Podcasts about Swiss French

It's a small world. The great David Rieff came to my San Francisco studio today for in person interview about his new anti-woke polemic Desire and Fate. And half way through our conversation, he brought up Daniel Bessner's This Is America piece which Bessner discussed on yesterday's show. I'm not sure what that tells us about wokeness, a subject which Rieff and I aren't in agreement. For him, it's the thing-in-itself which make sense of our current cultural malaise. Thus Desire and Fate, his attempt (with a great intro from John Banville) to wake us up from Wokeness. For me, it's a distraction. I've included the full transcript below. Lots of good stuff to chew on. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS * Rieff views "woke" ideology as primarily American and post-Protestant in nature, rather than stemming solely from French philosophy, emphasizing its connections to self-invention and subjective identity.* He argues that woke culture threatens high culture but not capitalism, noting that corporations have readily embraced a "baudlerized" version of identity politics that avoids class discussions.* Rieff sees woke culture as connected to the wellness movement, with both sharing a preoccupation with "psychic safety" and the metaphorical transformation of experience in which "words” become a form of “violence."* He suggests young people's material insecurity contributes to their focus on identity, as those facing bleak economic prospects turn inward when they "can't make their way in the world."* Rieff characterizes woke ideology as "apocalyptic but not pessimistic," contrasting it with his own genuine pessimism which he considers more realistic about human nature and more cheerful in its acceptance of life's limitations. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, as we digest Trump 2.0, we don't talk that much these days about woke and woke ideology. There was a civil war amongst progressives, I think, on the woke front in 2023 and 2024, but with Donald Trump 2.0 and his various escapades, let's just talk these days about woke. We have a new book, however, on the threat of woke by my guest, David Rieff. It's called Desire and Fate. He wrote it in 2023, came out in late 2024. David's visiting the Bay Area. He's an itinerant man traveling from the East Coast to Latin America and Europe. David, welcome to Keen on America. Do you regret writing this book given what's happened in the last few months in the United States?David Rieff: No, not at all, because I think that the road to moral and intellectual hell is trying to censor yourself according to what you think is useful. There's a famous story of Jean Paul Sartre that he said to the stupefaction of a journalist late in his life that he'd always known about the gulag, and the journalist pretty surprised said, well, why didn't you say anything? And Sartre said so as not to demoralize the French working class. And my own view is, you know, you say what you have to say about this and if I give some aid and comfort to people I don't like, well, so be it. Having said that, I also think a lot of these woke ideas have their, for all of Trump's and Trump's people's fierce opposition to woke, some of the identity politics, particularly around Jewish identity seems to me not that very different from woke. Strangely they seem to have taken, for example, there's a lot of the talk about anti-semitism on college campuses involves student safety which is a great woke trope that you feel unsafe and what people mean by that is not literally they're going to get shot or beaten up, they mean that they feel psychically unsafe. It's part of the kind of metaphorization of experience that unfortunately the United States is now completely in the grips of. But the same thing on the other side, people like Barry Weiss, for example, at the Free Press there, they talk in the same language of psychic safety. So I'm not sure there's, I think there are more similarities than either side is comfortable with.Andrew Keen: You describe Woke, David, as a cultural revolution and you associated in the beginning of the book with something called Lumpen-Rousseauism. As we joked before we went live, I'm not sure if there's anything in Rousseau which isn't Lumpen. But what exactly is this cultural revolution? And can we blame it on bad French philosophy or Swiss French?David Rieff: Well, Swiss-French philosophy, you know exactly. There is a funny anecdote, as I'm sure you know, that Rousseau made a visit to Edinburgh to see Hume and there's something in Hume's diaries where he talks about Rousseau pacing up and down in front of the fire and suddenly exclaiming, but David Hume is not a bad man. And Hume notes in his acerbic way, Rousseau was like walking around without his skin on. And I think some of the woke sensitivity stuff is very much people walking around without their skin on. They can't stand the idea of being offended. I don't see it as much - of course, the influence of that version of cultural relativism that the French like Deleuze and Guattari and other people put forward is part of the story, but I actually see it as much more of a post-Protestant thing. This idea, in that sense, some kind of strange combination of maybe some French philosophy, but also of the wellness movement, of this notion that health, including psychic health, was the ultimate good in a secular society. And then the other part, which again, it seems to be more American than French, which is this idea, and this is particularly true in the trans movement, that you can be anything you want to be. And so that if you feel yourself to be a different gender, well, that's who you are. And what matters is your own subjective sense of these things, and it's up to you. The outside world has no say in it, it's what you feel. And that in a sense, what I mean by post-Protestant is that, I mean, what's the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism? The fundamental difference is, it seems to me, that in Roman Catholic tradition, you need the priest to intercede with God, whereas in Protestant tradition, it is, except for the Anglicans, but for most of Protestantism, it's you and God. And in that sense it seems to me there are more of what I see in woke than this notion that some of the right-wing people like Chris Rufo and others have that this is cultural French cultural Marxism making its insidious way through the institutions.Andrew Keen: It's interesting you talk about the Protestant ethic and you mentioned Hume's remark about Rousseau not having his skin on. Do you think that Protestantism enabled people to grow thick skins?David Rieff: I mean, the Calvinist idea certainly did. In fact, there were all these ideas in Protestant culture, at least that's the classical interpretation of deferred gratification. Capitalism was supposed to be the work ethic, all of that stuff that Weber talks about. But I think it got in the modern version. It became something else. It stopped being about those forms of disciplines and started to be about self-invention. And in a sense, there's something very American about that because after all you know it's the Great Gatsby. It's what's the famous sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's: there are no second acts in American lives.Andrew Keen: This is the most incorrect thing anyone's ever said about America. I'm not sure if he meant it to be incorrect, did he? I don't know.David Rieff: I think what's true is that you get the American idea, you get to reinvent yourself. And this notion of the dream, the dream become reality. And many years ago when I was spending a lot of time in LA in the late 80s, early 90s, at LAX, there was a sign from the then mayor, Tom Bradley, about how, you know, if you can dream it, it can be true. And I think there's a lot in identitarian woke idea which is that we can - we're not constricted by history or reality. In fact, it's all the present and the future. And so to me again, woke seems to me much more recognizable as something American and by extension post-Protestant in the sense that you see the places where woke is most powerful are in the other, what the encampment kids would call settler colonies, Australia and Canada. And now in the UK of course, where it seems to me by DI or EDI as they call it over there is in many ways stronger in Britain even than it was in the US before Trump.Andrew Keen: Does it really matter though, David? I mean, that's my question. Does it matter? I mean it might matter if you have the good or the bad fortune to teach at a small, expensive liberal arts college. It might matter with some of your dinner parties in Tribeca or here in San Francisco, but for most people, who cares?David Rieff: It doesn't matter. I think it matters to culture and so what you think culture is worth, because a lot of the point of this book was to say there's nothing about woke that threatens capitalism, that threatens the neo-liberal order. I mean it's turning out that Donald Trump is a great deal bigger threat to the neoliberal order. Woke was to the contrary - woke is about talking about everything but class. And so a kind of baudlerized, de-radicalized version of woke became perfectly fine with corporate America. That's why this wonderful old line hard lefty Adolph Reed Jr. says somewhere that woke is about diversifying the ruling class. But I do think it's a threat to high culture because it's about equity. It's about representation. And so elite culture, which I have no shame in proclaiming my loyalty to, can't survive the woke onslaught. And it hasn't, in my view. If you look at just the kinds of books that are being written, the kinds of plays that are been put on, even the opera, the new operas that are being commissioned, they're all about representing the marginalized. They're about speaking for your group, whatever that group is, and doing away with various forms of cultural hierarchy. And I'm with Schoenberg: if it's for everybody, if it's art, Schoenberg said it's not for everybody, and if it's for everybody it's not art. And I think woke destroys that. Woke can live with schlock. I'm sorry, high culture can live with schlock, it always has, it always will. What it can't live with is kitsch. And by which I mean kitsch in Milan Kundera's definition, which is to have opinions that you feel better about yourself for holding. And that I think is inimical to culture. And I think woke is very destructive of those traditions. I mean, in the most obvious sense, it's destructive of the Western tradition, but you know, the high arts in places like Japan or Bengal, I don't think it's any more sympathetic to those things than it is to Shakespeare or John Donne or whatever. So yeah, I think it's a danger in that sense. Is it a danger to the peace of the world? No, of course not.Andrew Keen: Even in cultural terms, as you explain, it is an orthodoxy. If you want to work with the dominant cultural institutions, the newspapers, the universities, the publishing houses, you have to play by those rules, but the great artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians have never done that, so all it provides, I mean you brought up Kundera, all it provides is something that independent artists, creative people will sneer at, will make fun of, as you have in this new book.David Rieff: Well, I hope they'll make fun of it. But on the other hand, I'm an old guy who has the means to sneer. I don't have to please an editor. Someone will publish my books one way or another, whatever ones I have left to write. But if you're 25 years old, maybe you're going to sneer with your pals in the pub, but you're gonna have to toe the line if you want to be published in whatever the obvious mainstream place is and you're going to be attacked on social media. I think a lot of people who are very, young people who are skeptical of this are just so afraid of being attacked by their peers on various social media that they keep quiet. I don't know that it's true that, I'd sort of push back on that. I think non-conformists will out. I hope it's true. But I wonder, I mean, these traditions, once they die, they're very hard to rebuild. And, without going full T.S. Eliot on you, once you don't think you're part of the past, once the idea is that basically, pretty much anything that came before our modern contemporary sense of morality and fairness and right opinion is to be rejected and that, for example, the moral character of the artist should determine whether or not the art should be paid attention to - I don't know how you come back from that or if you come back from that. I'm not convinced you do. No, other arts will be around. And I mean, if I were writing a critical review of my own book, I'd say, look, this culture, this high culture that you, David Rieff, are writing an elegy for, eulogizing or memorializing was going to die anyway, and we're at the beginning of another Gutenbergian epoch, just as Gutenberg, we're sort of 20 years into Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg galaxy, and these other art forms will come, and they won't be like anything else. And that may be true.Andrew Keen: True, it may be true. In a sense then, to extend that critique, are you going full T.S. Eliot in this book?David Rieff: Yeah, I think Eliot was right. But it's not just Eliot, there are people who would be for the wokesters more acceptable like Mandelstam, for example, who said you're part of a conversation that's been going on long before you were born, that's going to be going on after you are, and I think that's what art is. I think the idea that we make some completely new thing is a childish fantasy. I think you belong to a tradition. There are periods - look, this is, I don't find much writing in English in prose fiction very interesting. I have to say I read the books that people talk about because I'm trying to understand what's going on but it doesn't interest me very much, but again, there have been periods of great mediocrity. Think of a period in the late 17th century in England when probably the best poet was this completely, rightly, justifiably forgotten figure, Colley Cibber. You had the great restoration period and then it all collapsed, so maybe it'll be that way. And also, as I say, maybe it's just as with the print revolution, that this new culture of social media will produce completely different forms. I mean, everything is mortal, not just us, but cultures and civilizations and all the rest of it. So I can imagine that, but this is the time I live in and the tradition I come from and I'm sorry it's gone, and I think what's replacing it is for the most part worse.Andrew Keen: You're critical in the book of what you, I'm quoting here, you talk about going from the grand inquisitor to the grand therapist. But you're very critical of the broader American therapeutic culture of acute sensitivity, the thin skin nature of, I guess, the Rousseau in this, whatever, it's lumpen Rousseauanism. So how do you interpret that without psychologizing, or are you psychologizing in the book? How are you making sense of our condition? In other words, can one critique criticize therapeutic culture without becoming oneself therapeutic?David Rieff: You mean the sort of Pogo line, we've met the enemy and it is us. Well, I suppose there's some truth to that. I don't know how much. I think that woke is in some important sense a subset of the wellness movement. And the wellness movement after all has tens and tens of millions of people who are in one sense or another influenced by it. And I think health, including psychic health, and we've moved from wellness as corporal health to wellness as being both soma and psyche. So, I mean, if that's psychologizing, I certainly think it's drawing the parallel or seeing woke in some ways as one of the children of the god of wellness. And that to me, I don't know how therapeutic that is. I think it's just that once you feel, I'm interested in what people feel. I'm not necessarily so