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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express, join the Powerleegirls Host Miko Lee speaks with children's book authors Lorraine Nam, Uma Krishnaswami and Maggie Tokuda-Hall about Library Joy in honor of National School Library Month! To Learn More Lorrraine Nam, illustrator and  author Michael Threet's book: I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy    Uma Krishnaswami Her books: Book Uncle Triology   Maggie Tokuda-Hall Her book: Love in the Library  Every Library Authors Against Book Bans   Show Transcript [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:35] Ayame Keane-Lee: Welcome to tonight's episode of Apex Express Celebrating Library Joy. I'm Ayame Keane-Lee the editor of tonight's show, and part of the PowerLeeGirls bringing you the introduction to tonight's show. Did you know that April is National School Library Month and in just 10 days from April 19th to 25th is National Library Week? The theme for this year's National Library Week is Find Your Joy with Honorary Chair Mychal Threets. The first of three interviews you'll hear my mom, Miko Lee have tonight is with Lorraine Nam the illustrator for the newly released children's book written by that very Mychal Threets called, “I'm So Happy You're Here”. You will then hear Miko speak with Uma Krishnaswami about her children's book “Book Uncle and Me,” and lastly with Maggie Tokuda-Hall about her children's book, “Love in the Library,” and the important work of Authors Against Book Bans. As a library kid and current library worker, I have experienced firsthand the transformative power of library access and the importance of inclusive and diverse storytelling. In and out of schools, libraries are vital to nurturing and uplifting the autonomy and sovereignty of children, which always has and continues to be a liberatory practice. We hope tonight's show will inspire you right into your local library to check out some of the great books mentioned here or to put them on hold. Let's listen in.    [00:02:06] Miko Lee: Welcome, Lorraine Nam, illustrator of amazing  children's books. Welcome to Apex Express.    [00:02:13] Lorraine Nam: I'm excited to be here.    [00:02:16] Miko Lee: I wanna start with a question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:02:24] Lorraine Nam: Who are my people? I would say creative people. People who are interested in having an open mind, and looking at the bright side of things, the beautiful things, people who are curious. The type of legacy that I bring I think is just my parents who are creative and then bringing that, to this new generation.    [00:02:57] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I am, I'm looking at your beautiful face, and behind you is this, find your joy and, and it's in lots of colors on this pink banner and in at the top we see opening up of a library door with Mychal Threets, who's the author of this book, “I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy.” I'm wondering if you can talk about your collaborative process with Mychal Threets.    [00:03:25] Lorraine Nam: The first impression that you have of writer and illustrator for a picture book is that they work really closely together, and that's actually not the case. We work pretty separately, but I was very excited. Mychal wrote the words to this book and they were looking for an illustrator and my agent called me and she asked me if I was interested. I was very excited about the project. I signed up for it and we worked pretty separately. We connected on Instagram, but he pretty much had no art notes, everything was pretty much whatever I was open to. Then we met for the first time and we got our very first copy of the book and we met in New York.    [00:04:10] Miko Lee: And what was that like?    [00:04:12] Lorraine Nam: Um, amazing. He is exactly who he is in his videos.    [00:04:18] Miko Lee: Can you share for our audience who he is and a little bit more about him, just in case folks don't know.   [00:04:24] Lorraine Nam: The book calls him a librarian ambassador. He describes himself as a reader, a lover of librarians or the number one fan of libraries. This is his first book and he's also the host of Reading Rainbow on PBS. We met at the New York Library, public Library for the first time, and he's just so nice, very kind. Honestly, it felt like we already knew each other just because we had been talking through the publisher about the book.   [00:05:02] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. It's so beautifully illustrated and you have a incredibly diverse,, amount of people in the book, both racially but also physically, and I really appreciate how you encapsulated that. I'm just wondering what inspired you to develop this specific imagery for this book?    [00:05:22] Lorraine Nam: Yeah, so one of the only stipulations in the art notes was that he wanted to have a diverse group of people attending the library. People of all ages of all color, all sizes, all disabilities. That seemed like a no brainer to me because I just know the message that he puts into the world. The only difficult part was narrowing down the cast. There's all these different types of people and just trying to figure out who to focus on. I wanted to make sure that you still see the same group of kids over and over. So it felt like you were following the along throughout the day, while still having lots of diversity and lots of different types of people.    [00:06:11] Miko Lee: Had you set what the cover was gonna be at the beginning or did that come after you had already finished the whole book?   [00:06:19] Lorraine Nam: Oh, that came much later. We pretty much had the art for the interior nailed down, and then we were working on concepts for the cover. I knew from Mychal's social media presence that maybe he didn't want to be the poster cover of the book. He wanted to be about the library goers and the people rather than himself. And so I was kind of towing that line of like obviously people wanna see him, it's his first book. They're such huge fans, and so like how much to put Mychal in and how much to showcase him, as well as showcase like all the other people who go to the library.   [00:07:02] Miko Lee: He definitely does have a joyous kind of ebullient vibe to him. I recommend for audience to check out his socials because he has this, you wanna listen to him. He's so inviting and I love the poster behind you because he is saying, like, “welcome, come into the library. This is my world.” And you also made him look so cute. Really looks like a cartoon version of him. So sweet. In your artistic process, I'm wondering what helps you define the style of art you utilize? I'm thinking about the paper cutouts that you did for a tale of two princes. What is it about the work that inspires you to select that type of style?   [00:07:43] Lorraine Nam: I actually had a very winding path to the style that I have today. So the style that I have today is very much layered. It's painted, a lot of it is painted. And then I cut it out and then I glue and collage different elements, and then I scan everything in and enhance certain aspects through Photoshop. But a lot of it started actually in wanting to make a physical book. So it was with book binding and then with book binding, because that's just a technique to produce a product, it was what goes in those pages and that's when I started doing cut paper. So just silhouetted, cut paper. And I was doing that for a long time, just cutting out rice paper to make silhouettes. I wanted to tell more of the story and depict people. So then I started making paper cut [laughs] sets. So I would build —almost like Legos— a whole set of paper buildings and paper people and paper objects that are three dimensional. And then I would photograph them. And then from there, I landed in this more 2D, but playing with still technique and texture and layers.    [00:09:10] Miko Lee: Wow, that's so interesting. Can you share a little bit more about your artistic process? Do you start at a certain time of day? Do you only work at night? Do you have a whole studio set up?   [00:09:20] Lorraine Nam: well, For the book projects because there's such a timeline to 'em and they're very specific. I'll do very loose sketches on Post-it notes. They're readily available and then you can stick two of them next to each other to make a full spread. I use these post-its, and then I would just fold them in half and use that as like very quick pencil drawings. And then if I had something that I liked, I would just go in and pen. But they were still very small. So it was more about looking at silhouettes and composition. And then I would print, it's a very old school technique, but I would print out all the text for the book and cut 'em out. And double sided tape and just stick them on to see where the text should be on the page and where it could fit. I would just do that manually until I had something that I liked a little bit more. Then I would start creating digital, like line drawings.    [00:10:21] Miko Lee: And are you lining this all up on a wall or putting it on the desk?   [00:10:26] Lorraine Nam: Um, so they're in like a notebook.    [00:10:29] Miko Lee: Oh, you put 'em in book format?    [00:10:31] Lorraine Nam: It's all the spread. So it should take about two pages basically. You should be able to look at it and look at it from like an eagle eye perspective of what the entire book will look like and what the flow will be like, and if there's closeups or this is like a far away saying, you get more of the like, setting of the library.   [00:10:52] Miko Lee: And with the font printed out really small so that it's on the bottom of that Post-it note.    [00:10:56] Lorraine Nam: Mm-hmm.    [00:10:57] Miko Lee: Wow, that is so fascinating. And what is it when you're eagle eye-ing, what are you looking for?    [00:11:04] Lorraine Nam: I'm pretending that I'm a kid looking at a book for the first time, with zero context and maybe zero reading level skill and just looking at the pictures and seeing if I can spot the same character and if there is a story that follows along, because this is a library book where it doesn't talk about specific people. I wanted to be able to follow each character in the book and see what their day was like in the library. So when they first came into the library, what they were doing during the day, what friends they made, and then maybe them leaving or, you know, a resolution of some kind, like their parents are checking out symbols at the library.    [00:11:52] Miko Lee: the concept of having the character go throughout the book. Was that in the instruction or was something that you created.   [00:11:59] Lorraine Nam: That was something that I wanted. Because I know looking at picture books, the pictures can also tell a story where, the words, it might not be in the words. So I wanted there to be more of a layered storytelling through image.    [00:12:18] Miko Lee: I appreciate that as a mom. I remember when my girls were little, they would always say, where is that rabbit on the page? Or where is that thing? And so being able to track a character all the way through, is quite delightful. It adds another dimension for the multiple readings. You mentioned before about how you didn't really meet Mychal, the author of the book until the very end, and I guess that's common as an illustrator and you've worked with so many different experts in their fields from, physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson to Skater Nathan Chen. How is their very different fields, how does that impact your art making?    [00:12:57] Lorraine Nam: It's actually the most fun. It's what drew me to illustration in the first place. I love being able to do like a deep dive and a specific subject that I wouldn't necessarily have gravitated towards and do that research. I actually do go to the library. I start the process at the library and I look at all the books about that particular topic, and then see what other people have done. And so working on the book for Neil deGrasse Tyson, it was so much fun looking at different how space is depicted the idea of galaxies and making that tangible and real for kids. And then for Nathan Chen, I was already a fan before I got the project, so it was very easy. But watching the videos, seeing all the different techniques and for his book it was more looking at sports books. Because he's such a unique person in his specific field in figure skating that there weren't very many books on figure skating and most are of a female portrayal. I was looking more at sports and how people show different types of movement, , and show like form. And the more technical aspects that are very, very, very specific and very critical to those things.    [00:14:32] Miko Lee: And how did that manifest into your book?    [00:14:35] Lorraine Nam: Um, a lot of drawings of like, the breakdown of his jumps and trying to figure out can a child do this jump [laughs]? And also doing a lot of research 'cause he's a very private person. His book is not about him, it's not a biography, but it's also loosely based off of him. You know, I have two other siblings. If I had a book based off of me, I want my siblings to be involved and represented in that as well. So I included his family, even though they're not a huge part of the book, his siblings are not like big characters. But they're still represented in there. So he can still be like, oh that's my family. This is based off of my story.   [00:15:32] Miko Lee: So when you're doing these approaches, like including Nathan's family or in the library book, making sure characters go all the way through, is that something you have to check in with the writer about, to see if they're okay? Or is that something that you just do and then you submit and you see if they like it?   [00:15:50] Lorraine Nam: That's something that I do, that I find joy in and see. Usually the first eyes on my sketches are the publisher and the art director. And I actually have no idea what, at what stage they really share the sketches, if it's like at a more finalized stage or if it's an early on one, but I usually just go with my own ideas and see what they think about it.    [00:16:20] Miko Lee: Wow. I didn't know that you could have that much say into it. That's lovely. You talked a little bit about using the library for research. Gosh, I imagine that Neil deGrasse Tyson, there's so much research on it, that must have been a deep dive. I'm wondering what the library meant to you as a child.    [00:16:38] Lorraine Nam: Yeah. I grew up as a big reader. The library for me it was a magical space that I wasn't really sure what it was. My parents, because they grew up in Korea and moved here to the States, there was a big language barrier between us and they're also very not talkative people. They just took us to this place one day and it was our local public library and it was right before closing and we were able to check out as many books as we wanted in whatever type of book that we wanted. I felt like that was magical, that there was no limit to it.    [00:17:19] Miko Lee: My last question is, what are you working on now?    [00:17:22] Lorraine Nam: I'm working on a few books, actually. I'm juggling a few, but they're all very fun and different. I'm doing a book about a boy dreaming of flying, being a pilot. So I think that will be a really fun imaginative book.    [00:17:43] Miko Lee: What is one of your books that you would've liked to read to your younger self?    [00:17:50] Lorraine Nam: Mm, I probably Wei Skates On, the book with Nathan Chen. ‘Cause his story is about overcoming obstacles and being disappointed. And just feeling frustrated and upset. And I feel like that's an important lesson even in adulthood. It's not really resolved through words. It's more of like the, everyone is there for him, his family is there for him, and they all just want him to enjoy what he's doing and to not care about winning or losing.    [00:18:33] Miko Lee: Lorraine Nam, thank you so much for chatting with us about your work and about the library as a magical place, appreciate talking with you.    [00:18:42] Lorraine Nam: Thank you so much. I had so much fun talking with you.   [00:18:45] Miko Lee: Welcome, amazing award-winning children's book author Uma Krishnaswami, I'm so happy to have you here on Apex Express.   [00:18:54] Uma Krishnaswami: Miko, it's my pleasure to be here.    [00:18:57] Miko Lee: I wanted to start with a question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:19:05] Uma Krishnaswami: What a wonderful question. Who are my people? My people are children who are, my ideal readership is the eight to 12-year-old group. I write for children. I'm not particularly thinking about audience when I begin writing. But at some point I want my readership to feel validated, whether they recognize themselves as being in my stories or my stories are offering them a window into a world that they are not immediately familiar with. So I would say those are my people.    [00:19:45] Miko Lee: And what is the legacy that you carry with you?    [00:19:48] Uma Krishnaswami: I grew up in India. The year that I was born India had been independent for all of nine years. So I carry very much that colonial legacy. I also am an immigrant to two countries, early in my adulthood to the United States and about 12 years ago to Canada. So my legacy is one of moving and finding new roots, finding community. Those are the things that I try to carry forward in my stories. When I began writing, I lived in the US and I started writing when my son was born. So there I was with a little brown baby and I went looking for books that would represent him and I didn't find them. And I think that is what made me think in my early thirties that, real life people could write children's books because of course the books I had read as a child were all written by people from England and many of them were dead. I kind of thought you had to be dead and British to be a writer. So yeah, it's complicated, isn't it? All of that works into, what you think of as, as your legacy. Having done this for 30 plus years now.    [00:21:03] Miko Lee: And you've written so many beautiful books. Tell us about a little bit more about that first book.   [00:21:09] Uma Krishnaswami: So the very first book, it was called Stories of the Flood. I realized very quickly that I didn't really know what I was doing. I looked to folk tales and traditional tales as a way to teach me about story. My second book called The Broken Tusk Stories of the Hindu God Ganesha. That is the one that I consider as the book that taught me how to write. I had a wonderful editor [unintelligble] Thorpe at a small press in Connecticut, Linnet Books. She told me to lean into story and to see myself as a storyteller. In a way, every book I've written has taught me how to write.   [00:21:47] Miko Lee: Can you tell us about your favorite book as a kid?    [00:21:52] Uma Krishnaswami: My favorite book as a kid, it would have to be Winnie The Pooh.    [00:21:58] Miko Lee: And what was it about Winnie the Pooh that enamored you?    [00:22:01] Uma Krishnaswami: I came to it very early and aunt had traveled to England and she brought me my copy of winnie the Pooh in the House of Poo Corner. And I read them, sitting in very Indian gardens, sometimes up in trees. I spent lots of time up in trees and I took my own geography and placed it over the geography of the book. , So that for me, the a hundred acre wood had lime trees and banyan trees and possibly mango trees. It didn't occur to me, until much later when I read an Enid Blyton reader. I had my moment of disillusionment with Enid Blyton and that's when it really occurred to me that there was an us and a them in, in some of the storytelling I was consuming.   [00:22:49] Miko Lee: What age was that where you recognized that?    [00:22:51] Uma Krishnaswami: My post-colonial moment?    [00:22:53] Miko Lee: Yes.    [00:22:54] Uma Krishnaswami: I might have been a 11.    [00:22:56] Miko Lee: Oh, wow. And were you still living in India at that time?    [00:22:59] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah, yeah. 11 was a very formative year for me. My grandfather passed away, so it sort of brought mortality , into the framework for me. Also that was my year of disillusionment with Blyton. 'cause I read The , river of Adventure. And the villain in it had my name. He was called. Uma, Raya or Raya Uma or something like that. And yeah, I was just shocked. Just totally shocked. It was pure coincidence, I'm sure. She probably just, pulled the name out of the air and plunked it in. But. I began to notice that he was described as dark skinned and he was described as cunning. All this language that had slid right past me before began to be apparent. So, yeah,    [00:23:47] Miko Lee: I love that. That is so amazing. This name, like what? That's my name as the villain.    [00:23:53] Uma Krishnaswami: I'm the Bad Guy. No, I'm not.    [00:23:56] Miko Lee: And all of your books are such a wonderful clap back to that because you have a multitude of characters and so many different worlds. Initially reached out to you because I started reading book Uncle this trilogy of books that are so lovely. Can you first share a little bit about what the Book Uncle's Trilogy is about.    [00:24:16] Uma Krishnaswami: Okay, so it didn't start out as a trilogy. It didn't even start out as a book. It started out as a short story and then it didn't quite fit. It wasn't a picture book. It seemed to have more layers than that, so it kind of grew. But what started Book Uncle and Me was I was visiting my parents in India. At the time, and I was on this very busy urban street and there was this kid sitting on this on the, on the sidewalk. Um, it was kind of a broken brick sidewalk, and she was sitting cross-legged right in the middle and she was reading book and she was just oblivious to the crowd going around her and the. Buses on the road and there were, you know, random goats and dogs running around and she just was ignoring everything and she was absorbed in her book. And I remembered that I had been that kind of reader as a child. There was an election going on at the time as well, and I thought, I wonder what would happen if I put those two things together. And that is how Book Uncle came to be.    [00:25:14] Miko Lee: And then there was just, you wanted to live in those characters more, so you ended up writing additional books?    [00:25:20] Uma Krishnaswami: Hmm and that's a very good question. And actually no, I didn't, I thought I was done. I wrote Book Uncle and Me back in, I'm say 2009, 2010, something like that. I probably started it in 2010. Um, it got published originally in India in 2012, I believe. And then it was picked up by Ground Wood in Canada and published in Canada and the US so North American edition in 2016. And I thought, you know, I'm done. I'm writing other things. And then come the pandemic and we're all in lockdown. And like a lot of writers, I was doing, um, many, many, virtual. Presentations and programs. Um, and I did something through the North Vancouver Public Library and, there were kids zooming in from, you know, some from home, some from their bubbles, some from classrooms, whatever. And we were talking about book uncle and one of the kids, I think in third grade maybe, she said, Are you gonna write a sequel? And I am just joshing, right? I am. I said, yeah, should I? And they're all going, yeah, you should. And you should write three because you've got three characters you should give them each a [story]. And I'm like, all right guys i'll think about it. I absolutely will but not really taking it seriously. And then as often happens. the session ended and, you know, there we were all in lockdown going nowhere. And I thought maybe, maybe there's something there. Maybe I could return to that. And in a way I was kind of intrigued because I hadn't, had never thought about a trilogy and I was interested in how that would play out. Um, and it was kind of a writing challenge to myself, but honestly, once I started writing Birds on the Brain, which was book two it just kind of, I hesitate to say wrote itself 'cause I, that just seems, you know, so kind of woo woo. But, um, it did, it did. Uh, the, the kid came in and she took over and then a bird flew onto the rooftop and there I was on my way. So that's the story of, of how that that happened. In retrospect, I'm really sorry I didn't ask that child's name because I would've absolutely loved to have acknowledged her in the book. But thank you child from North Vancouver, whoever you are.    [00:27:40] Miko Lee: That is so amazing. That's by request, by audience request. You fulfilled this goal of a trilogy and and I I love that they even said, not just a sequel, but a trilogy.    [00:27:52] Uma Krishnaswami: Oh, they were. Yeah. They had it. I mean, they had, then they, they figured it out, which was really lovely.    [00:27:58] Miko Lee: And those, that trilogy is really geared, as you were saying to the second and third grade audience and I So many of your books are written around kids that can make a difference. What is it about that age that appeals to you and that motivation to show them how they can change the world?    [00:28:16] Uma Krishnaswami: I think they have this really, strong sense of what's fair. It's the age at which, you know, you start pushing back against what you see as small unfairnesses in your life. Parental restrictions quite often, or older siblings. You're pushing back. You're doing a little bit of finding who you are. And I think that uh, you begin to get a sense of awareness of the big world outside your small circle. And I think also one of the things that drives me, with writing to this age is that, I feel that it is so unfair that grownups, the adult world, has created so much injustice. And we just kind of expect the next generation to step up and step into it and, and do the best they can. and it just, it doesn't seem right not to at least give them the wherewithal to think about that. And they do, they have children have voices and their voices matter. As we found out with, the climate strikes. I mean it really was young people who brought those messages out into the world and forced us to think about them and talk about them. So, I think that we owe children that.    [00:29:34] Miko Lee: So which of your books would you want to read to the second or third grade Uma?   [00:29:43] Uma Krishnaswami: [Laughs] Maybe Book Uncle and Me. Because I think there's a lot of second and third grade Uma in that book. I was a compulsive reader like Yasmin. I would've absolutely read a book every day for the rest of my life if I'd had that many books available to me. I didn't. So I read the ones I had over and over again. I lived in an imaginary world, quite a bit of the time.   [00:30:06] Miko Lee: Speaking of having access to lots of books, I'm wondering what your relationship was like to libraries, both as a child and then now.    [00:30:15] Uma Krishnaswami: I'm a proud and inveterate library goer. I put holds on things. I go browse on shelves. I download eBooks and audio books. I always have a pending list. I'm very, very grateful for libraries and also for librarians whom many of whom I have come to know over my life and am immensely grateful for. I did not have access to libraries much as a child. We didn't have a public library system that was free and available and open to everybody. There were the kind of unofficial lending library types that I feature in Book Uncle and Me. There are sadly fewer of them now, but you still find them on street corners in India. I remember taking a book and giving one and then getting one back in return. That was, that was part of my life in some of the places we lived.   [00:31:07] Miko Lee: Did you know an actual book uncle?   [00:31:10] Uma Krishnaswami: I didn't actually pay much attention, to the people who handed those books out. I was much more, focused on the books I was getting. There are characters who I've seen who have run these things. I once had somebody email me and say, I'm a book uncle. This is what I do. So that was really nice.    [00:31:31] Miko Lee: That's sweet. I wanna roll back and talk a little bit more about your artistic process. I'm wondering if you, as a writer, as illustrator, you can sometimes be in your own world, and I'm wondering what your process is.   [00:31:43] Uma Krishnaswami: My place is right here. This is my office room, and I'm standing at a treadmill desk, and usually what I will do, is when I'm writing, I will turn that on very, very slowly. I usually start out at the idea stage with a notebook and a pen. I have fountain pens with very varied colors of ink, and I use those always to write my initial notes and questions about a new story idea. I don't go to the computer and the keyboard until the idea has started showing up quite a few times. In, perhaps in a few iterations, almost as if I'm actually pushing it away at first, you know, saying, don't scratch up my window until you are developed a little bit more. I'm not going to, indulge, the initial shallowness that usually the first idea is often not what it's gonna end up being. I question that, and sometimes this is gonna sound really crazy, but, if I write those questions many times over in different colored inks, the answers begin to break out in clumps. Once I've begun to think, okay, well maybe I, I know what I could do with this. That's when I open up a file.    [00:32:56] Miko Lee: Ooh share a little bit more about the different colored inks. How does that work?    [00:33:00] Uma Krishnaswami: Um, right over there, there's a whole row of inks, and right over here is a fountain pen, and I have several of them. I change the ink colors, and when I get stuck with something, it really does help to write those questions to myself, in a journal notebook. I have a terrible handwriting, so I used to really worry about when people gave me nice notebooks. Little empty notebooks with beautiful glossy pages. I used to think, God, my writing is so awful. I feel like I'm desecrating this beautiful book. I've gotten over that and it's actually really helpful to physically write that thought for me is very, very useful.   [00:33:39] Miko Lee: And when you see the different colors, is it like words that stand out to you, that you piece together? Yeah.    [00:33:44] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or sometimes I'll write something, in a paragraph, and then I'll break it up and write it in a lineated way, maybe in a different color. You just start seeing things differently when you try different ways of thinking about the same thing. It's all a trick to get the kind of managerial editorial mind out of the way. You need her later, but I don't need her when I'm trying to shape something.    [00:34:13] Miko Lee: The, for the creative process. Mm-hmm. The multiple colors just helps    [00:34:16] Uma Krishnaswami: Right.    [00:34:16] Miko Lee: Pull you into that.    [00:34:17] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah. It just loosens, it loosens my mind up so I don't feel so focused on the objective. I often tell myself, I think Linda Sue Park used to say this. You don't have to write a whole novel. You just write a scene. And so that's what I tell myself, I'm a sceneist. I'm not a novelist. I'm just a sceneist. I write one scene. And that's all I need to write. Then I will write another one and so forth.    [00:34:38] Miko Lee: And do you use sticky notes or something to keep those scenes separately or    [00:34:42] Uma Krishnaswami: just all kinds of things? I use sticky notes. I use little boards on which I draw plot lines, and then I write, notes to myself. I use the journal notebooks. I've started using Scrivener and I actually have found that helpful but not until I've got something, in enough shape to plug things in.   [00:35:01] Miko Lee: Oh, I love hearing about artistic process. That's so fascinating. I appreciate you and you're showing your beautiful pen and everything. It's so great.    [00:35:08] Uma Krishnaswami: It's messy, right? One of the things I've learned is to lean into the messiness and not try to organize things too fast, too early.    [00:35:16] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm. Giving yourself the time for the creative juices to flow.    [00:35:20] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah. Yeah.    [00:35:21] Miko Lee: So my last question is, what are you working on now?    [00:35:25] Uma Krishnaswami: I've actually just got done with edits on a picture book, which is going to be called Mango Sun. And then I'm working on another picture book. That's just gone to my agent. It's got to do with wildlife rescue and conservation in the Himalayas. It's an Indian setting, but a very different setting from Mango Sun.   [00:35:44] Miko Lee: And most of the ideas from your books are just coming from your imagination or something you read or where are you pulling from to get your inspiration?    [00:35:52] Uma Krishnaswami: Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. I have a picture book that came out of a trip that we took to Galapagos and will it ever take form? I don't know, it's about the rewilding of an island , and how when you bring one species back, the other one follows. Some of it's from my childhood. I have two picture books that came out of a memory of planting a mango seed and watching it grow.   [00:36:21] Miko Lee: Sounds lovely. Two of my favorite things, mango and Sun [laughs], appreciate you joining us and sharing about your artistic process and your amazing book. And I'll put a link to your website in our show notes. And thank you so much for joining us and talking to us about Book Uncle and your work.    [00:36:37] Uma Krishnaswami: Miko, thank you so much. It's really a delight.    [00:36:41] Miko Lee: Welcome, Maggie Tokuda Hall to Apex Express.   [00:36:45] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Thank you so much for having me.   [00:36:47] Miko Lee: I'm so happy to have you talking about, your wonderful book, love in the Library. But first I wanna, ask you a question I ask my guest, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:37:01] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Oh man. I feel like I have so many tribes that I identify with in different ways. , Gosh, who are my people? I mean, generally speaking, angry queer teenage girls very much my people. Tired Jewish aunties also my people. Exhausted Asian mothers also my people, [laughs] librarians and book people are my people. I, I, I don't know. I feel like I have so many people that I feel an affinity toward and an affection for, and kinship with.    [00:37:38] Miko Lee: I like you naming all of those because we're multifaceted people and there's many different things that make up who we are. Yeah. And what is the legacy that you carry with you from all these tribes you're a part of?   [00:37:50] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: From my mother, I carry a legacy of honoring the truth, like really believing that children are owed the truth and that part of being an adult is being courageous enough to tell it. but I also come from like a vibrant family of Jewish storytellers and I feel like I have that, that I carry with me as well.   [00:38:17] Miko Lee: Thank you. So you've written the book Love in the Library about Tamma, a woman who works at a library in the Minidoka concentration camp during World War ii.    [00:38:28] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Mm-hmm.    [00:38:28] Miko Lee: And she meets George and falls in love. Can you tell me about how you very first heard this true love story of your grandparents?   [00:38:40] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I can't actually, I don't remember the first time I heard this story. It is a story that I've just always known. like for me it's very much a fabric of how I came to understand the world and my place in it. Like sky is blue, grandma and grandpa met in a prison camp, you know, normal stuff. And so, um,    [00:39:00] Miko Lee: so it's just part of the family lore?   [00:39:03] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. Like, it's not something my mother was ever shy about telling us. And I truly do not remember the first time she talked to me about it because I remember being very small and already feeling like I knew that story.    [00:39:15] Miko Lee: Okay. Then how did you decide to turn it into a children's book?    [00:39:19] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah, so, in 2017 when President Trump took office for the first time, in his very first executive order was to sign the travel or Muslim ban where he was banning people from Muslim majority countries from coming to the United States. It was clear immediately that he was gonna be using his time and power to enact a white supremacist agenda. I knew I needed to do all the things that we're supposed to do. Like I called my representatives and I wrote my postcards and I marched and I did all those things. But I really did try to audit what I had to offer, particularly children in that moment. That was unique to me. And I realized I had this beautiful story in my own family, not just about the cruelty of those sorts of policies, but also the resilience and power of the people who they target.    [00:40:05] Miko Lee: Ooh. Fired up the, that truth teller part of you just became ready to go.    [00:40:11] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah.    [00:40:11] Miko Lee: Um, speaking of the impact of politics and what's going on and how that relates to books, I know that in April, 2023, Scholastic wanted to include love in the library in a collection around AANHPI folks, but they wanted to edit your amazingly fierce author's note. Can you share with our audience what happened?   [00:40:34] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, first of all, thank you for calling it amazingly fierce. In my author's note, I talk about how what happened to my grandparents wasn't an isolated moment in American history and that it was racist, which I think is a, a reflection of a very basic understanding of that history. It, it's not, a creative extrapolation and. Scholastic offered to license the book, but my licensing offer came with a caveat, which was that I had to remove that entire paragraph. Um, and I had to remove the word racism from the text altogether. And so I decided to say no and say no publicly. And for about three months, my full-time job was talking about Scholastic, but also about our obligation to tell children, American history, honestly.   [00:41:19] Miko Lee: And they wanted you to get word of the word racist. Did they say why?    [00:41:24] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes, they basically said, the language is too strong and we fear that some teachers won't bring it in for fear of this political climate, which is the nice way of saying like, we have to sell into places where book bans are happening and we think that this language is too incendiary for people who would ban books, which to me was always really, Unsatisfactory logic, because books about Japanese American incarceration are banned all the time and they don't use as strident of language as I use in that author's note. baseball saved us, gets banned. They called us, the enemy gets banned. This story is already considered dangerous by the people who would ban books, so they were trying to hold a center that just doesn't exist.   [00:42:04] Miko Lee: And so what did you end up doing?    [00:42:07] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I said no and said no publicly, just with like, sort of the hope of, sparking some intra community conversation among kid lit creators about what sort of edits are appropriate to offer people. I would, I still posit, that that's a completely inappropriate edit and that's about sanding down people of color's, history and perspective to cater to a white audience. And I was unwilling to do it. and Scholastic initially released like a very, incomplete apology. And then when they received a lot of pushback about that, they offered a much more full apology. They offered to meet with me and my publisher, the CEO of Scholastic and the head of their education divisions, which is the division that made me this offer. And then they also had me work with a restorative justice consultant, for like a year to try to figure out what they could do better. But what I said to them at the end of that time that I told them, I was extremely transparent that I would be talking about this publicly. So I don't feel bad saying exactly what I said to them here is, I think the exact same thing would've happened. It just would've happened more politely.    [00:43:17] Miko Lee: Wow.    [00:43:18] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I don't think that they actually reexamined what their role is as a publisher of Books for Children under Unconsolidated authoritarianism. They just figured out how to ask people to make racist edits more, more, uh, gently.    [00:43:33] Miko Lee: And you worked with them for one year with an RJ consultant.   [00:43:36] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, like, not every day, but we had, you know, meetings over the months. And she was a smart lady. Like I don't think that she, you know, did nothing. I think she was trying her best, but I think that, you know, big institutions are very slow to institute cultural change and that that on the one hand has to happen from the top down, but also can't happen from the top down.   [00:43:56] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:43:56] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: And so I genuinely believe that there CEO was trying his hardest to, to make a meaningful change, but without them really stopping and examining and questioning what their own role in this moment is in a critical way. I don't think that they are going to be able to have answered what I would've required for them to, for me to then accept their licensing offer. ‘Cause they made it again.    [00:44:25] Miko Lee: So at the end of the one year long, they made the licensing offer to you again?    [00:44:29] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. I think just to be kind, just as like a gesture of like, listen, we know we messed up. We'd love to license your book and I still said no because I don't think that they made meaningful enough change.   [00:44:40] Miko Lee: Hmm. Wow. I love this. What did you learn from this experience?    [00:44:47] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: That it is very unusual for people to blow the whistle within publishing, even when the examples are egregious.    [00:44:54] Miko Lee: Tell me about your connection with Authors Against Book Bans. Did that come out of this experience with Scholastic, or were you involved actively involved in this prior to that?    [00:45:05] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: No, it absolutely came as a result of my experience with Scholastic. Authors against Book Bans is an organization that I'm currently the president of. We're over 5,000 book creators across the country who are united under a single point of view, which is that the government shouldn't be allowed to tell us what to read. That's what we believe and that's what we fight for. And I got involved in founding the group along with specifically David Levithan, who's a really wonderful young adult and middle grade author, who had put together most of this group before I even came on board. Cause we realized that authors needed a central place to fight. There was no one organizing specifically us. And so Authors Against Book Bans was born out of necessity and, the dearth of a place that existed for us. Everyone would call on us to come speak, but it was extremely ad hoc. We weren't making any kind of unified movement, even though we all so passionately agree that, you know, book bans are anti-American and in violation of our First Amendment rights. And, you know, the freedom to read is a necessary freedom for a free and democratic society. and the reason I'd reached out to David initially was because I was hoping to put together something like Authors Against Book Bans, but just by myself, which is, maybe a testament more to my own personality [laughs] problems than anything else, but I was like, I'll just figure it out. And he was like, you know, I'm actually assembling a group that's trying to do this. Would you like to be a part of it? And that's how I came aboard. But I had gotten interested in it because as a result of the Scholastic fiasco, I was invited to give the keynote speech at the Idaho Library Association in 2023. I gave my little speech that I'd been giving a lot then, um, about how we have an obligation to tell American history honestly. And, people were like, the reaction was so emotional to it and so profound and like, I thought it was a good speech. I'm proud of the speech, but like it, something else was going on and I could feel it. And I started talking to the people who were there and when these librarians started telling me what they had gone through, just for making books like mine available to children, stalking, harassment, death threats. One of them had been followed home, like really frightening, scary things happening to them on like, in some cases a daily basis. I realized like I was gonna be a part of this fight. That was that. I wasn't gonna let them fight alone. And so, you know, in, in my advocacy work now, Idaho still holds like a very precious place in my heart because I think that it's a very forgotten state. When we think about places that need help, when we think about places that have been gerrymandered, when we think about places where there are so many good people who are disenfranchised and unable to affect meaningful change in their state level, governments. That have just been absolutely run roughshod over by Christian nationalists. We should be thinking about Idaho. They have, I think, like the highest neo-Nazi population in the United States. so it's a very direct line between my grandparents being incarcerated to the activism that I do now. And it wouldn't have happened without Scholastic's offensive offer.   [00:48:22] Miko Lee: I did not realize that librarians were personally being assaulted or attacked or followed. For books.    [00:48:29] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: You should watch, the librarian's documentary that's now streaming on PBS. Okay. Um, it's common across the country. Amanda Jones, who's an Authors Against Book Bans member no big deal, is a librarian in Louisiana that can't go grocery shopping in her own hometown anymore for fear for her own safety because she has taken a stand to like refuse to remove lgbtq plus books from her school library shelves. It's really dire. And I think people understand objectively that book bans are a problem in our country. I do not think that they understand how violent that this fight is. It's a really dark and hard time to be a librarian. So if you're a person who supports libraries, you should be thanking your librarians and letting them know one-on-one and in person face-to-face that you appreciate the work that they do, because there are people who are making their lives really difficult.    [00:49:25] Miko Lee: Can you talk about what the library meant to you as a child?   [00:49:30] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, honestly it was like a part-time babysitter. You're a kid, there's a library. Entertain yourself, you figure it out. I think the first time I really felt like a sense of belonging in the library was in middle school. We moved from LA to Northern California and I had to start a new school in seventh grade. I didn't really know anyone and it was embarrassing to not have people to eat lunch with and things like that. So I would eat lunch in the library. And the librarian was really kind about it. Like she never called attention to it. She never embarrassed me about it. She would let me sneakily eat in there, even though there was a very specific rule that you weren't allowed to eat in the library. she put, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles on an end cap once, and that's how I found them and ended up reading the entire series and that was really when I became a fantasy reader and you know, my debut novel was a fantasy novel. I still feel very much like a fantasy reader kind of at heart, and that started there. I mean, we never know when libraries are going to save a kid's life.    [00:50:39] Miko Lee: Can we go back to how you ended up writing this book about your grandparents' experience? Sure. And what was the first spark for you to say, I wanna turn this into something. It's a family lore, but I want more people to know about it.   [00:50:54] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, the Trump administration thing,    [00:50:56] Miko Lee: it was truly that. You said it was    [00:50:57] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. Trump was it    [00:50:58] Miko Lee: Trump got elected. People should know this happened.    [00:51:00] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes. What do you have to tell children in this moment If they're Muslim, they're scared, and if they're not, they need a way to understand what it means to feel afraid. Both of those things need to happen at the same time of like, you have to offer comfort to the children of the marginalized. You have to offer perspective to the children who have the privilege not to feel that fear. And so I have this story and what I love about this story is. I know that children are capable of holding the complexity of this story is both very romantic and very sweet, and also the circumstances it happened under were completely unfair. That's the kind of logic children are able to hold, and they should be given the opportunity to hold that kind of complexity because it'll serve them for the rest of their life because most of most situations we confront are complex.   [00:51:57] Miko Lee: And how were you able to eke out more details of that story? Did you do family interviews or was it more from your imagination?    [00:52:05] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: My mother is a journalist and she kept my grandmother's journals from the time she was in Minidoka. So some of it comes from my grandmother's journals. Some of it comes from working with my mother to make sure that it felt accurate, tonally and factually. ‘Cause she was not gonna let me publish a book that was nonsense. I always say it's Truman Capote true. ‘Cause the situation, the sensory details, all that stuff real, but the dialogue is made up. The dialogue is art. The dialogue is a way for children to understand how they might've been feeling. They never had succinct, quick conversations like this about their humanity and how they felt about each other. It was a long courting process, and so, you know. That part is made up for children,    [00:52:49] Miko Lee: but you, but you did include actual quotes from her journal too, right?    [00:52:53] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes. The book closes with her words, not mine.    [00:52:57] Miko Lee: Can you give us those final words?    [00:53:00] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: The miracle is in us as long as we believe in beauty, in change, in hope. Which are words she wrote while she was imprisoned in Minidoka.    [00:53:11] Miko Lee: And how does that resonate with you in the time of now?    [00:53:15] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: They are words that I desperately cling to in the hope that I can see them become manifest.    [00:53:23] Miko Lee: And what are you working on now?   [00:53:26] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Making Authors Against Book Bans as operational as possible.    [00:53:31] Miko Lee: And what does that look like?    [00:53:32] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: In late 2025, we became a nonprofit corporation. We have fiscal sponsorship under EveryLibrary, which is a really wonderful advocacy group that's a combination [501](c)3-(c)4, which means you can make tax deductible donations to them, but also they do overtly political work. And so now we can receive tax deductible, donations and continue to do the overtly political work that we do. We are an unapologetically political organization. We are more than happy to help get people elected who fight for the freedom to read, and we are delighted to show the door to people who would stand in our way of that freedom.   [00:54:09] Miko Lee: And how can people get more involved in your work?    [00:54:13] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: They could absolutely go to authorsagainstbookbans.com and make a donation. We need it [laughs]. We are one of the only organizations that receives donations that exists for the sole purpose of fighting book bans. Most every other group in our space have an angle that book bans affect them, and so they fight against them, but that's not their only purview. It is our only purview. So if it is something that you were interested in fighting, then you could make a donation to us. I would suggest signing up to be on the email list from EveryLibrary because they mobilize everybody, not just authors and book creators. And if you are a book creator, self-published, traditionally published, we don't care. Then you should sign up to be a member of Authors Against Book Bans and you'll get calls to action every Friday.   [00:55:07] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing with us about your book and educating us about the work you're doing and appreciate hearing from you. Thank you for joining us.    [00:55:16] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Thank you for having me.   [00:55:28] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night..    The post APEX Express – 4.9.26 – Library Joy appeared first on KPFA.

