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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

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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27:31

Lorraine Frazier

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/01/14

Rightly proud of her field, she declares, “We’ve been the most trusted profession in the country for twenty-some odd years.” Police? Priests? Tech execs? Finance weasels? Yeah, right. Nurses! She’s the dean of the Columbia University School of Nursing.

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27:31

Ammon Shea

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2023/01/07

“Many people think that the big words are the big part of the dictionary,” says this lexicographer, “but it’s the little words that are so full of life and variation and complexity,” We talk about “go” and more as Person Place Thing becomes Word Word Word.

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27:31

Hernan Diaz

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/12/31

Like Conrad, Nabokov, and Beckett, this novelist—In the Distance, Trust— writes in a language other than the one he spoke as a child, and it helps him see the world afresh: “If you move out of one language and into another, it is like moving out of one country and into another.” A conversation at Rizzoli Bookstore. Music: Hubby Jenkins.

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27:31

Anthony Davis

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/12/10

When he was in college, he met Duke Ellington. “I was a freshman with a huge afro, an Angela Davis afro, and he pointed at me across the room and said, ‘You must be a musician.’” Thus anointed, he went on to compose operas including X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Central Park Five.

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27:31

Davóne Tines

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/12/03

This terrific bass-baritone likes white orchids in his dressing room. They’re beautiful and ephemeral, like—oh, I don’t know—music? Now everything seems like a metaphor. “Everything is a metaphor,” he says. The joys and jolts of a person of color in the world of classical music.

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27:31

Suzanne Vega and Gene Pritsker

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/11/27

This singer-songwriter and this composer met at artist Mark Kostabi’s house. “He’s attracted to lots of different kinds of people,” she says. “He brings them together, feeds them, gives them wine, and tells us to perform.“ Isn’t that pretty much the Island of Dr. Moreau? Music: Suzanne Vega, Bill Anderson, and the CompCord quartet. Presented with Composers Concordance and Marsyas Productions.

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27:31

Steven Heller

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/11/19

This graphic designer is admired for his decades as an art director at the New York Times, for his teaching, and for his books, including his most recent, Growing Up Underground,a memoir of his youth in the East Village of the sixties: ”It was disgusting, but in a good way.” Produced with the Type Directors Club, part of The One Club for Creativity. Music: Stephanie Jenkins.

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27:31

Ashwin Vasan

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/11/12

The best medical outcome is that the patient doesn’t get sick in the first place, notes New York City's health commissioner, and yet, “We spend four trillion dollars on health care, and we spend about three cents of every dollar on prevention and public health. Something has to give.” He’s right, but what? Challenging! Presented with Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Music: John Sherman.

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27:31

Ross Gay

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/11/04

As a poet and essayist (Inciting Joy), he is acutely in touch with his feelings, and yet he refers to “the many ways I try not to be aware of what’s breaking my heart.” A paradox reconciled, plus pickup basketball as a model of self-government, and the pawpaw as a model fruit. Produced with Orion magazine.

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27:31

Freeman Hrabowski

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen ·

2022/10/29

When he was 12, he joined the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham and was thrown in jail. At 15, he entered college, studied mathematics, and went on to lead the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, bringing legions of under-represented students to STEM studies and STEM professions. He is America's secret STEM mentor.

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179 results

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