You've got 10 minutes with Einstein. What do you talk about? Black holes? Time travel?
Why not gambling? The Art of War? Contemporary parenting?
Each week, host Jason Gots surprises some of the world's brightest minds with ideas they're not at all prepared to discuss. Join us and special guests Neil Gaiman, Alan Alda, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Richard Dawkins, Maria Popova, Mary-Louise Parker, Neil deGrasse Tyson and many more...
Roz Chast and Patricia Marx (cartoons, words, ukuleles) – the Beatles stole everything from us
The New Yorker-based comedy team on never exercising or going outside, and so much more.
Thelma and Louise, Ponch and John, Pancho and Lefty, Quixote and Sancho Panza, Marx and Engels, Marx and Chast…history and literature are full of magical buddy stories. Every now and then, for reasons no one can explain, Two people come together and produce something greater, or at least very different, from the sum of their parts.
I'm here today with one such team: the writer-cartoonist duo of Patricia Marx and Roz Chast. They're both longtime contributors to the New Yorker and fearsome humorists in their own rights. But together they form a third fearsome thing, a thing which has created books such as Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct it: A Mother's Suggestions, And their latest: You Can Only Yell At Me For One Thing At A Time: Rules for Couples. They're also the enigmatic figures behind yet a fourth thing, the legendary ukulele band Ukelear Meltdown.
Sharon Salzberg - On Balance
In this episode master teacher Sharon Salzberg considers whether it's ok to teach mindfulness to the armed forces, how practitioners of meditation and mindfulness should balance openness with discipline, and so much more.
Since 1974, Sharon Salzberg has been sharing ancient meditation and mindfulness practices in a voice the contemporary West can understand. Her warm, funny, down-to-earth books, dharma talks, and guided meditations have helped struggling meditators worldwide establish a strong practice and reduce the suffering in their lives. In this episode Sharon sits down with Jason to consider whether it's ok to teach mindfulness to the armed forces, how western practitioners should deal with the almost militant tone of some eastern teachers when it comes to discipline and "right effort", and so much more. Sharon's latest book is Real Happiness: a 28 day program for realizing the power of meditation, now thoroughly updated and revised for its 10th anniversary.
mindfulness and meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein – doubt comes masquerading as wisdom
In this first episode of 2020, beloved dharma teacher Joseph Goldstein is back for a conversation about struggle, doubt, and growth on the spiritual path.
Freedom. Everyone wants it, but knowing where to look for it is another matter. And to make matters worse, the world is full of things that feel like freedom but might just get us more tangled up in everything we're trying to escape. How much freedom can money buy? How much money? How free are you on a tropical vacation? Would uploading your consciousness into the cloud and downloading it into a robot avatar on Alpha Centauri make you more free? How about falling in love again? How about three margaritas with friends? Or six? How about falling in love again? A better government? Less government? No government at all?
I'm here today with Joseph Goldstein, a beloved teacher of Buddhist ideas and practice in the West and a personal inspiration to me, to talk about freedom of the mind and spirit—and the kinds of effort and insight that can lead there. Joseph is the co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and the author, most recently, of Mindfulness: a Practical Guide to Awakening.
Jad Abumrad (“Radiolab”, “Dolly Parton’s America”) – American Multiverse
To create the podcast series "Dolly Parton's America", Jad Abumrad and his producer Shima Oliaee took nine trips into the "Dollyverse"—that complex American multiverse of music and culture that surrounds country singer Dolly Parton. In this episode Jad and host Jason Gots talk about some of the astonishing discoveries he made along the way.
If you'd told me a couple months ago that a podcast about Dolly Parton could move me deeply and raise all kinds of questions that go straight to the wounded heart of America today, I guess I would have been skeptical to say the least.
But that skepticism might be exactly the point. America is an image factory. Country music. Rock and Roll. New York City. Nashville. We paint with big, broad brushes. And if we're not careful, we miss a lot of the details.
My guest today is audio storytelling wizard Jad Abumrad. He's the creator and a host of Radiolab, More Perfect, and now, of Dolly Parton's America – a nine part podcast series that achieves all those aforementioned implausible things. Jad's trips into the Dollyverse with his co-producer Shima Oliaee reveal the country singer as something between a bodhisattva and one of those fairytale mirrors that tell you the truth about yourself.
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