly, and that's the same thing. Everyone just busting their back to keep everything safe for everybody. GARFIELD: A Western, by the way. BALDWIN: Yes, I'm going to do a Western. GARFIELD: Is this your first Western? BALDWIN: I actually did--the producer was a dear friend of mine. I love this guy. And his name was Stockton Briggle. And we did a--for CBS TV back in the 80s, we did a remake of The Alamo with James Arness and Brian Keith.THE ALAMO: THIRTEEN DAYS TO GLORY CLIP: News is that Santa Anna has crossed the Rio Grand. [crowd noise]What about Fannin and the boys from Goliad? Same with Houston, what about him?Both Fannin and Houston are on the march to come to our aidWhen do they get here, Jim?As of this moment..How about it Jim?As of this moment, we are on a battle alert. BALDWIN: ...and the Alamo Historical Society picketed the sets because they said that the two other men were old enough to play the fathers of their character. They were both long in the tooth for their role. So, I did a Western once. I did The Alamo for CBS, and it was memorable, but not for the right reasons.GARFIELD: I'm sorry. What was the name of the producer?BALDWIN: Stockton Briggle.GARFIELD: Right, of course, the Stockton Briggle. I once did a piece, that involved the director of the McLean Symphony Orchestra, whose name, as you know, is Dingwall Fleary, and that was a career highlight. BALDWIN: Well I'm always looking for names to stay in hotels under. And my favorite, one of my favorites was the great Mozart biographer who wrote the great books on Mozart. His name was Cuthbert Girdlestone.GARFIELD: Yeah, you know what, his name was actually Shecky Cuddlestein. And you know, he changed it at Ellis Island.BALDWIN: Real name was Phil Cohen.GARFIELD: Yeah. [laughs]BALDWIN: But I want to ask you--Bully Pulpit, how did that come about?GARFIELD: Well, it came about because I got fired...BROOKE GLADSTONE: Bob Garfield is out this week, and as many of you know by now, every week. GARFIELD: ...under the allegation that I had violated the WNYC'S anti-bullying policies. Not that I was a bully, per se, not that that nicety ever came through. As far as the world is concerned, I'm a bully, and, you know, to some degree canceled, but I'm certainly fired. And it was catastrophic in many, many ways: financially, reputationally. I am fighting it, and I probably will prevail, although there's no such thing as a slam dunk in this kind of law. But in the meantime, I still want to journalize. So a friend of mine, who was my co-host on a podcast that Slate did called Lexicon Valley...LEXICON VALLEY: From Washington, DC, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language. I'm Bob Garfield with Mike Vuolo.GARFIELD: It was a wonderful podcast...LEXICON VALLEY: Today, Episode 64, titled “Yada Yada Yada: Europeans Don't Get Seinfeld,” wherein we discuss why the classic American sitcom doesn't translate. Hey, Mikey. Hey, Bobby. How you doing, buddy?Splendid, thank you. And your own self?I am great...GARFIELD: ...which we both--we left. He went and did one thing about Supreme Court decisions. I went to do another thing about MacArthur Genius laureates. And then it was handed over to a Columbia professor, a linguistics professor, named John McWhorter. Anyway, Mike Vuolo his name is, came to me and said, Look, I'm starting this company with my friend, Matt Schwartz, from NPR, and it's called Booksmart Studios, and we would like you to consider doing your thing for us. And I said, Yes! Yes! This is the best part about getting my ass fired and being humiliated and everything else that comes with my fate, now I can do exactly what I want--the same kind of social and political media criticism that I wanted to do, (I don't want to mischaracterize this), but without having to deal with, let's say, the internal politics of an organization, without having any kind of sort of received ideology that has to be at the bottom of it. I'm free to be me, you know, asking the kind of questions and making the kind of observations that I want to make. And that has been very liberating. You know, I wish I hadn't been fired, but I could not be more delighted to be doing this particular show because it's just been a fantastic experience and very well received among the 11 people who listen to it. BALDWIN: I had a show for quite a while. I was several years at NYC.HERE'S THE THING WITH ALEC BALDWIN: My first clip is from an interview with the legendary Barbra Streisand who talks here about how she wanted control of her films in a way that...BALDWIN: When the show ended, when I left NYC to go to iHeart and go from public radio to commercial radio, it was difficult because I was sad to leave behind, figuratively, the public radio audience. I like the public radio audience. And I was always getting--people would tell me how much they liked my podcast in New York more than anything else I was working on. It was kind of funny. But NYC was a place where--I'm a fan of public radio, but not all public radio stations are created equally. And NYC, which has a huge nut, they are, in the COVID era, I would imagine, obsessed with raising money. But NYC, of course, got into the kind of firing jag: Lopate had to go, Jonathan Schwartz had to go, and Hockenberry.I was given a mandatory set of questions that I had to ask Woody Allen. And I said to them, I said, now Woody Allen told me in my conversation with him--we had one conversation, and I said, you know, they're coming after me to ask unanswered questions. And I just find asking those questions--again, not that there's anything wrong with them, but it doesn't mean a good show. He's already been over this a thousand times. And they said, well, if you don't ask these questions, we're not going to air the show. I mean, I found the chuck. This is public radio. They said, if you don't ask the questions--the guy, whatever his name was. What was that guy who was in charge of content there?GARFIELD: I just, I see no need to bandy about names, Alec. Let's just leave them anonymous. BALDWIN: I'd love to put his name right up on the screen, but he was the one that said, yeah, if you don't ask these questions, we're not going to air the show. So in my mind, that was it, I was going to quit. I was out of there. And so, I said to Woody, they're demanding that I ask these questions. I apologize. This isn't at all what I had in mind. He said, listen, he said, don't worry about it. So we do the show. He was great. I mean, he was great, great, great.WOODY ALLEN: I was coming from a position--people were thinking, my god, this older person has seduced this young girl, and he's taking advantage of her. You know, it looked awful. I understood that. I mean, I can understand that. BALDWIN: And then we finished and I called my lawyer and I said, I'm out of here. They didn't care. So I just kind of took a deep breath and I said, you know something, I mean, just about anywhere has got to be better than here. Do I like being on commercial radio? There's benefits to it. Now, you're on commercial radio now as well. GARFIELD: I wish there were more commerce. it's an interesting model. We are on Substack, which is a platform for independent creators of content who are not in the employ of media companies to fend for themselves. You know, put their content out there and be paid by subscriptions by their followers. And Bully Pulpit is, in effect, a Substack talent. And at the moment, we are three shows. There's Bully Pulpit. There is Lexicon Valley, which Mike and I started, and McWhorter now does for us.MCWHORTER: Having a pronoun to mark nonbinary identity could be seen as pretty basic. It could be seen as something that a critical mass of people could agree is a moral advance if you think about history, if you think about what seems to be the case in all cultures.GARFIELD: Then there's Banished by an academic, a professor named Amna Khalid, which looks at what loosely is called “cancel culture” and looks at its implications for the society and so forth.KHALID: To what extent is this just kind of generating frankly b******t work and legislation to make a political point and just to kind of grind down the machinery and keep the conversation going around these issues? And to what extent do they genuinely think that they are going to be able to control the space that is higher education?GARFIELD: She really asks smart questions, and, you know, listens carefully to the answers. And it's something. I mean, when you listen to an episode, when you're done, your jaw aches because of the tension of this moment in our society. And yes, of course, in answer to your question, yes, you can subscribe to all of them for free at Booksmart Studios. BooksmartStudios.org. And if you ask me later, I'll also plug the shows.BALDWIN: [laughs] What are the benefits of the show you're doing now as compared to where you were before? GARFIELD: Well, I get to be me. I don't have to worry about other people's ideology, about their their red zones, you know, I don't have to worry about their aesthetic. I mean, collaboration is great, and I worked with extremely, extremely, extremely talented producers. But they weren't me, and there were times when I was stymied in my wishes for a particular piece of subject matter (often subject matter) or an