How Did We Podcasters Meet?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Commentary Magazine Podcast – "How Did We Podcasters Meet?"

Release Date: December 26, 2024
Host: John Podhoretz
Guests: Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Matthew Continetti, Christine Rosen

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Introduction

In the holiday edition of The Commentary Magazine Podcast, host John Podhoretz engages with his esteemed colleagues Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Matthew Continetti, and Christine Rosen. The episode delves into the personal histories of the hosts, exploring how they first met and the enduring relationships that have shaped their collaborative efforts at Commentary Magazine.

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Answering Listener Questions: How Did We Podcasters Meet?

Listener Michael Mann posed a thoughtful question: “How did you podcasters meet each other, and what were your first impressions?” The hosts take turns sharing their unique stories of connection, revealing the intricate tapestry of professional and personal interactions that brought them together.

John Podhoretz and Abe Greenwald ([02:42] - [05:48])

John recounts his initial meeting with Abe Greenwald, which began through an email exchange sparked by Abe’s contributions to a lesser-known Jewish website, Kerchief. Attracted by Abe's insightful pieces, John invited him for coffee alongside Sam Munson, the then-editor of the Commentary website. This meeting blossomed into a fruitful collaboration, eventually leading to Abe joining as a full-time writer for the Commentary blog. John reflects:

“When I got this call, I almost had to pinch myself. It was really that exciting to me.” ([05:58])

John Podhoretz and Seth Mandel ([07:33] - [10:14])

John shares the story of meeting Seth Mandel at a kosher steakhouse on the Upper West Side, facilitated by Seth's then-girlfriend, Bethany Shondark. Impressed by Seth’s writing and Bethany’s social media prowess, John hired both to contribute to Commentary. Seth humorously adds:

“[...] Bethany likes to say that you asked just to be sure you guys were serious because we were not married yet.” ([10:33])

John Podhoretz and Matthew Continetti ([14:15] - [23:30])

Matthew Continetti reminisces about meeting John at a 2003 reception hosted by the Collegiate Network in honor of John and Todd Lindbergh. Their relationship deepened through mutual professional engagements, including book parties and collaborative writing endeavors. Matthew notes:

“When I saw your name in my inbox, I hope he liked it. Don't want to make him angry.” ([16:45])

Christine Rosen’s Encounters ([17:28] - [23:38])

Christine Rosen recalls meeting Matthew at social events tied to the Ethics and Public Policy Center and eventually connecting with John at a Commentary event in New York. She highlights Matthew’s humorous side, contrasting it with John’s serious writing demeanor:

“[...] what people should know about Matt is that he's actually quite hilarious.” ([20:32])

The hosts collectively emphasize the blend of professional respect and personal camaraderie that underpins their interactions, fostering a dynamic and engaging podcast environment.

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Book Recommendations

Listener Holly Fellows of Utah inquired about favorite books that the hosts admire but haven’t authored. Each contributor shares insightful selections that reflect their intellectual interests and cultural engagements.

Seth Mandel ([26:40] - [27:45])

Seth recommends "Fervor" by Toby Lloyd, a novel about a Jewish family in London grappling with supernatural elements tied to their Holocaust survivor grandfather. He praises its exploration of faith and the supernatural within a modern orthodox setting:

“It's a very good novel. Very interesting.” ([26:40])

Matthew Continetti ([27:53] - [28:45])

Matthew suggests two pivotal works for understanding cultural references essential to their podcast discussions:

1. "5001 Nights at the Movies" by Pauline Kael
2. "Cultural Amnesia" by Clive James

He underscores the importance of these books in providing a comprehensive cultural framework:

“If you read those two books and you can dip into them, you don't have to read them straight through. But if you, if you commune with those two books, you will know basically everything you need to know about the cultural background that informs so many of our conversations on the podcast.” ([28:45])

Christine Rosen ([28:50] - [29:47])

Christine shares her enduring favorites:

1. "Middlemarch" by George Eliot – Despite its worn condition, she treasures this novel for its deep-seated memories and literary prowess.
2. "From Dawn to Decadence" by Jacques Barzun – A sprawling cultural history that she frequently references to address cultural queries.

She emphasizes the lasting impact of these works on her intellectual and professional life:

“[...] I have no recollection of the first time we met in person more than 20 years ago.” ([29:47])

Additional Recommendations

John himself pulls a notable mention from behind him, highlighting Joseph Epstein’s essay collection "The Ideal of Culture." He lauds Epstein as a preeminent American literary and cultural essayist whose work has been a staple for Commentary readers for over six decades.

