We release the unedited interviews of all our produced one-hour shows. Time constraints are often a good thing, helping us prune the tree to a more perfect form. But, it doesn’t come without a cost.
Sometimes we have to kill our darlings, and leave them strewn on the cutting room floor. And this conversation with Maria Tatar is a great example of editorial decisions made with a direction in mind. Listen to this unedited interview, and I think you’ll find it an entirely additive experience.
On Saturday, Krista Tippett interviewed New York poet laureate Marie Howe in the beautiful old library at the College of Saint Benedict under the watchful eyes of the Virgin Mary (Salve Regina). Can’t wait to produce this show for On Being.
Photo by Trent Gilliss
This week’s show came about in the best possible way — while browsing illustrated books about classic literature at a quaint children’s book shop in Minneapolis (The Wild Rumpus). I pitched the brilliant folklorist Maria Tatar as a guest who could talk about why all these timeless stories are infusing our culture in fresh ways these days. The popularity of Game of Thrones and The Vampire Diaries is a testament to the great, inventive work being done.
The result? “The Great Cauldron of Story: Why Fairy Tales Are for Adults Again.”
Fairy tales don’t only belong to the domain of childhood. These stories’ overt themes are threaded throughout hit TV series like True Blood, Grimm, and Once Upon a Time too. These stories survive, says Maria Tatar, by adapting across cultures and history. They are carriers of the plots we endlessly re-work in the narratives of our lives — helping us work through things like fear and hope.
I think you’re going to dig this conversation. If so, spread the word: reblog, tweet, post on your own site, you name it.
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
With the abundance of coverage of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, here’s our show about a Jesuit priest who’s living a life of Christian service that flies under the radar. Father Greg Boyle’s gang intervention programs in Los Angeles are becoming more well-known, but his ideas behind them often get short shrift.
He makes winsome connections between service and delight, and compassion and awe. He heads Homeboy Industries, which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses. This is not work of helping, he says, but of finding kinship. The point of Christian service, as he lives it, is about “our common calling to delight in one another.”
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Esoteric teachings on reincarnation and consciousness; simple teachings on compassion and ethics. Geshe Thupten Jinpa is a man who finishes the Dalai Lama’s English sentences. This On Being interview with the philosopher and former monk, now a husband and father of two daughters, is a meditation on what happens when the ancient tradition embodied in the Dalai Lama meets science and life.
This man is a voice for all ages and all seasons. Sadly, most people have probably never heard of this great civil rights leader. Vincent Harding wrote speeches for Martin Luther King Jr. and was one of his closest friends. But, he doesn’t live in the past. He is teaching new generations about the lessons of that time — and how those lessons can repair divisions in America today. He finds hope in young people today and says they are his answer to the question that drives him: “Is America possible?”
There are so many inspiring people who are doing the good, hard work that are needed in our communities. We need to hear from more of these unrecognized heroes. Rami Nashashibi is definitely one of them, especially as the news of late is reporting about the rash of killings in Chicago this year.
Mr. Nashashibi lives on the South Side of Chicago, and is the founder of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. He’s working with people of all ethnicities and races and sees the U.S. as still the best place for an emerging American Muslim dream. He’s creative in his approach to community-building — using graffiti, calligraphy, and hip hop as a healing force in his work. He’s an activist who converges religious virtues, social action, and the arts. His life is a creative response to ethical confusion in a world of disparity.
Listening to his conversation with Krista is definitely worth an hour of your time. Please reblog and share if you’re down with what he says.
Yes, I do believe @KristaTippett’s yoga classes are paying off in our editorial sessions at On Being. (at Minnesota Public Radio - American Public Media)
Doug Neill, a self-professed “sketchnoter” from Portland, Oregon, showed me a new way forward for visualizing our own work at On Being. While listening to our interview with Seth Godin, Doug did some real-time, visual note taking and created this sketchnote of the conversation. A most delightful and unexpected surprise.
