“I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome, I took some comfort there,” wrote Paul Simon in “The Boxer.” That’s the theme of “Without the Cold,” the third track on the Nathans & Ronstadt album “Hello World.” Melancholy isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it can be a feeling of peace. That was the idea of Alan Jay Prescott, who contributed to a Nathans & Ronstadt Kickstarter campaign, with the reward of providing a concept for them to write a song around. In the end, Prescott was credited as a co-writer on “Without the Cold.” In this enlightening […]

Who was Dr. Morris Joelson? In this episode we revisit the life of a physician in Paterson, New Jersey who was famous for having delivered 20,000 babies during his lifetime. But Dr. Joelson (1885-1958) was also a beloved family doctor, willing to brave any weather to pay a house call, and if the family couldn’t afford it, not only would he refuse payment — he might just leave a little money under the ashtray. We interview Sally Hayman, Dr. Joelson’s granddaughter, who is a licensed clinical social worker (a therapist) living in Palo Alto, California. In this interview, she looks […]

Learning any new skill requires that scary first step. We’re honored to take our first step into podcasting with our guest Brian Kernighan, a groundbreaking computer scientist whose “Hello, World!” program reshaped the way people learned to program computers. If a budding coder can successfully input a few lines, they are rewarded with seeing “Hello, World!” on their screen, and suddenly they are on their way. It’s a metaphor for being brave enough to try something new, much like “Hot Cross Buns” serves as a piano player’s first learned piece. Brian’s program inspired the title track to our new album, […]