Attention is the world's most valuable commodity.If you have a smartphone your attention is being quietly siphoned away from you. 30 minutes here, an hour there. It's subtle and more dangerous than most of us will give credit.If your life is where your attention goes then, not to be too dramatic but your life is being stolen.I do believe it's theft because it's not accidental, it's by design and I think we should be angry about it. Sure, we all enjoy certain aspects of being online but the game is not our enjoyment. Tech companies want us so addicted that we're online 24/7.This all sounds like I'm leading towards the magic solution. Sorry, I don't know the answer, I'm just as addicted as you. I'm hopeful though, because I'm at stage 1 - admitting I have a problem. From here we can start to work out some solutions.This week's guest is August Lamm and she has found a solution, albeit a drastic one - she's ditched the internet altogether.Some people can get quite angry about this decision, they think August is selfish and entitled.I'll be honest, we're lucky that this interview even happened. My UK number wasn't working properly in New York. I could get imessage, but that's no good for August's brick phone.Share this episode with a friend (not if they're offline though)There were times when I was trying to contact August but the New York Library was closed. One day I got a string of emails, ending with “I'm going to have to go. I'm using the computers in the Apple store and they're getting pissed off with me”It's slightly annoying to arrange meetings with an offline person. I'm sure August faces some of these difficulties every day. But I really don't think it's anything to be mad about. Your sanity is your responsibility and if that means not participating with what everyone else deems normal, so be it.I deleted WhatsApp about 7 years ago. I know it's a pain for some people but I will never go back and if you really want to speak to me you'll work it out.I've lost friends because I don't drink alcohol.I leave parties at 9pm because I go to bed at 10.Your most important people will understand.When I first went sober it definitely wasn't the norm. Now if you don't drink, it's pretty universally accepted.Maybe it'll be that way with the internet someday. Maybe we'll recognise that scrolling is worse than smoking. Maybe more and more of us will get offline.There are dumb phone communities popping up here and there and it feels like collectively we're all starting to agree that our screen time is too high. Ditching the internet does feel extreme though and I really want to believe that there are less dramatic actions we can take. August disagrees. Only time will tell. To hear more, visit creativerebels.substack.com

