Podcast appearances and mentions of Washington Heights

Bad Bunny has spent the past week at the center of global headlines for a viral private meeting with Pope Leo in Madrid, the runaway success of his new album DeBÍ Tirar Más Fotos, and fresh hints that another project, reportedly titled Made in Puerto Rico, is already on the way. According to ABC News, the Vatican confirmed that Pope Leo met privately with Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio and his family on Monday at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid during the pontiff's historic visit to Spain. The meeting took place away from cameras, and, as ABC notes, no official photos have been released, which has only fueled speculation and fan theories about what exactly they discussed. YouTube coverage of the encounter shows anchors calling it one of the most unexpected pop culture–faith crossovers of the year, while clips of the Pope and Bad Bunny's overlapping events in Madrid have dominated social feeds. NBC News' TikTok and other outlets highlight the surreal scene in the city: hundreds of thousands attending a youth vigil with Pope Leo while, across town, Bad Bunny plays to tens of thousands on his Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour. A viral YouTube short captures Pope Leo joking that many young people might choose Bad Bunny's concert over his own appearance, acknowledging the artist as direct “competition” for Spain's attention this week. That line has been replayed endlessly on Instagram Reels and TikTok, turning into a meme about “choosing between church and perreo.” On the music side, fan groups on Facebook report that DeBÍ Tirar Más Fotos has hit number one on US iTunes and Apple Music for a second straight day and climbed to number one on European Apple Music as well, while sitting top-three on global charts. Social media fan tournaments are already ranking tracks against older hits like Where She Goes, with listeners debating whether this is his most personal album since Un Verano Sin Ti. Chart-tracking sites such as Kworb show his catalog flooding Spotify's Top Songs list again as tour hype pushes streaming numbers higher. YouTube commentary videos are dissecting the album's visuals and lyrics, focusing on how Bad Bunny continues to center Puerto Rican identity and migrant stories, with one popular reactor pointing out how he highlights the contributions of Puerto Rican communities in cities like New York. That theme is echoing into politics too: a viral Instagram clip shows New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani rapping along to Bad Bunny's NUEVAYoL and Callaíta at an event, tying the artist's music to conversations about Washington Heights, the Knicks, and local Latino culture. At the same time, Instagram accounts focused on Latin music news are pushing a new headline: “Bad Bunny nears completion of Made in Puerto Rico.” These posts claim, citing unnamed insiders, that he has been finishing another studio album even while touring Europe. Fans are treating DeBÍ Tirar Más Fotos as the start of a two-phase era, speculating that Made in Puerto Rico could lean even more into local sounds and collaborations with emerging Boricua artists. There's also buzz about his next move in film and branding. A TikTok reel shows a mock “casting call” for Bad Bunny, with on-screen text about summer blockbusters and “Disclosure Day,” joking that his recent wipe of older content from social media could be a prelude to a new movie role or major announcement. Comment sections are split between listeners convinced he's about to reveal a sci‑fi film project and others who think it's just part of a larger album rollout strategy. Meanwhile, he remains physically anchored in Spain. ABC News notes that his Madrid residency at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano stadium runs through June 25 before he continues across Europe and the U.K., wrapping in Belgium next month. Local outlets describe Madrid as a “cultural fault line” this week, with Pope Leo and Bad Bunny effectively sharing the same city stage: one leading stadium vigils, the other turning tour stops into massive reggaeton pilgrimages. Through all of this, Bad Bunny's broader cultural footprint keeps expanding. From the Vatican's official acknowledgment of his influence, to political candidates using his tracks as campaign soundtrack, to fans holding chart battles on Facebook and reaction marathons on YouTube, the last seven days have reinforced him as both a hitmaker and a global symbol of Latin youth culture. Thank you for tuning in, and come back next week for more. This has been a Quiet Please production, and for more from me check out Quiet Please dot A I. Some great Deals https://amzn.to/49SJ3Qs For more check out http://www.quietplease.ai

Saxophonist and bandleader Lakecia Benjamin has become one of the most dynamic voices in jazz today. Here she talks about hanging up on Clark Terry, finding her way from Washington Heights to the international stage, and how the mentors, heroes, setbacks and aspirations that shaped her journey continue to inform her new album, We Dream. www.third-story.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story    

Tom has been on this show several times. In this session we examine Tom's personal transition from being a workaholic radio station director, living in Bushwick to a more balanced, "emotionally healthy" (Dr. Lisa's judgement!!) adult with a job and a partner living in Washington Heights. Tom was station director from 2015—2021 when he transferred the main responsibilities and Station Director Title to Shane Gasteyer. Shane (check out the episode before this one #396!) has also done a fabulous job of growing the station and keeping the community thriving. If you want to understand Tom's background and how he came to start RFB, please listen to my first ever Dr. Lisa Gives A Shit from with Tom. We do a deep dive into his background in the very first days of RFB in our first and brand new studio in the basement of a bike shop - May 2015. If you'd like to hear Tom reflect on the radio station journey, you can listen to our Dr. Lisa session from last year, May 2025, on the milestone of the stations 10th year anniversary, something back in 2015 would have seemed like a wild pipe dream. And here we are YASSSS! May 15, 2015—⁠ Dr. Lisa psychoanalyzes RFB co-founder Tom Tenney⁠ May 14, 2020—⁠ Tom Tenney, Radio Free Brooklyn's Executive Director return's to Dr. Lisa's couch in honor of RFB's 5th anniversary and it's on his birthday too!⁠ Nov, 2020—⁠Breaking down the WALL OF LIES experience with creators Tom Tenney and Phil Buehler. May, 2025—Tom Tenney, RFB Co-Founder talks about living thru 10 years of RFB. 10 year Anniversary Episode!!!

She arrived in New York calling herself Eliza Brown — but she'd been born Betsy Bowen, daughter of a woman jailed for running a disorderly house in Providence. By the time she died in 1865, she was Eliza Jumel -- Manhattan's richest woman, mistress of a hilltop mansion in Washington Heights, the widow of a former vice president, and the subject of so many wild rumors that even her New York Timesobituary couldn't keep the facts straight. Tom is joined by Catherine Hughes and Danielle Gaita of the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion to sort the legend from the life. Born in 1775 to grinding poverty, Eliza reinvented herself as an actress at the Park Theater, married the French merchant Stephen Jumel in 1804, and in 1810 moved into the grand house that had served as George Washington's headquarters in the fall of 1776 — Manhattan's oldest surviving residence. And from there the story only grows more intriguing. Paris in the age of Napoleon. A staggering art collection. Real estate dealings while her husband stayed an ocean away. A whirlwind second marriage to the 77-year-old Aaron Burr — and a scandalous divorce, finalized on the very day Burr died. Plus: Lin-Manuel Miranda writing Hamilton lyrics in Burr's old bedroom! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democrat and democratic socialist running for Congress in New York's 13th Congressional District, joined the show to discuss her primary campaign against Congressman Adriano Espaillat. The district includes much of Upper Manhattan (East Harlem, Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, etc) and a section of Bronx (Fordham, Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, etc) and the primary is in June. (Ep 584)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers all over the world!!! On this segment of A Bowl of Soul, we are celebrating Classic Soul & R&B. At the end, we also pay tribute to Ms. Nedra Talley Ross who was the last surviving member of the legendary Ronettes who are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Three ladies from Washington Heights in Harlem, NYC who wowed the world who were a part of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. I hope you enjoy this broadcast, because I had fun doing it. Keep it locked on A Bowl of Soul A Mixed Stew of Soul Music.  Take some Soul to Go by downloading the podcast and carrying it with you everywhere you go.  Just go to: www.abowlofsoul.com Get up to 2 months free podcasting service with our Libsyn code=ABOS. Sign up & bring your  podcast to life! Get on Apple & Spotify, get critical stats & all the support you need to sound your best and grow your show!! Sign up here: https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=ABOS You can listen to the A Bowl of Soul Radio Network on Live365.com giving you 24/7/365 days of Soul Music. Stop on by and listen:  A Bowl of Soul Radio Network on Live365 You can support A Bowl of Soul and Buy Me A Coffee. Just click: Buy A Bowl of Soul A Cup of Coffee Purchase your A Bowl of Soul T-Shirt and other merchandise. Just click: Get Your A Bowl of Soul Merch Follow me: @proftlove on Threads                   @proftlove on Instagram                   @abowlofsoul.bsky.social - Bluesky                                  @A Bowl of Soul A Mixed Stew of Soul Music on Facebook Promote your product or service on the podcast and the radio network. You can sponsor A Bowl of Soul by getting your product or service in front of listeners. Email us at: abowlofsoul@gmail.com  Thank you for your Support!!! Promote your product or service on the podcast and the radio network. You can sponsor A Bowl of Soul by getting your product or service in front of listeners. Email us at: abowlofsoul@gmail.com  Thank you for your Support!!!

Actor Hemky Madera joins us for a powerful and heartfelt season finale. Best known for his fan-favorite role as “Pote” on Queen of the South, Hemky opens up like never before about his Dominican roots, growing up in Washington Heights, New York, fatherhood, marriage, Hollywood, and the long journey to making it as an actor. In this raw and funny conversation, Hemky shares how he knew he wanted to become an actor at just five years old and reveals the many jobs he worked before landing major roles, including waiter, bartender, babysitter, and driver. While audiences know him for playing intense and dangerous characters in movies and hit shows like Queen of the South, Euphoria, and The Mandalorian, Hemky explains why he is actually the complete opposite in real life: funny, loving, goofy, and always joking around. The two also dive into Dominican pride, representation in Hollywood, their respect for Manny Perez and what Zoe Saldaña’s Oscar win meant for Dominican actors and Latinos everywhere. Hemky reflects on balancing his love for the Dominican Republic and America, staying grounded through fame, and what’s next for his career, including returning to the Star Wars universe and the new season of Euphoria. This episode is full of laughter, motivation, culture, family, vulnerability… just a beautiful conversation with one of the most respected Dominican actors in Hollywood.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

(Episode 248): The New York Mets look lifeless and currently sit in the cellar as one of the worst teams in MLB! Subway To Shea's Anthony Rivera is joined by Hector in Washington Heights to discuss the free fall happening with that team from Queens!Check out Hector on his YouTube channel, Blunt Thoughts!____________________________________________Follow Hector in Washington Heights on Social Media:X: https://x.com/HHec13 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BLUNTTHOUGHTS13 ____________________________________________Follow on X, Instagram, & Tik Tok: @SubwayToSheaSubscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@subwaytoshea

Westchester Talk Radio host Bob Marrone spoke with Ray Hall, the Board Chair of the YMCA, reflects on his long history with the organization since moving to New Rochelle in 1977. Recently retired from a 40-year career as a supervisor at a mental health center in Washington Heights, Ray discussed the Y's role in stress management for the community. He emphasizes the importance of sports and physical activity in providing a positive outlet for teenagers and mentions the Y's efforts to provide scholarships and discounted rates for families struggling with the high cost of housing in the city. 

From the cities of the Dominican Republic to the streets of Washington Heights to the heart of Brooklyn's most dangerous neighborhoods, this is the untold story of Adam Diaz — a teenage immigrant who rose to become one of New York's most powerful cocaine kingpins. By just 18 years old, Diaz had already made his first million. Within a year, he was moving dozens of kilos a day through a network of bodegas, hidden stash houses, and underground tunnels — building an empire that generated millions of dollars weekly. His operation stretched across boroughs, fueled by direct connections to Colombian suppliers and protected by corruption at the highest levels, including ties to dirty NYPD officers. But behind the wealth, power, and influence was a world of constant violence, paranoia, and survival. Shootouts in broad daylight, rival crews, federal investigations, and betrayals from within — every move carried deadly consequences. This conversation dives deep into the rise, expansion, and eventual downfall of Adam Diaz's drug empire, revealing how the crack era, systemic corruption, and street economics created a perfect storm for one of the most explosive criminal careers of the 1980s. From million-dollar days to federal prison sentences, this is a raw and unfiltered look at ambition, risk, and the true cost of the drug game. Go Support Adam! https://kingofbrooklyn.weebly.com/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: Hims! To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/connect Prescription required. See website for details and important safety information. Sildenafil is the generic version of Viagra®. Viagra® is a registered trademark of Viatris Specialty LLC. Hims is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatris. Shopify! It's time to turn those “What Ifs” into with Shopify today. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/mitchell Ava! Take control of your credit today. Download the Ava app, and when you join using MY promo code CONNECT20, you'll get 20% off your first year—monthly or annual, your choice. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Adam Diaz's Rise: Making a Million at 18 02:00 From Dominican Republic to NYC: Early Life 05:30 Dominican Drug Dealers in New York 10:00 Washington Heights & NYC Drug Scene 16:58 This Episode Is Sponsored By Hims! 18:29 Getting into the Game: Family Ties 22:00 First Bodega Hustles and Street Fights 26:00 Taking Over the Drug Spot 29:40 This Episode Is Sponsored By Shopify! 31:56 Scaling Up: Building the Network 35:00 Supply Chains: Colombian Connections 41:00 The Bodega Operation: Logistics & Hidden Tunnels 47:00 Expansion: Multiple Bodegas, Factories & Staff 50:17 This Episode Is Sponsored By Ava! 51:39 Dealing with Cops and Corruption 01:00:00 Major Busts, Stick-Ups, and Surviving Shootouts 01:05:00 Wholesale Moves & Dealing with Competition 01:14:00 Importing Direct: Wanting to Be the Plug 01:18:00 Peak Operations: Moving Serious Weight 01:22:00 Paying Off Police & Dirty Cops in the Mix 01:27:00 Violence, Loyalty, and Surviving Attacks 01:34:00 Going Global: Importing and Losing Millions 01:43:00 The Fall: Getting Caught and Beating the Case 01:51:00 Court Drama and Plea Bargain 01:59:00 Family Reactions and Reflection 02:04:00 Sentencing and Aftermath 02:09:00 Present Day: Life After the Drug Game Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Dominican Republic has quietly become one of the most important drug trafficking hubs in the world. In this episode, former kingpin Adam Diaz reveals how the island transformed into a critical bridge for cocaine moving from South America to the United States and Europe. Through firsthand accounts, he explains the systems behind modern smuggling—how drugs are transported, repackaged, and moved across borders using a combination of strategy, corruption, and global connections. From the streets of Washington Heights in the 1980s to the ports and coastlines of the Caribbean, this documentary explores the rise of Dominican traffickers, their relationship with Colombian suppliers, and the networks that allowed them to operate at scale. It also examines the role of weak enforcement, bribery within institutions, and the economic forces that continue to fuel the trade. Beyond the logistics, Adam reflects on the human side of the underworld—power, wealth, loyalty, and the personal consequences that come with it. This is a rare inside look at a system that operates largely out of sight, shaping the global drug trade in ways few people fully understand. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Drug Smuggling Rebounds in the Caribbean 02:21 Why the Dominican Republic is a Trafficking Bridge 04:43 Inside Adam Diaz's Drug Empire 07:32 How Money and Goods Flow Back to the DR 10:10 Why the DR Became a Smuggling Hub 13:40 Military, Police & Corruption in Trafficking 15:31 Creative Smuggling Methods: From Luggage to Mules 20:06 Puerto Rico Route 23:25 Smuggling People and Pot in the DR 25:12 No Cartels, Just Quiet Drug Networks 26:38 Reflections on a Drug Lord's Legacy & Regrets 27:43 Wrap-Up & Where to Find More Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want to know how to think on your feet, you need to understand something most advice on this topic gets wrong: Thinking on your feet is not a talent. It's a trained response. And the training required goes far deeper than memorizing a few “power phrases” or practicing small talk at networking events. Real mental agility, by which I mean the kind that serves you in a boardroom, on a stage, in a heated conversation, and even in physical danger, is something you earn. And to earn it requires systematic preparation across multiple domains. I know this because I've spent decades training for exactly these moments. As a university professor, I've lectured in multiple languages to rooms of students who didn't always want to be there. And to get my PhD, I had to sit for a dissertation defense in a room where some of the examiners delighted in throwing hardball questions. As a performing musician, I've improvised solos on stages where the set list changed mid-show. While performing card magic, I've recovered from botched tricks in front of audiences who were actively trying to catch me out. And as a martial arts practitioner, I've used my training to escape three real-world physical confrontations without throwing a single punch. Then there was my TEDx Talk where I had to make real time adjustments when the audience failed to even smile at my scripted laugh lines, but chuckled substantially during parts I had not planned to be funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtDy68-gkY How to Think on Your Feet: The Complete Training System for Mental Agility Under Pressure What I've learned across all of these experiences is that every domain of “thinking on your feet” shares one foundational requirement. It's not intelligence. It's not quick wit. It's often not even confidence. Rather, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that thinking quickly and responding in the best possible way comes down to the systematic reduction of ego. That might sound philosophical, but it's intensely practical. And it will become the thread that connects everything in this guide. From how to recall information instantly in a conversation to how to physically escape a threatening situation without freezing. Here's what we'll cover today: Part 1: Why “Thinking on Your Feet” Is a Trained Skill, Not a Personality Trait Part 2: The Ego Problem (Why Your Self-Image Is Your Biggest Obstacle) Part 3: Mental Recall Under Pressure (How to Access What You Know When It Matters) Part 4: Verbal Agility (How to Sound Smart, Pivot, and Recover in Conversation) Part 5: Performance Under Pressure (Lessons from Music, Magic, and the Stage) Part 6: Physical Composure (How to React When Your Safety Is at Stake) Part 7: Daily Training Exercises for Mental Agility Part 8: Loading Your Mind (Why What You Memorize Determines How Well You Think) Part 9: The Paradox of Mental Silence Let’s dive in with why most people struggle with the skill of spontaneously responding in optimal ways in the first place. Why “Thinking On Your Feet” Is a Trained Skill, Not a Personality Trait As Freud pointed out, civilization is not our natural state. In Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, which is usually translated as Civilization and Its Discontents, he argues that much of our inner tension comes from how our social training represses our instincts. “Discontents” is not really a great translation for the title of this book. “Unbehagen” means something more like “unease” or “discomfort.” And since languages and skills are something we learn, we literally have to undergo a process of discomfort to learn most things. That's not a political statement. It's a neurological one. Your brain's implicit memory system, the part that handles automatic behaviors, gut reactions, and how you repeat social patterns on autopilot, was shaped by millennia of environments that looked nothing like a conference room or a dinner party. It was shaped by physical survival, tribal dynamics, and the need to read danger before it arrives. This means that when you're put on the spot in a modern context, your brain defaults to patterns it learned through observation, not through deliberate training. And those patterns were modelled on the people around you growing up. Especially in contexts like: Being asked a question you weren't expecting Getting challenged during a meeting Having someone force you to improvise a presentation at school or work In such situations, you might find yourself freezing under pressure and not realizing that you’re actually repeating how you saw a parent go cold when you were young. Or you might find yourself getting defensive in arguments the way a sibling did, or going blank during presentations based on someone else’s blip you observed. When you repeat this behavior yourself, it’s not a character flaw. That's implicit memory doing exactly what it was designed to do: replicate observed behavior. And if you’re reading this and don’t have problems thinking on your feet, chances are that you were a lucky observer of someone who could when you were young. Combatting Implicit Memory’s Hold with Reconsolidation The problem is that your default patterns are not optimized for the situations modern life throws at you. They're survival patterns, not performance patterns. Since you’ve learned to react like those you’ve observed instead of how you’d prefer to act as a fully realized being in this world, what can you do? Fortunately, quite a bit. Neuroscientists call the mechanism behind how you can shift the hold of implicit memory on your behavior memory reconsolidation. Here’s how memory reconsolidation works in brief: Every time you recall a memory, it temporarily destabilizes. Researchers call this destabilization a “labile state.” And while the memory is transitioning, the memory can be modified before your brain stores it again. This includes modifying behavioral patterns, not just facts. So when you clam up after being put on the spot and then reflect on what happened, that freezing response is briefly open to revision. This process was first demonstrated in landmark research by Karim Nader and Joseph LeDoux at NYU, which you can read about in Memory Reconsolidation. As part of their investigation, Nader and LeDoux demonstrated that even deeply encoded fear memories could be altered during reconsolidation. Unlocking Transformation Bruce Ecker and colleagues later applied this principle therapeutically. I recommend their discussion in Unlocking the Emotional Brain: Memory Reconsolidation and the Psychotherapy of Transformational Change. As you’ll read, they discovered how long-held emotional patterns can be rewritten. Not through willpower, but through a specific process of activating the old pattern, introducing a contradictory experience, and allowing the brain to re-encode. Monica Khosla explores a parallel idea in The First and Last Belief. This fascinating book is written by someone who experiences non-dual states similar to those I shared in The Victorious Mind: How to Master Memory, Meditation and Mental Well-Being. Khosla discusses how our earliest family-formed beliefs become the templates for how we respond under pressure as adults. Her work in family therapy suggests that these templates aren’t permanent fixtures. Rather, they’re “reconsolidatable,” provided you understand how they were formed and deliberately create new experiences that contradict them. This is precisely what the training in the guide you’re reading now is designed to do. Every exercise, every practice, every discipline I’ll share works by activating your default pattern (the freeze, the defensive reaction, the blank stare) and replacing it with a trained alternative in the moment it’s most labile. The Catch But there’s a catch. There’s always a catch, isn’t there? The pattern that most resists reconsolidation is your self-image. It’s also your self-image that most aggressively defends itself against change. People literally argue for hours with therapists that they cannot change. I know because I made this argument myself for years in front of my own therapists. This is precisely why thinking on your feet requires training. You cannot simply decide to be quicker, calmer, or more articulate under pressure. You have to deliberately replace your default patterns with trained responses. And use deliberate practice to ensure those responses become the new default. The training looks different depending on the context: In conversation and debate, it means learning frameworks for organizing thoughts rapidly and practicing with real people. In professional settings, it means memorizing key information so thoroughly that recall becomes effortless, freeing your mind to think rather than search. On stage or in front of an audience, it means thousands of hours of performance practice that builds a reservoir of recoveries and pivots you can draw on automatically. In physical danger, it means martial arts or self-defense training that bypasses conscious thought entirely and produces trained physical reactions. Each of these contexts has its own training methods. But they all share the same underlying principle: the trained response must be so deeply encoded that it fires before your conscious mind has time to interfere. The single biggest source of that interference? Your ego. But never fear. As big of a problem as the ego can be, you’re going to learn how to solve and resolve it. Part 2: The Ego Problem (Why Your Self-Image Is Your Biggest Obstacle) Here's the uncomfortable truth that almost no “how to think on your feet” article will tell you: The reason most people freeze, fumble, or fail under pressure is not that they lack information or intelligence. It's that they're managing their self-image at the same time as they're trying to perform. They experience serious cognitive drain as a result. Why? Well, when you're in a meeting and someone asks you a question you don't know the answer to, your mind doesn't just process the question. If your ego is not well-managed, your mind simultaneously processes: “What will they think of me if I don't know? Will I look incompetent? How do I maintain my status?” That parallel processing consumes the very cognitive resources you need for actual thinking. The Additional Cognitive Drain of Fantasizing Your Own Wit The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan made an observation that I've found profoundly useful in this context. He once pointed out that our fantasies are almost always better than the reality. For example, when we fantasize about being the quick-witted person everyone admires, we're constructing an idealized self-image that the real moment can never live up to. At least not all the time. You’ve probably heard the phrase “the gods have clay feet.” Well, spend enough time with accomplished performers, and you’ll start to see why. No one always has: the perfect response the devastating comeback the elegant pivot But we fantasize that some people do. And then when we don't perform like our fantasy, we experience not just the failure of the moment, but also a painful collapse of our self-image. That's why a stumble in a presentation can feel catastrophic even when the audience barely notices. The ego is experiencing a much larger injury than the situation warrants. How to Reduce Ego Before It Costs You There’s no quick fix for the ego. And ego reduction exercises so you can respond with greater self-satisfaction in the moment require: Practice in advance Consistent application in a variety of situations And in a variety of ways until responding off the top of your head from a clear mind becomes your default orientation. Then you maintain the practices that get you the spontaneous mastery you want over time. Here is a powerful place to start. Practice Stoic Premeditation The Stoics called it premeditatio malorum or negative visualization. Basically, you deliberately imagine everything that could go wrong related to the situations that regularly require your response. If you regularly visualize yourself going blank in a meeting, stumbling through a presentation, or being publicly corrected, the actual event loses its power to destabilize you. You've already experienced the worst in your imagination. The real version is almost always milder. It’s the flipside of the point from Lacan we discussed above. You’ve now made the reality much better than the fantasy. Modify the Classic Stoic Exercise You can modify premeditatio malorum in two key ways. I suggest you experiment with both techniques I’m about to describe. One: Transform Old Memories of a Disastrous Performance First, you can excavate through your memory to find situations you recall where things have already been bad for you. Then, you can “cleanse” those memories by placing them in a “Happy Memory Palace.” The scientific basis for this process comes from research showing promise in therapy for trauma, such as this study of memory reconsolidation specific to declarative memory. And there is the now classic Tim Dalgleish-headed research on using Memory Palaces or the method of loci for successfully reducing depression. For more on this kind of research, the following livestream replay gives you an exact exercise and more about the memory science behind the positive outcomes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs9UHz4pVuM In terms of how I’ve used this approach personally, I sometimes wince at one particular memory from when I sang a song during show-and-tell one morning when I was in grade two. I don’t know why I used to feel embarrassed when the memory would arise as an adult, but I could feel the sting in my cheeks. And later when I first started sharing the Sanskrit phrases I’ve memorized, that little flush of shame would arise again. So to forgive that kid whatever my memory was holding against him for his squeaky little voice, I turned the classroom into a Memory Palace and used it to memorize a delightful poem. From the point that I finished learning the poem (you can learn the process from this poetry memorization guide), I can think of that episode without that old embarrassment reviving any of its sting. And I’ve used this approach to transform other lingering memories I don’t like as well, something I’ll share more in-depth in a forthcoming book. Releasing old negative memories that involve shame makes me feel more spontaneous. And I’m confident you’ll enjoy a similar benefit too. Two: Memorize Stoic Quotes Memorizing poetry is one thing, but it takes time. You can commit quotes to memory a lot faster. I share one of my favorite quotes from Seneca in this YouTube short, one that took only a few minutes to memorize, even though it’s in Latin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISvX0-CfRkk I found this quote in Kevin Vost’s Memorize the Stoics! Although it’s not on my list of best Memory Palace Books, it provides a great look at memory training through a Stoic lens. And Vost is right: The value of having ancient wisdom on tap cannot be exaggerated. Not just for correcting your ego. You’ll also find that you have more things to say when pressed to speak on the spot. Things that have stood the test of time. Meditate Specifically for Ego Reduction Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, often says in his talks that if you are empty of thought, you don’t have to worry about what to say next during a conversation. You’ll spontaneously produce the best possible reply. I often wondered how it was possible to empty my mind of thoughts until I encountered Gary Weber’s Happiness Beyond Thought and Evolving Beyond Thought amongst other works. Although Weber’s full program requires a fair amount of time, it’s worth it for the mental space and spontaneity you’ll enjoy. Two Other Tactics for Detaching From Your Ego for Greater Spontaneity While you’re experimenting with Stoicism, here are two other tactics to explore. They’re both counterintuitive, but powerful. Embrace ignorance as a position of strength Saying “I don't know, but I'll find out” is not a failure. It's a demonstration of intellectual honesty that most people find more impressive than an imaginary answer. If your ego tells you that not knowing something is a form of weakness, push back. Admitting when you don’t know something and then doing some research and following up, builds trust at the same time as it builds your knowledge base. Detach from Needing Any Particular Outcome Your job in any high-pressure moment is not to be brilliant. It's to be present and responsive. Almost as if there is no “you” longing to be perceived in any particular way. Or desiring things to play out for or against you. When you stop trying to produce the perfect response and instead focus on actually hearing the question, understanding the situation, and responding honestly, the quality of your thinking improves dramatically. And it happens largely because you've freed up the cognitive resources consumed by your egotistical needs. You’ll also enjoy your perception of the present moment much more. Part 3: Mental Recall Under Pressure (How to Access What You Know When It Matters) One of the most common experiences of “not thinking on your feet” is this: You know the information, but you can't access it in the moment. You know your mind possesses the answer. But the pressure of the situation has locked the door. There's a neurological explanation for this. Researcher Amy Arnsten has documented how stress signalling pathways in the prefrontal cortex effectively shut down under acute stress. As we know from studies in anxiety-induced memory loss, during stress, the amygdala takes prominence over the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for working memory, reasoning, and flexible thinking. As a result, your brain redirects resources toward fight-or-flight responses that are useful for physical survival but terrible for articulate speech. This is a major reason why you can know something perfectly in a calm environment and go completely blank when asked about it in front of an audience or in a heated discussion. The information hasn't disappeared. Your brain has simply redirected resources away from the systems that retrieve it. The Alphabet Retrieval Technique When I suddenly can't recall something (a name, a fact, a point I wanted to make), I have a technique that works more often than I'd expect: I mentally run through the alphabet from A to Z. It doesn’t always bring back the information. But the technique works often enough to make it a reliable first move, hitting the correct first letter while scanning through the alphabet triggers the retrieval. When it works, it’s because the first letter acts as a cue that unlocks the rest of the word or thought. It’s also the basis of how associative memory operates. As Dr. Gary Small has explained, your brain stores information in networks that somewhat resemble neighborhoods. And the first letter of a word is often enough of a “key” to unlock the door on a full node of information. It's the same principle behind why a song's opening notes can bring back the entire melody. Or how just a word or two of a lyric can bring back an entire verse. The “Let It Go” Retrieval Technique If scanning the alphabet doesn't work, the next best strategy is counterintuitive: Stop trying. In other words, deliberately release any attempt to search your mind for the content. Instead, move on to the next point, the next topic, the next question. Often, within 5–10 minutes, the information you were grasping for will come racing back to mind. This form of recall happens because your subconscious continues processing the retrieval request even after your conscious mind has moved on. Releasing the conscious effort actually accelerates the process, because you've removed the stress that was blocking retrieval in the first place. The Anti-Digital Amnesia Discipline You Need In order to ensure your memory gets stronger over time, you need to break the habit of immediately reaching for your phone or a search engine when you fail to recall something. Every time you outsource mental retrieval to a computer, you weaken the neural pathways that perform recall. You're training your brain that it doesn't need to do the work — and over time, it stops trying. This is the phenomenon I've written about as digital amnesia, and it's one of the most insidious threats to mental agility in the modern world. Preloading: The Real Solution to In-the-Moment Recall Both alphabetical retrieval and simply letting go are recovery strategies. They're useful when recall fails. But the real solution to thinking on your feet is to ensure that recall rarely fails in the first place. This is where a variety of memory training techniques enter the picture. Not as gimmicks, but as the foundational infrastructure for mental agility. The Memory Palace Technique Using Memory Palaces provides a core means of preloading information into your mind. Because this technique allows you to encode very large amounts of information, retrieval under pressure becomes qualitatively different from trying to recall something you passively read or heard. You literally own that information, forwards and backwards. It works because the spatial structure of the Memory Palace gives your brain a retrieval path that works even when the prefrontal cortex is under stress, because spatial memory is processed partly by the hippocampus. This is a different system than the one stress shuts down. In practical terms: If you've memorized the key points of a presentation using a Memory Palace, you don't need to “remember” them under pressure. You just mentally walk to the next room. The information is there, waiting. But it’s not merely attached to a place you know as well as your own home. It has also entered long-term memory. To learn this approach, check out The Memory Palace Technique: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide. Memory Wheels and the Art of Combination Retrieving facts, quotes, even entire passages under pressure is one thing. But what about those moments when you need to synthesize information on the spot? Such as when someone poses a complex question and the right answer isn’t a single piece of information but a combination of ideas you need to assemble in real time? This is where most people’s recall fails them entirely. They might remember one relevant point, but they can’t pull together the three or four ideas needed to construct a substantive response on the spot. I use a technique for this that dates back to the 13th-century philosopher Ramon Llull, later refined by the Renaissance memory master Giordano Bruno. It’s called ars combinatoria or the art of combination. It works by pre-organizing your knowledge onto mental structures called memory wheels so that you can rotate through ideas rapidly and recombine them in novel ways during live situations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opmb-mU-KPI Here’s the simplest version of how it works in practice: Imagine a circle in your mind with the letters A through Z arranged around it. For each letter, you’ve pre-assigned a thinker, a framework, or a principle you know well. A might be Aristotle. B might be a breathing technique. C might be a core value you hold. M might be Marcus Aurelius. S might be the Stoic concept of premeditatio malorum. When a difficult question hits you in conversation, instead of grasping for one perfect answer, you mentally spin the wheel. Instead of searching randomly for something to say, you approach the task of coming up with something to say by scanning an organized inventory of your best thinking. Because you’ve pre-loaded and spatially arranged all of it, your mind can traverse what you’ve already learned quickly. Memory Wheel Example One of my favorite Memory Wheels is populated with philosophers (one for each letter of the alphabet). When I’m confronted with a complex topic, I rotate through and consider what Aristotle would say and then move on through as many philosophers as I like, all the way to Zizek for Z. I know this technique sounds elaborate and it requires having read the best philosophy books, but once you have a Memory Wheel built and practiced, the rotation takes seconds. Here’s a rapid fire discussion with a few more examples from one of my YouTube shorts from the road in Brisbane: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/29nOib2ZS_4 Please don’t overlook this technique. It produces responses that are genuinely multi-perspectival, not just whatever my default opinion happens to be. The deeper history of this technique and detailed instructions for building your own memory wheels are covered in my full guide to Ramon Llull’s memory wheel method. But the principle you can apply immediately upon developing your own memory wheels is this: If you pre-organize your knowledge into a spatial structure rather than leaving it scattered across your memory, you gain the ability to not just recall individual facts under pressure but to combine and recombine ideas on the fly. That is the difference between someone who can answer a question and someone who can think through a problem in real time. It’s not speed without purpose. It’s architecture with a sense of direction based on the shoulders of giants. Part 4: Verbal Agility (How to Sound Smart, Pivot, and Recover in Conversation) Verbal agility isn't about having a quick tongue. It's about having a calm mind with a deep well of material to draw from. The people who seem effortlessly articulate in conversation are rarely making it up on the spot. They're drawing on vast reserves of pre-loaded knowledge, practiced frameworks, and rehearsed transitions. What looks like spontaneous brilliance is actually the visible tip of an enormous iceberg of preparation. Frameworks for Organizing Your Thoughts Rapidly When someone throws a topic at you and you need to respond coherently, having a mental framework prevents the rambling that makes people sound unprepared. Here are several that work, provided you practice using them before they’re required in real-life situations: The PREP Framework PREP stands for: Point Reason Example Point It’s a very powerful formula to practice during debates as well as in conversation. When using PREP, you state your position, give one reason, illustrate with one example, then restate your position. This takes 30–60 seconds and helps keep your replies structured without sounding rehearsed. The WRAP Technique I learned this one from Chip and Dan Heath's Decisive. WRAP stands for: Widen your options Reality-test your assumptions Attain distance before deciding Prepare to fail I placed WRAP on a memory wheel and demonstrate how to run through it mentally in this ars combinatoria video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cYDmaBXvJg What to Do When You're Stumped Even with the frameworks we just discussed or tactics like running through the alphabet, you will experience situations where you simply don't have a response. Here are more strategies you can try. Pause Peacefully Although falling silent can feel painful when you first start practicing it, rest assured that it barely registers to the person listening. And in many cases, a two or three-second pause before responding signals thoughtfulness, not ignorance. Most people rush to fill silence because their ego can't tolerate appearing slow. But a measured pause followed by a substantive response is always more impressive than a rushed response followed by backtracking. Seek Clarification There’s nothing wrong with asking people: “Can you say more about what you mean by that?” or “Are you asking about X or Y specifically?” Such questions will not stall the conversation. It's genuine intellectual engagement, and it often reveals avenues for further conversation that would not be revealed any other way. Use the Truth You might not know this, but many people find it refreshing when someone admits that something is outside of their area. Nir Eyal did that on my podcast a few years ago and I’ve never forgotten his willingness to “stay in his lane,” as he put it. The best part? Nobody penalizes honest uncertainty and a request to move on if you really don’t have a settled opinion on some matter or any expertise. Practice Physical Awareness Sometimes when we’re stumped, our body tenses up. Shoulders rise, the jaw clenches and breathing shallows. This physical tension feeds back into your mental state and makes mental freezing worse. But deliberately dropping your shoulders and taking one slow breath can help break the cycle. More on this kind of physical solution is coming up in Part 6. Practice Steelmanning One of the most powerful exercises for verbal agility is practicing steelmanning. Related to the principle of charity in rhetoric, steelmanning is the practice of arguing for positions with which you disagree. But not half-heartedly. No, you make the argument in the strongest possible terms. One simple way to practice steelmanning involves getting a friend to throw topics at you randomly. Your job is not to argue your own position, but to construct the best possible argument for the opposite side. This practice accomplishes three things simultaneously: It forces you to think through ideas from perspectives you wouldn't naturally adopt, which builds cognitive flexibility. It trains you to separate your ego from your position, because you're explicitly not defending your own views. It prepares you for actual debates, because you've already rehearsed the strongest version of your opponent's argument. For more tips that will help you in this department, check out my guide to preparing for debates. The Improv Principle If you take one thing from this section and act on it, let it be this: Take an improvisation class. Why? Improv comedy training provides you with the single most transferable skill for verbal agility in any context. The core principle of improv is quite easy. You simply answer everything with either “yes, and…” or “no, but…” This simple structure teaches you to accept whatever is thrown at you and build on it rather than blocking or deflecting. This is the exact skill you need in meetings, conversations, presentations, and debates. Improv also provides the one thing you can't get from reading articles: Real-time practice under social pressure while receiving immediate feedback. No amount of theory replaces the experience of standing in front of a group with nothing planned and having to produce something. It’s been a long time since I took an improv class, or any class. But you really only need one round to create a permanent transformation. Part 5: Performance Under Pressure (Lessons from Music, Magic, and the Stage) If you've never performed music, theatre, magic, public speaking, or any other form of real-time presentation, you may not realize how much of “thinking on your feet” is simply having enough trained material that you can recover from anything. The principle applies far beyond the stage. But the stage is where the principle is most visible, so let me share what I've learned from three performance disciplines. Music: Improvisation Is Built on Structure & Self-Awareness When I studied music, I learned something that most non-musicians find surprising: improvisational soloing requires more preparation than playing a written piece. A written piece has every note specified. You practice it, you perform it, you're done. An improvised solo, on the other hand, requires you to internalize the underlying structure so thoroughly that you can navigate it in real time without conscious planning. You need to know the modes, the chord changes, the rhythmic patterns, the phrasing conventions. And you need to know them so well that they're available to your fingers before your conscious mind has time to think about which note comes next. I know this from decades of musical experience. But my life in music almost never happened at all. In grade five, I failed a recorder test. It was given as a prerequisite for joining band class in grade six. The reason, though I didn’t have the language for it at the time, was a condition then called image-deficit disorder, now known as aphantasia. I couldn’t visualize what my teachers were asking me to see on the recorder or the sheet music. And the boring mnemonic sentences they gave us for remembering the notes made no sense to me. The school’s verdict in the face of my supposed failure? No band class. My dad changed that. He rolled up to the school on his Harley Davidson and had a conversation with the administration that I wasn’t privy to. Whatever he said, it worked. I was in. So long as I played the trombone instead of my dream bass guitar. They thought trombone would be easiest for me with its one simple slide. The Art of Coping By Copying But getting into band class didn’t mean I could play. In fact, for the entire first year, I sat beside another trombonist who picked up every note like it was nothing. I survived by watching his slide positions and copying them. I wasn’t reading music. I was reading him. The next year, in grade seven, the teacher gave us separate parts, and my copying lifeline was over. I remember sitting alone in a room with that trombone, sweat rolling down my face, sheet music on the stand turning my brain into wet sawdust. It felt like staring at an explosive I didn’t know how to defuse. But something shifted as my juvenile brain worked to solve the problem. Once I was forced to actually engage with the notation instead of mimicking someone else, I started seeing patterns. The theory behind the notes began to click. My teacher noticed the transformation quickly, both in performance and on my written tests. Later that year, she encouraged me to enter a sight-reading competition. Even though I didn’t win, I remember the thrill of performing music I’d never seen before. And because my teacher saw how deeply I’d started engaging with music, she helped me secure a spot at the local summer school of music before high school. That summer changed my trajectory. I studied with a celebrated trombonist from Canadian Brass. My skills went up substantially, and after a solo I played during the final concert, I was asked to audition for the Kamloops Rube Band. I turned that invitation down and finally retired the trombone for a bass and joined a heavy metal band instead. Over the years that followed, I played in multiple bands, learned increasingly complex music, and eventually realized a lifelong dream: going on tour with an established band. Memory expert Anthony Metivier performing at a concert in Germany. The Lesson That Changed How I Perform And it was during that tour, playing with a sophisticated band called The Outside, that I received perhaps the most important lesson about thinking on your feet that music ever gave me. After a show, our drummer Tito told me I’d missed a few notes. I braced for a critical lecture, but he said something I’ve never forgotten. It was an important tip that has everything to do with the practice of thinking on your feet: “The real problem isn’t missing the notes. It’s looking like you made a mistake. If you look like you made a mistake, it is a mistake.” From that moment on, I trained myself to improvise how I looked just as much as how I sounded. A missed note played with confidence reads as a creative choice. A perfect note played with visible anxiety reads as a near-miss. The audience often doesn’t hear your mistakes, but they do see your reaction to them. This principle extends far beyond music. It shows up in meetings, presentations and conversations. Your stumbles themselves are almost never what people remember. They remember whether or not you flinched. And to tie this all back to the beginning, flinching is an ego response. It’s the visible evidence of caring more about how you appear than about what you’re communicating. Tito didn’t know he was teaching me about ego reduction back during that tour in 2013. But that’s exactly what his lesson was. Card Magic: Multiple Outs and Recovery In card magic, which is especially useful in memorized deck magic, there's a concept called “multiple outs.” I think about it constantly in non-magic contexts. A multiple out is a tactic you might never use, but always have something prepared so that no matter what the spectator does, you conclude the trick successfully. In other words, no matter which card they choose, which pile they point to, which decision they make, you have a prepared path to a successful conclusion. The spectator thinks they're making free choices. In reality, every choice leads to the same place, or to one of several equally impressive endings. This is exactly how preparation works for thinking on your feet. If you've prepared thoroughly for a meeting, you don't just have one argument. You have multiple arguments, multiple examples, multiple pivot points. If someone challenges your position, you have an “out.” If someone asks an unexpected question, you have another “out.” The more preparation you've done, the more outs you have. Magician in Trouble There's also a sub-genre in magic called “magician in trouble” where the performer intentionally appears to make a mistake, building tension before a surprising recovery. What the audience doesn't realize is that the “mistake” was planned and the recovery was rehearsed. But it only works because the performer has done thousands of hours of practice behind the scenes. If you’re having trouble acting spontaneously, learning a few magic tricks is one of the best things you can do. The more tricks you know, the more you can make mistakes and recover. If one trick goes wrong, you transition to another. If a spectator does something unexpected, you have a different trick that accommodates their choice. The depth of your repertoire is directly proportional to your ability to handle anything. Translate this to your professional life: The more tools, frameworks, examples, and stories you have memorized, the more “tricks” you can draw from when a conversation or presentation goes sideways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvtYjdriSpM Two Levels of TEDx Improvisation Where Preparation Met Reality Minutes before I was due on stage for my TEDx Talk, a long-time fan showed up without a ticket. From what I gathered, he’d traveled to attend the event in Melbourne. And I could tell he was genuinely excited. But he didn’t have a ticket. And when the venue staff told him he couldn’t come in, due to fire capacity rules, we were both frustrated. Anyone with two eyes could see that the room wasn’t actually full. But there was no time to argue the bureaucracy. I was about to deliver the most important presentation of my career, after all. This is exactly the kind of moment that derails people. Not the talk itself, but the things that happen right before you hit the stage. I’m talking about the unexpected disruptions that flood your system with cortisol at the worst possible time. My ego wanted to fight for this person’s entry. It wanted to make a scene about the absurdity of empty seats and fire codes. It wanted to be the hero who fixes things. Instead, thinking on my feet, I suggested we meet for dinner after the talk. He understood. We shook hands. And then I had approximately four minutes to completely reset my mental state before walking on stage. Here’s what I did, standing backstage where nobody could see: I placed my hands behind my back and began Kirtan Kriya. This is a four-syllable meditation (Sa, Ta, Na, Ma) combined with a sequential mudra where your fingers tap. Gary Weber teaches it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvokeZnXMM By using the technique with both hands behind my back so no one would see, I simultaneously slowed my breathing and brought myself back to center. Between breath cycles, I also ran a quick body scan from my feet to my scalp, deliberately releasing tension wherever I found it. Jaw, shoulders, hands, the major muscle groups. By the time they called my name, I was calm. Not confident in the way people usually mean. I wasn’t puffed up or “psyched” to give my speech. Just calm in the way that comes from having emptied the bowl. The fan situation was gone from my mind. The ego’s need to intervene was gone. What remained was a mind with nothing in it except a memorized talk and the willingness to deliver it to whoever was in that room. What To Do When the Room Doesn’t Follow Your Script Shortly after my talk began, the room did something I hadn’t planned for. A scripted joke that had worked perfectly to create laughter during the dress rehearsal the day before landed in silence. Not awkward silence. Just… nothing. The audience looked at me with interest but no laughter. A few minutes later, during a section I hadn’t intended to be funny at all, they laughed. Genuinely. A speaker working from notes would have been buried in their script at that moment, unable to read the room because their eyes