approach, a line on a piece or something like that. And now I am free to either soar or f**k up all by myself. I'm free to be me, if you call that freedom.BALDWIN: Now, you had on one of the episodes your friend who you've known for many years, who did the 911 Museum documentary. Correct?GARFIELD: Yeah. Steve Rosenbaum.BALDWIN: Rosenbaum--the director or the producer or both?GARFIELD: Both. BALDWIN: And Michael Shulman, I remember that clearly he was the kind of protagonist of the piece.ROSENBAUM: I mean, he's quite brilliant in the way that lots of thoughtful New Yorkers are about images and sound and picture. He's just not a museum person in that he doesn't play by the rules...BALDWIN: I liked the film a lot and I just couldn't get enough of Shulman. I wanted to see more of Shulman.GARFIELD: Shulan. Shulan. BALDWIN: Oh, Shulan? Yeah, Michael Shulan. Sorry. So, you know Rosenbaum from where?GARFIELD: I've known him for, you know, six or seven hundred years. I was a--believe it or not, this is going to sound ridiculous, but before I got into the media criticism racket, I was an advertising critic. I was a, believe it or not, world famous advertising critic because I worked for Advertising Age, which was the global publication for media and marketing industry. And I passed judgment on new commercials and campaigns and print ads and so forth. And as such was--[laughs] it's crazy. “BOB GARFIELD: EXCELLENT RADIO MAN”: Good, old Bob Garfield is the best man in the whole wide world. Good, old Bob Garfield is very intelligent. Good, old Bob Garfield is the nicest man who ever lived. GARFIELD: You know, you know what it's like to walk down the street in Cannes during the movie festival in May and people turning their heads and going, [whispering]. Well, that's what would happen to me when I walked down the Croisette in Cannes in June for the advertising festival.BALDWIN: I thought you were going to say that that was what it was like when you walked down Madison Avenue in the 70s and 80s. That was your Croisette.GARFIELD: As you well know, Alec, as a native New Yorker, nobody makes eye contact with you on Madison, so.CHARLI XCX: Why you looking at me? Why you looking at me? All these  b*****s looking at me.GARFIELD: You know, it's easy to be anonymous walking down at North to South Street. Anyway, so he called me once to book me for a speaking gig, and we became friends. BALDWIN: You were a person who was immersed in the world of advertising. I used to do voiceovers in the early days with the Young & Rubicam and of course, my favorite piece of  Madison Avenue trivia, my favorite anecdote, was when someone said that BBDO (Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn) was the sound made by what? What was the joke?GARFIELD: A trunk falling down the stairs. And it was Fred Allen, said it on his radio show back in 1644.BALDWIN: Batten, Barton...GARFIELD: Durstine and Osborn, yeah. [laughs]BALDWIN: What's your media diet? I mean, I talked to a couple of people, all of them say the same thing, and I don't fault them for that. Their go to in the morning is The New York Times online. They're all reading The Times first and foremost. What's your media diet every day? What are you committed to listening to, reading every day? GARFIELD: Well, as we've discussed, the major thing that I consume it turns out, is Alec Baldwin movies, which is is getting to be a problem.GLENGARRY GLENN ROSS SPEECH: You see this watch? You see this watch?Yeah.That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. GARFIELD: You know, I read The New York Times. That's my first go. And then, because I'm always looking for story ideas, the other thing I read is everything. Now, one of the things I really miss, one of the things I really miss about On the Media is the producers in the aggregate had far more scope in their media diets than I did, and they would bring stuff that I otherwise would not have found. And, you know, sometimes it was from Atlantic or The New Republic or The Nation or some even less brand name publications, but far greater than I personally consumed. And now, because I have constantly to be on the lookout for ideas, for pieces and commentaries and essays, I just obsessively scroll everything. So the answer to your question changes hour by hour, but I'm just going to go with everything.BALDWIN: So again, the podcast is called Bully Pulpit. It can be found at Booksmart Studios? GARFIELD: BooksmartStudios.org. You can subscribe for free. You can pay $7 a month and get bonus content from Amna and John and from me. I write a weekly text column, which might be even funner for me than the audio pieces. You know, in my life, I've written 3 or 4,000 columns. That's really how I got started in this business. What we do, or at least what I do, is observe. I observe my ass off, try to look at what is happening in our society, and ask questions that for whatever reasons some are uncomfortable about asking. And I may sometimes seem polemical. But the key is I make an argument. I don't just say things as if they were received truth. I make an argument and the arguments are pretty strong and it's often kind of funny. Have you heard any of the pieces?BALDWIN: Yes. I listened to the one about the tortillas. I listened to one about the documentary. Yeah.GARFIELD: So, I mean, in two words and one of them being “transcendent,” how would you characterize Bully Pulpit from BooksmartStudios.org.BALDWIN: Almost transcendent. GARFIELD: [laughs]   BALDWIN: To get back to your media diet, no TV for you? You're not watching any TV news at all. That's hopeless to you. GARFIELD: Well, cable news is not news. It's just highly conflicted people arguing about the news, right? Fox News obviously is not news because it's just political propaganda and opposition research. And it's, you know, it's a cancer on the society. And the local news is, you know, people standing in front of police tape talking live from something that happened yesterday. So that's utterly useless. And unfortunately, local news reporting, it's all but disappeared. We are awash in national political reporting. But the collapse of the media industry has devastated, decimated, the journalism business everywhere in this country. In some places, there are vast deserts where there is no local news available. And you know who's behind that too? You know who is at the heart of that collapse? Well, the digital revolution in the first instance, because it bollixed up the advertising model and it created an endless glut of content and not enough advertising to support it. But then Facebook and Google snapped up everything. They own the advertising economy, and everybody else has to fight for scraps. So, on top of all of the other evils of Mark Zuckerberg that we began with, they have, more than any other institution including the Trump administration, eviscerated the news business here and around the world, and from this, I believe we shall never recover.BALDWIN:  You don't see any hope?GARFIELD: No, I mean, I'm in the despair industry, but there's not a lot I see. Let's just say the planet does not burn into a cinder, about which I'm also increasingly skeptical. I don't see the problems, the intractable problems, in the news business doing anything but getting worse and worse and worse. BALDWIN: The show is called Bully Pulpit. The site is BooksmartStudios.org. I'm especially interested in both the other podcasts--Banished, and what's the other one, Lexicon Valley?GARFIELD: Lexicon Valley. They both are transcendent. And also Alec, I should say I'll be at the Valley Forge Music Fair June 7th, 8th and 9th, and I'll be doing some summer stock in Meridian, Mississippi. I'm doing Music Man. It's long been a dream of mine. I will be playing the Shirley Jones character. BALDWIN: I'm so sorry to miss that. Let's record that. Anyway, my very best to you. I look forward to Bully Pulpit, Lexicon Valley, and Banished on BooksmartStudios.org.GARFIELD: Thanks, man. It's always a pleasure. BALDWIN: My pleasure. We'll talk to you down the road.GARFIELD: All right, we're done here. You now know what my conversations with Alec Baldwin tend to sound like and you also know more about the origins of this show. In due course, you will learn more about my WNYC ordeal. It is as frustrating, I promise you, to be muzzled as it was to be smeared in the first place, but I promise you in time the truth will emerge.Meantime, we encourage you to become a paid subscriber to Booksmart Studios, so you can get extra content from Bully Pulpit, Lexicon Valley and Banished. The big Bully Pulpit bonus is my weekly text column, which some have described as “like Bully Pulpit but you don't need earbuds.”Also, I can't emphasize this enough, if you like what you hear from our shows, please share with your peeps and go to iTunes to rate us. Those ratings to date are phenomenal across the board but scale matters a lot. So, please please weigh in. And I, of course, thank you very much.Bully Pulpit is produced by Mike Vuolo and Matthew Schwartz. Our theme was composed by Julie Miller and the team at Harvest Creative Services in Lansing, Michigan. Bully Pulpit is a production of Booksmart Studios. I'm Bob Garfield. Get full access to Bully Pulpit at bullypulpit.substack.com/subscribe

