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PODCAST

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

In this new kind of interview show, Randy Cohen talks to guests about a person, a place, and a thing they find meaningful. The result: surprising stories from great talkers. Learn more at http://personplacething.org/

comedy comedy interviews

All Episodes

27:31

Nicholas Lowry

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/06/03

He was born into a clan of antiquarian book dealers but avoided entering the family business. Barely. He's now president of Swann Galleries and an authority on vintage posters. Presented with Poster House. Music: Jake Shulman-Ment and Raffi Boden.

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27:31

Terry McGovern

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/05/27

This human-rights lawyer, a professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, was reluctant to embrace her Irish heritage. “I was never particularly interested in that identity because I had so many run-ins with the church.” She’s come around. Music: Cleek Schrey.

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27:31

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/05/20

In 1958, with Hamilton Holmes, she desegregated the University of Georgia and went on to a distinguished career in journalism. Her early inspiration? Brenda Starr. “I read about her in the comic strips in my grandmother’s newspaper; she read three newspapers a day.”

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27:31

Sreoshy Banerjea

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/05/13

She leads the Public Design Commission, which must approve anything built on city land—statue, historic marker, playground. How to contend with conflicting parties, often angry, sometimes shouting? “As long as dialogue is alive and well maintained, I feel like anybody can come to a good solution.” Presented with the Van Alen Institute. Music: Henrique Prince, E. H. Walker, A. R. Ferguson, and Hubby Jenkins, of the Ebony Hillbillies.

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27:31

BD Wong

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/05/06

His Broadway debut, in M. Butterfly, won every award going except the Nobel Prize in Mathematics. Fair enough: there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. He renewed everyone’s admiration with Law & Order: SVU, and that’s not the half of it, or even the quarter, but why be precise? It’s not as if there’s a Nobel at stake. Produced with Materials for the Arts. Music: Hubby Jenkins.

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27:30

Eleanor Morton

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/04/29

I stumbled upon the short videos this Scottish comedian posts online and was immediately won over by her conversation between C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien: she plays both of them. What comic does C. S. Lewis? Smart, dark, funny: the Triple Crown.

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27:31

Jackie Hoffman

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/04/22

This terrific comic actor started early: “At five-years-old, I used to sing ‘You Make Me Feel So Young,’ and it got a laugh, and I didn’t know why.” She’s learned, on TV (Only Murders in the Building), on Broadway (Hairspray), and off (the Yiddish Fidler).

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27:31

Román Viñoly

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/04/15

On March 2, 2023, the acclaimed architect Rafael Viñoly died suddenly, at 78, just two weeks before our scheduled conversation at the Center for Architecture. Rather than cancel, his son Román used the occasion to reflect on his father. Music: Rich Jenkins.

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27:31

Admiral Melissa Bert

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/04/08

When she enrolled at the Academy, she had a limited idea of the Coast Guard’s mission: “They save people and clean off oily ducks.” Since then, she has served from Juneau to Miami and deepened her understanding. She is now Rear Admiral Bert. You live, you learn.

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27:31

Margalit Fox

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/04/01

For years, the obituaries she wrote for The New York Times were the first thing I’d read in the paper—elegant little biographies, exemplary work in a form that she says was once “the scarlet O you wore on your dress that said, I’m a bad writer but the paper doesn’t quite have enough on me to be able to fire me.”

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27:31

Laura Kavanagh

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/03/25

New York City’s fire commissioner leads a force that responds to medical emergencies, plane crashes, building collapses, hazardous materials, even people trapped in elevators. They also fight fires. “If it’s not the police department, if it’s not a crime, everything else is the fire department.” Produced with the Municipal Archives. Music: Rashad Brown.

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27:31

Nina Katchadourian

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/03/18

This artist says, “An object that has been fixed again and again by multiple owners has a particularly fascinating history to me.” And so we’ve tweaked our format to Thing, Thing, Thing, in particular to Broken Thing, Broken Thing, Broken Thing. Produced with the Morgan Library and Museum. Music: Brian Dewan.

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27:31

Wendy Olsoff, Brigitte Mulholland

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/03/11

These gallerists have much to say about the artist Kaws. To Brigitte: “He is probably the only artist that is an absolute gateway drug into the art world.” So should he be admired or arrested? Definitely the former, they agree. Presented with the New York Academy of Art. Music: Piedmont Bluz.

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27:31

Gary Urbanowicz

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/03/04

To this historian, the story of the New York City Fire Department is the story of New York City. “It’s not just throwing the wet stuff on the red stuff; it’s the other aspects that really are fascinating.” Presented with the New York City Fire Museum.

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27:31

Yiyun Li

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/02/25

“I think the best writers always know the characters more than the characters know themselves,“ she says. The author of The Book of Goose talks about War and Peace, Wuthering Heights, the stories of William Trevor, and her old army buddies. Produced with A Public Space and Rizzoli Bookstores. Music: Liz Hanley.

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27:31

Wu Han

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/02/18

The celebrated pianist offers not only beauty but context and insight, like this observation: “If you go to any concert and you hear a Dvořák piece, look for the pigeon and the train; they’re always in there.” Pigeons and trains, presented with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

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27:31

Jack Lynch

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/02/11

As a scholar of 18th-century literature, this Rutgers professor wants to pin down what actually occurred, but certain facts remain stubbornly elusive. Does it drive him nuts? “Some things from 350 years ago just aren’t going to be known, and I think I can live with that.” It’s almost Zen.

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27:31

Anna Sacks

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/02/04

The self-described Trash Walker prowls corporate dumpsters, seeking egregious waste, and yet she says, “I love stuff, and I want to make that clear. I love things. I think that’s one of the reasons12 I’m so attracted to the trash.” A paradox resolved at Materials for the Arts. Music: Reid Jenkins.

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27:31

Molly McBride

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/01/28

She’s filmed a lot of musicians—Michael Tilson Thomas, Metropolitan Opera productions—but her heart belongs to Doña Carlota Joaquina, princess of Portugal, the Shrew of Queluz: “Any woman who is known as a shrew I would probably like.” Produced with Ralph Farris. Music by Ethel.

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27:31

Darren Walker

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/01/21

As president of the Ford Foundation, he supported Monticello’s efforts to improve its depiction of the enslaved Black people who built it and of Thomas Jefferson, who owned it. “I believe that Thomas Jefferson and his home are one and the same.” Produced with the Municipal Art Society. Guest host: Jami Floyd. Music: Rashad Brown.

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189 results

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