Episode 4: Bird on a Wire
“It brought up all the things I’ve never done. All the risks I haven’t taken. It was always about trying to be free, you know?” According to Michael Mathers’s first…
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Stop Doing Things the Hard Way with Dr. Angela Duckworth
When we’re struggling to reach a goal, most of us assume the answer is to buckle down and try harder. But what if all that white-knuckling is actually making things…
Evel Knievel Faces the Abyss
Evel Knievel, the world-famous daredevil, is planning his greatest ever stunt. In 1974, he wants to leap over Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The chasm is almost a third of…
Trailer: Heavyweight Season 10
Heavyweight returns on September 17. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin+ subscribers can get all episodes ad-free! Sign up on the Heavyweight Apple show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.
Using Satellites to Prevent Famines
Catherine Nakalembe is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland and the head of the Africa program at NASA Harvest, which uses satellite images to track agriculture around the…
Mo Willems on The Necessity of Art
The interview opens with W. Kamau Bell welcoming Mo Willems (and later his wife Cher) to the podcast. Kamau explains that he has never fallen out of love with children’s…
Andrew Carnegie’s War with his Workers
In the first of two shows about the fight between the richest man and the unions at his Homestead steel plant – we look at why Andrew Carnegie decided that…
Episode 2: The Real Outside Agitators of Iowa
The pipeline has been built, the protest camps disbanded, but the fight isn’t over. As pipeline opponents set up a new camp in Iowa, the Tiger Swan propagandists follow them,…
David Porter
David Porter’s story goes well beyond writing songs and releasing albums for Stax Records. His recent memoir, The Soul Man, tells how he and his partner Isaac Hayes helped invent…
Episode 3: The Train Has Left the Station
“I have never regretted my decision, only the amount of unhappiness it caused you. Still, unforgivingness is the product of those who feel it.” When Petra and Michael died, they…
Shannon Lee on Legacy and Wrath
Kamau’s interview with Shannon Lee opens with a discussion about her role as steward of her father Bruce Lee’s legacy, which she frames as “stewarding” and “nurturing” rather than “parenting”…
George Washington’s Trusted Tavern Guide: The Birth of the User Review
When America’s first president set off to tour his new country, he had no idea where to stay. George Washington slept in some taverns he described as dirty and grim,…