Today we're talking about one of our favorite topics: puppies! Elissa recently had a litter of rat terrier puppies, and now that they've headed home, we're reflecting on the process and experience that she had. As a first time breeder, Elissa isn't an expert breeder - but she can certainly share what her experience was like. We discussed many topics, resources, and just for fun items, so check out these resources below: Some inspiration for producing a healthy of puppies came in part from the Functional Dog Collaborative: Supporting the ethical breeding of healthy, behaviorally sound dogs. Health testing information: The Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) was founded as a private, not-for-profit foundation in 1966 by John M. Olin, a well-known inventor, industrialist, philanthropist, conservationist, and sportsman. OFA maintains a database for a variety of health testing of dogs and Tilly had her hips, elbows, patella's, eyes and heart tested and logged through OFA before she was bred. Our cover photo was provided by Nina Sage Photography! Her skills in puppy photography were so appreciated by Elissa and her new puppy owners. There are many resources for good breeding information, including Avidog and Puppy Culture. We highly recommend utilizing these resources if you're thinking about your own litter. Elissa utilized the help of Dr. Lopate at Reproductive Revolutions in Wilsonville, Oregon. We hope you enjoy this episode. Give it a listen and if you like it, please be sure to rate, review, subscribe and share with your friends!

Louis Menand’s new book, “The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War,” covers the interchange of arts and ideas between the United States and Europe in the decades following World War II. On this week’s podcast, Menand talks about the book, including why he chose to frame his telling from the end of the war until 1965.“What I didn’t get right away was the extent to which, what happened in American culture, both at the level of avant-garde art, like John Cage’s music, and at the level of Hollywood movies, was influenced by countries around the world,” Menand says. “When American culture comes into its own — because before 1945, I think, nobody really thought of America as a central player in world culture; that changes in the ’60s — but when that happens, culture becomes global, becomes international.”Phillip Lopate has edited many acclaimed anthologies throughout his career, but his latest project might be his most ambitious: three volumes of American essays from colonial times to the present day. “The Glorious American Essay” was published last year; “The Golden Age of the American Essay” arrived last month; and “The Contemporary American Essay” will be available this summer.“I’m really trying to expand the notion of what an essay is,” Lopate says on the podcast. “So I’ve included essays that are in the form of letters, like Frederick Douglass’s letter to his master; I’ve included essays in the form of sermons, like Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan preacher; I’ve included essays in the form of rants. I’m just trying to get people to see the essay as occurring in many, many different forms.”Also on this week’s episode, Tina Jordan looks back at Book Review history during this year of its 125th anniversary; Elizabeth Harris has news from the publishing world; and Gal Beckerman and Gregory Cowles talk about what they’re reading. Pamela Paul is the host.Here are the books discussed in this week’s “What We’re Reading”:“The Committed” by Viet Thanh Nguyen“The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler“Beijing Payback” by Daniel Nieh“Yoga” by Emmanuel Carrère

In conversation with Carrie Rickey, writer and former film critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer Phillip Lopate's ''observant, elegiac, and far-reaching'' (New York Times) essay collections include Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre, and Portrait Inside My Head. His other acclaimed work includes a diverse array of travel writing, film and architectural criticism, poetry, fiction, and memoir which has appeared in periodicals such as Paris Review and Esquire. A professor of nonfiction writing at Columbia University's MFA program, Lopate is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Ggrants, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In The Golden Age of the American Essay, Lopate anthologizes some of the most brilliant writing produced in the inspiring but tumultuous decades following World War II. Books available through the Joseph Fox Bookshop (recorded 4/15/2021)

The Hudson River tow pound, known as Pier 76, in West Side Manhattan has a gritty reputation. But now, it's being converted into an airy, public park on the pier. It's a sign of new life as NYC recovers from COVID-19. Learn about the funding, project design and the how re-imagining this land fits into the waterfront's larger, adaptive history.

