Across the Margin: The Podcast

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Ed Vulliamy, former reporter for The Guardian and The Observer. He is the author of Amexica: War Along the Borderline and The War is Dead, Long Live the War — Bosnia: The Reckoning. His latest book Louder Than Bombs — part memoir, part reportage — is a story of music from the front lines. In Louder Than Bombs, Vulliamy offers a testimony to his lifelong passion for music. Vulliamy’s reporting has taken him around the world to cover the Bosnian War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism, the Iraq wars of 1991 and 2003, narco violence in Mexico, and more. All places where he confronted stories of violence, suffering, and injustice. Through it all, Vulliamy has turned to music not only as a reprieve but also as a means to understand and express the complicated emotions that follow. Describing the artists, songs, and concerts that most influenced him, in Louder Than Bombs Vulliamy unites the two largest threads of his life — music and war. Vulliamy’s book is a wildly exciting and informative journey that covers some of the most important musical milestones of the past fifty years, from Jimi Hendrix playing “Machine Gun” at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 to the Bataclan in Paris under siege in 2015. Vulliamy was present for many of these historic moments, and with him as our guide, we see them afresh through his unique perspective, along the way meeting musicians like B.B. King, Graham Nash, Patti Smith, Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, and Bob Dylan. As Vulliamy discovers, when horror is unspeakable and when words seem to fail us, we can turn to music for expression and comfort, or for rage and pain. Poignant and sensitively told, Louder Than Bombs is an unforgettable record of a life bursting with music. In this episode host Michael Shields and Vulliamy converse upon the cathartic power of music while waxing poetically about the ways musicians channel and give birth music. They explore Vulliamy’s interactions with B.B. King and his experience seeing Jimi Hendrix mere days before his passing while recounting the importance of a band called The Plastic People of the Universe around the fall of the Berlin Wall, and ultimately celebrate Graham Nash’s aim to change the world through music, and so much more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, and prominent thought leader John Hope Bryant, in a thought-provoking episode which centers on Bryant’s latest book, Up From Nothing. Using the inspiring story of his own rise from humble beginnings, and that of his parents and grandparents, Up From Nothing sets out to display how individually we can change our mindset from survivor to thriver to winner, and move beyond just getting by or being financially independent, to becoming wildly successful. John Hope Bryant is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE, the largest non-profit provider of financial literacy and economic empowerment services in the United States for youth and adults. The last five U.S. presidents have recognized his work, and he has served as an advisor to the last three sitting U.S. presidents from both political parties. He is responsible for financial literacy becoming the policy of the U.S. federal government and he has been named one of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “The Power 100 Most Influential Atlantans of 2020,” Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Most Admired CEOs” in 2018, and one of Time magazine’s “50 Leaders for the Future." He has received hundreds of awards and citations for his work, including Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award, and the John Sherman Award for Excellence in Financial Education from the U.S. Treasury. In this episode, host Michael Shields and Bryant discuss American optimism while expounding upon how valuable a positive mindset and believing in yourself can be. Bryant also shares his Five Pillars of Success, a roadmap to success he believes every American should have access to, and ultimately Bryant celebrates the idea that America will be a much stronger and happier place if we were to make the effort to invest in each other’s success and well being. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with musician, folk healer, ceremonialist, and scientist Jeff Firewalker Schmitt. Schmitt, along with renowned jazz musician John Medeski (of Medeski Martin & Wood), have formed a musical collaborative called Saint Disruption bringing together musicians, video artists, and visionaries to create music, art, and experiences that explore the human condition. Saint Disruption, in conjunction with its record label Root Doctor Media, is a model for harnessing collective wisdom, self-organization, recording technology and creative artistry to create compelling works of beauty. Profits from their works are used to support the greater good through alliances with NGOs and nonprofits. Schmitt is also the founder of the Eagle Condor Council and Tobacco Freedom, and is an advocate for indigenous healing and wisdom traditions while working closely with the Wisdom Keepers. As both a noted scientist and practitioner of Peruvian Folk medicine, he seeks to build bridges of understanding. He is a challenging and evocative speaker/storyteller who in 2011 presented the first TEDx talk on Ayahuasca — inspired by his life-changing sojourn with the Secoya of the Amazon rainforest. In this episode host Michael Shields and Jeff Firewalker Schmitt dig into the origins of, and inspiration behind, Saint Disruption, discuss the charitable aims of the collective, explore the profoundly socially conscious themes of the music, and speculate on all that might lie ahead for this exciting, multi-faceted project.