The New Yorker Radio Hour — Episode One: Boarding Call

Date: October 23, 2015
Host: David Remnick
Production: WNYC Studios & The New Yorker

Episode Overview

The inaugural episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour introduces the show’s mission: translating the magazine’s trademark storytelling, profiles, and wit to the audio medium. Hosted by editor David Remnick, the episode features a satirical sketch on airline privilege, a searching interview with acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates on race and James Baldwin’s influence, segments with the magazine’s cartoonists, a political interview with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a personal documentary on race and adoption by Jill Lepore, and a dive into the Philadelphia pop punk scene with Kelefa Sanneh.

Table of Contents

1. Opening Satire: George Meyer’s "The Privileged Few"
2. Main Interview: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Baldwin, Race, and Hope
3. Behind the Cartoons: "Life’s a Batch" with Matt Diffie & Drew Dernavich
4. Political Dispatch: Evan Osnos Interviews Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
5. Personal Storytelling: Jill Lepore & Adriana Alti’s Search for Family
6. Music & Suburbia: Kelefa Sanneh with the Band Spraynard

1. Opening Satire: George Meyer’s "The Privileged Few" (00:04–03:33)

• Synopsis:
  The show opens with a sharp satirical sketch lampooning modern airline “pre-boarding” privilege — an endless list of ever-more exclusive passenger classes, performed by Allison Williams.

• Tone: Wry, absurdist, very "New Yorker".

  Quote:
  “…we now welcome members of Focus One Jetpack Invicta. Above and Beyond Canadians of Distinction Ego Trip Superba, Fast Track, Freedom Rider Elite Corsupuesto, the Circle of Enchantment, Hejira, Mach 5, Wanderlust, Godhead Supreme, Godhead, Burnt Offerings, Me First, Me First, Deluxe Rewards, out of My Way and Velour Pass…” (00:50)

2. Main Interview: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Baldwin, Race, and Hope (03:35–31:50)

Introduction (03:35)

• Remnick introduces Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of "Between the World and Me".
• Toni Morrison has compared Coates’ work to James Baldwin’s.

Discovering Baldwin (06:00)

• Coates: Describes an early fascination, inherited from his bibliophile father, and his first emotional encounter with The Fire Next Time.

  Quote:
  “I didn’t really understand it—I mean, I got it, but I had this emotional response to it… that happens sometimes when you behold a piece of art.” (08:10)

Baldwin’s "Hard-Edged Pragmatism" (09:45)

• Impact of Baldwin’s essays, especially on race and structure of power.

• Refers to Baldwin’s essay “Negroes are anti-Semitic because they are anti-white.”

• Baldwin’s perspective: not sentimental, not cynical—clear-eyed about history and power.

  Quote:
  “There’s a way where you can be true, where you can get that kind of hard-edged spirit that you feel out of nationalism and still have a very, very serious look at the world and a humanistic view of the world. I got that from Baldwin.” (11:00)

Innocence as the Crime (11:30)

• Discussion of Baldwin’s line: “It is innocence which constitutes the crime.”

• The willful ignorance at the root of American racial issues—using the Confederate flag debate as example.

  Quote:
  “But then to pretend like you didn’t do it, to pretend like you’re fine, you’re clean… That is the most profound example of it, I think.” (13:50)

Morrison’s Comparison (15:00)

• Remnick: “Do you feel any burden in the comparison from somebody like Toni Morrison?”
• Coates: “No. None… James Baldwin is the James Baldwin of this generation. That’s not gonna happen. And I don’t think that’s what she was saying…”

James Baldwin Clip & Discussion (16:30)

• Kenneth Clark interviews Baldwin (archival audio); Baldwin on optimism, identity, and America’s need to interrogate its own need to “invent” the racial Other.

  Quote — Baldwin:
  “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive, so I’m forced to be an optimist. But the future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country…” (17:50)

• Coates:
  “I get asked by a lot of people, am I optimistic or pessimistic? I don’t know that I’m either. The poles of optimism and pessimism feel false.” (20:05)

On Progress and History (21:00)

• Skepticism toward inevitable moral progress (“the arc of the universe is long…”)

• References to Holocaust victims, Eric Garner, as counternarratives to inevitable justice.