interested in, I mean, I've got lots of opinions, but what I think I'm better at than having opinions is trying to understand why people think what they think. And I do think that once health becomes the ultimate good in a secular society and once death becomes the absolutely unacceptable other, and once you have the idea that there's no real distinction of any great validity between psychic and physical wellness, well then of course sensitivity to everything becomes almost an inevitable reaction.Andrew Keen: I was reading the book and I've been thinking about a lot of movements in America which are trying to bring people together, dealing with America, this divided America, as if it's a marriage in crisis. So some of the most effective or interesting, I think, thinkers on this, like Arlie Hochschild in Berkeley, use the language of therapy to bring or to try to bring America back together, even groups like the Braver Angels. Can therapy have any value or that therapeutic culture in a place like America where people are so bitterly divided, so hateful towards one another?David Rieff: Well, it's always been a country where, on the one hand, people have been, as you say, incredibly good at hatred and also a country of people who often construe themselves as misfits and heretics from the Puritans forward. And on the other hand, you have that small-town American idea, which sometimes I think is as important to woke and DI as as anything else which is that famous saying of small town America of all those years ago which was if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all. And to some extent that is, I think, a very powerful ancestor of these movements. Whether they're making any headway - of course I hope they are, but Hochschild is a very interesting figure, but I don't, it seems to me it's going all the other way, that people are increasingly only talking to each other.Andrew Keen: What this movement seems to want to do is get beyond - I use this word carefully, I'm not sure if they use it but I'm going to use it - ideology and that we're all prisoners of ideology. Is woke ideology or is it a kind of post-ideology?David Rieff: Well, it's a redemptive idea, a restorative idea. It's an idea that in that sense, there's a notion that it's time for the victims, for the first to be last and the last to be first. I mean, on some level, it is as simple as that. On another level, as I say, I do think it has a lot to do with metaphorization of experience, that people say silence is violence and words are violence and at that point what's violence? I mean there is a kind of level to me where people have gotten trapped in the kind of web of their own metaphors and now are living by them or living shackled to them or whatever image you're hoping for. But I don't know what it means to get beyond ideology. What, all men will be brothers, as in the Beethoven-Schiller symphony? I mean, it doesn't seem like that's the way things are going.Andrew Keen: Is the problem then, and I'm thinking out loud here, is the problem politics or not enough politics?David Rieff: Oh, I think the problem is that now we don't know, we've decided that everything is part, the personal is the political, as the feminists said, 50, 60 years ago. So the personal's political, so the political is the personal. So you have to live the exemplary moral life, or at least the life that doesn't offend anybody or that conforms to whatever the dominant views of what good opinions are, right opinions are. I think what we're in right now is much more the realm of kind of a new set of moral codes, much more than ideology in the kind of discrete sense of politics.Andrew Keen: Now let's come back to this idea of being thin-skinned. Why are people so thin-skinned?David Rieff: Because, I mean, there are lots of things to say about that. One thing, of course, that might be worth saying, is that the young generations, people who are between, let's say, 15 and 30, they're in real material trouble. It's gonna be very hard for them to own a house. It's hard for them to be independent and unless the baby boomers like myself will just transfer every penny to them, which doesn't seem very likely frankly, they're going to live considerably worse than generations before. So if you can't make your way in the world then maybe you make your way yourself or you work on yourself in that sort of therapeutic sense. You worry about your own identity because the only place you have in the world in some way is yourself, is that work, that obsession. I do think some of these material questions are important. There's a guy you may know who's not at all woke, a guy who teaches at the University of Washington called Danny Bessner. And I just did a show with him this morning. He's a smart guy and we have a kind of ironic correspondence over email and DM. And I once said to him, why are you so bitter about everything? And he said, you want to know why? Because I have two children and the likelihood is I'll never get a teaching job that won't require a three hour commute in order for me to live anywhere that I can afford to live. And I thought, and he couldn't be further from woke, he's a kind of Jacobin guy, Jacobin Magazine guy, and if he's left at all, it's kind of old left, but I think a lot of people feel that, that they feel their practical future, it looks pretty grim.Andrew Keen: But David, coming back to the idea of art, they're all suited to the world of art. They don't have to buy a big house and live in the suburbs. They can become poets. They can become filmmakers. They can put their stuff up on YouTube. They can record their music online. There are so many possibilities.David Rieff: It's hard to monetize that. Maybe now you're beginning to sound like the people you don't like. Now you're getting to sound like a capitalist.Andrew Keen: So what? Well, I don't care if I sound like a capitalist. You're not going to starve to death.David Rieff: Well, you might not like, I mean, it's fine to be a barista at 24. It's not so fine at 44. And are these people going to ever get out of this thing? I don't know. I wonder. Look, when I was starting as a writer, as long as you were incredibly diligent, and worked really hard, you could cobble together at least a basic living by accepting every assignment and people paid you bits and bobs of money, but put together, you could make a living. Now, the only way to make money, unless you're lucky enough to be on staff of a few remaining media outlets that remain, is you have to become an impresario, you have become an entrepreneur of your own stuff. And again, sure, do lots of people manage that? Yeah, but not as many as could have worked in that other system, and look at the fate of most newspapers, all folding. Look at the universities. We can talk about woke and how woke destroyed, in my view anyway, a lot of the humanities. But there's also a level in which people didn't want to study these things. So we're looking at the last generation in a lot places of a lot of these humanities departments and not just the ones that are associated with, I don't know, white supremacy or the white male past or whatever, but just the humanities full stop. So I know if that sounds like, maybe it sounds like a capitalist, but maybe it also sounds like you know there was a time when the poets - you know very well, poets never made a living, poets taught in universities. That's the way American poets made their money, including pretty famous poets like Eric Wolcott or Joseph Brodsky or writers, Toni Morrison taught at Princeton all those years, Joyce Carol Oates still alive, she still does. Most of these people couldn't make a living of their work and so the university provided that living.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Barry Weiss earlier. She's making a fortune as an anti-woke journalist. And Free Press seems to be thriving. Yascha Mounk's Persuasion is doing pretty well. Andrew Sullivan, another good example, making a fortune off of Substack. It seems as if the people willing to take risks, Barry Weiss leaving the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan leaving everything he's ever joined - that's...David Rieff: Look, are there going to be people who thrive in this new environment? Sure. And Barry Weiss turns out to be this kind of genius entrepreneur. She deserves full credit for that. Although even Barry Weiss, the paradox for me of Barry Weiss is, a lot of her early activism was saying that she felt unsafe with these anti-Israeli teachers at Columbia. So in a sense, she was using some of the same language as the woke use, psychic safety, because she didn't mean Joseph Massad was gonna come out from the blackboard and shoot her in the eye. She meant that she was offended and used the language of safety to describe that. And so in that sense, again, as I was saying to you earlier, I think there are more similarities here. And Trump, I think this is a genuine counterrevolution that Trump is trying to mount. I'm not very interested in the fascism, non-fascism debate. I'm rather skeptical of it.Andrew Keen: As Danny Bessner is. Yeah, I thought Danny's piece about that was brilliant.David Rieff: We just did a show about it today, that piece about why that's all rubbish. I was tempted, I wrote to a friend that guy you may know David Bell teaches French history -Andrew Keen: He's coming on the show next week. Well, you see, it's just a little community of like-minded people.David Rieff: There you go. Well, I wrote to David.Andrew Keen: And you mentioned his father in the book, Daniel.David Rieff: Yeah, well, his father is sort of one of the tutelary idols of the book. I had his father and I read his father and I learned an enormous amount. I think that book about the cultural contradictions of capitalism is one of the great prescient books about our times. But I wrote to David, I said, I actually sent him the Bessner piece which he was quite ambivalent about. But I said well, I'm not really convinced by the fascism of Trump, maybe just because Hitler read books, unlike Donald Trump. But it's a genuine counterrevolution. And what element will change the landscape in terms of DI and woke and identitarianism is not clear. These people are incredibly ambitious. They really mean to change this country, transform it.Andrew Keen: But from the book, David, Trump's attempts to cleanse, if that's the right word, the university, I would have thought you'd have rather admired that, all these-David Rieff: I agree with some of it.Andrew Keen: All these idiots writing the same article for 30 years about something that no one has any interest in.David Rieff: I look, my problem with Trump is that I do support a lot of that. I think some of the stuff that Christopher Rufo, one of the leading ideologues of this administration has uncovered about university programs and all of this crap, I think it's great that they're not paying for it anymore. The trouble is - you asked me before, is it that important? Is culture important compared to destroying the NATO alliance, blowing up the global trade regime? No. I don't think. So yeah, I like a lot of what they're doing about the university, I don't like, and I am very fiercely opposed to this crackdown on speech. That seems to be grotesque and revolting, but are they canceling supporting transgender theater in Galway? Yeah, I think it's great that they're canceling all that stuff. And so I'm not, that's my problem with Trump, is that some of that stuff I'm quite unashamedly happy about, but it's not nearly worth all the damage he's doing to this country and the world.Andrew Keen: Being very generous with your time, David. Finally, in the book you describe woke as, and I thought this was a very sharp way of describing it, describe it as being apocalyptic but not pessimistic. What did you mean by that? And then what is the opposite of woke? Would it be not apocalyptic, but cheerful?David Rieff: Well, I think genuine pessimists are cheerful, I would put myself among those. The model is Samuel Beckett, who just thinks things are so horrible that why not be cheerful about them, and even express one's pessimism in a relatively cheerful way. You remember the famous story that Thomas McCarthy used to tell about walking in the Luxembourg Gardens with Beckett and McCarthy says to him, great day, it's such a beautiful day, Sam. Beckett says, yeah, beautiful day. McCarthy says, makes you glad to be alive. And Beckett said, oh, I wouldn't go that far. And so, the genuine pessimist is quite cheerful. But coming back to woke, it's apocalyptic in the sense that everything is always at stake. But somehow it's also got this reformist idea that cultural revolution will cleanse away the sins of the supremacist patriarchal past and we'll head for the sunny uplands. I think I'm much too much of a pessimist to think that's possible in any regime, let alone this rather primitive cultural revolution called woke.Andrew Keen: But what would the opposite be?David Rieff: The opposite would be probably some sense that the best we're going to do is make our peace with the trash nature of existence, that life is finite in contrast with the wellness people who probably have a tendency towards the apocalyptic because death is an insult to them. So everything is staving off the bad news and that's where you get this idea that you can, like a lot of revolutions, you can change the nature of people. Look, the communist, Che Guevara talked about the new man. Well, I wonder if he thought it was so new when he was in Bolivia. I think these are - people need utopias, this is one of them, MAGA is another utopia by the way, and people don't seem to be able to do without them and that's - I wish it were otherwise but it isn't.Andrew Keen: I'm guessing the woke people would be offended by the idea of death, are they?David Rieff: Well, I think the woke people, in this synchronicity, people and a lot of people, they're insulted - how can this happen to me, wonderful me? And this is those jokes in the old days when the British could still be savage before they had to have, you know, Henry the Fifth be played by a black actor - why me? Well, why not you? That's just so alien to and it's probably alien to the American idea. You're supposed to - it's supposed to work out and the truth is it doesn't work out. But La Rochefoucauld says somewhere no one can stare for too long at death or the sun and maybe I'm asking too much.Andrew Keen: Maybe only Americans can find death unacceptable to use one of your words.David Rieff: Yes, perhaps.Andrew Keen: Well, David Rieff, congratulations on the new book. Fascinating, troubling, controversial as always. Desire and Fate. I know you're writing a book about Oppenheimer, very different kind of subject. We'll get you back on the show to talk Oppenheimer, where I guess there's not going to be a lot of Lumpen-Rousseauism.David Rieff: Very little, very little love and Rousseau in the quantum mechanics world, but thanks for having me.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In 1994, a young Swiss-French rising star named Irène Jacob and a legendary Polish auteur, Krzysztof Kieślowski, travelled to Locarno to present “Three Colors: Red” on the Piazza Grande, in front of an audience of thousands of jubilant spectators. 30 years later, Jacob, now herself an established legend of international arthouse and commercial filmmaking, returned to Locarno to present the film while being honored with the Festival's prestigious Leopard Club Award (2024). We took the chance to sit down with Irène Jacob on Locarno Meets to reflect on the legacy of this monumental work and her remarkable and risk-taking career in the years since. In 2024 alone, Jacob has created indelible new films with Amos Gitai and Rithy Panh, each of which premiered to rave reviews at the Berlin and Venice film festivals. No matter the assignment, Irène Jacob continues to forge her own path – a deeply original one – within and through the landscape of international cinema.