were on the page. But my entire talk was encoded in Memory Palaces using the technique I teach in my guide, How to Memorize a Speech. I didn’t need to look at any notes. I could look at everyone and connect with them directly. So I did and leaned into their laughter. I let it breathe. I adjusted my pacing to ride the energy they were giving me rather than forcing the energy I’d planned. Going with the flow, I made an unscripted joke and it landed. And when the moment passed, I stepped to the next station in my Memory Palace and continued on with the talk. What the Audience Saw vs. What Actually Happened The audience experienced this as spontaneity. They saw a speaker who was loose, present, reading the room. What actually happened was decades of training expressing itself through a four-second decision. The musical performance training that taught me to keep playing through mistakes without flinching. The card magic training that taught me to have multiple outs when a planned effect doesn’t land. The teaching experience that taught me to read a room full of people who may not be responding the way I expected. And underneath all of it, my ego-reduction efforts shone through, including the willingness to let go of the talk I’d planned and deliver the talk the audience needed. After the event, several people told me how natural and relaxed I seemed. One person said it felt like I was just talking to them, not giving a speech. That’s the highest compliment a speaker can receive. And it was entirely the product of preparation. But nothing about that talk was spontaneous other than the joke I made up on the fly. Otherwise, every word of that talk was memorized verbatim. The audience saw someone thinking on their feet. What they were actually seeing was someone falling back on their training. That, and they witnessed someone with enough training to fall back on. That is the difference. And it’s available to anyone willing to put in the work before the moment arrives. Part 6: Physical Composure (How to React When Your Safety Is at Stake) There are situations where “thinking on your feet” has nothing to do with being articulate or quick-witted. Quite the opposite. There are many moments in life when thinking itself is the problem, especially during situations where what you need is a trained physical response that fires before your conscious mind has time to interfere. I've been in three of these situations. Each time, it was my years-long Systema training that kept me safe. In case you don’t know it, Systema is a martial art focused on breathing, relaxation, and fluid movement under stress. To be clear, it didn’t help me fight. It helped me because it stopped fights from erupting in the first place. Let me explain. Incident One: The Attempted Mugging While writing my dissertation, I was living in Washington Heights, a district north of Harlem in New York City. I was walking south, down to the 170s from the corner of 187th and Cabrini, where I’d stopped to use a bank machine. On my way out, a man stood in front of me with something resembling a gun in his pocket. Exactly as it happens in the movies, he gestured in quick spurts of energy so that my eyes dropped and looked at his pocket. “Give me your wallet and all your money,” he demanded. My Systema training kicked in. Instead of having my shoulders shoot up with anxious tension — the default I’d seen in almost every new student Emmanuel Manolakakis worked with, including me during my first lessons — my mind automatically followed the training I’d received. Without willing it, my shoulders dropped and my mind and body synced with my breath. In a way that still completely bewilders me, a smile came across my face. I don’t know what I looked like, but my expression unnerved the mugger. It created the stress in him that should have been in my body. After what seemed like an eternity, the mugger said, “Wipe that smile off your face or I’ll shoot you.” At this point, my smile grew wider and I started to laugh. An instant later, it felt right to move. I took one step forward into his space and angled to the left with the second and third steps. I didn’t break his gaze and watched as his eyes and entire head tracked me as I moved past him. Then, still operating completely on autopilot, I started to run and found myself in a cleaning supplies store filled with mops and buckets. No confrontation. No escalation. No ego. Just a trained body responding faster than a thinking mind would have. My Systema training, from breath coordination to deep muscle relaxation and long hours of practice with dropping into calm during situations of simulated threat, delivered exactly what it was designed for: bypassing the conscious mind that would have frozen me and let the body handle the situation. Incident Two: The Dark Path in Toronto Some time later, walking in Toronto, I approached a path at the end of a high school field. It was too late to be taking this popular shortcut, but there I was during a night that was far darker than I would have liked. There was just one street lamp hanging over that path, and its bulb was barely working. Before I stepped onto the path, I put a dime on my thumb. I didn’t think about why. There was no conscious strategy at work. My body simply did what training had taught it to do: prepare for the possibility of contact without committing to a plan. Sure enough, someone stepped into my path. I flicked the dime. The coin caught his gaze and seized his attention, producing a few seconds of involuntary visual tracking. This is the same reflex that makes every human eye follow sudden movement. Thanks to the distraction created by the spinning dime, I moved past him easily and paced off into the distance before his focus returned. The entire encounter lasted maybe three seconds. There was no conversation, no confrontation, no mental calculation. Just a trained response that created a tiny window of distraction and an immediate exit through it. I still think about the fact that I put the dime on my thumb before anything happened. It wasn’t a decision so much as it was a product of procedural memory — the same memory system that helps a musician’s fingers find the right fret before their conscious mind has named the note. Systema trains you to read environments the way musicians read chord changes. Not by analyzing, but by responding to patterns your body has trained to respond to inside the dojo. Incident Three: Outside the Post Office The third incident was the strangest. Outside a post office, someone with a grievance I didn’t fully understand began yelling at me aggressively. His body language was escalating and the situation felt like it could turn physical. My response was immediate: I raised my hands into a prayer gesture. With my palms together and fingers standing straight up, I found myself saying “thank you” over and over. I wasn’t being clever. I wasn’t trying to defuse the situation with wit. The gesture came from training, and it served two purposes simultaneously that I was only partially aware of in the moment. First, it put my hands in a position to quickly block any incoming strike. The prayer position is a natural guard because your hands are high, elbows close and forearms ready to redirect. I mean, it’s not going to make you bulletproof, but it’s just as disarming as the smile I delivered back during the mugging I survived in New York. Second, my response psychologically short-circuited the man’s aggression. Being thanked while you’re on the offensive is so dissonant that the brain doesn’t know how to process it. This person’s rhythm broke. His volume dropped. The escalation stalled because the script he was running had been interrupted by a response that didn’t fit. He didn’t thank me back. But at least he stopped. And I walked away unscathed. The Common Thread: No Ego, No Thinking, Just the Fruits of Training In all three incidents, the pattern is identical: Because the ego was out of the way, I wasn't trying to prove anything or “win” the encounters. There was also no conscious thinking. The responses were physical, automatic, and executed faster than mental deliberation would have allowed. Plus, there was relaxation under threat. The counterintuitive act of relaxing when threatened, which Systema specifically trains, prevented the freeze response that ego and fear typically produce. Finally, the strategy in each case was oriented toward getting away, not engaging. For anyone who wants to develop this dimension of thinking on their feet, I strongly recommend studying a martial art that emphasizes relaxation, awareness, and movement rather than aggression and force. Finding Your Own Physical Practice If personal experiences make you want to sign up for Systema, I’d encourage it. But I’d also encourage any martial art that emphasizes awareness, breathing, and relaxation over aggression and force. The point is not to become a fighter. The point is to develop a body that responds to threat with trained composure rather than untrained panic. Beyond martial arts, I practice Qigong daily and have for years. It’s not a combat discipline, but it trains the same foundational skills experienced in a gentler format: Breath coordination Bodily awareness Relaxation under tension For someone who has no interest in martial training, Qigong offers many of the same benefits for composure and physical presence without ever throwing or receiving a strike. Whatever physical practice you choose, I’d offer one caution: Don’t romanticize these practices or turn them into a glamorous fantasy. Remember the lesson from Lacan and the Stoic lessons that make sure reality is better than fantasy if and when real situations of trouble land. The three incidents I described above weren’t action sequences. They were awkward, brief, and slightly absurd. I didn’t defeat anyone. I smiled, flicked a coin, and said thank you. The training didn’t make me dangerous. It made me calm enough to exit each situation without a scratch. And that brings me to what I consider the most important physical skill of all, one that doesn’t require any formal training: situational awareness. Train for Situational Awareness In each of the three incidents, there was a moment before contact where my body registered something my conscious mind hadn’t articulated yet. In Washington Heights, I noticed the man’s posture before he spoke. In Toronto, something made me put a dime on my thumb before I entered the dark path. Outside the post office, I registered the escalation in body language before any words were exchanged. To train for greater situational awareness, walk with your phone in your pocket instead of your hand. Move around the world with your ears empty instead of listening to music or podcasts. When you enter a room, notice the exits. When you’re in an unfamiliar environment, pay attention to who is around you and how they’re moving. These aren’t paranoid habits. They’re the same environmental reading skills your ancestors used every day. Modern life has simply given us the luxury of ignoring them. There is almost no better way to think on your feet than the thinking that steers you clear of sticky situations in the first place. When it comes to physical confrontation, the best-trained response is the one you never have to use. Part 7: Daily Training Exercises for Mental Agility Everything discussed so far requires ongoing practice. Here are the specific daily exercises I use and recommend, organized from quick (2 minutes) to involved (30+ minutes). Breathing Techniques (2–5 minutes) Before any high-pressure situation, be it a presentation, a meeting or a difficult conversation, controlled breathing is the fastest way to shift your nervous system from sympathetic (fight-or-flight) to parasympathetic (calm and focused). The simplest technique: Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, breathe out for 6 counts. The extended exhale activates the vagus nerve and physically slows your heart rate. Do this for 2 minutes and you'll enter any situation calmer and more mentally available. For more advanced breathing techniques, check out this video tutorial I made for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeO06_uZZcg   Progressive Muscle Relaxation (5–10 minutes) Systematically tensing and releasing muscle groups, from your feet to your face, trains your body to release the physical tension that accumulates under stress. Over time, you develop the ability to detect and release tension in real time — during a conversation, during a presentation, during a confrontation. This is the body scan component that I used before my TEDx Talk, and it's a core element of Systema training as well. The ability to scan your body for tension and deliberately release it is a physical skill that directly supports mental agility. Steelmanning Practice (15–20 minutes) Get a partner. Have them throw random topics at you. Your job: argue the strongest possible case for the position you naturally oppose. Switch roles. Do this twice a week and within a month you'll notice a dramatic improvement in your ability to think through problems from multiple angles under time pressure. Now, you might think about going to Chat-GPT or some other LLM. You can certainly give this a try. However, beware of context-dependent memory and state-dependence issues. If you only train in digital environments with a bot, you will likely find that you perform fine when sparring with a computer, but flounder with a human. As this study found, training in certain environments creates less cognitive fatigue than others. So if you come to develop certain beliefs about the difficulty of discussing things based on experiences with chatbots, you will probably not like the energy-drain you encounter when dealing with humans. Remember: we tend to fight the way we train, so practice all rhetorical argumentation in a variety of environments, never just one. Random Topic Riffing (10–15 minutes) Have someone give you a topic and speak about it for 2 minutes without stopping. What you say doesn't need to be brilliant, but work at speaking continuously. The exercise trains your brain to keep producing output even when it doesn't feel ready, which is exactly the skill you need when put on the spot. Increase difficulty by having the topic-giver interrupt you with new topics mid-stream. This trains your ability to pivot and shift directions without losing composure. Memory Palace Practice (15–30 minutes) Every time you encode information using a Memory Palace, you're doing more than memorizing. You're building the retrieval infrastructure that makes recall under pressure possible. Regular Memory Palace practice is the single most important investment you can make in your ability to access information when you need it. The more you memorize, the more you should seek to incorporate memorized material into your steelmanning and random riffing practice routines. Alphabet Drills and Multiple Mentality (5–15 minutes) One of the most unusual training systems I’ve encountered comes from Harry Kahne, a performer from the 1920s who could write with both hands simultaneously while reciting poetry from memory. He called his approach “Multiple Mentality” because it’s the deliberate practice of running several mental operations at once. His exercises sound deceptively simple. The foundational one: write out the alphabet backwards from memory. Not from Z-A printed on a card. From memory, cold. Most people find reciting the alphabet backwards surprisingly difficult the first time. But once you can do it? That’s when the real training begins. Kahne then asks you to pair the alphabet’s extreme ends mentally: A-Z, B-Y, C-X, working inward. Then start from the center and pair outward in reverse. These are pure concentration drills because they force your brain to hold a structure in working memory while performing various forms of recall. I go deeper into the full Multiple Mentality system and all of Kahne’s exercises in my detailed review of his course, including the parts I think are brilliant and the parts where I respectfully disagree with him. Part 8: Prepping Your Mind (Why What You Memorize Determines How Well You Think) Most of us know that the quality of your thinking is directly proportional to the quality of what you've committed to memory. A mind loaded with poetry, philosophy, scientific principles, historical examples, memorable quotes, and well-understood frameworks will produce richer, more nuanced, more creative responses under pressure than a mind that relies on whatever it happens to recall from last week's reading. This is not about showing off. It's about having raw material that makes you mentally dexterous. And gives you information you can use in an instant. What to Memorize for Maximum Mental Agility As you’ve seen, I strongly recommend memorizing quotes and poems. Because memorized poetry gives you access to compressed wisdom, beautiful language, and emotional resonance that you can draw on in conversation, writing, and thinking. Likewise, you can learn how to remember a story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM4TxD6ez1Y When you've memorized a poem or story, you own the content in a way that reading on its own never provides. The lines and structures become part of your mental vocabulary. I've memorized dozens of poems and passages of verse, and they surface constantly in conversation, in my writing, in my thinking about problems that have nothing to do with literature. Memorize Speeches for Mental Dexterity Likewise, you can seek out speeches from people like Churchill, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Marcus Aurelius. The words of leaders who were themselves masters of thinking on their feet make for excellent training material. When you've memorized their words, you internalize their patterns of thought. You don't just quote them. You begin to think in the structures they used. Learn to Tell Jokes Like improv, humor provides you with one of the ultimate forms of thinking on your feet. And telling jokes is far more learnable than people assume. To get started, commit a few jokes to memory and study their structure. You’ll soon notice that a good joke is a tiny argument: The setup establishes expectations The twist violates the expectations The punchline resolves the violation in a surprising or ironic way This simple structure is not so different from the PREP framework we discussed above. Practice Parroting and Accent Imitation Imitating a famous actor might sound like a party trick, but it's actually a profound exercise in sharing another person’s perspective and behavioral patterns. To imitate someone convincingly, you have to at least try and understand how they think, how they move and how they use language. As a result, the understanding you develop translates directly to the ability to read and respond to different people in different contexts. I’m not particularly good with foreign accents or imitating people. But merely by putting time into practicing a few people, I’ve learned a lot and become more spontaneous on my feet. Reflective Thinking Practice Memorization alone isn't enough. The material you memorize needs to be processed through reflective thinking. This is the practice of deliberately considering what you've learned, connecting it to other things you know, and forming your own positions. I do a lot of my reflective thinking through journaling, through conversation with carefully chosen friends, and through a practice I've maintained for years: regularly re-reading books I've already read, looking for things I missed the first time. All of these practices transform static knowledge into dynamic intellectual resources you’ll draw upon with great ease when you find yourself put on the spot. Part 9: The Paradox of Mental Silence We've covered a great deal of ground today: ego reduction, memory techniques, verbal frameworks, performance training, martial arts, daily exercises, and the art of loading your mind with quality material. And now I want to end with something that sounds like a contradiction but is, in fact, the deepest truth about thinking on your feet: The goal is not to think faster. Rather, it’s to create the conditions where you don't need to think at all. I know this sounds paradoxical. How can “thinking on your feet” require not thinking? It’s because the highest level of performance in any domain doesn’t just look like effortlessness. It actually is, if only in the present moment. I’m talking about the musician who plays a transcendent solo. That performer isn't thinking about which notes to play. Nor does the martial artist who evades a strike sit there thinking about which direction to move. And the speaker who delivers a perfect response to an unexpected question isn't thinking about what to say. They’re drawing upon deep preparation. In each case, the performer has trained so deeply that the right response emerges from a place beneath conscious thought. The preparation started long ago. Practice has quieted your fantasies, both positive and negative. And what remains is a mind so well-prepared that it can be still during the demands and in that stillness, the right response simply appears. This outcome is common in the world of mindfulness and meditation, where practitioners describe the experience of being “full by being empty.” In order to receive the moment as it actually is (not as your ego wants it to be, nor as your anxiety fears things might go wrong), you just have to empty your mind of the noise that normally fills it. Your Next Step If this article has shown you anything, I hope it's this: thinking on your feet is not a gift. It's the product of deliberate, ongoing training across multiple domains — mental, verbal, physical, and philosophical. The foundation of all of it is memory. Not “good memory” as a vague trait, but trained memory — the ability to encode, store, and retrieve information on demand, under pressure, in any context. If you want to start building that foundation, I've created a free course that teaches you the core Memory Palace technique in four video lessons. It's the same starting point my Masterclass students use, and it will give you your first experience of what trained recall feels like. For even deeper training that includes the Memory Wheel technique, ars combinatoria, advanced Memory Palace strategies, and the Recall Rehearsal patterns that make long-term retention predictable, my Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass takes you through the complete learning system. And if you want to explore the meditation, breathing, and muscle relaxation routines I've combined with memory training for maximum mental composure, I go into all of that in The Victorious Mind. So what do you say? Are you ready to stop worrying about what you’ll say next and start training so deeply that the right response arrives on its own? Remember: the secret every performer, martial artist, and memory expert discovers is ultimately the same. You don’t rise to the level of the mome