  Quote:
  “If you were somebody who was taken to Auschwitz and killed, your arc ended right there. You died. It didn’t bend towards justice—it bent towards injustice.” (22:35)

Incarceration and Belonging (24:00)

• Baldwin’s 1963 statements on displacement and feeling of no country for young black Americans

• Discusses writing his own book to his son and the feeling of relationship to America.

  Coates:
  “You do have a country… We can’t divorce ourselves from this, but we can’t. We’ve been here for so long… That was the dream of nationalism… but I don’t know that things would be any better.” (27:25)

On Moving to Paris (29:05)

• Is there a Baldwin parallel? Coates initially says no—his move motivated by family and food.

• Tells of the first time he was ever called a racial slur in Paris, but felt “nothing,” as he was not implicated in that society as in America.

• On fame and the burden of being seen as a spokesman.

  Coates:
  “I have no need for people to know who I am. No one should look at me to be a spokesman for anybody. But I’m very happy that people are reading the work.” (31:00)

On Hope and Struggle (31:15)

• What hope does he possess?
• Coates:
  “If I knew today that white supremacy ultimately triumphs… I still struggle. It gives my life meaning… I try to struggle. That’s the portion that’s up to me. That’s where my hope and faith resides.” (31:20)

3. Behind the Cartoons: "Life’s a Batch" with Matt Diffie & Drew Dernavich (32:05–37:25)

• Inside process: The cartoonists pitch new ideas every Tuesday to editor Bob Mankoff (e.g., “the male biological clock—‘I got to have a podcast soon’”).
• Discussion of joke premises: podcast ubiquity, turtleneck briefs, and the weird delight in idea-generating.
• Playful banter, illustrating the magazine’s unique humor culture.

4. Political Dispatch: Evan Osnos Interviews Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (37:30–49:00)

Hillary Clinton’s Candidacy & Gender (38:10)

• Gillibrand discusses Hillary Clinton “being herself” in the 2016 campaign.
• “It's brilliant. It's exactly the person I know. It’s the person I love…” (38:45)
• On the “enthusiasm gap” among Democratic women voters.

On Experience, Age & Security (40:20)

• Senator Gillibrand argues experience and foreign policy credentials are essential.
• Addresses voters who worry about returning a former First Family to the White House.

Sexism in Congress (41:30)

• Stories of sexist comments made toward her in Congress and law.
• Quote:
  “Well, the women said, ‘uh-huh’—because it happened to them.” (42:00)
• The impact of appearance-based commentary on respect and professional advancement.

Congressional Dysfunction & Gender (44:40)

• “Washington is broken. It is dysfunctional,” Gillibrand says.
• Advocates for more women in Congress:
  “If we had a Congress that reflected the actual population… we would not be debating whether women should have access to contraception.” (45:40)

Sexual Assault in the Military (47:10)

• Gillibrand on bipartisan support for her bill to reform military handling of sexual assault cases.
• “I'm optimistic,” she says, about the bill’s future. (48:15)

5. Personal Storytelling: Jill Lepore & Adriana Alti’s Search for Family (49:35–1:01:00)

Beginnings of Friendship and Identity (49:35)

• Adriana Alti, adopted into a white family in nearly all-white New England, confronts race and origin growing up.

• Jill Lepore, New Yorker staff writer and Harvard history professor, narrates their friendship story intersecting with Alti’s search for her biological roots.

  Adriana:
  “And I was. I mean, I was horrified. Do I sound like a black person?” (50:05)

• The sense of not belonging, being visually marked in a homogenous landscape.

  Jill:
  “It was kind of like a Ruby Bridges photograph or something. That was really hard… this tiny little girl carrying on her shoulders a history of racial segregation.” (53:10)

Childhood Incidents (54:00)

• Stories of being “the only one,” learning about differences through schoolyard moments and play.

