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What do peanut recipes, mysterious photographs and compost have to do with artist mayfield brooks?    In their upcoming performance, “Viewing Hours,” mayfield brooks embraces the tradition of artists putting their bodies on the line for the sake of their practice. Upon entry, audiences are met with the sight of mayfield lying naked and prone under 40 pounds of compost, in simulation of a wake. In this piece, brooks uses their training as a dancer, performer and urban farmer to examine the commodification, death and decay of black bodies, and to investigate the act of witnessing and profiting off of black grief. mayfield brooks recently joined MacKenzie in the studio to discuss George Washington Carver, Marsha P Johnson and improvising while black. “Viewing Hours” will be performed on January 20th at the 8th Floor in Manhattan. For more tickets and information, visit: https://bit.ly/2u6nFHX

What do Janelle Monae, Yelp reviews of plantations and Russian Dixies have to do with artist, Dread Scott? Dread Scott wants us to remember that history is not so far from our present. His work often looks to the past in order to imagine a more just future, and perhaps no project embodies that more as his recent "Slave Rebellion Reenactment." In this piece, Scott brought the Slave Rebellion of 1811 back to life in New Orleans over the course of two days back in November, and he joined MacKenzie in the studio to talk about the project, his influences and punching Nazis.

What do the Zodiac and a spiritual entity named Seth have to do with filmmaker, Caveh Zahedi? Zahedi has been making documentaries for almost three decades, and before we booked him on the show, the only things MacKenzie knew about him were gleaned through season one of his autobiographical “The Show about the Show” and a New York Times Magazine profile that came out this fall, coinciding with the launch of season two. The title of that article: “A Filmmaker Bared His Soul. It Ruined His Life.”

It's a virtual certainty that you've seen Edel Rodiguez's illustrations. A prolific artist and political cartoonist, he's gained recent notoriety for his depiction of Donald Trump's face. Always the same, featureless, except for a screaming mouth melting into a puddle; Trump painting himself into an orange corner; Trump with arms aloft holding a bloody knife in one hand, and the severed head of Lady Liberty in the other. Rodriguez’s images pull no punches, and they remind us that these are extraordinary times that call for extraordinary artistic responses. MacKenzie sat down with Edel Rodriguez to talk about everything from fascism, to Communism, to the Irish mafia.

Jami Attenberg has written seven novels, and has not wasted a single one of them on a male antihero. Her latest book, a humorous and empathetic family drama, does feature a Tony Soprano-like character as the patriarch of the family, but Attenberg puts him in a coma on the very first page. MacKenzie sat down with Attenberg on the release date of "All This Could Be Yours" to talk about toxic masculinity, #MeToo, and gender-neutral storage units.

Humans have been extracting copper from rocks since at least 5000 BCE. It's in your computer, your home and most notably, inside a lot of uteruses. Artist Marisa Morán Jahn's interest in copper began when she discovered that she had agreed to have a piece of the metal inserted in her body. That launched her into a wormhole of copper-related research, culminating in her latest interdisciplinary project, Snatchural History of Copper, which she is presenting at the upcoming Creative Time Summit here in New York. MacKenzie talks to Marisa about the nature of extraction, the #ElectroWinning properties of copper and we take you on a deep dive to find the origin of Venus of Aphrodite.

For almost 40 years, Pope.L has challenged his audience both, to look deep into the eyes of American society, and question the very nature of art. Best known for enacting provocative performances in public spaces, Pope.L addresses issues from language to gender, to race to the struggles we face in this late capitalism. His work ranges from performance to painting, video, sculpture, and theater. MacKenzie sat down with Pope.L and went in deep on his latest work at the Whitney (Choir), maneuvering a shlong-like device, and what it takes to crawl through the streets of New York.

The Anthropocene is posited to be the geological era that we are presently inhabiting, an age where the indelible mark of humanity cannot be extracted from the fossil record. In Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, filmmakers Nicholas de Pencier, Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky set out to travel the globe to document the impact humans have made on the planet. Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky join MacKenzie in the studio and talk about how humans have fundamentally changed the face of the Earth, while we dive in head first on the Nazca lines of Peru, and an ode to all the elephants we've lost to poaching.

