Jad Abumrad: The Space Between the Brains

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Humans with Hank Green

Episode: Jad Abumrad: The Space Between the Brains

Date: July 2, 2026
Guest: Jad Abumrad (creator of Radiolab, Dolly Parton's America, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man)
Host: Hank Green

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Hank Green sits down with legendary audio storyteller Jad Abumrad. They explore the artistic process behind Jad’s celebrated audio work, what makes good audio storytelling, the relationship between science and humanity, perfectionism, creative risk, the evolution of podcasting, and the magic—sometimes literally—found in curiosity and connection. Their conversation is thoughtful, occasionally self-deprecating, and serves as both a masterclass on creativity and a meditation on what it means to “know” something.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Abumrad Style – Storytelling, Music, and Editing

• Unique “Voice” in Editing:
  • Hank notes that Jad’s productions are recognizable even without his voice. Jad explains this is due to an integrated view of music and editing as part of “voice” (03:21).
  • Jad credits experimental radio influences (e.g., Ken Nordeen) for treating words like musical objects. He feels he “finds the music” in editing, rather than in-the-moment conversation:

    “I just think…me in conversation doesn’t get to the music that I know could exist.” — Jad (05:46)

• Musicality as Fundamental:
  • They riff on how both individually and as a species, we may have sung before we spoke (06:31–08:33).
  • Music, emotion, and meaning are deeply intertwined; conversation and speech have musical elements.

Pop Music, Genre, and the State of Audio

• Music Snobbery & Tools Over People:
  • Jad doesn’t keep up with the Top 40 and finds modern pop “too much about the tools and not enough about the people” (12:09).

    “I hear the tools a little too loudly and don’t hear the people. A lot of trap, a lot of modern... it’s the same box, the same samples.” — Jad (12:21)

• Genre Policing vs. Liberation:
  • He contrasts past music with today’s genre fluidity, linking changes to YouTube and social media, seeing it as both liberating and slightly melancholy for “scene”-based creativity (14:07–15:15).

Early Radio Days and The Birth of Radiolab

• Finding a Creative Voice:
  • Radiolab started obscure and unformed, influenced by old radio documentary tapes and community radio (16:39–19:37).
  • Jad tells stories of working odd jobs at WNYC, meeting Robert Krulwich, and stumbling into the right partnerships by following creative curiosity and “just having breakfast” (18:54–21:09).
  • Flag Day Piece Rejection:
    • Radiolab’s earliest collaboration was rejected by Ira Glass on This American Life. Jad describes this formative defeat:

      “My career is over.” — Jad (25:54)

    • The piece “was offensive” in its unconventionality at the time (23:52).

Creative Struggle, Perfectionism, and Getting “Good”

• The Gap Between Taste and Ability:
  • Hank and Jad reflect on the gap between what you can imagine and what you can create (34:26).

    “You’re standing in the gap between who you will be and who you are now… you can see who you will be in some fuzzy way. You have to collapse that distance.” — Jad (34:26)

• Intrinsic Motivation:
  • Despite little feedback, the pleasure of making itself fueled Jad’s persistence (37:11). Eventually, "good enough" became a functional concept in his 40s (38:05).

    “The making of a thing has always felt like life or death… with each new thing, I can stand apart and realize, okay, that’s good enough.” — Jad (38:45)

Crafting Audio – Perfection, Audience, and Empathy

• Perfection vs. Proliferation:
  • Jad grapples with perfectionism, accepting that sometimes “all the other creative kids” (projects) need to be fed—so the pursuit of perfect can’t always rule (41:14).
• Balancing the Market and Joy:
  • He urges reserving part of creative life for personal joy, not for the market or audience (37:46).

Picking Stories & The Role of Audio

• Project Selection:
  • Jad discusses the deeply researched, sound-driven “Fela Kuti: Fear No Man” series—created knowing it wouldn’t draw mass immediate audiences, but would have a “long fat tail” and be there for people when “they’re ready” (45:29).
• Production vs. Conversation:
  • While highly produced work offers emotional depth, sometimes people want lighter, conversation-driven listening. Both have value in creating a “healthy media diet” (43:53–45:04).

Interviewing Across Cultures; The Gift of Otherness

• Journalistic Responsibility:
  • Jad, a Lebanese-American, feels he approaches stories as an outsider and prizes the vantage this gives him (46:48). He seeks to be sensitive and thorough, with help from local experts.

    “Owning the position of outsider… as much as we talk about the danger of othering, it’s in our differences where we have great gifts for one another.” — Jad (47:01)

  • Multiple, repeated interviews allow for depth and trust (49:47). His work with Dolly Parton involved a dozen in-depth conversations.

Dolly Parton’s Genius and the Limits of Knowing

• Complex Understanding of Power:
  • Jad describes Dolly as a “unicorn,” with an almost invisible but masterful command of communication and charisma (52:04–55:31).
• The Illusion of Knowing:
  • Despite hours of interviews, “I don’t know that I really know her... She creates the feeling of knowing without…” (52:48).

Science, Wonder, and Human Connection

• Science + Humanities:
  • For Jad, Radiolab is “science for poets,” marrying objective and intersubjective (between people) truth (58:41, 58:41–61:09).

    “You go from a person thinking truth-telling is lining up facts… but there’s also the intersubjective, which says truth is between us. Radiolab tried to marry the objective with the intersubjective.” — Jad (58:41)

• The Space Between Brains:
  • They linger on the idea that the relationship “between two brains” is as complex and mysterious as the individual brain itself (61:17–61:59).

Artificial Intelligence – Utility and Exploitation

• AI for Teams, Anxiety for Creators:
  • Jad admits AI is occasionally useful but views large language models as the “greatest transfer of value in human history,” appropriating individual labor for corporate gain (62:38–63:37).

    “It feels to me like one of the biggest transfers of values in human history.” — Jad (63:26)

• Limits of Optimism:
  • Both feel that the current information and AI revolutions are overwhelming for ordinary humans, and that “no one wanted fake video as a feature” (64:04–66:17).

Faith in “the Humans”

• Young People and the Future:
  • Interactions with students at Vanderbilt give Jad hope; young people want meaning and impact, though the “jury is still out on the humans” (66:49–67:57).

Magic, Mystery, and Re-enchantment

• Science Disenchantment & Re-Enchantment:
  • Jad believes the “problem with science is it disenchants the world,” so his work aims for “re-enchantment,” wonder, and noticing the miraculous in the mundane (68:19–71:00).

    "Believing in magic… is about becoming re-enchanted." — Jad (69:09)

• Wondrous Ordinary:
  • Noticing the marvel of indoor plumbing, the sun, or a flower after catastrophe are choices we can make, and doing so is “politically crucial to a healthy civic body” (71:00–72:24).

Lessons Learned – Just Start Searching

• What Jad Wishes He’d Known:
  • Jad hopes people understand they don’t need to know everything to start; the important thing is to “commit to the search” (72:33).

    “I wish I had known that I didn’t need to know things. Just commit to the search, and that’s all that matters.” — Jad (72:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On editing as music (03:21):
  “When I think of my voice, it includes editing… the music of the cut underneath the voice.”
• On musical roots of humanity (06:31):
  “I do think that we sing before we talk… the architecture of music is deeper than the words.”
• On creative frustration (05:46):
  “Me in conversation doesn’t get to the music that I know could exist.”
• On finding a scene (15:22):
  “Brooklyn… was lousy with podcasters.”
• On outsider perspective (47:01):
  “As much as we talk about the danger of othering, it is in our differences where we have great gifts for one another.”
• On Dolly Parton’s power (55:31): "She leaves with this incredible act of kindness, but also insisting on her own power."
• On creative motivation (34:26):
  "You're standing in the gap between who you will be and who you are now. You have to collapse that distance."
• On artistic joy (37:11):
  "There is something about... even before the audience, the basic joy of just doing a thing."
• On evolving perfectionism (38:45):
  “The making of a thing has always felt like life or death, but with each new thing, I can stand apart and just be like, okay, that’s good enough.”
• On intersubjective truth (58:41):
  "Radiolab tried to marry the objective with the intersubjective."
• On AI and value (63:26):
  “One of the biggest transfers of values in human history.”
• On why science loses people (69:53):
  “Science loses people because... it explains away the magic. We have to re-enchant ourselves to the world.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:21] – The Abumrad style: sound, voice, editing, and musicality
• [12:09] – Discussion on modern pop music and musical tools
• [16:39] – Early Radiolab: finding collaborators, starting out
• [23:38] – The infamous Flag Day segment and being rejected by Ira Glass
• [34:26] – The “gap” between taste and ability; creative perseverance
• [38:45] – The struggle and acceptance of “good enough”
• [47:01] – Outsider perspective as journalistic superpower
• [55:31] – Dolly Parton, power, and the genius of understated communication
• [58:41] – Marrying science and poetry; intersubjective truth
• [62:38] – AI's creative risks/rewards and ethical concerns
• [66:49] – Faith in humanity, young people, and the “jury still out”
• [68:19] – The importance of mystery and re-enchantment in science and life
• [72:33] – Jad’s biggest lesson: you don’t need to “know”—just search

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Tone, Language, and Flow

• The conversation is warm, deeply curious, sometimes self-deprecating, but always respectful and reflective. Both Hank and Jad use metaphor, music, and humor to explore big questions, but keep their insights practical and grounded.
• Memorable stories and concrete moments (such as the breakfast with Robert Krulwich, repeated interviews with Dolly Parton, and dealing with rejection) highlight universal creative struggles—making the dialogue both masterful and relatable.
• Throughout, their exchange underscores a hunger for meaning, joy in curiosity, and the belief that we can (and must!) create new ways to “enchant” each other with truth, art, and connection.