On this very special episode of Latinos Out Loud, we are thrilled to partner again with Podcasthon; the world's largest charitable, non-profit initiative in the podcasting industry, where creators worldwide unite to dedicate an episode to a charity or cause of their choice. This year we are shining the spotlight on the iconic cultural and arts epicenter of Washington Heights, NYC, The United Palace. Rachel is on location at the nearly 100-year old theatre, and interviews Board Chair, Nestor Meléndez, then gets a walking tour of the building with CEO, Mike Fitelson. Hear about the past shows, like the Tony Awards, their diverse upcoming lineup, and a look into the future of this amazing venue. Hear more about Rachel's connection to The United Palace as well. Wait for it...the end of the episode reveals a secret place Rachel never knew existed, located sub-level of the theatre. Please see links below. Help Restore the Grandeur of the Grand Foyer of The United Palace https://podcasthon.org/podcaster/latinos-out-loud-2 Learn more about Podcasthon here: https://podcasthon.org/ UCB Diversity Scholarship: https://ucbcomedy.com/training-center/scholarships/diversity/ Follow Rachel Follow @WeAreLatinosOutLoud Website: www.wearelatinosoutloud.co Call/Text Us at 978-LATINOS Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this very special episode of Latinos Out Loud, we are thrilled to partner again with Podcasthon; the world's largest charitable, non-profit initiative in the podcasting industry, where creators worldwide unite to dedicate an episode to a charity or cause of their choice. This year we are shining the spotlight on the iconic cultural and arts epicenter of Washington Heights, NYC, The United Palace. Rachel is on location at the nearly 100-year old theatre, and interviews Board Chair, Nestor Meléndez, then gets a walking tour of the building with CEO, Mike Fitelson. Hear about the past shows, like the Tony Awards, their diverse upcoming lineup, and a look into the future of this amazing venue. Hear more about Rachel's connection to The United Palace as well. Wait for it...the end of the episode reveals a secret place Rachel never knew existed, located sub-level of the theatre. Please see links below. Help Restore the Grandeur of the Grand Foyer of The United Palace https://podcasthon.org/podcaster/latinos-out-loud-2 Learn more about Podcasthon here: https://podcasthon.org/ UCB Diversity Scholarship: https://ucbcomedy.com/training-center/scholarships/diversity/ Follow Rachel Follow @WeAreLatinosOutLoud Website: www.wearelatinosoutloud.co Call/Text Us at 978-LATINOS

