Nora Ephron

In an era in which Hollywood still deals with the lack of woman as writers, producers and directors, Nora Ephron was a triple threat. Her loss will be felt profoundly, not only by her family, but to her industry. Several years ago I had the chance to talk with her about Hollywood, about aging, illness and the need to live life fully.

Here is that conversation:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

There must be better way to do this...

Modern life has seen to it that almost everything has been subject to a kind of creative destruction. We've talked many times about the impact of technology and science in traditional medicine. But what about psychoanalysis. Up until now, the traditional methods have taken a long time. Regardless if it was Woody Alan or Tony Soprano on the couch, there seemed to be no quick fix.

Now all of that may be changing. Phil Stutz and Barry Michels have a very different approach, one designed around the idea of instant results!  It’s no wonder that they have become the "go to therapists" for Hollywood. Their office is a kind of denizen of  top actors, directors, agents, writers and other creative professionals.  Now they have codified their particularly unique approach in a new book entitled The Tools: Transform Your Problems into Courage, Confidence, and Creativity.

My conversation with Phil Stutz and Barry Michels:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

It's a bird...It's a plane, It's.......

The character of Superman made his first appearance in June of 1938, some 75 years ago. The character touched a nerve in the hunger for heroism in the run up to WWII. But what has allowed this character to evolve and endure for almost eight decades? During a time when virtually everything about our society, our values and our ideas have changed, Superman and what he represents has been a kind of true north for many. What did his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, understand about America that would allow them to create the touchstone for truth, justice and the American way? Journalist Larry Tye in Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero takes us inside the Superman legacy.

My conversation with Larry Tye:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad
 

The truth about lying

When congressman Joe Wilson stood up during a speech by President Obama and said, “you lie,” he could have been talking to all of us. While we are told to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we seldom do. From corruption in our government, to test-score scandals, from elected leaders’ extramarital affairs to the Ponzi schemes of Wall Street, cheating and dishonesty are significant parts of our culture—and inescapable parts of the human condition.

That's the findings of Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and the author of The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves. He's run experiments with some 30,000 people and found that very few people lie a lot, but almost everyone lies a little.

My conversation with Dan Ariely:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad
 

Sam the banana man

Balzac said that "behind every great fortune, there is a great crime." For some fortunes, there is more than one. Little have we known that behind every humble banana, there is a great story, some great crimes, and certainly some great characters. Sam Zemurry, the man who brought the banana to America, was a shadowy figure whose presence impacted the creation of the State of Israel, The Cold War, and the rise of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara...all from the simple banana. Best selling author Rich Cohen tells the story in The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King


My conversation with Rich Cohen:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The Man Who Changed The Way We Eat

Restaurant reviews, foodies and food criticism have all become a major part of the culture. I sit here writing this, at the epicenter of American Food, Wine and Celebrity Chiefs. But this wasn't always the case. There was a time before food critics, before the rise of quality ethnic food, before celebrity, before Craig Claiborne came to the New York Times.

Craig Claiborne invented professional restaurant criticism, and was also the man who introduced the American palate to arugula, balsamic vinegar and chef's knives; leading us out of a vast culinary wasteland. Thomas McNamee, who previously wrote about Alice Waters, takes us inside The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance

My conversation with Thomas McNamee:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

America the Philosophical???

Judging by most of the political discourse, reality television, TMZ, tabloids newspapers and magazine and some social networking, it might be safe to argue that we are a nation of philistines. Yet long time social critic Carlin Romano, in his new work America the Philosophical, argues just the opposite; that we are perhaps the most philosophical nation in history.

My conversation with Carlin Romano:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

An Extraordinary Father and Son

There is a wonderful quote about travel from TS Eliot who said that "we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." The same might also be said of understanding the people we travel with, even if they are our own family. After all, how much have each of us learned about members of our family on those family vacations? Esteemed journalist and writer Buzz Bissinger took a journey with his son that would indeed land him back where he started, but it was truly as if he knew his son for the very first time. His new book Father's Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son is a memoir of that trip.

My conversation with Buzz Bissinger:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The real digital divide

If you watch movies or read novels or simply understand the drama that is the human condition, you know that human behavior is often shrouded in mystery. Why we do what we do, how we act and what we think about at four AM, are at the heart of what make us who we are, and in fact what makes us interesting. On the other hand, if we reveal everything about ourselves; if Facebook, and LinkedIn and social networks in general track our every move, our every action, where is the mystery? If every thought is posted, or tweeted, or shared, then where is the human discovery? If we forget that we are more than the sum total of our data points, then Andrew Keene is here to remind us. Keen argues in his new work Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us, that the social network may be weakening, not building up our relationships.