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For listeners and creators alike, this episode is a treasure trove on the creative process, the evolution of media, the persistent mystery of human connection, and the deep power of curiosity-driven storytelling.

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Transcript

[A]

This is humans.

[B]

Humans. Humans.

[A]

Humans. Humans. Humans.

[B]

Humans.

[A]

I'm Hank Green. Radiolab was the first podcast I ever loved. I remember putting on my headphones and just wandering around my neighborhood, letting the show's creators, Robert Krulwich and Jada Bumrod, teach me things, tell stories, and always, without fail, surprise me. But Jada Bumrad seems to have a knack for surprise, but not just in the stories he tells, but in the way he thinks and in the way that he has moved through a career that has, to me, always seemed a little bit restless. What grabbed me about his work was not that it was smart. Plenty of things are smart. But it felt alive and full of curation and choice, and this is all kind of storytelling. What I loved was the stories. Jad's work is curious and it's open to being challenged by what it finds. And these stories make the world feel stranger and bigger and more worth paying attention to. And that was a big deal for me. So much explanatory work, which is often the work that I do, can feel like it's flattening, the thing that it wants you to care about, while Jad's work often does the opposite. If you want to tell a science story, you don't usually end up with a conversation about managing an elderly patient's bedsores. But the way that Radiolab did, science communication demanded that understanding and feeling were not enemies. And maybe the best stories do both at once. That spirit is central to Jad's work, and it's carried through many remarkable projects, like Dolly Parton's America and Felakuti Fear no Man, which, if you haven't listened to that, why not? They're literally free and better than any other audio you might be currently listening to, including this interview. There's a sensibility underneath all of this and a Jada Boomrad ness that just isn't like anything else that's ever been made. And not just in style, though. Certainly in style, but also in what stories he wants to tell or wants to hear or wants us to hear. I don't know which of those things. I'm very interested in people who seem to have built an internal compass for what's worth noticing. People who can make something careful and surprising in a world that often rewards fast and easy. But also, I'm starting an interview show, so I want to talk to somebody who's really good at interviews. Jada Bumrad, thank you for coming on, Humans.

[B]

My God, thank you for having me. And what a wonderful, lovely introduction.

[A]

I wonder if you Agree with all of it.

[B]

I. I'll, you know.

[A]

Do you think you're awesome?

[B]

Is the question. That's a tough question, Nick. I don't know. I'm like, you and I are talking. I'm a big fan of your work, and so that you would read the introduction makes me believe it a little bit more than if anyone else did.

[A]

So I also have that reaction when people say nice things. It's hard to be like, well, I think you're wrong when I.

[B]

Well, I mean, as you know, it never feels like all the things you say never feel that way from the inside. You always feel lost and stumbly and, like, not sure what you're doing for sure.

[A]

I hope that the podcast producers of the world will forgive me for saying this, but I think that most podcasts that I listen to, if you asked me who edited it or who produced it, I would be like, I don't know. But if it was something that you did, even if it did not have your voice in it, I'd be like, well, that was Jad. I am curious what you think led to that.

[B]

Ah, well, it's funny, when I think of my voice, it includes editing. Right. It includes the. The music of the cut underneath the voice.

[A]

Perhaps we should say that you're a music producer as well.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And also when you are producing, there is a relationship between music and spoken words often in your work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where those things are becoming the same and they're blending between each other in a way that. I don't know, you know more about this than me, but it doesn't feel like anybody else does.

[B]

Well, have you ever. So when I first started Radiolab, I was given a box of old radio, like, experimental radio from the 60s through the 80s. Have you ever heard Ken Nordeen?

[A]

No, Dad, I have not.

[B]

So you would enjoy him. So he made an album called Colors, and it's like a series of. I don't even know what you would call it. Like, beat poet riffs on the different colors. Blue, yellow, chartreuse, whatever. He has, like, these little things. And if you listen to Ken Nordeen, that's a guy who is speaking, but he's treating the words like musical objects. Right. So I remember listening to him and a lot of the people, you know in the history of radio who had that gift, and I remember really wanting that. But when I just talked about, I never tell the story the right way. I always sort of stop when I should lean in and I zag when I should zip. Like, it doesn't Come out the way that I can hear that it should. And so I find the voice in the edit, I can sort of find those musical relationships.

[A]

You know, that's really the thing is having an understanding of what you want something to sound like. Do you feel a little bit like when you're in an interview situation, you're interviewing people? Do you feel a little bit like this is not as beautiful as it could be if only God could put his foot on the pedal?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a wild thought. Constantly. Constantly. So, like, Robert was my partner through most of Radio Lab, and he had that weird gift where he could sit down with a person and in the moment, create music.

[A]

Like, just the way that he speaks.

[B]

Just the way that he speaks. The way that he kind of leans into what a person is saying. It's like you can feel this little bubble being created.

[A]

Gotcha.

[B]

Around us.

[A]

It's not that you think all human communication could be more musical. It's that you think you're not doing.

[B]

I just think that me, I'm a socially awkward guy, and me in conversation doesn't get to the music that I know could exist.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know. That sentence there was really lovely.

[B]

Oh, okay. Thank you. I mean, I will hear a thing and be like, ooh, that. That's got some fizzy energy in it. If you stick me in a dark room with Pro Tools and some plugins, I could do something with that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm not the kind of person that could do that in the moment. But there are. There are those people, you know, who just speak. Those people, for me, are like magic.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're like aliens. They can make it happen in the moment.

[A]

I mean, audio is an interesting medium. Do you have any thoughts? It's not in my notes here. Do you have any thoughts on why I always have a song in my head?

[B]

Why you always have a song in your head? I have the same. The same. I don't know. I do think that we sing before we talk. It's a more primal thing. Babies are singing before they're actually speaking. We've all had the experience where a person is losing their memory and slipping into dementia. But they can still sing the songs, Right? Like, that's the last thing that goes. Like, somehow the architecture of that music is deeper than the words. So maybe that's why, like, our brain is actually modeled for song more than it is for speech.

[A]

When you were saying that we sing before we talk, were you talking about individuals or about humans as a whole?

[B]

I Was just thinking about babies.

[A]

Okay. Because I was thinking about humans as a whole. But like, that could also be true because certainly birds sing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They don't talk.

[B]

I mean, it's the same thing for them.

[A]

Will's definitely sing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they perhaps talk.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there. If they do, then singing is there talking. Yeah. So I, like, I'm thinking now because of course, language didn't always exist. There was a time when our ancestors had none of it. And there was a time when they had, like, increasingly useful, complex versions of it. That I'm sure was a long spectrum. Not something that happened one day. But the idea that music was. I don't know why this is a very, like, Hank Green problem, but I would never think that music would be a part of that process or that singing. I don't know if music is the right word, but singing would be a part of that process. But of course it was. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, if you think about sort of the. If we can make up a story of the first humans who had to communicate, it was probably gestural language of shouts and coos and various things. Which is closer to music than words. Right. Like, you know how curse words have a very primal pre language thing to them? It was probably closer to that.

[A]

Like a noise punch.

[B]

Yeah, noise punch.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Can I digress? Oh, you like a good digression. Right. There's this guy, Herbert Spencer, who was a contemporary of Darwin maybe a little bit after, he had a terrible idea, which is that Darwinian natural selection could be applied to the social world.

[A]

Sure, yeah.

[B]

Which is social Darwinism, which is a horrible idea. But one of his good ideas was that if you took the words that we used and you stripped away the actual meaning and the phonemes that create the words and you boiled it down, what you would actually have is music. He called speech a form of amplified music in a way which I sort of like, because it's like when we're hearing words, we're actually also hearing music underneath the words. Right.