Oggi incontriamo MONICA BARENGO, illustratrice. Monica si dedica specialmente agli albi illustrati, che ha pubblicato in Italia, Francia e Taiwan, oltre a disegnare per alcune riviste nazionali ed internazionali. Il suo primo albo illustrato è stato “Polline, scritto da Davide Calí e pubblicato da Kite edizioni. Nel 2022 l'albo “Lo scrittore,” scritto da Calí, illustrato da Monica e pubblicato in Italia da Kite, ha vinto il premio del New York Times e della New York Library per il miglior libro illustrato.Nell'episodio di questa settimana parliamo di emozioni, differenze e similitudini, albi illustrati, e tanto altro ancora.Ogni settimana una nuova storia, una nuova vita, dietro le immagini.Questo è un podcast indipendente. Clicca i link qui di seguito per: Diventare un mio PATREON e sostenere questo podcast con un piccolo contributo per coprire le spese di produzione ed aiutarmi a continuare questo progetto;Ricevere la NEWSLETTER de “Il Mondo Invisibile” in cui condivido cosa imparo ogni settimana dagli ospiti del podcast e cosa voglio ricordare per la mia pratica creativa; Seguire l'account Instagram @ilmondoinvisibilepodcast e la pagina facebook con lo stesso nome, per vedere le opere degli artisti, e per mandarmi i tuoi commenti. Grazie milleA presto! 