For the next two weeks, we are trying something different. Shtark Tank has spawned so many interesting follow up conversations, and now we are bringing them on air. Today we speak with Michael Bloch, a former senior partner at McKinsey. Now he focuses on the non profit worl, allowing foundations and philanthropists to maximize their impact. In our conversation, Michael shares his background and journey in business and Torah learning. He discusses the importance of balancing business, personal, and Torah life, and how Shtark Tank addresses this challenge. Bloch emphasizes the value of discipline and mastering one area of Torah learning at a time. He also explores why the podcast has resonated with Baalei Teshuva and offers advice for continuous growth and curiosity in Torah learning. Don't miss out on exclusive bonus content, as well as special offers and initiatives. Join the Shtark Tank Quiet Whatsapp Group today, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Has Shtark Tank made even a small impact on your life? Email me at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠yaakovwolff@gmail.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠with feedback, questions, comments. Full Bio Michael, who holds dual Swiss/French nationality and now lives in Israel, worked at McKinsey for 23 years. First, he spent seven years in Switzerland, then five years in France leading the technology practice, and finally relocated to Israel where he's been living for more than 11 years. At McKinsey, Michael is a global leader in the Business Technology and Operations division, having joined the company as the 25th consultant and helping grow the practice to 5,000-plus consultants today. He has experience working with top executives and boards of large corporations in more than 10 countries, helping them transform their support functions, leverage technology for competitive advantage, and accelerate growth. Michael has served clients across many industries (e.g., banking, insurance, pharma, retail, and industrials) with a special emphasis on large performance transformation programs as well as technology innovation and growth. Prior to joining McKinsey, Michael held operational roles at Unicible (a Swiss banking technology company) and spent two years doing postgraduate research on the business impact of the Internet at the University of California in Berkeley and at New York University. Michael received a M.S. in Business Information Systems (with distinction) and a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration from Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

As Mercury is (still) retrograding I thought it would be nice to cover the Astro chart of Swiss-French psychologist and statistician Françoise Gauquelin. Her (ex) husband was Michel Gauquelin see Episodes  https://astromary.libsyn.com/episode-115-0 and https://astromary.libsyn.com/episode-322-zones-of-high-intensity   Here is her natal chart   Françoise Gauquelin/Schneider Gemini Asc, Sun in Gemin in 1st house, Mercury retro conjunct Asc located in 12th house Moon in Scorpio in 6th house   YEAR of marriage (NOT DATE!) Trans Pluto conjunct natal Mars, trans uranus conjunct natal Pluto   Transits for date of birth for her/their son Daniel He was born Sun Taurus, Moon Virgo possibly conjunct retro Uranus/Pluto conjunction Date of divorce Trans Chiron on Asc, trans Saturn on natal Moon, trans Neptune in 7th conjucnt natal retro Saturn   Date Françoise Dies   References   https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Gauquelin,_Fran%C3%A7oise   https://www.astrology-and-science.com/g-trib2.htm   https://geocosmic.org/   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crg7yg4mknxo      