[A]

There's definitely rhythm to it. There's accent and there's pitch.

[B]

There's sort of like glides up and down and there's staccato and there's cadences. These are all musical objects.

[A]

This is not something I've thought about.

[B]

I remember, like studying in music school, there was this whole category of composers called the gesturalists, which. And they simply made motifs that went like. These things have inherent meaning. Right. If you go up, that means something. If you fall down, it means something. And I Bet the first communication. We're just using our voices to do that.

[A]

You know, the reality of musical. I've always been very confused by this, but the reality of, like, music having feeling innate, like, to the human, that, like, you can play me a minor chord and I'll be like, sad. Play me a major chord. I'm, like, happy. Like, what? How is that a thing? And also these chords are mathematical. That also bugs me when it's like. It's whole number ratios is what matters.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Get out of here. That can't be a thing. How does my brain know that, like, you multiply 220 by two and feels good. And it's just the number of oscillations per second in the air. I just feel like there's more stuff that we don't know about the brain than there is any anything else.

[B]

Yeah, completely. But I don't know that mine are always as sad, though. I think that.

[A]

Sorry, I apologize.

[B]

No, no. But that. That part of it, I do feel like is a. Is a. That's where it comes from.

[A]

Is there a cultural construction there?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You listen to a Dolly Parton song, though, and be like, that's that song. You don't have to speak English.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Especially her early stuff.

[A]

That's what. Yeah, that's.

[B]

But a lot of sad songs are now over major chords. That's a thing that you hear a lot.

[A]

I believe you.

[B]

You know, I don't know. It's like. It's like sad and happy at the same time.

[A]

Yeah. How's music?

[B]

How's music?

[A]

Yeah. In the world right now. How are we doing?

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

How do you find popular music to beat right now?

[B]

Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna answer the question.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But also tell you first caveat by saying, I have no business answering this question. It's sort of a joke in my family that I. I don't listen to popular music.

[A]

Oh, Bill.

[B]

I listen to really weird music. But we drive down Flatbush in Brooklyn and there's the Paramount Theater that just opened, and on the marquee, they'll always have the band at the moment.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's kind of a joke where every time I'm like, oh, who's that? And then I'll just immediately look it up and listen to it. That is my one connection to popular music is whatever band happens to be playing at the Paramount on any given day.

[A]

Novels in top 40 radio.

[B]

I do not. When I go to get groceries, I will hear it.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I don't have a high opinion of most pop music. And I don't say that as a music snob.

[A]

You do say it as a music snob, kind of. You do everything you do, you do as a music snob.

[B]

I mean, kind of. But I also like really like, low brow stuff.

[A]

Sure. Okay.

[B]

I grew up on hair metal and like a lot of bad music. Good bad music.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know. You know, there's some way in which the. I hear the tools a little too loudly and I don't hear the people. So a lot of trap, a lot of like modern. Like I hear the hi hat samples and I hear the kick samples and I'm like, this is the same box. We're all drawing the same samples. I'm like, use a different kick sample. I mean, that's a very specific way to hear. But that's where my brain goes. Cause I can hear the different pieces of what makes a lot of this music. Cause I make music and I'm like, you got just be more creative in the ingredients.

[A]

So this is my wife's complaint about how every movie always has one of four Chrises in it. And so you're like, every song has one or four kick drums in it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the reason why every movie has one of these four Chrises in it is because we're comfortable with that Chris. We like that Chris.

[B]

Wait, you mean like a Chris person?

[A]

Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth. There's just a lot of these Chrises.

[B]

Yeah, they're sort of middle of the road Chrises. Yeah.

[A]

I feel very mean to Chrises suddenly. But they all do sort of seem like a little bit the same.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Guy. I think that there's a certain amount of we're going for broad that I worry about. But at the same time, I think that underneath the broad. So like we've got this big broad, like Chapel Run, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift thing. I'm sure that there's a bunch of people in that world that I'm not mentioning, but I just feel like right now in the weeds, it's better than it's ever been.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

There's so much weird stuff that's being made right now.

[B]

So as a curmudgeonly old person.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it is my sort of generational right to criticize all of the youth culture. I actually do find that Instagram is really great for this. All the weirdos somehow bubble up and pass briefly in front of my. And I've discovered a lot of really strange music.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The music of Now. They're not as concerned about genre as we were coming up.

[A]

True.

[B]

You know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I grew up in a world of genre policing. There were the jazz police. There were the classical police. They were the, like, the techno police.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the 14 different sub genres of techno. Each had a police person.

[A]

And now you've got, like, hip hop, hyper pop, and you're like.

[B]

Yeah. You're like, what is that?

[A]

How could that be a thing?

[B]

That is completely a product of the YouTube age.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, like, you see, like, these people who are just like, obscenely talented drummers or piano players, and clearly they. They learned on YouTube. And it's sort of beautiful and liberating in a way, although it makes me a tiny bit sad. Again, this is the old person talking, because when we were coming up, you followed these bands and they were like, there was a story.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and there was a scene. There was a scene.

[A]

Do you feel like you came up in a scene? Like a. Like, at wnyc Scene was not.

[B]

It was. Sounds so quaint. But maybe, maybe, maybe it was a scene. I mean, certainly Brooklyn. Brooklyn. And podcasting. It was lousy with podcasters. I remember literally walking down the street and then somebody.

[A]

I just realized that that phrase comes from the word louse.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Like, it was a bunch of lice. It was lousy with podcasters.

[B]

Brooklyn was infested with podcasters full of

[A]

podcast men, little white men. Lice.

[B]

Yeah. They have been deloused at this point, though. Yeah.

[A]

That's the assertion. Kind of gentrification. The podcast movement. Anyway. Yes.

[B]

So, yes, it was.

[A]

What year was this?

[B]

This would have been aughts, maybe.

[A]

Okay. Because now everywhere is lousy with podcasters. But that.

[B]

But it's. I mean, the word has shifted and changed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It means something different than it did. I think it was somehow in the COVID era, where a lot of celebrities were like, ooh, this is how we can be heard. And then the venture capitalists were like, here's the money. And that really changed and opened it in some really good ways. So I'm not just. Again, sure.

[A]

That's good stuff. So arts Brooklyn.

[B]

Arts Brooklyn. That was a scene.

[A]

Were you just out of school then?

[B]

Yeah, I got out of school in 95.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think that was the year. So back in the Stone Age, I piddled around New York and did various jobs for about four years and then wandered in the side doors into radio at a community radio station first. And then I graduated to wnyc. And then I happened to be in the halls when they shifted and changed the entire station. This is in the wake of 911 and Radiolab was born far, far too early for me, like way before I was ready. But there was an opportunity and I just stepped into it and I learned on the go.

[A]

I listened to this talk that you give at Oberlin, which I'm worried you're gonna.

[B]

Oberlin? Were you. You were at a. I wasn't there. You were not a secret Obie, were you?

[A]

No.

[B]

We have many operatives in the field. And I was like, are you part of the tribe?

[A]

No, no, no. I was like, why does he look at me like that?

[B]

I was like, I knew I liked you.

[A]

No, you've never heard of my school. Okay, so you give this talk at Oberlin with Robert where you share the first thing that you and Robert ever made together. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[B]

This would be the Flag Day piece.

[A]

The Flag Day piece.

[B]

Yes. Yes.

[A]

So Ira Glass had said, we want to do this show that's like. It's like an hour long, but everything is two minutes long inside of it. And so produce a two minute long thing. And you produce this two minute long thing that has all of the fingerprints of Radiolab, but no direction like that. It's pointing in. And so it was just sort of like mocking something that wasn't really. Like. If I could try and extract a vision from it. It's. We're making fun of a record from the 1960s that's about how to treat the American fl.

[B]

Yeah. So it was a strange genesis of

[A]

that piece, it sounds like, to me. Can I guess? Two guys giggled about a dumb thing and they were like, we gotta make this kind of.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was also just the strange genius of Robert Krolwich. And I was sort of new, and he was not new. He had been doing radio and tv. He was part of the cohort that invented National Public Radio and then had gone on to have a TV career. And for some reason, he and I started playing and working together and.

[A]

I have to interrupt. I'm sorry. For some reason, you're a young guy. This is this legend in the field. How the heck do you guys start hanging out all the time?

[B]

Well. Cause I had. Do you want the long story or the short story or the medium story?

[A]

I want to know if you did it on purpose.

[B]

No, no, no. It was fate bringing us together. So I had created Radiolab. It was. Existed on a. In the backwaters of the AM schedule.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

a time on Sunday night where. Where no one was Listening. And that is quite.

[A]

Was it literally science focused?

