Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
Alan Alda
Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It's something we need now more than ever.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 16, 2021 • 42min
Deborah Tannen – The Stories We Tell
Deborah Tannen, author of the hugely influential best seller, You Just Don’t Understand, swaps stories with Alan about conversations that went wrong; and talks about her new book, Finding My Father: His Century-Long Journey from World War I Warsaw and My Quest to FollowSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Mar 9, 2021 • 45min
Ash Sanders and Sarah Ventre – Life in a Cult
Embedding themselves in a fundamentalist Mormon community, journalists Sarah Ventre and Ash Sanders wove together the stories of both those in thrall to its all-powerful prophet and others seeking escape. They take Alan behind the scenes of their gripping and evocative podcast Unfinished: Short Creek.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Mar 2, 2021 • 40min
Reisa Sperling – Making Alzheimer’s a Memory
Propelled by events in her own life, Reisa Sperling is working hard to defeat this disease that cruelly destroys brains and crushes families. As we live longer lives, more of us are in danger of contracting Alzheimer’s. But Reisa’s work is exciting. And so are the signs that we’re making progress.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Feb 23, 2021 • 42min
Sanjeev Bhaskar – The Joy of Blooming Later
The British actor, Sanjeev Bhaskar, started his career later in life and is glad he did. He didn’t try to portray human experience until he actually had some. It’s led to useful wisdom, both on the stage and off. Fans of Masterpiece Theatre will recognize him as the co-star of the crime drama Unforgotten.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Feb 16, 2021 • 41min
Rebecca Wragg Sykes – Our Neanderthal Kin
They walk among us. Some percentage of the genes of many modern humans have been handed down to us from Neanderthals. Alan, who has about 2% of those genes, is more than a little excited to hear from expert Rebecca Wragg Sykes how Neanderthals looked, lived and loved. Her new book is Kindred.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Feb 9, 2021 • 44min
Malcolm Gladwell – Those Dangerous First Impressions
First impressions are supposed to tell us a lot, and they often do. Problem is, as Malcolm Gladwell explains in his latest book Talking to Strangers, sometimes what they tell us is wrong – dangerously wrong. Even deadly.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Feb 2, 2021 • 44min
Emily Levesque – The Romance of the Night Sky
A passionate astronomer and a vivid writer, Emily Levesque describes a life of watching what’s out there in the universe so vividly, you may want to run out and get a telescope. Her new book is The Last Stargazers.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Jan 26, 2021 • 43min
Eric Lander – Decoding Life
Recently nominated as the first presidential science advisor with a seat in the cabinet, Eric Lander talks with Alan about his leading role of the Human Genome Project and how the insights it’s revealed into diseases as different as Covid-19 and cancer are leading to treatments, and even cures, that he never imagined possible.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Jan 19, 2021 • 44min
Penn Jillette – Magic, Tricks, and Us
When we see a magic trick, is the magician fooling us, or are we fooling ourselves? Penn Jillette, the talking half of the magic team Penn and Teller, tells Alan how tricks are a test of how we process reality.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Jan 12, 2021 • 43min
Robert Stickgold – Why do we dream?
We not only need to sleep, we need to dream, too. Robert Stickgold explains why we must go to the movies every night when we sleep – it’s to make sense of our waking world. And it’s all in his book When Brains Dream.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