Live coverage of a neighborhood protest in Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn over the ongoing contentious rezoning issue that has residents at odds with developers.

An interview with an Italian-American Brooklynite who gardened through the pandemic and is getting back into it come spring 2021

Renowned essayist Philip Lopate interviews native Brooklynite and urban studies professor Thomas Campanella about his magisterial new book Brooklyn: The Once and Future City, for a rollicking and wide-ranging conversation on our borough's history and lore. (Recorded in our Prospect Lefferts Gardens store on September 19, 2019.)

What writing advice can one mine from a two-hour interview with prolific essayist, author, and professor Philip Lopate? If you read the July 2018 issue of The Writer, you learned about Lopate's overall approach and philosophy in "Playing on all 88 keys: The prose playbook of Phillip Lopate" who was my former grad school writing teacher. In part two, we go further into that philosophy, and you'll hear tips that didn't make the article. I love this episode because it starts with the question, "Out of the books that you've written, is there a book that you feel you've learned the most about yourself from as a writer?"

You might recognize the title of this podcast if you picked up the July 2018 issue of The Writer.  In it, you'll find my article on my former grad school writing teacher Phillip Lopate.  I interviewed Lopate last December about his career and in the next two episodes, I'm sharing some of our chat with you. In it, we talk about his latest book, A Mother's Tale, the usefulness of code-switching, the importance of anticipating the readers' objections, and much, much more!

Speakeasy #03 - Philip Lopate by Lighthouse Writers

From Hollywood to New York, a constant barrage of sexual harassment allegations against icons and wannabes alike in the news and entertainment industry continues unabated. Two fixtures on New York public radio are among the latest to be accused of misconduct. On Wednesday, Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz, were placed on leave by New York Public Radio while the company investigates the claims made against them. Mr. Lopate said that he wasn’t apprised of what the claims were or who made them. He told the New York Times, quote, “I am sure any honest investigation will completely clear me.”The actor Danny Masterson was written out of the Netflix series, The Ranch following allegations of rape, and Dustin Hoffman was confronted by John Oliver at a screening Monday night at the 92nd Street Y in New York about reports of his misconduct.How is all of this impacting the business and culture of Hollywood? And will it change the power dynamic of fans, critics and movie idols? Joining us to talk about all of this -- and about some of the great new Oscar-contending films being released in the final weeks of 2017 -- are Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, and Maryland Film Festival founder and director, Jed Dietz. As always, listeners are welcome to join the conversation as well.

For this week’s Please Explain, we’re following dogs as they sniff their way through the world with their incredible sense of smell. Alexandra Horowitz, who teaches canine cognition and creative nonfiction at Barnard College and runs the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab, explores the abilities of a dog’s nose, how it’s evolved, how it’s being put to use and how we can improve our own sense of smell. Her latest book is Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell.  Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

How did cats get domesticated? Why are they so popular on the internet? Are they good or evil? If you have wanted to know the answers to these questions, and more, tune in to our latest Please Explain, which is all about cats. We're joined by Abigail Tucker, correspondent for Smithsonian Magazine, and author of The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World.

There are over 200 varieties of peppers, ranging from shishitos to habaneros. For our latest Please Explain, we dig into the world (and health benefits) of peppers with three-time James Beard Award-winning chef, culinary historian and author Maricel Presilla. She’s the author of Peppers of the Americas: The Remarkable Capsicums That Forever Changed Flavor, which explores the history of peppers and the many dishes you can make with them.

Vinegar often plays an essential role in the food we eat. We use it in everything from baking to braising to pickling. But, author Michael Harlan Turkell writes that vinegar is "underappreciated and little understood." For his new book Acid Trip: Travels in the World of Vinegar: With Recipes from Leading Chefs, Insights from Top Producers, and Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Make Your Own, Turkell set out to give vinegar its due. He traveled the world, learning how countries from Japan to France make and use vinegar. He also collected recipes from chefs who are using vinegar in exciting, different and delicious ways. He joins us for our latest Please Explain to discuss vinegar's many uses and how you can make your own at home. Micheal Harlan Turkell will appear in conversation with Francine Segan, Ivan Orkin and Neil Kleinberg at the 92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.) on Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. Check out a recipe from Michael Harlan Turkell's Acid Trip below! OEUFS EN MEURETTE, FROM BERTRAND A UBOYNEAU, BISTROT PAUL BERT, PARIS, FRANCE SERVES 4 This dish takes the concept of bourguignon sauce and uses it to poach eggs. What you’re left with is the same rich stock, adding the decadence of a creamy egg yolk, with a side of toast to sop it all up. Bertrand, always in need of acidity, uses a portion of red wine vinegar in place of some of the red wine, which gives a much lighter quality to a dish that usually invites a postprandial nap, and instead has you feeling like conquering the day ahead. ¼ pound (115 g) THICK SMOKED BACON, cut into lardoons 1 tablespoon BUTTER ¼ pound (115 g) WHITE PEARL ONIONS, peeled, tops and bottoms trimmed 1 clove GARLIC, crushed ¼ pound (115 g) BUTTON MUSHROOMS, cleaned, cut into quarters 3 cups (720 ml) RED WINE, such as Burgundy, Beaujolais, Cabernet 1 branch THYME 1 cup (240 ml) RED WINE VINEGAR 4 EGGS, kept in shell, cold BLACK PEPPER PARSLEY LEAVES, optional TOAST and BUTTER   In a large saucepan over medium heat, render the bacon for 5 to 7 minutes, until it’s just browning but not burning. If it’s cooking too fast, lower the temperature. Pour out all but about 1 tablespoon of the fat (reserve the excess to cook with another time) and set the bacon aside (you’ll add it back in later, so try not to snack on it too much). Add the butter, onions, and garlic and cook for about 1 minute, until aromatic. Lower the heat to medium-low, add the mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the red wine, scrape the bottom of the pan to release the fond, and add the thyme. Bring back to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, or until reduced by a third. Add the red wine vinegar and continue to cook for another 30 minutes. (If it’s too acidic for your taste, add ¼ cup water at a time until it’s not.) To poach the eggs, either in the pot of sauce itself (if you don’t mind a few stray pieces of egg white) or in a separate pot of water, bring the liquid to a bare boil. Make a small pinprick on the larger end of each egg, place in the liquid, and cook for 30 seconds (a Julia Child tip); this is just to set the whites. Remove the eggs and crack them into individual small bowls. Slide the eggs back into the pot to poach them. If you like a soft yolk, cook for only a few minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the eggs and set aside. In individual serving bowls, evenly distribute the onion and mushroom mixture, then pour a bit of the sauce, enough to cover an egg, into the bowl as well. Place the eggs into the bowls and garnish with the bacon, freshly cracked black pepper, and parsley, if using. Bon appetit! Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of The Leonard Lopate Show.