[B]

No, no. Remember I was telling you that I had a box of CDs of old, old radio and Ken Nordeen was in there at that point. It was literally just play documentaries from around the world. I would beg, borrow, and steal old work from producers and I just would put it on and I would talk between them.

[A]

Oh, gotcha.

[B]

So there was no science at all. But I was starting to kind of get curious about science because my parents are scientists. And it felt it was an interesting time in the development of like fmris and that technology and neurosciences and all that. But around that time, I would sort of do odd jobs for the station to justify my existence in Radiolab because nobody was listening. And one of the things they had me do was go out and record 30 second spots with various luminaries in the New York media scene. He was on the list. And I remember the first time I walked into his office, I handed him a script that I had written and he like just kind of glanced at him. He was like, no, I'm not saying that. Put it down. And then he like wrote some crazy thing. This would be a pattern that would repeat anytime I tried to hand him a script. Yeah, I was just like, this guy's really interesting. We started talking, we realized we both went to Oberlin, both worked for a second at National Public Radio and wvai, which is the community station where I started. And we just had all these parallels. And so I took a chance the next day and I was like, would you have breakfast sometime? So we just started having breakfast.

[A]

And you wanted to have breakfast with Robert Krolich?

[B]

Just cause he seemed like a really interesting guy who knew the way the media world worked. Just the most talented, smartest human I've ever met in my life.

[A]

I mean, I'm so like, obviously that's like a life changing relationship.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I don't know how those start, but it does seem a little bit like asking someone to go get breakfast isn't a little thing.

[B]

It wasn't. But we both recognized, like, this is weird. We have all these parallels.

[A]

And because you both went to Oberlin, it's like a.

[B]

It's like a shorthand and yeah, I should have lied.

[A]

You should have been like, yeah, whatever that is.

[B]

Listen, you're already an honorary obi.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In my heart.

[A]

Okay. But I went to Oberlin in New York.

[B]

I forget where we landed.

[A]

I just.

[B]

Oh, yeah, breakfast, breakfast. Yeah, it felt natural. Robert's not as scary. He's not One of those scary legends. He's like a very curious, open legend. And he. So we had breakfast, and then one day he heard a thing I had made on the radio. And he was like, let's make some stuff together. It was somewhere around there where the Flag Day thing happened.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We hadn't really yet made anything of consequence. And then Ira was like, do you guys have anything? He said it to Robert, not to me. And I was like, ira Glass is the greatest radio maker. I was like, this is my chance. And we made this thing. And I just had just happened to hear an old 60s record of how to treat the flag.

[A]

You just happened to hear it?

[B]

No, I mean, somebody has a weird

[A]

thing to have heard.

[B]

Somebody had sent me this really hilarious audio from. From a 1960s book about how to properly greet the flag. You know, which hand to put over which side, what.

[A]

Northwest streets.

[B]

Northwest. And, like, there are many flags. In what sequence do you salute them? And yada, yada. We just thought it was so funny.

[A]

Yeah. According to the law, our flag should always be raised briskly. Faster, Johnny, faster. Hey, Mom, I'm trying. And to the very peak of the statue. When the flag is displayed over the middle of a street, it should be suspended vertically with the union to the north on an east west street. Excuse me. Or to the east on a north south street. Does that street run east west? I think it runs east west, but I'm not. It has run east west since I was north south since I've been a kid. Mark? Yes, Eddie? I got the American flag, the police regimental flag, and I got eight thumbtacks. Now what should I do? You put up both of them, Eddie, but you got to listen to the man.

[B]

So. Yeah. So we ended up making this thing. And Ira, famously, he didn't just hate it. Apparently him and his staff had multiple meetings about how much they hated this piece.

[A]

When did you find that out?

[B]

Well, that was later. I mean, I have since become friends with him. And he confessed. He was like, yeah, we really. We really hated that.

[A]

We hated it so much that we all, like, hung out to talk about how bad it was. The way you hung out to talk

[B]

about it, it wasn't just bad. It was somehow offensive to them.

[A]

I mean, I listened to it twice because of how visceral Ira's reaction to it was. Because when I heard it, when you guys played it, I was like, that's fine. Like it's overwrought. It's like they put way too much into it.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's overcooked.

[A]

But then the way that. How much he hated it. I was like, what is he seeing that I'm not seeing? It seems like two minutes of goof.

[B]

Well, exactly. And this is the thing. When you hear it now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In light of Radiolab and its history, you're like, oh, yeah, that's those guys doing what they do. But at that point, there wasn't a

[A]

lot of people doing that. Robert Krulwich pretending to be a 10 year old boy.

[B]

Yeah. And I have to tell you, Hank, watching Robert Krulwich in the studio conjure other characters is a truly magical experience. I remember that session because we were like, Robert, we need to make a crowd, so can you just be other people? And he starts like he was a boy talking to a woman, then he would become the woman and then he would become an old person yelling across the room. And I was like, this is amazing. This is the most theatrical thing I've ever seen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think it was too theatrical for Ira, you know?

[A]

You know, it didn't get accepted for the thing. Did you feel rejected?

[B]

Oh, very.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I.

[A]

It's two minutes.

[B]

It's two minutes, but it's like to get on Iris show.

[A]

No, I mean, it's two minutes. It feels like you should like, what's the big deal? Just put it on. You know, you need a bunch of these. It's Robert Krulwich.

[B]

You reminded me. One of the things that Ira said to us when he rejected us was, you know, who you lost to.

[A]

He said this in the moment.

[B]

He said this to. He and Robert were friends and so they could jokingly have this conversation. I was mortified, but he's like, I had a two minute passage of water going over scallops, just the sound of. And you couldn't even beat them.

[A]

Just asmr. Yeah, like beach ASMR beat the thing that you guys probably spent two weeks on.

[B]

I was like, oh, God, my career is over. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. How bad did that hurt?

[B]

I mean, it was. It was funny, you know, at that point, like, I really didn't know if anything, if I had any ideas that would go anywhere.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So I do. It did feel like a little pebble on the scale towards fail Fail. You know, I do remember that feeling.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it was also. It was a small. It was like not, you know, there's a lot of.

[A]

There were other things going on and you had this new friendship with Robert Crowley.

[B]

But at that point, I do remember, like the show was Marooned in This space where no one was hearing it. And I was like, this feels like an opportunity that you only get once and it's going nowhere.

[A]

How long do you think you were bad at making radio?

[B]

I was thinking it was bad for a long time. I'm having a tree of thought.

[A]

Yeah, I can see it.

[B]

I was like, there's so many flavors of bad, some of which persist. But I think what you are referring to is like, the early bad. Right.

[A]

Well, I mean, what I really mean is, is like, how long were you making stuff that you. That you look back on now and

[B]

you're like, you know, the first. I would say the first three years.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, there's so many things to figure out. Just like, what story is interesting to you? Like this thing. Right. Like, how do you talk into this thing in a way that. Where you're still yourself? I mean, it's interesting now with like, podcasting becoming such a cultural part of our language. I just think people wander into these situations knowing how to talk into a mic because they've seen it so much. I didn't have that. So, like, knowing how to be yourself. That took me forever. I mean, I would literally sit in the studio and record myself saying simple things on the script. And every time it would be like another voice coming out. Right. Like some other voice that I had heard.

[A]

You can't edit them together. Cause they're different guys.

[B]

Yeah. And I'd have to, like, just exhaust that until like an hour in, I could finally hear myself. But I think the moment I heard something that I felt was good, you know, it was really actually at the moment when Radiolab was gonna go away, like, so that early phase station manager came to me and he was like, all right, so this little art project of yours is not working out. Let's put it aside. I do have this. Wagner's Ring cycle is coming to town, which I'd like to make a documentary about it.

[A]

I don't know what that is, so

[B]

this is good because I didn't either. I had heard of Wagner, classical composer. I thought the Ring cycle, sure, I'll make a documentary about the Ring cycle. I was thinking it was like a one hour opera or something. It is five, no, four operas, each of which are about four or five hours. Whoa. It tries to encompass thousands of years of German mythology. And he intended it to be the work of art that ended art. He was like, after this art is done, we don't. We don't need art anymore. And so, like, I didn't.

[A]

We don't have guys like that anymore.

[B]

No, I mean, the bombast, the level of ambition and people worship, like people in that world worship the Ring cycle. It is like the. The urtext of that art form, and I knew nothing about it. I ended up getting into that process and having a lot of rude awakenings along the way to the extent that I. I, like, I still have PTSD from that production process. Like, there's three or four nights where I wasn't sleeping. I remember, like, not being able to, like, type the script because the words were like, kind of dancing on.

[A]

Why were you. Why were you so in?

