A New Fireside

On podcasting, plays, 70s Hollywood, and Khaite

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Quote of the week: “Ira Glass? You’re Better than Him.” — Kara Swisher to Audie Cornish

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💡 ‘On Air’ Festival

On Saturday, I went to The Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg for On Air Fest. The event featured live recordings and interactive spaces that brought iconic shows to life. I’m a voracious podcast listener — it’s how I consume the news. Like reading a newspaper, I’ll cycle through the business, media, and culture sections as I’m getting ready for work or winding down for bed.

📻 On Podcasting and Public Radio

Kara Swisher and Audie Cornish

Like many kids, I listened to the radio every morning on the way to school. In my Dad’s car, it was Bloomberg 1130. Hearing commentary on the markets for years probably sparked an early interest in business writing and reporting. In my Mom’s car, it was NPR. Our local station was WNYC and I loved listening to shows like Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and The Takeaway.

These longtime interests were brought together during the keynote interview of the conference. Kara Swisher, the preeminent tech business reporter of our day (in her words “the most famous”), interviewed Audie Cornish, who rose to prominence as the host of All Things Considered on NPR. After a decade at NPR, Cornish recently left to create a new podcast titled The Assignment for CNN. Business was a big theme of the night, as both encouraged young journalists to study the market as much as the craft, noting how entrepreneurial the space has become. It was an interview turned masterclass in media, where the primary advice was to stay ahead, learn new formats, and be adaptable.

At the beginning of the day, On Being host Krista Tippett declared this fresh generation of audio as “The New Fireside,” referencing the series of conversations that President Franklin D. Roosevelt led during the Great Depression and the Second World War. With 90% of Americans still listening to radio, the medium remains one of the largest distributions channels in our culture. The concept of the fireside consecrates audio’s role in facilitating human connection and community.

Podcasts on my Daily Rotation

• How Long Gone

• The Town

• Pivot

• Keep It

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💡‘Pictures from Home’ — Now on Broadway

Over Presidents Day weekend, I saw Pictures from Home, a new play on Broadway, which depicts the intimate family life of parents and their adult son. Their son, Larry Sultan, is a photography teacher, who recently discovers an archive of family photo albums and home movies. Through photography, Sultan reveals the loss of a bygone era. His father rose through the ranks of the same company for decades with a retirement plan that supported his dreams thereafter, and his mother was a stay-at-home mom who pursued selling real estate later in life. It was the green grass, white picket fence of the American Dream… or so they thought.

In the play, Sultan tears it apart. He exposes the performance involved in the dream. Performance of gender roles; performance of class; and performance of success as a substitute for happiness and fulfillment.

Weaving together dynamic photography and dramatic text, the play is based on a true story.

“Sultan is a glamorous remnant of the cocktails-at-lunch era of American business” — NY Times. See the show for a bit of culture on a cold weekend. Stay for a glimpse into a glamorous era.

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💡 Julian Wasser’s Hollywood

RIP Julian Wasser, Photographer Laureate of Los Angeles

David Geffen, Elton John, Carly Simon, James Taylor (1974)

The Jackson 5 (1970)

Joan Didion (1968)

“As Wasser captures them, in grainy close-ups and candids, the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s marked a time of unusual access: carefree, hair-let-down moments and stars mingling with real people.” — NY Times

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🗞 The Biz

• Succession Will End. A bittersweet ending for the cultural juggernaut.

• The King of HBO is Casey Bloys. Sex & the City, Entourage, Euphoria, Succession, Barry, The Last of Us, White Lotus, Insecure, Chernobyl, Industry, Winning Team, and Big Little Lies. Bloys has delivered each and every one of these series with category-defining success.

• This won’t be the last time you hear this: ‘Tom Cruise saved Hollywood.’ At the Oscar Nominees luncheon, he was mobbed… by other actors.

• Cocaine bear does well… Cocaine Bear and M3GAN have proved the power of the low budget original theatrical release. Also, a title like that is a godsend in a marketplace where it’s hard to stand out.

• Warner Bros. Discovery posts more losses, but their cost cutting program is working.

• Don Lemon said that Nikki Haley is not in her prime. And then he said “Google It.” 🤣

• Saudi Arabia Wants to be a Movie Capital. With efforts like LIV Golf and the country’s $400 million investment into WME (which had to be returned), the oil-rich country is bullish on show biz.

🔮 Quick Hits

Lots of good longform articles this week. Bundle up, pour yourself an earl gray, and enjoy:

• Ozempic has Gone Viral — NY Mag

• Is the English Major Over? — The New Yorker.

• Inside the New American Frontier — Vanity Fair. “Preppers, techies, hippies, and yuppies are converging on the American West, the safest place to ‘exit’ a society gone haywire.”

• Jeremy Strong Only Wears Brown — GQ

• On Wallis Simpson — The New Yorker. “Before there was Spare, there was The Heart Has Its Reasons (1956).”

• The Ultimate Map of New York and its Drugs — Air Mail

• Khaite and How to Be a Cool Girl — NY Times. Khaite sits amongst the rarest of fashion brands. Simple, classic, and effortlessly cool. Only celebrity upstarts like The Row are given this sort of early credibility. The New York Times released a profile on the brand’s founder, Cate Holstein, and I thought it included some helpful dressing tips:

  • “sleek, self-assured, a little gothic romantic”

  • “everything has to feel easy”

  • “privacy can beget mystery”

Being a bit understated can go a long way.