Earlier this year, I had a really, really great conversation with Dr. Lara Ayad, host of the podcast The Cheeky Scholar - and I'm proud to share it today. We cast our net really wide, talking at first about the role of artists in society, my favorite museums, but then we got into it. We got into it. Because Lara and I are both, in the parlance of the moment, free speech bros. And if you’re going to be a good artist, or a good art critic, you can’t be afraid of censorship, and you sure as hell can’t practice it.

Lara and I talk everything from Anselm Kiefer to Dr. Seuss, and what we came to realize is this: you have to open your mouth. You have to look at world with open eyes and an open mind. And nothing shuts all those things – mouth, eyes, and mind – more than fear. Fear of offending. Fear of saying the wrong thing even when you’re trying to say the right thing. Or fear that full-on disagreeing will put the whole of your values, your entire moral compass, in question. What will people think of me? Am I still allowed in the club? Am I still a good person?

Full disclosure: it’s this fear, and these questions, that made me almost not share this conversation. But that’s nuts. And when you listen, you’ll hear why. Freedom of speech is one of the most foundational tenets we have in a liberal society – and this has always been the case, regardless of who had the cultural power to cancel whom.

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It's September, and time to get back to work. That means defending public radio against federal defunding, exploring its core values, and taking an honest look at how we got here.

I'm proud to share this conversation between my Hub & Spoke colleague Erica Heilman, host of the exquisite and unflinching Rumble Strip, and her buddy Jay Allison, founder of Transom, producer of The Moth Radio Hour, and generally one of the most stalwart producers in the industry, about why public radio matters.

Episode webpage.

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"You don't go look at a Rothko; you go inside a Rothko." - Claire, visitor, National Gallery of Art

Modern art. Two little words that strike so much fear in the heart of the average museum goer. When you're used to straightforward, legible paintings and sculptures, Modernism can be pretty destabilizing. Pretty weird. Canvases are now spattered with paint, or lined with grids, or barely containing the shapes that seem to want to float away. A car tire is cut apart and reassembled. A giant mobile floats in the air, catching the breeze.

And it's natural to ask, well, what does this mean? What is this piece about? How did I just go from Post-Impressionism to Fauvism to Cubism to Futurism, when the subject matter of these paintings all kind of look similarly shattered and rebuilt and hastily glued back together again? How could I ever understand the nuances of this stuff without a graduate degree?

But I promise you, you can.

Learn more.

See the images.

Music Used:

The Blue Dot Session, “Tall Harvey,” “Highway 430,” “Ranch Hand,” “Cornicob,” “The Melt,” “A Common Pause,” “Within the Garden Walls,” “Basketliner”