Way back in 1849 Bermondsey, London, a Swiss-French woman named Maria Manning and her husband Frederick, murdered her wealthy lover, Patrick O'connor, robbed him, then hid his body under their kitchen floor. Oh, then Maria double crosses her husband and dips with the money. It's a crazy love triangle that just went bad at every corner….   True Crime Guys YouTube   EVERYTHING TRUE CRIME GUYS:   https://linktr.ee/Truecrimeguysproductions   True Crime Guys Music: True Crime Guys Music on Spotify   OhMyGaia.com Code: Creeper       Patreon.com/truecrimeguys Patreon.com/sandupodcast Merch: truecrimeguys.threadless.com   Sources: Book: Chrisp's True Crime Miscellany https://u.osu.edu/kneffler2research/2019/06/15/the-bermondsey-horror/   The Bermondsey Horror - Murder Maps S01E01 - True Crime   https://alexabaczak.medium.com/the-bermondsey-horror-of-1849-maria-and-frederick-manning-e20ef645a9c6   https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+bermondsey+horror   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcHXgDYQa70   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AAgI7QTEtM

Chapter 1 What's Book Towards A New Architecture by Le Corbusier"Towards a New Architecture" is a book written by the famous Swiss architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier. First published in 1923, the book outlines Le Corbusier's ideas and principles on architecture, design, and urban planning. It is considered a seminal work in the field of modern architecture and has had a significant influence on architectural theory and practice. In the book, Le Corbusier discusses the need for a new approach to architecture that is functional, efficient, and in tune with the modern industrial age. He advocates for simple geometric forms, open floor plans, and the use of modern materials such as concrete and steel. The book also touches on topics such as urban planning, the relationship between architecture and nature, and the role of the architect in society. Overall, "Towards a New Architecture" is a key text for anyone interested in modern architecture and design.Chapter 2 Is Book Towards A New Architecture A Good BookMany people consider "Towards A New Architecture" by Le Corbusier to be a seminal work in the field of architecture. The book presents Le Corbusier's ideas and principles on modern architecture, including concepts such as the use of geometric shapes, open floor plans, and the importance of functionality in design.However, some critics argue that the book can be overly idealistic or dogmatic in its approach, and may not offer a complete or balanced view of architecture. Additionally, some readers may find Le Corbusier's writing style to be dense or difficult to follow.Ultimately, whether "Towards A New Architecture" is a good book will depend on the reader's interest in architecture and their willingness to engage with Le Corbusier's ideas. It is recommended as a foundational text in the field of architecture, but readers should approach it with a critical eye and an awareness of its limitations.Chapter 3 Book Towards A New Architecture by Le Corbusier SummaryTowards a New Architecture, also known as Vers une Architecture, is a book written by the famous architect Le Corbusier. The book was first published in 1923 and has since become a classic in the field of architecture.In the book, Le Corbusier discusses his ideas and theories on architecture, design, and urban planning. He advocates for a more functional and efficient approach to architecture, arguing that buildings should be designed with the needs of the inhabitants in mind.Le Corbusier also emphasizes the importance of simplicity, efficiency, and honesty in design, stating that "a house is a machine for living in." He criticizes the decorative and ornamental styles of the past, calling for a new, modern approach to architecture that is based on logic and functionality.Throughout the book, Le Corbusier presents his famous five points of architecture, which include pilotis (supports), flat roofs, open floor plans, horizontal windows, and free facades. These principles have become foundational in modern architecture and have had a lasting impact on the field.Overall, Towards a New Architecture is a groundbreaking work that has influenced generations of architects and designers. Le Corbusier's ideas and principles continue to shape the way we think about and create buildings today, making this book a must-read for anyone interested in the history and theory of architecture. Chapter 4 Book Towards A New Architecture AuthorLe Corbusier, whose real name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, was a Swiss-French architect,...

The latest as the Supreme Court strikes down the UK government's Rwanda policy, warming Swiss-French relations and why local innovation is key for smart cities. Plus: Karen Krizanovich reviews Ridley Scott's ‘Napoleon' biopic.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is six years overdue. That's because Storied: SF got started in a booth upstairs at one of our favorite spots in all The City: Vesuvio Café. In Part 1, we sit down in that same booth where it all began in 2017 to chat with Vesuvio co-owner Janet Clyde. We begin with a talk about what a great place for bars San Francisco is. Janet brings up touristic spots we love, as I had joined my wife for Irish coffees at the Buena Vista just before our recording in North Beach. Then Janet begins to lay out the history of Vesuvio. The location was originally an Italian bookstore called Cavalli Books, which moved first to the current City Lights spot, and then over to Stockton Street. Then, probably in the 1930s or early '40s, a woman known as Mrs. Mannetti opened Vesuvio as a restaurant. In 1948, Henry Lenoir bought the place from her and turned it into a bar. Lenoir was a Swiss/French bon vivant. He ran it as Vesuvio through the end of the 40s and into the 50s. But by the early '60s, with the Korean War, the place changed as society changed, and Henri wasn't feeling this generational shift at all. He sold the place to Ron Fein, who brought on Leo Riegler to run the bar. Riegler had run Coffee Gallery on Grant, which served beer and wine only. He was an Austrian bon vivant, and he came to Vesuvio and overhauled the bar. Ron Fein hired Shawn O'Shaughnessy to give the place the look and feel we're all familiar with to this day. O'Shaughnessy was inspired by Japanese art, aliens, and other worlds. Janet talks about the “I'm itching to get away from Portland, Oregon” sign, which hangs over the entrance to Vesuvio and which O'Shaughnessy derived from a postcard. We then shift the conversation a little to talk about Vesuvio and the Beat Movement. The bookstore across the alley became City Lights in 1954 when Lawrence Ferlinghetti took over. And that brought writers into the bar. Before that, according to Janet, Vesuvio was a Bohemian hang, really a cross-section of San Francisco. People who worked at the nearby Pacific Exchange (later known as the Pacific Stock Exchange), insurance salespeople, advertisers ... Janet describes the place as “suits and ties having a really good time …” When she arrived, in the late 1970s, the area was home to punk clubs, strip joints, bars, restaurants. Janet had hitchhiked from LA with the intention of landing in Seattle. She was born in Missouri but raised near Cape Canaveral, Florida. She left her family there and moved to LA but never really dug it much. A trip north in 1978 changed her life forever. Check back Thursday for Part 2 with Janet Clyde. For more on the history of Vesuvio, read this article on Found SF. This podcast was recorded at Vesuvio Café in North Beach in October 2023. Photography by Jeff Hunt

A Swiss French writer gets 60 days in jail for calling a queer activist a 'fat lesbian,' and the rainbow mafia is cheering for it. Plus, a supposed reverend who runs a BLM style non-profit supporting the Antifa militants attacking the police training center outside Atlanta, Georgia is arrested for allegedly stealing a luxury car, crashing it, hurting several drivers, and then running from the scene. And finally, a Scottish man gets kidnapped inside of his own Chinese-made electric vehicle.Guests:Davis Younts | Military Defense AttorneyRiley Lewis | Producer, Tipping Point with Kara Mckinney & OAN PodcasterDave Brat | Vice-Provost for Engagement & Public Relations, Liberty UniversitySteve Milloy | Biostatistician & Founder, junkscience.com

This week, the 2 Guys 5 Movies podcast keeps truckin' with the best horror of the 2000s. Frank's 2007 list includes the Stephen King adaptation 1408, the vampire flick, 30 Days of Night, the slasher P2, and two foreign entries, the well-respected zombie found footage REC and Swiss-French entry Frontier(s). Finally, if you have your own ideas for the podcast, you can also email us with list suggestions at 2guys5movies@gmail.com, and thank you all for listening and your support.

The Discovery programme recently returned to the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border, 10 years after the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle. But can you really make complex physics accessible to a general audience? The show's presenter and series producer Roland Pease answers your questions. Plus, how a simple Ukrainian piano Tweet by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow captivated listeners. Presenter: Rajan Datar. Producer: Howard Shannon A Whistledown production for BBC World Service

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switz.—died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France), was a Swiss-French philosopher. At age 16 he fled Geneva to Savoy, where he became the steward and later the lover of the baronne de Warens. At age 30, having furthered his education and social position under her influence, he moved to Paris, where he joined Denis Diderot at the center of the philosophes; he wrote on music and economics for Diderot's Encyclopédie. His first major work, the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), argued that man is good by nature but has been corrupted by society and civilization; Rousseau's belief in the natural goodness of man set him apart from Roman Catholic writers who, like him, were hostile to the idea of progress. He also wrote music; his light opera The Cunning-Man (1752) was widely admired. In 1752 he became involved in an influential dispute with Jean-Philippe Rameau over the relative merits of French and Italian music; Rousseau championed the latter. In the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1754), he argued against Thomas Hobbes that human life before the formation of societies was healthy, happy, and free and that vice arose as the result of social organization and especially the introduction of private property. Civil society, he held, comes into being only to ensure peace and to protect property, which not everyone has; it thus represents a fraudulent social contract that reinforces inequality. In the Social Contract (1762), which begins with the memorable line, “Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains,” Rousseau argues that a civil society based on a genuine social contract rather than a fraudulent one would provide people with a better kind of freedom in exchange for their natural independence, namely, political liberty, which he understands as obedience to a self-imposed law created by the “general will.” In 1762 the publication of Émile, a treatise on education, produced outrage, and Rousseau was forced to flee to Switzerland. He began showing signs of mental instability c. 1767, and he died insane. His Confessions (1781–88), which he modeled on the work of the same title by St. Augustine, is among the most famous autobiographies.From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Jean-Jacques-Rousseau. For more information about Jean-Jacques Rousseau:“Jean-Jacques Rousseau”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/“Jean-Jacques Rousseau”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81KfDXTTtXEThe Essential Writings of Rousseau: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/158207/the-essential-writings-of-rousseau-by-jean-jacques-rousseau-newly-translated-by-peter-constantine-edited-by-leo-damrosch/

The machine that discovered the Higgs Boson 10 years ago is about to restart after a massive upgrade, to dig deeper into the heart of matter and the nature of the Universe. Roland Pease returns to CERN's 27-kilometre Large Hadron Collider (LHC) dug deeper under the Swiss-French border to meet the scientists wondering why the Universe is the way it is. He hears why the Nobel-prize winning discovery of the “Higgs Particle” remains a cornerstone of the current understanding of the nature of matter; why the search for “dark matter” – 25% of the cosmos - is proving to be so hard; and CERN's plans for an atom smasher 4 times as big to be running by the middle of the century.

Eskil Vogt is the writer-director of The Innocents, and an Oscar nominee for co-writing The Worst Person in the World. His films transcend genre, but value both realism and surprise. In this episode, Vogt talks with MovieMaker's Tim Molloy about good vs. evil and why neither really exists, why screenwriters sometimes have to harm children and animals (only cinematically, of course) and a 1977 Swiss-French film he loves. We also discuss the promise of the X-Men films and how they often fall apart. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 449, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: From The French 1: This word for a type of business like Quizno's comes from the French for "free". a franchise. 2: The name of the U.S. state is partly from the French word for "green". Vermont. 3: The name of this rodent that hibernates nearly half the year may come from the French for "sleep". a dormouse. 4: The name of this type of vehicle is a shortened version of the French for "walking hospital". ambulance. 5: This word for an alpine cottage comes from the Swiss French for "shelter". a chalet. Round 2. Category: Aesop A.s.a.p. 1: One of these creatures talks a lion out of eating him, later saves the lion from a trap. mouse. 2: Farmer proves strength in unity to sons by showing a bundle of these that can't be broken all at once. sticks. 3: Fox can't reach these, decides they are sour. grapes. 4: Wolf disguised as one of these gets killed by shepherd wanting dinner. sheep. 5: Hungry, lazy grasshopper tries to talk these insects out of food in winter. ants. Round 3. Category: Whatever 1: Unlike most birds, which have 4, ostriches have this many toes on each foot, adapted to aid in running. 2. 2: This is how he looked in high school; today he's a talented actor and director as well. Ben Affleck. 3: For one brief shining moment, the Kennedys were said to live in this mythic kingdom. Camelot. 4: The name of this physicist is used to describe measurements of supersonic speed. (Ernst) Mach. 5: In "A Psalm of Life", Longfellow wrote of leaving "behind us" these "on the sands of time". footprints. Round 4. Category: Movie Stars 1: In "Apollo 13" he played astronaut Jim Lovell, who was much smarter than Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks. 2: Robert Duvall felt Sally Kellerman's "hot lips" when he played Major Frank Burns in this 1970 film. M*A*S*H. 3: Teri Garr played Dustin Hoffman's neglected girlfriend in this 1982 comedy; what a "drag"!. Tootsie. 4: In 1997 he was named best actor at Cannes for "She's So Lovely", which co-starred his lovely wife Robin Wright. Sean Penn. 5: He gave Lauren Bacall a gold bracelet with her name engraved on one side and "The Whistler" on the other. Humphrey Bogart (her husband). Round 5. Category: Sunday School 1: Chipping in for charity will show us the truth of Jesus' words "it is more blessed" to do this "than to receive". to give. 2: Timmy, here's an old shirt to wear; we'll act out the scene where Saul's robe is cut by this future king. David. 3: Today we'll learn about this agreement God makes with man; Deuteronomy 10 talks about the "ark of" it. the Covenant. 4: No, the ladder is not for changing a light bulb--it's supposed to be the one from Genesis that this patriarch dreamed about. Jacob. 5: No, the ladder is not for changing a light bulb--it's supposed to be the one from Genesis that this patriarch dreamed about. Jacob. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Natalia Badan has spent her life on Rancho El Mogor, the vineyard and organic farm her Swiss-French parents built nearly seven decades ago. "We are romantics and have always been a little eccentric. We were always organic, since my father's time. They called it biological agricultural, and everybody thought we were completely crazy. My father studied a lot; he had all the books from the University of California at Davis. These are my childhood memories --seeing him marking the books. Now it's common, but at the time, it seemed a little eccentric, but we were absolutely doing the right thing." When I ask her about the current state of Rancho El Mogor, she warmly tells me about all of their diversified activities. "We have the project of the vineyard; we have the winery; they go together. We have the organic garden that went for 24 years with the market, and now that goes to the restaurant. We have sheep and some cows which we need to improve the land. We move the animals from one place to another so they don't overgraze. Where they go, the soil becomes better with time. This is a very long-term project --improving soil and making a ranch like this more fertile takes many, many years --many more than I will live. But I think it is worth it, and this way, we don't put all our eggs in one basket." In addition to the winery, the farm and the animals, El Mogor is home to Deckman's Restaurant. Michelin-starred Chef, Drew Deckman, prepares hyper-locally sourced fare in an open kitchen. "Authentic, sustainable, and seasonal." Reservations required. Rancho El Mogor is Slow Baja Approved! Please email the winery to make a reservation. Follow Rancho El Mogor on Facebook Follow Rancho El Mogor on Instagram

After the trauma of Partition in 1947, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded the maverick Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, to build a new capital city for the province of Punjab. He hoped the project would symbolise a newly-independent, forward-looking India. Le Corbusier had revolutionised architecture and urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century. He was loved and hated in equal measure for his modernist approach, favouring flat roofs, glass walls and concrete. In 2016, Claire Bowes spoke to Sumit Kaur, former Chief Architect and lifelong resident of Chandigarh, about the legacy left by Le Corbusier. PHOTO: The Chandigarh Legislative Assembly building. 1999 (AFP PHOTO / John Macdougall)

Swiss-French producer and multi-instrumentalist Sebastien Heintz (aka Univers-Îls, OVERSEA & Z-Star Delta) used the pandemic to take a break from an intensive touring career between Europe and Australia to reexamine and reinvent his artistic lifestyle from a more holistic perspective amidst a contemplative spell of nourishing, effervescent sound collages, a new E.P. and cross-continental collaborations from his studio in Lausanne.   As the world approaches what appears to be the beginnings of re-normalization, I catch up with my Mmus cohort, friend, and collaborator in a vulnerable and deep exchange on the delicate balance between self-care for the musician, the perils of the touring lifestyle that were, and his current E.P. which was inspired by astronomical explorations into inner and outer space.   This episode is brought to you by:  www.holisticpianoacademy.com  (Get a 25% discount on all courses as a podcast listener here) Music by: www.everynowheremusic.com Text: www.tlwrites.com Produced by T.L. Mazumdar Recorded on a Zoom L8 mixer kindly sponsored by: https://www.sound-service.eu        Connect with Sebastien: http://h-music.ch/ https://www.instagram.com/universils/ https://www.facebook.com/universils https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMZKwtdWy-NBEksdnA3CeuQ https://www.instagram.com/oversea_music/ https://www.facebook.com/overseaofficial https://www.tiktok.com/@universils https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCITo2jeSj4LYBK5Vtxgmqqg   Connect with T.L: DEBUT SOLO PIANO ALBUM Artist Website: www.everynowheremusic.com Coaching: www.holisticpianoacademy.com  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everynowheremusic/ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/39S0dP5 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tlmusician Twitter: https://twitter.com/tlmazumdar

A US District Court just ruled Gruyere cheese can be made outside of the Swiss French border region – including here in the US. Today, what this court battle over a cheese has to do with global trade.

Simone Lugeon started working for Kuoni (Switzerland's biggest tour operator) during her student years and did the tour guide training with me. We immediately became friends, and I was very impressed with her flawless Swiss German even though her mother tongue is French. In this episode, we are talking about some boring Rhine Cruises and how she nearly lost a client in Boston but also about her wedding to Arne on the beautiful lake of Geneva which I attended. The last time we met was in 1994 when she came to Cyprus with her firstborn boy. After that, we kind of lost touch because life took over and both our families grew. When we got together for this interview, we picked up the conversation from where we had left it off over 20 years ago. She had moved to Singapore, then to Myanmar, then to Vietnam and now owns a hotel in Seam Reap, Cambodia. Simone is a true tourism expert and has lots of stories to tell, some are most memorable journeys. Please subscribe, comment, like, and share this podcast with your family, loved ones, and friends. I would love to hear from you You can find me on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elisabeth.toufexis Instagram: elisabethvilligertoufexis