What Jessica's Drinking

Welcome to Inwood Art Works On Air podcast. This episode puts the spotlight on local filmmaker, Caleb Clarke.Caleb Clarke is a Manhattan-based writer, director, and editor who is drawn to themes of grace, shame, and redemption as well as the destigmatization of mental health issues. Caleb wrote the screenplays for three narrative short films produced through Times Square Church. Of those, his favorite project with TSC is Unseen (2023), a short he also directed and edited that explores faith and mental health. Caleb has shot and edited branded content, music videos, a dance film, and worked as an additional editor on a feature length documentary for Athletic Brewing.Currently, Caleb resides in Washington Heights surrounded by many actor friends who helped inspire the theatrical setting of his upcoming short film An Act of Penance, which he received an Inwood Film Festival Filmmaker fund award. You can view more of his work here: calebmclarke.com. 

  In Episode 119, Adam sits down with Washington Heights rapper LIFEOFTHOM to break down his journey through New York City's rap scene and how he's building a career in today's independent music landscape.   Thom talks about the viral Washington Square Park freestyle moment where he ended up rapping in front of the NYC mayor, how moments like that can translate into real fans, and why artists need to learn how to leverage attention in the modern music industry.   He also shares the story behind connecting with legendary producer Plain Pat (Kid Cudi, Kanye West) and what he learned from working with someone who has helped shape some of hip-hop's most iconic records.   Throughout the conversation, Thom gives insight into building a team, opening for artists like Conway the Machine and IDK, life on tour, and how independent rappers are navigating tech, direct-to-fan models, and the changing business of music. Whether you're a hip-hop fan or someone interested in the music industry, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it actually takes to build a rap career today.   Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundcentricmus Instagram:https://https://www.instagram.com/soundcentricmusic/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@soundcentricmusic Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoundCentricmusic Website: https://soundcentricmusic.com Podcast: https://www.soundcentricmusic.com   00:00:50 Washington Heights Rapper “LifeofThom” on His Rise + New Plain Pat Project 00:02:50 La Russell's packed calendar as an indie artist 00:05:51 Inside NYC's New Rap Scene: Building Community Like Pro Era & Brockhampton 00:11:05 Rapping for NYC's Mayor: How a Viral Washington Square Freestyle Changed Everything 00:15:59 When Do Artists Need a Manager? Building a Real Team in the Rap Game 00:18:31 Opening for Conway, IDK & Taylor Bennett: How Rap Show Opportunities Actually Happen 00:22:11 Life on Rap Tour: The Real Experience vs. What Fans See on YouTube 00:23:41 Why Rappers Should Pay Attention to Tech, NFTs & Music Platforms 00:26:24 The Future of Rap Money: Direct-to-Fan Music, No Labels Needed 00:29:20 Working with Legendary Producer Plain Pat (Kid Cudi, Kanye) 00:33:07 How Great Rappers Write: Freestyling vs. Crafting Bars for Days 00:37:38 Rap Influences: Pro Era, ASAP Rocky, Blog Era Mixtapes & J. Cole 00:41:22 Mount Rushmore of NYC Rappers (Debate Gets Heated) 00:45:24 New Music with Kota the Friend, CJ Fly + What's Next

Eric Mejia makes his Open Court debut, talknig about his return to the starting lineup, two big in-state wins, and his road from Washington Heights to Fairfield

Performer, Playwright, Poet, Painter, and Photographer Jose Tama Torres began his passionate work as a political artist on the stage he built onto the back of his taco truck.  Born in Ecuador, raised in Washington Heights in New York City and based for decades in New Orléans, he currently tours the United States with his very funny, very angry and very powerful docu-performances pieces—Aliens, Immigrants and Other Evil Doers and United States of Amnesia: Dare to Remember—which are based on hundreds of interviews with “undocumented” immigrants living and working in the U.S.A. Join Tama-Torres as he takes host Desire Wandan (and all of us) on a righteous rant and militant meander through the mess we find ourselves in. To order one of his famous “No Guacamole for Immigrant Haters” tee-shirts, click here: https://torrestama.com/index.html ----more---- Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect, and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers, and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we're all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world. ----more---- The East Side Institute is a hub for a diverse and emergent community of social activists, thought leaders, and practitioners who are reigniting our human abilities to imagine, create and perform beyond ourselves—to develop. Each episode will introduce you to another performance activist or play revolutionary from around the world.   To learn more about the East Side Institute you can go to https://eastsideinstitute.org/   Made possible in part by Growing Social Therapeutics: The Baylah Wolfe Fund.

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in front of hundreds of people at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. He was thirty-nine years old. Three men were arrested; and more than half a century later, critical questions remain unanswered.Who really killed Malcolm X?Who knew it was coming?And why did the truth take so long to emerge?Available wherever you stream podcasts!Be sure to Subscribe, Rate, & Review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Audible!Support the show by becoming a sponsor on our Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.Patreon.com/NYMysteryMachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NYMM Merch! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.NYMysteryMachine.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a strange and/or paranormal story?⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Share it here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Don't forget to follow us on all the socials:Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@NYMysteryMachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | TikTok:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@NYMysteryMachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nymysterymachine.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | X:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@NYMysteries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@NYMysteryMachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠--THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:PRINTFUL: Design your own merch, apparel, and accessories by heading to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.printful.com/a/nymysterymachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AUDIBLE: Get a FREE 30 Day Trial by heading to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.AudibleTrial.com/NYMysteryMachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RIVERSIDE.FM: Looking to record podcast, but need software? Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://riverside.fm/?via=nymysterymachine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

The All Local Afternoon Update for Monday February 9th, 2026

Tony Bonfiglio is a retired FDNY firefighter who spent more than 20 years serving the communities of Washington Heights and Queens. Tony joins Theo to share about his first days on Ladder 34, his experiences on 9/11 and why the brotherhood of the firehouse is second to none. Tony Bonfiglio: https://www.instagram.com/tonybonfiglio34/  Tony's book “Tales from the Tiller”: https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Tiller-STORIES-HEARTBREAK-LUCKIEST/dp/B0FP7XYTXW  Tunnel to Towers Foundation: https://t2t.org  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ  Prize Picks: Go to https://link.prizepicks.com/LME0/THEO and use code THEO to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Play Responsibly.  Better Help: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Go to http://betterhelp.com/theo for 10% off your first month. Blue Chew: Visit https://BlueChew.com for 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code THEO. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/  Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lt Chris Horgan is a member of the FDNY, currently assigned to Ladder 20 in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. He is a 20-year veteran of the department and previously served with Engine 84 and Ladder 34 in Washington Heights. In addition to his operational duties, Lt. Horgan has recently assumed a leadership role in the FDNY's Mental Performance Initiative. He is a graduate of Villanova University and is an avid baseball player and lifelong fan of the game. Lt. Horgan resides in Rockland County with his wife.