“[...] he is as a sast is pretty much without peer. I think it's almost universally acknowledged that he is the leading American literary cultural essayist of our time.” ([29:47])

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Conclusion

The episode "How Did We Podcasters Meet?" offers an intimate glimpse into the origins and relationships of The Commentary Magazine Podcast team. Through shared stories and literary recommendations, the hosts illuminate the foundation of their collaborative spirit and intellectual synergy. As the holiday edition wraps up, listeners are left with a deeper appreciation of the personal bonds and cultural influences that enrich the discussions on the podcast.

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Notable Quotes:

• John Podhoretz ([05:58]): “When I got this call, I almost had to pinch myself. It was really that exciting to me.”

• Christine Rosen ([20:32]): “What people should know about Matt is that he's actually quite hilarious.”

• Matthew Continetti ([16:45]): “When I saw your name in my inbox, I hope he liked it. Don't want to make him angry.”

• Seth Mandel ([26:40]): “It's a very good novel. Very interesting.”

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For more insights and episodes, visit Ricochet.com and explore over 40 original podcasts from Commentary Magazine.

Transcript

[John Podhoretz]

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[Matthew Continetti]

Hope for the best, Expect the worst.

[John Podhoretz]

Some preach and pain Some die of.

[Matthew Continetti]

Thirst no way of knowing which way.

[Christine Rosen]

It'S going Hope for the best Expect.

[John Podhoretz]

The worst for the best.

Welcome to this holiday edition of the Commentary magazine daily podcast. I'm John Pod Hortz, the editor of Commentary. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

Hi, John.

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Media Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

So we asked you for questions that you would like us to answer as you are you from Daily listeners who are intrigued by us in ways that are frankly, flat. So flattering that I am. You know, it's stunning to me. And so I thought we would, we have, we got so many good ones. And I thought we would start with an interesting one from Michael Mann, who I assume is not the Michael Mann of the hockey stick global warming projection Michael Mann or the director of Miami Vice and Ferrari and Heat, but a different Michael Mann. And he asks, but if you are.

[Seth Mandel]

That Michael Mann, we love your work.

[John Podhoretz]

Not which one depends on some of us do, some of us don't. Anyway, so his question, he has two questions. First question is how did you meet each other and what were your first impressions? So I'm not going to go through we, I there, you know, too many permutations here since there are five of us and, and all of that. But I, I will mention, I'll mention two, two of you because I actually don't remember when I first met Matt or, or Christine, both of whom I've known probably for 20 years. And I don't quite remember I.

[Matthew Continetti]

What I remember.

[John Podhoretz]

So. Okay, well, maybe you. Okay, I'll go first. Okay. Okay. Abe, I met because I emailed him because when I became, when the year before I became editor of Commentary and I was sort of in, in the, in the batter circle, right? I was sort of, I was, I was on deck to, to be editor and was mostly dealing with issues related to the website and some other things. And I was looking around for people to contribute to our website and was wandering around less well known places on the Internet looking for interesting content. And maybe you can remind me what the website was that you had contributed a sort of 911 conservative piece to. It Was it Keller? It was some Jewish jwc. Jwcy, A very interesting weird site that was an effort to create a hipster Jewish website with Steven Spielberg's money, as I recall, seeded it with like 60 or $100,000.

A whole bunch of our friends were there at the time, if I recall. Kerchief.

Jamie Kerchick, right. Who was I think then either just graduated from Yale or was still at Yale or something like that anyway. And Abe wrote some. Never heard of him. Wasn't somebody who had published in the public prints. And it was great. It was like a great. And in such an unexpected place that I emailed him and said come have a cup of coffee with me. And he came and had a cup of coffee with me and with the then editor of the Commentary website, Sam Munson, a novelist, now editor at the New York Post's editorial page. And actually, oddly, almost completely coincidentally, my nephew, the second nephew I've had a reason to mention on the podcast because others know that my nephew Noam Bloom, who works for. For Tablet, has been on the show to talk about things. And so Sam and Abe and I got on like a House of Fire and we asked Abe if he would start contributing to the Commentary website. And then after a time we invited him to join us full time in that as a writer for the Commentary blog, which. Which was. Which was then as blogs were extraordinarily active, like we were publishing eight or ten pieces a day. Obviously things are different. Seth Mandel now does the majority, if not the overwhelming majority of the posts we have on a daily basis.

[Seth Mandel]

But was it Contentions back then? It had a name too, right?