[B]

So I had two people who are opera buffs editing me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is a series of operas with 50 something characters. And just to describe it would take the entire hour and they wouldn't let me leave anyone out.

[A]

And also, presumably, like, you had your thing canceled? Have you canceled this new thing assigned? And you're like, well, if they don't

[B]

do good at this, this is. This was my test.

[A]

Was this freelance?

[B]

Kind of, yeah. I mean, all of early radio lab was technically freelance.

[A]

Gotcha.

[B]

I was being paid sometimes. Anyhow, long story short, I got through it. I remember hearing it on the radio weeks after the deadline and thinking, huh. I sort of like that guy. I like that whole feel because what I heard was somebody telling the story. And there were all of these elements kind of like coming in and out. And there was something about the level of density in the production and the way the music was sort of supporting the narrative, and the music and the voice were sort of talking to each other. I was just like, oh, that. Let's go there, you know, and if you listen to Radiolab post that, it

[A]

changed everything I've ever gotten good at. I feel like I didn't get good by being like, I have to get good at this. I'm going to practice. It got good because I was like, I'm just going to do this until I get good.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And for me, the thing that kept me doing that in online video was having a little bit of an audience in the beginning. And it wasn't huge, but it was like, you know, a few hundred people and then a few thousand. And they were mostly people who came because they liked John's books, which he had already published. Some of they were largely librarians. You know, it was probably 30% librarians who loved John Green. And so that's a great audience to start with, by the way. If you want to start with a foundational audience, librarians are a great way to go. They were the thing that, like, made me keep making.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What was making you keep making?

[B]

That's a really good question, because the thing that I'm quite jealous of in your medium is the way that you can measure and track the audience.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And sort of. You can sort of measure impact.

[A]

It really changes. I think it changes what gets made, how it gets made. Like it infects everything.

[B]

Yeah. And even now in the world of podcasting, and this is probably a technological reason for this, you can't really count people very, very accurately. Yeah.

[A]

You can get rough numbers. But I should show you my YouTube analytics. You would be over the moon with how much detail I get.

[B]

Can you get deep?

[A]

I can see exactly when people stop watching a video, you know.

[B]

Oh. That I suddenly don't want that information. That's.

[A]

That's too.

[B]

That's too much.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because that mean. Do you find that you then have to create based on where you to. To avoid that problem, which isn't in and of itself. That's actually a good thing.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. I do that.

[B]

But. But you. Let's see. Okay. I know you just asked me a question, but let me just offer a reflection. I don't consume your videos ever. Feeling that you are playing to my. You're not playing to my cheap instincts. You know, you're doing a thing that I'm happy to be on board with, but I never feel like you're pandering at all.

[A]

No, I don't think I'm pandering, but I'm doing things like. I'll tell you that something's coming up later in the video that I'm not going to tell you yet because I want you to keep watching.

[B]

Oh, yeah, but that's foreshadowing. That's some signposting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, which is.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, but like, I think that the line between signposting and manipulating people is not a sharp one.

[B]

No. But I would put it like this. I think that there are those people who are happy to simply give the audience what they think the audience wants, and then there are other communicators who are a little more aspirational. They want to aim in a direction that is slightly beyond where they are and where the audience is, and hopefully that you'll meet in that spot. And I feel like you're one of those people, you know, you're pushing beyond what the audience thinks they want.

[A]

Right. I mean, ultimately, I want. If we're gonna get into it, I want two things. Like, I Do want you to watch my video, but I also want you to. Well, hopefully three things. But the second one is I do want you to think well of me by the end of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is like, that's very important to me. And then the third thing is like, I hope it delivers some value, but like, really in like the deep. Hank, I'm like trying to get my classmates in middle school to like me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's fair. I think we're similar that way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So is that what's. What's, what's making you make.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When you're like, not that good at it, when you're up for 72 hours straight, all this stuff.

[B]

It's one of the central questions in becoming a creative person is that how do you navigate that period where your taste, what you can hear and imagine are far beyond what you can actually make, you know, and you have to somehow collapse that distance. I mean, Ira talks about this quite beautifully. I mean, he talks about it as the gap. Right. And. And there's other people who talk about it as a tragic gap. You're standing in the. In the gap between who you will be and who you are now. And you can see who you will be in some fuzzy way. I don't know that at some point you make and you get through that gap simply because the act of making is deeply pleasing.

[A]

It is. And, and like really pleasing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is getting better. Like closing the gap.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One day at a time. Like, I think that this is like happiness. Research has shown that this is one of the best ways to have a fulfilling life is to have something that you are getting closer to being better at all of the time. Like, musicians have this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They've just got a thing that they will never be. They will never totally finish and that they will always know that they're making progress.

[B]

But there is that, like, there is the sort of. It can have a double edged sword. Right. Like, I remember when I left Radiolab and I handed it off and I was like, I needed a minute to detox. I started drawing. I've never drawn in my life. I've always taken myself to be a bad drawer. Sure. But I picked up this book by Linda Berry, who's now one of my heroes. She's an artist, a great teacher of art. And I started drawing and doing all these exercises that she was doing. And I was like, I've never been so happy just to simply, like draw really bad pictures. But then I was like, I really like drawing. I should get Better at drawing. And then I got another book which taught me how to shade. I still to this day, cannot figure out how to shade. Like, you draw endless balls and try and shade the light bouncing off of it. And then that's when the question of, like, can I get better at this? Came in. And it stole all the joy away. Obviously, like, you make a thing, and then you want the thing to complete the circuit and meet an audience. Right. And that is obviously where we're headed. But there is something about. Even before the audience, is there the basic joy of just doing a thing, of making a line on a paper or making a sound. There is some way in which I always feel as a creator, I have to keep coming back to that and just rediscovering, like, oh, it just makes me deeply happy to edit something and to try a new music in the edit. And if you don't have that deep happiness at the very beginning, I just don't think you're gonna survive. You know, I. You must have that.

[A]

I think you can. Well, I. Oh, definitely now, but not always. Not when I first did it. Like, now that I have, like, some level of mastery of my craft, it's very fun. I really enjoy doing it.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

And there are pieces of it that people are like, why do you still edit Vlogbrothers videos? And I'm like, I like it. I like it so much. Like, I just disappear, you know, that.

[B]

That. That sense of, like.

[A]

Cause I. You know, I've got all these problems, and they just vanish sometimes.

[B]

Totally. I feel like some portion of your creative life always has to be reserved for just that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not for people, not for the marketplace.

[A]

You feel like you must be a bit of a perfectionist. When I consume your content, it feels like there are, like, a million choices that I can detect in a billion that I can't. How do you, like, know when you're doing too much?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, this is. This has been one of my problems. Like, I think I have a perfectionism that borders on OCD a little bit that will hook me in some. In some of these projects that I do. I've gotten better at it as I've gotten older. The more stuff I've made, the more mistakes I've made, I realize, like, okay, you know, the making of a thing has always felt like life or death, but with each new thing, I can stand apart from it a bit more and just be like, okay, that's good enough. Like, good enough was not a. An idea that made any sense to me. Until, like, my 40s, honestly.

[A]

Wow. You know, I was blessed with that for the whole time.

[B]

That's why you're so successful.

[A]

It's why I'm so prolific, at least.

[B]

But, no, it's good. I mean, I. The feedback I have gotten from the beginning is like, jada, you would go so much farther if you just understood good enough.

[A]

If you just did a little less,

[B]

just did a little, did more, but each one a little bit less, you know, embroidered.

[A]

But I can definitely feel that, like, that's part of what you love about it, and it's also what very much feels you about a piece of content. At the same time, you're talking about, like, the stuff that was going on in the 60s, and maybe this has been something that's going on in radio forever, but we're just not connected to that anymore. And now radio has to be cheap.

[B]

It has to be. Yeah.

[A]

And the way that you make radio is not cheap.

[B]

Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, when. When we were just a radio show, that was exactly what all the radio people were like, what are you doing? Just turn on the mic and talk.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And they had a point, because when I would hear Radiolab on the radio, it was just a lot. It was a lot to take in. There were a lot of choices. And, you know, you're, like, driving or you're.

[A]

It sets a very high standard, by the way.

[B]

It demands a lot.

[A]

Yeah. Like. Like for creatives. Sometimes creatives are like, oh, I'd like to make. Make radio. And it's like, well, you don't need to be making radio. You don't need to be making, like, a full documentary film.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's really fun to do. I did it. I was on tour once, and I made like, a full, like, Soundscape tour, like, podcast.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where, like, you had the, like, things. It is so fun to make. I'd never made anything like that, where I was just, like, in the way that things sound, which is such an important part of humanity. But we see ourselves as being so visual.

