Correct me if I'm Norm

By Radio Free RhinecliffSociety & Culture

Correct me if I'm Norm episodes

August 17 A Welsh Historian Lands in Rhinebeck: Gerry Protheroe on Aberfan, Oxford, and Trump
Norm sits down with historian Gerry Protheroe — a Welsh-born, NYU-affiliated professor and longtime private school teacher — for a conversation that ranges from his working-class childhood in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales,to experiencing the impact of the 1966 Aberfan disaster as a child, to his path through Jesus College, Oxford and eventually to New York City. Protheroe, author of The Crisis of Security: Global Politics from the End of the Cold War to the Present, weighs in on Brexit's economic toll, NATO's fragility under Trump, the fallout from the Iran conflict, and echoes of the Vietnam-era counterinsurgency debates in today's foreign policy. Along the way: Manhattans, Manchester United, dual citizenship debates, and a surprise Churchill impression.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr 2 min
August 03 From Fighter Pilot to Falafel Stand: Roy and Cathy Naor's Unlikely Rhinebeck Story
Norm sits down with Cathy and Roy Naor, the couple behind Rhinebeck's Aba's Falafel, just two months after they sold the business to a cousin. Roy talks about his path from Israeli Air Force fighter pilot training to squadron commander to captain at El Al, and the private jet charter company he now manages remotely from Rhinebeck. Cathy traces her own route from Austin, Texas to a philosophy of mind PhD she never finished to a farmers market falafel stand that became a full restaurant. They talk through how they went vegan, the environmental change Roy has watched firsthand over decades of transatlantic flights and Cozumel dives, raising kids in Rhinebeck, becoming grandparents, and how the town has responded to them as Israelis living in the Hudson Valley.
Vide now available HERE
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr
July 26 John Rossi on Door-Knocking, Doxing, and Debbie Hecht's Big Rhinebeck Win
Norm sits down with campaign strategist John Rossi, the operative behind Debbie Hecht's landslide win in the Rhinebeck Town Supervisor Democratic primary. Rossi walks through the mechanics of a winning local campaign: his "three Ms" of money, messaging, and mobilization, why door-knocking beats social media every time, and the numbers that told his team early on they had a landslide on their hands. He addresses the more contentious parts of the race too, including the doxing controversy and Republicans who switched parties to vote in the primary, and gives credit to The Daily Catch for driving turnout. Rossi also traces his own path into politics, from a hazing scandal that pushed him onto a Long Island school board to his move to the Hudson Valley and his growing track record running campaigns for women candidates including Cara Gary and Lisa Cole.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr 1 min
July 15 Millstones, Mile Markers, and the Man Who Runs Rhinebeck's Roads
Norm sits down with Bob Wyant, the Town of Rhinebeck's highway superintendent, for a wide-ranging chat. Bob talks through the mechanics of the job: a seven-man crew, a budget he can't touch without town board approval, and so much more. He walks through his favorite and least favorite roads in town, including Old Post Road, which traces back to a 1700s mail route to Albany, and Stone Church Road, which he says is just too long to love.
Norm also gets Bob talking about his family. The Wyants have been in Rhinebeck since 1850, and the road he lives on is named after them after he rejected the town's original pick. He traces his family back through a Civil War ancestor buried in Rhinebeck Cemetery to German roots that got Americanized along the way. Bob also talks about digging up a 300-year-old millstone by accident while running an excavator, losing his first election and calling it one of the best things that ever happened to him, and his second career as a competitive karaoke singer with a soft spot for David Allan Coe and Elvis.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr
July 09 Rhinebeck's Father Jeffrey Maurer on the Eucharist, Death, and Growing Up IBM Catholic
Norm welcomes his Rhinebeck neighbor Father Jeffrey Maurer, pastor of Good Shepherd in Rhinebeck and St. Christopher's in Red Hook, for a conversation about faith and vocation.
Maurer traces his German and Irish Catholic roots to 1880s Kingston, his eight years of seminary formation between Manhattan College and priestly studies, and the moment as a teenager when he first grasped the Eucharist as more than symbol. He talks about writing sermons, presiding over deaths and baptisms, and why he thinks busyness does more damage to faith than outright sin.
The conversation also covers Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic roots of cities like Los Angeles and St. Augustine, Florida, and Dorothy Day's farm up in Tivoli. Along the way, Maurer explains why he recently sat for the AP U.S. History Regents exam at a Kingston high school, in longhand, with a cigar waiting for him afterward.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr
July 01 From Brooklyn to Rhinebeck: A Sister Act in Music, Memory, and the Occasional Ghost
Norm welcomes sisters Patty Hill and Susie Hendren for a chat that starts with Yuengling and ends with astrology. The two, raised between Brooklyn and Long Island with Scottish, Italian, and Irish roots, trace a musical education that runs from seeing The Beatles at Forest Hills Stadium as young girls to Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and the New York Dolls scene at Max's Kansas City. Susie fronted a gothic rock band called Tribes of the Moon in the 1970s and 80s, with Patty as its most devoted fan. They talk about their father's uncanny survival of seven near-death experiences, a genuinely spooky haunted house on Long Island, their shared interest in tarot and astrology, and how they ended up settling in the Rhinebeck area decades ago. Along the way, they discuss their daughter and niece, Leslie Hill, well known around town, and reflect on how Rhinebeck and Rhinecliff have changed since they first arrived.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr 1 min
June 13 The Seed Saver: Sue Sie on Rhinecliff, Dirty Gaia, and Reconnecting People to the Earth