[John Podhoretz]

It's called Contentions, right. It had its own name. And yeah. So Abe, what do you. What do you remember?

Oh yeah. Well, so from my perspective it was amazing because I. I really was a am. Was Will be a genuine neocon in the sense that I both in that I tend to agree with the general constellation of impulses of neoconservatism and was newly conservative as a result of being bugged by events around 9 11. And I had fallen in love with Commentary before this. And I was working at an educational publishing company like doing editing and stuff for children's books. And it was terrible. And it was very horrible. Horrible. The worst job that was very left wing and Boring and deadening. And I would literally print out pieces from the Commentary website, smuggle them into the bathroom of the office there to read, and then, you know, come back out and do my work. So when I got this call, I almost had to pinch myself. It was really that exciting to me. And then I remember coming in and, yeah, just getting along great. And it being very conversational. Not. I don't think I showed a resume. There was, you know, it was very informal, you know, talking.

Seth, now stop with this. Seth I met together with his then girlfriend, now wife and mother of his six children at a kosher steakhouse on the Upper west side because I had become very interested in things that he had been writing. And I was looking for two things. I was looking for somebody to help be an editor on the website and the magazine, and was looking for help with social media. And Bethany, then known as Bethany Shondark, now Bethany Mandel had revealed herself to people in the early days of Twitter as some kind of social media genius. I don't quite know how to explain that, but she was sort of somebody whose personality just sort of sparkled on social media in a very interesting way. And I started reading Seth's work simultaneously, not really knowing of their. Their connection, and then discovered that Seth had been an editor of three Jewish newspapers in New Jersey and stuff like. And I basically said, if you're coming to New York, let's all get, get together. And as a result of that meeting and stuff, I hired both Seth and Bethany, and they both worked at Commentary together for, was it three years?

[Seth Mandel]

Well, I worked there for three or four, but Bethany left after she had.

[John Podhoretz]

Our oldest, oldest child. Right. But in the course of your time at Commentary, you got married, and Bethany then decided to stay home with the kids. And Seth then took a journey that, oddly enough, others have taken, which is that he left and went to the New York Post to be my editor at the New York Post, and then went to Washington to be an editor at the Washington examiner and was replaced as the editor of the editor of the. Of the columns in the New York Post by Soramari, who had been his replacement in part at Commentary. While though it may seem that Saurabha Mari was once, yes, a staff member and editor here at Commentary. So those are.

[Seth Mandel]

That's my thing I remember about. That was the thing that we joke all the time. And I don't even know if it's. At this point, it might be apocryphal. But Bethany likes to say that you asked just to be sure you Guys, this is a, this is serious, right? Because we were not married yet.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Seth Mandel]

And there was, it was kind of like a double interview because as you said, Commentary was looking for, to fill two different positions. And she and I each, you know, did. Had a career in that line, in one of those lines. And so it was like, you know, we're either hiring you and it's, you know, going to be like a, you know, a volcano and lava will be everywhere and wash this whole project away in terrible drama, or this is really a very nice story, you know, and you guys are going to get married and have a life together and all this other stuff. And so it was, it was something of a chance on the, on that part, but that was, that was really nice. And also it was, it was Passover. We were up to visit my family for Passover. And so it was. There were far fewer kosher restaurants open that had a Passover, you know, menu and stuff in that.

[John Podhoretz]

I will not name, I will not name the restaurant, but it's still open and I really don't like it and it's very close to me. And so I, I'm not sure that I've been to it. It was almost 15 years ago now, I think maybe 14 years ago, something like that. And it is one of the few that has sort of remained extant. But it's, it's terrible. And so I'm not going to name it because I feel like they don't need that kind of source. My wife and I have a disagreement when it comes to gift giving at the holidays. She likes to ask people what they might want and then provide it to them. I kind of prefer the act where you think of something that somebody might not want to think of for themselves and do it that way. It's risky because sometimes you will make a big mistake and someone will not want what you want or they will say, oh my God, look what you've done for me. This is something I would never have done for myself. I like that feeling. And for quality gifts at an affordable price, that little bit of luxury that people don't know they're missing, my go to is quints. Quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to everyday luxury at an affordable price. Something everyone needs in their closet, in my opinion. Quince's iconic Mongolian cashmere sweaters which start at $50. I'm wearing one myself. If you watch our podcast on YouTube, you will often see me in a quint Mongolian cashmere sweater. Or for the ultimate year round gifts, check out their 14 karat gold jewelry, Italian leather handbags and European linen sheet sets. Whatever you're looking for. All Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How do they do that? By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost to the middleman which passes the savings on to you. Quint is on the nice list. They tell me they only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and they use premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feel in every piece. Look, got one free piece of Quint clothing when they decided to start advertising with us so that I could sample their wares. Since that happened, I have bought multiple Quint sweaters. I bought a couple of quince shirts. I am a quince fan. I am a quince customer and so you should follow me and gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag. Go to quints.com commentary for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U I n c e.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary Matt, whom do you remember meeting when? How?