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Aaron Cohen, author of Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power. In Move On Up, Aaron tells the remarkable story of the explosion of soul music in Chicago. Together, soul music and black-owned businesses thrived and record producers and songwriters broadcasted optimism for black America’s future through their sophisticated, jazz-inspired productions. Soul music also accompanied the rise of African American advertisers and the campaign of Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. This empowerment was set in stark relief by the social unrest roiling in Chicago and across the nation. As Chicago’s homegrown record labels produced rising stars singing songs of progress and freedom, Chicago’s black middle class faced limited economic opportunities and deep-seated segregation. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews and a music critic’s passion for the unmistakable Chicago soul sound, Cohen shows us how soul music became the voice of inspiration and change for a city in turmoil. In this episode, host Michael Shields and Cohen discuss the countless interviews he took on to bring Move On Up to vivid life, the diversity of sound and influences that defines Chicago soul music, the interconnectedness between music and politics highlighted in the book, the influence of the 1960’s psychedelic counterculture on Chicago’s soul music, the power radio wielded in engaging the community through music and community action, and so much more.Grab a Copy of Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Sanya N'Kanta, the Jamaican born and Charlotte-based musician who has made a name for himself with his genre-blurring style, bringing together rock, reggae, hip-hop, house music, and electro-pop. Sanya’s latest release, an EP entitled These Are The Days, is an ode to his lifelong love rock n 'roll. Common themes throughout These Are The Days are growth, friendship, morality, the importance of time with family, and healing. While the songs on Sanya's rousing new EP are largely more optimistic and personal than his previous work, his recent singles “I.C.E. at the Door” and “The Lesser of Two Evils,” act as hard-hitting commentaries on the dark political realities of 2020 and America's fraught history. Sanya is a multi-faceted musician and storyteller, and these two songs are a great example of his commitment to incorporating socially conscious themes into his music. In this episode Sanya expounds upon immigrating to the United States and his early experiences in the country, his youthful infatuation with American rock n’ roll music, a recent brush with carbon monoxide poisoning that put his life at risk and changed the way he viewed life and creating art, the intricacies behind the crafting of These Are The Days, and much, much more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast host Michael Shields explores an achievement in fiction writing, a tour de force of a novel heralded by critics as a “modern classic” and a “spectacular invention” entitled The Revisionaries. Penned by A.R. Moxon, who is featured in this episode, The Revisionaries is a wildly imaginative, masterfully rendered, and suspenseful tale that conjures the bold outlandish stylishness of Thomas Pynchon, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, and Alan Moore — while being unlike anything that’s come before it. It is about a priest who may or may not be a priest trying to differentiate between reality and fantasy in order to find the source of his faith. Beyond his quest toward the spiritual, this priest — named Julius — is under pressure to save the world. Featuring a female acrobat with a luxurious beard, the peculiar followers of a religious cult, an enigmatic smoking figure who seems to know what’s going to happen just before it does, and an ancient hereditary evil hidden in the heart of Tennessee’s grandest tourist trap, Pigeon Forge, The Revisionaries is awe-inspiring in scope and delightfully all consuming. In this episode, Michael and A. R. discuss his collaboration with fellow writer Ben Colmery, the challenges he had in bringing to life a 400,000 word manuscript, the unique stylization choices he employed, the many weighty, thought-provoking themes found throughout the narrative, the influence of the band Phish on the book, and much, much more.Grab a copy of The Revisionaries here, subscribe to A.R Moxon’s newsletter here, and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusGoat! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This thought-provoking 100th episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Oakland, California-based artist, writer, and educator, Jenny Odell. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, The Paris Review, The Believer, McSweeney's, and Sierra Magazine. Her visual work has been exhibited internationally, including as a mural on the side of a Google data center in rural Oklahoma. Odell has been an artist in residence at the Internet Archive, the San Francisco Planning Department, and Recology SF (otherwise known as the dump) and is a lecturer in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. This episode focuses on Odell’s bestselling book How To Do Nothing: Resisting The Attention Economy. In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring “field guide” to dropping out of the attention economy, Odell teaches us how to win back our lives. Our attention is the most precious — and overdrawn — resource we have and Odell contests we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important...but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, Odell’s insightful book will change how you see your place in our world, and this episode acts as the perfect introduction to How To Do Nothing and the important ideas that it holds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Brooklyn-based filmmaker and activist Coffey. Formerly the fashion editor of the hip-hop magazine XXL and the founder of the Define New York Run Club, Coffey has risen to the times as one of the leaders behind the Running To Protest movement. Running to Protest is a campaign, founded with the help of activist Power Malu, that was born in response to what has been happening to Black people, People of Color, and Indigenous people in America. In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Admaud Arbery (and far too many others), Coffey began organizing protest events and runs that brought together people who are passionate about change. What has arisen from Coffey’s efforts is an ongoing and growing organization that meets regularly to unite, protest, learn, and lay out pragmatic action plans to work towards racial justice and equity. Running parallel and in tandem to his work in activism are Coffey's talents as a filmmaker, writer, and actor. Recently he wrote the screenplay for, and acted in, the short film About The People. About The People is a narrative short film, born of actual events, that examines social injustice and racial inequity in the black and brown community. It is an ode to the power honest conversations about social justice, equity, and race have within these communities. The film centers around a group of concerned pillars of the African American community that hold court at a conference table to discuss how they can improve society for their kinfolk and compel change. They grapple with the political, financial, and educational power structures in America, how they fit inside them, and plans for their re-engineering. Their open dialogue looks to find answers to tough social issues with resolutions and ideas arriving through moments of volatile exchanges. About The People encourages all audience members to have an introspective conversation that sparks real change.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast, host Michael Shields interviews social psychologist, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University, and the author of The Righteous Mind : Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind, a book The New York Times Book Review called “a landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself,” examines how morality is shaped by emotion and intuition more than by reasoning, and why opposing political groups have different notions of right and wrong. Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Haidt shows, in his books and in this episode, how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings and exhibits why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns.Throughout the conversation Haidt expounds upon the foundations of morality that help explain what drives humans and explores ideas of tribalism and “groupish-ness” and its role in guiding our actions. Haidt also lays out three core ideas that help one to understand exactly what moral psychology is while also spelling out the best way to go about changing another person’s mind (which doesn’t involve appealing to reason!). Ultimately, the discussion veers towards an inspiring culmination where the miracle of human cooperation, and the joy that awaits humans when they trade in anger for understanding, is celebratedLearn more about Jonathan Haidt’s work at RighteousMind.Com and at OpenMindPlatform.Org! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast, host Michael Shields interviews Dr. Lynda Ulrich, the author of the book Happiness is an Option: Thriving (Instead of Surviving) In the Era of the Internet. Dr. Lynda Ulrich is the founder of Ever Widening Circles (EWC), a website whose aim is to prove that the world is a beautiful place, full of wonderment, discovery, and compassion. Within Ever Widening Circles, one will find articles about remarkable insights and innovations that have gone uncelebrated, and thousands of links to prominent thought leaders who are striving to make the world a better place for humankind. Dr. Ulrich’s aim — which is entirely inspiring — is to offer an alternative to all the negativity found in the news and on social media, negativity that is there not because the world is a negative place, but because it drives ratings, or cultivates clicks. Happiness is an Option, the book that lies at the heart of this episode, is brimming with useful insights to obtaining more joy, less fear, and a brighter future in the age of the internet. This episode features an in-depth conversation about Ever Widening Circles and its dynamic and thought-provoking content, four shifts Dr. Ulrich recommends for better navigating and breaking free from the grip of negativity on the internet, the benefits of being “kinder than you need to be,” the inspiring concept that is the “Conspiracy of Goodness,” and so much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.