Norm welcomes Sue Sie, a longtime Rhinecliff resident who arrived via an ex-husband, a Bard professor's house, and a lot of determination. She stayed; he did not. That was 1989, and she has been one of the most quietly essential figures in the local environmental landscape ever since.
Sue is an architect by training. She designed Gigi Trattoria, Terrapin, and Gabby's, among others, but has not practiced in about 20 years. These days she channels her energy into Dirty Gaia (dirtygaia.org), the environmental education nonprofit she founded to reconnect people with the natural world. The conversation covers the organization's seed library at Morton Library, this summer's Farm and Garden Ramble expanding into Red Hook, the upcoming Threshfest, and her ongoing work with Pollinate HV to promote native plants and protect at-risk pollinators.
They also get into: how to save tomato seeds (ferment, rinse, dry), the Berkeley Hot Composting method, the bokashi fermentation technique for composting meat and cheese, the appalling self-regulatory framework for pesticide testing, and why the American lawn is an ecological wasteland. Sue is also a diver, certified in murky New Jersey Atlantic waters and polished in Bonaire, and a devoted cook who dreams in dishes and makes a mean Swiss chard with chickpeas and fennel.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr 4 min
June 11 Local Painter, Financial Advisor, and Performance Artist Richard Marr on Investing, Painting, and the Planet
Norm sits down with Richard Marr, a Rhinebeck-based artist and Merrill Lynch financial advisor whose two careers have more in common than you might think. Richard's paintings are spare, reverent studies of water and light that grew out of his deep engagement with environmental issues, which also drives his investment work and his membership in the Citizens' Climate Lobby, where he helps lobby Congress for climate solutions each year in Washington.
They chat about the OVO Gallery he and his wife Carol ran in South Orange; how a visit to Dia Beacon set them on the path to Rhinebeck; kayaking the Hudson with a sail attached; the ESG investing movement and why Republicans helped kill the acronym; his Antioch College work-study years and the greaser friends he grew up clamming with in Bellport, Long Island; a deep dive into Tai Chi and the influence of John Cage and Alan Watts; and his current show Near and Far at Type Gallery in Millbrook.
Richard also previews a new performance piece built around interviews about the Hudson River, with proceeds going to Riverkeeper. Throughout, he returns to a single conviction: that art, like a long-term investment, is not finished until someone else receives it.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr 1 min
June 11 The Doctor Is In: Dr. Greg Tumolo on Pets, People, and Practicing in Your Hometown
Norm is joined by Dr. Greg Tumolo of Rhinebeck Animal Hospital, a born-and-raised Rhinebecker who followed his father into veterinary medicine and never really left, except for 15 years in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he went to vet school, skied as much as possible, and eventually realized he wanted to come home.
The cover the practical to the philosophical: how Dr. Tumolo thinks about euthanasia as a gift rather than a burden; why he got certified in animal acupuncture; the corporate consolidation sweeping through the veterinary industry; his 25-foot sailboat Blue Mae (named for his daughters' middle names) at Norrie Point; and a famous patient: Rockefeller the owl, plucked from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and brought to Rhinebeck Animal Hospital for X-rays.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr
May 26 The Rhinecliff Cinephile Behind NYU's Cinema Studies: Dana Polan
Norm sits with Dana Polan, the Martin Scorsese Professor and Chair of the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies at NYU Tisch. The chat ranges across a lifetime of thinking seriously about American film.
Dana grew up in New York and Westchester, did his doctorate in France, and was later knighted by the French Ministry of Culture as a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts. He explains how cinema studies emerged from English departments in the 70s, why USC made its production students take film history (and why they usually came back grateful), and how a young teaching assistant named Martin Scorsese could remember individual shots from films he'd seen years earlier.
Dana explains the difference between a movie and a film, with Spielberg's own quote about Close Encounters as a starting point. Dana lays out the case for Scorsese as artist and Lucas as entertainer, the 80s backlash of hard-bodied masculinity in Die Hard and Rambo, the femme fatale in Double Indemnity and The Killers, and the way recent films like Barbie and Everything Everywhere All At Once try to have it every way at once. He makes the case for The Florida Project and the first Die Hard, pushes back gently on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as accidental pedagogy, and explains why Strangers on a Train was the film that made him realize movies were made on purpose, shot by shot.
Dana is currently co-writing Hoboken to Hollywood: The American Places of Frank Sinatra with Chuck Granata for Reaktion Books' Reverb series, and he shares stories from his Sinatra odysseys, including a tour of the Twin Palms bachelor pad in Palm Springs and a sobering evening in Las Vegas watching Sinatra's grandson perform in a no-gambling lounge.
Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org
Send comments to [email protected]
1 hr 2 min

About Correct me if I'm Norm

From the publisher's feed

“Correct Me if I’m Norm” is a good-natured, Rhinebeck (New York) focused, one-on-one (mostly) free-formish interview-format program, covering all topics from the personal to the universal. It’s hosted by Norm Magnusson, who is an artist and father of three and an active member of his community in the small town of Rhinebeck, NY. Every week, he interviews folks who live and/or work in Rhinebeck about who they are and how they got here and what they’re up to. “I’m very interested in collecting the stories of the people who made this town what it is and those who are continuing to do so”, he explains, adding that he’s deeply appreciative for all the people who come to the Nook @ The Epicurean to talk with him and thanks the Epicurean and RadioFreeRhinecliff.org for making it all possible.