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, since you don't remember me, John, I'm going to have to refresh your memory a little bit because I do remember when we first met. I'm trying to pin down the time frame. I believe it was in 2003 because it was at a reception hosted by the Collegiate Network to honor you and our mutual friend Todd Lindbergh. Your friend for decades, going back to college years.

[John Podhoretz]

45 years, yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

And the reason this reception was taking place was the Collegiate Network, which is an organization that sponsors student newspapers on the conservative side of the equation, was an organization that I had and still have, but at that time 20 years ago, very close ties with they were. They had sponsored my internship at National Review and they had sponsored my year long fellowship at the Weekly standard beginning in 2003. And so I think it was in the fall of 2003 they had a reception at one of the hotels in D.C. to honor you and Todd because it had been 25 years or so since you had founded Counterpoint, which was your student magazine at the University of Chicago, which had been granted into existence through the kind of the parent organization of the Collegiate Network. So got I was there. You and Todd spoke. I believe that's when we first met. And then you were kind enough to invite me to the book party for your book Bush country, which was at the Jefferson Hotel here in downtown D.C. when that book came out in the winter of 2004. So the. So we have known each other for more than 20 years now.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

And my first impression was, wow, it's John Pot Horitz. And. And then when you would start writing me about things I wrote for the Weekly Standard, I always say to myself, when I saw your name in my inbox, I hope he liked it. Don't want to make him angry. Don't want to. Never wanted to. And I don't think I'm knocking on wood here. I don't think I've ever made you angry.

[John Podhoretz]

I think that is true. I assume that the reason that you were worried that I might make you angry is that by that point I think I had started to write on the National Review, the Corner, the blog at the corner, where the personality that does not really truly define me, I believe, but is a personality known to people who. So follow me on Twitter, where I was a little more austere and forbidding. And given the short brevity of those.

[Matthew Continetti]

Blog posts, somebody does wrong.

[John Podhoretz]

You are not a. I was there. That's right. That's right. But yes, I remember. No cause for anger now. Do you remember when you met Christine?

[Matthew Continetti]

I met Christine probably around the time she was at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The New Atlantis had been founded, which was the kind of the magazine that exists at the center of science and technology and politics that you founded that Christine. When I was still in school. I think it was founded in like 02 or 03, I think the winter. 03. That was a few months before I graduated. And so EPPC was located or still located around the corner from where the Weekly Standard was located. And so we would often see people from eppc, Christine, or of course, my current colleague and longtime friend Yuval Levin, in social occasions. So I think it was around there. But then, of course, you came to work at the Weekly Standard after I had left, but I forget what year that was. What was it? 2014.

[John Podhoretz]

That was not long before the Standard.

[Christine Rosen]

Right. It was sort of the last murder and a half or two before, but.

[Matthew Continetti]

We had known each other before.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah. And by this point you had already both. You were both columnists for Commentary. Right.

[Christine Rosen]

I remember. I remember meeting Matt, and it must have been at either a Weekly Standard holiday event or an EPPC sort of social event. I just remember Matt Cottonetti and Andy Ferguson standing in a corner yucking it up about something, and I was like, I need to know what they're talking about. And I think I sort of knew you by reputation, and I knew Andy. But I was like, I need to find out why they are having so much fun at this otherwise fairly dull DC Sort of, you know, enforced jollity of a party. And that's what I remember vividly because. And it struck me that. Because I always loved your writing. It was. You're very serious in your writing and very good in your writing. But you. What people should know about Matt is that he's actually quite hilarious when he. When very funny. So that I. That's what I remember. John, I actually have no recollection of the first time we met in person more than 20 years ago. I remember being in your parents apartment. I was interviewing your mother for something I was writing. And you're. She had banished your dad to the other room because he kept coming in and interrupting and asking questions. And so he finally came. He's like, I'm just be quiet. And he said, he goes, well, you have to talk to my son because he likes the work you do. And you should write, you know, and you should. You. You guys should meet each other. And I was like, okay, sure. And it wasn't long after that that actually you reached out once you were editor of Commentary and asked me to start doing some book reviews and things like that. I had written, I think, one or two pieces for. For previous editors, but that was actually the beginning. But I cannot remember the first time we met in person, if it was in New York or in D.C. same.