A Criminal WednesdayFirst a look at the events of the dayThen Yours Truly Johnny Dollar starring Bob Bailey, originally broadcast November 13, 1960, 64 years ago, The Bad One Matter.   A juvenile delinquent down south knows the secret of a murder, but refuses to reveal it...and for a good reason!Then the news from 64 years ago, then Suspense, originally broadcast November 13, 1960, 64 years ago, The Man Who Murders People starring  Vivian Smolen and George Petrie. A commuter train ride into fear. Who is "The Roseville Killer?"We follow that with Jeff Regan Investigator starring Jack Webb, originally broadcast November 13, 1948, 76 years ago, The Guy from Gower Gulch. Who shot Davey Crockett? No, it wasn't Mexican soldiers! Crockett was bumped off as soon as he was bailed out of jail. What is the connection between wounded horses and a roll of film?Then Macabre, originally broadcast November 13, 1961, 63 years ago, Final Resting Place. An escaped madman and his victim are willingly buried alive.Finally, Lum and Abner, originally broadcast November 13, 1941, 83 years ago, New York Library and Lions. Thanks to Honeywell for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at http://classicradio.streamIf you like what we do here, visit our friend Jay at http://radio.macinmind.com for great old time radio shows 24 hours a day

For the latest Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper, we were so honored to welcome the program manager at RISE Theatre, Victoria Detres. She joined us to talk about her brilliant organization as well as their upcoming summit. So make sure you tune in, turn up, and support this great company!RISE Theatre SummitTuesday, September 24th@ New York Library for the Performing ArtsTickets and more information are available at risetheatre.orgAnd be sure to follow Victoria and RISE Theatre to stay up to date on all their upcoming projects and productions: maestramusic.orgrisetheatre.org