A blind man runs alone through Death Valley. Journalist Paul Salopek walks 21,000 miles across the world to retrace our ancestor's migration, manifesting “slow journalism”. Scientists try to detect dark matter in an abandoned 19th century iron mine in Minnesota. Ethiopian monks free climb up nearly vertical mountain cliffs to get to rock-hewn prayer caves. Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy seeks out the silent places on earth where "extreme physics" is being done both by cosmologists and monks. Photographer Rachel Sussman struggles to capture the oldest living organisms on the planet, while astronomers and physicists -- from the Atacama Desert in Chile to the Hadron Supercollider on the Swiss/French border -- attempt to penetrate the furthest depths of space and time. These ambitious explorers journeying to the Earth's furthest reaches – seeking in part to uncover their deepest inner reaches – are connected by a tireless search to touch the deep silence of the human heart in a world of noise and division. Such are among the mosaic of profound quests interwoven in the film, Echoes of the Invisible, a stunning new documentary that is as much a meditation and prayer as it is a film. It is that rare kind of viewing experience that has the capacity to penetrate to the core of our being and find resonance in a wordless place within. Echoes of the Invisible manifests Director Steve Elkins’ vision of turning his lens onto explorers who are pushing the human body and technology beyond known limits in the most extreme environments on Earth to find the connective tissue between all things, seen and unseen. “Slowing down enough … to see something that was previously invisible … is what connects all of the people in the film,” Elkin says. “Stillness and silence allow us to see things that were previously invisible, regardless of your walk of life.” The film (see teaser) was ten years in the making. It has its theatrical premiere in Southern California on July 1, 2021, and is also available for streaming. It premiered at SXSW 2020 and received, despite the festival’s cancellation due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ZEISS Cinematography Award for “the very best imagery in storytelling.” The film, according to Elkins, is “about people devoting their lives to studying either the largest imaginable things or the smallest imaginable things. It contrasts people using either the most expensive and complicated technology we can build, or their own bodies, to observe things at these scales. It’s about the seemingly mundane daily rituals and habits we create for ourselves that actually affect how we perceive the world, and also what we don’t see.” Elkins aims for the audience to “experience a gradual shift in perspective, in which the extraordinary people in this film eventually become perceived not so much as exceptional individuals, but as mirror reflections of each viewer and what they already carry within them.” Elkins’ previous feature documentary, “The Reach of Resonance” (2010), won the prize for “Best Film Essay” at Montreal’s International Festival of Films On Art. The Reach of Resonance juxtaposed the creative paths of four musicians cultivating a deeper sensitivity to the world around them by searching for music in plants, riots, insects, sports, fences, military technology, the U.S./Mexico border, the northern lights, and other unlikely places. Steve Elkins has spent most of his adult life as a musician and filmmaker of ambitious globe-spanning documentaries, including an eclectic background as a private investigator, Venetian gondolier and touring musician. His photography, music and documentary filmmaking have been presented in over 20 countries via television, radio, film festivals, universities and art galleries, including a permanent exhibition of his work with Western Arrernte Aborigines at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Elkins’ account of being asked to lead a riot in the largest slum of India, The Grammar Of Fire, was published by Ad Astra Books in 2007. Elkins also serves as a film production mentor for at-risk youth in southern California public schools, through the Youth Cinema Project founded by Edward James Olmos. A passion for rare and under-appreciated cinema from countries typically excluded from film history led Elkins to found the Hibbleton Film Series, where he introduces and moderates community discussion about cinema from regions such as Iran, Mongolia, Mali, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Tunisia and El Salvador. Join us for a special dialogue with the director of Echoes of the Invisible, Steve Elkins, and other extraordinary voices from the film. 

A blind man runs alone through Death Valley. Journalist Paul Salopek walks 21,000 miles across the world to retrace our ancestor's migration, manifesting “slow journalism”. Scientists try to detect dark matter in an abandoned 19th century iron mine in Minnesota. Ethiopian monks free climb up nearly vertical mountain cliffs to get to rock-hewn prayer caves. Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy seeks out the silent places on earth where "extreme physics" is being done both by cosmologists and monks. Photographer Rachel Sussman struggles to capture the oldest living organisms on the planet, while astronomers and physicists -- from the Atacama Desert in Chile to the Hadron Supercollider on the Swiss/French border -- attempt to penetrate the furthest depths of space and time. These ambitious explorers journeying to the Earth's furthest reaches – seeking in part to uncover their deepest inner reaches – are connected by a tireless search to touch the deep silence of the human heart in a world of noise and division. Such are among the mosaic of profound quests interwoven in the film, Echoes of the Invisible, a stunning new documentary that is as much a meditation and prayer as it is a film. It is that rare kind of viewing experience that has the capacity to penetrate to the core of our being and find resonance in a wordless place within. Echoes of the Invisible manifests Director Steve Elkins’ vision of turning his lens onto explorers who are pushing the human body and technology beyond known limits in the most extreme environments on Earth to find the connective tissue between all things, seen and unseen. “Slowing down enough … to see something that was previously invisible … is what connects all of the people in the film,” Elkin says. “Stillness and silence allow us to see things that were previously invisible, regardless of your walk of life.” The film (see teaser) was ten years in the making. It has its theatrical premiere in Southern California on July 1, 2021, and is also available for streaming. It premiered at SXSW 2020 and received, despite the festival’s cancellation due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ZEISS Cinematography Award for “the very best imagery in storytelling.” The film, according to Elkins, is “about people devoting their lives to studying either the largest imaginable things or the smallest imaginable things. It contrasts people using either the most expensive and complicated technology we can build, or their own bodies, to observe things at these scales. It’s about the seemingly mundane daily rituals and habits we create for ourselves that actually affect how we perceive the world, and also what we don’t see.” Elkins aims for the audience to “experience a gradual shift in perspective, in which the extraordinary people in this film eventually become perceived not so much as exceptional individuals, but as mirror reflections of each viewer and what they already carry within them.” Elkins’ previous feature documentary, “The Reach of Resonance” (2010), won the prize for “Best Film Essay” at Montreal’s International Festival of Films On Art. The Reach of Resonance juxtaposed the creative paths of four musicians cultivating a deeper sensitivity to the world around them by searching for music in plants, riots, insects, sports, fences, military technology, the U.S./Mexico border, the northern lights, and other unlikely places. Steve Elkins has spent most of his adult life as a musician and filmmaker of ambitious globe-spanning documentaries, including an eclectic background as a private investigator, Venetian gondolier and touring musician. His photography, music and documentary filmmaking have been presented in over 20 countries via television, radio, film festivals, universities and art galleries, including a permanent exhibition of his work with Western Arrernte Aborigines at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Elkins’ account of being asked to lead a riot in the largest slum of India, The Grammar Of Fire, was published by Ad Astra Books in 2007. Elkins also serves as a film production mentor for at-risk youth in southern California public schools, through the Youth Cinema Project founded by Edward James Olmos. A passion for rare and under-appreciated cinema from countries typically excluded from film history led Elkins to found the Hibbleton Film Series, where he introduces and moderates community discussion about cinema from regions such as Iran, Mongolia, Mali, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Tunisia and El Salvador. Join us for a special dialogue with the director of Echoes of the Invisible, Steve Elkins, and other extraordinary voices from the film. 

Location. Location. Location. Where our theologies come from matters. Whether we are anchoring traditional Reformational theology to a Swiss-French context in the 16th century, Methodism to an English-American context in the 18th century, or #WeirdChristian Twitter in the 21st century, it's important to do the work to know our source.Mentioned in the episode:  The Tweet Genetic Fallacy Wiki The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber The Rise of Network Christianity by Brad Christerson and Richard Flory Trans Regret Snoopy Presents The Bible The Servant by James Hunter Follow the hosts on Twitter:  Josh: @joshlieuallen Emily: @RevRettinghouse Stephen: @stephenghenning Join our community at patreon.com/ravelpod! You can also connect with Ravel on Twitter and Instagram at @ravelpod.Thank you to Louie Zong for use of his song In Full Color, off his album, Here. Find his work on Spotify and Bandcamp!Ravel is a proud founding member of the Highline Media Network, bringing the art of podcasting back to normal people in normal places.

Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) returns to the Infectious Historians (our first returning guest!), this time to focus on the biography of Alexandre Yersin, the Swiss-French doctor who discovered the bacterium that causes plague. The discussion covers Yersin's biography from childhood, through his move to southeast Asia, his successful career and larger-than-life reputation - alongside the less palatable aspects of Yersin's life. The conversation also touches upon issues such as Yersin's entrepreneurship, his life as a European within a colonial context, and his personality.

Shortly after Indian independence Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded the maverick Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, to help reinvent a newly independent India by building a new capital city for the province of Punjab. Le Corbusier had revolutionised architecture and urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century. He was loved and hated in equal measure for his modernist approach, favouring flat roofs, glass walls and concrete. Nehru said this new city would be "symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past". Starting in 1950 the city of Chandigarh was built from scratch on farmland and is unlike any other city in India. The broad boulevards, pedestrianised plazas and green spaces were designed to encourage a feeling of order and of being close to nature. Claire Bowes spoke to Sumit Kaur, former Chief Architect and lifelong resident of Chandigarh, about the legacy left by Le Corbusier. Photo:The Chandigarh Legislative Assembly building. 1999 (AFP PHOTO / John Macdougall)

Author Shiromi Pinto speaks to Josh Fehnert about her architecturally informed novel ‘Plastic Emotions’, which details the relationship between Sri Lankan modernist architect Minnette de Silva and Swiss-French design icon Le Corbusier. Plus: in praise of courtyards and the latest design headlines from Katie Treggiden.