[John Podhoretz]

With Abe, pretty sure. Pretty sure it was D.C. might have been added at a dinner or an AI dinner, something like that.

[Christine Rosen]

And Seth, I met through Bethany because Bethany. Bethany and I worked on similar publications together. Although again, I don't remember the year. Time is a flat circle after the age of 50. I'm not required to remember these.

[Seth Mandel]

I had edited you before. Well before I had met you. That was like we might have met for the first time three weeks ago at the AEI dinner.

[John Podhoretz]

I actually remember meeting all of you.

[Christine Rosen]

See, Abe is better than us. What you do.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, certain things. I don't remember anything I read or watch. I remember human interactions. Christine, I met at a Commentary event in New York for the first time.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah.

[John Podhoretz]

And Matt, you came to the office once, I think.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, we had met in D.C. abe, during.

[John Podhoretz]

But I think I met you before that at the. At the. At the New York office.

[Matthew Continetti]

Really?

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, when were you at. Weren't you at the Foreign Policy Initiative?

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, but. But I was at Commentary before then and after then.

[Matthew Continetti]

Oh, okay.

[John Podhoretz]

Abe did A brief interregnum at an organization called the Foreign Policy Initiative that ideologically now has a very interesting coloration in retrospect because it was an effort to do some sort of neocon pushing the neoconservative point of view in Obama's Washington. And the personnel involved in it included.

[Seth Mandel]

That was Jamie Fly, right?

[John Podhoretz]

Jamie Fly was the executive director, but included Bill Kristol. Oh, Robert Kagan.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yes, that's what that. Those are the big shots.

[John Podhoretz]

And call me back.

That's right.

[Matthew Continetti]

Wasn't Dan Ceynor.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Elise Stefanik. Well, of course. So we have the, so we have the total. We have Bill and Bob having moved to the left off of our general island, Elise having moved onto the Maga island, though with great respect, that those.

[Matthew Continetti]

Are not fighting for Israel, fighting for.

[John Podhoretz]

Israel, fighting, fighting against the tyranny of the college presidents and all of that. And I think we're all very excited at the prospect of her at the UN And Abe and the commentary podcast Assassin.

[Matthew Continetti]

And another, another alumnus of that fine organization is Julius Krein, the editor.

[John Podhoretz]

Julius K. The editor of American Affairs.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yes. So that was quite. Very illustrious group that you were with there.

[John Podhoretz]

And very.

[Matthew Continetti]

That's so interesting because I had thought that's where we met when you were down in D.C. no, we met before that.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

Because as Christine alluded to, you know, at that stage of my life, I was constantly on the party circuit. You know, I was often, I was often in those corners yucking it up.

[John Podhoretz]

You know, not so much these days.

But I do remember going to a book party for you, Matt, in D.C.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, that probably was the Palin. The Palin book party which we had at the weekly standard offices in 09.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, for sure.

All right. So.

And Seth I met when he arrived at the office.

There we go.

Yeah.

All right. So one last quick question from Holly Fellows of Utah for those who sit in front of bookshelves and if you. That's people who watch the podcast on, on YouTube where we are building audience by the day, will note that most days Seth and I are sitting in front of books. A couple days a week Matt's in front of books. So she was, she wanted to know, would you mind pointing out a book or two that you love most can't be one you've written. Because if you look at my bookshelves too closely, you will see many copy, many, many copies of my own books because that's when they were remaindered or whatever. I got 20 copies of each book that I had and have to put them somewhere. So if you look very closely, you can see copies of Bush country and Hell of a Ride. But can we talk about those? And then. But we're going to start with the most important question, which is, Abe, what is the picture hanging behind you? Now, again, if you are not. If you are not watching on YouTube, you're just going to have to understand that it's a very unusual. In a very guilt. Very 19th century gilt frame.

[Seth Mandel]

That's. That's. He made that when he was at Juicy, I believe. Yeah, he painted that.