Dr. Nathan S. French A school field trip to Washington, D.C. is a formative rite of passage shared by many U.S. school students across the nation. Often, these are framed as “field trips.” Students may visit the White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, Declaration of Independence (housed in the National Archive), the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Jefferson Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, or the Smithsonian Museum – among others. For many students, this is the first time they will connect the histories of their textbooks to items, artifacts, and buildings that they can see and feel. For those arriving to Washington, D.C. by airplane or bus, the field trip might also seem like a road trip. Road trips, often involving movement across the U.S. from city-to-city and state-to-state are often framed as quintessential American experiences. Americans have taken road trips to follow their favorite bands, to move to universities and new jobs, to visit the hall of fame of their favorite professional or collegiate sport, or sites of family history. As Dr. Andrew Offenberger observes in our interview, road trips have helped American authors, like Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday, make sense of their identities as Americans. What if, however, these field trips to Washington, D.C. and road trips across the country might amount to something else? What if we considered them to be pilgrimages? Would that change our understanding of them? For many Americans, the first word that comes to mind when they hear the word, “pilgrimage,” involves the pilgrims of Plymouth, a community of English Puritans who colonized territory in Massachusetts, at first through a treaty with the Wampanoag peoples, but eventually through their dispossession. For many American communities, the nature of pilgrimage remains a reminder of forced displacement, dispossession, and a loss of home and homeland. Pilgrimage, as a term, might also suggest a religious experience. There are multiple podcasts, blogs, and videos discussing the Camino de Santiago, a number of pilgrimage paths through northern Spain. Others might think of making a pilgrimage to the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim sacred spaces in Israel and Palestine often referred to as the “Holy Land” collectively – including the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (among others). Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, is a classic example of this experience. Some make pilgrimage to Salem, Massachusetts each October. Others even debate whether the Crusades were a holy war or pilgrimage. American experiences of pilgrimage have led to substantial transformations in our national history and to our constitutional rights. Pilgrimage, as a movement across state, national, or cultural boundaries, has often been used by Americans to help them make sense of who they are, where they came from, and what it means, to them, to be “an American.” The word, “pilgrimage,” traces its etymology from the French, pèlerinage and from the Latin, pelegrines, with a general meaning of going through the fields or across lands as a foreigner. As a category used by anthropologists and sociologists in the study of religion, “pilgrimage” is often used as a much broader term, studying anything ranging from visits to Japanese Shinto shrines, the Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj, “birthright” trips to Israel by American Jewish youth, and, yes, even trips to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee – the home of Elvis Presley. Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) defined pilgrimage as one of a number of rites of passage (i.e., a rite du passage) that involves pilgrims separating themselves from broader society, moving themselves into a place of transition, and then re-incorporating their transformed bodies and minds back into their home societies. That moment of transition, which van Gennep called “liminality,” was the moment when one would become something new – perhaps through initiation, ritual observation, or by pushing one's personal boundaries outside of one's ordinary experience. Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), a contemporary of Turner, argued that a pilgrimage helps us to provide a story within which we are able to orient ourselves in the world. Consider, for example, the role that a trip to Arlington National Cemetery or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier plays in a visit by a high school class to Washington, D.C. If framed and studied as a pilgrimage, Geertz's theory would suggest that a visit to these sites can be formative to an American's understanding of national history and, perhaps just as importantly, the visit will reinforce for Americans the importance of national service and remembrance of those who died in service to the defense of the United States. When we return from those school field trips to Washington, D.C., then, we do so with a new sense of who we are and where we fit into our shared American history. Among the many examples that we could cite from American history, two pilgrimages in particular – those of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X – provide instructive examples. Held three years after the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1957 “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” led by Dr. King brought together thousands in order to, as he described it, “call upon all who love justice and dignity and liberty, who love their country, and who love mankind …. [to] renew our strength, communicate our unity, and rededicate our efforts, firmly but peaceably, to the attainment of freedom.” Posters for the event promised that it would “arouse the conscience of the nation.” Drawing upon themes from the Christian New Testament, including those related to agape – a love of one's friends and enemies – King's speech at the “Prayer Pilgrimage” brought national attention to his civil rights movement and established an essential foundation for his return to Washington, D.C. and his “I Have a Dream Speech,” six years later. In April 1964, Malcolm X departed to observe the Muslim pilgrimage ritual of Hajj in the city of Mecca in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hajj is an obligation upon all Muslims, across the globe, and involves rituals meant to remind them of their responsibilities to God, to their fellow Muslims, and of their relationship to Ibrahim and Ismail (i.e., Abraham and Ishamel) as found in the Qur'an. Before his trip, Malcolm X had expressed skepticism about building broader ties to American civil rights groups. His experience on Hajj, he wrote, was transformational. "The holy city of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the creator of all and felt like a complete human being,” he wrote, “People were hugging, they were embracing, they were of all complexions …. The feeling hit me that there really wasn't what he called a color problem, a conflict between racial identities here." His experience on Hajj was transformative. The result? Upon return to the United States, Malcolm X pledged to work with anyone – regardless of faith and race – who would work to change civil rights in the United States. His experiences continue to resonate with Americans. These are but two stories that contribute to American pilgrimage experiences. Today, Americans go on pilgrimages to the Ganges in India, to Masada in Israel, to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and to Bethlehem in Palestine, and to cities along the Trail of Tears and along the migration of the Latter-Day Saints church westward. Yet, they also go on pilgrimages and road trips to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, to the national parks, and to sites of family and community importance. In these travels, they step outside of the ordinary and, in encountering the diversities of the U.S., sometimes experience the extraordinary changing themselves, and the country, in the process. * * * Questions for Class Discussion What is a “pilgrimage”? What is a road trip? Are they similar? Different? Why? Must a pilgrimage only be religious or spiritual? Why or why not? How has movement – from city to city, or place to place, or around the world – changed U.S. history and the self-understanding of Americans? What if those movements had never occurred? How would the U.S. be different? Have you been on a pilgrimage? Have members of your family? How has it changed your sense of self? How did it change that of your family members? If you were to design a pilgrimage, what would it be? Where would it take place? Would it involve special rituals or types of dress? Why? What would the purpose of your pilgrimage be? How do other communities understand their pilgrimages? Do other cultures have “road trips” like the United States? Additional Sources: Ohio History and Pilgrimage Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, Ohio History Connection (link). National Geographic Society, “Intriguing Interactions [Hopewell],” Grades 9-12 (link) Documentary Podcasts & Films “In the Light of Reverence,” 2001 (link) An examination of Lakota, Hopi, and Wintu ties to and continued usages of their homelands and a question of how movement through land may be considered sacred by some and profane by others. Melvin Bragg, “Medieval Pilgrimage,” BBC: In our Time, February 2021 (link) Bruce Feiler: Sacred Journeys (Pilgrimage). PBS Films (link) along with educator resources (link). The American Pilgrimage Project. Berkley Center, Georgetown University (link). Arranged by StoryCorps, a collection of video and audio interviews with Americans of diverse backgrounds discussing their religious and spiritual identities and their intersections with American life. Dave Whitson, “The Camino Podcast,” (link) on Spotify (link), Apple (link) A collection of interviews with those of varying faiths and spiritualities discussing pilgrimage experiences. Popular Media & Websites “Dreamland: American Travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th Century,” Shapell (link) A curated digital museum gallery cataloguing American experiences of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Israel, and Palestine. LaPier, Rosalyn R. “How Standing Rock Became a Site of Pilgrimage.” The Conversation, December 7, 2016 (link). Talamo, Lex. Pilgrimage for the Soul. South Dakota Magazine, May/June 2019. (link). Books Grades K-6 Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert. The Book of Boy. New York: Harper Collins, 2020 (link). Wolk, Lauren. Beyond the Bright Sea. New York: Puffin Books, 2018 (link). Grades 7-12 Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penguin Books, 2003 (link). Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992 (link). Melville, Herman. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. New York: Library of America, n.d. (link). Murray, Pauli. Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage. New York: Liveright, 1987 (link). Reader, Ian. Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 (link). Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. New York: Modern Library, 2003 (link). Scholarship Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Bloechl, Jeffrey, and André Brouillette, eds. Pilgrimage as Spiritual Practice: A Handbook for Teachers, Wayfarers, and Guides. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2022. Frey, Nancy Louise Louise. Pilgrim Stories: On and Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain. First Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Lévi-Strauss, Claude Patterson, Sara M., “Traveling Zions: Pilgrimage in Modern Mormonism,” in Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory along the Mormon Trail. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 (link). Pazos, Antón. Redefining Pilgrimage: New Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Pilgrimages. London: Routledge, 2014 (link). Reader, Ian. Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 (link). Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960 (link)

Episode: 1115 New York Library's selection of the Books of the Century.  Today, a bold listing of books that've shaped us.

Two hours of Drama.First, a look at this date in history.Then The Mysterious Traveler, originally broadcast November 13, 1951, 72 years ago, The most Famous Man in the World. A young couple receive a couple of visitors from the future, who predict they will be most famous people in the world in the near future. Followed by Suspense, originally broadcast November 13, 1960, 63 years ago, The Man Who Murders People. A good story about a commuter train ride into fear. Who is "The Roseville Killer?"Then Yours Truly Johnny Dollar starring Bob Bailey, originally broadcast November 13, 1960, 63 years ago, The Bad One Matter. A juvenile delinquent down south knows the secret of a murder, but refuses to reveal it...and for a good reason!Followed by Macabre, originally broadcast November 13, 1961, 62 years ago, Final Resting Place. A horror story about an escaped madman and his victim willingly buried alive. Finally Lum and Abner, originally broadcast November 13, 1941, 82 years ago, New York Library and Lions.

Masonic Lodge Washington DC Felines New York Library Arcturians 8th Dimension by Ivan Teller

Special guest Deonté L. Warren is back for Part 2! Deonté shares about his senior thesis paper, in which he dove deeper into “The Wiz” and the blaxploitation genre, leading to a discussion regarding what actual diversity and inclusion within the theatre industry could look like. The trio dives further into the career of Ted Ross, challenges and questions workplace culture and celebrates the Lion's courage to share his biggest fears.Show Notes:Deonté's WebsiteInstagram: @downtheyellowbrickpod#DownTheYBPTara: @taratagticklesEmKay: @emshrayOriginal music by Shane ChapmanEdited by Emily Kay Shrader

Our May “Get Lit with All Of It” book club author, Kate Elizabeth Russell, joins us for a short conversation about her novel My Dark Vanessa, ahead of our event on May 26.   Get Lit with All Of It is now in partnership with the New York Library, who will be providing thousands of extra e-copies of 'My Dark Vanessa,' available for a free 3-week download.  And we will be hosting a virtual event with Kate Elizabeth Russell and a special musical guest on May 26.  For more information about the event, Get Lit with All Of It, and e-books made available, head to our Get Lit page.

This week Jack reviews Martha Graham’s body of work and Reid has started watching videos of shoe repair. It’s also part 2 of our epic interview with Linda Murray of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Library for the Performing arts. Contact the Jerome Robbins Division: dance@nypl.org Dance Research Fellowship at The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library. MORE: YOUTUBE.COM/DANCEANDSTUFF SUPPORT THE MAKING OF DANCE AND STUFF via PATREON WWW.DANCEANDSTUFF.COM --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

[REBROADCAST FROM MARCH 3, 2020] We revisit our conversation with our former March Get Lit with All Of It book club author, James McBride, who will now be participating as our April Get Lit selection. McBride gives a preview of his new novel, Deacon King Kong, which we will be reading this month.  Get Lit with All Of It is now in partnership with the New York Library, who will be providing thousands of extra e-copies of 'Deacon King Kong,' available for a free 3-week download.  And we will be hosting a virtual event with James McBride and a special musical guest on April 30.  For more information about the event, Get Lit with All Of It, and e-books made available, head to our Get Lit page.

