In this episode, we hear two interviews with author Namwali Serpell. Her two novels look at some variation on what it means to be part of a mixed-race family. First, NPR's Scott Simon talks to Serpell about her 2019 debut The Old Drift in which the author considers how immigrants that came to Zambia gave the country a new identity through unity and love. Then, Serpell and NPR's Juana Summers discuss her second novel The Furrows, which looks at grief – and how it doesn't necessarily get easier with time.
Scott has lived all over the Bay Area and he still can't get over how different the weather can be from one place to another. He wants to know why the Bay Area has so many microclimates and where they are. And, as a bonus, we ask people in the know if the heat island affect is at play in Bay Area cities.
This story was reported by Daniel Potter. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.
For decades, Chicago has received a steady stream of refugees who have made the city home after escaping war and political conflict. They have come from countries like Bosnia, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, several thousand asylum seekers came to the city on buses from Texas. Many of the institutions and organizations helping these newcomers to resettle are faith-based. On this week’s episode we take on a question about how faith-based groups approach this kind of work from a listener who works with refugees through his church.
This conversation between NPR's Ailsa Chang and actor Brandon Kyle Goodman looks at authentic relationships and the performance of queerness. Goodman is Black, non-binary, and grew up in a religious household. Among humorous stories of love – and self-love – their new book You Gotta Be You: How to Embrace This Messy Life and Step Into Who You Really Are touches on dating, white privilege, and dating those with white privilege. Goodman's origin story helps readers understand what it means to fully love oneself.
In February 1904, the Russian Empire found itself at war with the Empire of Japan over what was the territory of China.
The problem was the majority of the Russian navy was located in the Baltic Sea, and the war was in Asia.
They were sent on an incredibly long voyage to get the ships into battle.
Learn more about the disastrous voyage of the Imperial Russian Fleet and how it helped change the course of Russian history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Rob Roth's new play in book form, WARHOLCAPOTE, is what he calls a "non-fiction invention," created from found tapes of conversations between artist Andy Warhol and writer Truman Capote. In a conversation with Scott Simon, Roth sheds light on the two men's loneliness, their recognition of both talent and pain in each other, and how they turned the way they fathomed the world into art.
All around you, right this second, you are surrounded by electromagnetic radiation.
You might better know this by names such as light, radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, or ultraviolet rays.
Fundamentally, they are all variations of the same phenomenon and are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Learn more about the electromagnetic spectrum and how different wavelengths can behave very differently on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In Brown and Gay in LA, author Anthony Christian Ocampo interviews more than 60 gay sons of immigrant families about the fears that come with living as gay men. He discusses with A Martinez the complex relationships they have with their parents — the respect they have for their parents as immigrants, but also the pain they carry from coming out to them.
In the fall of 1970, a group of Jewish Cornell students did something radical. Energized by a Freedom Seder on campus led by Arthur Waskow and the countercultural movement sweeping a country, they created a Jewish communal house. The Cornell Havurah was an “an anti-establishment establishment,” completely independent with no deans, resident advisors, or national organizations overseeing it.
The havurah was a residential component of the Jewish counterculture, a larger movement that included Jewish feminism and a Jewish anti-war movement. Translating literally to “fellowship,” the havurah was outside the synagogue structure, a place where Jews would come together for prayer, classes, meals, hiking, folk-singing, and more.
At this time of great turmoil in the country, and in the Jewish world, Jewish students at Cornell responded by seeking shelter from the storm ... together. To live intentionally—and communally—as Jews was a brave and original act in 1970. It was a statement of ethnic and religious pride, made by a group of college students who wanted to live their Judaism every day. As the rotating cast of residents proved over the years to come, a Jewish house can be a space where Jews of all kinds, of all political persuasions and sexual orientations, and of every shade of religious observance, could find themselves and find joy with others.
Episode 6 of Gatecrashers features Arthur Waskow, and a host of residents and regulars of the various iterations of the Cornell Havurah including Carl Viniar, Naomi Guttman-Bass, Reena Sigman Friedman, Judy Feierstein, Howard Adelman, Naomi Levy, Susan Lehmann, Richard Lehmann, Shari Edelstein, Bruce Temkin, Joe Avni-Singer, Alan Edelman, and Erica Edelman.