[B]

I know, I know.

[A]

But the embodying space is very much about audio.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's like I have. I have a very. I have a very complicated relationship to my own perfectionism. Yeah. And I don't say that, like, in a humble, braggy sort of way. I mean.

[A]

No, it's like a.

[B]

It really is a thing that I create a person that I can be that. That I can. That can work against me. And these days, I just try to do a Lot of projects.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so that 80% of them, you

[A]

can't spend all that time on a little bit of. You know, I definitely have that where I'm like, well, I think I could make this a much better video. But if I do, it's never going to see the world.

[B]

Exactly. And it's a little bit like all the other kids are going to not get fed in some way, all the other creative kids. And so that makes a lot more sense to me.

[A]

How do you pick an idea? So, I mean, I'd be very curious to hear where the Fela documentary came from for people who don't know about this fellow. Fear no man. Fela Kuti was an artist who was sort of created an entire genre. But also it's a little bit like if Bob Marley was also Che Guevara,

[B]

like, and James Brown.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And Muhammad Ali.

[A]

Just a really amazing guy who I knew nothing about.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And is it like eight hours?

[B]

I mean, it's 13 episodes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They're roughly 40. Yeah, I would say probably like eight. Let's say eight.

[A]

Okay. Imagine that it's an audiobook that is really fascinating that's going to tell you a bunch of stuff that you've never heard of, that's going to deepen and enrich your connection with the world. And that at every moment is like, fully utilizing the. The world of sound. Like, the ability of sound to convey information to you, but is free. Like. Like, people pay like $25 for an audiobook and it's just a guy reading a book that's already written. But this is like an audiobook that is. Is both, like, produced like a diamond polish. And then on top of that, you're giving it away. Like, I don't, like, what are we doing?

[B]

What are we doing? Like, what are you doing, jat? Or what are we doing as a student?

[A]

What are we doing as a human race? A little bit like, it feels. I mean, of course, the medium is the message, but it feels like there's this thing that could be being created, but there is no incentive to create a thing that is as good as that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I, that I was asking myself these questions in the negative. In a way, you put a. You put a sort of a very positive valence on that question. But I was asking myself those questions in the negative while making the series. And I was seeing the way that my industry was shifting and changing. There was a minute, there was a hot minute where it seemed that people wanted to fund highly produced stuff because they thought that's what's going to drive the audience. I do think the audience wants that kind of stuff. But not. Not everyone.

[A]

No.

[B]

I mean, I don't, I don't, as a consumer want to listen to highly produced stuff. I like listening to people talk. I like both. I like. Yeah.

[A]

You know, there's like a piece of me that's. That's always a little bit like, why am I listening to anything except 99% invisible?

[B]

Like, I feel that. I feel that too.

[A]

Like, that's so weird that, that, that, that's a choice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I will choose three brothers being idiots.

[B]

Well, I have been thinking a lot about this recently. Like, as the thing that you make me once defined, the industry is now increasingly a small island off the mainland. In a way. I've been thinking a lot about what role does that have? And like you say, why am I not listening only to 99% invisible? Because they make amazing stuff. I do think that kind of work. Like feluck the series. Certainly it's asking you to listen in a certain way that maybe it's a mind state I don't always want to be in, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I. I want to be able to get in and out of it.

[A]

More likely to just start crying when I'm listening to something you've made than when I'm listening to, you know, three guys.

[B]

You've got to budget your emotional energies, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's just, like, sometimes I want that.

[A]

Sometimes I want to, like, really be in touch with something big and beautiful.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Sometimes I need to relax.

[B]

No, and I get that, like, I get that as a consumer, that in the, in the distracted insanity that we're living through, there are times when you want to be able to surf the wave and then there are times when you want to dive into it. And I now make things I make. I mean, I made Fela very much with this in mind, that this is not going to be a hit in the conventional sense.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But the tail on it will be really fat and really long and people will discover it when they're ready. You know, like when they need a second to sort of put their mind somewhere for a long time, it'll be there, you know, And I think increasingly that's where this kind of content will. That's the role it will serve.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because that's. I feel that in my own consumption, you know.

[A]

Right. You're making something that isn't about the views you're going to get on the first week.

[B]

Yeah. It'll gather its own Energy over time. Everything I've ever made has had that trajectory to it. It sort of sneaks in and it's sort of under the radar. And then it's everybody's favorite secret for a minute. And then it has a minute where it's like, oh, look, here's the thing. And then it goes back under.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and that's okay. I'm comfortable with that.

[A]

That series has a lot of interview in it, a lot of conversations that I feel like probably are hard to have. When you walk into a room in a country that's far away with people who have different culture than you, and you're gonna ask them uncomfortable questions, what's your responsibility? You're going into that with a. You have an agenda of some kind. If only. I hope that something interesting comes out of this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do you feel like you're doing that job? How are you making your choices? What's your responsibility there?

[B]

I mean, so I love that question, Hank. I mean, it's. I very self consciously understood that I was an outsider, but on some level, I feel like I've always been that sure. As a Lebanese family coming to America, we always felt like we were walking into rooms that weren't necessarily our rooms. And what you learn very quickly is that you. You learn a certain move where you kind of stand very still until people forget that you're there. And then you can watch and just observe and understand the rules, and then speak when you're ready, which turns out makes you an amazing journalist. Like, that's the sort of cast of mind that I think journalists need. And I sort of systematize that over time. And then when I went to Nigeria, I mean, it was very clear to me, like, I need. I need to own the position of an outsider and actually use that position of an outsider. Like, I think there is actually as much as we talk about the sort of the danger of othering people. Right. I actually think that it is in our differences where we have great gifts that we can give one another. We can sort of reflect back on somebody and they can reflect back on us. We see ourselves new in their eyes. So I went in with that mindset, but also with a team of Nigerian academics and scholars who were there to sort of gut check me and who, crucially, were not, like, necessarily like, there to make me feel good. You know, these are people who. I don't want to say they were antagonistic, but they were not like, part of my family. Right. But I sort of convinced him to come on board as Like a crucial, you know, sensitivity, listening, and also just, like, making sure things are correct.

[A]

Can you talk a little bit more about that? About the otherness being a useful thing?

[B]

There were all kinds of moments like, so, you know, we reported in Lagos for a month. We went to Paris, we went to London. We talked to all kinds of people, anyone who would talk to us. And there were all of these moments where it was useful to misunderstand in some way. For example, like, Nigerians will talk about abuse. They talk about abuse. That person abused me. We think of that as being something that probably means physical abuse, but for them, it's like insults. Insults almost in a playful way, so they can use the word in that context. There were numerous interviews where that just took us into all kinds of dog legs that then we had to come back from. And understanding that difference became really important. It made us really examine the language and making sure and surrounding ourselves with people who could help us make sure that we were hearing the words in the way they were meant. You know, there are other times when people start talking about. Like, there was one moment where someone said, if you gave me a choice between colonialism or slavery, I'll take slavery any day. We were all like, whoa. But then that led us to better understand the Nigerian experience of colonialism. And if you really get concrete with it, colonialism is typically not a concrete word, whereas slavery, we have concrete imagery attached to it. But if you make concrete what happened during colonialism, you're like, oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. You know, it was that bad. So there were these moments where you bring your own outsiderness and an awareness of it, and that becomes an energy to create these spaces that you then fill in and try and understand. And then you go and you just listen for a while. We spent a long, long part of the process interviewing people before I even knew what the story was. I just knew that this was an interesting guy and that he was telling me a story about why art matters, like, why it's crucial. And I needed to hear that kind of story. So I was attracted to him as a character. But, yeah, you go into these conversations, and inevitably you just sit and listen for the first 20 minutes. Don't ask a lot of questions. And then the thing I always do in all my interviews is I go back again and again. So an interview is never just one, and you're doing three, four interviews with the same person.

[A]

How many times do you talk to Dolly Parton?

[B]

Oh, my God, so many. 12 times.

[A]

Don't say it like that.

[B]

I mean, what a joy it was. No, it was amazing. It was amazing. But she. I remember one of the last interviews, she was like, you're still here.

[A]

She was like, what?

[B]

What are you doing? And. And I felt the weight of her question at that point. But I look back on it, and it's like, you always want to get to that place.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where they're like, you're still around. Yeah. Because I'm serious, you know?

[A]

Yeah. I want it. I want to know it all.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Also a very good series, I think. Was it every time that you went to talk to Dolly, she gave you that. That little Dolly quip.

[B]

Yeah. Ask me anything you want to ask me, and I'll tell you what I want you to hear.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is like, dolly in a nutshell. It's like Dolly in a sentence.

[A]

Part of what I came out of that thinking is like, what a genius. And she's a genius in a way where, like, you don't see it because she doesn't want you to.