Lou Reed—music icon, poet, photographer, Tai Chi master, vital force in the cultural life and underworld of New York City. Lou died in 2013 and left not a word of instruction about what he wanted done with his archive of recordings, instruments, gear, his Tai Chi swords, jackets—from his days with The Velvet Underground, through his solo career and last recordings. He left everything to his wife, artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Over the next six years Laurie and a team of Lou’s “keepers” created a vision. In March 2019, on the occasion of his birthday, The Lou Reed Archive opened to the public at the New York Library for the Performing Arts with parties, friends, family, fanfare and a drone concert at the largest cathedral in the world. During that week and beyond we spoke to many of Lou’s archivists, family, and friends — Laurie Anderson, Curator Don Fleming, Jason Stern and Jim Cass who worked with Lou, drone wizard Stewart Hurwood, Producers Tony Visconti and Hal Willner, Carrie Welch from the New York Public Library, Curator Jonathan Hiam and a devoted crew of librarians and archivists at the New York Library for the Performing Arts, and Lisa Shubert at Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Many thanks to all. The Keepers, stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, historians and collectors, is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) in collaboration with Nathan Dalton & Brandi Howell and mixed by Jim McKee. Special thanks to story interns Sydney Stewart and Josh Gross. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia Podcast Network from PRX. Support for The Kitchen Sisters comes from Radiotopia, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Grammy Museum Foundation, The Marin Community Foundation/ Susie Tompkins Buell Fund, Cowgirl Creamery, The Kaleta Doolin Foundation, The Robert Sillins Family Foundation, The Robert Lee Hudson Foundation, the TRA Fund and listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions. “These are really terribly rough times and we really should try to be nice to each other as possible.”  Lou Reed.

****SPOILERS**** This episode we discuss the Ghostbusters trailer, Marvel's acknowledgement by the New York Library, the mystery Star Wars TV series, and a brief review of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Also R.A. finally reveals his fan theory about Palpatine and the "Chosen One"

Scott Stein, the owner of and travel planner for Extraordinary Adventures (https://www.myextraordinaryadventures.com/travel-podcast.html), shares 15 things you may or may not have known about him, all so you can get to know your friendly neighborhood travel planner a little better.Music: www.bensound.com(The show transcript is being provided by YouTube's automatic transcriber. Please forgive any inaccuracies or errors.)hey everybody and welcome to the 16th episode of EA radio I'm Scott from extraordinary adventures and this week I thought we'd have a little bit of fun get to know your friendly neighborhood travel planner yes it's me one of the things that I firmly believe in is is having a more personal relationship with my service providers my product people I don't feel like you can put your faith in something so personal as a travel plan in someone that you don't really know in somebody that is distant or anonymous or like an online travel agency not to knock the them Expedia and Orbitz and all these things but you know that's very transactional so if you're gonna be in a position like mine you're in a very personal business and I feel like I would want to get to know my travel planner I would want to like make sure that he was in my corner understood my needs and I think the best way to do that is to once in a while be a little silly be a little quote/unquote unprofessional and share some stuff about yourself I think this whole idea from 30 40 50 years ago professionalism I think it's gone out the window in this day of social media instant access access to everything you have to stand out in some way and the weight that I think the best way to stand out is to be incredibly genuine to be transparent honest connect with your folks and that's something I do you'll see if you're not yet a client my clients already can attest to this I become Facebook friends with you I give you access to me I give up I like access to you I like to see what you're up to I like for you to see what I'm up to next week if you have a question 11 o'clock at night if I'm sitting there you know watching TV or whatever usually I'll answer your question 11 o'clock at night I don't I don't have those hard and fast 9 to 5 monday-friday hours you know I respect your privacy in your time and you respect mine and that's it I mean it's a it's a great relationship but I think you only get that through creating rapport so I thought today would be fun to again tell you things that help you to get you to know your friend neighborhood travel planner that's me so 15 things you may or may not know about me let's get started first one I think everybody knows this one but the single most important thing in my life is my wife Laura we've been together I was 18 she was 17 that was 26 years ago so you do the math figure out our ages we were babies I mean truly really really young we we went to different high schools on the mound met each other it was called cruising Hempstead Turnpike side of the road parking lot a bunch of kids would hang out and and meet people and date and whatever and that's how we met it was a great it was great first month she was supposed to leave to go to Indiana and we just fell in love and have been love ever since she came right back one month later and said I'm not leaving him and her father was upset and her mother was upset and everybody's everybody was upset but you know we clearly showed them prove them wrong because you know our wedding song is just still the one by chennai 20 because she's still the one and i'm happy to say that we are have beaten the odds of divorce in this country i think it's again because a my my philosophy our philosophy of the way we connect with people being genuine having open communication and transparency the same thing I do with my clients we do with each other so I think that is made for a really really open honest environment that has allowed for the flourishing of two people who be worse with children and grew up and do adults and did alongside each other and those I think a very powerful thing for us the numbers number two things you may or may not know about me I'm a big dog guy had Shepherds a lot as a kid and I've had labs as an adult I think dogs are so important in human lives I think that they add something that I mean cats are sweet and nice and bunnies are sweet and nice and and I had all the pets that you love your whatever dogs and there's a lot of science to you back this up there's a connection between human and dog and I couldn't imagine my life without my dogs I've had dogs since I was a baby since I before I was born my parents had dolly then we had buster then we got Chrissie then we had Tara then we got Spanky and Spanky died right around the time when I was leaving my house my wife and I got our first dog together that was Sammy we got him a brother that was Rex and they both passed on we got two new boys Albert and Brody many of you may know Albert he comes up a lot in my post and now we have how can any to add to the list many of you probably seen pictures of them as well and posted them as well we like to take them places and I tagged them and things because they have their own Facebook page of course me what dog doesn't um so that's that's my dogs the other thing you might not know about us is that Laura and I are bikers not bicyclists but bikers we both owned harley-davidson motorcycles we've had him four or five six years now we do all the biker type stuff go to events and go to the Biketoberfest Bike Week out in Daytona yeah we live the biker lifestyle it's you know that typical I wouldn't call it midlife crisis because I've wanted it a bike since I was a child that was a very small boy in Queens and queens new york and my cousin I forget his name somebody literally drove his motorcycle right into the living room and I was like okay that's for me and I knew that since I was small single digits and it took me like 40 well 30-something years to to finally get around to getting one so I've been a biker too hard my whole life and then my wife got on back and for several months and said okay that's for the birds and got her own she I've never dreamed about being a bike a biker but loves it loves a lifestyle likes hanging out likes riding so it's it's it's a little fun fact about us that many people don't know here's a fun fact that is gonna maybe strike you as odd I went to college telling everyone else undergrad Hofstra knew Hofstra University and then somewhere along the way decided I wanted to be a chiropractor and like kids do my wife and I kind of decided this together and we both jumped in we went down to life University Atlanta Georgia will place called Marietta right outside of Atlanta and we went to school become doctors she finished like 75 80 percent of the program I finished like 99% of the program the only thing I had left to do with some clinic work and three other board exams I had already done one so I was literally at the finish line and decided to stop and that's a whole nother story someday you can maybe ask me in person we'll talk about that but it wasn't for me long story short it wasn't for me so we bailed out of that and that was kind of when we got into the restaurant industry which I guess now is a good segue I'll skip number five and jump to number six and then come back to number five which of course you don't know the order so I didn't have to just say any of that so yeah after that we didn't know what to do kind of fly on it a little bit and just got jobs we were 24 25 years old but it led into a career my wife and I both became bartenders and servers and got into management and did the whole nine yards and at some point we actually even opened our own bakery cafe we had our own restaurant right here in dr. Philips turkey bacon sailing Sand Lake Road near the Whole Foods we were there for about four years loved it it was great it was fabulous the critics loved us we it was New York style pastries and bagels and some sandwiches and stuff but after doing it for like I said three or four years realized that too was not for us did teach us a lot about running a business taught us that we loved running a business but we'll taught us that we didn't want to work 16 hours a day seven days a week and then we needed to find something that we could take our passion and take our connect you know our desire to connect with people and be involved with people and do something with it differently so we closed that down went back to what we knew bartending she and I both worked and she still does work at Disney she was a fine-dining server and he's a fine-dining server and I was a bartender a high-volume bartender at Downtown Disney we did very very well and that gave us the ability to travel because it gave us a lot of time off throughout the year and it we made pretty good money for for those jobs you gotta remember Disney so its high volume and it's high ticket prices so that's when our love of travel started you know several years ago probably more than several at this point there's been a while we started with cruises and then we English and Germany and Mexican like we went everywhere and we just loved it and that's kind of obviously a foreshadow into what we now do for a living but that's that's that was that owned the cafe became bartender I have to have the chiropractic school and then somewhere along the way we were gonna head to Germany and I decided I wanted to learn German so that's fact number seven that you may or may not know about me is I eat reckon I'm beaten budge I mean I speak a little German I've been studying for years and I still sound like an idiot to myself I don't know I really just need to go live there for a few months and get immersed and sound better but it's a very very hard language but no excuses I also like yo hablo poquito espanol tambien I speak a little more Spanish I think I'm more comfortable in Spanish than I am in German but I think I know more German than I knew Spanish I just came up learning Spanish and so it's more comfortable for me so that's that's a little fact here's a quick one favorite band my favourite band has always been to bands since I'm 12 13 years old they toads been between Metallica yes I'm a bit of a hard rocker guy and Led Zeppelin little bit softer rocker but those two bands back and forth you know throughout the years I'll swear one way or the other those have been the two bands for me for 30 years that have been my nothing's toppled the two of them my favorite book ever if you haven't heard about it it's called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand there was a survey done years ago influential people New York was the New York Library of Congress and somebody else got together did the survey these influential people like senators business owner like these people right and they said hey what's the most influential book ever and of course top the list was the Bible you think influential good bad different influential the Bible clearly the number-two book that made the list was Atlas Shrugged I said okay I got to read this book and it really was a great book it's a life-changing book it changes the way you think about things and I highly recommend it favorite movie my favorite movie like my favorite band is is to but it's really one of the same it they got father sound cliche but it is Godfather one and two I don't even recognize the existence of number three Godfather one and two are absolutely my favorite I go back and forth as to which one is my favorite I probably lean towards - I loved Michael in that what does new mapache knowing that Michael Corleone was so psychopathic and evil and amazing that it's like oh my god but um it was great it was great movie in the boost world I'm a big scotch guy single malt and I'm a big beer person and I don't mean just pounded Bud Lights although I would my refrigerators full of odd lights no I'm Laura and I are both a bit of a beer snob household she likes her IPAs and I like my mom or multi forward beers like the Germans or the English so that's that's our beer Sidon she's a big wine person she was studying to become a sommelier I don't know if she's still doing that or not she may she may pick it up again in the future but she really loves her wine and then she's a gym person so so we like going over to England Ireland Scotland because inland and Scott are very much known for their gin obviously Scotland is where Scotch is from so that's a big a big thing for me I love that favorite food favorite food is gonna have to be even though I grew up in New York which is basically Jewish and Italian somewhere along the line my favorite food became Mexican food obviously I like kosher delis and I like Italian food and I like New York Chinese and I like hotdogs I like all the New York foods I like I like it all but Mexican by far is my favorite is my favorite food okay you're not supposed to my posture don't ever talk about religion or politics well I'm not gonna talk about religion but I will talk quickly about politics I am a libertarian that's as quick as I'm gonna say I'm not a Republican I'm a Democrat I'm a I'm a libertarian that's it now you got to know me so maybe you hate me or like me for that you know we're more connected now because you know where I stand politically here's an interesting fact for you how does a person who sells travel who sells travel planning who travels himself how does that person whose destination focus is Germany England Ireland Scotland as well as the rest of Europe has that person hate flying yep I'm in the camp of people who hate flying I absolutely we would love to just take the Kino art transatlantic over and then do my Europe thing and then take my transatlantic back if I could it's more about time than it is about money because those translations aren't really that expensive but you'd have to dedicate like a month of travel because it takes four five six seven days to get over there or if I think seven days to get back so you're dedicating you know ten days to two weeks just getting there and back so you have to fly and I hate there's a fact now I'm up to the 15th and final fact that you may or may not know about me and that is I am a cruise at it I would be on a cruise ship 26 weeks out of the year so yeah half the year if I could I'd be on a cruise ship Caribbean river cruise expedition cruise Alaska cruise you name it if I could be on a cruise ship I'd be a happy man I love cruising I think that I think that for two purposes one I think that he'd mystically I think there's just a really laid-back fun vacation go down the Caribbean jump on Royal in the region whoever whoever you like I just think it's a great value as well I mean everything's included it's and it's amazing but then there's the other side the flip side is the more philosophical side and the expedition and river clue cruises and the small ship cruises and the sailboat cruises they get you to ports that you could not get to with these big guys you got to remember the world grew up on the waterways whether that was ocean or earlier on rivers so where did all the great towns and cities spring up on coasts and on rivers so you can get to much of the places you want to get to via boat so I say why not if you don't know anything about river cruising you might be surprised to know that oftentimes you get dropped off right in the heart of a city so instead of going the airport then driving an hour to get to that city or using a cruise ship like a mess a mass-market one like royal or something like that where you then port and then you've got to take an hour to get into these cities these river boats go right into the heart you step off and you're in the action so and that to me I you can't be dead so between the hedonism and the connect connecting and then the immersion that I just I just love cruising I'm never gonna stop cruising so that's that alright so that's my 15 you heard by my wife and low my dogs I meant Harley and my chiropractic school and that we owned a bakery cafe and that I was a bartender and then I speak expect fine beach and bunch and then I like Metallica and Zeppelin Alice shook my favorite book Godfather one into my favorite movie booze scotch and beer a sketch of beer man I'm probably gonna go have a beer or soon as I get done recording this Mexican foods my favorite I'm a libertarian who hates flying but loves cruising so that's it so that's the show for today now you know a little bit about me email me back Scott at my extraordinary ventures calm tell me why you love the things I love more hate the things I hate you know hate the things I love and tell me what you love and hate I would love to hear about my audience I'd love to hear about my clients and that's that so I hope you enjoy the show for today definitely give me an email if you do I'll read your email on the air like we did last week with I think was George will Macon if I recall and you just say your your first name and where you're from and we'll read your email so until next time this is again Scott from extraordinary adventures I'm thanking you for tuning in and reminding you to please share this show on Facebook and Twitter remember we are now on iTunes and Google Play so it's very easy to just share the link it's it's EA Radio EA travel rates up you know I'll get you I'll get you you would think that I would know it's EA radio travelpod cast EA radio travelpod cast and you can find that on Google and iTunes okay so how professional was that that I don't even know the name my own thing alright guys now you got that you learned that about me as well that sometimes I don't know my own stuff alright until next time spread the word we'll catch you on the next episode of EA radio stay tuned ciao