For this week’s Please Explain, James Peterson stops by to talk sauces. He’s an award-winning food writer, cookbook author, photographer and cooking teacher who started his career as a restaurant cook in Paris in the 1970s. His book, Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, has just been released in its fourth edition. James will answer all of our burning sauce-related queries – from béarnaise and hollandaise, to bolognese, crème anglaise, and everything in between.  Check out some of James Peterson's sauce recipes below! SAUCE BÉCHAMEL The amount of roux per given amount of milk depends on the use of the sauce. Thick  versions,  used  as  the  base  thickener  in  traditional  soufflé  recipes,  often  call  for  as  much  as  8  ounces  (250  grams)  of  roux  per  quart  (liter)  of  milk,  whereas  béchamel-based  soups  use  approximately  2  ounces  (60  grams)  per  quart  (liter)  of  milk. This recipe produces a medium-thick sauce, appropriate for vegetable gratins. YIELD: 1 QUART (1 LITER) INGREDIENTS                                                                    milk           1 quart                  1 liter butter        3 ounces              90 grams flour          ¹⁄³ cup                  80 milliliters seasonings (salt, pepper, nutmeg; optional)      to taste                to taste 1. Bring  the  milk  to  a  simmer  in  a  2-quart  (2  liter)  saucepan.  Whisk  it  from  time  to  time  to  prevent  a  skin  from  forming  on  its  surface  (see  Note). 2. In a second 2-quart (2 liter) saucepan, gently melt the butter and add the flour. Stir the butter and flour over medium heat for about 2 minutes, until the flour has a pleasant, toasty smell. (A) Remove from the heat for about 30 seconds to cool slightly. 3. Whisk the simmering milk into the roux.  Return the sauce to the stove and bring it back to a simmer while whisking. (B) 4. Once  the  sauce  has  returned  to  a  slow  simmer, turn down the heat and move the saucepan so  that  only  one  side  is  over  the  flame.  (This will cause a skin to form on only one side of the sauce’s surface, making it easy to skim.) Cook the sauce gently for 30 minutes to 1 hour, skimming off the skin. It is a good idea also to occasionally rub around the bottom and corners of the sauce-pan  with  a  wooden  spoon  to  prevent  the  sauce  from scalding. 5. When the starchy taste has cooked out of the sauce, it can be seasoned and strained, depending on its final use.  Béchamel should be stirred while it is cooling to prevent a skin from forming on its surface. Putting the pan over a tray of ice will, of course, speed cooling. Note: Some chefs do not first bring the milk to a simmer and instead pour cold milk, all at once, over the roux.  This  method  saves  time—and  a  pot—but  be  sure  to  whisk  the  sauce  vigorously  to prevent lumps and skin from forming. VARIATIONS Use a pretreated flour such as Wondra.  Simply  mix the  Wondra  (the  same  amount  as  flour  called for in the traditional recipe) in cold water until  smooth  (make  a  slurry).  Bring the milk to a simmer. Whisk in the slurry. Simmer until the sauce thickens. It should be smooth, but just in case, work it through a chinois. While béchamel is a fairly stable sauce, there are times  (especially  if  the  flour  is  old)  when  it  will  break.  To avoid this, blend hydrocolloids into the finished sauce.  Lambda  carrageenan  lends  an  authentic  dairy-like  mouthfeel  to  the  sauce  and  is  easy  to  use.  Start by adding 1%  lambda  carrageenan to the sauce and build up as needed to get the thickness you want.   James Peterson's cauliflower gratin. (Courtesy James Peterson)   CAULIFLOWER GRATIN Béchamel  derivatives,  especially  Mornay  sauce,  make  excellent  toppings  for  gratins  because  they  brown  and  become  extremely  aromatic.  Practically any  vegetable can be pre-cooked slightly and then baked while covered with sauce. YIELD: 6 SERVINGS INGREDIENTS                                                                    cauliflower, 1 large bunch or 2 small bunches mornay sauce (SEE BELOW)                 1 quart                               1 liter grated gruyère or similar cheese          1½ cups                              180 grams 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).  Cut the cauliflower into florets. Boil for about 5 minutes. Drain and transfer to a gratin dish just large enough to hold the cauliflower in a single layer. 2. Ladle the Mornay sauce in an even layer over the cauliflower. (A) 3. Sprinkle the cheese over the gratin.  (B)  Bake  until  a  golden  crust  forms  on  top,  about  30  minutes. SAUCE MORNAY Sauce  Mornay  is  usually  used  as  the  base  for  cheese  soufflés  or  for  gratins.  When  it  is  used  for  gratins,  additional  cheese  and  sometimes  breadcrumbs  and  butter  are  added  to  its  surface  to  encourage  the  formation  of  a  crust.  Sauce Mornay is made by adding grated cheese to sauce béchamel. Be sure to choose a full-flavored, well-aged cheese for this sauce. If the cheese is too young, the sauce will not only lack flavor but will be stringy. Classic  recipes  use  half  grated  Gruyère  and  half  grated  Parmesan  (at  least  three-year-old  Parmigiano-Reggiano),  but  the  sauce  can  be  made  with  other  well-aged,  honest  cheese.  English farmhouse Cheddar and Vermont Cheddar (not the commercial kind that has been dyed orange) both work well. Blue cheeses can also be incorporated into Mornay sauces, but be sure to taste and select them carefully to avoid some of the poor-quality  versions  that  have  a  coarse,  sour-milk  smell  and  flavor.  Select genuine Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola, Fourme d’Ambert, or Bleu d’Auvergne. Keep in mind that blue cheeses tend to make sauces a bit gray. To  prepare  Sauce  Mornay,  add  approximately  4  ounces  (115  to  125  grams)  cheese  per quart (liter) of béchamel. Stir the sauce just long enough for the cheese to melt; over-cooking the cheese can cause it to turn stringy. Some recipes call for finishing Mornay with egg yolks (about 2 per quart/liter of sauce). This is useful if the sauce is being used as a base for cheese soufflé, but otherwise the yolks contribute little to the sauce except unnecessary richness. At times, if the cheese is too young, a Sauce Mornay may break. To avoid this, you can  blend  hydrocolloid  stabilizers  (0.15%  percent  xanthan  gum  and  1%  lambda  carrageenan) into the béchamel before adding the cheese. These recipes came from Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making by James Peterson. © Copyright 2017 by James Peterson. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