[B]

The way that she uses humor the way that she is. So it's the judo that she uses during an interview to redirect a thing that's uncomfortable, but then she'll make a joke. It's like people should teach college courses about communication based only on Dolly interviews.

[A]

And there's a thing that extends out from that. Like you did, you know, the Q score, I think, is what it's called.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where it's like, how are celebrities perceived globally? She's like, top one or two in terms of people not thinking negative things about her.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And, you know, I think that there's a certain amount of, like, she's playing the cards she was dealt in terms of, you know. And so are we all.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, like, what a masterful way of thinking. I'm going to play the game of the entertainment industry, and I'm just going to win.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In a way where she never even looks ambitious, and yet her face is on every billboard in Tennessee.

[B]

I mean, it's amazing. I interviewed her so much.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't think there was a single question I didn't ask her. And still at the end, I don't know that I really know her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because she's so able to create the feeling of knowing without actually the. I don't know. It's hard to say. I mean, it's like she plays the game so well that I couldn't get past it.

[A]

Can I give you Dolly Parton insight and you can check me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think that she has a. A very interesting understanding of power.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

That's very nuanced.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, the series is called Dolly Parton's America. And so it is kind of a series about America. It's kind of a series about power. It's kind of a series about, like, partisan, like, divide. And, like, what was happening to us has continued to happen to us, and how Dolly Parton somehow, like, occupies this space where, like, it's okay to just be American. The kinds of people at a Dolly Parton show aren't in the same room together many other places.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

There's part of it where I think she's so good at communicating, but there's part of it where I think she actually just has a really complex understanding of human relationships in a way that makes it very hard for her to believe in villains.

[B]

That's. Okay. I'll tell you a story where everything you just said really hit me in the face with her. So the second episode in the series was really centered around her relationship with Porter Wagner.

[A]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So she comes to Nashville when she's 21. This is 1967. He's, like, the biggest deal in country music. He has a syndicated show. She joins ostensibly to be just his, like, backup singer, but because she's Dolly Parton, within a year, she's all anyone wants to see.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he gets super jealous and, like, starts badmouthing her in the press. Sues her for $3 million when she tries to leave.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How does she leave? She leaves by basically saying to him, I have my own dreams and I will always love you. And she writes that song for him.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I mean, that song has gone number one in, like, three successive decades.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's the way that she leaves. She leaves with this incredible act of kindness, but also insisting on her own power. Right. So, like, there's something about power, but she also is. You know, we live in a Christian country. Right. She embodies some of the ideals, some of the better ideals, I would say, of Christianity than almost anyone. And so she leaves by singing that to him. And it's like. It's beautiful, and it's beautiful to him, but it's also, like, she walks away with, like, a song that is gonna

[A]

make her way more than $3 million

[B]

that seven generations of her family will live off of. Do you know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's amazing. It's amazing. Like, she's, like. She does it all in, like, these solitary gestures in a way that's amazing.

[A]

It's like you're playing a game of chess, and then suddenly she's like, actually, there's a piece you didn't know about. You know, there's like, super queen.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And she's gonna win this game so hard. And you had no idea. But you have to be a Dali level genius to be Dolly level good.

[B]

I mean, she is like the unicorn of unicorns. I don't know that there'll be anyone like her when she is no longer with us, you know, but we all

[A]

get to continue benefiting from all the many things she has made.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So I do science communication. Radiohab feels to me like it started as a science show. Yeah, okay. But like a weird one. And I love how weird it is. And it also was very enabling and inspiring to me to be like, okay, we're doing a science show, but then sometimes there's going to be a story that isn't science in here. Sometimes it's just gonna, like, make me feel like. Of course, the reason that we do all of this is because we're humans and we're being curious and we're. We're frustrated with the state of the world, and we don't feel like we have to live in a world that has these problems, and so we have to think our way through them and out of them. But it feels, like, revelatory a little bit, because that's not what, like, growing up reading Scientific American, that definitely wasn't what I was reading. You know, Carl Sagan did this, but in a way that was always very sort of like, big. It was about humans as an entire institution or about the number of grains of sand on a beach and the number of galaxies in the universe. Radiolab would be like, here's this story. There's this episode where you talk to Leonard Hayflick about his original research on telomeres and figuring out why cells can't divide infinitely. And then you talk to a researcher who's looking at worm longevity. But by the end of the episode, you're talking to a father and a son about their project of documenting the death of the father's father.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And the episode is about mortality. And I'm like, I'm here for Radiolab. And I'm like, I'm going to. Oh, you got. You got the guy from the Hayflick Limit. And. And then by the end of it, I'm like, oh, my God, we will all die. And how do we want to do that? And how do we want to treat each other? And the Father. At the end of the episode, the. The father who is the son of the, the man who's died is like, I just want you to treat me soft. And like, that's not what I'm coming to science journalism for. It was very enabling for me as a communicator, because, like, if I'm going to do science communication, like, I was thinking I was going to be writing for Scientific American, but I get to do it however I want to do it, because I'm just a YouTuber. And so. So thank you for that. But I'm wondering, like, what. What was behind that, like, what inspired that direction to go in?

[B]

Well, you get me emotional. I don't think it was conscious, but I was a humanities kid, I was a music kid, and I was. So I was the product of two scientists, as kids do, I ran in the opposite direction. And so for me, Radiolab was a way of coming back to my family in a way, but bringing my own lens of music and the humanities to what they were doing. I always thought about Radiolab as science for poets, in a way, but the more that I've thought about it, the more I think about it as. I mean, it's just like what you so beautifully said just now is that you go from a person who is thinking about the act of truth telling as I line up all the facts, and if I just line them up in the right way, I will get to some version of the truth. And that's a particularly scientific way of seeing the world. Journalists also sometimes say, if I just line up all the facts, I'll get to capital T, truth. But there's this idea in psychology and psychotherapy called the intersubjective, which says that the truth of who I am, the truth of who you are, it's not just solely contained in us, it's contained between us, it's between subjects. And I think that Radiolab tried to marry the objective with the intersubjective, right? And that you can find truth in different ways, and both truths are valid. One can be found in the telomeres, but one can be found in the dying words between a father and a son, right? And both truths have value, and putting them against each other creates a kind of energy through that juxtaposition. And I've always felt that, you know, one of the things I dislike about people who do the sort of older style of science, Stella, is that they somehow privilege that kind of truth above all others. And as much as I do think the scientific method is one of the greatest gifts humans have ever given each other. I also think you have to acknowledge that the simple truths that happen in interpersonal spaces and treat those and privilege those as well. And that's what you do in your reporting. And that's why I love it so much. So it's very moving to me to hear you sort of tell Radiolab, you specifically tell me about a Radiolab thing and how it infected you, because I can hear that in your work very loudly.

[A]

I mean, I don't know about the inner subjective, but I think a lot about, like, sort of like, what's interesting. And so, like, where does complexity lie? Yeah, and, and so, like, obviously the human brain is, you know, the most complicated thing in the universe outside of all the other human brains, unless and until you consider the relationship between two of them. And like, that's really sort of like you can't do anything with it. You can't. You can't put that in the fmri.

[B]

Yeah, that's interesting. Wouldn't that be cool, though?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And if, if it were three FMRIs, one for each brain and one for the space between the brains. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, it's all happening inside of the head, but there is this thing, like it's going on all the time and. And also we do it, you know, there's the space between, you know, like this conversation and the people who will listen to it. And there's the, you know, the many to many brains of the Internet doing that, which is all brand new and terrifying. I wish I could talk to you for another hour, but I did want to talk about how you feel, like, what's your relationship creatively to the new tools of what we call now artificial intelligence. How are you feeling about this as like a force in creation?

[B]

I love asking Claude to format my transcripts. I was like, please color these names blue and this name's green. And Claude does it perfectly. They're undeniably useful in some way. But I also feel a little resentful. I mean, you have a situation where you have people who have created things over time. They've written books, they've written articles based on hard won knowledge. And then you have these tech companies that come along and just vacuum it all up into some model that they use to train this product that they now own. It feels to me like one of the biggest transfers of values in human history. Just taking all that value and putting it into somebody else's bank account. That's annoying to me. I think we should all be upset

[A]

about that, you know, Annoying is an interesting word for the set of sentences you said before. Annoying me.

[B]

I mean, that's genuinely enormous enraging.

[A]

Okay, that's maybe better than annoying.

[B]

So, like, people who are really pissed off at AI, I'm like, yeah, you should be. And it bugs. It bugs me to no end when the technologist will say, well, the train's already left the station.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you're like, yeah, probably. Probably, you're right. But I mean, like, do we need help making fake videos? Like, is that a thing? Like the fact that that was one of the first use cases. Make a fake video even better.