• Adriana’s first positive black role model: Muhammad Ali.

  Adriana:
  “I thought the first person I saw who was the same color as I was, who I thought looked really nice… was Muhammad Ali. I just thought, this is all right. This whole brown thing might not be so bad, you know.” (56:00)

• Racism and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in both childhood taunts and Ali’s critiques of cultural whiteness.

Discovery of Adoption and Family (59:40)

• Adriana learns her real last name, her adoption, and later, the encounter with her birth mother at her father's funeral.

Continuation

• The search for her biological father, William Brown, is set up as a thread for the next episode.

6. Music & Suburbia: Kelefa Sanneh with the Band Spraynard (1:01:10–1:19:15)

Introduction (1:01:10)

• Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker staff writer and music aficionado, travels to suburban Philadelphia to meet pop punk band Spraynard.

Suburban Roots, Staying Put (1:03:10)

• The band resists the standard trajectory of “moving to the big city” to keep their lives and music in their suburban hometown.
• Patrick Graham (Spraynard):
  “My first and only job. A lot of our friends after high school did the obvious thing… And we kind of like didn’t really want any part of that.” (1:05:45)

Pop Punk, Content, and Gender (1:08:00)

• Reflections on pop punk’s often juvenile, male-dominated, sometimes misogynistic lyric tradition. Spraynard aim to subvert this.
• Patrick Graham:
  “I like purposely don’t use pronouns in my writing…because I know people are gonna think this is about me spitefully talking about a woman.” (1:11:50)
• Discussion of microaggressions and “Listen to Me,” a song about men excluding women in conversation at shows.

On Youth and Growing Older (1:14:00)

• A desire to “stay young,” and the bittersweet comedy of punk musicians aging without much to show by mainstream standards.

  Graham:
  “I work at an arcade. I just want to stay a kid. I don’t want to worry about anything else… but, like, your parents remind you that you’re still at their house, and you’re like, oh…” (1:16:20)

• Lyrical dissection: “My bed broke last night, I’m sleeping on the floor, you think I’m too old for this?” (1:17:45)

Memorable Quotes by Timestamp

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-------------|---------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:50 | Satire | “We now welcome members of Focus One Jetpack Invicta. Above and Beyond Canadians of Distinction…” | | 08:10 | T-N Coates | “I didn’t really understand it…I got it, but I had this emotional response to it.” | | 13:50 | T-N Coates | “But then to pretend like you didn’t do it, to pretend like you’re fine, you’re clean. And…” | | 17:50 | James Baldwin | “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive, so I’m forced to be an optimist. But the future of the Negro…”| | 22:35 | T-N Coates | “If you were somebody who was taken to Auschwitz and killed, your arc ended right there…” | | 31:20 | T-N Coates | “If I knew today that white supremacy ultimately triumphs… I still struggle. It gives my life meaning…”| | 38:45 | Gillibrand | “It's brilliant. It's exactly the person I know. It’s the person I love…” | | 45:40 | Gillibrand | “If we had a Congress that reflected the actual population… we would not be debating whether women should have access to contraception.”| | 50:05 | Adriana Alti | “I was horrified. Do I sound like a black person?” | | 56:00 | Adriana Alti | “The first person I saw who was the same color as I was—who I thought looked really nice—was Muhammad Ali.” | | 1:05:45 | Patrick Graham| “My first and only job. A lot of our friends after high school did the obvious thing…” | | 1:11:50 | Patrick Graham| “I purposely don’t use pronouns in my writing… because I know people are gonna think this is about me spitefully talking about a woman.”| | 1:16:20 | Patrick Graham| “I work at an arcade. I just want to stay a kid. I don’t want to worry about anything else…” |

Conclusion

Episode one of The New Yorker Radio Hour establishes both the ambition and variety of the program: from trenchant conversation on race, history, and politics, to irreverent humor, lacerating self-reflection, personal narrative, and even pop punk. The show weaves together the intellectual curiosity and stylistic blend that defines the magazine, while carving out a voice uniquely suited to radio.