Our first Food Fridays Please Explain kicks off with vegan cooking! Ronen Seri and Pamela Elizabeth are the co-founders behind the vegan restaurant franchise Blossom and the authors of The Blossom Cookbook: Classic Favorites from the Restaurant That Pioneered a New Vegan Cuisine. They’ll debunk some myths about vegan food/cooking, offer tips for home cooks and share some of their most popular recipes including Trumpet Mushroom Calamari, Sweet Potato and Coconut Cream Soup, and German Chocolate Cake.  Check out recipes from The Blossom Cookbook below! Pine Nut–Crusted Eggplant Eggplant is a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine. It is full of flavor, has a fantastic hearty texture, and is extremely versatile. Created as an inventive option for our gluten-free guests, this dish uses a combination of pine nuts and basil as the crust for the eggplant, and the creamy sauce is a wonderful finish. It’s sure to please and impress at any dinner party and is great for all seasons. Serves 3 or 4 1 medium eggplant, halved and peeled 1½ tablespoons salt 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes 2 cups pine nuts 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil Scant ¾ cup olive oil 4½ tablespoons chopped garlic 1½ teaspoons salt, plus more as needed 3 pinches of black pepper 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes 1 sprig fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped 1 cup artichoke hearts 2/3 cup white wine 2 cups Cashew Cream (page 000) 1 head escarole Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Slice the peeled eggplant lengthwise into 1/2-inch slices (each half should yield 6 slices). Fill a deep bowl with water and add 1 tablespoon of the salt. Soak the eggplant slices in the water for 20 minutes to help remove any bitterness. Bring a pot of water to boil and add the potatoes. Boil the potatoes for 30 to 40 minutes, or until soft, then remove and place in a large bowl. While the potatoes are boiling and the eggplant is soaking, put the pine nuts, flour, and basil in a food processor. Process until the mixture has the consistency of bread crumbs. Transfer to a bowl and add 1½ tablespoons of the olive oil, 1½ tablespoons of the garlic, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Mix well. Drain the eggplant and dredge the slices in the pine nut breading, making sure each slice is thoroughly coated. Set the breaded eggplant slices on a rack and let sit for 10 to 20 minutes to dry. Meanwhile, mash the potatoes with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the garlic. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, rosemary, and artichoke hearts and sauté until the tomatoes begin to soften. Add 1/3 cup of the white wine and cook for 1 minute. Add the mashed potatoes and the salt and stir well. In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the eggplant slices and pan-fry on each side until they begin to lightly brown. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 3 to 5 minutes to crisp. Make the sauce: In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add ½ tablespoon of the garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the remaining 1/3 cup white wine, the Cashew Cream, and 1 tablespoon chopped basil and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add a pinch each of salt and pepper and stir. In a separate medium skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add the remaining ½ tablespoon garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, then add the escarole and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, or until soft. To assemble, divide the sauce among three or four plates, then add the potato mixture, the escarole, and finally the eggplant slices on top. Cashew Cream Cashews . . . the cream of the crop! With their high healthy fat content, cashews are the best cream substitute, because when blended, they create an incredible richness for sauces. Who would ever think that an alfredo alternative could be so simple? One of our patrons’ most frequently asked questions is “How you do it?” when they eat our coveted fettuccini alfredo. Note that you need to soak the cashews 3 hours (or overnight), so be sure to plan ahead. Makes 6 to 7 cups Ingredients 2 cups raw unsalted cashews, soaked for 3 hours or overnight 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon salt 1½ teaspoons black pepper Put the drained cashews, nutritional yeast, olive oil, salt, pepper, and 4 cups water in a high-speed blender. Blend until creamy. The sauce will be relatively thin, but will thicken quickly when heated in a recipe. Raw Key Lime Pie The “key” to this dish is the fresh lime juice—accept no substitutions! You won’t believe the fantastic texture of this pie—the avocados add an unbelievable creaminess to the filling. Makes one 9-inch pie Ingredients For the Crust 1¼ cups macadamia nuts 1¼ cups pecans ½ cup dried, pitted dates, soaked in water for 1 hour Pinch of salt ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract For the Filling 1½ cups fresh lime juice (from about 12 limes) 1 cup agave syrup ½ cup full-fat coconut milk 2 ripe avocados, halved, pitted, and peeled 2 tablespoons vanilla extract ¼ teaspoon salt 1¼ cups coconut oil Make the crust: Lightly grease a 9-inch springform baking pan with coconut oil. Put the macadamia nuts, pecans, dates, salt, and vanilla in a food processor and process until the mixture is soft and easily workable. Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Make the filling: Put the lime juice, agave, coconut milk, avocados, vanilla, salt, and coconut oil in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Pour the filling over the crust, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze overnight. Thaw before serving.  

For our latest Please Explain, we explore what it means to be an introvert and what pressures they face when advancing their careers. We're joined by Morra Aarons-Mele, an internet marketer who has launched online campaigns for President Obama, Malala Yousafzai, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, and others. She’s also the author of Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert's Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home), and she shares strategies introverts can use to manage their anxieties while also achieving their goals.  

For this week's Please Explain, we explore how science is giving us a better understanding of how addiction works, and what that means for how we think about and treat it. We're joined by Fran Smith, author of "The Science of Addiction," National Geographic Magazine's September cover story. We're also joined by expert Dr. Rita Goldstein, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who is featured in the article.  Note: Ilya Marritz guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

In a time when the president is openly attacking the press for negative stories and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville are claiming freedom of speech while protesting the removal of Confederate monuments, this week’s Please Explain is all about the First Amendment. Our guest is Floyd Abrams, author of The Soul of the First Amendment and a senior partner in the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He has argued in numerous high-profile, free-speech cases in front of the Supreme Court including Citizens United.

People spend about one-third of their lives asleep, but what actually happens when we close our eyes and begin to dream? For this week’s Please Explain we are joined by Wallace Mendelson to better help us understand. Mendelson is the former director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the University of Chicago and author of the new book The Science of Sleep: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters. He tell us about the different stages of sleep, sleeping disorders and how outside forces like alcohol and sleeping pills affect our rest. 

Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher join us to talk about their book Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life for our latest Please Explain about how our pets use science to survive. We explore the physics behind everything from how dogs lap up water to how ants use polarized light to navigate.

For this week's Please Explain, we’re discussing DACA with Hasan Shafiqullah, Attorney-In-Charge of the Immigration Law Unit at The Legal Aid Society. We're also joined by Pamela Resendiz, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico City, Mexico, and a community organizer who advocates for workers and immigrants’ rights in Colorado as the Deputy Director for United for a New Economy. They explain what DACA is, how it’s changing, who it affects and what can be done about it. Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Cities and states across the country are either decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. As the cultural shift toward accepting pot progresses, we chat with journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis for our latest Please Explain about what this means for consumers, and how the industry could become big business for some companies. Chicago Lewis has written stories about the pot industry for publications like Rolling Stone ("Medical Marijuana: A Beginner’s Guide") and GQ ("The Great Pot Monopoly Mystery"). Note: DW Gibson guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."   

For this week’s Please Explain, we explore a crime that affects millions of Americans each year: Identity theft. We're joined by Axton Betz-Hamilton, an assistant professor of consumer affairs at South Dakota State University, to discuss how easy it is for thieves to get a hold of your information and ruin your credit. Betz-Hamilton will also share her own personal story of how her identity was stolen when she was a child, how that put on a path to becoming an expert in the field, and how she discovered years later that the thief was her mother.

For our next Please Explain, Vybarr Cregan-Reid jogs us through the basics of running. Cregan-Reid, who authored the book Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human, reveals how running reconnects us to our bodies and helps us cleanse our minds. He explores the world’s most advanced running laboratories and research centers, and draws on literature, philosophy, neuroscience and biology to understand our passion for running.

Our latest Please Explain is about invisible currents that exist all around us with Bob Berman, author of the book Zapped: From Infrared to X-Rays, the Curious History of Invisible Light. Do you have questions about x-rays or microwaves? Wondering about the upcoming solar eclipse on August 21? Write to us in the comments section below, or send us a question on Twitter or Facebook! Jonathan Capehart guest hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

For this week’s Please Explain we explore the critical role coral reefs play in marine life and how they’re threatened by “coral bleaching," which is a sign of mass coral death. We’ll be joined by Jeff Orlowski, director of the new Netflix documentary “Chasing Coral," along with Ruth Gates, a scientist who appears in the film and is the director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Chasing Coral" is out now on Netflix.

In a pickle over how to make the best preserves? Don't worry! Our latest Please Explain is all about preserving with Emily Paster, author of The Joys of Jewish Preserving: Modern Recipes with Traditional Roots, for Jams, Pickles, Fruit Butters, and More--for Holidays and Every Day. Melissa Clark guest hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show." Check out one of Emily Paster's recipes from The Joys of Jewish Preserving below! Bene Israel Quick-Pickled Eggplant Whether fried, baked, roasted, or stuffed, eggplant is one of the signature vegetables of Sephardic cuisine. Indeed, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British called eggplant ”the Jew’s apple” because it was so adored by the Sephardic Jews who were likely responsible for introducing the vegetable to their shores. Eggplant has always been widely available, filling, and inexpensive: true peasant food. In the lean, early years of the Israeli state, for example, eggplant was one of the few vegetables widely available, much to the dismay of the recently arrived Ashkenazi Jews who had no idea how to prepare it. Pickled eggplant is a specialty of the historic community of Jews in India, known as Bene Israel. This recipe has more of a Middle Eastern flavor than a South Asian one, but I love the idea that different communities of Jews have different takes on pickled eggplant. Two eggplants will give you three pints of pickled eggplant, which may be more than you want, so feel free to halve the recipe. On the other hand, this pickled eggplant is so tangy and mouth-watering, three pints can disappear in no time, especially if you offer some to guests. I like to put out these pickled egg- plant cubes as part of a lunch spread. Makes 3 pints 2 medium eggplant, peeled and cubed 1 tablespoon kosher salt 2 cups apple cider vinegar 1 cup white wine vinegar 1 cup water 1 teaspoon sugar 6 cloves of garlic, sliced 3 dried chiles 12 mint leaves Place the eggplant cubes in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Cover with a paper towel and weight down with a plate. Allow the eggplant to drain for 30 minutes. Sterilize 3 pint jars by filling them with boiling water and allowing then to sit for 5 minutes. Pour the water out and allow the jars to air-dry naturally. Keep warm. Meanwhile, bring the vinegars, water, and sugar to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the eggplant and simmer until softened, about 3 to 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the eggplant cubes to the jars. Add 2 cloves of sliced garlic, a dried chile, and 4 mint leaves to each jar. Cover the eggplant cubes with brine, leaving 1⁄2 inch (1 cm) of head- space. Allow the jars to cool, cover them, and refrigerate. Allow the eggplant to cure for 2 to 3 days before serving. Pickled eggplant will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks. 

For this week’s Please Explain! we explore the creepy-crawly world of insects with journalist David MacNeal. His latest book Bugged: The Insects Who Rule the World and the People Obsessed with Them looks at the critical role insects play in nature and in our culture. We discuss how conservationists are protecting threatened species, and how bugs are used in science, medicine and even food.

If your desk is a total mess, today’s Please Explain is meant for YOU! We tackle the crucial, yet all-so-difficult task, of getting organized, with Amanda Sullivan, author of Organized Enough: The Anti-Perfectionist's Guide to Getting -- and Staying -- Organized.

Our latest Please Explain is all about the psychology and social evolution of cats with Thomas McNamee, author of The Inner Life of Cats: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions. Do you have questions about your cat's behavior? Write to us on Twitter, Facebook or post in the comments section below!

Dr. William Reisacher, an Otolaryngic Allergist and Assistant Professor of Otorhinolaryngology and the Director of Allergy at Weill Cornell Medicine, will be here to answer your burning questions about bodily fluids – specifically those of the ear, nose and throat region. His clinical expertise lies in the diagnosis and management of airborne and food allergies in adults and children, but he can offer insight into mucus, salivary disorders and much, much more.  Do you have questions about bodily fluids? Write to us on Twitter, Facebook or post in the comments section below!

Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld, Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, joins us for our latest Please Explain on ticks and Lyme disease. As global temperatures rise, there is an increasing prevalence of ticks, and tick-borne diseases, across the country. Dr. Ostfeld is part of The Tick Project, a five-year study to determine whether neighborhood-based prevention can reduce human cases of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. He will speak about the prevalence of ticks, why they are spreading and preventative measures we can take. 

For this week’s Please Explain, we are joined by meteorologist Ronald Holle to understand how lightning works. Holle has spent decades studying lightning in places like Colorado and Florida. He explores lighting strikes, how they impact different parts of the world and why the number of lightning-related fatalities in the U.S. has dropped dramatically over the last century. 

Eric Barker is the author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong. He joins us for our latest Please Explain on the Science of Success. In his book, he details the counterintuitive strategies that can lead to success, and he challenges conventional wisdom about how to achieve success.Got a question about becoming successful? Leave us a comment below!

For this week’s Please Explain, we’ll be talking about the mystery and magic of ocean tides with Jonathan White. He’s a marine conservationist, surfer and author of a new book called, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean. White explores how tides shape lives and communities, including stories of an Inuit tribe in the Arctic that watches the tides in order to find food, and how a group of French monks live in a monastery surrounded by tidal waters. He also looks at how tides will change with the effects of climate change and how communities are preparing for those changes.  Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Harvard psychiatrist and brain imaging researcher Dr. Srini Pillay will join us for this week’s Please Explain on focus, creativity and productivity. His latest book is Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. In the book, he discusses his research on the helpful benefits of daydreaming, taking breaks, and even leaving work incomplete.

We end Food Fridays on a sweet note with a Please Explain all about honey and beekeeping! We’ll learn about the many different varieties and flavors of honey, and find out why raw honey - although twice as sweet as sugar - is filled with nutrients. We’ll also get recipes and tips for cooking with honey, and advice for aspiring beekeepers from Kim Flottum, veteran beekeeper, editor-in-chief of Bee Culture (the preeminent American beekeeping magazine) and author of The Backyard Beekeeper's Honey Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Harvesting, and Baking with Natural Honeys. He’ll be joined by Amelie Tremblay, a beekeeper from Tremblay Apiaries in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY.

Our latest Please Explain is all about the variety and enduring creativity of Spanish food, including Basque food. We'll be joined by Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero, New York City-based chefs and owners of El Quinto Pino, La Vara, Tekoá, and Txikito, which is New York's only Basque restaurant. They are also the authors of The Basque Book: A Love Letter in Recipes from the Kitchen of Txikito. This episode of "The Leonard Lopate Show" is guest hosted by Deb Perelman. Perelman is a self-taught home cook, photographer and creator of SmittenKitchen.com. Her first book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, was a New York Times bestseller. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two children, and is currently at work on her second cookbook, which is due out this fall.

Our first Food Fridays Please Explain will be all about pies and pie making with Ron and Melissa Silver, co-owners of Bubby’s. Bubby's opened over 25 years ago as a wholesale pie business, but it has grown into a string of restaurants. They’ll share their secrets to the art of pie making, from the making the perfect filling to rolling out a flaky crust. Ron is also the author of Bubby's Homemade Pies.  Bubby's Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie (Courtesy of Bubby's)  Makes One 9-inch Double-crust Pie It’s serendipitous and practical combination: Sour rhubarb heightens the flavors of the strawberries, while the berries add flavorful natural fruit sugars to the rhubarb. Pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie,chilled, such as bubby’s All-butter pastry pie dough or basic butter and shortening pastry pie dough 3 cups strawberries, halved or thickly sliced3 cups (1 ½ pounds) rhubarb, cut into ½ to 1/3 - inch pieces1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on the top crust 4 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour1 teaspoon orange zest ⅛ teaspoon salt2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed Roll out the pastry and line a 9-inch pie tin with the bottom crust. Roll out the remaining dough for the top crust. Rechill the pastry if necessary. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, flour, zest, and salt. Mix the ingredients briefly by tossing them as you would a salad. Scrape the fruit into the pastry- lined pie tin. Dot the fruit with the butter and cover it with the top crust. Trim and crimp the crust; chill the pie for 10 minutes in the freezer. Cut vent slits if not using a lattice and sprinkle the top crust lightly with sugar. Bake the pie on a lipped baking sheet for 10 minutes, or until the crust looks dry, blistered, and blonde. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees F, and bake for at least 30 minutes more, or until the crust is golden brown and visible juices are thickened and bubbly slowly through the slits in the top crust. Cool the pie completely before cutting it, at least a few hours. Serve it at room temperature. Store the pie uncovered at room temperature in a pie safe or cover the pie with a layer of cheesecloth (so that the pastry can breathe) up to 3 days. The Leonard Lopate Show needs your help! We’re conducting an anonymous 5-minute survey to learn a bit about you and the podcasts you love. You can find it at wnyc.podcastingsurvey.com.  We would really appreciate your help - knowing more about you helps us put together more of the shows you enjoy. Thank you from all of us at The Leonard Lopate Show!

Ever wonder how your tax dollars are spent? Or why the American tax code is filled with loopholes and special interest provisions that serve the interests of tax lawyers, accountants and huge corporations? T. R. Reid, a longtime correspondent for The Washington Post and bestselling author, joins us for this week’s Please Explain about the American tax code. His latest book is A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System. He’ll explain how our tax code works, how it differs from the rest of the world and how we can make it better.

For this week’s Please Explain, we discuss psychosomatic illnesses and the mind-body connection with Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan. O'Sullivan is a neurologist and author of the book, Is It All in Your Head?: True Stories of Imaginary Illness. In her book, O’Sullivan chronicles the world of psychosomatic illnesses and shows how it can take over people’s lives.

Our latest Please Explain is all about navigating the high seas and using water to help you find direction in your everyday life. We’ll hear from explorer and natural navigation expert Tristan Gooley, author of How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea. Do you have a question, or a story, about navigating through open water? Leave us a comment!

‘Tis the season for sniffles. Millions of Americans suffer from allergies, seasonal and otherwise. For this week’s Please Explain, Dr. Clifford Bassett, the founder and medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York, joins us to explain what an allergy is (and isn’t), identify key triggers - from nuts to gluten to the nickel commonly used in cell phones - and offer both medical and nonmedical alternatives to treatment. Dr. Bassett’s book The New Allergy Solution: Supercharge Resistance, Slash Medication, Stop Suffering is out on March 21.