All Of It

The New York Videogame Critic Circle is an organization that teaches underserved kids journalism skills through video games, and their annual New York Game Awards will be held next week. Founder Harold Goldberg joins to talk about his organization's work, along with longtime youth participant Kimari Rennis, who started with NYVGCC's Playing with Purpose program when she was 14, and is now studying game design at NYU. Plus, Harold and Kimari take listener calls about the best games released in 2023, and the most anticipated titles of 2024.

Ava DuVernay wrote and directed the new film, "Origin," which has been called "one of a kind," "powerful" and "ambitious." The story is based around the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and follows Wilkerson as she writes her book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Published in 2020, the book argues for considering racism as an aspect of a caste system like those in India or Nazi Germany. DuVernay and Ellis-Taylor join us to discuss the film, which is in theaters now.

[REBROADCAST FROM October 3, 2023] "Job" is a play that centers on the relationship between a crisis therapist, played by "Succession" actor Peter Friedman, and his client, a tech employee played by Sydney Lemmon whose recent workplace breakdown has become a viral video. Friedman and Lemmon join us with the playwright Max Wolf Friedlich. "Job" is running another limited engagement at Connelly Theater through March 3. 

In December, The Royal Caribbean Ultimate World Cruise set off for a 9 month voyage, visiting 60 countries. The cheapest ticket was $59,999. The ship's passengers have taken to TikTok, with users following along, racking up hundreds of millions of views. However, cruises can divide opinion, some love them, some wouldn't dare be stuck on a boat for more than an hour. For the next installment of our Small Stakes, Big Opinions series, we take your calls about experiences and thoughts on cruises with comedian Josh Gondelman.

Bettye LaVette recorded her first single at the age of sixteen and soon made her debut on the R&B charts in the early 1960s. Six decades later, now in her late 70s, she's still singing, with her latest album LaVette! nominated for the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. She joins us for a Listening Party ahead of the February awards show.

A new thriller series on Showtime is based on the notorious Magdalene laundries in Ireland, schools for "wayward girls" and the trauma they endured. Actor Daryl McCormack plays a Dublin detective working the case of a murdered priest in a small town, opposite Ruth Wilson. We'll speak to the BAFTA nominated actor as well as the creator and showrunner Joe Murtagh about "The Woman in the Wall."  

In the new novel, Invisible Woman, a former Hollywood filmmaker named Joni tries to convince her friend Val to share the story of the sexual abuse she faced years ago, but for different reasons, both Val and Joni's husband Paul want to keep things quiet. Author and New School professor Katia Lief joins us to discuss the novel.  

A building on West 13th street was the site of an important part of African American history. It may be demolished. Sites like this and others around New York have a champion in the group Village Preservation. We will talk with its executive director Andrew Berman about his work.

As part of our dance hour, we speak to writer, reporter and dance lover Alexandra Starr about the winter dance season and what to see, from classic ballets at the New York City Ballet to the acrobatic styles of Compagnie Hervé KOUBI.  

As injectable drugs used for weight loss like Ozempic become more mainstream, how will we as a society view body diversity? And, given that these drugs are so expensive, how will that divide who is thin and who is not? We speak about Ozempic's impact on the body positivity movement and feminism with Vox senior correspondent Constance Grady, who wrote an article, "The Year of Ozempic Bodies and Barbie Botox." Plus, we take your calls.

In this age of Ozempic, it can feel even harder to exist in America if you're not thin. Kate Manne, professor of Philosophy at Cornell, joins us to discuss her new book, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, which combines research and memoir to discuss what it's like facing discrimination for the size of your body, and what to do about it. Plus, we take your calls.  

Emmy Award winning host and producer Mickela Mallozzi joins to discuss the sixth season of "Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi," a travel series where the lens is focused on dance. This season centers completely in New York and features a diverse range of dance from Sri Lanken to Latinx.

Walasse Ting: New York, New York is the inaugural exhibition of Alisan Fine Arts new location on the Upper East Side. It focuses on Ting's time in New York City from the 1950s to the 1990s. We hear from the director of the gallery Daniel Chen, along with Ting's daughter, Mia Ting about the work and the artist behind it. The show is on view through February 16.

This year, James Baldwin would be turning 100 years old. To celebrate his centennial, Film Forum is hosting a screening series of Baldwin-related films. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is the first documentary to screen in the series. The film, directed by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley and released in 1982, was made with Baldwin, and chronicles his trip to the South twenty years after the end of the Civil Rights Movement. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" was recently restored, and is screening at Film Forum through January 25. Hartley joins us to discuss the film alongside scholar and Baldwin expert Rich Blint, and we take your calls.   As part of the segment, Rich put together a reading list for anyone interested in diving deeper into Baldwin's work: Giovanni’s Room Going to Meet the Man  Another Country The Fire Next Time The Devil Finds Work The Collected Essays of James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, ed., Library of America

In 2022, the sheriff of Lewis County, New York, changed his Facebook profile to a picture of him holding up an award he won from the Oath Keepers. The post was after Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was arrested and charged for his role in the January 6 insurrection. This got North Country Public Radio reporters Emily Russell and Zach Hirsch interested in learning more about the far-right movement upstate. What they found out is the subject of the podcast, If All Else Fails, and the first episode is out now. Hirsch and Russell join us to discuss.  

In 1989, a horrible murder that was reported and investigated as a carjacking gone wrong sparked a national outcry. But it was ultimately revealed to be false story and caused tremendous hurt in an already marginalized community. Director Jason Hehir joins to talk about his docuseries, "Murder in Boston," which revisits the Charles Stuart case where a white man blamed his own crime on a Black man.  

[REBROADCAST FROM March 30, 2022] We share the third part of our Constance Baker Motley Full Bio. Today, we learn more about Constance Baker Motley's legal career, as well as her entrance into politics, which would lead her to become a New York State Senator and Manhattan Borough President. Historian Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, joins us.

[REBROADCAST FROM March 29, 2022] We air the second part of our March installment of Full Bio. Today, historian Tomiko Brown-Nagin discusses the early days of Constance Baker Motley's legal career and some of the major cases in which she was involved, including Brown v. Board of Education. Brown-Nagin's biography is called, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality.

[REBROADCAST FROM June 19, 2023] Our June Full Bio selection was King: A Life, the first comprehensive account of Martin Luther King Jr. in three decades, written by Jonathan Eig. On the final day, we discuss King's relationships and disagreements with activist contemporaries, his blind spots, mental health, and the toll of being arrested nearly thirty times. And finally, we look at King's civil rights efforts and priorities in the last months of his life.

[REBROADCAST FROM June 19, 2023] Our June Full Bio selection was King: A Life, the first comprehensive account of Martin Luther King Jr. in three decades, written by Jonathan Eig. In this conversation, we hear about a young King's romantic interests and his marriage to Coretta Scott, from 1953 until his death. We also focus on 1955, the year in which the King family moved to Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to move from her bus seat, and King was drafted to lead a movement.