In Part 2, Chris speaks with Jill Hurst Wahl, a professor at Syracuse University's iSchool and Producer of the podcast T is for Training, along with Carl Gouveia, Director of the Seymour Library in Brockport, New York and Beth Lathrop, the Director of Libraries at the Strong National Museum of Play. Each shares their feelings […]

This final part of the episode allowed Chris to speak exclusively with Beth Lathrop from the Strong National Museum of Play. We find out more about the library, it's collection and take a trip down memory lane as Chris tried to wrap his head around how awesome the museum is. Learn about the Toy Hall […]

Chris attended the New York Library Association (NYLA) Conference in Rochester, New York.  NYLA allowed Chris to set up and podcast. There were so many interesting guests, that we had to split this episode into 3 parts.  The first of the three has guests Barron Angell, Librarian and Program Coordinator for Teen Programs from the […]

The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory When a cynical reporter goes to observe a unicorn from an alternate universe that now lives in ours, she encounters poachers, a forest ranger and a child used as a unicorn lure. The Author: Carlos Hernandez is the author of The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria (Rosarium 2016) and numerous works of short fiction, poetry, and drama, mostly in SFF. Look for his middle-grade novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe from Disney Hyperion in March 2019. The Actor: Dyan Flores is a musical theatre writer and performer. She was a regular on the Chicago improv and sketch comedy scene before she moved to New York and shifted her focus to musical theatre writing. Dyan has performed with Halcyon Theatre, Impress These Apes, The Paper Machete, Beast Women Cabaret, iO Chicago and more. Dyan is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Writing workshop, and she has had shows performed at the New York Library for the Performing Arts, American Theater Company, The Metropolitan Room, Milk Can Theatre Company, and NYU. flores.dyan@gmail.com

I denne udsendelse tager vi til det sagnomspundne Arktis i selskab med den dansk-islandske kunstner Olafur Eliasson. Klodens yderområder er på få årtier kommet i centrum for international politik og debatten om menneskehedens fremtid. I en tid hvor landskabet i Arktis er i voldsom forandring, er det Det Kgl. Bibliotek gået sammen med biblioteker i, Stockholm, Oslo, Nuuk og New York for at undersøge, hvad der sker, når isen i Arktis forsvinder. Med afsæt i bibliotekernes polarsamlinger diskuterer kunstnere og forskere klimaforandringernes betydning i live-samtaler på bibliotekerne.   Sammen med Paul Holdengräber, der står bag Live from New York Library, diskuterer Eliasson øko-filosofi samt kunstens rolle i klima-spørgsmål. Læs mere om Arctic Imagination her Følg Den Sorte Diamant på facebook

Our second episode features part 2 of our conversation with Evan R. Chesler, Chairman of Cravath and one of the nation’s most accomplished trial lawyers. Evan went Behind the Trial to discuss the significance of the jury trial to American democracy, the limits and pitfalls of using humor in the courtroom, the importance of maintaining your credibility with a jury, and how to explain it all to a room full of 6th graders! Evan’s clients include a who’s who of the Fortune 500 from IBM, Time Warner, and Novartis to Alcoa, Xerox, and American Express among others. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Chairman of the Trustees of the New York Library, and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law. Behind the Trial. Listen and learn from the trial masters.

Episode 01 features Evan R. Chesler, Chairman of Cravath and one of the nation’s most accomplished trial lawyers. Evan went Behind the Trial to discuss the keys of persuasion, common traits of an effective trial lawyer, the significance of the “people factor,” and how versatility is critical in the courtroom (and he was just getting started). Evan’s clients include a who’s who of the Fortune 500 from IBM, Time Warner, and Novartis to Alcoa, Xerox, and American Express among others. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Chairman of the Trustees of the New York Library, and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law. Behind the Trial. Listen and learn from the trial masters.

Guest speakers: Timothy Leary & Terence McKenna Invitation to the opening of the Timoty Leary Archive at the New York Library. (Held on the second anniversary of the Occupy Movement.) :-) PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “I know that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Tim Leary. He was the pathfinder. He cut the way through the woods. He gave us all permission to be very much the people that we are tonight.” “Alchemy is really the secret tradition of the redemption of spirit from matter.” “What 'psychedelic' means is getting your mind out in front of you, by whatever means necessary, so that you can relate to it as a thing in the world and then work upon it.” “Mind conjures miracles out of time.” “You've been told from the cradle that the deck was stacked against you, fall of man, original sin, and so forth and so on. It's bullshit. It's absolute bullshit.”   Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Books mentioned in this podcast One Foot in the Future Nina Graboi Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition By Frances A. Yates Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella (Magic in History) D.P. Walker