We're back with episode #2 and this week we are talking about borders. Filmmakers Emelie Mahdavian and Su Kim join MacKenzie in the studio to talk about their latest film, Midnight Traveler. Midnight Traveler is a documentary where Afghan director Hassan Fazili is forced to flee the country when the Taliban puts a bounty on his head. We go in deep about the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee, check out how easy it is to move data over government lines, and check in with our friend, the cinereous vulture.

It's our first episode and we've pulled out all the stops. Prolific writer and novelist, Walter Mosley is in the studio and he and MacKenzie talk about writing black male heroes, freedom of speech and his cousin Alberta. Further in the episode we pay an auditory visit to Etheridge Knight (courtesy of the Lakawana Valley Digital Archives and the Scranton Public Library), we talk to a free speech attorney and give Nathaniel Hawthorne a well deserved 3-star rating.

Brooklyn is known for its small batch artisanal products, from hand-macramed hanging succulent planters to mayonnaise artfully blended with eggs from the freest of free-range chickens. And then, there's small batch artisanal erotica. MacKenzie speaks to a publisher and an author of racy lesbian love stories.

The play currently mounted at the Theater for a New Audience has been getting lots of attention. It won playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury a Pulitzer Prize. It's been playing for packed audiences, extended and extended again and all upcoming performances are nearly sold out. To talk about her role in the play is award-winning actor, Heather Alisha Sims.

Lisa Garbus’ two-part documentary, Who Killed Garrett Phillips?, outlines the series of events that led to a murder, a wrongful arrest and the police cover-up that almost took a man’s life. In the studio is his lawyer, Mani TK.

Earlier this month registered sex offender former Dalton teacher and incredibly wealthy degenerate Jeffrey Epstein was rearrested back in 2008. He was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. This time the accusation was sex trafficking. But what exactly is sex trafficking and why is it such a rampant problem in the United States? We are joined by Aya Psaki, the Policy and Advocacy Manager at Womankind and Abigail Swenstein, Staff Attorney with the Exploitation Intervention Project at the Legal Aid Society.

The U.S. women's soccer team is the best in the world by a lot. And the men's team also exists. You would think the players on one of these teams will be paid a lot more than the other. Well you'd be right but not in the way that makes sense. Here to discuss gender pay equity in sports are Natalie Weiner, a staff writer at SB Nation and Lauren Betters, an attorney and the Director of Programs and Policy at the Gender Equality Law Center.

This year, Oklahoma! galloped back into broadway and straight back into our hearts. Tony Award Winner and Producer, Caleb Hammons joins MacKenzie to talk about the gritty reboot and serving chilli on stage.

Break-ups are rough, ask anyone. That stability you once felt, that comfort you once had, that reliable plus one, all gone in one fell swoop. But what about the aftermath? What’s the right way to break up? Are you really going to eat that clam pasta for breakfast? Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya’s column “For Your Consideration" on Autostraddle.com really wants you to consider it...among other things. Also, stick around for MacKenzie’s very own installment of "For Your Consideration."

Okay ladies, now let's get information...about Beyonce's place in the canon of black feminism. Author, Kevin Allred is in the studio to talk about his new book, Ain't I a Diva? Beyoncé and the Power of Pop Culture Pedagogy. Plus, Beyonce's Lemonade featured a Nigerian body-painter who tapped into the traditions of the Yoruba. We'll talk to local body-painter, Andy Golub, in advance of the sixth annual Body Painting Day. *

It’s summer here in Brooklyn, and you know what that means: time to put your phone down, your beach umbrella up and get your read on. Today on the show we are talking to author Helen Phillips about her new book The Need, breastfeeding, existential doubt, viscera, and howling elk. Then, Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, co-owner of Greenlight Books stops by to give us very specific summer reads recommendations.

Fifteen cyclists have been killed by motorists this year - a 50% increase over last year's totals. Vision Zero, a top-down approach to street safety, was supposed to make conditions better, but are they actually getting worse? MacKenzie talks to the editor-in-chief of StreetsBlog, and a safe-streets advocate about Mayor De Blasio's signature "accomplishment," and what the city can do to make sure the roadways are increasingly bike and pedestrian friendly.