Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

A new exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center entitled The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology explores the hidden histories and complex legacies of one of the most influential books in the field of anthropology, Franz Boas’s 1897 highly influential “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians.” Groundbreaking in its holistic detail, this portrait of a Native North American society was the result of Boas’s fieldwork with the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of British Columbia and collaboration with his Indigenous research partner, George Hunt. The exhibition—with includes designs by artist Corrine Hunt, a great-granddaughter of George Hunt—features ceremonial objects as well as rare archival photographs, manuscripts, and drawings that shed new light on the book and advance understanding of the ongoing cultural traditions it documents. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, the show’s curator Aaron Glass, associate professor at Bard, joins Corrine Hunt for a conversation on this important work in the early days of anthropology as we now know it.

Mandolin player and composer Andy Statman’s live performances defy all attempts at categorization. A Grammy nominee and recipient of grants from the NEA Fellowship and NY Council of the Arts, Andy has been the subject of features in The New York Times, NY Post, NY Daily News, Billboard, Rolling Stone, NPR, BBC, CNN, CBS, Village Voice and DownBeat and has performed at Carnegie Hall, The Town Hall, Lincoln Center, and The Met, as well as at major concert halls and festivals throughout the US, Europe, Canada, Japan and Israel. Percussionist Larry Eagle is a founding member of Bruce Springsteen’s Sessions Band. Their album “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” received a 2007 Grammy Award in the category of traditional folk music. He has also recorded with Odetta and John Legend. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Andy Statman and Larry Eagle perform some material live from their recent release “Monroe Bus,” paying homage to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe.

Because of our shared English language along with the celebrated origin tales of the Mayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the US has always prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in her book “El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America,” the nation has much older Spanish roots—ones that have long been unacknowledged and often marginalized. Join us for a conversation with Carrie Gibson on “El Norte” and the too often overlooked history that inspired it, in this edition on “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.

On January 12, 2018, Sam Woodward was arrested and charged with the murder of a former classmate, 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein.Police had found a knife stained with Blaze’s blood in Sam’s room, along with blood inside Sam’s car. Sam told police he had hung out with Blaze the night he disappeared. The story behind Blaze’s tragic death, as reported by Jonathan Krohn in his feature article for Mother Jones magazine “How a Gay Teen, an Internet Nazi, and a Late-Night Rendezvous Turned to Tragedy” (titled “Boy Meets Hate” in the print edition), is that of a boy driven by his white supremacist views and self-hatred over his own sexuality to take Blaze’s life. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Johnathan Krohn joins us to discuss the events recounted in his article.

Sandy Hanna’s autobiography “The Ignorance of Bliss: An American Kid in Saigon” recounts her experience of moving to Saigon, Vietnam when she was 10 years old, where her father served as a military advisor to the South Vietnamese Army. From the crushing poverty and extraordinary beauty that was Saigon in the 1960s, Sandy discovered a world of streets, villas and brothels, where politics and intrigue were the order of the day. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Sandy Hanna discusses reliving her unique childhood experience in “The Ignorance of Bliss.”

“When Antonio Espree was 16, he fatally shot an innocent bystander during a drug turf war near Detroit,” reads a passage from Samantha Michaels feature article in the latest issue of Mother Jones magazine. “The state sent him to die in prison. But in April 2017, he was paroled thanks to a series of Supreme Court decisions arguing that because their brains were not fully developed at the time of their crimes, kids should face more lenient sentences than adult perpetrators. The rulings, which took place between 2010 and 2016, have banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for teenagers, giving thousands of juvenile lifers around the country a shot at release.” In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Antonio Espree joins Samantha Michaels of Mother Jones for a conversation a discussion of what his life has been like returning from a life sentence.

Every week, from 1978–1979, The Village Voice brought a new installment of Mark Alan Stamaty’s uproarious, endlessly inventive strip “MacDoodle St.” Centering more or less on Malcolm Frazzle, a blocked poet struggling to complete his latest lyric for Dishwasher Monthly, Stamaty’s creation encompassed a dizzying array of characters, stories, jokes and digressions. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Mark Alan Stamaty talks about the process of turning his beloved strip into a graphic novel that New York Review Books calls “a thrilling, surprising, unexpectedly moving ode to art, life, and New York City.”

Did you know that you could fit the whole human race in the volume of a sugar cube? Or, that the electrical energy in a single mosquito is enough to cause a global mass extinction? Or that out there in the cosmos, there are an infinite number of copies of you reading an infinite number of copies of this? Marcus Chown’s book “Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand: Fifty Wonders That Reveal an Extraordinary Universe” is a mind-bending journey through some of the most weird and wonderful facts about our universe, vividly illuminating the hidden truths that govern our everyday lives. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Marcus Chown reveals some of the best-kept secrets in the universe.

Monona Rossol is a chemist, artist, and industrial hygienist. She was born into a theatrical family and worked as a professional entertainer from age 3 to 17. Currently, she is the president of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing health and safety services to the arts. Monona is also is the Health and Safety Director for Local 829 of the United Scenic Artists, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and has lectured throughout North America and Europe. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Monona talks about recent research on the health effects of vaping and tattoos and takes your calls.

In this edition of “Leonard Lopate” on WBAI, we explore what it’s like to dance for a master choreographer. Bettijane Sills and Elizabeth McPherson are the authors of “Broadway, Balanchine, and Beyond: A Memoir,” a behind-the-scenes look at the New York City Ballet during George Balanchine’s 35-years as artistic director. “Dancing with Merce Cunningham” is Marianne Preger-Simon’s captivating memoir of her lifelong creative collaboration and friendship with one of the choreographic geniuses of our time. Join us for a discussion of what it was like working with these two iconic choreographers of the 20th century.