ThoughtCast®

ThoughtCast®

By Jenny AttiyehSociety & CultureArtsBooksPersonal Journals
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ThoughtCast® episodes

  • Roosevelt Island’s Octagon Tower: A Proud Ruin

    The Octagon Tower on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan was the city's first municipal insane asylum. Today it's a proud ruin, having survived partial demolition, fire and abandonment. And in a novel approach, the tower has been preserved in its dilapidated state. A reminder of its haunted history.

    4 min
  • Spring Fever

    This time of year, when the relieved earth shrugs off stale dirt and dead leaves, it pauses, recalling. Then, as it lets out a long, low breath, it slowly releases moisture, a glut of color. Everything is growing.

    But only for a spell, for soon enough the earth will turn, and then the relentless heat will shrivel these green thirsty things, and the ground will grow hard, and withdraw again.

    Click here: to listen (2:40 minutes).

    3 min
  • Garibaldi and Meucci: two friends, two very different lives

    https://youtu.be/WVlh-Ooi_u4?rel=0

    A small house on Staten Island tells the tale of the friendship between Guiseppe Garibaldi, the famed Italian revolutionary, and Antonio Meucci, a candle maker who just might have invented the telephone. Take a tour of the Garibaldi Meucci Museum with WNYC’s Jenny Attiyeh, on ThoughtCast!
    Click here to listen!

    4 min
  • Blacksmith House Poetry Series: Henri Cole and William Logan


    The Blacksmith House Poetry Series at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education has been bringing established and emerging poets to Harvard Square since its founding by Gail Mazur in 1973. The series is named after the Blacksmith House at 56 Brattle Street, site of the village smithy and the spreading chestnut tree of Longfellow’s 1839 poem “The Village Blacksmith.”
    On the evening of December 8, 2025, series director Andrea Cohen introduced Henri Cole, whose new book of poetry is called The Other Love, as well as William Logan, whose most recent collection is Rift of Light.
    This is the last poetry reading of the fall 2025 season.
    Click here: to listen.

    54 min
  • The Legendary Steinway Hall in Midtown Manhattan

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYg2AE4zcs

    This archival WNYC TV “Cultural Minute” takes a tour of the Steinway Store in Midtown Manhattan — which, unlike so many traditional city landmarks, is still in business. Watch to see how these famous pianos are actually built!

    4 min
  • Our American “Empire” with Niall Ferguson

    Note: This interview has been picked up by the public radio stations WGBH, in Boston, its affiliates WCAI and WNAN, and WCVE in Richmond, VA. It was originally broadcast in 2008.

    In some ways, the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson is the Russell Crowe of the academic world: charismatic, unconventional, and definitely controversial. He’s also a big fan of the British Empire — and wants the United States to follow in its footsteps. That means it’s our job to form colonies in hot climates, for years on end.

    But are we up for this? While Niall would like that to be the case, he doesn’t really think so, because, he says, we’re an empire “in denial” …
    Click here: to listen to a 4 minute excerpt.
    Click here: to listen to the entire interview (15:30 minutes).

    And to listen to this interview with Niall Ferguson on the WGBH Forum Network, click here!

    4 min
  • Blacksmith House Poetry Series: Fanny Howe and Haleh Liza Gafori


    The Blacksmith House Poetry Series at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education has been bringing established and emerging poets to Harvard Square since its founding by Gail Mazur in 1973. The series is named after the Blacksmith House at 56 Brattle Street, site of the village smithy and the spreading chestnut tree of Longfellow’s 1839 poem “The Village Blacksmith.”
    On the evening of May 5, 2025, series director Andrea Cohen introduced Fanny Howe, author of Night Philosophy and a reader from the first Blacksmith House reading in 1973, and also Haleh Liza Gafori, whose most recent translation of Rumi is Water.
    This is the last poetry reading of the spring 2025 season.
    Click here: to listen.

    43 min
  • The Restoration of the Neptune Fountain

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21byLfOrwpk?rel=0

    At the Modern Art Foundry in Astoria Queens, workers restore the Neptune Fountain, which was missing its hands, an arm and a foot. The statue, which spouted water in Snug Harbor on Staten Island, has been returned to its former home. Watch how these expert craftsmen brought it back to life!

    Note: This program was broadcast in the mid 1990s on the PBS station, WNYC.
    Click here to listen!

    2 min
  • Tom Perrotta on Flannery O’Connor — a literary affinity

    Note: This interview was broadcast on the WGBH sister stations WCAI/WNAN, and also on KUT, in Austin, Texas!

    Tom Perrotta, author of the novels Mrs. Fletcher, Little Children, Election, The Abstinence Teacher and The Leftovers, speaks with ThoughtCast about a writer who fascinates, irritates and inspires him: Flannery O’Connor.


    His relationship with her borders on kinship, and he admires and admonishes her as he would a family member, with whom he shares a bond both genetic and cultural.
    When asked to choose a specific piece of writing that’s had a significant impact on him, Tom chose O’Connor’s short story Good Country People, but then he threw in two others — Everything that Rises Must Converge and Revelation. As Tom explains, these three stories chart O’Connor’s careful trajectory, her unique vision, and her genius.
    Click here (30 minutes) to listen!

    This interview is the second in a new ThoughtCast series which examines a specific piece of writing — be it a poem, play, novel, short story, work of non-fiction or scrap of papyrus — that’s had a significant influence on the interviewee, that’s shaped and moved them.

    Up next: Harvard Classicist Gregory Nagy on Homer’s Iliad, and the final, fatal battle between Hector and Achilles.

    30 min

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