[A]

Like, yeah, why? And then make a yet better fake video.

[B]

Like, what problem are you solving? No one wanted that. I find myself very irritated and annoyed by AI while at the same time, you know, I think what it's doing in science is really interesting.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. That oftentimes is like, different kinds of AI, but not always.

[B]

Yeah. So there. Yeah. I mean, different kinds of AI, I think is actually the. The way that we should be thinking about it, because unfortunately, they're all referencing these general tools. But there are different levels of the technology, some of which I think are actually good for people. But this whole thing about how, you know, we're gonna capture the cone of light of all economic activity, all this bullshit. You're like, nobody who's ever said anything like that has led us into good places. Yeah, that's just like, we all know where that story is going.

[A]

There's also the sense of that I'm getting right now where people are like, this time the fountain of youth is real. We always used to think it was a myth. And I'm like, no, they didn't think it was a myth. We've always thought it was real. And then we did all end up dying anyway.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I think that we should do longevity research. Obviously, I'm happy having people live longer, happier, healthier lives. No, But I do think that they will yet die. And that is. It is interesting to see a bunch of people whose only problem left is that they will die, thinking that is the only problem left to solve. And I'm like, it's your only problem, but we've got other ones. Yeah, it's that we should probably. Anytime a new AI thing comes out, I always think, how will this help the housing crisis?

[B]

I love that you think that. And the answer is not at all.

[A]

The answer is not at all. Like, in no ways does this help the housing crisis. In fact, it probably makes it worse as, like, a tech optimist. Me, I'm talking about. And a person who is joyful about the progress of humanity. I do have this very similar to your split, where I am very frustrated by the systems through which these tools were created. At the same time, like, oh, my God, I cannot believe that things that can do this exist. And then at the same time, oh, my God, I've seen the way that one communications revolution has affected my world, and you're gonna lay another one on top of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that freaks me out a lot.

[B]

It freaks me out. And I just don't think we are capable of consuming the amount of information that we're being asked to consume right now. I just don't think. I don't think.

[A]

Caring about the number of things that we're being asked to care about.

[B]

Yeah, I just.

[A]

I don't think it's like being confronted with a number of horrors that we're being confronted with.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's just like it puts us in a psychologically hard space.

[A]

Yeah. So where are you these days with humans? I told you I was going to ask you.

[B]

With humans, how do I feel about the humans?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, listen, if one simply just consumes. Consumes the news, you wake up each morning and by like, 9:30am you have a pretty dark view of the humans.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

However, I also teach at Vanderbilt University, and the young people, they show up to the class and they're very scary. They have a sort of a disaffected look on their face, and they sort of confirm your view of humans for a millisecond, and then they speak. Every time I have a chance to speak to these students, they reaffirm so much about people. Like, they're really smart, they're looking for meaning, they're genuinely wanting to have impact in the world, and they just don't know how. They have this terrible burden that we've left them with, but they seem up for it. They seem up to the task. So any interactions I have with young people restore my faith in humans, and each day it ends kind of in a draw. So the jury's still out on the humans. The jury of my heart, that is.

[A]

I'm going to read you something that you once said about Radiolabs and you and Robert. One of us will be sort of the skeptic at one point, and the other will be the kind of person who wants to believe in magic. But then we'll flip, because I really do fundamentally believe that I am both a skeptic and also I am a believer in magic. And I think that Radiolab has both of those things together.

[B]

Yeah, I would stand by that.

[A]

What's the magic?

[B]

Just the sort of the being a mysterion, you know, like being.

[A]

You are being a mysterion.

[B]

Yeah. You know, just as somebody who's. Okay. It's like this. It's like the problem with science, small P problem, is it disenchants the world. Right. By explaining it.

[A]

I have this print in my office that my brother in law gave to us. I can't tell you the quote, but it's an art and it is saying, we've discovered a new animal. We have named it this, and the nameless spirit has been displaced.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm talking about. There is a displacement that happens when you know or think you know a thing. And I do think we have to re. Enchant ourselves to the world. Believing in magic, for me is about becoming re. Enchanted.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which can happen at any moment in the day. You look up and you look at the sun and you're like. Like you and I, before this interview, we were talking about indoor plumbing, Right. Like, if you just think about it, the fact that we have all of these pipes that reach up into our buildings and whisk away our shit, what a fucking miracle that is. Excuse my language. There's so many ways you didn't notice.

[A]

You said shit. But that's okay.

[B]

We can use AI to fix that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

But yeah, for me, that's what I want from mystery. It isn't so much to have a cheap sense of wonder. It's to just be reinvigorated to the magic of the fact that we exist at all. Yeah.

[A]

You know, I think that this is very important. I think that science loses people because of this.

[B]

I think so.

[A]

I think that people want. They want agency too. They want to feel like things make some sense. And I feel like I have that. I feel like things do make sense. And I feel like I have not agency necessarily. I remember going through cancer treatment and like really understanding all these people who are like, I want it to be about diet. Like, I want it to be about something I can control. It's like, absolutely. And then the oncologists won't give them that. They're like, you can kind of eat anything at this point. Like, the cancer's already happened. A lot of people don't want to hear that. They want to hear like, what I do right now will affect the outcome of this terror that is occurring inside of me, which I totally Get. I don't feel like I necessarily have that level of agency. I think that we are all at the whims of, you know, the randomness of the world to a large extent. But I do feel like I have the wonderful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Without the magic 100.

[B]

Yeah. I feel that as a, as a consumer of your work. Yeah.

[A]

And I just want to, I want to give that to people because it really feels great.

[B]

Yeah, it feels great. And it, it's like a, it's like what we choose to notice, you know, I mean that's part of the sort of toxic thing that we're in with, with our current medias is that the incentive structures are such that they drive us to notice things that are at the extremes. But the fact that we're all alive because of the heat and the illumination of a nearby star. Like what? Like why isn't that front page news every day? Do you know what I mean? So we can notice. I mean there's a wonderful book. I forget who wrote it, but it's written by a believe a Buddhist monk. He talks about maybe he was Dresden or something that was bombing. He walks out of a bombed house that he was lucky to still be alive and he sees this little flower sprouting out of the earth. And the feeling that that gives him is so profound. This idea that that is still here. That feels to me like a choice we can all make. Certainly as we fight to try and make the world better and all the other things which we can't turn away from, we also have to notice all the other things. And I think so. I think wonder is actually politically crucial to a healthy civic body. You know, I really do.

[A]

I want to ask you my last question, which is what's something that you have learned from this work that you wish everyone knew?

[B]

I. It's funny, my answer, I think maybe people do know this now. I didn't know it. I wish I had known that I didn't need to know things. You know, I have always been paralyzed by the feeling that I didn't know enough, that I wasn't, that I don't belong. And what I know now is that those questions are irrelevant. That it's really just about committing to the search. And that's, that's all that matters is you commit to the search, to, towards whatever it is and you don't need anything more than that. And I wish I had known that really.

[A]

I, as like a now middle aged person am fascinated by how much I know this year that I didn't know last year. I'm just like, oh, you just keep learning stuff the whole time.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And I can sometimes be like, boy, I feel like I could tell you everything I know in an afternoon. And that's really not true. Like, it takes a long time. Yeah, it takes a long time to, like, build the scaffolding and have all this stuff. And, like, I also still feel totally ignorant of so much.

[B]

Yeah. It's funny. It doesn't feel like a long time, but it actually has. It is a long time. It's hard won over a long.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A long span,

[A]

man. Thank you so much.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This was such a joy, and especially for you to say nice things about me.

[B]

I'm just speaking the truth, my man. You know, I really think you're making the kind of media where I wish more people could. If you could somehow become a cult, I think the world would be better off.

[A]

I've resisted the culture. This is specifically not something I'm interested in, but I know what you mean. I think that there is a. There's a way of seeing the world that I think is more common now that I ascribe to. That is really nice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Dolly Parton is our leader.

[B]

She's our cult leader, along with the rest of the globe. We're all part of the cult.

[A]

Yeah. If you haven't heard Jan's work. And you should listen to Dolly Parton's America and Felikuti Fear no, man, wherever you listen to podcasts. His Felikuti series won the Peabody Award last year, one of the highest honors in journalism. Also, the Radiolab episode that made me cry is called mortality from 2007. You can check it out. Thanks to all the humans who helped make this episode. Morgan Levy is the show's supervising producer, and Greg Rippon is our engineer. Peyton Mitchell manages our social media. Andrew Huang composed the music, and James Barnard designed the artwork. You can and should follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Let's do it one more time.

[B]

Humans.