Welcome to Inwood Art Works On Air. On this Artist Spotlight episode, we chat with actor and filmmaker, Manny PérezBorn in the Dominican Republic and based uptown in Washington Heights, Manny Pérez is a Dominican American actor that has gained international recognition for his contributions to film and television. He gained significant attention for his performance in the film "Washington Heights" (2002), which he cowrote and produced. His portrayal in this independent film earned him critical acclaim, with The New York Times noting that he has "charisma to burn."  He has appeared in various television series, including "Third Watch," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," and "The Blacklist." His versatility as an actor has allowed him to take on both leading and supporting roles in numerous films, including "La Soga", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, it's two sequels, and many others.  Manny is not only recognized for his film work but also for his humanitarian efforts. He has been involved in charitable activities, including donating shoes to families affected by Hurricane Noel in the Dominican Republic. 

During this holiday season, hear some recent favorites:New York City's mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani defines himself as a democratic socialist, yet his critics have seized on his leftist identity to paint him as an extremist. Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti, professor of political science and executive director of the Moynihan Center at The City College of New York, and author of 20 Years of Rage: How Resentment Took the Place of Politics (Mondadori, 2024), explains the core principles of the various strains of thought on the left to paint a clearer picture of what Mamdani believes in and how he'll govern as mayor.Joyce Vance, a legal analyst for MSNBC and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, University of Alabama School of Law professor, and author of the Civil Discourse substack, and of the new book, Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy (Dutton, 2025), talks about the rule of law and offers legal and historical context for the current moment in American history as she calls for citizens to uphold the Constitution.Jared Fox, education consultant, former NYC secondary science teacher and the author of Learning Environment: Inspirational Actions, Approaches, and Stories from the Science Classroom (Beacon Press, 2025), guides teachers in taking science education out of the classroom, drawing on his experience teaching science in Washington Heights.Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the author of Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy (Thesis, 2025), talks about her new book and explains why she says education protects democracy.Peter Harnik, co-founder of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land and executive producer of the documentary "From Rails to Trails", talks about his work spearheading the movement to convert abandoned railbeds into multi-use trails, 26,000 miles so far, and the new documentary about it, plus listener suggestions for the best places to bike outside the city. These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity; the original web versions are available here:What is Zohran Mamdani's Political Ideology? (Nov 14, 2025)A Democratic Manifesto (Oct 27, 2025)Reimagining Teaching Science (Nov 11, 2025)Fighting Fascism with Education (Sep 26, 2025)From Railroad to Rail-Trail (Oct 7, 2025) and The Best Places to Bike Outside the City (Oct 8, 2025) 

En este episodio exploramos el Acto 1 de la obra teatral In The Heights, analizando canción por canción cómo se presentan los personajes, sus sueños y el fuerte sentido de comunidad que define a Washington Heights.

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today, I speak with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of the new artist's biography Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). The book was recently named one of NPR's Books We Loved for 2025. Pollack-Pelzner is a cultural historian, theater critic, and teacher at Portland State University, whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Pollack-Pelzner's biography offers a captivating exploration of Miranda's artistic journey—from a sensitive child in Manhattan's Washington Heights to the visionary creator of Hamilton whose voice has reshaped musical theater and popular culture. This book captures a living artist in motion, weaving together countless threads of collaboration, cultural synthesis, and personal revelation that define Miranda's work. In our conversation, we focus on the challenge of writing biography itself. How does a scholar and critic approach the story of someone whose art feels both deeply personal and expansively historical? How does one trace the education of an artist who learned not in isolation, but through community, heritage, and creative exchange? Pollack-Pelzner guides us through these questions with the grace of a storyteller and the precision of a historian, drawing on unparalleled access to Miranda's inner circle and his own interviews with the artist. This is a book about how an artist finds his voice, and a conversation about how a biographer finds the shape of a life. Join me for this engaging discussion with the delightful Daniel Pollack-Pelzner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today, I speak with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of the new artist's biography Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). The book was recently named one of NPR's Books We Loved for 2025. Pollack-Pelzner is a cultural historian, theater critic, and teacher at Portland State University, whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Pollack-Pelzner's biography offers a captivating exploration of Miranda's artistic journey—from a sensitive child in Manhattan's Washington Heights to the visionary creator of Hamilton whose voice has reshaped musical theater and popular culture. This book captures a living artist in motion, weaving together countless threads of collaboration, cultural synthesis, and personal revelation that define Miranda's work. In our conversation, we focus on the challenge of writing biography itself. How does a scholar and critic approach the story of someone whose art feels both deeply personal and expansively historical? How does one trace the education of an artist who learned not in isolation, but through community, heritage, and creative exchange? Pollack-Pelzner guides us through these questions with the grace of a storyteller and the precision of a historian, drawing on unparalleled access to Miranda's inner circle and his own interviews with the artist. This is a book about how an artist finds his voice, and a conversation about how a biographer finds the shape of a life. Join me for this engaging discussion with the delightful Daniel Pollack-Pelzner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today, I speak with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of the new artist's biography Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). The book was recently named one of NPR's Books We Loved for 2025. Pollack-Pelzner is a cultural historian, theater critic, and teacher at Portland State University, whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Pollack-Pelzner's biography offers a captivating exploration of Miranda's artistic journey—from a sensitive child in Manhattan's Washington Heights to the visionary creator of Hamilton whose voice has reshaped musical theater and popular culture. This book captures a living artist in motion, weaving together countless threads of collaboration, cultural synthesis, and personal revelation that define Miranda's work. In our conversation, we focus on the challenge of writing biography itself. How does a scholar and critic approach the story of someone whose art feels both deeply personal and expansively historical? How does one trace the education of an artist who learned not in isolation, but through community, heritage, and creative exchange? Pollack-Pelzner guides us through these questions with the grace of a storyteller and the precision of a historian, drawing on unparalleled access to Miranda's inner circle and his own interviews with the artist. This is a book about how an artist finds his voice, and a conversation about how a biographer finds the shape of a life. Join me for this engaging discussion with the delightful Daniel Pollack-Pelzner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today, I speak with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of the new artist's biography Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). The book was recently named one of NPR's Books We Loved for 2025. Pollack-Pelzner is a cultural historian, theater critic, and teacher at Portland State University, whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Pollack-Pelzner's biography offers a captivating exploration of Miranda's artistic journey—from a sensitive child in Manhattan's Washington Heights to the visionary creator of Hamilton whose voice has reshaped musical theater and popular culture. This book captures a living artist in motion, weaving together countless threads of collaboration, cultural synthesis, and personal revelation that define Miranda's work. In our conversation, we focus on the challenge of writing biography itself. How does a scholar and critic approach the story of someone whose art feels both deeply personal and expansively historical? How does one trace the education of an artist who learned not in isolation, but through community, heritage, and creative exchange? Pollack-Pelzner guides us through these questions with the grace of a storyteller and the precision of a historian, drawing on unparalleled access to Miranda's inner circle and his own interviews with the artist. This is a book about how an artist finds his voice, and a conversation about how a biographer finds the shape of a life. Join me for this engaging discussion with the delightful Daniel Pollack-Pelzner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

On this cold December afternoon live in studio we are honored to have Former NYFD Firefighter Tim Brown with us. Tim is a 9/11 Survivor, and Founder of The Families,Inc. He is a town local that left to NYC, shortly finding himself in the South Bronx and Washington Heights and responding to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. We all have seen media footage of that day, but to have the privilege to sit down with Tim and hear him tell the story was gut wrenching and somber(But Necessary) I apologize to our YouTube followers we had camera tech drama so no live feed. Pretty sure it was better that way cause all the glassy eyes in the room. Thank you Fire Chief Raul Ortiz for joining the panel. I always say "come for the ride" Tim, thank you for taking us  along. Everyone needs to hear this!Please check Tim out          FFTim.com

Nelson German was born and raised in the Dominican-American community of Washington Heights in New York City, but he mostly cooked classic fine-dining food until recently.After working at New York City venues such as Joseph's Citarella, the Gramercy Park Hotel, Absinthe Wine Bar and Jerry's Café, he moved to San Francisco in 2010, and debuted his first restaurant there, AlaMar, in 2014, serving a wide variety of seafood.After he expanded his presence on the culinary scene by appearing on Season 18 of "Top Chef" in 2021, he began to explore his own personal culinary roots and reopened the restaurant as a Dominican venue. That followed his brief launch in 2020 of Sobre Mesa, which reopened after lockdown and explores Latin cuisines as well as influences from West Africa, which German explored after researching his family's own Cameroonian heritage.Then in April of this year, he opened Meski in partnership with Ethiopian-American entrepreneur Guma Fassil and NBA legend Draymond Green. Meski's own background has brought even more variety to the cuisine at his restaurant, which is German's first in San Francisco.German discussed his culinary journey and shared how his cuisine has evolved over the years.

New York has some of the strongest housing laws in the country. But some people still face discrimination during the home buying process. That's why the city council said it is looking to improve transparency for co-op or condo buyers. A dirt field in a New York park has turned into a metaphorical “Field of Dreams.” At least that's what Mayor Eric Adams called the new field in Harlem. WFUV's Xenia Gonikberg explains the plan that was a part of the mayor's State of the City address. New Jersey wants to eliminate all traffic deaths statewide. WFUV's Nick Verone explains the plan. Word Up Bookshop is a local shop run and operated by more than 60 volunteers in New York's Washington Heights neighborhood. WFUV's Xenia Gonikberg explains how this bookstore transformed from a temporary pop-up into a permanent fixture working to build community. Host/Producer: Lainey Nguyen Editor: Robin Shannon Reporter: Xenia Gonikberg Reporter: Nick Verone Theme Music: Joe Bergsieker

Revealing, insightful, necessary, candid conversation with the incomparable Jerry Craft, NYT bestselling author of the groundbreaking book New Kid.* Craft is the ONLY PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF EVER to have a book win the:Newbery Medal, the Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature* New Kid was the FIRST graphic novel to receive the prestigious Newbery Medal* New Kid is billed as a book for middle grade readers (ages 8 - 12, grades 3 - 7) however it is just as riveting and important a read FOR ADULTS An actual middle schooler, KJ Fletcher got to join his mom, host and producer Samantha Fletcher for this one of a kind opportunity. They caught up with the multi-talented and in-demand busy author, illustrator and all around wise guy – literally for his wisdom as well as his wit – Jerry Craft.Craft graciously answers 10 questions -- plus a few more because the host Samantha can't allow a good dig-in or follow up question to pass -- and shares why he wrote the book, why it's great for young people, AND why it is an ASSET and a MUST-READ for GROWNUPS, too.WHAT IS NEW KID ABOUT? Described as "heartbreakingly accurate" by Kirkus, here is an AI overview summary: "New Kid is a graphic novel by Jerry Craft about a Black seventh grader named Jordan Banks who is one of the few students of color at a prestigious, mostly-white private school. The book follows Jordan as he navigates this new environment, torn between his familiar Washington Heights neighborhood and the new school's culture, exploring themes like microaggressions, racism, and socioeconomic disparity. It's a coming-of-age story about making friends, fitting in, and staying true to himself while dealing with the challenges of being a new student from a different background."WHY KIRKUS CHOSE THIS AS ITS WINNER: "Kirkus chose Jerry Craft's New Kid for its honest portrayal of being a Black student in a predominantly white private school, handling race, class, and microaggressions with humor and a relatable protagonist. The graphic novel was praised for its "heartbreakingly accurate" and "funny, sharp, and totally real" story that allows readers to see themselves in a narrative that isn't based on "misery" or historical hardship, but instead on the everyday experiences of a young person navigating identity and belonging. Kirkus specifically highlighted how the book combined a middle-grade narrative with important social commentary, using the protagonist's art to visualize his dual worlds."www.samanthafletcher.comhttps://jerrycraft.com/https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/dailybordercrossings/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-border-crossings/id1517113315

Zohran Mamdani hasn't even taken office, and already there has been a physical skirmish between ICE agents and NYPD cops in Washington Heights. This portends a full-on controntation between federal and municipal power in the months to come—with the potential (yes, really) for civil war. In Episode 303 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that despite the danger, Mamdani's election heightens the contradictions in American society in a salubrious way, and may even open revolutionary possibilities. However, his pledge to destroy Lower Manhattan's Elizabeth Street Garden points to the contradictions in Mamdani's own politics that activists will have to press him on. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 61 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 62!

Two NYPD officers were injured in Washington Heights during an encounter with immigration agents and unionized Starbucks workers go on strike to disrupt Red Cup Day.