We’re 40! How did that happen? We grew up so quickly….. It doesn’t seem like two minutes ago that Bradley and I recorded the first, very shaky and nervous, episode back in January 2018. A lot has changed since then.Outerfocus started as a way to introduce some photography history, in an easily digestible manner, and to have conversations with photographers, about photography. The two things that helped me most with my own photography were: An understanding of where photography came from, and, what drove photographers to practice. Although the photography history aspect of the podcast has dwindled somewhat in the past few months, I feel the conversations are becoming stronger, and that takes us on to the, ‘why’. The, ‘why’, is what helped me to understand myself and the world around me. I learned more about photography by understanding the philosophies of photographers than I did by looking at their photographs. It made me realise that the idea is important, and the photograph is just a consequence of our study and practice. Maybe not for everyone, but that’s how I came to understand it and it fundamentally changed me as a human being. It also freed me from not just the constraints of industry expectations, but societal expectations, too. So, Happy 40th to Outerfocus! I hope that me passing on some of what I think is important in photography, and life, can raise some questions and create some new ideas for you. I’m not doing this alone mind you. The guests are adding their own unique perspective to the Outerfocus archive, and I’m still learning, a lot, and long may that continue.I expect you all know of the photographers that had an influence on me, but there are some that never really get a mention. Mostly because the genres they work in don’t come up in conversation too frequently. I mean, name one architectural photographer…….I could easily name a few, but that’s because it’s something I have a great interest in. I know who the first one would be, though, and when it comes to individuality there aren’t many better than the rather exceptional, Hélène Binet.Hélène is a Swiss-French architectural photographer living in London, and she is one of the leading architectural photographers in the world. Best known for her work with architects Daniel Libeskind, Peter Zumthor and Zaha Hadid, she has published books on works of several architects. She is the recipient of many awards over her 30+ year career including an Honorary Fellowship of Royal Institute of British Architects, 2008.Most recently she was honored with the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award in 2015, The Ada Louise Huxtable Prize 2019 ..........Full show notes -

After India's traumatic Partition Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded the maverick Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, to help reinvent a newly independent India by building a new capital city for the province of Punjab.Le Corbusier had revolutionised architecture and urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century. He was loved and hated in equal measure for his modernist approach, favouring flat roofs, glass walls and concrete.Nehru said this new city would be "symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past". Starting in 1950 the city of Chandigarh was built from scratch on farmland and is unlike any other city in India. The broad boulevards, pedestrianised plazas and green spaces were designed to encourage a feeling of order and of being close to nature.Claire Bowes spoke to Sumit Kaur, former Chief Architect and lifelong resident of Chandigarh, about the personal legacy left by Le Corbusier.Photo:The Chandigarh Legislative Assembly building. 1999 (AFP PHOTO / John Macdougall)

After India's traumatic Partition Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded the maverick Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, to help reinvent a newly independent India by building a new capital city for the province of Punjab. Le Corbusier had revolutionised architecture and urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century. He was loved and hated in equal measure for his modernist approach, favouring flat roofs, glass walls and concrete. Nehru said this new city would be "symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past". Starting in 1950 the city of Chandigarh was built from scratch on farmland and is unlike any other city in India. The broad boulevards, pedestrianised plazas and green spaces were designed to encourage a feeling of order and of being close to nature. Claire Bowes spoke to Sumit Kaur, former Chief Architect and lifelong resident of Chandigarh, about the personal legacy left by Le Corbusier. Photo:The Chandigarh Legislative Assembly building. 1999 (AFP PHOTO / John Macdougall)

After three contrasting months apart, The Earthbound Astronauts have finally reunited! We’ve only been on the road for five weeks, yet we’ve had the pleasure of traversing through eight distinctly different countries. It’s been an adventure-filled reunion, so this is only Part I of our unpredictable voyage. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it!To listen to the Part I podcast click HERE!Switzerland – Geneva – September 30th– October 1stAfter being apart for three months, we were both enthusiastic to start the next phase of our journey. Meeting in Geneva was convenient for us both as Casey had been travelling with his parents in Switzerland, and Geneva was only a short two-hour train ride away from Lyon, where I had been stationed for the previous two months. We jubilantly met at a prearranged hostel both invigorated by the unknown of the coming months. Casey was excited to be no longer travelling solo, whilst I was ecstatic to be on the move once more. Wanting to celebrate our once again formidable duo, we ventured into Geneva to enjoy a meal. Having been forewarned of the exuberant pricing in Switzerland still did not prepare us for the blatant extortion encountered! Unfortunately for us, pricing was relative to the heightened salaries received in Switzerland, those with heavy financial restraints, such as ourselves, were reduced to the common European travellers meal: a baguette, cheese, salami and a lukewarm beer. Meeting Casey’s parents at The European Organisation for Nuclear Research or ‘CERN’ was a very exciting occasion. We were able to join them both for a tour of CERN and find out about the enormous subterranean particle accelerator and the recently confirmed Higgs Boson, a concept that is still outside my scientific grasp. It was a great event to share with Casey’s dad, David, as he has a great passion for physics, and this facility is at the forefront of research in this area. As we sadly farwelled both Aleysha and David, it marked the true beginning of our journey.A combination of rejuvenating motivation along with Casey’s resent success hitchhiking, spurred us on an adventure to hitchhike from Geneva, Switzerland to Barcelona, Spain. Catching public transport to the Swiss-French border, garnished with our packs, we climbed a small fence leading to the highway, casually strolled across the border checkpoint, placed our packs down for but a second, barely having time to lift the iconic hitchhiker thumb and a car pulled up. Knowing the broad direction we wanted to head in, AKA west, the driver asked us where we’d like to go, we said Lyon (a large city in the general direction of Barcelona), when he said he wasn’t going in that direction we naively insisted that any ride was a good ride, even one that smelt so strongly of cheese… We had a great time chatting to our new Hungarian friend about his new life in France; however, it soon became apparent that we were not heading in the direction we’d initially intended. We ended up in Chamonix, a small town in the shadow of Europe’s tallest mountain, Mont Blanc. Surrounded by snow-capped peaks, luscious forests and typical French buildings, this charming town is what dreams are made of. Contemplating our new situation, we separately had the same idea of travelling into Italy. Astonished at our already distorted plan (a habit we cannot seem to break), we changed our tact and now waited on a highway, not so far away from the Italian border, waiting for our next willing lift. Italy – Genoa & Cinque Terra – October 2nd – October 5th We were eventually picked up by a really nice Italian-speaking Albanian, who was kind enough to drive us past his own small town to Aosta, a town with a main train station. We drove through an incredible part of Italy, with valleys dotted with various castles and villages, which seemed to be untouched by the progressive modernization witnessed in larger cities. Unfortunately, our new friend was unable to speak English, but this gave Casey an opportunity to put his freshly practiced Italian to use. He was incredibly hospitable; he even bought us a beer and refused to let us pay for it! From the train station we headed to Genoa, a port town, where we would enquire about a ferry to Spain.We arrived into Genoa at night with no organised accommodation. Not believing this to be a problem, we were turned away from numerous hotels and hostels either due to unavailability or extravagant prices. We swallowed our pride and stayed at the cheapest we could find, even though it was considerably more then we were expecting to pay. When enquiring as to why there was such a shortage of accommodation, we found out it was due to the famed Genoa annual boat show. What would a trip to Genoa be without going to the fabled boat show! It was amazing to see the yachts that were on show. Casey and I definitely didn’t quite fit the part when it came to prospective cliental, yet we boarded some of the more modest yachts and were still able to dream about potential future travel opportunities.Determining that we had a few days before we were going to board the ferry to Barcelona, we headed to Cinque Terre, a portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. Cinque Terre consists of five distinctively unique villages, all vibrantly coloured. Each village sits in a small cove, with the buildings carefully teetering on the sharp slope of the surrounding tumultuous terrain. It was beautiful to see these still lively villages in an incredibly well preserved and prosperous state. Returning to Genoa after a fleeting visit, we boarded the 20-hour ferry across the Mediterranean to Barcelona. Spain – Barcelona, Tarragona & Granada – October 6th – 12thAs we arrived into Barcelona it was obvious that the city was going to live up to it’s impressive reputation as a culturally rich and vivacious city. Every street or small alley was bustling with life, a combination of luminescent light, erratically scattered boutiques and restaurants, and people eager to enjoy the temperate ambience. Having discovered that a friend from home, Sam, was going to be in Barcelona at the same time, we decided to meet. As Sammy had been in Barcelona for about a week before we arrived, he acted as our pseudo-tour guide, attempting to enlighten us about Gaudi, a famous architect whose eccentric and imaginative buildings have become icons of Barcelona. Shamefully, Casey and I were unaware of Gaudi before our arrival and were naively curious about this ‘Gaudi’ character people continually referred to as if it was common knowledge. As a trio, we trekked up to Montjuïc Castle, where we are able to see the incredible immensity of Barcelona and it’s surrounding satellite towns.Even though Barcelona is well known for pickpockets and petty crime, we had no issues. The only act of theft that we experienced was due to a lapse in our concentration, forgetting to ask the price of mediocre paninis in what seemed like a legitimate panini business, which resulted in blatant daylight robbery! This was a sore moment for us both, especially when we sent Sam into the same shop a day later to enquire about the price, to find out there had been a significant price reduction… Having enjoyed our time with Sammy thus far, we invited him to join us through the remained of Spain and into Morocco. Even though there had been a slight ‘salting of game’ whilst we partook in the infamous Catalan nightlife, Sam whimsically decided to joined us. We headed to the historical beach town, Tarragona, to see Margherita, a friend of Casey’s from his exchange to Italy eight years earlier. Tarragona is primarily a student town and Margherita, who was there on the Erasmus study exchange program, was kind enough to accommodate us for the night and expose us to the energetic nightlife of an Erasmus student on exchange. This was but a brief visit to Tarragona as we were eager to arrive in Morocco. Finding it difficult to plan a direct route to a port town where we could board a ferry headed for Tangiers, we organised an overnight train to Granada through Valencia, where we had the pleasure of waiting until the early hours of the morning for our connecting train.Arriving in Granada with no idea about the city, we walked around attempting to find accommodation, which, again, was quite an ordeal. Eventually, we found a nice pension run by a very friendly elderly non-English-speaking lady we fondly nicknamed ‘Nonna’. The room was barely big enough for one person, let alone three, and this was before Sammy decided to covert the room into a Chinese laundry. Granada was quite an old town, and we had arrived (unbeknown to us) on National Day. This explained the lack of accommodation and the continuous parades consisting of marching bands and officials garnished with lavish medals and medallions. Granada was the point where we started to notice influences from North Africa. The main area of Granada was full of exotic stalls selling spices, clothes and various other memorabilia. Again, we were only in Granada for a night as we were attempting to arrive in a port town the following day and make our way to Morocco. We awoke the following morning marginally later then anticipated, which raised the anxiety levels slightly. Whose fault this was is an ongoing argument… However, we were able to board a train to Algeciras where we boarded a late, and somewhat delayed, ferry headed to Tangiers, Morocco. After about three and a half months we fondly said goodbye to Europe and were excited for the next stage of our journey, North Africa and the Middle East.Morocco – Tangiers, Fes, Marrakech & Casablanca – October 13th – October 21stThe ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar was a swift yet symbolic passage from one continent to the next. As we left the Tangiers port terminal we were asked if we wanted buses or taxis into the city. However, we had done some research earlier and determined that a reasonable hostel was within walking distance and refused all offers. We started walking down a highway parallel to the port for what seemed like an immense distance before we started to question our whereabouts. It turned out that we had arrived into the second port of Tangiers, approximately 50 kilometres from the actual city. We swallowed our pride and returned to the port to enquire about catching a bus to the amusement of a collection of drivers that had offered us lifts earlier. It was nearing midnight as we arrived in Tangiers so we decided to stay in a quite reasonably priced four-star spa resort hotel. This luxury was quite a change from the accommodation we were accustomed. We had not intended on spending much time in Tangiers as we’d heard it was predominately a port town where Moroccans head to indulge themselves in taboo or illegal activities, so we decided to head to Fes.Boarding the train to Fes was an experience in itself. We boarded an already crowded train with our large bags, the only remaining space was located next to the rancid bathroom at the end of the carriage, and this was filling fast. As we gathered in this confined space, we realised that standing for six hours in the sweltering heat was going to present us with another ‘unique’ experience. Obviously realising that the train was at capacity, they decided to add some additional carriages, and we were luckily able to secure a compartment before it too become obscenely crowded. Fes turned out to be what we imagined an incredibly authentic Moroccan city would be like. We had booked a hostel within the medina, the old town enclosed within a medieval fortification. Within the medina, buildings were all constructed using the same yellowish clay into simple rectangular structures arbitrarily mounted upon one another. The small streets and alleyways were almost impossible to navigate as they unpredictably wound around and through buildings with smaller capillary streets branching of into small squares or to other indistinguishable locations. It turned out the train had been so crowded because people were returning home for an Islamic holiday, which became evident by the heightened activity within the medina. We were witness to donkeys hauling peculiar products into the labyrinth of the medina, sheep being delivered to a multitude of butchers and continuously directed to illusive tanneries. Seeing a sheep being delivered on the back of a donkey is an unusual sight at the best of times. Fes was also an interesting location as Sam and I were unlucky enough to encounter bed bugs, our first and incredibly unpleasant encounter with these brutal parasites. Casey was smugly impressed he avoided these macroscopic terrors, yet a few days later, to Sam and my enjoyment, a few bites did appear.After we’d visited Fes, we headed to Marrakech, much more of a tourist-centric city, which did partially subtract from the appeal; however, the city was still an amazing spectacle. The highlight of Marrakech is a large market place that has numerous performances, snake charmers, orange juice stalls and restaurants. At night, the market was flooded by lights and truly came to life as people bustled between all the interesting performances, most of which seemed to involve men dressed as women… I, unfortunately, was slightly unwell during our time in Marrakech and didn’t have the pleasure of visiting some ancient tombs and a castle, but Casey and Sam visited the sights and raved about the intricacies and the impressive atmosphere of the structures. Preparing to leave Morocco, we headed to Casablanca where Casey and I were going to catch our flight to Jordan and Sam was going to fly to Paris. Casablanca seemed like a very plain city, so we were glad we had not afforded it too much of our limited time. We headed to the Casablanca airport, said our goodbyes to Sam who we’d greatly enjoyed travelling with for just over two weeks, and boarded our plan to Amman, Jordan. We did get to enjoy a stopover night in Cairo airport that resulted in us both passing out at a table just outside of our boarding gate while we waited for a flight to Tunisia to board. An interesting image: Two westerners sleeping quite ungracefully at a table as a large group of Tunisians board their flight, many of them impressively carrying their possessions on their head…And that is the end of The Reunion Part I! It is difficult to believe that this all happened within the space of three weeks. I’ll leave you with a quote by Ernest Hemingway that has helped me keep things in perspective, “Never mistake motion for action”. As we continue to travel I reflect upon everything we have done and everything we hope to do both while travelling and beyond. The Reunion Part II is only a few days away, so keep your eyes open and as always, keep posted.

Nima Arkani-Hamed on the Large Hadron Collider and the Future of Fundamental Physics. Located on the Swiss-French border, the Large Hadron Collider is a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. It will allow physicists to probe the constituent parts of the proton, looking for new forms of matter and insights into the formation of the universe.

Nima Arkani-Hamed on the Large Hadron Collider and the Future of Fundamental Physics. Located on the Swiss-French border, the Large Hadron Collider is a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. It will allow physicists to probe the constituent parts of the proton, looking for new forms of matter and insights into the formation of the universe.

JHK explores a mostly abandoned low-income housing project in Duncan's neighborhood. Two of the three 9-story brick "vertical slums" are boarded up and abandoned. They come complete with their own "rape-o-matic" tunnel for pedestrians to travel under the bridge ramp that separates them. Kunstler says these "towers in a park" are based on the ideas of Le Corbusier, the Swiss-French architect/planner whose "Radiant City" plans envisioned turning the right bank of Paris into a series of high rise towers connected by highways. Corbu's plans were not implemented in Paris, but his ideas didn't die. In fact they morphed into what are commonly known as "the projects," low-income high rise towers all around the U.S. and indeed the world. Taking inspiration by the housing projects in Troy, Kunstler explains the history of this style of low-income housing and its detrimental side effects. Sponsor: PostCarbon.org

JHK explores a mostly abandoned low-income housing project in Duncan's neighborhood. Two of the three 9-story brick "vertical slums" are boarded up and abandoned. They come complete with their own "rape-o-matic" tunnel for pedestrians to travel under the bridge ramp that separates them. Kunstler says these "towers in a park" are based on the ideas of Le Corbusier, the Swiss-French architect/planner whose "Radiant City" plans envisioned turning the right bank of Paris into a series of high rise towers connected by highways. Corbu's plans were not implemented in Paris, but his ideas didn't die. In fact they morphed into what are commonly known as "the projects," low-income high rise towers all around the U.S. and indeed the world. Taking inspiration by the housing projects in Troy, Kunstler explains the history of this style of low-income housing and its detrimental side effects. Sponsor: PostCarbon.org

Swiss-French flutist Emmanuel Pahud was just 22 years old when he landed the job as principal flutist with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1993. A few years later, he also launched a solo performing career and has recorded flute music spanning several centuries, from contemporary works he has commissioned to baroque concertos and sonatas, and a little jazz music, too. Emmanuel Pahud sat down to chat with Suzanne about his remarkable career making music, including how it's possible to juggle international solo engagements while playing principal chair in a major orchestra.

People learn their political views through what they believe about history. Memorials function to push certain interpretations, e.g. about the War Between the States and the greatness of rulers like Lincoln and FDR. During the early 19th century Benjamin Constant was a great Swiss-French political activist and historian, but he was never as well-known as Alexis de Tocqueville. Constant was one of the first thinkers to go by the name of Liberal. Madame de Stael was Constant's partner. Ancient Liberty was not fitted to the Liberty of the Moderns which was based on individual civil liberties. Constant influenced a group called the Industrialists whose framework of history was the history of class conflict. Some classes like farmers and merchants were productive. Exploitive classes like the state used force to steal from the producers. Marx got the class conflict theory from these French classical liberals. Alexis de Tocqueville often created conflicting positions. His famous two-volume work, Democracy in America (1835), described America as a land of ploughshares and Russia as a land of swords. America a land of freedom; Russia a land of servitude. He admired Christianity, but was not a believer. Lord Acton was most famous for the remark, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Acton was an historian and a moralist. To him, natural rights came from God. Too many historians exonerate bad men. Acton said that this should not happen. The courageous historian will dig deeply and lay it all out. From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.