[John Podhoretz]

So there used to be this gallery near. In my neighborhood in midtown called the Fountain House Art Gallery. Very worthwhile place because it dealt. It only sold work by artists who were dealing with struggling with mental illness. And I went there for an event and picked this up. It's like very turbulent looking. It's a kind of a self portrait. And I'd forgotten the artist's name, but I've now since researched it in anticipation of this question. His name is Brian Greene. B R Y A N G R E E N E. And if you search that with artist, you can find other examples of his work. They're not all representative. Some of them are abstract and they're all interesting. And what I liked about this, I guess, was the piece itself, but also the contrast between the. The work and the frame. I think the framing kind of makes it so. Yeah.

All right, so books. Seth, pick out a book behind you that you particularly would like to say that you love or admire.

[Seth Mandel]

Sure. Well, I'll do a couple very short versions of them because here's one that I didn't recommend on Commentary. Recommend. So it's at least different. This is Fervor by Toby Lloyd, a book that came out last year, which is a pretty great first novel about a Jewish family in London and a sort of encounter with the supernatural spirit of the Holocaust survivor grandfather who begins the book by living with them and then passes on. The girl, the daughter disappears in the course of the plot, which is the basis of the plot. I'm not revealing anything. And then comes back and appears to have communed with this family member. And it makes everybody, you know, wonder if there's a dybbuk or a demon or this or that, whatever. It's all very. And they are a modern orthodox family. So you. It's. It's also sort of an interesting setting, but it is a very. It's a very good novel. Very interesting.

[John Podhoretz]

I think we'll go. We'll go with one. We'll just go with one so everybody can get a. So Matt, you are, as we speak, not behind, not in front of a bookshelf.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yes. But yes, I do have a memory of the books that are behind me in my office. And I do want just, I'm not going to summarize them. I'm just going to recommend two that are particularly valuable to me and that I highly recommend to young people who want to learn more about culture so that they can get all of John Pot Horizon references. And these Two books are 5001 Nights at the Movies by Pauline Kael. You can see the binding over my shoulder when I'm at my home office. And then the other book is Cultural Amnesia by the British critic Clive James. If you read those two books and you can dip into them, you don't have to read them straight through. But if you, if you commune with those two books, you will know basically everything you need to know about the cultural background that informs so many of our conversations on the podcast.

[John Podhoretz]

So, Christine, you are almost never in front of a bookcase.

[Christine Rosen]

Yes, for the very practical reason that I am sitting as close to the WI fi router as will enable me to participate. I have books all over my house. I have occasionally we've been on podcasts together, John, where I sit in front of the bookcase, it's in my dining room and so on. And I have, I'm staring at a bookcase now. But no, usually our viewers don't get to get to see my books. The two I would pick from my shelf, my extremely battered copy of Middlemarch, which as you guys know, is my favorite novel. And it's all duct taped now at this point, but it has non acid free paper. It's literally falling apart. But I cannot give it up because it holds a lot of memories, just that book in particular. And actually to Matt's point, there's one I pull off the shelf a lot when my children don't get a cultural reference or ask me a question about something. And that's Jacques Barzun's from dawn to Decadence, which is a wonderful, vast, sprawling cultural history of Western civilization that I find myself turning to a lot. So those are my two recommendations.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay? So right behind me, I will pluck it out here, an essay collection by our longest lived current contributor, Joseph Epstein. This is the ideal of culture. This is one of his 22 or 23 books. He has released this year a memoir called don't say I've Led a Lucky Life. But this is one of his many essay collections. He is as an sast is pretty much without peer. I think it's almost universally acknowledged that he is the leading American literary cultural essayist of our time. And so he has written many forms of essay. In the 1970s, 80s and 90s when he was the editor of the American Scholar, he would write what might have been called a casual or a personal essay that led every and was one of the great highlights of the reading experience of magazine readers of that that day and the ideal of culture features I don't know, 80 essays maybe of all kinds, including the personal essay and literary essays, cultural essays and political essays. He has a piece coming out in our next issue in February. I can't remember. I think he had a piece in our November issue or I mean his prolificacy and if the name means anything, you know, he like had a book review in the Wall Street Journal of a biography of Ira Gershwin about a week ago and he publishes political essays in the Wall Street Journal. Wrote a lot for the Weekly Standard and again has been writing four commentary since 1963, I believe. So that would make him a 61 year contributor and is a lovely pages and is a lovely person and you want to talk about funny. The man knows. The man knows more jokes, has forgotten more jokes than you you will ever know. So those are our bookcases and our photographs and our the stories of our initial encounters. So we'll be back with more fun hijinks and questions and answering your questions. But for now, for Abe, Seth, Matt and Christine, I'm John Pod Hortz. Keep the camera party.