The All Local 4pm Update for Wednesday, November 12th 2025

Jared Fox, education consultant, former NYC secondary science teacher and the author of Learning Environment: Inspirational Actions, Approaches, and Stories from the Science Classroom (Beacon Press, 2025), guides teachers in taking science education beyond the classroom, drawing on his experience teaching science in Washington Heights.

Nyla Symone sits down with LIFEOFTHOM, a rapper and producer from Washington Heights, NYC, to discuss his journey in the music industry. LIFEOFTHOM reflects on his 10-year career, which began in 2016, sharing his experiences performing at open mics, festivals, and collaborating with other artists. He highlights his work with Plain Pat and the creation of his album “Driving Blind,” a project that represents perseverance and faith. Throughout the conversation, LIFEOFTHOM opens up about his production process, musical influences, and the meaning behind his cover art. He also emphasizes the importance of community, continual learning, and staying true to yourself while navigating the music industry. Tune in and comment in the socials below. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share. Follow We Need To Talk: @wnttlk @nylasymoneee @lifeofthom See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ethan Geringer-Sameth, discusses the mayoral candidates' stances on overdose prevention centers in New York City, including Zohran Mamdani's reversal of his longstanding stance to increase the centers, Andrew Cuomo's stance to keep existing centers but not expand them and Curtis Sliwa's stance against the existing centers. Plus, Sam Rivera, executive director of OnPoint NYC, talks about the two overdose prevention centers that OnPoint runs, in East Harlem and Washington Heights.

On this Tuesday edition of Sid & Friends in the Morning, Sid details multiple stories including Zohran Mamdani's NYC mayoral campaign rally in Washington Heights, Sid's confrontational artificial intelligence mock debate with Zohran regarding funding allegations, the government's ongoing shutdown affecting federal workers, the ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas brokered by President Trump, and the complications involving New York Attorney General Tisch James after her indictment. Bo Dietl, Diana Florence, K.T. McFarland, Michael Goodwin, Mike Sapraicone & Zach Bonfilio join Sid on this Tuesday installment of Sid & Friends in the Morning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York City renters have filed more than 1,100 complaints since the city's ban on most broker fees took effect in June, many accusing landlords and brokers of ignoring the new rule. Meanwhile, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is criticizing President Trump over the federal prosecution of state Attorney General Letitia James. Also, city contractors hired to replace a crumbling, century-old elevated stretch of Riverside Drive West in Washington Heights walked off the job last year, leaving behind an unfinished construction site and hundreds of residents stuck in a public works purgatory. And finally, we meet the guy behind those “Friend” ads at subway stations across the city.

It's a Thursday night and a group of folks in Washington Heights do-si-do to the bassline from “Shake Your Groove Thing” by Peaches & Herb. Square dancing has a reputation as more of a hobby for white people set to country music. But social clubs like the Southside Squares are turning that image on its head. Last episode, we heard how square dancing was once a booming hobby. Today, we hear from one social club that's working to keep it alive in the 21st century. But square dancing's African and African-American roots often get lost in popular accounts. Some of the first callers and musicians were enslaved Black people. Since then, square dancing has continued to be a part of African-American communities, including a long-running social club that meets up in Washington Heights every week to get down. Today, we hear from members of the Southside Squares. And you can't have a dance without a caller. We also talk with a living legend in square dancing: world renowned caller Sandie Bryant. She'll show us the ropes and tell us what it's like being one of the few Black women callers today.

Dominicans comprise the largest immigration group in modern New York City, and Dominican culture has become embedded in the city's rich fabric of immigrant history. And in one place in particular -- Washington Heights.This historic neighborhood of Upper Manhattan is named for George Washington, who led the Continental Army in an early, pivotal battle here during the Revolutionary War. Today, it's also known to some as Little Dominican Republic, home to the largest Dominican neighborhood in the United States (although more Dominicans live in the Bronx overall).Starting in the 1960s, thousands of Dominicans immigrated to the United States -- and most to New York City. Special guest Dr. Ramona Hernandez, the director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, joins the Bowery Boys to discuss the extraordinary circumstances that led to this population influx and details the many reasons why Dominican culture still thrives in the Big Apple.The Bowery Boys Podcast is proud to be sponsored by Founded By NYC, celebrating New York City's 400th anniversary in 2025 and the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026.Discover the exciting events and world-class institutions that commemorate the five boroughs' legacy of groundbreaking achievements, and find ways to celebrate the city that's always making history at Founded by NYC.This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A special episode live from the United Palace in Washington Heights, New York. Subway station romance, lost names, and buried truths. This episode is hosted by CJ Hunt, with additional hosting by Jay Allison, producer of The Moth Radio Hour.   As a high school student, Lin-Manuel Miranda reveals more of himself than he realized while writing his first musical. Having grown up in the world of music, Quiara Alegría Hudes finds her college music program lacking.   Thanks to his wife, Led Black discovers a new type of masculinity.    Podcast # 783 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Marga Gomez grew up in Washington Heights, New York City, immersed in a family of Spanish-language entertainers. Welcome to Season 8, Episode 1 of Storied: San Francisco. I first learned of Marga more than a decade ago, through comedy and performance circles I was adjacent to. Because I don't have the world's best memory, I cannot recall exactly where or when I saw her perform, but I do remember feeling an immediate pull to her work. In this episode, Marga shares the story of her parents, growing up in NYC, and coming to San Francisco. We begin in Manhattan, where Marga was born to a comedian/producer/screenwriter Cuban-American dad and a dancer/aspiring actor Puerto Rican mom. Marga went to Catholic school as a youngster, which she says was every bit as harsh as folks say. Looking back, Marga thinks the only discipline she got when she was a kid was through school. Her parents, she says, were narcissists. The two met when Marga's mom danced in a show produced by her dad. The shows were varietal in nature, and took place on stages live at theaters showing Spanish-language Mexican movies. Her dad had danced in shows in Havana pre-Castro. Some white American show producer-types with Johnny Walker, the Scotch company, brought him to New York, unaware that he didn't speak English. It was the Fifties—the height of a Spanish entertainment craze (think Ricky Ricardo). Many folks from Latin America were also immigrating to the US, and New York especially, in those days. And they, too, wanted entertainment. Marga's dad found work in that world, first as a performer, then as a producer. Growing up with locally well-known/borderline famous parents instilled in young Marga a sense that she could do anything she wanted. But when they split up, Marga went with her mom to live in a white neighborhood on Long Island. She was one of the only kids of color in an otherwise homogenous, affluent area. No longer in the Spanish-language community that raised her, she lost that sense of becoming a performer in her own right. She just wanted to graduate high school and get out. And that she did. She ended up at a New York State school on the border of Canada, in Oswego near Lake Ontario. It was still the same weather she used to, but it was time to explore—with pot, acid, and women. She got really into “storyteller” musicians around this time, some women, Dylan, that kind of thing. And she met a woman who later was the reason Marga came to San Francisco. Marga's impression of San Francisco before she moved here was shaped by a magazine feature about the Hippies here at that time—the Seventies. She owes that attraction to her mom's strict parenting style—it was a rebellion in every sense. She'd not made it through to graduation (too much acid, she says), but followed her girlfriend across country to this magical new city. It was 1976, the year of the US Bicentennial. Marga's girlfriend did all the driving (she still doesn't have a license), taking the scenic route along Route 66, through the heart of the United States during its 200th birthday celebration. They saw a lot of Americana—the good and the bad (racism, misogyny, homophobia). It made landing in SF all the more poignant. They came up the California coast, saw Big Sur, then arrived in The City. We end Part 1 with Marga's story of the first place in San Francisco she and her then-girlfriend went—Castro Street. That story is also how her upcoming show, Spanish Stew, begins. More on that in Part 2, which drops this Thursday. That's also the date of the Opening Night of Every Kinda People. We hope to see you at Mini Bar that night for an evening of community, art, drinks, laughter, and love. This episode is brought to you by Standard Deviant Brewing. We recorded it at Noe Cafe in Noe Valley in August 2025. Photography by Jeff Hunt

Police are searching for the pilot of a catamaran that collided with a party boat on the East River, sending three people to the hospital with minor injuries. Meanwhile, city officials are investigating the death of a Rikers Island detainee, the eleventh in custody this year. Also, Yankees captain Aaron Judge has tied Yogi Berra for fifth on the team's all-time home run list with his 358th career homer. Plus, GrowNYC's Amelia Tarpey explains why melons are peaking at city farmstands, and WNYC's Brittany Kriegstein reports on a viral water park in a Washington Heights bike lane.

The news is out! After nearly ten years and what will be 500 episodes, The Hamilcast will be coming to an end on January 26th, 2026, the podcast's official ten-year anniversary. While the community isn't going anywhere and the archive will always remain available, the weekly episodes you've come to expect will soon be wrapping up. Until then, this is going to be a PARTY. Let's celebrate this journey with memories, special events, plus a few repeat episodes to bring things full circle and look back on some extraordinary moments on the pod. While there is plenty of time to get emotional, I do want to make sure that I say I've loved making this show for you for all these years. Thank you for always being excited about things with me. It's been such a fantastic ride and I'm so happy to be celebrating with you. As we kick off the final stretch of The Hamilcast, let's revisit when we fanned that spark into a flame, otherwise known as the time Lin-Manuel Miranda came over and ate popcorn with me and Mike for four hours while drinking a custom cocktail inspired by the bodegas of Washington Heights. We're going back to October 2017, when Lin-Manuel Miranda himself first joined me on the podcast. It all started with a Twitter DM, which led to Lin visiting my tiny New York City apartment (slanted floors, whistling toilet, the works) to record one of the biggest conversations of my life. It was a monumental moment for me, for the podcast, and for the listeners. What followed became known as #Lintoberfest: five episodes filled with the excitement, stories, and rare audio from that unforgettable day. Below you'll find today's relevant links including the rest of Lin's episodes, as well as the original description from when Episode 88 originally dropped in 2017. Playbill Exclusive: After a Decade, The Hamilcast: A Hamilton Podcast Will Drop Final Episode in 2026 Aaron Burr Panel at the South Street Seaport /// Lin-Manuel Miranda on The Hamilcast (so far) ///  #88: Lin-Manuel Miranda // Part One #89: Lin-Manuel Miranda // Part Two #90: Lin-Manuel Miranda // Part Three #91: Lin-Manuel Miranda // Part Four // The B-Sides #92: Lin-Manuel Miranda // Part Five // The B-Sides #225: Lin-Manuel Miranda Returns! // Part One #226: Lin-Manuel Miranda Returns! // Part Two /// Original description and links from October 1st, 2017 /// Lin-Manuel Miranda came over to my apartment and we had so much fun that I have FIVE episodes for you! Welcome to #Lintoberfest, with my husband Michael Paul Smith joining me for these episodes. In Part One, I try to get over the fact that Lin is recording in my living room – spoiler! I don't! – But regardless, we tell the story of how Lin ended up on the podcast, details of the early days of Hamilton, why Lin is a Hamilton/Burr hybrid, and quote The West Wing a LOT. We also eat popcorn and drink the Spark Into a Flame cocktail, made especially for Lin and inspired by his Inwood, NYC roots. Stay tuned for four more episodes: two more with Lin and then the Lin B-Sides which will be outtakes, non-sequiturs, and commentary by me and Mike (you know Mike). And no, I'm still not over the fact that this happened! No chill whatsoever! To help Puerto Rico:https://hispanicfederation.org/donate Donate to disaster relief:List of charities to donate to victims of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and MariaBaker RipleyOne America AppealThe Humane Society Previous episodes referenced:Shockwave Part OneShockwave Part TwoMandy GonzalezIan Weinberger Part OneIan Weinberger Part Two Episode Transcript /// LinManuel.com /// Gillian's Website The Hamilcast on Twitter The Hamilcast on Instagram Join the Patreon Peeps

This week on "I've Been Meaning To Watch That", we review Lin-Manuel Miranda's "In The Heights" with special guest Esteban Gast!

Welcome to a special concert edition of Live N' Local by Hot P'stromi performing live as our pre-show entertainment as part of our Film Works Alfresco program on July 21, 2025. Co-presented with YM & YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood.