Across the Margin: The Podcast

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker Yael Bridge. Bridge is the producer behind Left on Purpose, winner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC, and also Saving Capitalism, starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in Business and Economics. Her latest documentary, The Big Scary “S” Word, which is the focus of this episode, delves into the rich history of the American socialist movement and follows the people striving to build a socialist future today. In this enlightening documentary, a former Marine and a public school teacher in two different states find themselves broke and unable to sustain their livelihoods despite being employed. Activated by the energy of the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and the murmurs of a state-wide teacher strike, both turn to socialism, a once-fringe ideology, to tackle problems larger than themselves. With inequality growing, a climate catastrophe looming, and right-wing extremism ascending around the world, many Americans are wondering whether capitalism is to blame. But what is the alternative? Socialism is plagued by conflicting definitions. Is it dictatorship or democracy? Norway or Venezuela? Reform or revolution? The Big Scary “S” Word explores where American socialism has been, why it was suppressed, and imagines what a renewed American socialism might look like. In this episode host Michael Shields and Yael Bridge converse on the inadequately discussed and rich history of socialism in America, revealing that socialism is in fact, as American as apple pie. They explore the roots of current misconceptions about socialism, expose the threat that capitalism poses to human life, expound on the growing appreciation of socialism in America, and much, much more.Learn more about The Big Scary "S" Word and sign up for updates here!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Dr. Fabian Holt, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University. He is the author of Genre in Popular Music and of Everyone Loves Live Music: A Theory of Performance Institutions, the focus of this episode. For decades, millions of music fans have gathered every summer in parks and fields to hear their favorite bands at such renowned festivals as Lollapalooza, Coachella, and Glastonbury. How did these and countless other festivals across the globe evolve into glamorous pop culture events, and how are they changing our relationship to music, leisure, and public culture? In Everyone Loves Live Music, Dr. Holt looks beyond the marketing hype to show how festivals and other institutions of musical performance have evolved in recent decades, as these once meaningful sources of community and culture are increasingly consumed by corporate giants. Examining a diverse range of cases across Europe and the United States, Dr. Holt upends commonly-held ideas of live music and introduces a pioneering theory of performance institutions. He explores the fascinating history of the club and the festival experience both in San Francisco and New York, as well as a number of European cities. This book also surveys the social forces shaping live music as small, independent venues become corporatized and as festivals transform to promote consumerist trappings. Dr. Holt’s book further provides insight into the broader relationship between culture and community in the twenty-first century. Everyone Loves Live Music reveals how our contemporary enthusiasm for live music is more fraught than we would like to think. In this episode host Michael Shields and Dr. Fabian Holt explore the ins-and-outs of Everyone Loves Music, discussing the history of music festivals, the joys and community they can offer in the most ideal of form, while dissecting in depth how popular music festivals have been developed into mass-market commodities by a cultural industry and capitalistic societies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode host Michael Shields interviews Sally Weintrobe, a Fellow of The British Psychoanalytical Society and a founder member of the Climate Psychology Alliance who Chairs the International Psychoanalytic Association’s (IPA’s) Committee on Climate. In 2021 she won an award from the IPA for her climate work. Her past publications include, as editor and contributor, Engaging with Climate Change, short-listed in 2014 for the International Gradiva Prize for contributions to psychoanalysis. Her recent book, Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and The Culture of Uncare, which is the focus of this episode, tells the story of a fundamental fight between a caring and an uncaring imagination. It helps us to recognize the uncaring imagination in politics, in culture, and also in ourselves.In her enlightening and important book, Sally Weintrobe argues that achieving the shift to greater care requires us to stop colluding with Exceptionalism, the rigid psychological mindset largely responsible for the climate crisis. People in this mindset believe that they are entitled to have the lion's share and that they can 'rearrange' reality with magical omnipotent thinking whenever reality limits these felt entitlements. Throughout the episode host Michael Shields and Sally Wintrobe explore the themes present in Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis, exploring in depth how the rigid psychological mindset of Exceptionalism is largely responsible for the Climate Crisis. They also explore how lively entitlement powers the will to act for and care for others, how changing demographics are motivating the neoliberal empire to act more manipulative and brutal to hold onto power, how the Climate Crisis is affecting today’s youth psychologically, and much, much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode host Michael Shields interviews Ben Proudfoot, the Oscar nominated creative force behind Breakwater Studios. Dedicated to the art of the short documentary, the studio’s work has been recognized by the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, The Emmys, The Webbys, James Beard Foundation, and Telluride Film Festival among others. His film A Concerto is a Conversation, co-directed by Kris Bowers and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, debuted at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short Subject. Proudfoot’s latest documentary, The Queen of Basketball, is the story of Lucy Harris, a pioneer in women's basketball who led a rural Mississippi college to three national titles, scored the first basket in women's Olympic history in 1976 and was remarkably the first and only woman to be drafted into the NBA. In 1992, she became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Throughout the episode Michael and Ben expound upon Lucy's incredible story, from her upbringing in rural Mississippi to her unparalleled dominance playing college basketball, unto her history making run in the Olympics, and beyond. They also explore what it means to Lucy to be featured in a documentary, how extraordinary it was that she was drafted to play in the National Basketball Association, all the important and fascinating work Ben is doing with Breakwater Studios, his Almost Famous anthology series, and so much more in an episode that serves as an ode to one of the most important American athletes of the 20th century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Patrick Burke, associate professor of music at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Burke is the author of Come In and Hear the Truth: Jazz and Race on 52nd Street and also the recently released Tear Down The Walls: White Radicalism and Black Power in 1960s Rock — the focus of this episode. From the earliest days of rock and roll, white artists regularly achieved fame, wealth, and success that eluded the Black artists whose work had preceded and inspired them. This dynamic continued into the 1960s, even as the music and its fans grew to be more engaged with political issues regarding race. In Tear Down the Walls, Burke tells the story of white American and British rock musicians’ engagement with Black Power politics and African American music during the volatile years of 1968 and 1969. The book sheds new light on a significant but overlooked facet of 1960s rock — white musicians and audiences casting themselves as political revolutionaries by enacting a romanticized vision of African American identity. These artists’ attempts to cast themselves as revolutionary were often naïve, misguided, or arrogant, but they could also reflect genuine interest in African American music and culture and sincere investment in anti-racist politics. White musicians such as those in popular rock groups Jefferson Airplane, the Rolling Stones, and the MC5, fascinated with Black performance and rhetoric, simultaneously perpetuated a long history of racial appropriation and misrepresentation and made thoughtful, self-aware attempts to respectfully present African American music in forms that white leftists found politically relevant. In Tear Down the Walls Patrick Burke neither condemns white rock musicians as inauthentic nor elevates them as revolutionary. The result is a fresh look at 1960s rock that provides new insight into how popular music both reflects and informs our ideas about race and how white musicians and activists can engage meaningfully with Black political movements — and you can learn all about these ideas in this informative, music and history-centric episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with the backbone of the Asheville, North Carolina based hip-hop group Free Radio, emcees Austin Haynes and Johnny Reynolds. Free Radio was formed in 2012 by Haynes and Reynolds when they released their debut album, The Powers That Be. Fueled by Hayne’s beats that dig into everything from classic soul, rock, modern pop, and space-age lounge, both Haynes and Reynolds are accomplished emcees, and around western North Carolina, Reynold’s syrupy flow has become a thing of legend. Over the past decade Free Radio has taken different forms, won multiple awards for “best hip-hop group” by local newspapers, and shared the stage with heavyweights like Wu-Tang Clan, Ice Cube, Slick Rick, Nappy Roots, Digable Planets and Warren Haynes. Today, Free Radio has found its most powerful configuration with the addition of Grammy Award winning singer Debrissa McKinney and Datrian Johnson, whose deep, soulful vocals (think of a modern day Barry White or Isaac Hayes) are brimming with power and authenticity.Free Radio releases its latest album, Earthworms, this Friday and in this episode host Michael Shields learns from Haynes and Reynolds what to expect from the album. They discuss Free Radio’s conception in 2012, the music that inspires Haynes and Reynolds, and how special it is to now have Grammy Award winning singer Debrissa McKinney and Datrian Johnson in the group. They also discuss what it means to the talented rappers to be coming out of Asheville, North Carolina, the social conscious themes present in Free Radio’s music, and so much more!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Jacob M. Appel, one of the most prolific, accomplished, yet humble people in America. Appel is an author, poet, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic best known for his short stories, his work as a playwright, and his writing in the fields of reproductive ethics, organ donation, neuroethics and euthanasia. He is the director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry and an associate professor of psychiatry and medical education at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and he practices emergency psychiatry within the adjoining Mount Sinai Health System. Appel writes for both The Huffington Post and Opposing Views, and he has obtained ten degrees from various institutions, including Harvard Law School and Columbia Medical School.Appel is the subject of the 2019 documentary film Jacob by director Jon Stahl. Stahl’s film attempts to answer what makes polymaths, like Jacob, who seem to live several lives concurrently, so different. The documentary questions if polymaths' profound intellect is a gift or a burden while trying to uncover if they are happy and satisfied in life. Approaching Jacob both through direct interviews and the testimonies of his friends, Stahl considers Appel through an emotional lens, rather than an intellectual one.In this episode host Michael Shields and Jacob Appel discuss Jacob’s writing style and method before Appel, a prolific writer, offers advice to fellow writers on the importance of the first line, how to deal with editorial rejections, and perseverance being the key to success in writing. They discuss what it was like for Appel to be the subject of a popular documentary, how his studies in numerous fields contribute to his craft, and ultimately, the episode serves as an ode to those in life whose aim is to never stop learning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with author and Associate Professor in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago, William Sites. Sites’ first book, entitled Remaking New York: Primitive Globalization and the Politics of Urban Community, focused on the transformation of New York City during the final quarter of the twentieth century. His latest — which is the focus of this episode — is entitled Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City, a book that can be aptly described as a comprehensive exploration of the formative years of American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet Sun Ra. Sun Ra’s Chicago persists as much more than simply a biography, but an analysis of the urban spaces and relationships that shaped the transcendent musician into the otherworldly philosophical leader of his band, the Arkestra. Sun Ra, born Sonny Blount, was one of the most wildly prolific and eccentric figures in the history of music. Renowned for extravagant performances in which his Arkestra appeared in neo-Egyptian garb, the keyboardist and bandleader espoused an interstellar cosmology that claimed the planet Saturn as his true home. In Sun Ra’s Chicago, Sites brings this grandiose musician back to Earth — specifically to Chicago’s South Side, where from 1946 to 1961 the accomplished artist lived and relaunched his career. The postwar South Side of Chicago was a hotbed of unorthodox religious and cultural activism. It was an unruly musical crossroads where Sun Ra drew from a diverse array of intellectual and musical sources — from radical nationalism, revisionist Christianity, and science fiction to jazz, blues, Latin dance music, and pop exotica — to construct a philosophy and performance style that imagined a new identity and future for African Americans. Sun Ra’s Chicago shows that late twentieth-century Afrofuturism emerged from a deep, utopian engagement with the city — and that by excavating the postwar black experience of Sun Ra’s South Side surroundings, we can come to see the possibilities of urban life in new ways. In this episode host Michael Shields and William Sites converse about Sun Ra's birthplace of Birmingham, Alabama and examine how the city’s extraordinarily vibrant musical culture began to shape a young Sonny Blount. They then explore Sun Ra’s time in Chicago, where he grew to fame gigging at Club DeLisa and in Calumet City as they explore the myriad of influences and relationships (particularly his friendship with Alton Abraham) that became central to the development of his music and mythology. Ultimately, this episode serves as an ode to the legend and legacy of Sun Ra and serves as a celebration of the intergalactic genius of a true visionary.Grab a copy of Sun Ra's Chicago here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast introduces you to producer, writer, filmmaker, and media expert Jimmy Chairman. From 2006 until 2020 Chairman interviewed celebrities for a living. All told, he conducted over 10,000 interviews. On the red carpet night in and night out working for E! Entertainment — in the channel’s heyday — Chairman admirably picked the brains of the world's most famous actors, athletes, and artists. Beyond his work on the red carpet, Chairman helms his own production company, Chairman Media, and has been releasing captivating content across a bevy of platforms for decades. In this episode host Michael Shields and Jimmy Chairman confer upon the art of interviewing while considering their shared experiences conversing with thought leaders and artists. They celebrate the opportunities that working in media and television offer, while Chairman recounts a myriad of magical moments and encounters across his many years in showbusiness. Chairman also expounds upon his latest venture, an enterprise called Fix Your Shot, which is a leading hands-on videoconferencing aesthetics support company. Chairman even makes time, throughout the diversified conversation, to share his theory — potentially confirmed by writer and executive producer Terence Winter — of how The Sopranos really concluded, and much, much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast celebrates, through an interview with director and playwright Daniel Goldstein, the release of the inspiring new musical Row, adapted from the moving memoir A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure. Goldstein has directed over 100 plays and musicals worldwide, including work at major theaters across the United States and Asia. He was most recently represented on Broadway by the revival of Godspell and his Off Broadway credits include Walmartopia, Indoor / Outdoor, and Lower Ninth, to name a few. As a writer, Goldstein is currently under commission by the Public Theater, for which he recently wrote the musical adaptation of Tori Murden McClure's aforementioned memoir A Pearl in the Storm with singer/songwriter Dawn Landes. Row, which tells parallel stories of Tori’s journey across the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat and through her life, is a heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting story of finding your heart in the middle of the ocean. It was scheduled to make its stage debut at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in the summer 2020. Instead Row just made its world premiere as a recording available on Audible. In this episode host Michael Shields and Daniel Goldstein discuss the complexities of Tori Murden McClure’s inspiring journey across the Atlantic, the unique challenges of bringing a musical to life amid the pandemic, the weighty themes present in Row (faith, isolation, self-doubt, fear), the outstanding sound design featured in the performance, and ultimately, they celebrate the birth of the first ever traditional book musical.Listen to Row now at Audible! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.