My conversation with Andrew Keen:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The real Dark Arts

From Mati Hari, to Nathan Hale, to Herbert Philbrick; each is a chapter in the pantheon of espionage. Each had what George Smiley called "the ability to survive by virtue of an infinite capacity for suspicion."

In the modern day world of espionage, counter-terrorism and post cold war engagement, Henry Crumption stands astride that list. He knew he wanted to be a spy from the age of 10. He knew that sometimes you had to do things in order to find out the reason from them. From what he tells us, he seems to innately understand, from his early missions in Europe and Africa, to his leadership of the CIA war against the Taliban in 2001, that sometimes our actions are question and not answers. But he was always guided to navigate by the true north of his moral compass. His new book The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service, he sets the stage for a new kind of espionage and in fact a new geopolitical view of intelligence.

My conversation with Ambassador Henry Crumpton:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

 

Reinvent or Die

It may not be possible to predict the future, but one sure way to see that future, is to invent it, or reinvent it. This is what companies are doing every day as they have to find ways to adapt to change, creative destruction and new models of growth. Business guru Jason Jennings, in his new book The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change, takes us through example after example of how extraordinary companies are making change work for them.

My conversation with Jason Jennings:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The Candidate

We are already in the midst of the Presidential political season. Where once labor day was the official start of our national poltical drama, today it is a multi-year, multi-dimensional business. One in which presumably ordinary people must acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate. Adlai Stevenson one said that, “the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning." Samuel Popkin, a Professor of Political Science at UC San Diego, and one of our most astute political observers, takes a look at The Candidate: What it Takes to Win - and Hold - the White House.


My conversation with Samuel Popkin:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

Is anybody in charge here?

When we think of a globalization, we tend to think of a world more connected, more unified and more equal in terms its power politics. It’s one of the ironies of globalization that it has really made the world more fragmented, more regional and more dangerous. In many ways it’s a kind of creative destruction in global politics. Just as creative destruction and entrepreneurialism has changed almost every aspect of the business and personal landscape, we would be foolish to think it wouldn't happen in global politics as well. The institutions, infrastructure, and architecture of the world America made in the post War years, is now under review and up for grabs.

Few understand this dynamic better than Ian Bremmer. He is the president of Eurasia Group, one of the world's leading global political risk research and consulting firms, and the author of his eighth book about the state of the world's geopolitics Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World .

My conversation with Ian Bremmer:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The era of "Must See TV"

It may be hard for young people to remember, but there was a time before 500 channels, before Hulu and itunes and Apple TV. A time when three networks accounted for almost the sum total of what we watched, and more importantly what shaped our popular culture. It was a time when Thursday night was “must see TV,” and totally dominated the conversation around water coolers and lunch rooms the next day. In large measure the man responsible for shepherding “must see TV,” was Warren Littlefield, the President of NBC Entertainment from 1993 to 1998. He writes about this Golden Age in Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV


My conversation with Warren Littlefield:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

Retirement on the Line

The recent recession has created a great reset in a many areas of our economy, particularly with respect to labor markets. Globalization, automation, education and changing demographics have all played a roll. Additionally, young people have struggled for work while at the same time, those who might have wanted to retire, are finding a new need to stay engaged. Even retirement itself, is being redefined. No where is this more apparent than in a factory in Needham, Massachusetts where the median age of the workforce is seventy-four. Olin College Professor Caitrin Lynch spent five years studying this factory staffed by persons in their seventies, eighties and even older. She gives us a new view of Retirement on the Line: Age, Work, and Value in an American Factory

My conversation with Caitrin Lynch:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

Exxon Mobile and American Power

Perhaps the recent economic crises reminded us that corporations and business matter a lot. Over many decades we’ve seen the balance of power between government and business; the breakup of Standard Oil in the Gilded Age, the breakup of IBM, the government's battle against Microsoft. All reflect what happens when companies are feared to become too big. But today, sitting atop the corporate colossus is Exxon Mobil. An old style corporation whose policies, politics, and personalities impact us profoundly. Pulitzer Prize winning writer and journalist Steve Coll, takes us inside the Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.

My conversation with Steve Coll:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The Moral Limits of Markets

On Sunday, Tom Friedman's column talked about a new book by Harvard Professor Michael Sandel. In it, he looks at our cynicism and growing lack of civic engagement. Our stubborn refusal to engage in real discussion about real ideas. Secondly, he examines the ways in which markets have become the sine qua non of every aspect of the way we organize society. These two ideas, seemingly independent, but according to Sandel, are very much related to creating the mess we are in today.


My conversation with Michael Sandel about his book What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad